Steve

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-make-traveller-sandbox.html?m=1
 
The example is Traveller, but works well as basic advice for a sandbox style campaign. Additionally, you can tag player’s life path results to the map notes as well to give folks a deeper background, and ties to the location. 

Now I like the almost Sith-like idea of the master and apprentice but how does a low entry and low number of wizards sit comfortably with the extensive supply of magic weapons and items?  Whatever else, Greyhawk has a magical economy with potions, scrolls, wands etc as part of its essence.  or is that not the Greyhawk you experienced?
 
Are we saying that casters are rare but smiths, apothecaries, etc., are reasonably common?  That, given time and the right materials, many folk can imbue magic into an item, and that master-craftsmen are the ones creating the finest stuff?  But it takes a wizard to walk the world and cast magic at will?
 
I can see that working. I can also see the economy of adventurers out hunting for the materials for the finest stuff and possibly just getting by, selling the detritus that goes into the more common magic items.
 

My thoughts are that anyone could be involved with magic but, if you cannot find a mentor, you might, regardless of talent, languish, casting cantrips your whole life.  A mentor opens up windows in your mind that allow you to channel greater magics.
 
I am thinking that clever use of the VPP rules might limit the power available to a wizard.  Your mentor initiates you to the "first level".  In game terms, this allows you to cast magic by buying a VPP.  It is small.  Your spellbook contains a few scripted spells (I am thinking each spell is a knowledge skill) and you have no ability to vary your spells.
 
When you have gained experience, and gold, you might seek out your old master (a contact or relationship in game) or another mentor to take your magic to the next level.  This would require you to spend gold, or lean into a relationship, but the XP spend opens up the VPP a bit and gives you the ability to free cast bigger spells and to maintain more lower power ones.
 
You could gain spells by finding other people's spellbooks or doing research (spending XP on more KS).
 
This means you need to maintain relationships with the right people, or to spend lots of gold etc with those who are more mercenary, if you want to progress.
 
I have it in my mind to use the old names from first edition AD&D for levels up to "name level" to get hierarchies of training.
 
This limits how and when folk might spend experience on certain things but it ties stuff into the setting.  you should be able to progress but you will do so more spectacularly by buying into the settings conceits.
 
I always thought of it as arcane meditations rather than napping, regardless of how it looked to other people.  🙂

In Greyhawk, I don’t think you’d ever find a Harry Potter-like wizard school, even in the city of Greyhawk itself. Magic was instead passed down from wizard to apprentice. That would really tend to keep their numbers down. A school would be like an assembly line making new wizards every year.
 
Based on D&D having an INT minimum to even be a wizard back in early editions (I think it was 9 or better), that seemed to be the main barrier to entry rather than some kind of inner talent. Most characters treated INT as a dump stat unless they were going to be a wizard, so I guess you could say most people were too dim to handle the subtle intricacies of magic.
 
Holding to the wizard-apprentice setup helps explain why there are so few wizards.

In Greyhawk, I don’t think you’d ever find a Harry Potter-like wizard school, even in the city of Greyhawk itself. Magic was instead passed down from wizard to apprentice. That would really tend to keep their numbers down. A school would be like an assembly line making new wizards every year.
 
Based on D&D having an INT minimum to even be a wizard back in early editions (I think it was 9 or better), that seemed to be the main barrier to entry rather than some kind of inner talent. Most characters treated INT as a dump stat unless they were going to be a wizard, so I guess you could say most people were too dim to handle the subtle intricacies of magic.
 
Holding to the wizard-apprentice setup helps explain why there are so few wizards.

Without superpowers, a reach melee weapon, modern firearms, or terrain features to exploit, one person doesn't hold a breach. You can always say that the brave hero makes a PRE attack and forces opponents to freeze or engage. Perhaps getting the result of strongly consider what you say is enough to make your opponents challenge you one-on-one.

I’m no historian, but I think Horatio used a pile of dead bodies as an arrow shield and funnel for the onrushing enemy Etruscan soldiers. They had to go through him rather than around him. It might be an honor thing was going on too.
 
Change Environment works for me. It could also include a DCV reduction as well, making it easier to kill enemies. Change Environment is apparently not subject to the halving effect of Adjustment powers from what I can tell.

Welcome to Mechanon Debate Club. The first rule of Mechanon Debate Club is: you do not talk about Mechanon Debate Club. The second rule of Mechanon Debate Club is: you DO NOT talk about Mechanon Debate Club! Third rule of Mechanon Debate Club: if someone asks why they got a downvote and you don't reply, the debate is over. Fourth rule: only two posters to a debate. Fifth rule: one debate at a time. Sixth rule: debates are civil. No doxing, no profanity, and no ad hominem attacks. Seventh rule: debates go on as long as they have to. And the eight and final rule: if this your first time at Mechanon Debate Club, you have to debate.
 
Posting about Mechanon's latest efforts at world domination via AI-chatbots is not a violation of rules one or two. The unexplained downvote likely means that the debate is over though.

Just asking this question got me a downvote?
 
EDIT: And again? What is this? Could I at least know why I’m being repetitively downvoted?

In my Pirates of Drinax campaign, some of the characters are fighter pilots, so I came up with some ranged martial arts maneuvers they could use.
 
Fighter Pilot Skills
3  Defensive Shot:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +2 DCV, Range +0, Weapon  Strike
5  Dodge/Jink:  1/2 Phase, -- OCV, +4 DCV, Dodge All Attacks, Abort; FMove
4  Trained Shot:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +0 DCV, Range +0, Weapon  Strike
0  Weapon Element:  Vehicle Weapons
 
What might be some other maneuvers a skilled fighter pilot would have, like Maverick from the Top Gun movies?

Kazei Five is probably the closest to a Cyber Hero update we will see. It actually covers most everything in the genre.

In my Pirates of Drinax campaign, some of the characters are fighter pilots, so I came up with some ranged martial arts maneuvers they could use.
 
Fighter Pilot Skills
3  Defensive Shot:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +2 DCV, Range +0, Weapon  Strike
5  Dodge/Jink:  1/2 Phase, -- OCV, +4 DCV, Dodge All Attacks, Abort; FMove
4  Trained Shot:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +0 DCV, Range +0, Weapon  Strike
0  Weapon Element:  Vehicle Weapons
 
What might be some other maneuvers a skilled fighter pilot would have, like Maverick from the Top Gun movies?

There is a fellow at a local farmer's market who runs a Pokemon cards booth.  Not quite RPGs, but another often-denigrated hobby. He has a sign that notes that the game requires players to apply skills such as math and planning, and interact socially with their peers.

Remember when reading comic books would rot your brain? Now, teachers use them to encourage reading skills. My high school English teacher got a lot of disrespect from his peers for stating that he did not care what students read - whether classic literature, comic books or rank pornography, reading contributed to learning.

Early D&D was, or at least could be, the antithesis of playing a role. Why give your character any personality? They are short-lived and interchangeable anyway. Would rational people walk up to some machine that, pressing a random button, has about a 60% chance at impairing you, maybe 20% of killing or permanently disabling you, a 19% chance of providing some minor benefit and a 1% chance of granting massive benefits? Players pulled the switches because I can make another 200 characters later, and one of them will eventually beat the odds.
 
To me, the games became real "role playing" when PCs became expected to have personalities, backstories and survival instincts, evolving from the green pawn, red pawn and blue pawn on a game board.

❤️

I've been given permission by Jason to update one of my favorite 3rd edition supplements Neutral Ground to 6th edition.
 
Will be part of Hall of Champions on DrivethruRPG & of course the Webstore here

My apologies, Duke. Let me transcribe the relevant passages:
 
In order to move players from Gygax's familiar World of Greyhawk to their new vision, TSR planned a trilogy of modules that would familiarize players with events and conditions leading up to the coming war, and then take them through the war itself. Once players completed the war via the three modules, a new boxed set would be published to introduce the new storyline and the new Flanaess. Two World of Greyhawk Swords modules, WGS1 Five Shall Be One by Carl Sargent and WGS2 Howl from the North by Dale Henson, were released in 1991. These described events leading up to the war.
 
The third module was reworked into Greyhawk Wars, a strategy war game that led players through the events, strategies, and alliances of the actual war. A booklet included with the game, Greyhawk Wars Adventurer's Book, described the event of the war. In 582 CY (six years after Gygax's original setting of 576 CY), a regional conflict started by Iuz gradually widened until it was a war that affected almost every nation in the Flanaess. A peace treaty was signed in the city of Greyhawk two years later, which is why the conflict became known as the Greyhawk Wars.
 
In Gygax's setting, the major conflict had been between the Great Kingdom and the lands that were trying to free themselves from the evil overking. In Sargent's world, the Great Kingdom storyline was largely replaced by the major new conflict between the land of Iuz and the regions that surrounded it. Southern lands outside of Iuz's were threatened by the Scarlet Brotherhood, while other countries had been invaded by monsters or taken over by agents of evil. Overall, the vision was of a darker world where good folk were being swamped by a tide of evil.

When using a battlemap for a Champions episode, there are times when lots of agents show up. Since we use paper minifigs that we create, creating 18 minifigs is not fun. However, there is a way around that.
 
My brother used this when the hero team was surprised in a ballroom; the civilians turned out to be Viper agents in disguise. Suddenly, 18 minifigs are needed. Simply put: use D6. Get 3 sets of colored D6, each set a different color. Ex: red, green, blue. Now, put each die down with a number facing up. The set of blue D6 is Viper agents 1-6, second set of red D6 is Viper agents 1-6 and finally the third set of green D6 is Viper agents 1-6.
 
Of course, if you have alot of the other dice (D4, D8, D12, etc), you can use those as well.

I feel like such an ability should be called “None shall pass!”

I've made progress on this project.
 
Between querying my friend some more, reading on Wikipedia, and watching some episodes of Sailor Moon S, it's clear that the standard Sailor Moon story arc goes: Boss Villain sends minions and Monster of the Week to collect/harvest something from random people -- "energy," "pure hearts," whatever -- but these are only instrumental to achieve some greater goal. Queen Beryl wants to release/re-empower her dark master Queen Metaria, and has her four gem-named minions deploying the Monster of the Week to gather energy from people; the Professor and Kaolinite are sending one-shot Daemons in search of Pure Hearts, because three of them hold the Talismans that can summon the Win Button, i mean, Holy Grail...
 
Latter example shows the Master Plan does not need to make sense from an adult perspective: Why would the Professor assume the three talismans are all in this one neighborhood where, coincidentally, the Sailor Guardians live? Because this is a show for children, that's why. (Or maybe this is explained later in the season, but I doubt it.)
 
I haven't written Queen Nocturna yet, but then, she can remain in the background. Player says that Princess Moonray already had an adventure as part of her origin in which she returned to the Magical Moon Realm, gagthered her friends, and liberated the Light Side from Nocturna's rule; but of course Nocturna will try to conquer it again.
 
Nocturna's two chief lieutenants are, as mentioned, her son Balthazar Blackheart and her daughter Shadira. Both of them have point-and-shout Simister Sorcery (but only a few such powers -- most characters have limited power seclections) and a few Darkforce powers focused on mobility, defense and, of course, Darkness. Balthazar also conjures a magic sword that can cut through anything inanimate but can't actually inflict BODY on people, because cartoon for young people. Shadira also does whipfighting using Darkforce TK. Both are obsessed with Princess Moonray, in their own ways. Balthazar vows she will be his. He does the Wicked Chuckle. Shadira vows that she will DESTROY!!! Princess Moonray, the only woman who is prettier than she is. She does the standard Evil Princess Scornful Laugh.
 
Basic monstrous minion type: Vulture Bats. Queen Nocturna created them with her Dark Sorcery, and Shadira can summon small numbers of them. They are invisible to normal sight because they are creatures of dark nightmares, but anyone with magical senses (such as Princess Moonray) can see them. Used as spies, backup in fights, and to further evil schemes such as planting Psychic Siphon enchantments in sleeping mortals.
 
Other villains will be one-shots, such as the warrior Demonax (who wields a Demon Axe and is named for a prominent crater on the Moon) and Frozor, Duke of Frigoria, ruler of the Moon's north polar regions, embittered by Moonray's long absense from the Magical Moon Kingdom. I'll borrow the writeup fro Glacier in CV3 for the form he takes when drawing on the power of the Psychic Siphons. I'll probably repurpose other CU villains as Monster of the Week.
 
Naturally, all of Queen Nocturna's minions have a Rivalry with each other for her favor. It's easy to persuade or trick one lieutenant into undercutting another lieutenant's plan.
 
Magic jewels! Light Side magic items are usually set with Moonstones. Dark Side magic items are set with Black Moonstones. But there are also very rare, very powerful Blue Moonstones and Blood, or Eclipse, Moonstones, to serve as MacGuffins. Dorian Silversword's sword, however, is set with a Sunstone that makes it especially damaging to Dark Side creatures. And Nocturna can seek the apocalyptic, Win Button power of the Midnight Sunstone. (Thank you Raven McCracken and World of Synnibarr for the name. Originality through incompetence!)
 
Oh -- Nocturna has one other important minion to lurk in the background: Her teacher of Dark Sorcery, now her vizier, Magister Thorn. He's the one who actually comes up with the plans to find artifacts A, B, and C, and bring them together at Place X to obtain the Win Button. But he's not himself any more; and Queen Nocturna is not, in fact, the boss villain that she imagines. Because you can't have an entire magic land appear from nowhere and powerful people in the Mystic World don't notice.
 
I hope the other PCs (and players) will be suitably freaked out and amused.
 
Dean Shomshak

The old money. Major landowners for the surrounding region, magnates whose families have dominated guilds or trading companies for generations, former aristocracy whose titles no longer carry legal weight in the current governing structure but might carry social prestige (a recent issue of The Economist included a brief interview with the current heir to the Tokugawa Shogunate; Europe still has Habsburgs). A classic story-driver is the old family that's descended into genteel poverty and seeks to reclaim its fortune -- such as by marrying a daughter into a nouveau riche family (or an adventurer who made his fortune?), or by some criminal or political conspiracy.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

Think about who the PCs are most likely to interact with. For a start, where will they live? Assuming they are more or less transient, they probably stay at an inn. That means an innkeeper.
 
A few taverns, and tavern-keepers, too. For a more Asian or Post-Medieval feel, teahouses or coffee-houses. IIRC some early modern trading companies, such as the Dutch East India Company, began in coffee-houses, so you might want a coffee-house near the port where the merchants make deals.
 
A few colorful beggars. One of them might also be an information broker (beggars see everything, and this beggar knows who to talk to.)
 
Depending on the PCs' affluence and the availability of magical healing, maybe a neighborhood "leech" to stitch up their wounds and apply poultices.
 
But a lot of NPCs will come from the needs of scenarios. Like, somebody is poisoned. Where did the poison come from? Probably an apothecary, since many poisons are also medicines, depending on the dosage; or if nobody has the requisite skills, the PCs need to consult an apothecary to find out what poison was used and where it could be obtained.
 
Dean Shomshak