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Joshy McBoo!

@riseupcomus.bsky.social

5.6K followers 1.1K following 3.8K posts

Award-winning TTRPG designer/idiot His Majesty the Worm Out Now! http://hismajestytheworm.games/

hismajestytheworm.games

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · Mar 20

Hello! My name is Josh and I like RPGs.

Here's an overview of some of my current projects:

His Majesty the Worm - A new/old-school, tarot-based, megadungeon crawler

Dungeon Design Course - Make a dungeon with me!

Knock! - Adventure gaming bric-a-brac

His Majesty the Worm - New-school game, old-school sensibilities. Slice of life gameplay using tarot cards in an infinite megadungeon.

Designing Dungeons Course: Or, How to Kill a Party in 30 Rooms or Less. Step-by-step course on making fun dungeons. Like if Bob Ross taught dungeon design.

Knock! #5. Cover art of adventurer with sword gripping onto crumbling ledge, almost dropping into a swirling abyss below.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 16h

Didn't realize you were a stretch goal! I'm confident we'll unlock it, though. Looking forward to it!

Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 16h

💯💯💯💯💯

Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 17h

HEYO

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 17h

"Vampires have many cool supernatural abilities, like turning into a mist or bat." WRONG. Dracula could do that because he went to fucking Hogwarts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholomance#In_fiction)

The Scholomance[a] (Romanian: Șolomanță [ʃoloˈmantsə], Solomonărie [solomonəˈri.e]) was a fabled school of black magic in Romania, especially in the region of Transylvania. Folkloric accounts state that the Devil himself ran it. The school enrolled about ten students to become the Solomonari. Courses taught included the speech of animals and magic spells. The Devil chose one of the graduates to be the Weathermaker and tasked with riding a dragon to control the weather.

The school was underground, and the students remained unexposed to sunlight for the seven years of their study. According to some accounts, the dragon (zmeu or balaur) was kept submerged in a mountaintop lake south of Sibiu.

Bram Stoker, who studied Gerard's work extensively,[26] refers to it twice in Dracula (1897), once in chapter 18:

The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.

And in chapter 23:

He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 19h

Very excited about this one!

Wildendrem Volume Two: The Saintly Hollows

Two new books of mythic adventure in a land of wonder and peril, for use on their own or alongside the award-winning Valley of Flowers.

www.kickstarter.com

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 20h

Unfortunately, Adam, these ARE procedures.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 21h

Basically, the flow of the game has touchpoints that I use to make sure that we all know the current state of things and what's coming next.

In play, these procedures makes for a smoother experience that I really enjoy.

This reminder from Blogs on Tape, where Ava talks about how she does it

Episode 110 – Memory Problems, by Ava Islam

Podcast Episode · Blogs on Tape · 21/10/2022 · 24m

podcasts.apple.com

Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 21h

I never remember to roll for Morale, so PCs actually activate Morale checks by making "intimidation" checks during combat. Another speedbump.

The City phase is a *big* speedbump to give each PC a time to shine. What are their major goals? What are they doing to accomplish it?
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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 21h

What does this mean? A few examples:
Each time the PCs cross a threshold, I have to draw a random encounter. This tracks time and introduces new threats

The Camp phase breaks up the Crawl. These are roleplaying opportunities to check in with the PCs and see how they're _feeling_
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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 21h

Reminded of the concept of "Speedbumps" in HIS MAJESTY THE WORM today.

I'm a forgetful person by nature, and when I'm GMing there's a lot of spinning plates.

I purposefully put speed bumps into the game so that I could remember to do the "bookkeeping" parts of the game that were important to me.
🧵

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

Oh neat!

Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

Love the lady holding up the sword and brooding dude lingering at her ankles

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Reposted by Joshy McBoo!

HODAG RPG @hodagrpg.bsky.social · 1d

🎶HODAG'WEEN COMES ONCE A YEAR!
NOW IT'S HERE!
NOW IT'S HERE!

HODAG MAG-TIME! 🎶

Are you ready Hodag MAG 4 is here
And it brought friends
The h'ween mega-zine
Redacted for kbf
Don't miss out
Send me an email to HODAGMAG at GMAIL dot COM
With the subject line "get spooky!"

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

A small, somewhat indulgent blog post about a framing device that you can use to connect adventurers from all parts of Middle-earth together for your RPGs

You All Meet at a Cottage...

"Now for the most part the children did not often go into the house, but danced and played in the garden, gathering flowers or chasing the...

riseupcomus.blogspot.com

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Reposted by Joshy McBoo!

Izzy.PumpkiNG | comms open @izzypetersart.bsky.social · 1d

Painterly character cards like this, $40 all week, DM me 🔥

Portrait of a young elf in a red uniform

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Reposted by Joshy McBoo!

Jess Pendley, Werewolf Wrassler 💪🐺 @jesspendley.com · 1d

#ttrpg creating folks, does anyone know if there's a canva template out there that can be used for Drivethru card creation?

(Boosts for reach appreciated 💜)

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Reposted by Joshy McBoo!

JellyMuppet is DOOMSPIRALLING @jellymuppet.bsky.social · 1d

Good heavens and lord this map by @salvaterra.bsky.social for Doomspiral honestly rips. Never been so happy to have such an absurd art piece at the centre of @nickspence.bsky.social and I's game.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

Oh wait, one more note - in the Castle Automatic you can find and empower Talos, like Sir Arthegall does. Get your own super literal, super strong robot!

Bonus: In Crete, you can visit the cave where Talos lived when he wasn't circumnavigating the island.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

In the Faerie Queene, a repaired Talos from the depths of mythology was given to the Knight of Justice, Arthegall, by his mother.

Talos is irresistible: invulnerable and strong. But as a robot, he is very literal. He represents the law. Arthegall is the judge who interprets the law with mercy.
/🧵

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

In mythology, Talus is a bronze statue that guarded Crete from pirates and invaders. He would run around the island 3 times a day.

He was made by Hephaestus, the forge god, who filled his veins with ichor - god's blood. (How cool is that!)

He was bested by Jason and the Argonauts.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

From the golem of Prague to the "Spirit Movement Machines" that guard the Buddha's relics, I'm super inspired by stories of early automatons.

The Castle Automatic - my upcoming big dungeon for HIS MAJESTY THE WORM - draws inspiration from one of my FAVORITE ancient robots, Talus.

A 🧵

Animated bronze Greek statue, art by Oozejar

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 1d

Oh man. I forgot about that *one*.

Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 2d

WHAT THE
who is this mysterious stranger

Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 2d

I'm still figuring out the trick of making interesting hexes, but one goal I have is to make little puzzles between the people, their relationships to each other, and the surrounding hexes.

More than just writing good tables to generate NPCs, I want to hand the GM toys to use to play with the PCs.

✦ - OFTEN HERE: 1. Ossie Pie (hobbit - bucktoothed, nervous, baker's apprentice) swears he once saw a ghostly knight riding a pale horse under the full moon northwest of Dwaling, 2. Gaffer Greenthumb (hobbit - well-preserved, bashful, gardener) keeps a garden of prized roses and is too shy to speak to the Widow Peabody, 3. 3d6 members of The Lads Who Don't Do Nothing (a drinking anti-social club) led by Gaffer Quaffer at the Golden Perch looking for a good time, 4. Widow Peabody (hobbit - pinched, nosy, rents rooms) has been dropping hints at Gaffer Greenthumb for months and is annoyed that he's not picking up on them.

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Joshy McBoo! @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 2d

In the book The Black Cauldron, there is a great class of monster called the Huntsmen of Annuvin. When one died, his power flowed into the rest of them. The fewer there were, the harder they were to kill. Very gameable enemy.

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