Sowing Seeds: A Minigame for Planting

That's right. Sprout you little shits.

 
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Howdy, Farmhands!

    A bit of Gadda History before we begin: 

     As previously mentioned on this blog, 2020 was the year I finally bit the bullet and got into Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. I had been listening to the Adventure Zone Podcast since 2018, and with all of my social events canceled due to The Pandemic, I wanted a hobby I could enjoy with my roommates and online friends. This honeymoon period lasted maybe 4 months until I actually ran Lost Mines of Phandelver, and I immediately turned into a contrarian sicko with a hate for WOTC. Thus began the era of Poasting.

    I was a piece of shit on Twitter. I had yet to learn the difference between being rewarded for my intelligent opinions and being rewarded for simply being witty enough to be picked up by the rage machine. But during this time, I spent a good portion of my clout seeking sending out game design thoughts, as if to somehow validate my existence as an angry voice on the internet. Some of those ideas are actually... not bad? Now that I'm looking at them with a significantly clearer head I can see some winners in there. One of my earliest fascinations was with the many things one could do with the humble d6. To that end, I put forward a series of Mini-game like procedures for condensing larger activities into something you do in--between sessions or perhaps as sort of a Mario Party-like grab bag of events. Finally, this bring us to the point of today's blog; I don't have anything better to post, so sure, I'll regurgitate one of those.    

SOWING SEEDS

A Minigame for Planting 

    The original Tweet Thread went as follows: 

"Planting d6 minigame where you attempt to cultivate seedlings??? Roll a d6, that's your seed. 1 being a dud and 6 being great! You can choose to roll a second d6 to nurse it to better health, but rolling under the seedlings number OR surpassing a total of 8 means you ruined it? So like, its super easy to upgrade a 1, but more risky the higher the base value it This would tie in to some kind of produce grading system where a top tier plant eventually yields good harvest. I'd probably have 1 die count as a field of ground crops but have each fruit tree get planted and rated individually. Needs some tweaking to really make it work. Maybe some sort of ritual of preparing the ground and watering it to add bonuses to the initial roll"

    This is a fine start, but lacks anything solid enough to build a procedure around. Let's start draft 2 by making this a form of Downtime Action, i.e. the time between adventures. Rolling 1d6 for your initial Seed quality is still great, as is choosing to roll a second d6 to nurture it to better health. I believe rolling Under your Seedling's current number might be too harsh; these Downtimes only come every so often. Let's keep the threshhold of failure going over 8, but introduce a degradation mechanic. For every Adventure between Downtimes, roll 1d6 and subtract that value from the Seed's quality. If a Seed remain less than 1 at the end of a downtime, the crop has failed to thrive. This gives players a chance to fix the problem before everything goes completely tits up, as well as incentivizes the initial planting being as high a value as possible before they carry on with their adventuring.

    What's the point of this, though? In the original tweet thread, I vaguely hand wave at a scoring system where this process would net you better/more crops from a single seed.

1-2: Poor Quality. You've managed to grow Crop equal to the amount of Seed you started with, but it was hardly worth the effort.

3-4: Fair Quality. You've grown double the Crop per seed, and it's good enough that you'd eat it!

5-6: Great Quality. You've tripled your investment, and 1/3rd of it came out looking better than the average Veg. 

7-8: Blue Ribbon. The same as Great Quality, however, 1 piece of Veg came out looking larger, juicier, and tastier than all the others. You might even win an award for it... if you weren't planning on selling it for four times the initial Seed's value.

    Further Thoughts:

    Time is always a factor in farming, and I want to make use of it. I have no interest in making a formal list right now (maybe later), but different crops requiring 1-3 Downtime Actions to be ready for harvest sounds about right. The 3 Action Crops would require a significant amount of reward for successfully growing them, and with 3 Degradations to contend with, would NOT be simple to produce.

    Mid-level play with Hirelings would immediately muddy the waters. This Mini-game as written assumes there's 1 plot of land for 1 player to maintain, but once the party can just Hire A Guy to do things for them, the urge to set them to work in the fields will be strong. My immediate thought is to still require the player to perform the game as written; but hirelings assigned to the fields increases the number of crops that can be planted at once, 1 per hireling, as opposed to making the NPC do all the work offscreen.  

    I've previously written this d50 table for generating fantastical produce, and included links to other great blogs on the topic of fantasy food and cooking! Give it a read!

This post and others like it are made possible by members of my Patreon, where you can see Game WIPs and Previews of future blogposts a week early! Thank you in particular to SethChris93 for your continued support! 

We're Having a Heatwave!

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Read this post on my static website here!

     Howdy, Farmhands.

    I am so sick and fucking tired of living in unprecedented times. This is bullshit. Everyone hoarded the precedented times before I was born and now we're stuck with whatever the fuck all this is. Apparently, the EPA is trying to claim greenhouse gasses actually aren't bad for anyone. Fuck everything.

    It's Hot. Too hot. Too hot to even think. Do you wanna know how many showers I've taken just to shed some heat? Stop thinking about me showering, that's weird. It's so fucking hot. It's 98 degrees Fahrenheit outside, as it has been all week. It is 80 degrees Fahrenheit inside, as it's been all week. "Gadda, surely you just need to get someone out to take a look at your aircon, shouldn't you get a good 20 degrees of relief?" We did. We called a guy who came out and looked at our aircon and said to our faces, "I'm not even going to charge you the 300 bucks I should for the appointment because there's nothing I can do for you. Your house is just too old to retain it's temperature and you've got a tin fucking roof."

    Ok so maybe he didn't say fucking. Maybe I added that to spice up the story a little bit. Give me an Aircon guy who says Fuck. God I'm so hot I can't even pretend to be interesting. It turns out, that in order to be a creative and functioning individual, first your physical needs must be met. Isn't that bullshit? You mean to tell me that My Creative Output relies on first being relatively satisfied with my material existence and only then can I expend the energy for Other Things? I want to write the sun a sternly worded letter, complaining that it's preventing me from writing my blog, but I firmly believe the paper would ignite the moment it was touched by the light of day. 

    There are a couple of solutions to this problem. The first option is I get a gun and pop a cap in that blustering gas-ball's ass. The second is I move because wow guess I'm a climate change refugee. (God I shouldn't have left Maine i'm told it's Not Bad this time of year now.) The third is that I just sit down here and do what I'm doing which is typing out nonsense so I can express my emotions about how Ball Blisteringly HOT IT IS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

    FUCK.

    Until next time,

        Farmer Gadda 

Holes-Posting : I Find An Excuse to Talk About Digimon World 3

 

Bearmon is my partner Digimon, btw The Pikachu to my Ash

You can read this post on my personal site with other Goodies here! 

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    Digimon World 3 for the original Playstation is one of my favorite childhood games. It's premise and mechanics are incredibly simple, being a Licensed turn-based RPG of a franchise where pointing at the screen and saying in child-like wonder, "That's the guy from the anime" was all it needed to be. The "combat" features 3d models flopping around while special effects relating to the action you chose plays over them to disguise that each model only has 1 or 2 animations. It's game balance is entirely out of whack. The OST is alright, but nowhere near as good as half of the playstation's heavier hitters. Don't even get me started on the writing. Badly paced, barely playtested, and shipped out early to fill a Christmas release... and yet it's one of my favorites? Bad taste aside, what is it that endears me to this shitty little game? 

    It's got some baller isometric environment design, mostly.

I'm going to regret hosting this image natively on my webserver 
but it needs to survive the rot of digital society at full res, so sayeth the Farmer

    The world of the in-universe full dive MMORPG called "Digimon Online" is filled to the brim with pre-rendered isometric environments that make use of it's premise incredibly well. The spaces you run around aren't "real" nor do they need to make sense. Grass has circuit board lines imprinted in the fields. Machinery grows from the ground like trees. Buildings are made of computer parts, sized for giants and populated by regular folk. Every step comes with another burst of fantastical world building. Digimon World 3 isn't afraid to front load it's best ideas in it's starting areas, but not all of them are accessible. Throughout these world, the player will stumble upon areas that are visible, but out of reach. Tunnel exits with no obvious entrance gate off the lower half of the starting City. Most bodies of water have one or two dock-like platforms that appear to have no purpose, and strange holes in the ground mark the land.  In the very early game, these areas blend in to the other wild visual clutter scattered around, making them intriguing but dismissable elements of the areas you run through.

    This changes about a 1/3rd into the game's story, where plot reasons requires the player make their way to a landmass across an ocean.  The player is told that access can be acquired if they seek out the Mystical Artifact known as the Digimental of Sincerity, with only the barest hint as to where it's hidden. Which they do, because the next section of the game is gated off until it's done and one fetch quest later-

Now he can call Submarimon and cross the Ocean.

      This is where the game gets clever, because players of JRPGs are used to this sort of thing. You get a boat, which expands your options for overland travel, which leads you to new areas and the game continues. The player quickly finds their nearest Dock-like Platform, uses the Digimental to summon Submarimon and-

-cross the... ocean...

     This is not Fast Travel. This is a shortcut; but one the Player must traverse in order to skip distances of overland travel, with the same encounter and combat mechanic as on dry land, through a maze of underwater paths that crisscross the entire game. Some Docks only connect to 1 other Dock. Some have multiple exit points. Suddenly, every area you've passed through until now, and every area you encounter next, has an additional dimension to travel through, hidden away areas or blocked off passages becoming accessible, if the Player dares dive into the mini-dungeons that connect them. Once you know where the connections are, traveling between them is technically faster that going overland... but are they worth the risk?

    It is possible to get a Game Over in these shortcuts. The system for saving your game involves speaking with an NPC at an Inn, and those don't appear anywhere underwater. The pathways are easy to get lost in, as remembering which exit brings you to a specific spot in the overworld can get confusing fast. It's a new kind of risk, but not an insurmountable one.

    Closer towards the end of the game, maybe a little about the halfway point, the plot expands to reveal the evil organizations plot to use Digimon World Online to commit real world terrorism (as you do). The Player is a known antagonist to their plans, leading the organization to purposefully operate from within areas yet inaccessible to them. To chase them down and halt their schemes, the Player is prompted to seek out the Mystical Artifact known as the Digimental of Knowledge, with only the barest hint as to where it's hidden. Which they do, because the next section of the game is gated off until it's done and one fetch quest later-

I couldn't find an image with the textbox, but I imagine 
it reads "Now I can call Digmon and dig tunnels!"

    This is where the game decides it wants to continue being clever, despite already throwing the Player for a loop with it's previous "Fast Travel" option. The player quickly finds their nearest suspicious Hole in the ground, uses the Digimental to summon Digmon and-

-ok what the fuck, man

     Digimon World 3 is proud to pretend to be a computer game. It's aesthetic and level design lean heavily into the concept of a world within a machine, and nowhere is it more blatant than this, the Network Interstice. This connection of tunnels between sheets of giant circuitry is, textually, not just digging under the ground to pop up somewhere else in the overworld - It takes you beneath the very code of the world and allows you to travel to servers operating in another geographical location. That's right, the entire late stage of the game takes place in a second copy of the main world map, as you leave the space made for Japanese players and head for America. (The specific countries are left unnamed, but c'mon. You end up beaming yourself aboard a space rocket with giant lasers onboard, it's got to be America's shit.) Where the Underwater traversal was a series of connected hallways with a few doors to lose track of, the Circuit Board is a sprawling maze, potentially capable of popping you out into one of two dimensions. The same rules with Combat and the chance of a Game Over apply.  

So what does any of this have to do with TTRPGs?

    I firmly believe that any media, in any medium, can have a lesson to learn for the betterment of running TTRPGs. Ours is a hobby of imagination, after all, and imagination needs fuel from outside itself to properly run. What do I think we can learn from Digimon World 3 and it's holes? Perhaps, something like, "Do not Overcomplicate your worldbuilding. Take something small, established early, and reframe it's use. It will appear as though you are a master at foreshadowing." Maybe, if I'm feeling spicy, it would be, "Do not offer Skips, offer Shortcuts, with unique challenges to offset immediate benefits. Make the choice to avoid a portion of the Game a proper Choice to make."

    Or maybe, just maybe, the lesson here today is, "Gadda likes Digimon World 3 and saw the chance to blog about it a little." 

- Until Next Time,

    Farmer Gadda 

Can't Miss Merchant Stalls

 

You can read this post on my personal site with other Goodies here!

Howdy, Farmhands! 

    There's nothing quite like shopping in a TTRPG. Unburdened by the logistics of transporting goods or price fluctuations as the economy burns down around you, spending a session or downtime hitting the medieval fantasy mall is as much a power fantasy as casting a spell or punching a guy real good. Better bloggers than I have written at length about the mathematics and sociology of partaking in fictional capitalism, so I'm not even going to bother. Instead, I bring unto you a d20 table of details your players will notice when they approach the next merchant with wares to hock. Maybe the staff is unfriendly, and the goods on the shelf less than ideal, but goddamn if they won't remember their time spent here.

Until Next time,

    Farmer Gadda 

What's Neat About This Merchant Stall?
1	Wacky-Wavy Inflatable Tube Man
2	Sign Spinner, paid minimum wage
3	Textboard Feud with the business across the street
4	Fursuit Mascot offering Pictures
5	Gigantic Bronze effigy of a Beaver
6	Partnering with Kid Scout Cookies
7	Bright neon signage, mistaken for the moon
8	A large Bell that is rung every hour on the hour
9	Novelty Windmill
10	A Roadside Billboard
11	A full Brass Band
12	They're firing T-shirt Cannons at Passersby
13	They've hired an Aircraft to fly around with a banner saying "Shop At x"
14	Blinking Neon Lights
15	"Now with Indoor Plumbing!"
16	It's Happy Hour
17	Brand new Car in the Display Window
18	Offering Free Pony Rides
19	Buy 1, Get 2 Golfballs
20	Contract with the Mafia. You better not shop anywhere else.

This post and others like it are made possible by members of my Patreon, where you can see Game WIPs and Previews of future blogposts a week early! Thank you in particular to Bailey Gillier for your continued support!

The Summer Of Slug 2025

 

You will listen to this man's jaunty jingle and you will like it.

You can read this post on my personal site with other Goodies here!

 Howdy, Farmhands!

     The youtube algorithm is a fickle creature. It prioritizes hate clicks and clickbait to populate it's suggestions, choosing the worst of the worst content to promote while other, calmer content gets filtered to the bottom of it's reccomendations list. But sometimes, only sometimes, it chooses to present something magical to you. Three years ago, I was offered a video on a topic I'm actually interested in; the upcoming retirement of a specific color in the palette of LEGO bricks. What I thought I was about to watch was an angry rant detailing the bare minimum details about a corporate decision that would barely effect me and mine. What I found was a measured, talented voice that made me care as much as he did. What I found was R. R. Slugger.

    R. R. Slugger is a man of many talents. While his focus is always on the LEGO bricks he's discussing, it is immediately apparent that he has spent time on other artistic hobbies, as his videos are full of bespoke music tracks, high quality photography, and even extended stop motion animation. His scripts are clear and concise, belying a history with writing (possibly in academic circles?) and anyone who can and will spend time discussing the full legal name and serial number of any given LEGO piece in a set deserves a gold star for doing their research. This is a man who has learned and improved many talents over time, and chooses to use those strengths to improve the quality of his creative output. His videos are at once visually and audibly entertaining, while remaining downright educational for their content. I'm not exaggerating when I say that more hobby content on youtube should take a page from this guy's book. 

    Almost more important than his quality of video production, though, is his genuine joy when speaking about the subject matter he's chosen. Slugger loves LEGO. Slugger loves talking about LEGO. Slugger loves that he loves LEGO. He has no delusions that he's not a silly little man talking about a children's toy on the internet, but he seems to find genuine joy in his enjoyment. That joy is infectious. Listen to this duo of  youtubers, one seeing his channel for the first time, shift from amusement to genuine interest the longer they watch Slugger's video on a singular LEGO Mould from 2002. Neither of them have any skin in the game, but his sincerity and thorough discussion audibly convert them into believers within 10 minutes. Vintage LEGO collectors who keep up with the man can pinpoint moments in time where a video of his discussing a previously less than adored LEGO set leads to an uptick in sales of that set, to the point where his fans joke about collecting other unsung LEGO themes before he gets around to covering them, if only for the sake of their wallet.

    But just as Slugger has combined his background in photography and music into producing the best LEGO videos he can, he's also not afraid to branch out from LEGO. Alongside his main channel, which retains it's focus on bricks, he's also started a pair of sister channels, Slugscape and Sluggin' Around. The first takes his existing video formula and applies it to another of his loves, Heroscape, while the second is a catch all for video blogging about topics that don't apply to either of the previous two channels. For a main channel video, he composed a cover of a niche television show intro that never saw an official instrumental or sheet music release, which he then turned into a 10 minute discussion on music theory for his Sluggin' Around channel. 

    At this point in the blog, I'm sure you're wondering if I'm here simply to gush over this one youtuber who makes LEGO videos. And the answer is yes, but also no. Slugger's work is impressive, and anyone with even a passing fancy for LEGO bricks should give his stuff a shot, but on more broadly, I think Slugger is a shining example of something we're lacking in today's online spaces. This is a man who knows his creative strengths, and has applied them to the act of creation for the sole purpose of sharing something he genuinely loves with the world. Without irony, without exaggeration, and without cynicism, his videos present something he adores, thoroughly explains what he likes about it, and offers his audience a chance to fall in love with it too. His coverage of a product for sale by a corporate entity is never meant to convince you to buy, nor does he choose his topics for their profitability; he simply has an appreciation that he refuses to contain. That, above anything else, is admirable and something we all should aspire to. This blog is simply me putting my money where my mouth is. I love R.R. Slugger's work. I love his music, I love his videos, I love his LEGO builds, and I love his Joy. 

    At the time of posting, the 3rd Annual "Summer of Slug" event has begun; a two-month-long stretch where Slugger takes a break from his dayjob in education to focus solely on video production. To offset costs, he's opened his Patreon, which funds the event and also offers the perk of access to his behind the scenes discord server, which is poppin' all year round. Even if you are uninterested in monetarily supporting him this year, the Summer of Slug is the best time to start watching his videos, as the nichest of content and oddest of topics get covered during this time. Please check his work out, and tell him Farmer Gadda sent you.

     Until Next Time, 

            Farmer Gadda