D4 Caltrops An amazing blog / website for Random tables, inspiration and even art

Blogs n' Links
, ,
#1

https://blog.d4caltrops.com/

I wanted to shout out this blog above as well as the creator, who posts on this very forum and goes by “ktrey”, → https://discourse.osrrpg.com/u/ktrey

His blog was mentioned once or twice before (although most mentions were from ca. 3 years ago) yet I felt it deserved another, specific, post.

I wanted to convey why I think this blog is so good, especially for DMs that want inspiration or to save time:

-Blog has been around since 2007 and has 100s of posts, over 220 random tables,… and growing! In the OSR landscape that is an eternity and rather rare.

-The post are generally all killer, no filler/fluff. As much as essay length RPG blog posts can be fun sometimes, not everyone has time for that. Ktrey gets to the heart of the matter with just enough info at the top and then very often gives you really useful thoughts, inspiration, tables, rules or even a generator or two! Great command of English as well.

-Blog has a very minimal, pleasant, sparse, black and white look that is very easy and fast to parse on any screen.

-The Random tables,… by the fantasy Gods, are they varied and good, generally d100 and eminently usable for almost any DM or campaign. Please Ktrey, compile these into a (ideally hardbound) book, I will gladly buy it and I think many others with me. Kickstarter…?

-Just enough really nice usually B&W (line) art throughout the blog. I don’t know if it is Public Domain art…? Curious. Regardless, it is always fun to look at and almost always stuff I have not seen before elsewhere.

9 Likes
#2

I wholeheartedly second this emotion!

The OSE Encounters alone are a phenomenal and historic contribution to the OSR community!

Add to that the 100 Wilderness Hexes and Ktrey has pretty much taken care of your prep for the rest of your GMimg career for you.

+1 Kickstarter request, especially for the two projects linked here. They are out-of-this-world and just so super-creative and useful!

All my thanks to Ktrey for the great resources and happy you shouted out about that blog to everyone! So good!

3 Likes
#3

Thank you so much for the kind words! I always love hearing about how my resources end up helping other Referees!

My focus is generally on things that I feel might be of utility for other Referees that I can slot into my Prep. Most of my Prep after all these decades of Play is in the form of Random Tables (because I never want a good idea to escape!)

There are some Compilation Plans in the works, but I’m not sure how far off those might be just yet. Hard to tear myself away from the latest Table attracting my attentions to revisit the older stuff sometimes!

2 Likes
#4

Hey hey @ktrey , I was wondering if there is any chance that compilation is coming along? I really “need” (= would absolutely love and gratefully appreciate and use the hell out off) all your tables and blog posts ideally in printed bookform with an index or at very least in a .PDF or .ODF.

I have considered just manually doing it myself, perhaps even with the help of some software tools but I have no idea what I am doing and it would be tedious and lengthy indeed. Likely far easier and faster for you since you of course can log into the dashboard of your blog and export wholesale from there with a few clicks. Hell if you can just send me that file, happy to paypal you €25 first, no joke! And I would of course promise to keep that file under wraps!

But, all the stuff above, it could work but honestly I still hope you run a Kickstarter, I would be shocked if it wasn’t a massive success and you would deserve every Ducat you would get from your great work! :slight_smile:

Let me know what you prefer/what is (im)possible for you and I will proceed.

1 Like