Not the Flex You Think It Is
Continuing thoughts about Rule Zero and yesterday’s post about Theseus’ RPG. Item #1: If you only ever used a third of a game, have you ever really played the game? You might have been playing something, but was it really the game you say it is? How much of...
Rule Hero > Rule Zero
The problem with Rule Zero: Is not that it isn’t true, it’s that it guards an army of lies. How many planks can you remove from AD&D before you’re not really playing AD&D any more? No one talks about this....
Not Even Joking
Inspired by a deeply cogent comment left at “The Joy of Wargaming”: Tabletop role playing games, properly played, ARE wargames. Let me take my troll face off and address your comment with more sincerity. When RPGs branched out from the wargame hobby, they left a lot of money on...
[More Than You Know] Cha’alt: Fuchsia Malaise
Discussing a book as creative and original as Cha’alt (a setting written and designed by Venger Satanis for use with whatever iteration of the D&D tabletop RPG) presents a number of challenges for the reviewer. Specifically, the marketing hype used within the tabletop RPG market has devalued the meaning...
Ten Foot Pole – The Best Adventure Site Around
Like many writers, my first real storytelling experiences came about through tabletop RPGs. Like many gamers, I found the fiction sections included with most RPGs to be wasted space. Even worse were the needlessly convoluted backstories to otherwise simple adventures, and despite (or perhaps because of my) owning and...
A Note on Random Dungeons
Long time internet based D&D dungeon designers know all about Dyson Logos and his brilliant series of dungeon geomorphs. They also know about Dave Millar’s amazing contribution to our little hobby, Dave’s Mapper, which builds a random dungeon using geomorphs created in Dyson’s style. The Mapper has geomorphs created by...
Sneak Peek at a New Series: Treasure Maps!
After three long years, the mini-Megadungeon in finally complete. That means it is time for a new series. This time we’re going in the complete opposite direction: short scalable adventures that you can drop into just about any campaign*. The kicker here is that, in addition to the standard...
Complete Mini-Megadungeon
Just in time for DMs day, here’s my present to all you hard working, handsome, and under-appreciated DMs out there in internet-land. With all 14+ levels of the Mini-Megadungeon are complete, I went ahead and bundled all of the relevant posts into a single PDF document for ease of...
Megadungeon Bonus Post: More Secrets
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the dungeon… When I run this dungeon, the entrance looks like this*. There is a narrow path up to the left side of the mouth shaped cavern that leads down to the dungeon proper. Even after carving up that amazing...
From the Archives – Free 3rd Edition D&D Module
Way back in the height of the days of third edition and the OGL, I wrote a short series of modules suitable for use with first level characters. This series was intended to fill the gap in first level adventures left by most publishers. It was also a way...