Old Skulling

by Filipe Faria The main job of a Referee is to create adventures that the players will enjoy. They do not create stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, but they create situations with locations, NPCs, problems, and complications, and potential solutions for the player characters to interact with and, as a result, create a story. The Five Questions When creating an adventure, you can begin trying to answer five important questions about it: “Who?”, “What?”, “Where?”, “Why?” and “How?”. This helps you organize your thoughts and makes you focus on what really matters in the adventure. Who? Who are the main movers and shakers? What are their assets? What are their weaknesses? What do they want? What motivates them to do what they do? Think about all of these questions and how each of those individuals relate to one another. Are they rivals? Allies? Enemies? How could they meet with the PCs and how would they relate to them? Try to create individuals and factions that can be manipulat...

In a violent and savage world inhabited by ancient beasts and monsters spawned in the deepest abyss, traveling is a feat in which few people regularly engage. Going from one City-State to the next is an adventure all on its own. Many dangers can befall travelers in their journeys, not only monsters and bandits, but many other hazards such as storms, wildfires and fetid swamps. Additionally, when adventurers explore savage and unknown lands, any raging river, steep mountain, or tortuous trail can become an obstacle. In game terms, each character needs to make a Luck Roll for each leg of the journey. If the majority of the group succeeds, nothing bad happens. However, if most of them are unlucky, something unfortunate befalls the group. When this happens, roll on the table below. d20 Travel Hazards 1. Mundane animals of the region are strangely agitated and act in weird and disturbing ways during the night. The group cannot sl...

Reputation Characters in most fantasy games begin as nobodies. They are usually common people without significant past deeds that would make them noticeable or famous. That’s an interesting and important feature. It sets the stage so that the really special events happen during the game. If the PCs are to become famous, gather a reputation, this will be due to things they do in their adventures. Thus, as the characters go on adventures, acquire wealth, and become more and more powerful and influential, their reputation will grow. Their names will invoke images and change the way people see them. To help reflect this on the game I’ve come up with what I call a Level Test. It works like this: The player rolls a 2d6 and compare it to your character’s Level. If it’s equal to or below the number, the NPC recognizes you somehow. Their reaction will vary according to your deeds and fame. The Referee can also impose a Negative or Positive Die depending on how familiar each region is to the cul...

Work on the revised edition of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is moving along. This will be a hefty tome, with a LOT of tools and new options to customize your campaign, keeping the style, simplicity and flexibility of the original game. Today I come to present my lateste addition to the draft, a new Archetype for those that want to insert some elements of more tradiotional fantasy into the game. The Faithful is an archetype inspired by the Cleric of more popular RPGs, but with some twist to fit SS&SS better. Following it, there is a sample "God" to use with it. The Faithful The gods have chosen you to represent them in the mortal realm, or at least that’s what you believe. Most of the priests, monks and shamans perform their rituals without any hope to get an answer from their patrons, but you know you are being listened to. Your patron, your god or your ancestors help you and those that they deem worthy through you. Your faith can actually operate miracles. ...

Artwork by Luis Filipe de Almeida I am writing the second edition of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells , my first published game (a sword and sorcery RPG with streamlined rules, modern system with old school spirit) and I wrote an alternative spell system to go with it inspired by many things, including Barbarians of Lemuria, Blades in the Dark and the great articles about Magic Words written by Nick L. S. Whelan on his great blog Papers & Pencils . Words of Power The default magic system of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is inspired by a series of authors both in literature and in gaming. It assumes practitioners of sorcery dabble with incredible powerful and unstable energies to cast their spells, which they must learn the exact formula to cast. They usually can't devise new spells of modify the spells they know, as true sorcery is not a creation of mortals and these can only mimic this sinister arc with sinister consequences. This alternative system proposed ...