2018 Antagonist Relations Recap

Image: Twenty Sided Dice set to 20 19

Antagonist Relations, Inc is back from holiday break, which was not particularly a break since I’ve run 6 game sessions and prepped a 10 part Cypher Game campaign since my last post in addition to all the normal family hoopla around the holidays.

Blog Business

It was a good year for blog writing last year— I posted 102 items in 2018, more than twice the next highest year (2015 with 47) and almost five times what I posted most years since I started this blog in 2012. The volume is especially notably because I only had a single post before March 2018. It was a questionable year for blog reading though… at least from what I can tell. Posts will get 10-20 views in the week I post them and that’s about it. Almost all of the referral links in the blog stats are for scammy clickbacks, for sketchy pharmaceutical hawking blogs or other obviously fraudulent and more importantly non-RPG blogs or sites. The few comments that I did get on posts in 2018 were all spam as well. Despite attempting to promote the blog with a twitter account (@antag_relations) and making sure to post fairly regularly on it to keep it from entirely being a wasteland in between blog post tweets I don’t seem to have grown the blog audience from the three people I know read it which has been disheartening.

Ultimately though, I’ve decided to keep posting here and to accept that maintaining the blog is something I’m mostly doing for myself and not for an audience, after all Lonely Fun has a long and storied tradition as part of the RPG hobby and so this blog will be my outlet for that. That said, if you’re a reader of the blog and not someone I know personally, if you send me an email at “Antagonist.relations(at)gmail.com” to let me know you’re out there, I’ll happily send you one of these snazzy stickers or a pack of the AD&D Second Edition Collector Cards if you’re interested.

Image: Shit Stickers where the I is a 1 on a d20, unopened pack of 1992 Series TSR D&D Collector Cards

So, what are my goals for the Antagonist Relations blog for 2019?

• Keep posting Weird Magic Items and Music to Game to Posts.
• Post more module and system reviews.
• Post at least 100 updates again.

Back in 2018 when I made the conscious effort to revitalize the blog, I planned on putting up lots of tables, but by the summer I had discovered that churning out a table every week or two was difficult, so I’m going to let those drop away and not spend time trying to come up with another table of names just to say I got another table made. On the other hand, I’ve really enjoyed writing the Weird Magic Item and Music to Game to Posts so those will continue.

You’ll also continue to see cross-posts from the Antagonist Relations Podcast, we recorded our first episodes of 2019 on January 4th and I hope to have them edited and ready to post soon. I swear that eventually I’ll do another Lonely Fun podcast just for Ben and there is a chance that there might be another potential podcast to come as well, though that one is really tentative.

Podcast Episode 28 - The Return Of Rambling

Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 28 - The Return Of Rambling

A return to Old School In the Lair of the Ginger Giant podcasts... Listen to Ben and I ramble on about the games we're running and playing in, recent inspirations and more. Topics include D&D 5th Edition, Beyond the Wall, 13th Age Eyes of the Stone Thief, AD&D 2nd Edition and more... Descend with us, once again, into the comforting depths of the Lair of the Ginger Giant for the Antagonist Relations podcast.

Zack's Recommendations

• Paper Girls
• Annihilation

Ben's Recommendations

• Wizkid's Wardlings (and other minis)
• Questminiatures

RSS feed for Podcast Apps

I like BIG DICE...

and I cannot lie... (small dice for size)

Last year I discovered the joy of BIG DICE. Partly this was due to running 13th Age and needing a big d6 for the Escalation Die, but I've also found them to be great GM tools. What do I use BIG DICE for?

• Tracking enemy hit points. Perfect for bigger enemies with lots of HP.
• Keeping track of countdowns.
• 13th Age Escalation Die - Big wooden lawn dice work perfectly for this.
• Eyes of the Stone Thief Submergence Die.
• Terrifying players. Just set a die out and increase or decrease the number to your whim and watch players squirm.
• The pure satisfaction of rolling BIG DICE.

What's the advantage of using BIG DICE for these tasks?

• Easy to read at a glance.
• Harder to accidentally knock over. (I've found that metal dice are also good for this).
• Stand out from smaller dice. I only have a small number of BIG DICE so I'm not trying to remember if the wyvern hp total was on the sparkly black dice or the matte black with speckles dice.

Now I make sure I have my big dice handy for every game I run. You can find a set of your own at Dark Elf Dice, which is my favorite online dice store.

Consider this the first of what will hopefully be many short weekly GM tips as I continue to re-boot the blog.

The Golden Puddle of Tollgate Square - Leaving Room for Icons in 13th Age

By Photo: Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

While I ran the Strangling Sea to start my 13th Age campaign, for the second full session, I ran a homebrew adventure. Previously the party had determined that there were three NPCs who might know a secret worth trading to an Ettercap temple in exchange for information about a 2nd Age Sage who studied the Stone Thief. Those three NPCs were

• Elizabeth Clawchoke, Lich Baroness residing in Drakkenhall
• Malaggar Lyme, Dark Elf emissary to the Emperor, currently visiting the court of Drakkenhall.
• Corgak the Bruiser, Half-Orc thief and thug who killed an agent of the Prince of Shadows and stole a magical key.

After some discussion the PCs choose Corgak, and so headed off to Drakkenhall to locate him.
Now, as GM, I had a few objectives, which were:

• Leave room to adapt the adventure based on Icon Rolls.
• Provide a few social interaction encounters.
• Introduce Tollgate Square as a place, with a distinctive feel, locations and NPCs.
• Steal shamelessly from Voltron.

So how did I attempt all that? Why is Manneken Pis the image header? Keep reading to find out... (Minor Voltron Legendary Defenders Season 2 spoilers at the end of the post)

"Is he telling the TRUTH?" Against Insight/Sense Motive

Man, I am terrible at compiling lists of GM Resolutions, I left off my renewed effort at NPC voices and came to realize today that I also left off my Insight/Detect Lie resolution. To whit, I am done allowing Insight/Sense motive checks to tell when an NPC is lying...

Now, this has been a pet peeve of mine for quite a while, but this year I'm putting my foot down and no longer allow players to declare "Is [NPC] telling the truth? I'm rolling Insight". But, but Zack! You cry, the D&D 5e Player's Manual allows it... and, sure I guess you could read it like that... here it is... the description of the Insight skill (which replaced earlier editions equally terrible "Sense Motive")...

Insight. Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.

It's right there "true intentions of a creature... searching out a lie..." to which I say, hooey... HOOEY! Continue reading or skip right to the TL;DR

13th Age - The Strangling Sea Review and Recap

(Find it at... Pelgrane Press  / Drivethru RPG / Amazon)

I choose The Strangling Sea to kick off my new Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign, not just because it was a published 1st level adventure that I could run without much prep but because it is an excellent adventure and tailored towards GMs who are new to running 13th Age. While I am not new to running 13th Age, it was still nice to have the extra advice in the adventure to guide me as I gear up to running an ongoing campaign that I hope will cover 1st through 8th levels.

Major spoilers for The Strangling Sea adventure follow, obviously. I'll do the review first and the recap of my players second, so that readers who just want a review of the adventure don't have to stick around for the hi-jinx of my players.

Thought of the Day: NPC Voices

I didn't include it in my list of 2017 Gaming Resolutions, but I've been trying to do more NPC voices for all my games. So, even though I have players who accuse me of killing NPCs off just because I forgot the voice, I keep trying.

Voices and accents don't come naturally to me. I attempted a Space Australian accent for one of my Numenera NPCs but it quickly drifted into something else (though it was a great excuse to watch this delightful clip again and again...) Lately, I've been trying to give NPCs a quick description of their voice or vocal tics and jotting it down in my notes so I can use that to remind myself of how they should sound when I return to that NPC; here are some recent examples of how I've been describing NPC voices.

• Bömbör
• "repeats himself excitedly"
• a Dverge NPC from my Iron Edda game
• Gwenaëlle Décalage
• "a low and sultry voice"
• Recent deceased vampire NPC from the A Red and Pleasant Land actual play podcast
• Enock Whipple
• "Soft and often apologetic"
• Dormouse NPC from aRaPL actual play podcast
• Firgin
• "ah um eh, talks about water colors"
• NPC from the Strangling Sea 13th Age Adventure I ran to start my new 13th Age Stone Thief campaign. About 2/3rds of my players really, really hated him after listening to him speak.

So I've been trying to decide how to voice a kitten NPC for my 13th Age game, as I want it to live up to the "Talkative" trait that the player picked for the Ranger Pet talent. Long story short, the PC, Felix Mittens, used to be a catperson until he was cursed by a witch to become fully human while his twin brother, Boots, became fully kitten. I've been wracking my brains trying to come up with how Boots should talk, since he'll be an ongoing NPC constantly with the party... I think I'm going to come up with some stock phrases I can use for when certain events happen, like maybe Boots doesn't like orcs or comments when someone fumbles... 

But then I was watching some Venture Bros today and I realize I'm tempted to have Boots speak exactly like Augustus Saint Cloud does when he's pretending that Henrietta Pussycat is speaking to him in the episode Maybe No Go. My delight at saying "Eat the pennies, Quizboy" means that I have a decent Augustus Saint Cloud impression (probably the only VB character I can do reliably) and I like the idea of starting and ending each sentence with "mew mew" to just drive home that Boots the kitten is talking... Others might think it's too creepy, but I'm starting to think it's just creepy enough...

Eyes of the Stone Thief - Campaign planning, 13th Age PC Creation Resources & PC Introduction

Got my Sunday group together last Sunday for a rare 5th Sunday Session (we usually play only on the 1st and 3rd Sundays) and did character creation for my 13th Age Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign. Since I intend to run this from 1st level all the way up through 8th level, I plan on writing about this campaign quite a bit. While we did the first part of an intro adventure, the Strangling Sea, after character creation, I'm going to wait to write that up until after we've finished it. But this seems like a good time to go over the bit of campaign planning and introduce the PCs (though I will update this if/when additional PCs are created).

New Year, New Games (and Old too...) - State of the Blog III Part Two

Well... I did not expect my first post for the 2017 New Year State of the Blog to devolve into a 4,000 word screed... Apologies to all who suffered through that...

Game Master bag buttons with my new Over the Garden Wall buttons!

A photo posted by Zack Schwartz (@thatwordyguy) on Jan 1, 2017 at 11:12am PST

So... I ran 11 different games in 2016, got to play in 4, but what are my plans for 2017?

New Year, New Games (and Old too...) - State of the Blog III Part One

Hello there gorgeous...

With the turn of the new year, it seems appropriate that I do another State of the Blog post, though this one will probably be even longer and more rambling than previous installments... So, hold onto your dicebags, 'cause here we go!

Corpse Chewer - Or a semi-improv, low prep 13th Age One shot you could run too

After the election my wife asked me to run a combat heavy one shot RPG as a distraction, I've been burnt out a little on 5e D&D lately, so I decided to run 13th Age instead.

I like 13th Age for this kind of adventure/monster fighting combat heavy game because...

• It's basically D&D. I mean, it's not official Wizards of the Coast branded D&D(TM) but it's got a unified d20 mechanic like recent D&D, the classic classes, races and a lot of the feel.
• It's good at what it does and focuses on that. It's not the game I'd run if I wanted to run a social intrigue game (probably, right now, V20 Vampire the Dark Ages would win) or the game I'd run if I wanted a gritty game where the PCs struggled to survive (for now, that would probably be Shadow of the Demon Lord) but for a combat heavy game where PCs will have cool stuff to do during combat and you want a high fantasy feel it's an excellent choice. 
• 13th Age PCs are surprisingly simple(ish). For the game I just used some pre-made 4th level characters (and recommend you do too) and they all fit onto a single page without needing a magnifying glass to read the type. Even if players make their own PCs, they really only need their class write up at hand to play and won't need to flip between multiple sections of the core book the way any of the spellcasting classes in 5e D&D do (and remember that 5 of the 12 classes of 5e have spellcasting and gain or can gain spells, though that Totem Barbarian who gets two spells as rituals won't need the book as much as the wizard, but still...)
• Icon Relationships, Backgrounds and One Unique Things encourage player investment, even for one shot characters.
• A few memorable one unique things from when I ran this...
• Renowned as a 'fuck-up'.
• Attracts random cats when she sings.
• Half of his face looks like a corpse.

So, without further ado, here is Corpse Chewer, a semi-improv, low prep 13th Age One shot. It's semi-improv because I'm providing the skeletal sketch of the plot arc and combat encounters but you can improvise the description of the dungeon and environs itself and some of the flavor bits can be tailored to the icon relationships the players pick.

The Ice King Cometh - Massive Mammoths and Wrothful Winter Wolves - Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters #4

So as of 11/4 I've raised $235 for Extra Life. Thanks to any of my blog readers who've donated, and if you haven't yet, there's still time. Due to crazy promises I made on my Facebook page, I'll be wearing the above-pictured, crazy hot Ice King costume when Christy and I play Fiona and the Ice King during the 6pm-9pm slot. Due to additional crazy promises, I'll be wearing the ridiculous blond wig Christy got for her Fiona costume while I play Alice from 3pm-6pm. Further more, I made a promise to find an Alice appropriate dress to wear if I hit $250 by 4pm CST Friday 11/6/15, so if that motivates you, go donate.


If you're a blog reader and you've donated, there's still time to claim a reward (and or to donate and claim a reward).

Given the character commitments I've already made, here are the rewards still available.

• Force me to play a wacky character off my list of Characters Too Ridiculous to play if I can (the DMs get veto power on PCs, so the intensely wacky characters might require a bit of finagling on my part but I'll try my damnedest or trick one of the other DMs into running a 5 minute mini-session or something) - DEADLINE 6AM CST Friday 11/6/15
• Record a video of myself speaking in character, in an accent determined by donors during play. Those of you who listen to the actual play podcast or who game with me in real life know how mortifyingly bad my accents/voices usually are. DEADLINE 11AM CST Saturday 11/7/15
• Pick out dialogue from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass (the books only, not any movies or other adaptations please.) that I have to utter in character as Alice. DEADLINE 6AM CST Saturday 11/7/15

So comment or email me antagonist.relations(at)gmail(dot)com if you want to claim a reward.

For this installation of Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters, I've chosen the Mammoth and Winter Wolf, not because they're especially terrible monsters, they're actually pretty okay as written, but more because I realized it's been over a month since I've gussied up any monsters and the current heat wave has me dreaming of sub-zero temperatures and Wintry Arctic Adventures...

Menacing Manticores and Stinging Scorpions - Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters #3

I've had Manticores on my mind lately, primarily due to my Planarch Codex pick up game which featured a manticore obsessed wizard tower, a manticore vs. gelatinous cube fight and now an order of wizard experimenters who call themselves the Millenary Order of the Manticore. Head of a man, with three rows of fangs, body of a lion, wings of a dragon (not pictured above), spiked tail that shoots spines like arrows and per legendarily accurate information source, Wikipedia, " It devours its prey whole and leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind." So imagine my (lack) of surprise when the D&D 5e Manticore is completely... uninspiring... How uninspiring is it? So uninspiring that the Giant Scorpion, which is also a CR 3 monster, is more dynamic but also might be overpowered, which is why covering that monster in this post as well.

Standard disclaimers apply and all that nonsense...
I haven't play-tested these at all, so they're entirely theoretical. It's changes I like, so I'll probably make use of them when I use the creatures in 5e and update the posts with any notes or discoveries. 

Wicked Wights and Knavish Kenku - Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters #2 - With Bonus Zombies

Only my second Gussying Up 5e Monsters post and I'm already breaking the rules I set for myself, taking a swipe at Kenku, which aren't in the Basic PDFs, but are in the Princes of the Apocalypse Adventure Supplement PDF (those of you playing the Antagonist Relations drinking game can take a swig for "Zack breaks a self-imposed rule). *Update* Thomas also took a crack at the Kenku after he came across them in the 5e game he's playing.

As with the previous entry, some caveats. I haven't play-tested these so they're entirely theoretical. It's changes I like, so I'll probably make use of them when I use the creatures in 5e and update the posts with any notes or discoveries.

What are you waiting for, it's Wight time?! (those of you playing the Antagonist Relations Drinking Game can take a drink for that groanworthy turn of phrase)

Picture found here

Brutal Bugbears and Baleful Banshees - Gussying Up D&D 5e Monsters #1

As discussed before, Thomas and I have been thinking of how to improve 5e Combat and part of that is tinkering with monsters. So here are my first attempts, a take on the Bugbear and the Banshee, both of which are included in the D&D Basic packet.

A few notes first...

I haven't play-tested these at all, so they're entirely theoretical. It's changes I like, so I'll probably make use of them when I use the creatures in 5e and update the posts with any notes or discoveries.

I'll probably steal liberally from 13th Age and Dungeon World. I also plan on only looking at monsters from the D&D Basic rules so that the originals are freely available for comparison.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant - Pod People

Two, count 'em, two new podcasts.

First, Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 13 - Owlbears and Wendigos. In which the Ginger Giant and I discuss the games we've been running and playing lately, with our better halves providing insights into what it's like to be subjected to our GMing.

Second, the first of our new Actual Play podcast series, wherein I run A Red and Pleasant Land using the Planarch Codex hack of World of Dungeons 1979 (itself a Dungeon World Hack) -  Antagonist Relations Podcast - Episode 14 - The Family That Yanks Together

The Shattered World - Pitch and Icons

Back in June I started a new D&D 5E game, or D&D 5E-ish game... See, 13th Age has thoroughly corruped me, so I shoe-horned in 13th Age Style Backgrounds (using a ridiculously complicated system that I may post later), the Escalation Die and 13th Age Icons and also Numenera style GM Intrusions in place of the default (and uninspired, in my opinion) Inspiration rules.

The setting was a reboot/homage/hack of the last D&D 4E campaign I ran and I pitched it to players as "Final Fantasy Airships meets Isla's Mist Sea meets Zombie Apocalypse meets Battlestar Galactica meets Mad Max with some Glen Cook Black Company/Garrett PI tossed in too" and "so you're stuck on a giant flying airship that the 'good guys' only have partially under control, there are sections of engineering that are infested with undead, sky pirates attack and you have to drive them off". (Isla's Mist Sea is the 4E campaign where the PCs were on a wizard's floating Island).

The final setting pitch ending up being: Pre-Shattering the world was in the midst of a war between powerful wizards over silver mines and hordes. Wizard rulers/generals were taking ever increasing gambles, raising hordes of dead and making war machines to fight while they floated above the earth in flying castles and city sized flying ships. I deliberately had the PCs put into stasis by a "neutral" wizard during the actual apocalyptic Shattering so that they awoke three years after into a strange world and players wouldn't need to worry about detailed setting information and would get to discover things along with me.

A portion of the Airship dungeon explored during the most recent Shattered World game.

With that loose premise, I decided to make my own Icons and since I was also running an Apocalypse World game and drawing on Apocalypse World's flavor/tactics for some of my inspiration, I decided to base the Icons on the AW Scarcity/Lacks that AW provides as motivating factors.

• Hunger
• Thirst
• Ignorance
• Fear
• Decay
• Despair
• Envy
• Ambition
• Greed

But the new realization I had with Icons is how it serves the GM's interest to set up a PC's relationship with an Icon as a choice about game narratives. For example, one of the Icons I created is Father Machine and I set up the PC choices of Positive, Ambiguous and Negative relationships as follows.

• Positive: You want to work to spread the machines as replacements for the old arcane magic, you are a warforged who is visted by Father Machine in your dreams.
• Ambigious: You find the mechanical devices and innovations of Father Machine and his followers useful, but worry about what Father Machine plans. You are a warforged who wants to break free of Father Machine.
• Negative: You blame the machines and warforged for the Shattering just as much or more than you do the Wizards.

So as the players choose Icon relationships they were also telling me something about how their PC's would react to the world. So far this has worked well, as I can remind myself of the Icon relationships and weave in scenese, places, items and NPCs to bounce of them.

You can see all the Icons here, or rather all but one as I still need to write up my Icon version of Blunanda the Kelp Queen, who was stolen shamelessly from Thomas.

Expect more about the Shattered Worlds as I continue to run.

Shattered World Icons

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 13

Because I've been a terrible blogger, here's another Antagonist Relations Podcast. We bring on our good friend Bob who's recently been making the leap from player to Game Master.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 13 - Sternly Worded Letters

PS. you can leave your complaints here.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 12

The Ginger Giant and I ascend into the creepy and echoing vastness that is his upstairs living room (apologies for the sound quality) and discuss the two 13th Age Games I'm running, the two games I'm playing and the four 5th Edition D&D games he's running.

Antagonist Relations Podcast 12: Upstairs Fuckery

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 11

I returned again to the Lair of the Ginger Giant a few weeks ago and we discussed RPGs as is our wont.

We discussed dealing with drunken players, 13th Age, Numenera, Monster Hearts, World Wide Wrestling, 5th Edition D&D and more.

Antagonist Relations Podcast - Episode 11 - Good Times, Bad Times (March 4, 2015)