Design

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. Factions are groups of people who share a similar goal and have collective power to shape the world around them. The community collectively considers them essential for making a world feel responsive and independent of the characters, but Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. Having separated out the advice for building a campaign and the advice for preparation. into their own sections, the advice for running a session is spread out throughout it the many books in sentences here and paragraphs there. Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. Second edition does not describe play at all except through the examples of play. Those examples are good, in my opinion, and I’ve gleaned a lot of designers intent from them. But I like to be more clear Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. Similar to monsters, I really want spells and magical items to be cross compatible between B/X and Second Edition. What do those spell descriptions consist of? For B/X, it appears to be range, duration and spell description. For Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. Thinking about a common question that will come up with my particular group who was born and bred on fifth edition: How do I make a perception check? The obvious answer, and — I think — the boring Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. Remembering that whatever weird design approaches I take, this is full intended to be a cross compatible D&D clone, there are two things to talk about on the topic of monsters: Compatibility in the context of changing combat Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. The second edition DMG spends a lot of time on society alignment. It’s actually not too problematic on the topic: The alignment of the ruler determines the nature of many of the laws of the land. Where the Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of this series, there’s an index here. My first post on ethos, my elevation of a minor ruling to cover the failures of alignment as a concept, wasn’t very concreted in its approach, but working through the GM guidance section I realise ai need to revise ethos before Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. So, in my search for simplification, I realise that I want to amalgamate secrets and rumours. These only exist in passing in the text, so I have a lot of leeway. Secrets are just rumours PCs don’t know, Continue reading

If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here. One piece of preparation that really helps with world-building is a calendar. It gets a whole section in the second edition DMG, but I think of a calendar as twofold: It helps track what’s happened in your campaign Continue reading