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foundry-fabrications · 28 days

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Foundry Fabrications Has a New Home!

Hey folks! I am incredibly excited to announce the launch of something I’ve been working on the last couple of weeks: Foundry Fabrications now has a dedicated website!

For a long time, I’ve wanted a place away from Tumblr that I can call my own, where I can make all of my content easily accessible for everyone, and that can grow and change alongside me. A long time ago, I tried something like that, but it didn’t go well for a multitude of reason. Mistakes were made during that transition that I don’t intend to make again.

The new site will now be my main base of operations going forward, but I’m not going to outright abandon Tumblr like I did before, and Patreon isn’t going anywhere either. As some of you maybe saw, I have the new site set up to automatically send new posts here when I post them, so you’ll all still be kept in the loop should you decide to just stay here and not engage with it, which is totally understandable. And I still plan to check in every once in a while and make posts that are relevant to the platform should I need or want to, as well as respond to comments or questions when they happen.

Speaking of being kept in the loop, something the new site allows me to do is newsletters. Anyone who subscribes to it (which is free) will be notified by email when something new goes live. Eventually down the line I’d like to add more too it like TTRPG news or other content I want to shout out, stuff like that.

The site itself right now is nothing fancy, though I put a lot of work into making it as professional and user-friendly as I can. I’ve no experience in web design and a lot of it was existing templates I tweaked to suit my needs, as I do, so whether I accomplished that is up to y’all. The main goal was to make it easy to find a piece of content one might be looking for, or easily browse everything to see what I’ve made thus far, and that was easy do to with automatic categorization and a search function. It’s basic, but it works.

Because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, I have a lot of plans for ways to upgrade the site with new features, various integrations, and ways to monetize my work. Gotta keep the lights and pay for the domain and service somehow. Initially, that means ads, but I’ll be looking into ways to remove them for regular supporters and I bet most of you use adblockers anyway, which I totally get, no judgement here.

That’s about all I have to say. I hope you all like the new site and I would love any feedback you have on it. Anyway, stay safe, don’t forget to love each other, and I’ll see you soon.

#updates #website #foundry fabrications

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foundry-fabrications · 1 month

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Coming Soon to a URL Near You

#updates #been cookin'#I'm exited y'all

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foundry-fabrications · 1 month

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Hey folks! Been sitting on this one for two weeks, done and ready, not wanting to release so close to the Behemoths and just reveling in the fact that for once I have a small stockpile of brews that are done/close to done. It's nice to take a break and not worry about what's next.

Anyway, this is a complete rework of my Transformation Cog item I did a few years back. For those not familiar with the source material or just need a refresher, the Transformation Cog, or T-Cog, is from Transformers and is the organ that allows a Cybertronian to transform into (and scan in later continuities) an alternate mode.

The original version was a reworked version of the Druid's Wildshape feature, with a focus on beast forms rather than vehicular ones. This time, I've gone the other direction and made various types of vehicular alt mode, each for a different purpose and giving you related benefits. A focus of this new version was, as with most of my reworks, refinement of the old idea and simplifying its mechanics to be easier to use. I think I've accomplished that goal, but we'll see how she plays.

I pulled a lot from the Shifter race from Ebberon, as well as the official Transformers RPG by Renegade Games, which is a pretty robust RPG in its own right, though a touch complicated for my tastes (maybe worth a System Spotlight in the future). Eventually, I would love to use this new version as a base for a beast mode T-Cog, and make a Cybertronian lineage that incorporates perhaps an even more simplified version of what I have now. Something to think about.

Anyway, that's it from me, hope y'all like the update! Stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you next time.

Enjoy my work? Consider supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

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foundry-fabrications · 1 month

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System Spotlight: Monster of the Week

Hello everyone, and welcome to another System Spotlight! Today I've got a pulpy game full of mysteries and monsters, so let's split up, gang, and Investigate a Mystery on Monster of the Week by Evil Hat Productions!

MotW is a mystery solving and monster hunting RPG inspired by shows like Scooby-Doo, Supernatural, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You play as a team of investigators out to solve mysteries and fight evil, usually in short, self-contained or “episodic” adventures strung together into a larger campaign, each surrounding a new mystery or monster, hence the name.

Character Creation

You start by picking one of several “playbooks”, each based on a popular archetype or trope from the genre, such as The Chosen, The Spell-Slinger, The Mundane, The Wronged, or The Monstrous. Think of them like classes in other RPGs. Each playbook has everything you need to make and play that character until their inevitable death or retirement, including character advancement.

Then you pick one from five attribute arrays. There are five attributes (Charm, Cool, Sharp, Tough, and Weird) and each array has some strong attributes and some weaker attributes, with the others being in between.

From there, we can start getting into the real meat of the playbooks by picking moves and other details specific to each playbook. Every playbook has their own set of moves in addition to all the basic moves, which we’ll talk about those later. For example, the Expert has things like “I’ve Read About This Sort Of Thing”, which lets you roll using Sharp instead of Cool when you act under pressure, or the Spell-Slinger has “Shield Spell”, which lets you reduce the damage of an attack when you protect someone. Each playbook has a lot of options so you have a lot to play with.

In addition to the moves, many of the playbook have other special features that are unique to them. For example, the Professional works for an agency that gives you resources in missions, but you have to deal with some kind of restrictions on what you can do, while the Wronged has a background that gives them benefits as well as a connection to the supernatural underworld. Again, there are a lot of fun options.

Finally, you pick from a list of special gear that you can use on missions such as weapons or equipment, then you establish your history with the other characters in your group. This is a fun little activity that really helps to get the group dynamic going. Each playbook has a list of prompts for what each other character could be to you. For example, they could a blood relation, saved you from a monster, act as your moral compass, or maybe you’re really attracted to them. Lots of fun options.

Resolution Mechanic & Moves

MotW is a Powered by the Apocalypse game (huh, two in a row) that uses 3d6 and a few basic moves for pretty much everything. There are 8 moves, each pretty self-explanatory: Act Under Pressure, Help Out, Investigate a Mystery, Kick Some Ass, Manipulate Someone, Protect Someone, Read a Bad Situation, and Use Magic. Whenever you want to do one of those things, roll 3d6 and add any relevant rating bonus or situational modifiers. On a 10+ you do exactly what you set out to do. 7-9 whatever you’re doing is less effective and usually has some kind of downside. But anything under a 7 is a failure and nothing happens. Each move tells you exactly what happens at each threshold, but that's the gist of it.

Each move also has an Advanced effect that can trigger if you roll 12+, but you have to have taken one of the Advanced Move options as part of character advancement, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Harm & Luck

Running around fighting monsters and thwarting evil is dangerous, so sooner or later you’re bound to get hurt. Whenever you take damage, you subtract it from any armor you have and mark the remainder as points of Harm. Once you mark 4 harm, you’re Unstable, and at 7 Harm, you’re Dying! If you take any more Harm, that’s the end for you and your character is dead. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to heal in MotW through downtime and certain moves across various playbooks.

But what if you REALLY need to avoid taking a hit, or you just fumbled an important roll, that's where Luck comes in. Each character begins with 7 points of Luck. You can spend luck to reduce the harm taken from an attack to 0 or retroactively change the result of a roll to a 12. Here’s the kicker. Your luck is finite and does NOT come back (except in EXTREMELY specific circumstances that shouldn’t be relied on), and once it runs out, you’re Doomed! A Doomed character is at the end of the line and Fate isn’t happy with your existence. The GM, or Keeper, is allowed to make more and more bad stuff happen to you. Results of failure will be worse, monsters will target you more often, any bad, fate-related things in your playbook will begin to happen, and past decision will come back to bite you at the worst time. Doomed characters don’t last long, so don’t let it get to that point if you can help it.

Character Advancement

Ok, so character creation and actual play are pretty straightforward, and that trend continues with your advancement. You gain experience whenever you fail a roll, and once you have 5 experience, you can pick an Improvement from a list in your playbook. These are things like increasing a rating by one, gaining a new move, or taking a move from another playbook entirely. Once you have 5 Improvements, you qualify to take Advanced Improvements. These are even stronger things like gaining 2 Advanced Moves, changing your entire playbook, retiring your character while they still live, or even regaining one of your spent Luck!

Other Stuff

That’s pretty much everything as far as player-facing content goes, but there’s a good bit more for the GM to dig in to. There is advice for creating your own mysteries, stringing mysteries together in arcs, and running downtime and one-shots, an introductory mystery, suggestions for how to customize your game, and a big ol’ list of inspirational material.

Tome of Mysteries and Codex of Worlds

But if you’re looking for more MotW content (official, anyway), Evil Hat published the Tome of Mysteries and, just this last year, the Codex of Worlds. The Tome of Mysteries is just that, a collection of new pre-made mysteries you can run, while the Codex of Worlds is a full-blown expansion with all kinds of fun additions to spice up your game. There are new rules, special team playbooks that the whole group can use, and entire settings to shake up the game, each with their own rules and mysteries! It’s like a 400-page book and a delight to read.

My Thoughts

So, it took me a while to get into playing MotW. It was my first encounter with an RPG that was more narrative focused in its mechanics than D&D and I struggled to wrap my head around it. My friend was running a long-term campaign in it, so I heard a lot of what went on and the kinds of shenanigans the group got up to, and I was curious. Over the years, he ran a couple one-shots, and frankly I didn’t get much out of either. Something about it just didn’t click with me. But this last Halloween, he ran an SCP-themed game using some of the stuff from Codex of Worlds, and that one finally got me. I don’t know if it's because of my love for the SCP universe or that our one-shot quickly became a four-shot, giving us more time together and less pressure to finish in a timely manner, but that game really made me understand it and appreciate it for what it is. And I like what it is.

So, what do I like? Well for starters it's dummy simple, something that has become increasingly important for me over the years. The basic resolution mechanic is clean, the moves are clearly defined, but open-ended enough for creative uses, and because you’re mostly going to be rolling 7-9s it keeps the game interesting. And I could just gush about the playbooks! I think they’re my favorite part of the games, easy. They’re stupid simple to use, are completely self-contained, and have enough options to make a wide variety of characters but not so many options as to be overwhelming. You can hand a brand-new player a playbook, and they can be ready to play in 5 minutes, maybe 10. I wish more RPGs had their classes laid out like this (if you know any, let me know!).

Another great thing about the playbooks is that because they’re so well-structured, it makes it easy for people to make their own custom playbooks. There are quite a few custom playbooks made by fans online, and several of them are actually available on the Evil Hat website!

So yeah, I love this game and if you’re into things like Scooby-Doo, Supernatural, Buffy, The X-Files, or The Dresden Files, I think you’ll have a good time too. Anyway, that's all for now. As always, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you again soon.

#system spotlight #monster of the week #motw #scooby doo #supernatural #the dresden files #buffy the vampire slayer #rpg #evil hat #powered by the apocalypse #mystery #monster #ttrpg #tabletop #tabletop rpg #tabletop games #tabletop roleplaying #the x files

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foundry-fabrications · 2 months

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Hey folks! It took WAY too long to get this out, but it's finally done. Well, technically it isn't done, but I'll get to that in a bit. One weird thing that needs explanation at a time.

So, as one can tell, I didn't just make statblocks for the behemoths, write some lore, and call it a day. I've discovered that I really don't like making statblocks and dealing with all the nonsense that comes with it (CR is a joke, and I'm not laughing). So, in typical Foundry fashion, I tried doing something weird that requires more work and ultimately still required me to make statblocks anyway. Yeah, I'm not smart.

So I made them templates instead. And while I was tempted to give up and just do the obvious thing since I was just going to end up with stats anyway, making them templates makes a certain amount of sense from a lore perspective and I genuinely think is an interesting idea worth pursuing. Quick lore tidbit, behemoths are likely the result of normal creatures becoming mutated by aether (it's not certain, but there are signs of this origin from what I've read), so a template makes logical sense. So, as long as I pick appropriate creatures for the template examples, the end result will get you pretty close to the behemoths in game. Sure, they're not perfect, but it would be easy to tweak them to better suit your game.

So the other behemoth in the room is there are only 3 behemoths here. I had intended on releasing them all at once. Turns out there's like 30+ behemoths AND 5 basically legendary behemoths. So, I'm splitting them up into their elemental categories, and the legendaries by themselves. I already have the Blaze behemoths written out, so those won't take nearly as long. As I complete each category, I'll update this post and make y'all aware of the additions. By the end, I'll have one document with all of them in it, a brew to rival Flesh & Bone.

But for now, a quick break to work on something else my ADHD has compelled me to rework. Stay tuned for that. Anyway, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you next time.

Enjoy my work? Consider leaving me a Tip or supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

#dungeons and dragons #5th edition #dnd #conversion #homebrew #5e #dnd 5e homebrew #5e dnd #dnd homebrew #dauntless #slayer #magical items #phoenix labs #monsters #behemoth #giant monsters #kaiju #aether

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foundry-fabrications · 5 months

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Hey folks! I'm back with a short brew today that came together surprisingly quickly. This is the second part to my Dauntless series I've been calling the Slayer's Arsenal. This one includes a rework of the Aether Lanterns, as well as the various consumable equipment such as the Pylons, Tonics, and Grenades.

These were a relatively straightforward conversion, and like I said, they came together pretty quickly. A fun aspect I got to include with these is how some of the equipment interact with the weapons from my previous Slayer's Arsenal (which can be found HERE). Having already begun to look at future Dauntless content, this will be an ongoing theme, and that excites me.

But yeah, that's pretty much it. Have fun with these fine additions to any adventurer's tool belt, Slayer or otherwise.

Enjoy my work? Consider leaving me a Tip or supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

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#dungeons and dragons #5th edition #dnd #conversion #homebrew #5e #dnd 5e homebrew #5e dnd #dnd homebrew #dauntless #slayer #weapons #magical items #magic items #phoenix labs

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foundry-fabrications · 6 months

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Happy Halloween everyone! It is with immense pleasure and excitement that I present to you a labor of love, the long awaited rework of Flesh & Bone! Originally, I had intended to release this shortly after the absolutely stellar remake of Dead Space, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. So as to not repeat my last mistake with big projects and arbitrary deadlines, I took things nice and slow, took my time to give this work the true love and attention it deserved. Anything for my beloved Dead Space.

And I couldn't be more pleased with the result! Well, I can always be happier. There's always something I wish I could have added or done differently, but I won't dwell on that. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of done". But it makes me so happy to see it in its full gorey glory after all this time. But that enough preamble, let's get into the changes from the original!

Being the result of a 3-week mad rush to release on time for Halloween, the original brew has a LOT of problems. I forgot a lot of details and made a lot of mistakes just by the nature of not having enough time to do it justice. Having had, what, 2 years, between now and then has given me a lot of time to hone my skills as a creator and figure out exactly what I wanted to do for the eventual rework.

The first and most obvious thing is the aesthetics. Flesh and Bone was the first time I ever tried to make a Homebrewery theme from scratch, so I had a LOT to learn in a very short timeframe. I got it most of the way there for what I wanted to do, but it still had a lot of issues, namely a lack of integrated stat blocks. Formatting was also just awful. I just couldn't get them to work quite right, and they always looked super off, so I elected for images instead. Since then, I've made my Xenomorph supplement which used that initial test as a starting point, and I was able to fix a lot of the issues I ran into. I also want to change the overall look of the theme itself. When I designed it, I was going for a design mix based on the Dead Space wiki and the holographic UI from the games themselves. The result was...not the most legible. I've taken a new approach with the rework, made everything MUCH more readable, and borrowed heavily from the aesthetics of the 2023 remake.

As for the contents themselves, turns out there were a bunch of really cool necromorph variants that I just completely forgot about like the Twitchers, those reanimator swarms from DS3, and the Ubermorph. With that last one in particular, I reworked the old Hunter into the Regenerator with Hunter and Ubermorph variants, like I have with the Slasher, Spitter, and now Twitcher. In general, most of the necromorph forms were in dire need of reworks up in one way or another, especially their descriptions. I pulled almost all of that text directly from the Dead Space wiki, and it showed real bad. Again, 3 weeks, all panic. All the descriptions have been rewritten to be more in line with my other writing.

I also removed that section at the beginning about the Markers. I originally included it to give context for the rest of the brew, and I just really wanted to talk about the Markers, but the more I looked at it that section honestly added very little to the rest of the brew that couldn't be done in other areas. And let's be real, the Markers are SO IMPORTANT to the Dead Space universe that they really need their own dedicated brew. So, I pulled that section out, and it will go in said dedicated brew another time.

And the final change is I actually included some form of boss necromorph this time! I hadn't planned to, but I started thinking more and more about it, and I was also asked by one of my lovely patrons about it, so I gave in and made stats for really the only Dead Space boss worth talking about: The Hive Mind. I actually had fun writing it, working out its abilities from both the original and the remake, as well as taking some creative liberties and giving it some fun new abilities as a result of it being a Nexus necromorph.

So that's everything! I hope this gruesome creation of mine brings you as much joy and terror as it has to me. Stay safe, stay spooky, don't forget to love each other, and m̵̧̈́ͅa̴̜͑̍ḳ̵̍ë̷͍͇́ ̶̖̾̏u̸̪̅͜s̷͙̟̓ ̷̬̩̒w̸͇͘h̶̠̳͆̽o̶̻̺͂̀l̴̛͍̦e̸̡̡͗. See you next time.

Enjoy my work? Consider leaving me a Tip or supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

Want to hang out with other followers and myself, talk about games, and share ideas? Come join my Discord!

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foundry-fabrications · 8 months

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Happy 5-Year Anniversary!

Hey folks! 5 years ago to the day I posted my first ever homebrew creation for the masses to enjoy (or ruthlessly tear apart), a little brew I lovingly called The Goo of Primordial Chaos. It would be fitting to have gone and reworked it for such an occasion (it certainly needs it), but alas, I haven't. I could have, and I've tried a few times, but honestly I don't really know what to do with it. So, I'm just not going to, and it shall remain a relic of the past and a reminder of humble beginnings.

Other than that, I have nothing special planned to celebrate, at all. So instead, I'd just like to take a moment to look back at my time here and take a trip down memory lane.

2018-2019

When I first got started doing homebrew for the Foundry, I hadn't been doing it for very long. Hell, I hadn't been playing 5e for long either. But inexperience didn't stop me from taking a stab at it. At the time, I had boundless creative energy and all the time in the world. I committed to doing one brew a month and that came pretty easy. Most of what I was making were conversions of other things, so they were easy to churn out at a regular pace. But I did quite a bit of original stuff too. The Medic was my first ever released class, and my Hellraiser supplement kicked off my now yearly tradition of doing a big project for spooktober. Around that time, I started a Patreon and got my first commission in the Awakener class. The first version of my Mourner was also released. I also hit 2k followers, which is insane to me still. Oh yeah, and I totally tried to jump to another platform when Tumblr became a dumpster fire for a bit. Forgot about that. Other than that, pretty good for my first year!

2019-2020

Kicking off my second year, my Corpseweaver class was released for Halloween, which is still one of my favorite things I've made. For much of the year I was still going strong with monthly releases and even putting out some pretty big projects. But the biggest project I put out that year, or at least the one that took the most effort, was a commission for John Carpenter’s The Thing. It was around this time that I started kicking around the idea of opening up commission to the public, not just my patrons. Spoiler alert, I shouldn't have. I also hit 4k followers that year. Still wild.

2020-2021

This was a huge year, but things did not begin well for me. The year began with Flesh and Bone, my Necromorph supplement, which was an utter train wreck. That monstrosity came together in a panicked 3 weeks after October blindsided me and was the first time I had ever tried to make a custom style for the Homebrewery. The mad dash to meet a frankly arbitrary deadline yielding a worse brew started to show the cracks in my process and was an ill omen for things to come. I kept up the monthly releases for a while longer, and put out some great stuff in that time if I do say so myself, but in July I hit a wall and just couldn't do it anymore. Since then, I've had a “post it when it's done” policy, and I don't intend to change that. I also stopped taking commissions from patrons after getting super overwhelmed and not handling it as well as I should have, BUT then proceeded to start taking commissions from the public. Other notable events included changing my name from 5e Foundry to Foundry Fabrications in an effort to expand into other games, not just 5e, I updated my logo to fit the rebranding, and I started a Discord server that burned hot, died fast, and is a desolate wasteland now. Otherwise, it was pretty much business as usual.

2021-2022

Year 4 began innocently enough, aside from the cultural faux pas regarding a certain Native America spirit that shall not be named that I later had to apologize for. Other than that, it was pretty much business as usual. But then in April came my crowning achievement. After 6 years of development, I finally released my Engineer class! I still can’t believe that this thing I've been wrestling with for years is finally real and for all the world to see. Kind of hard to top that

2022-2023

Another year, another spooky project, this time a much-needed rework of my Corpseweaver. And all was great, for a time. But then January rolled around and WotC dropped the shitstorm of the century on us with the whole OGL debacle. I, like a lot of people, did not take very well and went so far to abandon everything D&D, a rash decision I still regret making, even if I did come back to the game I love so much. But I bounced back pretty easy and jumped right back into making stuff, not that I’ve released much this year. But that’s future talk! We’re here to reminisce!

So yeah, that’s my history here in a nutshell. If you’re still here, thanks for listening to me ramble. What a wild ride it’s been, and I’m so glad I could have you all at my side and along for the journey. Thanks for sticking with me for 5 years, and here’s to 5 more! As always, stay safe, don’t forget to love each other, and I’ll see you all again soon.

Oh, one more thing, I’d love to hear from y’all in the replies! How long have you been with me, and what’s your favorite piece of content I’ve produced?

#yall i cant believe its been 5 years #anniversary #dungeons and dragons #5e foundry #foundry fabrications #thank you #yall are the best #5 years

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foundry-fabrications · 9 months

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SCP Items: Batch 2

Surprise! Have some more SCP items! I was taking the month off after feeling burnt out, but I had an itch to work on some more of these toward the end. And I gotta say, this was a really fun batch to work on and was a nice change of pace from my other big project I'm working on. There's some WILD items in here and some real cursed nonsense, but that's why I love them so much. Anyway, hope y'all have fun with these, I know I did.

Enjoy my work? Consider leaving me a Tip or supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

Want to hang out with other followers and myself, talk about games, and share ideas? Come join my Discord!

#dungeons and dragons #5th edition #dnd #homebrew #5e #dnd 5e homebrew #5e dnd #dnd homebrew #scp #scp foundation #magic item #magic items #cursed items #conversion #secure contain protect

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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Finally, was starting to think I'd never get anything released! Y'all ready to ROCK?!

Now, just to get this out of the way, I was really hoping to have something else done for y'all by now, that thing being the update to Flesh and Bone I mentioned in my last update post. Mechanically, it's done and has been for a while, and I'm VERY pleased with how it's coming along. However, it's proving to be a frustrating challenge to get it formatted with artwork that doesn't look awful. So, I took a much-needed break to work on something else and it's going on the back burner. It'll be out when it's out.

So what's this new thing I bring before you this day? With my main D&D campaign wrapping up, I've been working on a absolute TON of custom stuff for a new character, so that's taken up a lot of my creative energy. Now that we've had our first session and my work is done, I can pretty it up for y'all!

As one may surmise, I'm playing a heavy metal bard, so I put this together based on a combination of an existing college of metal I found on D&Dwiki and Matt Mercer's college of the maestro. The metalheads among you may have also noticed that yes, each feature and solo are named after metal songs, a lot of bangers too. Having run a combat with it, I'm already really happy with it mechanically and since it's my newest character it will be getting LOTS of playtesting.

Another thing to mention is the little sidebar at the end. For this campaign I'm playing the 2024 playtest version of the new bard so that's what this was originally built for. However, since most won't be playing it, I reworked it for the existing bard and added a way to "update" it for the new one for those who want it. For future content I would like to do something similar depending on how extensive the changes are, but we'll see how things shake out.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. A little sparse in the art department, but I think the theme I picked does a lot to carry it. Plus, I genuinely couldn't come up with anything that looked better, so hey, I'm not gonna let perfect be the enemy of done.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. So glad to actually be working on stuff again. Stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you again soon.

Enjoy my work? Consider leaving me a Tip or supporting me on Patreon! Patrons gain access to high quality PDFs for all of my content, weekly updates, early access, and more!

Want to hang out with other followers and myself, talk about games, and share ideas? Come join my Discord!

#Dungeons and Dragons #dnd 5e homebrew #5th edition #dungeons and dragons #dnd #homebrew #5e #5e dnd #dnd homebrew #bard #bard college #music #college of metal #metal #heavy metal #subclass

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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System Spotlight: Ironsworn

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first ever System Spotlight! Before we begin, let me explain a little about what this is and what to expect.

This is a series I've wanted to do for a while where I talk about RPGs other than D&D, their mechanics, and my overall thoughts on them. There are thousands of wonderful RPGs out there and I want to shine a spotlight on some of the ones I feel could use more love or just give my two cents on ones that are already popular.

This won't be a regular weekly series or anything like that, but I do want to write these so there's less of a gap between content posts. I also want to use them as a sort of primer/101 for future projects made for those systems. I'm known for 5th edition and it's likely the system you fine folk are most familiar with so I want to give you the basics of whatever system I'm working with so the associated project makes some sense. And hey, if even one of you takes in interest in a game I talk about then that's a win in my book.

I would also like to preface that I have not actually played every game I will be talking about in this series, though I have read about them and gone through whatever core rules they have at the very least. I will state whether or not I have played in each post for transparency and so you can judge my opinions accordingly.

Anyway, that's enough preamble, let's Undertake a Journey and talk about Ironsworn!

Are you the Forever GM and never get to play? Are you in-between games or groups and want something to scratch that RPG itch? Perhaps you want to try GMing your own game but don't want the pressure of other players. You're not alone! Turns out there is a huge community for the solo play of RPGs and I am fascinated by it. People have been finding ways to play RPGs by themselves for years and there are lots of tools to let people do just that (I'll get to those at some point), but recently there has been a certain game that has become very popular that is built for just such a method of play.

Created by the wonderful Shawn Tomkin, Ironsworn is game built from the ground up to be solo or co-op and entirely GMless, though you can play traditionally if you wish. It's based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system and is more narrative than mechanics focused unlike a lot of other RPGs, especially games like D&D. Basically, the mechanics are designed to be in service of the story. Speaking of mechanics, let's talk about ‘em!

Dice

Starting with dice, Ironsworn uses a d6 and two d10s for everything. The d6 is your Action Die and acts like a d20 in other systems. The two d10s are your Challenge Dice, which set the difficulty of whatever it is you're trying to roll for.

When you roll to do something, you roll the d6 and d10s together adding your relevant stat and any bonuses you have to the d6. If your action die is over both challenge dice, you get a Strong Hit. If it's only over one of the challenge dice, it's a Weak Hit. But if it's under both of the challenge dice then it's a Miss. Now, if both of the challenge dice are the same, you either have a Strong Hit or Miss with a Match. Matches are like crits in other games, making your Strong Hit or Miss way better or way worse for you.

Moves

So how do you actually do stuff? Like most PbtA games, you make Moves, each with their own mechanics that tell you how to resolve them. For example, let's look at a common move: Gather Information.

For this example, we roll our dice and get a 3 on the Action Die and a 4 and an 8 on the Challenge Dice. We'll say our character has a 2 for Wits and no other bonuses, bringing our Action Die total to 5. This would be a Weak Hit, revealing some troubling information and giving us +1 Momentum (we'll get to momentum in a bit). Pretty simple, right? Whatever you want to do, there's a move for it.

Momentum

Now, about momentum. Momentum is a really cool mechanic that gives you some much needed control over your dice when you really need it. Most moves give you momentum when you succeed, up to a max of 10. When you roll, you can burn your momentum to cancel out any challenge die that is less than your momentum, letting you turn a Miss into a Weak Hit or a Weak Hit into a Strong Hit. Your momentum then gets reset back down to 2 so you always have a little.

Characters

Ok, let's talk character creation! Characters in Ironsworn have 5 stats: Edge, Heart, Iron, Shadow, and Wits. Edge is your quickness and is for ranged combat; Heart is your courage and charisma; Iron is your strength, constitution, and is for melee combat; Shadow is your sneakiness and cunning; Wits is your intelligence and wisdom. You set your stats with a stat array, putting one number for each stat: 3, 2, 2, 1, 1. They even have alternate arrays with higher and lower numbers to make the game easier or harder, which is cool. Your stats will never change during a game so be sure to choose wisely.

Health, Spirit, and Supply

Characters have 3 meters to represent their status: Health, Spirit, and Supply. They each start at 5 and can be increased or decreased by failing moves or taking damage. Health and Spirit are pretty self explanatory, representing your overall physical health and stress levels. Supply is a little different. You don't have equipment, money, or resources in Ironsworn so Supply is used as an abstract representation of how prepared you are during your adventures.

Assets

Now it's time to pick your assets. Assets represent your skills and traits, giving you bonuses to certain things and letting you make new moves. There are 4 asset types: Companions, Paths, Combat Talents, and Rituals. Companions are pretty self explanatory. Paths are your background, skills, and training. Combat Talents let you do special moves with whatever weapon you wield. Finally, Rituals are how you perform big magic in the world of Ironsworn. You get any 3 assets of your choice when you create your character and you can get more through character progression. Assets can also be upgraded, unlocking new abilities and benefits.

Iron Vows

So how does character progression work? In Ironsworn, you earn experience by completing quests, or Vows as they're called. When you take on a quest, you literally swear on iron that you will do whatever it is you set out to do, hence the name of the game. But should you forsake your vow, there are consequences. You always start a game with a background vow, which is basically your personal quest and what drives your character, and an immediate vow to get the story going.

Once you complete a vow, you get experience based on how dangerous it was. Experience can be spent on upgrading your assets or buying entirely new ones.

Combat in Ironsworn

So how does combat work in Ironsworn? Well, a bit like everything else, using moves and with a greater focus on the narrative instead of the nitty gritty details. To be honest, I still have trouble wrapping my head around combat coming from a background of the crunchy, tactical style combat of D&D.

Basically, when you enter combat you Enter the Fray and roll to see who is in control of the situation. Whether or not you are in control determines what moves you can make. Rolling well means you gain or maintain control and you can mark progress towards ending the encounter and claiming victory, whatever that looks like for you. I know my explanation is probably woefully inept at best, so I encourage you to check out Matt Risby’s explanation and example. He does a much better job than I ever could.

The Oracles

Now that you have your version of the Ironlands, you need people, places, and things to populate it with. For that, we turn the the Oracle tables. The oracles are d100 tables filed with words and descriptors to help you flesh out your world and spark inspiration when you're not sure what to do next. There is even a dedicated move called Ask the Oracle, which many other moves reference to help you out if you're not sure what their results might mean for your character.

But what if you need to generate something? For example, say we just entered a new settlement and we want see what it's like and what might be going on there. For that, we turn to the Settlement Oracle tables. We roll a 45 so our settlement is named after a creature. Then we roll and 97, giving us the name Dragonshadow. Now let's see what's going on in Dragonshadow. We roll a 65, giving us “families in conflict”. Squabbling nobles perhaps? But I think you get the idea. There's 19 oracles in Ironsworn and you're even encouraged to make your own.

The Ironlands

Now that the basics are out of the way, where are we? Welcome to the Ironlands! The Ironlands are a low fantasy, low magic, viking-esque setting that honestly reminds me a lot of Westeros from Game of Thrones. It's a harsh, unforgiving land that has made it's people tough and hearty, people who have already dealt with great hardship after a cataclysm drove them from their homeland, or The Old World.

But the best part is that the Ironlands are yours to create. Alongside character creation you create your own version of the Ironlands based on a series of prompts. The basics remain the same as above but the details are up to you. You determine what drove the Ironlanders from their home, how society works, are there monsters or magic, what horror lurk in the dark, and so much more. And if you don't like one of the prompts, change it! Make up whatever you want, it's your world!

Hacks (or Homebrew)

But what if you aren't a fan of the Ironlands period? Perhaps you want something a little more fantastical or even high tech? Then hack it! There's an entire section in the game that encourages you to rework the game to suit whatever needs you have. Don't like the setting? Make up a new one! Want new equipment or backgrounds? Rename the existing assets or make new ones! Don't want to do the work yourself? There are dozens of hacks and hundreds of custom assets created by the community, most of which are free! Whatever flavor you want Ironsworn to be, it can be with a little tweaking.

Ironsworn: Starforged

Now I can't talk about Ironsworn without talking about it's sister game, Starforged. Starforged is a new version of the game with updated and expanded rules in a new sci-fi setting known as the Forge. All the basics are still there with only minor changes so if you've played one you can jump right into the other without much issue. Everything I've said before goes for Starforged as well so if fantasy isn't your bag maybe give it a go instead!

My Thoughts

I'll just come right out and say it, I fucking love Ironsworn. But sadly I've yet to actually sit down and start a game to experience it for myself, which is honestly a crime. It's completely changed my perspective of what an RPG can be and has really opened my eyes to the incredibly wide world of solo play, which I will be delving into further. I have nothing but nice things to say about the game, its creator Shawn, and its incredible community.

To get into specifics, the biggest thing I love is the simplicity of Ironsworn as a system and how easy it is to expand on it. The fact that you're actively encouraged to customize it is amazing too. The layout of the book is clean, simple, and explains things very well. It even includes examples of play. I love momentum as a mechanic, I think it's a brilliant way help keep the story moving and I would love to try and come up with something like it for other systems. And while low fantasy isn't my bag, I can appreciate it for what it is and I can always customize it to suit my tastes.

But the best part about Ironsworn is its completely free! You can download everything you need to play on the website at https://www.ironswornrpg.com/. Starforged on the other hand is paid, which you can get a pdf of on DriveThruRPG for 20 bucks, which is more than reasonable in my opinion. But should you get a physical copy, you get a pdf for free!

If you're not sold on the game just yet, or just want to see it in action, I highly encourage you to check out Me, Myself, and Die Season 2 (season 1 not required), The Bad Spot podcast, and Errant Adventures podcast. MM&D S2 is just Ironsworn while both The Bad Spot and Errant Adventures do both Ironsworn and Starforged. All of them are fantastic live play shows that are well worth your time in my humble opinion.

If you're still with me, thanks for listening to me ramble about a game I love for a bit. I know it's different than my usual content but different is good and I've wanted to do this for a long time so I appreciate you sticking around while I experiment. Let me know what y'all think, about this as a thing I do now, if you're familiar with Ironsworn, and what other games you'd like me to look at. I have one hell of a list already but I bet y'all have some gems I don't know about and it will help me gauge interest. Anyway, that's all for now. As always, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you again soon.

#ironsworn #starforged #powered by the apocalypse #pbta #shawn tomkin #me myself and die #the bad spot #errant adventures #system spotlight

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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I need your input!

Hey folks. So, being away for a while and seeing patrons come and go got me thinking about the state of my Patreon and what the future holds for it. Overall I think things have gone well, but I've never been satisfied with the amount of rewards I offer my patrons. Sure, they get quite a bit: early access, PDFs of all content, weekly updates, credited in large brews, Notion.io board access. But it never felt like enough. Those rewards are across 3 of my 4 tiers, mostly just the first 2. The last tier doesn't even have anything in it! I always meant to put something there but I never felt I could offer anything of worth for those people.

So once again, my Patreon is in need of a rework and I need your help to do it. I need ideas for rewards I can offer you for your generosity. Be you current or past patron, follower or lurker, what sort of rewards do you want to see and how can I improve things? Please help me make my Patreon better for you and worthy of your generosity.

#updates #update #patreon #patrons #patron

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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Future of the Foundry

The Foreman stands above a piece of machinery, his fists clenched around a large hammer, arms held high for a strike. He waivers, unsure of his actions. A surge of anger floods through him as memories of greed and deception return to him, causing his to grip to tighten as he brings the raised hammer down. But before the blow connects, more thoughts enter his mind. Memories of satisfied customers and the joy his creations bring them. He relaxes, letting the hammer drop to his side as he gazes upon dozens of other machines, a smile on his lips.

The Foreman returns to his workshop and grabs a dusty catalog from a long forgotten corner of the room. The Foundry only had tooling for producing Coastal Wizard items, but perhaps it was time that changed. He flips though through the booklet, eyes scanning the pages. Golarion. Ironlander. Weyland. Cypher. Countless companies, each offering tooling and licenses for manufacturing, and each less restrictive than his previous supplier. “Well then, looks like I better make a few calls…”

Hello again friends. It’s been over a week since we last spoke and in that time I’ve done a lot of thinking. When I made my last post, I was in a pretty bad place. I was on the verge of tears more than once writing it, and when discussing my decision to cut ties with D&D with my friends. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an incredibly emotional person and I often have trouble regulating those emotions, especially when things I love are involved. This has gotten me into trouble in the past and will likely do so again in the future, but I’m working on it. I’ve made many poor decisions based on my own fickle feelings and I believe this is no exception. I should have stayed quiet, taken time to think, talk it over with those I trust. Could have, should have, would have, didn’t.

I will say, however, making that decision was oddly freeing. A certain clarity that comes from detachment. Cutting ties with the game allowed me to think clearly as I no longer had any stake in the situation. But I still love the game, nothing will ever change that, and I heard someone say amidst the chaos of it all something that really hit home for me: Don’t let WotC’s greed ruin the game we love. It is clear WotC can’t be trusted so it’s up to us to make sure this wonderful game gets the love and support it deserves while making sure WotC doesn’t get a cent of profit from it. We made this game what it is today and we’ll keep it that way, with or without them.

So, as one can probably guess from my shift in tone, I’m not done with 5e anymore, as a player or content creator. I'm going to continue making content for 5e just as I always have, regardless of how this OGL situation turns out. WotC may be trying to control D&D, but they won't control me. If I ever start selling my content, however, things might change, but for now it will be business as usual. I will, however, be alternating between 5e content and other systems as I explore them. I’ve wanted to play other games and make content for them for a long time and going forward I really want to diversify my content both in terms of what I produce and in what form it's produced. This will be a year of change, growth, and diversity for the Foundry and I couldn't be more excited.

So what can you all expect from me in the future? The homebrew content will continue, but spread across multiple system, namely 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder, and Ironsworn. They’re currently the systems I either have the most experience with or are the most interested in (mostly the latter). It’s unlikely I’ll make content for games outside of those but anything is possible. I just don’t see it happening anytime soon.

On the topic of other systems, I want to start spotlighting other games that I find interesting. There are thousands of wonderful RPGs out there and I want to share some of them with you and my thoughts on them. I’ll talk about their rules, any fun systems, whatever world they have, that sort of thing. I figure these will be things I can post in between projects.

Speaking of projects, what do I want to work on next? Well sadly, my latest project that I've been working on was a commission and both my client and I decided to scrap it so that project is dead, for now at least. Now free to work on whatever, I would love to release something in honor of the upcoming Dead Space remake, which I could not be more excited for. But on such short notice, I can't do anything too crazy if I want to release in time. After that, I have a big project I want to work on using another game entirely which I'm very excited for.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back and I'm thankful for the support I've received while away. Things are about to get a lot more interesting around here and I'm hoping you'll all come along for the ride. As always, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see again you soon.

#openD&D #openDnD #opendnd #updates

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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End of an Era

Breathing heavily, the Foreman surveys the damage with a scowl, fists clenched and shaking with fury, knuckles bleeding. The room is in shambles. Splintered wood and twisted metal liter the floor of his workshop, countless blueprints shredded and scattered.

With a heavy exhale, the Foreman slumps into his chair, his normally large frame rendered small by exhaustion. For the first time in ages, the Foundry lies quiet, the silence broken only by the Foreman's weary voice. "Why did it have to end this way?"

Hello friends. I'm sure you're all aware by now of the ongoing situation with WotC and the Open Game License. I won't be going into any details as I have nothing useful to add there are people who can offer better explanations than I ever could. Lunch Break Heroes did a wonderful video breaking down the situation, why it's awful for the community, and why you should care.

I want to preface what I am about to say by this. I love D&D. I love the team behind the game and how much they appreciate us as a community and what we have to say. I've been incredibly excited for One D&D and whatever the future holds for the game. Sure, WotC aren't perfect. Even through their many stumbles and missteps, especially recently, I still supported them. But not anymore. What WotC has done to us is unforgivable and no amount of backpedaling or apologies will absolve them of their crimes against this wonderful community.

But let me be perfectly clear. My anger is directed at the ones in charge, the executives, NOT the designers. This was a business decision made by business people out of greed and I encourage all of you to remember that. I am 100% certain that the designers would be protesting alongside us if they could without fear of repercussions. Their workplace is already a hellscape because of their boss's decisions, we shouldn't make it worse.

With all this in mind, I have had to make an incredibly difficult decision, one I never thought I would have to make. Effective immediately, the Foundry will no longer produce content for 5th edition or for One D&D in the future. Existing content will remain available for as long as it legally can, afterward I will be removing all access to it, so get it while you can. I will of course give notice before this happens.

As for the future of the foundry, I honestly don't know. I don't want to shut everything down permanently and I'll always want to continue making things. The obvious thing is to switch to another system, but I don't know where I'd go. I would love to jump to Pathfinder, and that's likely what I'll play from now on, but I don't know if I'll be allowed to make content for it. I do know, however, that I want to play and make content for Ironsworn, a wonderful solo RPG by Shawn Tompkin. We shall see, it's too early to start making plans and I'm honestly exhausted by all of this. I need more time to think before I start making plans.

What about you all, those who have supported me for so long? I know none of this is easy to swallow, I get that. I would hope that you might stick around and see where I go from here, what I do next, but I know you came here for my D&D content. With that source gone, I wouldn't blame you if you stopped supporting me. I understand fully and I support your decision either way.

It's funny, I always wanted to branch out into other RPGs, but I never thought it would be like this. Thank you for listening and for all of your support over the years. Stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you later.

#opendnd #openD&D #openDnD

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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This could potentially be big. Screenshots from someone in a Facebook group providing his professionally-affected opinion:

Basically, if any of this is true, you could expect Paizo et al to sue WotC/Hasbro. I would love to see that happen, personally, but it all depends on how likely any of the above actually is to work. Like, if 5.5/6e turns out to be as crappy as 4e was, this will just be WotC shooting itself in the foot again (though probably not enough to kill it). So far, I’ve only heard good things mechanically and bad things for the playerbase, but they have all been vague suggestions with no concrete details.

A Concrete Example

The Hypertext d20 SRD began was constructed under 3.5 as exactly what its name suggests: a self-interlinked reference document for everything in the system. Prior to its existence, the SRD was a collection of (possibly rich) text documents without page numbers or other means of easy reference. It included all OGL material from print sources it could find, so includes ~85% of the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Arcana Unearthed, and some bits from Deities & Demigods. It has other useful tools, like an encounter calculator and spell search. For the longest time, it was the only thing like it. Other sites (DnD Tools, Forgotten Realms Helps) eventually sprang up with more content; DnD Tools has been taken down numerous times for violating the OGL, while Realms Helps has stayed under the radar for some reason.

At some point, the d20srd webmaster updated it to include Pathfinder (seemingly all, but arranged by book like how Paizo’s PRD was, which is deeply unhelpful) and some 5e (limited entirely to the core three books). This was long after d20pfsrd launched; that site is modeled off of the 3.5 d20srd site in organization and is amazeballs.

Since this webmaster has published 5e material on this site and since the new OGL possibly interprets that as accepting its terms, if this new OGL were legal, he could be sued to take down his entire site (or at least the perennially helpful portions) because it is no longer valid. (Per the screenshots, this is only half hypothetical: I know WotC did do this when 4e came out to fanpages that had 3.5 and 4e material because they didn’t want competition from their own product.) This would leave only unauthorized (DnD Tools) or status unclear (Forgotten Realms Helps) archives. We’ve already lost reams of 3.5 material because WotC deleted its 3rd ed. archives (they used to publish stuff online regularly).

#RPG #gaming news #Wizards of the Coast #Hasbro #OGL #Open Game License

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foundry-fabrications · 1 year

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I don't make a habit of reblogging other's posts but this is important. The OGL situation has gone from bad to worse now that we know the many of the details and unless things MASSIVELY change, I believe the future of our beloved hobby is going to be a bleak one. It's thanks in no small part to 3rd party creators that WotC has found the success it has today, and now that they sit atop their pile of money (D&D having made over a billion dollars in 2022), they're going full scorched earth on those who put them there all because "D&D isn't monetized enough". And while the old OGL just affected those selling their content, the new OGL affects EVERYONE, including those of us releasing content for free. If the new OGL goes through as is, many of our beloved content creators may cease to exist, even us small folk. We can't let WotC get away with this and we have to stick together. #opendnd #openD&D #openDnD

A Breakdown of WotC’s OGL 1.1

Here’s some things to consider:

If you created any 5e stuff under OGL 1.0, you can’t keep creating it and the agreement that protected you from copyright lawsuits is “unauthorized”.

But LT, they can’t copyright mechanics!

Yes and no. They can’t copyright a d20. They can’t copyright a character having ability scores, or skills, or rounds of combat. But they can copyright the way it’s presented, and they can copyright the whole framework of all those individual mechanics. So no, scrubbing mentions of 5e out of your work isn’t going to protect you necessarily. Case in point:

This doesn’t just affect indie creators.

So yeah. Pathfinder in jeopardy, folks. And in case you thought the new OGL wasn’t explicitly trying to spite Paizo:

You cannot opt out of the new OGL.

If you create anything other than a print or digital ttrpg book, you cannot sell anything affiliated with DnD. Non-commercial use only.

So nice of them to give creators time to get their products updated:

Jan 13. That’s in 8 days, if you’re counting. I personally have a dozen products that would need to be submitted to the new OGL in that time frame, or changed so much that they don’t violate it. It’s over 1000 pages. To comply with the OGL, I would have to list every single thing that was covered by the original OGL and distinguish it from my original content.

I have a day job. Most creators in this industry have day jobs. This is an unreasonably short amount of time to get into compliance (which I don’t recommend anyway, for reasons we’ll discuss shortly).

Tiers of the Commercial License

So, that Expert Tier: Paizo is gonna fall in that. And if they want a custom deal that doesn’t force them to turn over 25% of their profits to WotC, WotC has to initiate it and set the terms.

Here’s the big kicker. Community surveillance. They’re relying on reporting of people who don’t register stuff. It’s meant to scare folks into compliance, most likely, and it will work. Most small creators couldn’t afford the legal fees if WotC decided to sue, and so have to decide if it’s worth the risk to keep selling without registering. The reason this is a big red flag is because they own, in perpetuity, your stuff. And they can change or revoke the agreement whenever they want.

They covered crowdfunding too:

TL;DR: The new OGL 1.1 is bad for creators and in line with WotC’s goal of wringing profits from DnD.

Source

#opendnd #openD&D #openDnD

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