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Category: Games

These are game related blog posts.

Oath of the Grave redux

Oath of the Grave redux

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on December 23, 2024

I am revisiting some ideas I have had in the past for 5e. This is one I still quite like. I have updated the language a bit to match the current language and did another editing pass, but it is pretty similar to how it was before. 


I have a long affection for gravediggers. I played a gravedigger in a larp for around a decade, and I have been a fan of them ever since. I am also a fan of death as being seen as a good thing. Death from the Sandman or the Raven Queen are good examples. Too often we treat death like a villain and that is not a healthy way to look at things. I am not saying we should all go out and embrace our inner goth (or outer goth…a goth…if they want a hug) but anyone who has cared for terminal patients or a large number of other medical conditions can tell you that sometimes…death is a mercy.

With that in mind, I give you the Grave Knights, those paladins who follow the Oath of the Grave.

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Local LoresheetsVampire the Masquerade v5 rulebook

Local Loresheets

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on December 16, 2024


How do you tie a character into the deep lore of your game world? A lot of games have very deep lore. Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Shadowrun, 7th Sea, and Runequest are all famous examples of worlds with lore so deep it practically has encyclopedias of it.  There are more than a few examples. World of Darkness has quite a lot, as well. It has some contradictory lore and some best forgotten. I am looking at you Romani blood purity stats and most of Kindred of the East, but it still has a great deal even without those. It is too much to absorb easily.
One of the things I particularly liked in the 5th edition of Vampire is the use of loresheets to give players a chance to connect to that lore without having them know any of it before they start.  You can be tied to movers and shakers in vampire politics, or maybe be part of the Week of Nightmares, but you don’t have to read all the fan wiki entries to get the benefit.

Vampire the MAsquerade v5 rulebook

Side Note: Yes, I know Legends of the Wulin did it first, though pretty differently from the one in V5, and are really not part of this conversation. 

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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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Basics of the Game: Reviewing Pathfinder 2ePathfinder 2nd edition cover logo
The Role of AlignmentJacob Wrestling angle line drawing
The School of VitomancyIlluminated Text

The School of Vitomancy

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on August 15, 2020

My intent here is to create a wizard healer school that is viable and has a flavor that works.  I know there are some who will object to the whole idea. I can’t really convince you if you are strictly against the idea altogether. I can only say that this proscription against wizards who heal is strictly a D&D thing. Plenty of games, and folklore traditions, show less of a separation on this point.

I did try to make the thematics of this work for me. The Vitomancer is a close cousin of the Necromancer but inverts that connection to give us the healing wizard.    

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Elemental Beasts part 2
Elemental Beasts: New Companions for Rangers
Monsterous Ecologist: The History of the Tarrasque.

Monsterous Ecologist: The History of the Tarrasque.

Published by Jeremiah McCoy on January 24, 2020

I have done intermittent segments for The Tome Show, a long-running D&D podcast. The segments are called the Monsterous Ecologist. I took on the persona of the titled ecologist and I would give a history of the monsters from D&D. I would explore the history of the real world legendary monsters and fiction that inspired the monsters in D&D. I also would track the changes the monsters went through in D&D through the editions.

I had a computer failure which has complicated my further recordings, but I do intend to return to this. If you want to help that project I won’t turn down any contributions.

That said, I did have a friend (C. J. Hunter aka Commander Pulsar) make a suggestion that made a lot of sense. Turn the research I did for these podcasts into blog content as well. I will do that. It gives me a chance to revisit these creatures I like so much.

With that in mind, I present..

Continue readingMonsterous Ecologist: The History of the Tarrasque.