Roar Cat Reads

Tag: One Shot

  • Reviewing Wanderhome, a cozy TTRPG by Jay Dragon

    Reviewing Wanderhome, a cozy TTRPG by Jay Dragon

    History

    Wanderhome is a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way the seasons change. It is a game filled with grassy fields, mossy shrines, herds of chubby bumblebees, opossums in sundresses, salamanders with suspenders, starry night skies, and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine. (Possum Creek Games)

    Created by Jay Dragon, Wanderhome was a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, raising over $300,000. It has since won Polygon’s Best Indie Tabletop Games of 2021 and is available for digital or physical purchase here.

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    The Set Up

    Wanderhome is the TTRPG for anyone who wishes D&D had less combat and more animal handling checks. In our Roar Cat Reads’ Discord, those people were easy to find! We each prepared by reading through the book, which is full of gorgeous artwork, and then six of us met online to try the game for the first time.

    It was, dare I say, magical. I have never played a game that included so many people saying, “Awww!” on repeat, and meaning it sincerely every time. For two and half hours, we created characters, settings, and storylines as a group. As an overworked DM, I found this collaborative element hugely enjoyable. The system provides just enough structure to guide creation and keep things moving while allowing an enormous amount of creativity. We spent nearly an hour creating our characters, choosing from 15 different playbooks that are full of delightful flavor that creates a much more nuanced character than traditional systems like D&D. When we had finished, we unanimously agreed that we could happily sit around creating characters for hours, and that this would be entirely satisfying.

    We did move on, however, to creating our first destination. Wanderhome‘s conceit is that your group of travelers arrives at a new destination every session. When played as a GM-less game, this means you can use roll tables and prompts to create the next location as a group. We wound up creating a monastery that overlooked a lake of spirit koi where big cats wove tapestries from whiskers. I never would have created a setting that fun on my own!

    I was most nervous about actually playing the game. After all, how does anything happen if there is no established plot? What do we do if there isn’t someone pulling the strings? I was delightfully surprised to find that we created a fun little scene together that had actual emotional impact. Granted, there were a couple little-too-long moments when we described how we entered the monastery and didn’t quite know what was happening. But those small, purposeless moments feel different in Wanderhome. This is a game that comes to life in the pauses, when you can develop your character by putting your bumblebees to bed or build relationships by asking the squirrel to haul the aged owl onto the roof. It was on that roof that we noticed a spirit ship approaching, and after fifteen minutes of creative role play that culminated with a beach party, we took a contented sigh and realized we had reached the end of our day’s journey.

    Highlights

    • My absolute favorite part was the end of character creation when you ask a pre-written relational question of the characters on your right and left. They were surprisingly deep and truly effective at establishing quick bonds among the party.
    • When everyone is the GM, everyone gets to play the NPCs (“kith” in Wanderhome), which allows for even more diversity and creativity.
    • The vibes! This is a game feels slow, purposeful, and cozy. You could probably include drama and intense action, but I think you would lose some of the magic. Wanderhome is a celebration of the mundane in the absolute best possible way.

    Challenges

    • You need the right group for this with at least a couple very creative people, as the story will only be as good as you make it.
    • Conversely, you also need to make sure your group’s more vocal participants don’t take up the spotlight and prevent the quieter, slower creatives from contributing.
    • Most importantly, make sure your group enters this game with a yes/and mentality! Anything is possible, so say yes to the idea you don’t particularly like, see where it goes, and build on it!

    Other Players’ Reviews!

    Chad (he/him)

    Wanderhome harkens back to the days of my childhood when roleplaying was just some friends sitting in a circle or going over MSN Messenger and making stuff up, but with just enough of a world and guidelines to keep anyone from being put on the spot or having to spend hours planning. It’s almost more of a collaborative story-building event than it is a roleplaying game, though I mean that as the highest of compliments and not to diminish it’s place as a roleplaying game.

    We played roles. We played multiple roles. I was the Owl Teacher I came with, the Hillock we came to along the way, and the misunderstood Warthog Captain of a lake-faring vessel that formed the ‘conflict’ of the session. I say conflict in that the stakes were never much higher than ‘how fun and interesting can we make this’ as opposed to life or death. Wanderhome is painting pictures with words, creating personalities for everything, and being inventive with friends – both old and new. A welcome departure from the typical and a leap into the fantastical.

    Jessy (he/him)

    Playing Wanderhome for the first time was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It’s very fun! And that fun doesn’t come just from going on adventures as woodland creatures, though that certainly is a lot of fun. For me a big part of the fun was making our characters and location together. This was the only time I’ve played a game where I would have been excited to just keep making characters with everyone.

    The mechanics elegantly facilitate bouncing ideas off of your fellow players while still moving at a brisk pace for those who may want to rush into adventure. Cooperatively creating a location like it is a character of its own was exciting and getting to use the locations’ actions to form a narrative works smoothly once you get the hang of it. After all that creation, playing the characters and locations we built was an absolute blast. I would recommend it to anyone.

    Have you played Wanderhome? Tell us what you thought!

    Common Sense and Sensibility: A Regency Lady TTRPG

    “It is exceedingly well known that the life of a lady is far from easy. Death raises its grisly visage at every turn: whether from shawl insufficiency or too many novels, a Regency-era lady can never be too cautious.”

    In Roar Cat Reads’ original TTRPG character funnel, Regency ladies will test their delicate mettle and try to stay alive. This handbook lays out the game’s core rules, character creation instructions, and a list of the surprisingly mundane events that can test a lady’s constitution.

    Download your FREE copy at our Ko-Fi shop.

  • Reviewing Feudal Attraction, a D&D 5e Dungeon

    Reviewing Feudal Attraction, a D&D 5e Dungeon

    History

    Feudal Attraction was a winning entry in 2019’s One Page Dungeon Contest by Max White. You can find the single page adventure on RPG Geek.

    “Two star-crossed lovers from feuding noble families have decided to get married. It won’t go smoothly.”

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    A DM’s Perspective

    Highlight

    This is one of my favorite one-shots to run; it is silly and romantic, which is me in a nutshell. In fact, I have run this adventure four times now! It’s a mark of how good the adventure is that with one page of information, I have had four very different experiences with different groups of people.

    The story is simple: A group of characters has been hired to run interference for a wedding between two feuding families. The wedding takes place in the enclosed grounds of a fancy estate and has a schedule that is recognizable to anyone who has been to a wedding before. As the day (and the adventure) progresses, the players must try and thwart various attempts to keep the happy couple apart.

    My favorite thing about this adventure is that it allows room for a lot of creativity and social interaction. I find this to be a perfect adventure to run for people new to D&D, since weddings are a familiar setting and they only have to worry about creating a character and some basic skill rolls. It’s also a lot of fun with experienced players. I just played through Feudal Attraction with a group (some of whom wrote their thoughts below) who brought a lot of roleplaying and creative character skills to the event. It was an absolute blast as they prevented kids from throwing eggs, found the lost ring and vows, and exchanged a rigged dowry with the correct chest of gems.

    Changes Made

    Other than the first time I ran this campaign, I never include the combat at the end (there is a demon in the wine barrels that can break out and cause a fight). All of the other mishaps are more petty than dangerous, so it feels out of sync with the rest of the experience. More than that, I just really like running an adventure that challenges the assumption that all D&D adventures must have a fight to be fun.

    The other significant change is in how the wedded couple is decided. Sometimes I let the players decide the race/gender/names of the couple (most recently, a female tabaxi named Bella married a nonbinary dwarf named Chives). If I know the group needs something familiar to latch on to, I will run it as the wedding of Legolas and Gimli. This leads to some excellent comedy (Frodo the cursed ring bearer, Gandalf the “a wizard is never late, nor is he early” missing officiant, and Aragorn as the grieving ex) that works if your players are big LotR nerds.

    What I Would Do Differently

    One thing I always forget to mention at the beginning of the session is a warning along the lines of “I don’t know what you might find, so it’s best not to wander alone!” The wedding estate is pretty spacious, and players tend to spread out in 1s and 2s at the beginning. They do inevitably start to work together a bit more as the session goes on, and I’ve gotten better at shifting scenes more smoothly, but setting that expectation early might allow for more player interaction from the beginning.

    Let’s Hear from the Players!

    Izzy AKA Cassian Pwyll (Human Hexblood Shadow Sorcerer and Event Decorator)

    Dungeons and Dragons is not normally a game that is built to reward completely non-combat related conflict. With the level system designed to dole out largely combat related abilities the natural progression is an almost natural shounen anime-like curve… But even in shounen anime sometimes you just need an episode where your characters go to the beach to relax.

    Having a number of challenges social and mental this one shot gave a chance for cantrips, racial abilities and skills to shine. Keeping the players at level one was an incredibly savvy move as most of the flavour of a character is intact at the beginning of their arc and there is no backlog of non-combat skills that never see the light of day. It is also my belief that this particular one shot keeps the DM engaged with a lot of topical variability as at the outset we were given the choice to pick the families of the two persons getting married (We chose a Dwarf and Tabaxi) and their officiant was a party member who chose a cult of the apocalypse which stained upwards to colour the entire tale with the vibrant hues of a calico heat death of the universe which still managed to be endearing and romantic somehow.

    Every character got a chance to shine and teamwork and colorful NPCs tugged at heartstrings and kept us laughing. After a solid three hours of lighthearted comedy, weird facts about doves/bees and bardic inspiration that seemed to affect the players more than the characters themselves I experienced a roleplaying high of the sort that refreshed me like a long rest. Solid 10/10.

    Listen to two players relieve their experiences in character!

    Allonté AKA Maester Diehart (Nihilist Cultist Cleric of Peace, Extoller of the Saint Mediggo’s teaching)

    This the kind of adventure for those who either thirst for roleplay or perhaps may not know how. From the onset, our wonderful DM/GM asked us, the players, to decide whom shall be wed. I am glad our group was on board for the most unlikely of pairings as well as having the ability to remind each other that in a fantasy world, why cling to convention or norms? In that, it is easier to find the heartbeat of this adventure, giving two who love one another the best day possible.

    Now this is an adventure of course, so there will be many obstacles in the way. If you are a completionist like me, you might miss a few things in the pursuit of a mini-quest and that’s….. Great! This is a hallmark of an adventure that you may want to experience again and again to see all the things you missed or to have differing experiences with different characters.

    Be forewarned, this is an adventure made without combat. With that knowledge, if you have some murder hobo tendencies, think of the social interactions or obstacles as a form of combat and choose your spells and abilities somewhat wisely. Or just have fun justifying why or how something should work. If you are a GM/DM looking for something to get your experienced roleplayers on a high or getting those without much experience engaged, I would run this adventure! Moreover, this will test your DM/GM skills in switching between scenes. For once, this is a great time to split the party! 12/10 would play again!

    Chad AKA Albert Corrian (Half-Elf Bard)

    As an experienced and long time player, it was an excellent change of pace to play something that was pure roleplay. There’s more than enough hack and slash to go around so a session with zero combat and all skills and talking was engaging. It’s important to note this was a known element coming in. Had we not been told there would be zero combat, our character choices would likely have been considerably different. I could see a meat-and-potatoes Fighter not having a lot of fun.

    Everyone got to do something, and everyone was involved. Playing a Bard, I focused more on my performing than my bevy of Charisma skills as our Warlock officiant had those in spades. I was ready to back him up but he handled everything well and rolled like a champ (once with a bit of help from Bardic Inspiration). I didn’t even have to sling any of the non-combat spells I selected, like Charm Person or Sleep, as ‘oh hell’ buttons. The atmosphere was calm and enjoyable, and we were able to inject some excellent comedy. Everyone left feeling energized and accomplished.

    10/10 would recommend running this session as a nice break, especially to try and crack some non-roleplayers out of their shells.

  • Reviewing White Plume Mountain, a D&D 5e Dungeon

    Reviewing White Plume Mountain, a D&D 5e Dungeon

    History

    White Plume Mountain is a 13-page dungeon crawl adventure for a group of level 8 characters. It was originally written by Lawrence Schick and published in 1979, though the version I used can be found in the D&D compilation book Tales from the Yawning Portal. Ranked the 9th greatest Dungeons and Dragons adventure of all time by 2004’s Dungeon magazine, it is a game that requires brute force and creative solutions in order to find three very cool sentient weapons.

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    A DM’s Perspective

    Highlights

    As a DM, I strongly prefer working from pre-existing material, and I was excited to run a tried-and-true dungeon from Tales of the Yawning Portal. This adventure is not a one-shot (it took my group 4 sessions at 3 hours per session), but it is contained enough to be a nice breather in between campaigns or as a single adventure if you don’t want to commit to more, which I didn’t!

    I loved how creative the dungeon is; it is full of riddles, puzzles, and traps to navigate. It really brought out the creativity in my players, and they used their skills and spells in unique ways to survive. Sometimes TOO unique! They refused to enter the Room of Glass Globes (#4) and instead blasted all of the orbs from outside, releasing three shadows, an air elemental, and a gray ooze all at once! Since they had already found Wave, one character created a Cube of Force around the group the size of the corridor, which they used to body slam the monsters into submission. It was not how I expected the encounter to run at all, but it was amazingly creative and fun!

    Changes Made

    The one significant piece that is missing is a final fight with the wizard Keraptis. My players made it clear early on that they were interested in defeating him, so I made some alterations to the campaign to make that happen. I gave Sir Bluto a key that could be used to unlock the way to his santcum from the Pool and Drain (#9). I threw together a random dungeon chamber in which they could fight a lich (though I didn’t use its level 7-9 spells so that they had a hope of defeating him).

    My players were very invested in socializing with any characters they met along the way, so I made all humanoids in the dungeon former treasure seekers who had been forced to guard the weapons they once sought. Some were tricked out of their treasures (they gave the vampire Ctenmiir a footrub so good that he didn’t realize they stole Whelm from him), others were fought, and others were invited to join the cause. In particular, they really latched onto the flesh golem in the Numbered Golems room (#5). They named him Dusty, and a really sweet romance developed between his strong silent arms and one of the players! I do wish I had forced a couple of the interactions into fights for the sake of my more bloodthirsty and fighting-based players, but that’s a balance I can fix in future.

    What I Would Do Differently

    I wish I had done more preparation for the three sentient weapons that characters are meant to find throughout the dungeon. I could have given them much more depth, almost to the point of NPCs, if I had invested more time in preparing them. Because this was a one-shot separate from an overarching campaign, I would have made them more useful for this dungeon in particular so that the party could enjoy the weapons once they had them. One character (Adelin) got Blackrazor just in time to fight the lich…which is undead and therefore doesn’t work! On the fly, I had Blackrazor tell Adelin that it would attack the lich and deal appropriate damage only if he agreed to sacrifice half of his hit points. The player got very into this, stabbing himself with the sword to gain further advantages. It was a fun character moment, and I very much wish I had thought of similar things for Wave and Whelm!

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    Let’s Hear from the Players!

    Rachel AKA Kreeth the Aarakocra Fighter

    This was the first time I had played a higher level, purely martial character. I chose this class partially out of curiosity and partly to round out the party; it was possibly not the best choice since I didn’t have a lot of ways to really help out the party. I went with a dex-based fighter, so I wasn’t able to heft things out of the way or force sticky levers, and because we socialed our way out of most combat encounters, I think I only used my +9 attack once or twice. 

    I was able to utilize the features from my race much more effectively than my class. I went with an aarakocra, so being able to fly was great (if a little limited) and getting into the bird mannerisms made it fun to roleplay. I found myself in a support role – when someone would trigger a trap or fail a dex check, I was able to swoop in and save them which was nice.

    I got the magical weapon Wave, but unfortunately, this did not gel well with my dex build (it did not return to your hand if thrown, unlike Whelm). However, its cube of force feature did allow me a brief glimpse into the magic user’s view of the dungeon, but I quickly burned through all the charges and was back to more passive play. 

    Overall I think this is a good dungeon. It was certainly challenging for our group and felt deadly! The only thing I would change is my character choice.

    Anne AKA Cinder the Fire Genasi Artificer (armorer specialty)

    This dungeon has a mix of combat and puzzles. I’d recommend it for people who are less interested in kicking down the door and murder hoboing as much as collaborative, varied paced campaigns. It’s not a hex crawl and there isn’t the frustration of just not being able to figure out which way to go to progress the session. There are enough potentially deadly encounters to keep it interesting.

    The one big flaw with having the goal being to recover magic weapons is that you might have a group that can’t make use of them. I think the DM either needs to communicate this during character creation or be willing to hand wave this aspect of the mechanics. Or enjoy giving your players a bunch of fun loot that they can’t use!

    Allonté AKA The Professor the Human Bard

    I loved my delve into the be-trapped abyss called White Plume Mountain! The beautiful thing about any adventure is that it is not just the setting, mechanics, or build, but it’s the table that makes it wondrous. I feel as if I hit the jackpot in this one-shot!

    DM Tricia, word of the mountain, was everything I wanted in a DM and didn’t know it. There was so much freedom to play in ways that were offbeat, fun, guilt-free, and rewarded us for ingenuity! Going in to this, we were warned this would be a no-holds-barred slog, and the impetus was to explore traps as a DM. I have fun into too many folk who would trigger the trap regardless of the creative ways one could maneuver. Initially I was mildly apprehensive, but that feeling quickly dissolved. This challenge, much to the credit of our DM, became a great experience. My favorite trap-dodging was Mold Earthing monkey bars across the roof while being caressed ‘n’ carried by a flesh golem! Just as importantly, there was also safety to purposefully fail for fun! Adalin, in this same session, explored this trap we were dodging. This resulted in having the entire team enjoy and work together saving them from a very, shall we say, tetanus-y fate. Moreover, I was impressed by how often resolving something in a non-combat way through role-play (not just dice numbers) was encouraged throughout. Let this be a lesson from the Professor to you, foot rubs are the Holy Grail and may one day save your life!

    Hear from Professor Mythalwulf about the adventure:

    I also cannot forget my other delver-in-arms friends, Cinder and Kreeth! All the players at this table made a this a beautiful experience. From the beginning, Cinder brought the realism with the reactions to the environment, really selling me this mini-world, which made me want to role-play more and get more reactions out of them, even if they were love-jabs. I also nominate them for the best Mold-Earth-Bridge Inspector of the Year. Kreeth also gave really great development throughout, whether it be inter party, inner-self, or against opposition; this enthusiastic incorporation made me, as a player, wait on bated breath for what they would do or how I could enhance them or bring more out of them. Kreeth, you will always be the best bird-voicebox-using-in-a-bear-body-sea-worshiping-being in my book. For my last award, I also need to commend Adalin, from one play to another, on playing chaotic in all the right ways: respecting everyone’s autonomy, never inflicting unjust harm in the name of random, and always playing the balance of trying to bring control to the chaos.

    I think the moniker of a good adventure, group, or in this case one-shot, is how it leaves you feeling. This left me wanting more in all the best ways! White Plume Mountain (via our group) left me wanting to explore all the stories that brought us here and all the stories that will take place after! As a fledgling DM, I think this is the perfect adventure both if you are not sure how to make a whole campaign-world OR if you want to add some dungeon-spice to your existing worlds.

    Common Sense and Sensibility: A Regency Lady TTRPG

    “It is exceedingly well known that the life of a lady is far from easy. Death raises its grisly visage at every turn: whether from shawl insufficiency or too many novels, a Regency-era lady can never be too cautious.”

    In Roar Cat Reads’ original TTRPG character funnel, Regency ladies will test their delicate mettle and try to stay alive. This handbook lays out the game’s core rules, character creation instructions, and a list of the surprisingly mundane events that can test a lady’s constitution.

    Download your FREE copy at our Ko-Fi shop.

  • D&D ONE SHOT | School Sucks! A High School Horror Adventure

    D&D ONE SHOT | School Sucks! A High School Horror Adventure

    If you are a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you will love this D&D adventure created by Rachel and Tricia full of nods and winks to the Buffyverse. Set in Cleveland, Ohio, the Robert Flutie Memorial High School is having a strange Halloween – vampires have overrun the school hallways, and it’s up to your group of plucky teenagers to find the ritual items that will stop the master vampire from rising!

    This adventure is available to download on our Ko-Fi shop
    FOR FREE or Pay What You Want.

    Rachel wrote this story in 2018. Take it and enjoy!

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  • D&D ONE SHOT | Owlbears: Fierce Foe or Fearsome Friend?

    D&D ONE SHOT | Owlbears: Fierce Foe or Fearsome Friend?

    This 19-page D&D 5e adventure is perfect for a party of level 3 adventurers who want to save an adorable owlbear cublet.

    You can download the PDF for “Pay What You Want” on our Ko-Fi page.

    If you have (gentle, kind) feedback on what works and what doesn’t, please email us at roarcatreads@gmail.com. It will help us create better content in the future! Thank you.