The Delicate Balance Of Realism

Whenever you design something the page is your canvas. Go wild.

Except that sometimes it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just simply put seventy round rooms in a castle. Players will start asking what’s going on, what was the purpose of those rooms? How have they been built?

Realism is a thin line.

The Many Deaths Of The Barrowmaze - Episode 5

My players spent two hours trying to disarm a non-existing trap. At least they got 500 exp.

Art For Art's Sake

Innovation is hard and comes at a cost, otherwhise everyone would be doing it. I feel like the important thing is to keep doing things because you like doing them instead of waiting for an epphimeral moment of fame. One of the biggest joys I had in the past weeks is when people told me they liked something I made, and that was great, but did I have that pleasant sensation because they liked what I did or because they liked what I did?

I know that I’ll keep rambling on this pages until I get bored and I’ll keep making stuff until I get sick of creating, and I keep telling myself that I don’t care if someone reads my stuff or not, if someone get something out of my thoughts and/or articles. But I’m lying to myself. Approval is great, I just wish a desire of it wouldn’t be so prominent in my life.

Blue Crabs As A Metaphor For Emergent Narrative

There has been some talk about Gygaxian Naturalism ad about how fixed encounter tables make the world feel more alive, but I think there is much more to that. Random encounter tables nowadays feel like an old relic from the past, something that never bothers using anymore and is treated like a nuisance more than a tool, but I feel like this change is intrinsicly correlated with the shift in the game design of the later editions of D&D and I’d love to explore this problem a bit more.

P.S. I just noticed that I’m not actually using crabs as a metaphor but I like the title so it’s staying

The Hidden Colony Of Layanaka - Dungeon

Backstory

The hidden colony was actually a colony of refugees from the nearby city prison of St.Barbara. The city was pillaged by pirates to free one of their leaders and the other prisoners managed to escape via small boats once the main walls were destroyed. This meant that around 200 prisoners, both men and women found themselves in perilous waters for 2 days before finally reaching the island of Layanaka. Knowing that they would be chased the prisoners started excavating a hidden town inside one of the mountains, hoping that one day their crimes and their faces would be forgotten. Sadly that never happened. After only a few months one of the women discovered a purple plant that had relaxing properties: people would be able to forget about their troubles and live a less stressful life in the colony. In less than a month everyone was consuming this plant on a daily basis. Then tragedy struck: little was known to them is that the plant had small parasites feasting on its leaves, parasites that got ingested during the meals and slowly started to grow until, one day, they started leaving the bodies of its inhabitants, dismembering them from the inside and taking ownership over the colony.

The Many Deaths Of The Barrowmaze - Part 4

Thelonius, Cavell, Glirk and Cordoon were almost doomed with no way to escape that rathole they were in. It looked like their chances were very slim, so it really surprised me when they decided to form a wall with their shields and run out of the corridor. After jumping the pit and running trough the door they find themselves surrounded by 6 Huecuvas, they roll for surprise and roll a 1, the Huecuvas are surprised. Then, Thelonius casts Turn Undead and rolls a 12, even with the modified Turn Undead table that’s enough to make 2d6 HD of Undead run in fear, and again they get lucky with 4 out of 6 skeletons running away.

Death As An Incentive

Yesterday one of my players asked me “How are we supposed to make progress if we keep dying and starting at level one? It doesn’t seem fun”

And that’s a valid question. The simple answer? Don’t die.

Don't Be Afraid To Leave

Let’s be honest, burnout is real. Most people want new shiny adventures, sometimes because the idea of running one is more interesting and exciting than the adventure itself. This leads to disappointment and to the emergence of a low level hell from where characters can’t get out.