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Jeremiah Robert McCoy Posts

 Broken States: a Cyberpunk Future

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on July 6, 2022

I am doing the RPG Writer’s Workshop again this month. This is an attempt to break my writer’s block, among other things. This time around I decided to write an adventure for a system other than D&D for a change. This time I am working on a cyberpunk genre adventure for Modern AGE by Green Ronin. It is a system I wish I had more time to play.

As part of this adventure, I decided I needed at least a rough background. I am not writing this for an existing world, so I figured I should have some world information to put in the adventure. Just enough to have a starting point. I will also write up what the tech level is, as well, but I am trying to not overwhelm myself.

So here is the future history I produced.

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4 Magic Bows

4 Magic Bows

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on November 4, 2021

There is always a need for more magic weapons in D&D. Simply having a +1 just doesn’t feel that satisfying a lot of the time. I like items that are little more varied than simply doing more damage.

This time I am going for bows. There is something compelling about the archer character and there a lot of ways to build them in 5E. Any of these would be great for a ranger, a fighter, a rogue, even some monks. Hopefully, some of these will prove useful for additions to your games.

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Making Encounter TablesImage of a full bookshelf

Making Encounter Tables

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on July 18, 2021

Making an Encounter table is an interesting exercise. In some ways it is a statement of the tone of your game. Do you have a half dozen silly encounters? Do you have 8 generic wilderness encounters with beasts? Do you have combat encounters? Role playing? Chilling atmospheric encounters? Each says something about the style of game you are running.  

Whatever the case, you are generating a list of events you wouldn’t mind showing in your game. You are generating a list of things that fit enough that you don’t care which one shows up. Even having an enormous table says something.  

But some folks don’t know where to start.  So here is a quick guide on how to make one. 

Note: I used this technique to design an encounter table for my adventure, The Lost Library of Meldorin.

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Paladin’s World

Paladin’s World

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on June 18, 2021

I recently started playing a game called Sentinel Comics RPG run by my friend Jared Rascher.  It is a newer superhero system with an interesting structure to its combat, a deep amount of lore, and a somewhat randomized character creation which calls back to the feel of classic Marvel Superheroes RPG without being so random as to make the characters silly. The lore of the game is also based on the board game called Sentinels of the Multiverse. I made a character called Paladin, because his abilities were supernatural and began to resemble paladins from D&D. I created a lose history for the character, but I realized after playing him I needed to do something more. 

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Cyberpunk: The genre and the games.

Cyberpunk: The genre and the games.

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on May 26, 2021

Cyberpunk 2077 has been the source of much conversation. It was long-awaited and there much hype preceding its release. The launch didn’t go…swimmingly. There were some well-published bugs, particularly in older consoles. Beyond that people complained about it not being “punk” enough because you can work for the police, or the problems of the social media managers being transphobic, or the fact that they made the developer do mandatory overtime as part of pre-launch crunch, or…. let’s just say it was a rocky start.

I actually played the game via Stadia and had fewer technical problems as a result. Actually playing through the game, I got to appreciate the things that didn’t go wrong with it. I got to experience the tremendously well written story. With lots of heart to it. It is about who you are when you are losing anyway, but you chose how you lose.

It started me thinking about the genre and the games that operate within it. It made me want to talk about those things. I will mainly focus on the TTRPG’s because that is my area of expertise.

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Something in the future wants you deadImage of a metal skull in flames
Weapons

Weapons

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on February 10, 2021

Argath bent his hulking body over the bench. His thick fingers were bent to the work of shaping the small pins down into place. They were to hold the ruby in its mount. The dull red gem looked like a large drop of blood frozen in motion. It contrasted with the gold wirework on the pommel.

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Inspiration
The Oath
The ClimbPicture of the Blue Ridge Mountains