Image credits: Merciless by Vlad Marica I've started playtesting my aforementioned Dodge, Block & Parry system! I've tied it into the Weapon system as well, and it's working quite good, so far! Design Notes Fight back makes combat even more lethal, by allowing for essentially a double attack (attacking in response to the enemy => … Continue reading Dodging, Blocking & Parrying in Practice
Before my current focus on Cairn, I ran a lot of OSR games in The Black Hack. It is about as lightweight as a system involving the 6 classic stats can be, and is therefore ripe for the hacking. These are the homebrew rules I used to run a superhero/superpower game in The Black Hack. … Continue reading Stalwart – Superpowered Heroes for The Black Hack
Here I aim to flesh out the step between “you are traveling” and “you found a dungeon” in a hex- or pointcrawl, in a way that hopefully feels natural and like actual exploration. I’ve taken some inspiration from, yes, Skyrim. It aims to add a bit of risk-reward to the process: discovering new locations might … Continue reading The Things We Find Along The Way – Filling The Gaps In A Hexcrawl or Pointcrawl
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 Through … 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
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
I've been using the lockdown for, you guessed it, a lot of tabletop rpg's. All this time has given me the opportunity to explore more outside of the boundaries of strictly D&D. As I'm about to return to D&D, I want to include mechanics that I've fallen in love with from systems such as Dungeon … Continue reading 4 Homebrew Rules To Make D&D Follow Fiction, Not Rules
