I have decided to do #Dungeon23.
If you are unfamiliar, #Dungeon23 is the brainchild of Sean McCoy who has set a challenge of building a dungeon area each day of 2023 with the goal of having a mega-dungeon by the end of the year.
Spellcasting Laws In Myrbridge
In my blog post on how governments could react to spellcasting and spellcasters, I spoke about how Nations would view and regulate spell schools and casters, in general.
In this post, I want to give an example from my own campaign world on how to apply laws for spellcasting by showcasing how the city-state of Myrbridge handles this.
Cultural Weapons – Orc Carver
This is part of a series on cultural weapons I am writing.
The Orc Carver is a sword typically used by orcs all over the Known World and especially in the Dragonspine mountain region.
Original made by the Eklish Empire, this weapon was co-opted by the orcs after they smashed that empire.
Cultural Weapons – Dwarven Fighting Dagger
This is the first of an on-going series I am writing for the blog on cultural weapons. These will feature a twist on regular weapons in D&D or brand new ones.
Mountain Dwarves usually fight in their often cramped tunnels and chambers that make up the mountain dwarven empire under the Dragonspine Mountain.
Due to these cramped conditions, mountain dwarves often use spears, shortswords, daggers, and crossbows (as opposed to giant axes and warhammers their surface cousins tend to use).
One of these weapons is the Dwarven Fighting Dagger.
Continue reading “Cultural Weapons – Dwarven Fighting Dagger”
Encounter Table Design For DnD
I have written about how good Dungeons & Dragons random encounter tables are before, both in this blog and in issue 7 of my zine.
In this post I want to respond in a way to a video I watched where the host was explaining how bell-curve random tables are not truly random and shouldn’t be used. A single die with a way to roll higher than the max would be better.
I both agree and disagree with this notion.
It all comes down to what you want to get out of the table and what area in your campaign world the table is for.
Let’s dive into it.
Random Encounter Tables – A GMs Best Friend
Random encounter tables are a great way to bring diversity to your campaign.
The biggest error most GMs make with random encounter tables is they use stock standard ones from official books, which are filled primarily with monsters. Continue reading “Random Encounter Tables – A GMs Best Friend”
D&3 Podcast Episode 1 – WorldBuilding
This is the first “fireside chat” podcast that I have put together and includes Ian from Black Dragon Games and Jon from Tale of the Manticore.
Featuring music by Squadda Bambino, as well as myself, Ian, and Jon answering D&D questions from the Twitter and Facebook TTRPG communities.
The theme was WorldBuilding and we managed to answer over a dozen question over an hour.
Listen and let us know what you think in the comments below, or on my Twitter.
Chat Breakdown
0:40 Introductions
1:45 Ian talks about playtesting his home campaign world, Bhakashal, and the D&D rules that go along with it
4:45 How Ian from Balck Dragon Games organises his multiple campaigns
7:50 Question: How to get started – start big or small? Questions from Alexthe MapMaker, Saxious, and NolaBert.
21:30 Free material to help you run your games.
Grounded Fantasy
This (very short) post is my attempt to explain what fantasy I like the most: Grounded Fantasy.
Grounded Fantasy is fantasy that has one foot firmly planted on solid ground, and one firmly planted in fantasy.
There is magic, but it’s not over-powered. There is the fantastic, but it meshes with harsh reality.
But what do I mean by “grounded”?
My Issues With Pre-Written Adventures In D&D
Show. Don’t Tell.
This is an old adage in creative arts live movie-making and writing.
It generally means that a movie, for example, is better when you show the audience what has happened, rather than telling them – via character dialogue (or the dreaded voiceover).
Continue reading “My Issues With Pre-Written Adventures In D&D”
Random Encounter Tables In D&D – What Are The Monsters Doing?
Dungeons and Dragons random encounter tables are great, but they only tell you one part of the encounter – what the encounter is.
It doesn’t tell you what that encounter – or monster – is doing.
That’s why I created the table below.
Continue reading “Random Encounter Tables In D&D – What Are The Monsters Doing?”