Blogs & Articles:
Arnold K. of Goblin Punch deconstructs random encounters and discusses the concept of spirits of the underworld the player’s could encounter along their dungeon crawls.
Joel Hines of Silverarm Press talks about how to make mega-dungeons like Moria feel large yet manageable for GM game preparation.
W.F. Smith shares some mechanics and ideas on his blog Prismatic Wasteland for fleshing out disagreements and beefs that your setting’s wizards may have with one another.
David McGrogan, creator of Yoon-Suin, shares his thoughts on the fantasy literary spectrum of Eddison-Tolkien-Zelazny, wishing more campaigns would play like Eddison or Tolkien.
Justin Alexander shares his thoughts on running Sword and Sorcery style games on his blog the Alexandrian.
Wizards of the Coast announced the 2024 edition of D&D will be made available under the Creative Commons license.
Videos:
Daniel of Bandit’s Keep talks about refereeing success but at a cost for the players:
Ben at Questing Beast reviews The Electrum Archive by Emiel Boven.
I talk about ways to encourage the usage of gold, an often accumulated and forgotten asset:
RPG Products Worth Checking Out:
I’ve been reading through Muster: A Primer for War, to learn more about the war gaming roots and methods for running D&D. Its been quite interesting so far!
I picked up Mythic Game Master Emulator 2e, and have been running a solo OSE game with it and having a lot of fun. I can also see it being useful for GM’s that want to introduce a bit more randomness into their own decision making with a standard group.
I’ve been running a combination of Incandescent Grottos and The Hole in the Oak by Necrotic Gnome, both of which are fun modules for play.
Sundered Isles is out now. It is an expansion for the Ironsworn: Starforged tabletop roleplaying game. It includes new gameplay and character options, inspiring worldbuilding exercises, and a vast array of tools and random tables for your nautical adventures.
Feature: Mundane Monsters
When we play role playing games, we like to stock our dungeons and wilderness with scary monsters. Undead horrors lurking in the crypts. The mind flayers scheming in their underground warrens. These are stuff of fantasy. They take our imaginations to far away lands.
But, I think its a mistake to overlook the ordinary. Mundane monsters can be terrifying if we play them correctly. A swordsman facing off with a 1,000 pound grizzly bear is more than a cause for concern. Grizzlies can reach up to 30 MPH running and they can deftly climb trees. Their claws are a fistful of daggers, and their teeth are designed for shredding their prey. And make no doubt about it, everything is considered prey to a grizzly (well, maybe not everything in a fantasy setting).
Wolves, bears, big cats are all typical monsters you might find on a random encounter list, or perhaps serving as a pet of a group of goblins. But I think we can do better. I think we can make these creatures “mythic” in their own nature. We can do this by adding a bit of history and/or folklore to our famous real-world based predator. A grizzly bear may be terrifying. But “The Silver-eyed Mountain” is an entirely different beast. Old Silver-eyed tore a horse in half and eats goblins for snacks.
Your beast could be known to the locals. Perhaps it hunts and patrols the grounds not too far from human civilization. Or maybe it has its own cave/den as a part of a larger dungeon. In the latter case, the PCs may learn about the beast through other denizens of the dungeon that steer clear of it. We can make engaging with these beasts enticing. Perhaps its cave entrance provides a shortcut to a deeper part of the dungeon. Or maybe its acquired a smattering of treasures over the years from victims it’s defeated and devoured. If its famed in human lands, then perhaps their is a bounty out for its hide.
Its up to you if you feel a named beast deserves a change in mechanics from a bog-standard version. But I don’t think many changes are really necessary. The beast’s reputation is what’s driving the adventure seed here, not mechanics. If anything, I may give it higher hit points than average based on its hit dice or challenge rating depending on your system. If you can make a well understood entity such as a bear or mountain lion terrifying to your players, then just imagine what you can do once they start seeing the fantastical!
First its bears. then dire bears, then werebears, giant bears, an hallucinating druid bear and the dreaded care bears. The implied arms race is inimical. Or maybe just 1d6 bear types, exclusive of the Owlbear(TM).
Each one has a story. I think the first one will eat the PCs rations, without aggression, right out of their backpacks. If the PCs react with violence, it is on them, not the bear. The dire bears are like Lassie to the werebears, faithful pets with a strange ability to communicate psionically in oddly specific impressions (Hey, Lassie! Oh no, did Timmy fall down the well? Let's go!). The giant bears are trained war beasts for Giants waging war against some non-bear foe. The dreaded care bears are a lead in to an entire TTRPG setting waiting to be sold to Mattel, and it's Swedish death-metal parody, "Care Borg".
I'll never understand the infatuation with point/node crawls. They take a large amount of shoehorning to fit into the mechanics of OSR and how the players and DM interact.