I’m sure it’s no secret to anyone how much I like Teratic Tome by Rafael Chandler. I’ve written a review of it, and I think it will affect how I design monsters in future. Rafael focused primarily on bad things, and a few neutral-but-dangerous ones. I want to explore some of the ‘good guys’. I think [...]
Category Archives: Series
Apr 23, 2013
Teratic Monster Design
Apr 21, 2013
Spotlight: Raging Swan Press
I’ve only written a handful of reviews, but they tend to be for single products or perhaps a very small number of related products (such as if I were to finally do the review I’ve been threatening to of Jack Shear’s Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque books). Sometimes, though, reviewing a single product doesn’t really do [...]
Apr 19, 2013
Religion in Seekers of Lore
I realized today that clerics may have to work differently in Seekers of Lore than I was expecting. This is something of an exploratory article, I don’t know what the conclusion will be. First Thoughts Part of the premise of Seekers of Lore is that experience points are gained by discovering and recovering that which [...]
Apr 18, 2013
Quick Map, A Bit of Experimentation
I’ve done a lot of writing this month, I figured I’d knock off a little map quickly in GIMP and call it a day. This one is a little experimental. For determining landforms I usually use a technique where I draw the general shape, then overlay some noise and select a range of colors from [...]
Apr 17, 2013
Pathfinder Big Books
Pathfinder made quite a few changes to Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, some subtle and some not so subtle. I like quite a few of the presentation changes, and some of the character development changes excited me. Barbarian rage powers, paladin mercies, sorcerer bloodlines, all these choices excited me. Over time, though, with the Ultimate series [...]
Apr 17, 2013
Path Extensions: Transitions in Node-Based Design
The Tuesday’s Reader Tips email from Johnn Four contained a tip that expands on the work I did for the Node-Based Megadungeon. I’m going to take the liberty of copying Lionel di Giacomo’s suggestion (and image, in case it goes away). I love dungeon flowcharts like Keith’s, but have found transitions between “rooms” can be [...]
Apr 16, 2013
Old Schools: Swords & Wizardry
Swords & Wizardry is undoubtedly one of the Old School games, one of the many legs of the OSR. But I’m not going to talk about that, quite. Even though it’s Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day, I’m going to talk about something I think might be missing. I notice that there is no mention of [...]
Apr 15, 2013
Neoplastic Press or Nerd-Crush, You Decide
I need an easy one today, I’m trying to also get something together for the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day on Wednesday, so I’m going to do a bit of gushing about one of my favorite small-press writers. Rafael Chandler publishes gaming materials under the name ‘Neoplastic Press‘. This is an imprint full of freaky, [...]
Rambly rambly time. I am just starting to explore the idea of combining Ben Robbin’s game Microscope with Neel Krishnaswami. I am not aiming for a particular target or result beyond seeing if they can work together, so I will be (was, actually; I wrote this sentence after everything below it) writing more or less [...]
Apr 11, 2013
Kingdom Example: Random Kingdom
I’ve been speaking about demographics lately, and how I think I might be able to get rid of detailed demographic calculations (which pleases me). Yesterday in Imperial Scale to Manorial Scale in Mapping and Rulership I talked about the abstractions that may allow this to be so, including the rules for placing settlements of maximum [...]
