Old School D&D

Old School D&D

Reaction rolls, random encounter tables, and many other old school D&D rules and articles

Riding Horses & Grass Fires – New D&D Rules

I wanted to offer up more than just “you buy a horse” – I wanted to see if the horses had any quirks. Plus, one of the players asked: “what colour are they?”

Article • Growing

1:1 Time And How I Came Up With My Own Idea

I started using 1:1 time in my D&D campaigns – both online and solo – but I realised that it wasn’t working as I hoped. So, I developed this hybrid model that I am currently testing out.

Article • Developed

Going Analogue With D&D

To give myself a digital break, I have made a decision to go as analogue as possible for all my table-top gaming.

Article • Growing

Adventures Are Killing Your D&D Campaign

Running adventures, where everyone needs to show up at your table or the session is cancelled, is ruining your campaign. There is a better way, which involves running an open world sandbox.

Article • Matured

Revisiting What The Monsters Are Doing Chart

Back in 2021 I released Issue 1 of my d12 Monthly zine which had a table that let you roll what a monster was doing when the PCs showed up. I iterate on it here.

Article • Matured

D&D Monster Intelligence: Stop Playing Them Like Idiots (Unless They Are)

Here’s the hard truth: if your wolves, orcs, and liches all fight like fearless sacks of hit points until they fall over, you’re not running monsters, you’re running target dummies.

Article • Matured

Encounter Table Design For DnD

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.

Article • Matured

How To Surprisingly Turn D&D 5e Into An Old School OSR Game

This is a bit of an on-going experiment, but I decided to strip Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition down to its core to see how close I could replicate the earlier editions of the game.

Article • Matured

Random Encounter Tables – A GMs Best Friend

Random encounter tables are a great way to bring diversity to your campaign.

Article • Matured


Reaction Rolls in Dungeons & Dragons

Reaction rolls are an old school mechanic in D&D that allows you to determine how an NPC or monster will react to the PCs.

Article • Matured