Techniques

  • Prepping A Sandbox for Dragonlance

    Prepping A Sandbox for Dragonlance

    Something that keeps coming up on the OSR and NSR discord servers is that a few years ago I ran an epic adaptation of the classic DL series of modules, as a sandbox, in fifth edition. People keep asking me, how the hell did I do it? And I keep saying “one day I’ll write Continue reading

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  • Writing Dungeons Without Dice

    I have two processes for dungeons: In one, I draw a map, then figure out what’s in it. In the other, I figure out what’s in it, and draw the dungeon to match those ideas. The second is really hard, because I usually only have one or two ideas for a full dungeon level. So, Continue reading

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  • Fleeing the Dungeon

    When I’m running a draft dungeon, I love giving the player characters a fairly sure escape option if they encounter something that they’re not prepared for. This is how I do it. The players characters entered through the eastern door in room 6, and find the secret door to room 7. Oh no! An ogre! Continue reading

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  • The Session Report

    In a recent RTFM episode, Chris Bisette talked about how they wish there were more session reports. However, they aren’t the session reports I’m reading out there, which are usually narrativisations of play (the kind of reports we often write as records for our play groups themselves). They’re suggesting we talk about how the referee Continue reading

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  • Every Character A Major (Character)

    This is a polish-up of a tweetstorm I wrote a while ago. I keep forgetting that it’s better to write here than on Twitter; force of habit I guess. I saw someone talking about how “only certain important NPCs really need detail”. I came to thinking of how I applied the concept “all NPCs are Continue reading

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  • Trick Monsters

    This post is cool, and communicates three principles: This is fun and cool. Think about video game bosses. Pikmin 4 does this well. You could build this into anything: The Wizards of Millinery wear pointed hats from which they gain their powers. They are stunned for a moment when they are knocked off, and cannot Continue reading

  • Torches and Escaping the Dungeon

    Ok, I’m iterating on my supply chip idea for the megadungeon I’m planning on running. Currently I’m thinking I’ll run this in Cairn, mainly because people understand Cairn and it’s easy to onboard people, and it has a hazard dice. But this got me thinking to how I could reproduce the risk/reward loop of traditional Continue reading

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  • Silver Linings: Making Weather Fun

    There was a weather themed blog carnival with unusually little uptake last month, and I think it’s because weather kind of sucks. Like, if it’s only ever a drag to have weather, why bother? The obvious solution to me is to make weather fun. Inspired by Spiritfarer, whenever you would collect a resource from the Continue reading

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  • The Supply Chip

    I was saying to Marcia and Emmy that I’m feeling a little tired regarding the complexity of Knave 2e’s abundance of hazard dice, and mentioned that I am preferring a token system right now. I use poker chips. Buy Supply Chips in town, at the cost of 1 gp per Supply Chip. They take as Continue reading

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  • Procedure as Move

    Marcia just posted this, positing fuck procedures, just let the GM decide as hoc for more meaningful bespoke travel. This is cool, but right now I’m into player choice, so I propose: When the party travels, spend the day. travelling. The GM proposes a danger you will encounter, an opportunity you will miss, and a 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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