The Brand

Dark Matter is officially in Beta!

This means it's basically done, so now's a great time to get the PDF or preorder the hardcover. But act fast: you can only preorder the hardcover for the next two weeks!

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Otherworldly Patron
Comments from the Finger: The Mouse demands your soul.

The Brand

You've struck an eldritch bargain with a titanic corporation, and their CEO has bequeathed you sinister powers and occasional discounts. When you commune with your patron, they appear in the form of the brand's mascot or face, whether that be a cartoon mouse, a muscular figure, or an enigmatic logo. The Brand's reach is wide, its influence pervasive, and its motives anathema to all mankind.

Grifter

Roguish Archetype
Comments from the Finger: As I'm still working on rewrites for a couple of the vestiges, I decided to give myself some breathing room and just do one post this week.
     (Cheat cantrip is found here.)

Grifter

Swindlers, cheats, and most of all, grifters hang around taverns where people might have a looser grasp on their coins. The archetypal grifter knows that, with the right words and the right scheme, you can part anyone from their money, and even make it seem fair. Grifters are masters of cons, big and small, from counting cards and rolling loaded dice, to pyramid schemes and fraud.

Variant Rules | Rebinding

In this series, I'll be slowly tackling a rework of one of our favorite classes, the Binder. The class was originally a straight update of the class of the same name from D&D 3.5's Tome of Magic, including most of the original vestiges, but as we revisit this class, we'd like to examine its mechanics and its concepts with fresh eyes, improve upon them, and write a whole new list of vestiges.

This is a very late post focusing entirely on variant rules while I prepare the Very Big Scissors for the complete first draft of the binder. Enjoy!

Dadlands

I know you've all been waiting for it: today's the day we unveil our new RPG system and campaign setting! Welcome to the Dadlands, a post-apocalyptic RPG where everyone is dads. We think this is the type of gritty roleplaying game everyone's been waiting for, so as of today, we're done with D&D 5e; we'll only be making content for this new system from here on out.

In fact, we think so highly of this new system, we're providing the core role book, a whole 1000 pages, absolutely for free, for anyone to play!

This project is totally original, not stolen from anyone, especially not the not the McElroy brothers. Don't go listen to everything they've ever produced.

Final Vestiges | Rebinding

In this series, I'll be slowly tackling a rework of one of our favorite classes, the Binder. The class was originally a straight update of the class of the same name from D&D 3.5's Tome of Magic, including most of the original vestiges, but as we revisit this class, we'd like to examine its mechanics and its concepts with fresh eyes, improve upon them, and write a whole new list of vestiges.

The journey of writing this class is nearly over! With this post, we've finished all 25 vestiges and positioned the class dangerously close to a rough draft.

Very Big Pair of Scissors

But before we get to that, we need to work together on the next step: busting out the Very Big Pair of Scissors. Collectively, we need to start making a list of things in the class that feel like excess fat; things which should be shortened, trimmed, or outright cut. Anything that doesn't come strong out of the gates is a candidate, no matter how large a chunk of content. 

Using the Very Big Pair of Scissors is imperative to writing something good, but it always feels a little like cutting off one of your limbs with a dull knife. Therefore this is a great community design opportunity! Here's a list of Rebinding article so far. Give it a read again, now that we're at journey's end, and if you find anything that rubs you the wrong way, leave a comment in this post! If we come up with enough issues, I'll make the next post about cutting things and tackling problems.

Drinks and Drinking Contests

Rules

Comments from the Finger: I'm still plugging away at things for the Tavern book here on the blog. Hopefully, our loyal patrons don't get upset that I'm writing so much of this in public. At at any rate, all of the magical drinks will be only in the tavern book.

Drunkenness

Getting drunk happens in stages, as one circles the drain toward unconsciousness. Therefore, it is governed by a special condition known as drunkenness, which is measured in 10 levels. A drink can give a creature one or more levels of drunkenness, as specified in the drink's description.