Every now and then, you run into an idea that kinda rewires your brain (in a good way!) as you read it. For me, a recent occurrence of that was when I read Cyclic Dungeon Generation by Sersa Victory, based on Joris Dormans's 2017 roguelite Unexplored. As stated in the PDF, this blog article goes … Continue reading Making Meaningful Dungeons with Cyclic Dungeon Generation
Horror, dread and stress can add a lot of flavor to roleplaying. However, when nosing around, I found that a lot of mechanics (such as Mothership, Call of Cthulhu)... Take away player agency at one point or another, to represent them losing control. This is a neat idea, but a hard sell in a heroic … Continue reading Super Simple Stress/Horror Rules for D&D
This post ties into the post about Noise & Alert in the Underdark, but can also be used seperately. What This System Tries To Do The Underdark is vast and dangerous. To try and map it, is folly. Navigation must be done differently; by using all of your senses. Tunnels twist and turn, and may … Continue reading I Have No Memory Of This Place: Navigating The Underdark Through Your Senses in Dungeons & Dragons
"Quietly now. It's a four-day journey to the other side. Let us hope that our presence may go unnoticed." Gandalf This is a specific implementation of my Noise & Alert system, applied to travelling through the Underdark. Part II of this post is up here: I Have No Memory Of This Place: Navigating The Underdark … Continue reading We Cannot Get Out: Giving The Underdark A Mines Of Moria Feel with Noise & Alerts in Dungeons & Dragons
What This System Does Implement books with benefits into your D&D campaignMake the experience of reading a book in D&D a bit more like reading a book in real lifeHave the relevant attributes provide relevant benefits How It Accomplishes That It makes Intelligence an important reading statIt makes progress through a book slightly unpredictable - … Continue reading Books, The Best Weapons In The World: Simulating The Process of Reading Dusty Tomes in Dungeons & Dragons
The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons 5e means that it's really attractive to produce content and tools for the game. This creates a self-propagating cycle of sorts; it's the most popular because there's so much tools and tutorials available, causing more people to get into it etc. Over the years, I've gathered a lot of … Continue reading 18 Amazing Online D&D Resources You Might Not Have Heard Of
Before you startThis post is a demonstration of the system I wrote that allows you to run a cult or religion in D&D. Start with that one! Meet Myra Myra is a kind-hearted 6th-level Human Cleric of Finrimbel, God of the Sun, with a problem. She just arrived in Khobai, the City of a Thousand … Continue reading Have A Little Faith: A Religious War in D&D in 9 Simple Steps
I wrote an extensive example of this system in use, if you're curious! What This System Tries To Do Provide possibility for emergent storytelling through progress. Starting a real-life religion is probably pretty tricky (I never tried it), but just as Adventurers are capable in combat, I'm assuming that player characters setting out to spread … Continue reading Now I’m A Believer: Run A Religion (Or Cult) In Dungeons & Dragons (Or Other TTRPGs)
Gold has a bit of a weird role in D&D - it is generally expected to be desired, yet a default out-of-the-box D&D campaign does not provide a lot of things to do with it. An option of investing is sometimes mentioned, which gave me the idea of adding a living macro economy to my … Continue reading Straight To The Moon: Adding A Stock Exchange To Your Dungeons & Dragons Economy
How to add meaningful gameplay decisions to big, dangerous environments.
