The number three seems to have a strong cognitive effect. Hearing something three times can help someone remember it, we usually need at least three observations to predict a pattern, and we seem to be able to easily remember about three things about a subject. Listing sets of three is …
Role Theme Horse-riding nomadic orcs (elites ride pegasi). Conflicts Homeland plains are encroached on by the Empire of the Sun. Blood feud with the Ssthar tribes (ancient enmity, and relatively recently the Ssthar managed to wipe out the Kreshtar pegasi – and the son of their leader, who was one …
This process owes its genesis to ideas I had while reading Justin Alexander’s Node-Based Scenario Design essay. This essay formalized processes I had been applying and helped focus my mind on them… and led to me to some abstractions I hadn’t considered before. An adventure, a scenario, can ultimately be …
I’ve been looking through some older D&D materials. I know I’ve seen something in at least one of them about non-linear adventure design, but haven’t been able to put my hands (or eyes) on the one I want. I remember a section in a book that talks about trying to …
As part of my research for these articles, I’ve been reviewing published guidelines for adventure design. In the last couple days I have reviewed DMG 3.5, DMG II, Green Ronin’s Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide, and the Pathfinder GameMastery Guide. They have all had much the same advice for developing adventures: devise …
In a recent thread in rec.games.frp.dnd, I saw a comment with regard to a matter of power balance in a focus-mojo-and-release idea that I thought I would follow up on. I think it does a fair bit to explain where I’m coming from in my game design and campaign expectations. …
This is a quick addendum to my last post, particularly the section on scope levels. I wrote how scope levels describe how broad an impact or influence entities can have. However, I didn’t write about how big I expect game elements of each scope level to be in play. This …
This article is a follow-up to my earlier Campaign Setting Design article. It expands somewhat on the idea of entities (there called ‘features’; I have formalized the structures somewhat). I will be providing some greater description of the techniques I use to develop settings and scenarios. In order to do …
I’m starting to come to the conclusion that there’s probably no real harm in easing the limitations of armor use on arcane spell casters. It is already fairly easy to build an arcane caster who can use armor without significantly impacting their casting ability. There are a fair number of …
It took me long enough to get around to it, but I’ve now finished copying my old articles and reference materials from my old site to here. A long and tedious task, but it’s done now. I’ve also gotten a few new ideas as to how I can approach the …