Posting challenges, usually time bound or on a particular topic or theme.
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
I had originally considered a few other topics for ‘M’. ‘Magic’ is way too big. ‘Making Mountains out of Molehills (well, using GIMP)’ was a possibility but it would be a beast of a post (and never mind that it’s Sunday, that one is going to take days to write …
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 …
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 …
Over the last few days I’ve been doing a lot of calculations regarding population and demographics in medieval times, in part because I’m working on rules for Demesne-Level Play. These calculations are mostly to lay groundwork for the rules I’m working on, to ensure they produce credible results. I’m certainly …
A few days ago I talked about Fractal Game Design and mentioned how it relates to Demesne-Level play. Yesterday I dug into Hex Population Density. Today I’m going to try to bring these things together. Definitions I am using a very simple model for the relationships between demesnes. Real feudalism is …