The illustrative example from the Cook edition of D&D. In the grand old OSR tradition, long stairways were a sign for the players that they were moving on to deeper, darker, and more dangerous depths of the dungeon.  The challenges became greater, and the rewards commensurately so, as you penetrated the...

This is one of those rare cases where a figure looks better on film than in person.  See that guy on the right?  The rangery elfy looking guy?  The back of his cloak is supposed to look like a tree branch with leaves on it.  Out in meat space...

Old School D&D assumes a human-centric civilization with the demi-humans being rare exceptions.  And yet, with my latest order of Pendraken miniatures my collection now includes nearly three times as many demi-humans as humans.  Gonna have to fix that one of these days.  In the meantime, here’s a quick...

The first batch of Pendraken figures showed up in the mail this week.  This post is a reference post for those who want to see what the Pendraken figures look like sans paint…sort of.  Shiny metal doesn’t photograph well, so these have all been photographed after basing and base...

Once the characters enter this map they have left the old world behind.  There are only two ways to get back to the world they left – turn around now and walk back up the stairs to a long and boring life full of kids and bills and everyday...

Before you throw your soon to be long suffering players (and not so long suffering characters) into The Dungeon, you’re going to need to know a few things. The Dungeon is a journey, not a destination.  There is no set finish line, no ultimate goal, and no final boss fight....

Last night I ran my son and six friends through a dungeon run.  I used the excellent one page adventure There’s a Sword Down There – I Promise written by Jensan over at Rustfoot.  Click on that link to see the slick format he used for his dungeon – the map...

Welcome to the MegaDungeon design series.  We’re going to walk through the design and stocking of a 10+ level dungeon.  We started with Dyson’s wonderful map (left), and carved out ten levels.  There are a few secret sublevels in there, along with a handful of blank nooks and crannies....

Remember that sweet map by Dyson I showed you yesterday? Here it is again, marked up and ready for some serious analysis.  It really is an elegant design with all sorts of architectural features that work in favor of treating it as multiple dungeons. First off, notice that big red...

This post is brought to you by my son’s 13th birthday.  Everything I’m doing here, I’m doing in preparation for his party in which he and a party of friends will enter a dungeon…and they’ll do it old school. The last decade or so has witnessed countless attempts by...