Design

  • Rules Sketch: Sphereclipping

    So, the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons community is booming in the aftermath of its release, and a lot of the people there are excited to adapt some of their favourite 2nd edition settings to AFD! It’s been suggested we use space as a connective tissue, so I’ve taken the mantle of writing some rules to cover Continue reading

  • Advanced! Fantasy! Dungeons!

    Hey everyone, with greatest of thanks to the volunteer labour of Hodag and J Tucker White, Advanced Fantasy Dungeons is now available and in the wild! Click here to pick it up for free (or donate! I always need a few dollars!). It’ll be available in print, soon, but remember: It’s a playtest! It’s really Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Treasure

    I had quickly adapted treasure simply to Advanced Fantasy Dungeons, back before it had a fairly comprehensive monster and spell list. It was really a conversion table, keeping things simple: To convert a monster’s “treasure type”, instead assign the appropriate treasure type (with their rough equivalencies):• Leavings for monsters who simply leave a pile of Continue reading

  • Designing an overworld-like megadungon

    I stalled on my in progress no pressure megadungeon project, partially because I’ve been busy, partially because I wrote my Megadungeon as an Overworld post and I want to try that out. I’ve been trying to figure out what a theme for a betwixt could be, and I’ve found a theme: “Theseus’ labyrinth crossed with Continue reading

  • Diagetic advancement and inventory

    People really seem to have trouble with diagetic advancement in games like Cairn, which is really disappointing in many ways, because I prefer diagetic advancement to mechanical advancement almost universally. Like, it makes more sense, right? I was chatting with Sam on discord about something, honestly, completely different, and I came up with this approach Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Safe Zones

    Thinking about saving throws for NPCs, after a comment last night (thanks Tuck!). Now, there needs to be some mechanism to account for monsters having special responses particularly to spells and area of effects, so I’d been including Saving Throws as Class, like in some versions of B/X. But Psionic Combat opened a new angle Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Spell Duels

    Like, I just wrote a whole psionic duel system, and I want a cool one for wizards and priests as well. They operate differently from one another, and I’m inclined not to do a priest duel, but honestly the most memorable duel I’ve ever run was between two clerics in 5e, so that seems silly. Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Psionic Duels

    Starting to draft out a few spells for Advanced Fantasy Battles. I’m not sure if I’ll actually build out a bestiary or a spell list in total, but a few examples are probably necessary, and perhaps any fans can pad them out as they draw from the original sources for a more complete list. I Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Monk Class

    I’m chipping away at the AFD ruleset now, and I can’t help but feel like I want to add in those missing classes: Barbarian, Monk and Psionicist. Monk is the last one! Our template for classes is looking like this, on Version 0.15 of Advanced Fantasy Dungeons, this is the Fighter class: Gain proficiency in Continue reading

  • Rules Sketch: Psionicist Class

    I’m chipping away at the AFD ruleset now, and I can’t help but feel like I want to add in those missing classes: Barbarian, Monk and Psionicist. Our template for classes is looking like this, on Version 0.14 of Advanced Fantasy Dungeons, this is the Fighter class: Gain proficiency in a weapon of your choice Continue reading

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Recent Posts


Threshold of Evil Dungeon Regular

Dungeon Regular is a show about modules, adventures and dungeons. I’m Nova, also known as Idle Cartulary and I’m reading through Dungeon magazine, one module at a time, picking a few favourite things in that adventure module, and talking about them. On this episode I talk about Threshold of Evil, in Issue #10, March 1988! You can find my famous Bathtub Reviews at my blog, https://playfulvoid.game.blog/, you can buy my supplements for elfgames and Mothership at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/, check out my game Advanced Fantasy Dungeons at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/advanced-fantasy-dungeons and you can support Dungeon Regular on Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/idlecartulary.
  1. Threshold of Evil
  2. Secrets of the Towers
  3. Monsterquest
  4. They Also Serve
  5. The Artisan’s Tomb

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