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EpicSavingThrow.com: A Grognard's Notebook

  • Adventures
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  • Rules
    • Homebrews
      • My Traveller Rules
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      • My Star Wars Rules
      • Fast RPG (in progress)
    • Dungeons & Dragons
      • D&D 5th Edition
      • AD&D 2nd Edition
      • AD&D 1st Edition
      • Original D&D
      • Roll20: PHB 2014
      • Roll20: TCoE 2014
      • Roll20: MM 2014
      • Roll20: PHB 2024
      • Roll20: DMG 2024
      • Roll20: MM 2024
    • Traveller
      • Traveller SRD (MP)
    • Cypher System Games
      • Github: Cypher System SRD
    • Call Of Cthulhu
      • BRP SRD
    • Marvel
      • Roll20$: Marvel Multiverse RPG
      • FastCharacter: Marvel Multiverse
    • World Of Darkness
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    • Horror
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About This Site

November 23, 2016 mstanton Adventures, Settings

A brief introduction to this hodgepodge online dump of RPG ideas and notes.

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RPG Industry News

November 23, 2016 mstanton Tools

A collection of links and latest headlines about RPG-related websites.

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RPG Podcasts

November 23, 2016 mstanton Uncategorized

The Adventure Zone, One-Shot, Film Reroll, Happy Jacks, Imaginary Worlds, Hello From The Magic Tavern and more.

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Star Trek Adventures 2e

STA2e Complication Ideas

April 29, 2025 mstanton Rules

Idea for creating negative traits from botched task dice rolls.

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Encounter: The Memory Eaters

April 29, 2025 mstanton Adventures

An idea meant to evoke emotional impact from psychic damage.

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Fantasy Story Gods: What? Why? How?

April 18, 2025 mstanton Settings

Stealing from ideas from The Silt Verses TTRPG.

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D&D Stats: Ridder Joost Vanderbruuk (Lvl 9)

April 4, 2025 mstanton Characters

Level up to 9, adds proficiency increase, 3rd level Paladin spells, Abjure Foes

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D&D Stats: Ridder Joost Vanderbruuk (Lvl 8)

April 2, 2025 mstanton Characters

Level up to 8, adds Heavy Armor Mastery.

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Realis RPG 101

March 13, 2025 mstanton Rules

A diceless narrative space fantasy game by Austin Walker.

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D&D Stats: Tainzer Spoor (Lvl 7)

March 6, 2025 mstanton Characters

Backup character for Jason’s D&D campaign, starting at to level 7.

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D&D Stats: Ridder Joost Vanderbruuk (Lvl 7)

March 5, 2025 mstanton Characters

Character for Jason’s D&D campaign, leveled up to 7.

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Some D&D Combat Tactics

March 1, 2025 mstanton Uncategorized

Ideas to parley, use diversions, make better attacks, and flee when necessary.

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Curse of Strahd Magical Loot

February 24, 2025 mstanton Uncategorized

Game stats for acquired magical items.

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D&D Stats: Ridder Joost Vanderbruuk (Lvl 6)

February 24, 2025 mstanton Characters

Character created for Jason’s D&D campaign.

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Curse of Strahd Campaign Notes

February 24, 2025 mstanton Adventures

This time I get to be a player character for once!

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Between The Skies

The Shortest TTRPG Rules Ever

February 19, 2025 mstanton Rules

Roll 2d6, get 9 or more or spend a story token to succeed.

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My Ridley Scott-iverse Headcanon

February 8, 2025 mstanton Settings

The Alien/Prometheus, Blade Runner, Predator, and Raised By Wolves shows all happen in a shared universe.

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Star Trek Adventures 2e

STA2e Rules Notes, Glossary, Momentum and More

February 6, 2025 mstanton Rules

Some clarifications on terms used in Star Trek Adventures Second Edition.

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How Much Did It Cost In The Past?

January 16, 2025 mstanton Settings

A rule-of-thumb guide for estimating U.S. dollar values between time periods.

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Homebrew Rule: No Dice Failures

January 8, 2025 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

Instead of success or failure, attempt always work but player must choose at what cost.

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Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying Rules

January 6, 2025 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

Notes on mashing up BRP with some patchwork houserules.

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Another Homebrew RPG Idea

January 2, 2025 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

Another homebrew idea, Frankenstein of ideas from D&D5e and BRP (Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing/Call of Cthulhu system), with a few bits borrowed from Marvel Multiverse RPG and GURPS.

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Range and Scale Benchmarks

January 2, 2025 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks

Some generic range bands for any rpg-like comparisons (may vary per game system).

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Sci-Fi Equipment Lists

January 2, 2025 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Rules

Sample personal “starting gear” lists from science-fiction role-playing games.

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Terraforming Steps

December 29, 2024 mstanton Settings

Some steps along the way to making an exoplanet livable for humans.

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Otherwhere (Summer 2024)

October 1, 2024 mstanton Adventures, Settings

A brief recap of the D&D5e game played on Roll20 during summer 2024.

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Setting Up “Hard Sci-Fi” Settings

September 30, 2024 mstanton Settings

What would a “hard sci-fi” setting look like without any “magic sci-fi tech” cheats?

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The Inevitable Machine Uprisings

September 30, 2024 mstanton Settings

Some thoughts on why and how the machines will kill us all.

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100 NPC Types

August 7, 2024 mstanton Characters, Lists & Benchmarks

Seeds to prompt personalities for minor non-player characters.

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Tricks, Minor Curses and Magical Complications

August 1, 2024 mstanton Uncategorized

Colin McLaughlin’s ideas for minor complications from using magical portals.

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Fast Starship Combat Rules

July 8, 2024 mstanton Rules

Some ideas for a quick-and-dirty starship RPG rules set.

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Notebook of Star Trek-isms

June 12, 2024 mstanton Settings

Random notes about details from the Star Trek universe.

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Star Trek Prime Timelines Headcanon

June 12, 2024 mstanton Settings

Why there must be two “Prime Timelines” in Star Trek.

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Fast RPG v0.8

June 1, 2024 mstanton Rules

Yet another homebrew set of tabletop role-playing rules to playtest.

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D&D 5e House Rules, Take Two

April 20, 2024 mstanton Rules

A list of common Dungeons & Dragons 5e house rules, and some new ideas to consider.

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Fast Traveller 0.8

April 2, 2024 mstanton Rules

Version 0.8 of my re-edit of classic Traveller rules.

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On DMing Faeries and Fey Pledges

February 3, 2024 mstanton Uncategorized

Some ideas on fey encounters and making pledges with such creatures.

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Stanton's DM Screen

Stanton’s DM Screen

January 4, 2024 mstanton Rules

A peak at my cribnotes for running 5e-based games, including credit on some great reference sources.

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Marvel Cinematic Universe

My MCU+ Timeline (+ X + FF)

December 28, 2023 mstanton Settings

List of news headlines includes only events as the general public would understand…

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Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

Marvel Multiverse RPG Cheatsheet

November 27, 2023 mstanton Rules

Some quick reference notes on Matt Forbeck’s rules.

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Hey ChatGPT, Make Me Some Wargame Rules

October 11, 2023 mstanton Rules

An experiment in AI game design using some prompts into ChatGPT-3.5, circa October 2023.

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Trait System RPG Idea

October 6, 2023 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

Updating my 30-year-old RPG design project notes, started way back in the early 1990s. Uses d20s only, no ability scores, and players roll for all task outcomes.

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Another RPG Ruleset In Progress

September 27, 2023 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

Brainstorming a sort of D&D-Cypher hybrid rules idea…

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LARP Character Magical Powers

September 25, 2023 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

I found the following character abilities in some mid-1990s LARP rules I made for con events in Wisconsin.

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Animal Spirit Powers

July 8, 2023 mstanton Settings

A sampling a possible abilities gained by channeling animal spirits.

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AD&D1e to 5e Conversions

June 25, 2023 mstanton Rules

When running old AD&D1e modules for D&D 5e adventures, follow these guidelines

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Sci-Fi Space Travel Speeds

April 9, 2023 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Settings

Some notes cribbed from various sources on sunlight and faster-than-light starship speeds in popular science-fiction worlds.

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Questions to Make Character Bonds

March 13, 2023 mstanton Rules

This exercise is designed to help players create character bonds through debts, rivalries, and shared past experiences. Position players in a circle (around a table

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Coup: Rules & Notes

July 13, 2022 mstanton Rules

Notes on how to play the card game “Coup.”

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Exandria Condensed Timeline

June 23, 2022 mstanton Settings

A condensed timeline of Matt Mercer’s Exandria campaign setting

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Magic Item Shopping In Ank’Harel

June 23, 2022 mstanton Adventures

Quick rules on shopping for specific magical items sought on the streets of Ank’Harel.

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Sci-Fi Environmental Standards

May 23, 2022 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Settings

Taking a guess at what the “air” inside most spaceports and starships must be like in the Traveller Universe.

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Marvel Superheroes FASERIP Redux

May 10, 2022 mstanton Rules

The Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing Game rates abilities by descriptive ranks, each used to roll percentile dice (d100) to measure results on the Universal Results Table.

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Describing Fiends

April 28, 2022 mstanton Uncategorized

Ways to describe encounters with demons, devils, and other unholy creatures spawned from the Lower Planes.

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Imperial / Metric Conversions For D&D

March 24, 2022 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Rules

Loose estimates rounded for narrative/gaming purposes.

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D&D 5e House Rules

March 24, 2022 mstanton Rules

A list of house rules I tend to use in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition games.

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Call Of The Netherdeep: Game Notes

March 21, 2022 mstanton Adventures

A crash course in Matt Mercer’s campaign setting ahead of playing the module released in March 2022.

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Otherwhere: Game Session Notes

September 9, 2021 mstanton Adventures

SESSION 0: A SUMMONS TO OLYA’S (9/8/2021) The mage-merchant Olya summons a group of adventurers in service to him to gather at his shop within

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Otherwhere: Cast Of Characters

September 9, 2021 mstanton Characters, Settings

A brief summary of player character bios.

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Otherwhere: Peoples And Places (2021)

September 9, 2021 mstanton Homebrews, Settings

A “mythological theme park” of ancient cultures and classic fantasy tropes: the fall of Atlantis, pantheons of mischievous gods, nations of human and non-human peoples, the struggle between order and chaos, and lands conjured out of dreams.

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5e Custom Character Traits

July 17, 2021 mstanton Characters, Homebrews, Rules

Some ideas on character customization.

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5e Robots

July 17, 2021 mstanton Characters, Homebrews, Rules

My take on making a playable race for sci-fi robots.

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D&D5e Action Economy

June 22, 2021 mstanton Rules

A breakdown look at RAW, plus a couple of house rules.

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Magical Healing 101

April 29, 2021 mstanton Rules

A comparison of what magic fixes what injuries.

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Rime Of The Frostmaiden Log

March 31, 2021 mstanton Adventures

Campaign session notes for playing Icewide Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, with two major changes: The setting has been moved to Blackmoor in the World

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Campaign Timeline: The World Of Greyhawk

March 1, 2021 mstanton Settings

A revised historical timeline with significant player character events noted.

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Micro Fast Traveller 2.1

February 24, 2021 mstanton Homebrews, Rules

Even shorter version of ttprg rules for Traveller.

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Roll20 User Notes

February 23, 2021 mstanton Tools

Some reference notes on using the VTT Roll20 platform.

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Sci-Fi Technobabble

February 22, 2021 mstanton Settings, Tools

Nonsense words to use at the table to sound like a starship engineer or doctor.

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D&D5e: Expanded Conditions & Abilities Glossary

February 21, 2021 mstanton Rules

Notes on conditions, common abilities, and a few house rules.

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Sci-Fi 5e Medicines And Equipment

January 11, 2021 mstanton Rules, Settings

Some homebrew items for a science-fiction flavor to D&D5e.

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Rime Of The Frostmaiden: Blackmoor On Oerth

January 4, 2021 mstanton Settings

Details about the archbarony in the Greyhawk setting.

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D&D5e: Prices For Spellcasting Services

November 30, 2020 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Rules

A houserule on the price and availability of hiring spellcasters.

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D&D5e: Magic Item Prices

November 28, 2020 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Rules

A shopping list for magical items and spellcasting services.

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White Plume Mountain Log

September 18, 2020 mstanton Settings

Notes on an adventure to recover three missing magical weapons guarded within a taunting wizard’s dungeon built into an active volcano.

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Subtle Spellcasting House Rule

September 18, 2020 mstanton Rules

A clarification on spellcasting.

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Faster Combat Tips

August 8, 2020 mstanton Rules

Cribbed from several YouTube videos and blog sites…

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Renewing My Old City Of Greyhawk Campaign

July 23, 2020 mstanton Settings

Background notes on revising my college-days D&D campaign.

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Gamma World for D&D 5e

July 12, 2020 mstanton Rules, Settings

Notes for playing Gamma World using the D&D 5e ruleset.

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Dirty Tricks Of The Evil Spellcaster

June 29, 2020 mstanton Rules

Uses D&D5e PHB spells for espionage – surveillance, sabotage, psyops and assassination.

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Valerie Valusek’s City Of Greyhawk Map Annotated

June 29, 2020 mstanton Adventures, Settings

Links to view a version of the City Of Greyhawk map with key locations labeled.

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The Xro Dinn Chronicles RPG

June 29, 2020 mstanton Rules

A quick outline about a sci-fi role-playing game from 2001.

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My Campaigns’ Metaplot

May 20, 2020 mstanton Adventures, Settings

What I’ve noticed as a consistent theme in campaigns I’ve run, and how they can be made to fit together into an ongoing cosmic mystery.

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Why Does The King Send You On Adventures?

April 8, 2020 mstanton Characters

Besides the chance for fame, treasure and glory, what’s your personal link to the ruling king?

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Shorthand Stats For D&D Monsters

January 19, 2020 mstanton Rules

Text crib notes for D&D monster stats.

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Sample Riddles

December 13, 2019 mstanton Adventures

Riddles stolen from a bunch of different sources.

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Fiend Rationales

August 7, 2019 mstanton Characters

Even the most primally evil beings in the multiverse consider themselves “good” from their own points of view…

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Sample Fantasy Character Equipment Lists

July 29, 2019 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks, Settings

DUNGEONEER’S GEAR (AD&D) Adapted from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. A melee weapon (longsword or battleaxe common). Leather armor (or better, unless forbidden). A waterskin (2

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Role-Playing Mini Codes Of Honor

June 5, 2019 mstanton Characters

I once wrote up playing card-sized OD&D character sheets that included three guidelines to remember when role-playing characters. Some were distilled down from the “code

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The Outlands (Revised)

August 12, 2018 mstanton Homebrews, Settings

What if Planescape was run without Sigil?

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House Rules For Modern 5e

August 11, 2018 mstanton Rules

Some rough ideas on using the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition ruleset for other genre games.

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The Entity MacGuffin

June 8, 2018 mstanton Settings

Idea for a shared horror meta-plot across multiple games in which Nyarlathotep, Tharizdun, the Elder Elemental Eye and The Wyrm are all the same malevolent cosmic being.

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Top Secret: New World Order Notes

April 14, 2018 mstanton Rules

Some initial notes on the 2018 reboot version of Merle M. Rasmussen’s original espionage role-playing game.

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Fantasy Timelines

January 19, 2018 mstanton Settings

Example timelines of some Dungeons & Dragons campaign backstories.

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Speed Benchmarks

September 21, 2017 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks

A range of movement rate examples per 6-second round.

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Heat And Power Benchmarks

September 21, 2017 mstanton Lists & Benchmarks

Random notes on temperatures.

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Star Trek Fast Traveller

February 22, 2017 mstanton Rules

Notes for running a Traveller game in the Star Trek universe.

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T.I.M.E Stories Rules

February 12, 2017 mstanton Rules

A summary of basic rules to Space Cowboys’ “decksploration” board game.

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Adventures In Middle-Earth 5e

December 19, 2016 mstanton Rules

Some early notes on the D&D sourcebook / conversion of THE ONE RING role-playing game.

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D&D5e: Inspiration Hack

November 30, 2016 mstanton Rules

An alternative method for determining when and how a character gains Inspiration during play.

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D&D5e: Downtime Activities

November 25, 2016 mstanton Rules

Notes about what characters may do between adventures. More roll-play than role-play but nice to have some guidelines for DMs and players to set expectations.

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D&D5e: Magic

November 25, 2016 mstanton Rules

Notes about spellcasting, magic items and guidelines for effects and limitations in play.

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D&D5e: Skill & Tool Use

November 25, 2016 mstanton Rules

Notes about ability checks and various proficiencies, plus clarification on the “Hide” action.

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