Costume and Accessories - Inventory Management Musings for The Sanic Hack

hey hey i wanna be a rock star

This post is part of a series of Blogs where I work on my home-ruleset, 'The Sanic Hack.' You may or may not gain better comprehension from reading the other posts in this series.

  

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Howdy, Farmhands!

    Worn Gear in Into the Odd/Cairn is pretty straightforward. There are 3 main kinds of armor, all bulky, with increasing levels of protection and a higher pricepoint. There is then the option to include Shields, Helmets, and/or Gambeson to go under the actual armor, each adding "+1" in whatever configuration you choose. Armor as a Stat caps out at 3, so you can't fill your inventory with Helmets and become invincible.  For a game of medieval fantasy, this is the bare minimum you need, really. But, I'm writing a game of Blorbos going on Adventures; and a big element of going and seeing a new place involves shopping while you're there. How do I give the player the sensation of customizing their look with Worn items while still maintaining the inventory management element of the chassis I'm using? Also, I really don't want to write out a super long list of every Shoe style available to Hedgehog.

    
    Let's start with the replacement for Cairn armor (not Armor, keep up) with "Costumes" A Costume is assumed to be a full set of clothes, but its pieces cannot be separated mechanically. These will come in 3 tiers of Price and Armor; similar to the Brigadine, Chainmail, and Plate tiers found in Cairn. +1 and +2 Costumes should be purchaseable, with the +2 Costume being harder to find. Then, we'll call items that add additional points of armor an "Accessory." These can be any individual piece of clothing, but only 1 piece of a larger outfit. Here you'd have your Shoes, your Scarves, your Hats, and your Bracelets. If a party of technicolor furries were to go to the Jungle Island and shop, they'd find suitably Tropical looking doodads to buy. Shark-tooth necklaces, masks carved from stone, maybe an umbrella made from Gorilla hide. These are all "Accessories", though, and are mechanically identical : +1 Armor.

    In a game based on Into the Odd/Cairn, the real reason to pass up 1 mechanically identical item over another comes down to the game's approach on problem solving- the Gorilla Hide umbrella might make walking through a trap involving a spray of liquid NOT risky, for example. In order to reach your MAX Armor, 3, with only Accessories, however, you'd need to use three whole inventory slots on your person for them. That's a large chunk of your base 10 slots, so what are you to do?

    My solution is to make every "Costume" of the highest tier, +3 AMR, craftable. In this theoretical, designing said "Costume" and at least 1 "Accessory" for each component of the design would be part of writing an Adventure. Collecting and combining the 3 Accessories compresses them into a single bulky card. Mechanically, once you have one Outfit with Armor 3, you don't need to look for any more. But with every major location having a new Outfit to find, and thematic Accessories to customize your character with, there's a lot of motivation to go out and explore, if only to dress up your blorbo. For DMs, this means they can either brainstorm ideas while doing prep for the adventure or BS a description in the moment. If it's an Accessory, it's +1. If it's an Costume, it's 1 to 3 with it's price being 20, or 40 of the game's currency.  

 

    How does this Math? To get +3 with the cheapest purchase, you'd need to spend 4 slots, 2 for the +1 Costume and 2 +1 Accessories, each their own slot. Bumping up the price (though you'll need to actively search for it), you can only use 3 slots for the +2 Costume and 1 +1 Accessory. Successfully finding and them combining the three specific +1 Accessories compresses them down into a single +3 Costume, making it a worthwhile endeavor even if it takes a while. 

 

    At least that's how it works in my head. Some of you are probably reading this and shaking your heads slowly. Lucky for me this isn't your blog and I can post whatever I want. Surely, I will never need to make a future post detailing how this went horribly horribly wrong! 

Further Thoughts - 

 

The original bsky thread that led to this post was written off the back of "Kludgebuckets", which supposed a grid based system for building and maintaining vehicles, and the next post in this series will wrap that chunk of thought up in a neat little bow. This feels a bit off; like I'm only making this post to prime you for the next... But, no, that's exactly what I'm doing. Hopefully this wasn't a complete waste of your time, and the next post in this series comes out soon. (I begin to don the hot dog costume and prepare to find whoever did this)

 

Until Next Time,

    Farmer Gadda

 

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 Tanuki543 for your continued support! 

The Knick-Knacker Barrel - An Adventure Site for your Fantasy Game of Choice

I didn't make this image, I just googled something close enough.
I wish I had money for an artist. - Source: Planet Minecraft

Read this post on my static website here!

Howdy, Farmhands!

    Back in 2023, I was given the chance to write for a project that was a bit of an experiment- A kickstarter for a TTRPG book that would be written by individuals who supported it at a specific tier, with a form of profit sharing for sales made after the complete book was out in the world. The premise of this pitch intrigued me enough to want to get in on the ground floor, though I eventually chose to bow out. There was nothing personal in my decision, and the book did release and fulfill it's KS obligations, though I've no information on how the monetization worked out for the contributors.

    Before I chose to leave, I had prepared a draft of my contribution, with open spaces for links to other entries so as to make the individual locations feel more interconnected. Having done said work, I knew I wanted to eventually release it myself, but didn't feel right doing so until the original project was out in the world. This is said work. I've made some minor edits, but the original draft is mostly untouched and in the format requested of the previous project's organizers. I hope you find some use out of this unfinished adventure site!

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda

Sowing Seeds: A Minigame for Planting

That's right. Sprout you little shits.

 
Read this post on my static website here!

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! 

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!

Does Setting Matter?

    

oh ok, post over then.

Howdy, Farmhands!

    For those of you who are fortunate enough to have avoided my ramblings on social media, may God continue to bless you and yours with sweet ignorance. Today's blogpost will have to temporarily expose you to TTRPG Discourse of the Bluesky variety, I'm afraid. I know, I know, you presumably choose to read blogs to avoid using such distasteful websites. There's still time to click off and go read something else. This preamble is mostly dragging out time for you to make your escape.

    Not terribly long ago, an individual made a series of Skeets (yes, we call them Skeets) about their experience bouncing off of some OSR products. Assuming you're not reading this in some far off future where said service has completely gone dark (which could be as soon as June, the way online services work in the year of our Lord, 2025) here's a link to said thread. This isn't a sub-post in the slightest, by the way, ACoupleOfDrakes is completely within their right to 1. Dislike a product, trend, or genre and 2. Skeet About It As They Will. The sentiment simply became a hot topic for all of five minutes among people term searching the phrase "OSR," and as such, many of us felt the need to post our Opinions. Naturally, I chimed in so I could feel like a special little boy for an hour. 

    To DRASTICALLY paraphrase ACoupleOfDrakes' words to quickly establish What my opinions are in reaction to, here's the key statements that caught my attention.

    One of the things that keeps me from becoming an OSR guy is how few of the worlds presented seem like a place I'd like to spend time exploring. There are notable exceptions....(source)

...I think the thing that makes me most interested in an OSR setting is its ratio of wonder to believability....(source)

...There are a lot of gonzo for the sake of gonzo settings that lose me because I can't imagine what you're supposed to /do/ there.... (source)

...Trying to put into words what divides the things that I like versus the things that I don't in the OSR space and only coming up with a Calvin and Hobbes meme about "OSR that's Maps" and "OSR that's Questions." (source)

1. No.

    I don't personally believe OSR as a genre needs a ton of cohesive settings, nor that picking out a pre-made setting guide is a necessary step in having an OSR-y experience. There's just something about a self-aware DIY elfgame that's charming all on it's own, y'know? You get your combat rules and your equipment lists and that's kind of all the System needs to do. Half the point of an Old School Game is coming up with your own bespoke fantasy land cobbled together from whatever interests you and your table.  You probably have an idea of Where you want to adventure anyway, and you'll purposefully pick modules and beasties that fit that vague impression you have in your mind. The turn to emergent settings being made during play that you see frequently these days (Questions instead of Maps) makes a lot of sense. 

    Sure, theres people wanting their Greyhawks and their Spelljammers and whatnot, but a large swathe of OSR systems are either compatible with those older works out the gate or stupid easy to convert.  Any setting with a travel system worth a damn is basically already an unofficial osr setting, as far as I'm concerned. Get Neverland by Andrew Kolb. I don't care that it's statted for 5e. You can do basic math conversions probably. Make everything a Bear.

2. But Actually, Yes.

    And I'm going to immediately go back on what I Just Said. Remember those charming, self-aware DIY elfgames? A large chunk of "The Setting" is found in what exactly the author puts in the basic rules and equipment lists. If a system features Swords and Spears, the implication inherent in the text is that your game will take place in a world where such weapons are reasonable to have around. Imagine one includes Laser Pistols and Bags of Doritos in the list of gear to buy at character creation - Suddenly, your gaming experience is distinct from most others. This comparison is a little exaggerated for effect, but you get what I mean, right? A system with simple access to Magic Spells implies a different world to one with none at all. The choice to include or exclude options is as much a world-building exercise as it is an editorial one. In this manner, there isn't a single OSR game out there that is truly without it's own Setting, even if the Author never names it. You can blur your eyes and come up with some Proper Nouns for Places that would have that shit in it. You're a smart cookie.

3. -Well, Now That I Think Of It, Only Maybe?

    What I think individuals are ACTUALLY looking for when they go shopping for the perfect setting is a sense of verisimilitude, a through-line of tone from which their idealized fantasy can be extrapolated. In a previous post, I discussed a series of Pamphlets by Seba G.M., which use a Tri-fold to succinctly offer guidelines and mechanics for running Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft using the Knave system. These are purposefully mere snippets of the full setting guides one can find for these worlds, but in their brevity, I still find the flavor I'm looking for to run a game within them. The mechanics they add or change are adjusted so as to create a feeling at the table, instead of just giving you a list of locations and names to memorize. I could look at one of the many grimdark fantasy settings released over the decades, only to find what I desire is closer to the free zine-size booklet version of Mork Borg. I could decide the exact reverse too! I don't need to invest in becoming a Greyhawk Scholar, but if my personal ideal of a Grimdark setting requires that deep an understanding, it might be to my taste.

    All of this is to say, I suppose, that one of my favorite elements of The OSR is the freedom to pick and choose what is necessary for Your Game. Not All games, not The game, just Your game.  

4. So, No. lol 

Until Next Time,

    - Farmer Gadda 

looking for a new OSR setting
ask exalted funeral if the setting is maps or questions
they laugh and say it's a good setting
buy the setting
it's maps

- Ty, Mindstorm Press (source)

Things on my Grocery List

 

Don't you Wanna go Apeshit?

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    Have you ever heard of "Free Will?"

Kludgebuckets - Customizable Vehicles for the Sanic Hack

You wish your ride was this cool - (Source)

 

PREV/NEXT

kludge: something, especially computer hardware or software, that has been put together from whatever is available, especially when it does not work very well 

rustbucket: An old, neglected vehicle, usually a car, a freighter, or a truck. 

Ergo; They're called Kludgebuckets.

    "Kludgebucket" is the colloquial term for any non-standard watercraft cobbled together by an enterprising Islander. While capable of functioning as transportation, they act as more of a home-base for their crew, and are iterated upon over multiple voyages. It isn't surprising to see a Kludgebucket with multiple pieces of completely unrelated vehicles; land, air, or sea, stapled in varying configurations, with radio transmitters, gatling guns, and even multiple vending machines installed.

    Kludgebuckets are managed via a Grid System, similar to Mausritter Item Card Inventory Management. (For the purposes of this blog post, we are going to assume a specific size for these grids, but know that I'm writing this with no balance testing whatsoever. Let's say they're 4 by 4 to start and we'll revisit the specifics later.) To facilitate this, I will be introducing a new card type- Normally, cards come in 1 Slot or 2 Slot sizes, with the latter being for Bulky objects. For Kludgebucket Core Parts, new 2 by 2 cards are to be added, taking up the same space as 4 single slot cards. These cards are intended for overly large items; Chassis, Wings, A tree house uprooted WITH the tree, etc. While a character COULD carry one of these in their regular inventory,  they're intended to be Kludged onto their bucket. However, if a player wants to spend 4 whole inventory slots to equip the cab of a bus as a battering ram, I'm not going to stop them.

     Core Parts are labeled with Stars, ranging from 1 to 3. These Stars are an approximation of size and buoyancy, but are mostly there to estimate the number of crew it can safely keep afloat. 1 Star can hold 2 to 3 people before capsizing, doubling to 6-ish at 2 Stars and 12-or-so at 3 Stars. A Ski-doo, for example, would be a 1 Star Core Part, while a School Bus would be 3 Stars. Anything larger would arguably no longer be a Kludgebucket, but rather a regular sailing ship with some weird stuff tacked on. For every Star added by a Core Part, there must be Propulsion and Power of an equivalent Star. That Ski-doo's Whirly-gig Copter Blades (Propulsion, 1 Star) could be powered by a single set of Foot Paddles (Power,1 Star) for example, but you'd need at 3 times as many of both to move that 3 Star School Bus. Conversely, multiple parts of lower Star value could be used to power a single Propulsion part, as long as their values align. 

    Auxiliary parts, like radio transceivers, sonar or fuzzy dice, are regular sized item cards with the 1 x 2 Bulky cards used for valuable machinery. These are installed around the core parts, where the Kludgebucket's grid will allow. Any free space can hold any item, instead of having a dedicated hold.

    Core and Auxillary Parts are meant to be found as rewards for Quests or by scavenging wrecked Buckets found as you travel. Similar to Fits, a DM should only need to invent a handful of Thematic options based on the Island they've prepared, the players will pursue what interests them.

Star Rank	Core	Propulsion	Power
☆	Canoe	Paddle Wheel (Small)	Foot Paddles
☆	Jet Ski	Whirly-gig	Oars
☆	Motorcycle	Cloth Sail and a Fan	Large Hamster Wheel
☆☆	Smart Car	Airplane Wings	Steam Engine
☆☆	Tugboat	Single Turbin	Magnets
☆☆	Tree House (w/Tree)	Sea Creature (Tamed?)	Carrot on a String (For Sea Creature)
☆☆☆	Submarine	Rocket Jets	Gasoline Engine
☆☆☆	School Bus	Paddle Wheels (Large)	Coal Furnace
☆☆☆	Blimp Cab	Hot Air Baloon	Cola and Mentos

How Tricked out is this Ride?

Oh, boys~!

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 Nebula Bash for your continued support!

Howdy, Farmhands!

    Among the many ways I "failed" at traditional masculinity as a child, (as much as any one can do so, mind. Gender roles are bullshit!) I never became A Car Guy. While many a youth saw the wheels and hubcaps and fenders and was overcome with a desire to get behind the wheel, I couldn't really care less. I consider motor vehicles to be not unlike horses. Mysterious creatures I am to respect from afar, but never understand. The primary difference is that a car isn't born with hatred in it's heart.

Of Dice and Men - Opinions about Rolling in OSR Games

 

Well? They ain't gonna roll themselves. - (Source, no affiliation)

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 Backyard Critter for your continued support!

Howdy, Farmhands. 

    I am a newcomer to NSR/POSR game design. I spent the majority of the early 2020's being staunchly and loudly against anything even slightly resembling an elfgame! For all intents and purposes, I "don't go here." Being new to a community slash movement slash corpse that's been fractured into multiple sub-branches of design for about as long as it's exiswted means that I have a lot to catch up on. A barrier I keep bumping into is how much of the OSR's Wisdom is shared in maxims.

What That Dog Doin'?

 

Pictured: The Goodest Girl

Howdy, Farmhands.

    I've got a new dog. A foster dog, to be precise. My Beautiful Wife (and I by extension) volunteers with a local rescue, specializing in Dachshunds. We've helped a couple of puppers find new homes, and acted as a weekend get-away for new arrivals who weren't sure where they were going just yet. This current baby looks like she'll be staying with us for a hot minute, though, as not only were we the first point of contact for the previous owner, we were the Fosters of choice while she went through some surgeries to remove calcium deposits that had formed in her bladder before she joined us on the farm. 

    Her name is Wendy, and she is a precious angel. People of earth, send your love to Wendy.

    Having a Dog makes you think things you might not otherwise. For example, frequently now, I will find myself asking "What That Dog Doin'?" This requires I visually confirm the current activity of the dog and as a bonus, look at said dog. And I've already established that Wendy is a Very Good Dog, so that's hardly an inconvenience. Not all Dogs have to be dogs, though. It would probably be funnier to attribute Dog-status to things that are not Dogs. Like Bears. Deer, maybe. Particularly scraggly Opossums.  Legally Distinct Ankhegs, whatever those are. Below is a d20 table of vague Dog-like behaviors that a "Dog" may be "Doin'" at any given point in time.

    Now if you excuse me, Wendy has flopped over for a belly rub, and I cannot keep her waiting for fear that my mortal soul will be judged accordingly.

Until Next Time,

    Farmer Gadda

A Radical Stash of 1d20 Mondo Cool Items for OSR - Party like it's 199X

You will never be Him. - Reddit

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 Aleph for your continued support!

Twist Table - FARMER THEMED!

 

corn.
- by Okh7art via Pixabay

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 Blastflight for your continued support!

 Howdy, Farmhands!

    Tik-tok is dead, and I do not mourn it's passing. The shambling corpse that's come back online since is naught but a new limb of fascism as it spreads and strangles all in it's path. I wouldn't trust it with a houseplant. However, that isn't to say I still don't regret what it brought me, specifically, many funny edited moments of Actual Play Twitch Streams I'd never watch otherwise. My personal favorite would be Legends of Avantris, which makes use of it's streaming medium fairly well by incorporating Bit Donations as a trigger for a table of HILARIOUS scenarios and prompts for the players at the table to then seamlessly incorporate into the adventure at hand.

    It's mostly an excuse to make clippable moments for the Tiktok/Youtube Shorts crowd and I can't say it's not an effective marketing tool.

    Below are d100 prompts for hilariously FARM themed shenanigans, be they sudden foodstuffs, weapons, or NPCs to drop into your playspace. Tell your players not to think about it too hard.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda

d50 Fantasy Crop Table

 

Also known as "thank god these bitches are horny for fresh produce"
Don't actually watch this, please.

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 WonderWalleye for your continued support!

Howdy, Farmhands!

    I'm a big fan of the Isekai genre, warts and all. For both the Protagonist, and the Audience, it's a chance to bumble upon facets of a world that's wild and new, while said facet is already comfortably set in it's place in the world. A good Isekai considers the ramifications of it's fantastic differences between itself and what we consider "normal", and an even BETTER Isekai takes those ramifications and makes them interesting problems for the hero to solve. There's not a lot of Good Isekai, to be clear.

    This comparison, the fantastical and the mundane, is something that can be deployed on your ttrpg players too! If you give them an Apple, they'll toss it in their pack as a ration. Give them an Apple that Tastes like a Hamburger, suddenly it's a memorable quirk of the campaign. It's a puzzle without actually being a puzzle - What could be done with this thing that's so familiar and yet so different? Enterprising parties will get creative, which might derail the game for a Fruit-based WcDonalds chain OR just convince them to finally engage with the cooking rules you've been pushing.

    Additional Reading -

• GrinningRat's "Dungeon Food"
• Prismatic Wasteland's "Cooking Minigame" 
• Throne of Salt's "Unified Food Theory"  
  

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda