Questing for Tabletop Adventure Games
Person in Electric Bastionland??? It's seven. Plus or minus two. Where are my psychology people at? Yeah, that's the optimized number of things you can hold in your head at one time. Why would you want to hold the layout of a dungeon in your and your players' heads? If you either don't have the … Continue reading Optimum number of rooms for a dungeon?
Art is a self-taught, self-sought endeavor for me as of late. Hope you enjoy. 🙂 When I run fantasy role-playing games for kids on Outschool, I always label the classes as "Life Skills." Frankly, it doesn't really count as any of the other tags like "Social Studies" or "English" or "Math" even though RPGs contain … Continue reading Playing with Youngers: Do RPGs teach you anything?
There's adventure up, down, left, right, and exactly where you are. For running games on Outschool, I was told by a good friend that an adventure hub would go a long way in building the world out. An adventure hub being a place that grounds the adventures that take place. It's a place to rest, … Continue reading Adventuring Hub
I love the idea of running one-shots with a definite end. There's no "oh, we should continue this game until it totally peeters out and slowly chokes to death." It's gotta be quick and clean. Clear beginning, middle, and end. So, what would you do if you knew there was only one day left of … Continue reading Last Day on Earth
This letter has been going around the Free Kriegsspiel Discords. I've written it up here for easier reading, with the emphasis being mine. This is a letter from Sandy Eisen to Gary Gygax about D&D. It speaks to a feeling that many of us gamers, game masters, and players have experienced when reading the rules, … Continue reading Sandy’s Reply to Gary (that is, Gygax)
Shipwright. Found this site called Fiverr that promotes online teaching. It claims to be the adult version of Outschool and only takes a 20% cut instead of Outschool's 30%. Could you use this to run RPGs for money? Sure. Of the categories listed, DND or whathaveyou would probably fall under "Lifestyle." I probably won't because … Continue reading Run games for ADULTS for $
"Dodge this." This idea of dueling that has received plenty of positive feedback. It will be receiving expansion in some form. Promise. I've brought the idea to some friends who had great ideas for how to deepen the system and what makes sense to add while keeping it all simple (stay tuned). I've also had … Continue reading What it means to outdo someone
This stink bug wizard makes me happy. 🙂 "Roll an Athletics check to jump the pit." "Make a grapple roll." *Reaches for the rulebook.* "We'll just roll dice back and forth until we know which army won." We've talked diceless resolution. Let's do it again. Quick summary: give the world/obstacle/enemy the Upper Hand. If the … Continue reading Diceless examples
Lest we forget, fiction is diceless. Books, movies, radio dramas. They tell stories of problems that have the Upper Hand (which we talked about last time). The protagonists must then find solutions that give them the Upper Hand: The rebels are a rag-tag bunch of fighters with rusty X-wings against the armada of the Empire, … Continue reading Diceless Warfare
Fear no evil. We did diceless violence before, but the process for making diceless resolution, diceless violence, and diceless warfare is all the same: give the "bad guys" (orcs, evil nobles, the mountain, the world in general) the Upper Hand. The players must find a solution to change the current outcome. Each solution they attempt … Continue reading Diceless Resolution and the Upper Hand
