Top 3 of August 2024

This article contains affiliate links, meaning that if you decide to purchase a product through my link, I get a Commission at no additional cost to you

Previously on Kontent Punch Z, I wrote about the Top 3 Articles of July. The top three articles for August were Use Morale, Bell Curves are for Cowards and my review of Arcane Library’s Demon in the Mirror.

Use Morale

In this article I argue why you should use Morale in your Sandbox games. When you run a West Marches game, the Director is more of a Stewart than any kind of Master. By using Morale, you’re going to want inherent randomness in the game, something that is beyond your control. I’ve had random things happen that ruined my plans; if that isn’t real life, I don’t know what is. In addition to fortifying suspension of disbelief by having enemies act realistic, Morale makes for more dynamic play. You can go from a combat high (or low) and switch to a chase scene involving Skill Challenges. Switching the type of focus you’re ‘Zoomed In’ on helps the game feeling fresh. But by far, the best part about using a Morale system is that you can cut down on combat slog. Instead of having to go through the motions until the enemies stop twitching, players can skip to the good stuff of looting bodies.

Bell Curves are for Cowards

Morale usage formulates a Bell Curve, which is why I find it funny that the second place article of the month is an inflammatory title railing against the average. Bell Curves are for Cowards is my argument that your West Marches game deserves exciting results. The caveats are for Morale and Treasure. When it comes to Random Encounters, you should have an equal chance with the banal as well as the exciting.

Your players aren’t going to find their Nth encounter with Bandits, Goblins or Wolves that exciting. With a Random Encounter table, which I do share my own copy for my home game, I have a list of different factions that all have an equal chance of being rolled. My chart is a d20 roll with the more populous having more spots dedicated to it, but then at least the party knows they’re unique to the region. There are always available factions, such as my Boar Boys which I haven’t rolled once since putting the in the chart or indeed, a dragon for a game called Dungeons and Dragons.

Review of Arcane Library’s Demon in the Mirror

Kelsey Dionne, ENNIE winner for her work on Shadowdark, made The Demon in the Mirror adventure under her Arcane Library Banner which I review. The setup is that the Princess is stuck in another castle the mirror with a demon lord holding her hostage. Your players are sent in to get her back or die trying. I tossed all of this out in favour for a readymade dungeon about a Fiend in a mirror which I found through Matt Colville’s Adventure Lookup site. I can’t remember which designer said that the greatest honour is having your work chopped up for parts to cram into a home game’s world. I hope Dionne doesn’t mind that I definitely did. I put my changes up on my Patreon if you want to run this in your own West Marches game for levels 5 to 10. I like the adventure conceptually, as it all takes place in a shadowy mirror world and that is very easy to put somewhere in your game. As part of my review, I thought the game was a very economical $5 USD for twenty pages.

For Your Consideration

I gave a sampling of what my Hexcrawl Calendar looks like. If you want an idea of what to write down, that’s a solid way to do so if you’re mad like me.

I prefer this way because the moons let me simulate the weather more realistically, and when a player rolls up a Druid or Ranger, I can have them actually give a good count for how long the weather will last. In my last session, one of the players wanted to know how long the rain was going to last. With a result closer to 30 than 20, I was able to confidentally tell him that it was going to last one week with some ups and downs. If you don’t care for this, then I do recommend the ‘Weather Flower’ as depicted in the Goblin’s Henchmen blog.

It was nice to bring normality to otherwise what was a strange session.