GLoGtober - Day 1

GLoGtober: A Welcome Introduction 

I’ve been an observer of the online D&D/OSR/Mothership/IntotheOdd/Knave/OSE/GLoG/Ect scene for a long time, but I’ve never really brought myself to engage much until recently. I’ve hovered and occasionally chatted in the GLoG and OSR Discord servers, and played a couple of wonderful games with as DM. My real life play experience is fairly extensive, though limited to close friends and family, so this has been a bit of a branching out for me. But I’m excited to try! 

Big thanks to Sundered World DM for setting up GLoGtober prompts and Badges (gotta say, badges hooked me)! I’ve set the somewhat absurd goal of a post a day, because I need to get out of a perfectionist funk. I won’t admit how long it took for me to write my only extant post, on silly Fox Wizards at that. Since then I’ve been flittering about a word doc for a “labyrinth” post, but I haven’t managed to bring myself to finalize for roughly…a year. GLoGtober is my attempt to break the funk and just get some posts flowing. I’ve rolled up a full month’s worth of posts from Sundered’s generator, which I’ve listed at the bottom of this post, for any curious to see what is (or ought to be) coming. As per the title, today’s post is Collaboration-Someone Elses GLoGhack.  

So, lets begin!

But First A Tribute

For any discussion of GLoGhacks, first praise must go to the GLoGfather himself, Arnold K. of GoblinPunch. His was one of the first gaming blogs I ever encountered, and I credit his work with getting me in to all this in the first place. [A Spell named Catherine and There’s No Such Thing As Foxes loom large in my mind to this day (see my Wizard Foxes and the effects of spell “Where the Mice go), and his original GLoG wizard template with MD is my single favorite gaming design piece. Again, much praise. 

Personally, I have one other blogger to credit for the formation of my tabletop imagination, and that is Against the Wicked City. His "On Romantic Fantasy" totally encapsulates the type of play in which I am most interested in (well, that and gritty dungeon crawling…) and his work is a touchstone of much of what I hope to do. 

For Real, Now We Begin 

So, whose GloG am I talking about? Surprise: Its mine. Well, not exactly. Bear with me. I don’t have a GLoGhack. Not yet. And I’m not going to blatantly disregard the guidelines and spirit of the GLoGtober prompts. Not much anyway. But in a very gloggy fashion, the things I like most about the GLoG are scattered around the GLoGoBLoGosphere to such an extent that I won’t be able to think about everything I want to or communicate what I really love about each without touching on at least several. To that end, I’m decided to look at some favorites and pull out the major threads. But here too, I ran in to a problem… 

What’s Good in a GLoGHack?

What’s the Good? I’m a fan of people who ask that, so demanding that of the GLoG seemed like a good first step. But that would require a definition of what the GLoG even is, and that would be a fools errand. So, I’m going to work off of two of my own intuited axioms. GLoG-ness is great in its setting integration and its system agnosticism. Setting integration is the virtue of rules/classes/ect working as direct tie-ins to the setting of play, which I think enhances play and engrosses players much more that a generic or motley assortment of rules. System agnosticism is the idea that much of the actual design elements of a GLoG can be fairly minimal, thus easy to shift around and add to other settings as one sees fit. This results in two distinctive types of GloG elements that I think are really important. The Setting Integration elements are the unique, flavorful, campaign defining mechanics in a hack. The System Agnostic elements are the generally useful tools that can be used in any setting to streamline/define certain aspects of play. Good GLoGs are inherently a bit modular, I think. 

    

Now, there are some relatively ubiquitous GLoG elements, like spells as mind-power-creatures or divines being referred to as “g_ds.” Honestly, I’m not terribly interested in a lot of these shared features (besides compulsive production of wizards, which I love). I’m even slightly against many of them, but I don’t think these are necessarily the unique signifiers of GLoGdom. But this is again straying into the “What is the GLoG” question. Let’s avoid that. With the axioms of setting integration and system agnosticism in mind, lets finally look at a GLoG-hack. 

The Thoughts I’ve Gots on GLoGs 

Figure 1: Many Rats on Sticks by Skerples 

Rats on Sticks (hereafter RoS) is the little “o”, OG GLoG. I don’t know of anyone who has A: spent longer with the GLoG and their hack or B: documented, playtested, and revised to the extent that Skerples has. There is much to say in terms of the streamlining of many core rules, but I’m not going to say it. Plenty of others have reviewed RoS for such things. 

System Integration - There is a heavily implied, truly medieval setting in RoS. In particular, the Three Estates delineate both thematically and mechanically the type of game that will take place in RoS. Most adventurers will be outlaw members of the 3rd estate: vagabonds, neredowells, outlaws, unfortunates, or, worst of all, simply adventurous folk. This is normal in…most games. But in RoS it means something. Members of the 3rd estate are socially and mechanically estranged from the other estates, the church (first estate) and the ranking nobility (second estate). To be a peasant is to be other to the powers that be in RoS, and that is fertile ground for all sorts of adventure. This all gets even more interesting considering the fact that several of the character classes included in RoS, the Knight for example, are members of a different estate. Fascinating group dynamics abound when one must consider why a priest, a knight, and a wizard (representing all three estates) are tolerating sharing a room, or even a building.

System Agnosticism - Most of the systems references above are quite modular. If you like the ideas of the estates, it would be trivial to pluck them from ROS and integrate them into your own GLoG. Similar examples of useful tools are Skerple’s version of weapon proficiency, inventory slots, and death and dismemberment. These are the less overtly thematic aspects of the ruleset, but by virtue of their practicality they can be used for just about any campaign. These system agnostic bits are somewhat universal in their usability. It just depends on what mechanics are useful at your table.

Figure 2: Witches by Monsieur Le Battlier

Here is where I’m going to start…straying from the prompt. Monsieur at Bottomless Sarcophagus doesn’t have a GLoGhack per say (to my knowledge). In fact, the only systems I’ve seen from him(all quite lovely) are fairly distinct from GLoGdom. But he has lots of fantastic worldbuilding, and several solid GLoG classes, which serve as an example, (I think) of essentially a GLoG in and of itself. The materials I’m referring to are his Witch Template, the Witching Hour, and (in my mind at least) the Sauna Demon. 

System Integration - The Witching hour itself defines a particular look, feel, and effect for a magic system, which when present in a setting will mechanically incentivize interaction with it and with a certain type of play. With the Witching Hour, there is now a canonical hour for ritual. PC’s and NPC’s alike gain a new toolset when they choose to adapt their play around the Hour. “There are entire locations and even swatches of land that only exist in Witch-Time.” How evocative is that? Whole campaigns could occur within the witching hour!! Now, you might say “This is just worldbuilding and setting materials!” or “Is this even a mechanic??” I’d say sort of. The random table at the end provides in setting mechanics for the entry into said witching hour, and the defined mechanical effects while within the Hour (additional MD and such) are sufficient in my opinion to qualify this as a System Integrated aspect. But, while this could very well stand alone as a setting defining system, Monsieur doesn’t leave it as that. His Witch Class Format (more on that in a sec) and Sauna Demon perfectly complement the Hour to imply a campaign of rigorous preparation for rituals of the Witching hour interspersed with much needed sauna relaxation. (and likely dealings with Nikolas…) 

System Agnosticism - The main point here is the fact that Monsieur not only made a fantastic Witch class, he made it a class format, meaning it can easily be plopped into other settings as his orthodox witch, or any number of other interpretations. Not much more to say here, but I think that outside of the original GLoG wizard, this class format is one of the best out there. 

Figures Continue 

Honestly, there are a ton more settings I’d like to feature under these two criterion, but for now I’m going to leave it as a list for potential further extrapolation. After these highlights of the living tradition of robust mechanical settings, I’ll offer one specifically NON-GLoG movement that I think is essentially GLoG-like, and then wrap this up. 

The great GLoGgy Mechanical settings (feel free to challenge the conception of GLoGgy here, I’d be interested to hear!) 

• Fists of Cinder and Stone's Anemos 
•  Blasted Cratered Land’s Wizard Colleges
•  The Nothic’s Eye's Eikonokosmos 
• Oblidisideryptch’s Heimjing Beta 
• And more. Many more. 

The Newly Missing Piece: MOSAIC strict 

I think the GLoG has always been fairly good about System Integration what with the countless classes oozing with character out there. The creative spirit of the GLoG thrives on that sort of stuff, it seems. But when it comes to the somewhat grittier, more abstract mechanical rules, there is more of a variation on quality. Here, I think Trilemma Adventures’s MOSAIC strict RPG design principles are the perfect supplementary practice to the System Agnostic aspect of great GLoGs. 

MOSAIC means Modular, Optional, Short, Attested, Independent, Coreless. Most important here are Modular and Independent. A MOSAIC ruleset doesn’t seek to serve as an entire core system. It concerns itself with one focused area. Say, fishing. But then it ensures that these fishing rules are Independent, meaning that said rules will be entirely self contained. Fishing won't depend on your class, character sheet, ect. They are just self sustaining fishing rules. Any game could have such fishing rules. 

The great strength here is the fact that a wealth of well developed MOSAIC strict rules could be the perfect pairing for the personal creative work of System Integrated Mechanics. For an eldritch viking oceanic hexcrawl, I would want flavorful, setting integrated mechanics for sailing, rune cursing, ect. But for asides like, baking, oration, or even the specifics of an inventory system, MOSAIC strict modular tiles are the perfect solution. They won’t distract from the core vision of the setting, but they provide useful support. What if during play it turns out that baking is a WAY bigger part of the campaign? Then that’s an opportunity to develop the MOSAIC tile into a system integrated mechanic that plays a greater role in play. 

Another board-tile in the GLoG-ship of Theseus! 

Conclusions 

So, in a real GLoGgy fashion, I like bits and pieces of everything. But, upon reflection the best bits tend to fall into the category of either System Integrated mechanics or System Agnostic mechanics. I think that these paired axioms are also fertile ground for taking individual ideas and fleshing them out into fully playable settings. 

GLoGtober Tentative Schedule 

Week 1 

• 3 - Someone elses GLoG Hack – Done!
• 1 Goblin – Goblins as Vampires
• 1 Crystal – On Angel’s Wings – An Orbseeker Clone?
• 4 Heist – Joan Lost the Unicorn
• 2 Cleric - Humanist Blakean Cleric
• 1 Government – Goblin Democracy
• 4 What causes that strange black lightning - Sleipnir 

Week 2

• 2 - Someone's class - Undecided
• 5 Drow - I mistook drow as driders. See what that means.
• 4 Book - 1st half of a mazirian-esque Summoning Book
• 1 Dungeon - The Under Heist
• 2 Cleric- Humanist Blakean Clerics Part II
• 3 Religion – The Nets of Religeon // Arachnotheosis.
• 5 Poem – Excerpts from William Blake 

Week 3 

• 4 Someone Elses Adventure - Undecided
• 5 Drow – More Drider-Drow
• 4 Book – 2nd half of a mazirian-esque Summoning Book
• 6 Freebie non dcungeon/hex/heist/domain adventure - The Highways of the Underdark Emmy Allen Style?
• 1 Thief – Thieves Guilds of the Underdark
• 3 Religion II – The Kings of Nine
• 1 Index Card - Inventory system 

Week 4

• 6 Buddy Post – Undecided (Let me know if you’d like to collaborate!!)
• 6 Unique Monster - Highway Beast // The Bridgeless Troll
• 5 Portal – On Triumphal Arches as the Fall of Kings
• 3 Hexcrawl – Haha, no. Spider curse magics instead. “hex” “crawl”
• 2 Organized Crime syndicate – Allegiances among the Thieves guilds of the Underdark
• 3 Odd bone - It is quite odd. 

Calls to Action

What system agnostic Classes that could be paired into a good setting? 

• Witch Class Template (I want more!)
• The Summoner
• Warlocks
• The Golemist
• The Raven Master
• Weird Merchants

What setting idea seeds to I want to see paired with System Integrated mechanics? 

•  A Goodly Paladin questing game. Maybe Arthurian, hopefully not.
• A World of Toads
• Motorcycle Nomads
• Sagas of the Volga-Rus
• Greco-Roman Wrestling. No more monks.
• Pottery as Major Magics 

Thanks all!