Content Warning

ttrpg fortunes

fortune cookie with fortune slip that reads "The program 'fortune' us currently not installed. You can install it by typing" sudo apt-get install fortune-mod"

fortuneis one of those classic unix programs that are available on basically all unixoid systems. The only thing it does is “display a pseudorandom message from a database of quotations”, or as the man-page of fortune for debian says: “fortune – print a random, hopefully interesting, adage”.

To be fair, the fortune part of the name comes from fortune cookies. So whatever is printed is not meant to be taken too seriously.

You wouldn’t think this is a terribly interesting or even useful program, but people have found uses for it over the last few decades. It might just be used to provide a human element to an otherwise sterile work environment, but I also found it used at least once to provide a noticeable update to an otherwise static website (by printing adages about project management. So the updates were functionally useless, but the program did fulfill an important task).

What the program does is this: it takes a file of adages, or sayings, or other small text snippets, and when called prints one of them. You can chose which file you want to take those from, you can choose the length you want your printed text to be, and a few other smaller options. It will determine one and output it. It’s one of those programs that breathes the unix philosophy that a program should do just one thing, but do it well.

You might encounter it every time when you log on to a shell, where the admin has configured fortune to print a quote. Or some people have it in their signature for forums or emails. (sometimes connected with something like cowsay which prints a bit of crude ascii art cow (or whatever) saying whatever fortune spit out.

 ________________________________________/ I could never be a druid, I just don’t \\ trust the trees. They’re too shady. / ---------------------------------------- \ ^__^ \ (oo)\_______ (__)\ )\/\ ||----w | || ||

There are a lot of different fortune files available, from the stock ones that are shipped with distributions, to other projects where you might, e.g. find Discworld quotes, or, I dunno, your favorite Chuck Norris facts.

Anyway, I was futzing around with our IRC network lately and while playing around with a bot that could use fortune, I realized that there was no actual file available for stuff about roleplaying (or wargaming, or boardgaming, or any gaming for that matter).

So I decided to make one.

Right now it’s only a small page on campaignwiki.org: https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/TTRPGFortuneFile/HomePage but the idea is to soon enough move that to github and do it on there.

If you want to add to the file: the page above is a wiki so you can just add what you want to add. (some people already did). I am looking for pithy sayings, jokes, DM advice, and everything else that might be interesting. Have a great quote about roleplaying games? Maybe even a more or less short story? Just add it on there.

Rate this:

#dnd #fortune #Linux #osr #rpg #ttrpg #unix #Wargames

Content Warning

Recent discussions about hypothetical D&D economies led me to look into Roman currency. Here is a great wikipedia image of the common currency in the 27 BC - 100 AD Roman era.

So instead of copper, silver, electrum gold (the D&D standard), the early Roman Empire used various iterations of Bronze, Orichalcum, Silver, Billon, and Gold.

And today I learned Billon is the name for an alloy of silver and gold, or silver and copper, or silver and gold and copper, or basically any alloy of silver and some base metal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency#Imperial_period:_27_BC_%E2%80%93_AD_476

#dnd #rpg #osr #history #gametheory #worldbuilding

Sometimes I think that thanks to the inherent debt spiral #Traveller is better at diegetic explanation for adventuring than any of #DnD systems. I mean it basically forces you to adventure by how spaceships and debts are set and how it sets up all the things like jumps, worlds, where to buy stuff, how to make money, patrons and pirates.

I think if you worked on feudalism as Coins and Scrolls does it you'd have diegetic adventuring more like Traveller than DnD.

https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/06/osr-death-taxes-and-death-taxes.html

Content Warning

I think Traveller is more #OSR (in adherence to OSR culture) than ODnD, B/X, ADnD and other pre-3.5 versions are. It is truer adventure gaming than them because it is more organic in core premise.

I think Blades in the Dark also does it - warring gangs in closed space, upkeep of a gang, medical expenses, vices.

I wish there was a formula for this but in pre-modern setting of fantasy or sword and sorcery, the whole game with built in tax and social opression that makes you adventure

Content Warning

Messed around with making a zodiac constellation chart for my homebrew campaign. It probably will not come up in play but I sometimes think just making things lends a certain versimilitude to the game. Plus, it might lead to other ideas.

I based the zodiac after the real zodiac but sometimes changed the names, sometimes changed the constellation to be one very near, or sometimes made it up.

Now that I am done, I can not rule out that maybe The Elder Scrolls influenced my choices in some subconscious sort of way.

#dnd #osr #rpg #worldbuilding