Design

  • SLMDNGN Design Notes

    Advanced Fantasy Dungeons was a whole lotta maximalist design. You might be surprised to find that’s not what I usually play, and I’m craving simplicity. So I wrote SLMDNGN. Today. You can download it here for free. The design principles: Basically B/X Run it mainly in my head Just d6s Live conversion only I drew… Continue reading

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  • Chekhov’s Toolbox: Complexity and intratextuality

    The projects I write tend to spiral out of control. Whenever I find a glimmer that gets me excited, I add in a note that says something to the effect of: Who else in the world cares about this? It looks like this. I’m writing about a small frontier city, and there’s a town square.… Continue reading

  • 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 Groundling is a great name for non-aether-farers Krynn has a spacefaring population: Draconians and Krynn minotaurs. Gnomes make clockwork ships 10/10 An Egyptian god, Ptah, has gotten loose in space and… 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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