Idle Cartulary

  • Rules Sketch: Experience

    If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon series, there’s an index here. Experience, oh how have I been dreading you! The reason being that there are challenges, between the variable progression tables, and the varying monster experience awards, that I’m not keen to tackle. Let’s begin with some assumptions: XP… Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Ethos

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. As discussed in the Player’s Handbook Read-through, alignment is problematic in its word choices and not particularly useful as a guide for decision-making or role-playing. It’s at once too specific and too general, but second edition comes with a separate system… Continue reading

  • Rule Sketch: Ageing

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. The main subsystem I didn’t interacted with in the last post on Heritage is ageing, which in second edition is poorly designed and weirdly ageist. It wasn’t my plan. I’m going to detour here, as I’m not sure it’s a value… Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Heritage

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. There is nothing in second edition’s conception or implementation of race that isn’t grounded in systemic racism and heavily loaded. But, race in second edition more broadly and especially as they developed in subsequent editions is fertile ground for self-expression. This… Continue reading

  • Advanced Fantasy Dungeons: Inspirations and Influences

    I’ve been writing down everything that has influenced my thoughts in the development of Advanced Fantasy Dungeons as I went so as to avoid missing anything. These are the things within the Dungeons and Dragons line I’ve referred to and been inspired by, most able to be bought on the DM’s Guild if you’re so… Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Classes

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. This is a big task and one that I won’t fully flesh out in this post, but rather scratch out the principles. Just like proficiencies, I’ll get to the actual lists later. I’ll start with commonalities: No hit dice increase after… Continue reading

  • Advanced Fantasy Dungeons: Index of Posts

    Advanced Fantasy Dungeons is a project where I design a paraclone of the second edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. A paraclone attempts to realise the designers intent, free of simulationalism, tradition and legacy. This is a place to index what I’ve written so far and plan what I’ve yet to write. I’ll continue to… Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Proficiencies & Ability Checks Part 3

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. Second Edition proficiency checks are simply ability checks, with a modifier applied to the target score. You suffer a penalty if you don’t have proficiency on everything, and you can’t perform the proficiency without the necessary tools, you can specialise further… Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Ability Scores

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. This sketch is actually quite straightforward from the read-through, because a huge chunk of this chapter is individual subsystems that are fun but need to be elsewhere – in magic, proficiencies, combat, death and healing, for example. This leaves me mainly… Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Checks Part 2

    If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. With Brian’s help I realised I’d miscalculated the mathematics on the last Rules Sketch (I find anydice challenging at any time, let alone on my phone, which is where all my writing is happening right now). I also realised I’d forgotten… Continue reading

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