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House Rule: Solving for Hit Point Inflation

A character's Constitution score is the lowest a character's maximum hit points can be. Changes & Examples A character's Constitution modifier is no longer applied to the hit points a character gains each level. The character's Constitution score, instead, sets the minimum threshold for the character's maximum hit points. Example: A 2nd level fighter in B/X, for example, with a 15 Constitution would not have a maximum of 2d8+2 hit points but, instead, would have rolled only 2d8 for her maximum hit points. No bonuses or modifiers applied. If the rolled hit points were lower than the fighter's Constitution score, she would take the 15 Constitution as her max hit point total instead of what she rolled with her hit dice. What is this? This house rule is a lot simpler than it seems from the description above. I tried to make it easy to understand but, even reading it, it seems a lot weirder on the page than it is in practice. In pretty much all
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Back on the Rack

It's been a long time. But I'm still here. Still working on stuff. Over the last few months, here's what I've been up to. I took a brief hiatus around the end of last year and the start of this year. The holidays are always busy. And work was busy as well. Work's really continued to be busy. I consider that a good thing but it does hamper my ability to devote time to writing. During this hiatus, I took the time to explore what the tabletop RPG community had been up to. I read a number of books, played in some games, ran some games, funded some Kickstarters -- all that stuff I enjoy doing when I'm not the "Transylvania Guy". This is generally a time when I collect ideas. It was helpful when I came back from hiatus to look at Transylvanian Adventures  again with fresh eyes. I've been in contact with a potential co-author for TA . He's very interested and a legit writer to boot. Because he's legit, his schedule is just as crazy as mine

Happy Halloween

Don't thank me. Thank Deadstop. Here to add some treat to your holiday are some of Dr. Frankenstein's prized creations with a few tricks up their sleeve. This is the first entry in the monsters section of The Hanging Judge's Guide to Transylvania . Enjoy. And don't forget to leave the lights on when you go to sleep. Transylvanian Adventures' Abominations

Been a Long Lonely, Lonely, Lonely, Lonely Time

Ugh. I suppose I could sum up the last few months with that classic scene from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining . The one where Shelley Duvall finds Jack Nicholson's manuscript... I haven't lost my mind or anything. But time devoted to anything outside of paying the bills has been hard to come by. The Good +Doug Kovacs . Just Doug Kovacs. He was the sole representation of Transylvanian Adventures at GenCon and continues to be an amazing supporter even through this relatively dark period in my productivity. Thank you, Doug. +Joseph Goodman gave me a very generous opportunity to put an ad in the GenCon program. Much thanks to him. I appreciate that he hasn't given up on me. I've finished re-writing the Monsters section. I still have about 18 or so new monsters to add in. But progress has been made. 5e. I've had the opportunity to play and peruse the latest edition of The World's Most Popular Fantasy Roleplaying Game. It's good and is the fi

Only Mostly Dead

Well, that went by quickly. It's been a couple of very challenging months here. I've been able to dive into TA sporadically. But it's not uncommon at this point for my work hours to be 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. or later. So time has been at a premium the last few months. Here's a brief update to remind everybody that I am still, in fact, working on this. NTRPG I did not make it. I was on a plane with my 7-year-old and 5-year-old to fly them to the grandparents. I was optimistic that this would free up some time for the book but it didn't work out that way. As far as the book, here's where it stands. The Good I'm about a third of the way through re-writing the monsters. The new format works fairly well for me and exists in some strange place in between DCC RPG , 13th Age, and Dungeon World . As part of the Monsters section, I'm working on the Advanced Rule Options as well. This where the infamous "cleavage rule" joins us. The prima

Alive and Kicking

I finished my last blogpost by saying "Here's hoping time is on my side over the next few month". Insert maniacal laughter here. Work and staging my house to sell (and then moving across town) are the big blockers for me right now. I haven't been completely dead to the world, however. Here's a few things that've been going on in the "Coming Soon" column of Transylvanian Adventures.   NTRPG I will be there. Hoping to be there all of Friday and Saturday. I've signed up for a couple of games but was unable to get a slot to run games. I'll be there, though. So if anyone wants to play TA, just grab me. Next year, I'm hoping to have an official spot in which I can demo TA. The NTRPG guys have explained the ins and outs of getting a table there, so I'm fairly sure I can nail that down.   The S&S Game Yup, it happened. Here's some notes. The Good The DCC Wizard hack that makes the Wizard a playable TA class works very

Testing... Testing... Is This Thing On?

It's been a while. Usually, that's a good thing when it comes to progress with Transylvanian Adventures . At this point, I can't say it's a good or great thing. It just kind of is. But I felt we were way past due a status update. Here's what I've been up to lately. I finished a Sword & Sorcery Hack for  Transylvanian Adventures earlier in the year. It's slated to appear in D.A.M.N. #2. This is a full chapter from the upcoming (third) book,  The Transylvanian Grimoire . But it isn't just trading in your tophats for loincloths. It includes a conversion that makes the DCC RPG Wizard a fully playable class in  Transylvanian Adventures. It also covers a metric cluckton of ways to twist and mold the Halfbreed, Exotic, and Reaver classes to create demi-humans in a S&S-themed game of  Transylvanian Adventures  or to spice up your 19th century game with something really, really weird. As an add-on, there's rules to use the S&S hack for a Laser