u/SnakebiteCafe — reddlx

Were the post stations created all at once or did they evolve?

It's just occurred to me that I don't know the history of horse travel before Edo - were post stations an old concept that got a big bump? Were they regularly positioned before Edo or were new travelers just lucky enough to find one along a new path?

Was it 'mail' that created the system or did messaging just make use of what was already partially there? Sorry for the flood of questions - I'm designing a game that includes travel in many ancient eras and would rather ask historians than AI!

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u/SnakebiteCafe — 1 day ago

▲ 0 r/rpg

My novel Power/Strength System makes sense to me, but does it also to you?

This might fall under Rule 7 so I'll tread carefully - a component I've thought about reframes Strength or Power that characters rely on to accomplish tasks or meet challenges (pick your own nouns for whatever system...).

I wanted to limit the number of dice players would need and so categorized actions into strength brackets. This may or may not be logical outside my head, but I feel like this gets closer to a good system instead of just rolling 18 dice and calculating all manner of modifiers and thinking of critical successes etc.

The RPG game I'm talking about is at that link. I'm the author. In a nutshell, a child might be the strongest among all children but their size and heft is limited in comparison to a working adult. I want to bracket them differently - I can't upload the brainstorming image here - but the system pegs the weaker bracket down relative to stronger/bigger/bulkier characters. They're on different scales of success (if that makes sense).

If you were riding an elephant and wanted to knock down a city gate, I wouldn't want the elephant to have a 137 strength - it's the CITY GATE that's in a very high bracket where the elephant's size and bulk affect things casually or with effort. Where strength targets are on the scale should be discussed at the table - this reminds me a little of THAC0 calculations.

u/SnakebiteCafe — 1 day ago

▲ 2 r/drawing

Trying to familiarize myself with features and textiles

When you venture into new territory and you know you're going to be new at it, but with some sketching, you don't have to be terrible at it! I hope

u/SnakebiteCafe — 5 days ago

▲ 42 r/Solo_Roleplaying

d66 is the best. Prove me wrong?

I first encountered d66 only recently - Hard City RPG. In my opinion, it wasn't only just the right Goldilocks amount of choices or results, not too many, not too few, it was a bonus to read dice the other way around guilt free. 36 or 63? No one's watching but me, so let's have a pick!

Now when I'm creating a game (which I'm not promoting right now!), I can't help but feel it's going to mostly be a set of d66 options and choices and lists. That 36 item list for almost any item is so much nicer than 6 or 20 or the d100. I always felt internally that d100 was awkward. I can't put my finger on it, but it's not a good feeling when I see d100. Actually...

The only d100 I do like and enjoy digging into is from that cyber future add-on : Augmented Reality : Liked it so much, I bought the physical. Random Realities is a similar treat of a world building oracle using the d66 (I only just heard of that doing quick research for this post).

But since I plan to work quite hard and throw some d66 stuff your way someday, I wanted to see if there's any convincing me that something's better for world building, (even in group setting RPGs) than d66, is there?

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u/SnakebiteCafe — 9 days ago

▲ 8 r/JapaneseHistory

We're garments patterns symbolic to trade, craft or status? Could I have known this was a boat man before researching it?

I have this print in real life.With minimal information on the back. Naturally , a google image search told me all sorts of things. As far as I know, there's no writing or explicit information about this man being a boat man except perhaps his clothing.

I think this image from 1832 is an actor in the role of a boatman in a tree. Could the play have been so popular that everyone knew this or do his clothes represent the trade of boatmen?

- please excuse the typos! voice to text without my reading glasses earlier :(

u/SnakebiteCafe — 12 days ago

▲ 6 r/JapaneseHistory

Hello all. I'm interested in creating a play space for people to explore themes in Japan - Samurai and Ronin are the subject, but what I came to ask was what would a traveler find at various posts large and small along the highway?

I wouldn't be surprised if I was imagining this all wrong, but like small outposts in the old American Southwest had some essentials besides lodging and place for vice, what could they have been in Japan? Details like this are readily available for Medieval era games but less so for a journey along the routes like Tokaido.

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u/SnakebiteCafe — 23 days ago