Design

  • Problem Stacking

    I saw a TikTok (which thereafter disappeared into the algorithm) that talked about problem stacking in story writing and I was like This Needs To Be Said about module writing and home brewing adventure scenarios: Don’t give the player characters one problem. Give them many possible problems. We do this in a bunch of ways:… Continue reading

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  • Red Button Monsters

    In a recent Dungeon Regular episode, the Kappa of Pachee Bridge, I drew a connection between a particular monster in that module, and the boss battles in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and The Legend of Zelda: Not The Most Recent Two. It reminds me of a 16 HP Dragon, in some senses, but leaning more… Continue reading

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  • Boring swords and interesting swords

    Dan Phipps was talking about interesting swords on some discord or other, and I was talking about it in the AFD discord, and I thought the boring and interesting swords problem is worth posting about. Trick choices If you give me a choice is between a cheap, weak sword, and an expensive, good sword, in… Continue reading

  • Sphereclipping Brainstorm

    I decided to read through all of the supplements and write down the compelling stuff that I’ll riff on for the zine: Random thoughts System generation Spelljammer really wants to be Traveller, or at least lacks the imagination to be something else; it’s super concerned with creating a realistic solar system, but does this less… Continue reading

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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