Musings on an expanded Tricube Tales fantasy scenario

Something I've wanted to create for a long time is a fairly traditional fantasy scenario with adventurers roaming the land, taking on various jobs. Of course, there are already several fantasy one-pagers for Tricube Tales, but their settings are all rather quirky, and I'd like something more vanilla.

Having recently been playing a lot of The Witcher 3, I've got a good feel for the sort of jobs the heroes might take on (and honestly, it's not that different from various novels I've read or TV shows I've watched, where people post jobs on notice boards and members of the "adventurers guild" complete them for rewards).

However, I really want this to be an expanded product, with three Six-Scene Scenarios (one set in a town, one in the wilderness, and one in a dungeon).

I had originally planned to split it into a trilogy of three separate one-page RPGs, one for urban adventures, one for wilderness, and one for dungeons, meaning each would come with its own Six-Scene Scenario. They could even be combined into a single product (like I did for Champions of Fenrir and Champions of Osiris), or released as separate products in the same series (like I did for Eldritch Detectives, Eldritch Apocalypse, and Eldritch Cultists -- or Twisted Wishes, Sundered Chains, and Wicked Dreams). But unlike those other settings, these fantasy adventures all follow the same characters in the same time and place, so I worry that it would feel very repetitive to offer them as three one-pagers.

The second option would be to adjust the layout and add another adventure generator table on the right-hand side, like this:

The problem is there's not enough space for three tables, so I'd need to combine the wilderness and dungeon adventures, which isn't really ideal when they have separate Six-Scene Scenarios. It also means there would be two pages of adventure examples, so I'd be left with a blank page I'd have to use for something else.

The third option would be to have a standard adventure generator for urban adventures, then offer two alternative location tables for dungeon and wilderness adventures, like this:

The GM would then roll 3d6 for the adventure as normal, but they could pick one of the three location tables depending on where they want the adventure to take place. There would then be three pages of example adventures, meaning the one-page RPG and its adventure examples would fit onto two double-sided sheets of paper.

Of course, each page would share the same objective and complication tables, and although I could offer different examples for each, the table entries would still need to be phrased fairly generically in order to fit all three location types. Making them too generic risks stripping the table of flavor.

But the more I think about it, the less comfortable I am with the idea of having an entire double-sided sheet of paper with just adventure examples on both sides. I like having the entire game and all the adventure examples on a single sheet of paper; it keeps the product concise, and if you're running a one-shot, you don't really need too many examples anyway. Even if you want to run more adventures, the examples are supposed to be for inspiration; they're not intended to cover every possible situation.

That brings me on to the fourth option, which is to design a simple one-page RPG in the same style as all the others, with a regular adventure generator that includes a mixture of urban, wilderness, and dungeon locations. There would still be three Six-Scene Scenarios covering urban, wilderness, and dungeon adventures, and I could also offer another sheet with an example town (much like I did for Sharp Knives & Dark Streets), which would include a map and expanded locations in and around the town.

After all this, I think I'm favoring the fourth option. As much as I'd like to expand the one-pager format and experiment with different setups, I still want the core product to fit onto a single sheet of paper (otherwise I'd be better off turning it into a book). The first page is really the "one-page RPG", as it contains everything needed to play, and the second page (i.e., the back of the sheet) includes examples for each entry in the adventure generator table.

Starbreaker: Tales From the Rim (Tricube Tales)

The latest Tricube Tales one-page RPG is another collaborative effort, this time with Brandon Verhalen of Star Anvil Studios. Starbreaker: Tales From the Rim is a Tricube Tales adaptation of Starbreaker-SAINTs and Synners Core, a setting that Brandon originally wrote for Savage Worlds.

This was quite a tough one to adapt, due to the large amount of content in the setting book. Starbreaker offers a large number of playable species, and I couldn't fit them all into the smaller format, let alone give them full descriptions, so I went for a very concise approach and included just seven species (including human) with two or three descriptive words for each.

Much like Vermilium: Tales of the Wildwood, which focused on a specific region of the world, I decided to focus on a specific planet, so the entire scenario takes place on the mining world of Echo. Even then, there are a lot of regions described in the book that I couldn't cover, so I decided to use the example locations on the second page to flesh out six major places.

There are also many enemy factions in Starbreaker, and I tried to tie several of them into the adventure examples on the second page, using both the mission objectives and the complications to reference different organizations the players might deal with.

Overall, I'm happy with the way it turned out. Even though the reader would benefit greatly from owning the full setting, the one-pager provides enough information for someone to run a few quick games.

Arcane Resurrection (Tricube Tales & Tactics)

I've recently been reading a lot of fantasy novels about a "displaced protagonist" who finds themselves sent to the past, the future, or another world entirely (i.e., Isekai). Sometimes they do this intentionally (going back in time to prevent a cataclysm), other times it's an accident. Often, they end up possessing and reviving a recently deceased host, usually that of a young noble.

The series I've read include: Magus Reborn, Rift Magus Reborn, Legend of the Arch Magus, Return's Defiance, Towers of Heaven, Spell Breaker, Dead Tired, Revenge of the Sorcerer King, Chronicles of Empyrea, The Alchemist, The Last Paladin, and System Universe. Note: This blog post isn't a book recommendation, as not all of the books were to my taste, but what I did like was the premise, and that's what inspired me to write my latest Tricube Tales & Tactics micro-setting: Arcane Resurrection.

I went with the "go back in time" premise (like Magus Reborn, Returner's Defiance, and Towers of Heaven) because I liked the way it gave the protagonist a clear overarching goal (to save the world from a major threat). I also decided to go with "possessing the body of a recently murdered young noble" (like Magus Reborn, Rift Magus Reborn, and Legend of the Arch Magus) as this immediately throws the players into the thick of things, forcing them to deal with a prominent individual's rivals, debts, and enemies.

I've found that scenarios with clear objectives tend to be the easiest to run, and I feel that Arcane Resurrection has some pretty solid goals for the players. I also included a Six-Scene Scenario with guidelines for running it with Tricube Tactics, and tied the adventure to the main plot, giving the players further leads to follow.

The Wyrms That Turned (Tricube Tales)

Last month, I submitted my entry for the One-Page RPG Jam 2025: The Wyrms That Turned (for those who aren't familiar with it, the name is a reference to the expression "Even a worm will turn").

I've fancied making a dragon-themed one-pager for a while, and I even mentioned it back in December as one of the themes I wanted to cover this year. When I saw that the theme of this year's game jam was "growth", I immediately thought of dragons growing with age, so I decided to make this one-pager a bit different by incorporating advancement rules (this also allowed me to show how combat encounters can scale as the PCs become more powerful).

I customized the trait descriptions to mention claws, bite, and breath weapons, and (much like Conniving Cat Burglars) I replaced "concept" with "breed". I also replaced "perk" with "affinity", and I drew inspiration from Savage Dragons for the quirks.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this one-pager, and I was particularly proud of the terrible pun for the final adventure example -- "Happy Medium", where the dragons have to reach a mutually-beneficial compromise with a necromancer ;)

Road Hogs (Tricube Tales)

Last month's Tricube Tales one-pager was Road Hogs. This one was actually inspired by the artwork -- I knew I wanted to turn it into a micro-setting the moment I saw it! It was one of the pieces I received through Rick Hershey's stock art Patreon.

However, it did take me a while to decide how to approach it. I eventually decided to set Road Hogs in the same world as Goblin Gangsters, because I liked the potential for crossovers. I drew inspiration from TV shows such as Renegade, The A-Team, and even Reacher. Specifically, I liked the idea of flawed heroes wandering from town to town, fixing a problem or solving a mystery before moving on again. As Goblin Gangsters is a humorous setting, I tried to keep the same vibe with Road Hogs.

As usual, there are also a few nods to whatever I've recently been reading or watching on TV (in this case, The Dead Don't Die).

I even added a little town generator to this one, as I wanted to emphasize the idea of the characters moving around a lot.

In terms of trade dress, I decided to add a tire track across the page, in the same way that Conniving Cat Burglars has little paw prints. I'm not sure if anyone else really notices those little details, I still enjoy adding them!

Savage Worlds: The removal of Charisma in SWADE isn't a big deal

Whenever people talk about the changes between SWADE and SWD, there always seems to be someone who describes the removal of Charisma as being one of the main differences. I don't agree.

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of sweeping changes between SWD and SWADE, and some of them are massive rewritings that can fundamentally change the way the game is played. But the removal of Charisma? That's nothing more than a syntax change, and it has absolutely no impact on the game.

In SWD, Charisma was simply a modifier that applied to Persuasion and Streetwise rolls. That's it. For example, Attractive gave you +2 Charisma, but it could just as easily have been written as "+2 to Persuasion and Streetwise", and it would have been functionally identical. I'm guessing "Charisma" was included to make the game easier to grok for players from certain other RPGs, and it made it a little easier to track on your character sheet if you stacked up a lot of Charisma modifiers. But generally, it was an unnecessary extra step, and I would have preferred to see it removed in earlier editions as well.

In SWADE, Streetwise was effectively merged into Persuasion (the mechanics from the old Streetwise skill became the Networking rule, which primarily uses Persuasion, although you can use Intimidation instead now -- note that there is also a Streetwise Edge in SWADE, but mechanically that's more like half the old SWD Investigator Edge, which was split into two for SWADE).

That means if SWADE had kept Charisma, it would have just been a modifier to Persuasion. So Attractive would have given a bonus to Charisma, and Charisma would have given a bonus to Persuasion. At that point, it becomes obvious how superfluous it is, and I imagine that's why they decided to remove it (and perhaps also the fact that there are now fewer Edges and Hindrances with generic Persuasion modifiers that you can stack).

But in my opinion, in terms of describing the changes between SWADE and SWD, the removal of Charisma is barely worth mentioning, and only really of historical interest to someone who picks up an older character sheet.

Specters of Locksworth: Another Tricube Tales collaboration

Last month, I published another collaborative effort with Just Insert Imagination, this time based on a setting they've not yet released. As usual, Morne provided the text for the scenario, while I did the editing and layout.

You can get it here: Specters of Locksworth

The scenario was originally called simply "Specters", but a single-word name isn't great for search engines, and it is more likely to have a name conflict with other games, so I proposed "Specters of Locksworth" (as it was set in the fictional city of Locksworth).

The original draft only had 6 concepts, perks, and quirks, so I increased them to 7 to match the other one-pagers, and reworked a few. For example, I changed "overconfident" to "curious", as "overconfident" was quite similar to "reckless". I also replaced some of the perks, as "sharpshooter" felt too specific for the scenario, "social butterfly" didn't feel like something that would be used very often, etc. I replaced "iron will" as well, as that's a perk I try to avoid because it's purely reactive, which can make it difficult to tie into the narrative when the player is actively doing something.

One of my concerns was that it might feel too similar to Ghost Banishers, so I tried to give it a different vibe, more "Exorcist" than "Ghostbusters" -- I used artwork that better emphasized that feel, and changed Locksworth from a city to a creepy old town. Mechanics-wise, I left out the references to effort tokens, as that's something I usually only mention in the more combat-focused one-pagers, and Specters of Locksworth is more investigative. Ghost Banishers does reference effort tokens, so this once again helped give it a slightly different feel.

I also added a section on character motives in the bottom-left corner. This is something I've done in a few of my other recent one-pagers as well, as I've found it's a nice way to add a bit more flavor to the starting characters.

For the twist table, I tried to use different icons to Ghost Banishers, although there were a couple of duplicates. Having different icons is particularly nice for people who like combining multiple one-pagers, as they can use both twist tables for an expanded set of icons.

While Specters of Locksworth and Ghost Banishers are designed to have a different feel, they're similar enough thematically that they could certainly be combined into an expanded ghost hunting scenario!