I love that Shadowdark - a quite good fusion of OSR and 5e that I happily recommend - strips ability modifiers from damage rolls.
Adding your Strength bonus to your attack and damage rolls is...
2024-11-29 17:13:13 +0000 UTC View PostIn TTRPGs, the intersection of the action economy and content design yields gameplay. You can think of your action economy as your fuel or energy budget. It tells you how much stuff you can do. You...
2024-11-12 15:08:10 +0000 UTC View PostIn my last post, I shared my house rules for two-weapon fighting in 5e. I mentioned that I preferred that for the rules for dual wielding to appear in the core rules, rather than under the descript...
2024-11-08 13:51:49 +0000 UTC View PostI'm not crazy about how D&D '24 handles two-weapon fighting. I was never crazy about it in 5e in general, but it feels like it has gotten harder to use. Here is my patch.
Two-Weap...
2024-11-05 21:37:31 +0000 UTC View PostWhen the characters explore a location, they seek to gain information and uncover secrets against the backdrop of an ongoing threat. In classic dungeon exploration, the characters must weigh the da...
2024-11-02 15:16:27 +0000 UTC View PostD&D's three pillars Interaction works well in the game, and I like how the 2024 revision cleans those rules up, and combat is great as long as your encounter design has interesting monsters an...
2024-10-29 14:27:08 +0000 UTC View PostI'm taking a break from monsters to loop back to subclasses for today's post. I thought it would be interesting to look at the process of revising design and how playtesting affects it.
I hav...
2024-10-09 13:45:50 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone!
I've been regularly running three (or more!) games a week, testing out the new approach to monsters and some of the new subclasses. A few notes on things before we get back to...
2024-10-04 15:02:42 +0000 UTC View PostIf you haven't at least read the FATE RPG, I highly recommend it. Reading new RPGs is like having a deep conversation with another DM about how they run games. Someone ran RPGs and decided to encod...
2024-09-28 13:48:55 +0000 UTC View PostIf you find that the fights you set up in D&D are dull or grindy, your encounter areas might be too small. It's a common issue in published adventures, so it's not surprising that it also cross...
2024-09-25 05:11:55 +0000 UTC View PostTiming is the best tool in a storyteller's kit. By their very nature, stories are artifacts of time. They unspool in acts, with tension rising and falling over time, before the story ends at its mo...
2024-09-21 14:51:51 +0000 UTC View PostIn the comments in one of my recent posts, Swiss Calavera talked about the asymmetry of my design work here. That's very intentional. DMs need a different set of tools than players. A player manage...
2024-09-17 16:40:50 +0000 UTC View Post
In my Wednesday game, the characters tangled with a group of frog humanoids and this fun little champion (champion = a creature worth two characters in a fight). A few things I tried with this desi...
2024-09-12 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHey all! I've started a newsletter on Substack where I talk about general TTRPG observations, thoughts on specific RPGs, and other random topics. My 5e and adjacent game design will continue here, ...
2024-09-11 18:10:33 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm using images until I figure out a better way to present stat blocks, perhaps as a PDF.
In any case, I'm starting off this week with some troglodyte stat blocks I've created for my home 5e...
2024-09-10 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostIt's Friday afternoon, which means I've wrapped up my game sessions for the week. Now it's time to take a look at which parts of my design worked, and which didn't.
This week I (re-)learned a...
2024-09-06 22:53:16 +0000 UTC View Post
I was asked to try tackling a more complex monster. The first critter in the SRD is the aboleth, so here is my revision of it.
I tried using an aboleth in an encounter years ago and it was de...
2024-09-04 23:07:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Let’s see if this works, since images are not showing up on mobile. Here’s a picture of the complete, reduced stat block.
2024-09-03 15:59:22 +0000 UTC View PostA D&D stat block needs to find the Goldilocks zone between too much and too little information. I can think of several times in the past few months where I overlooked something during a game, o...
2024-09-03 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostIn my experience as a designer and DM, the best monsters express a clear identity and a tactical challenge in their design. That goes double for monsters you expect to use in a group. Otherwise, a ...
2024-08-29 14:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostAs I work on monsters, I'm coming around to the idea that the DM needs an action economy that is distinct from what the players use. Counters have worked well in play. Since 5e doesn't give monster...
2024-08-28 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostTime is a fundamental building block of the cosmos, yet even the gods seem reluctant to tamper with its mechanisms. Chronomancers seek to unravel time’s mysteries. Few wizards embrace this school...
2024-08-27 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostWizard subclasses are difficult to design. The 2014 PHB covers all the schools of magic, the lens D&D traditionally uses to describe a wizard’s specialization. There’s a reason why suppleme...
2024-08-20 16:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostI promised the wizard write up this week, but COVID knocked my schedule around a bit. Plus, I've been a bit obsessed with monsters. Did you know that hyenas eat their prey alive? That's creepy and ...
2024-08-13 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostMy last post gave an example of a monster feature that made it difficult to shut down a creature before reducing it to half hit points. A few commenters pointed out that such a mechanic would make ...
2024-08-07 22:04:59 +0000 UTC View PostIntrepid reader Michael SIxel ran an encounter using the troll (thank you Michael!) and it was overwhelmed by a casting of Tasha's Hideous Laughter (sorry Michael!).
Conditions are an Achille...
2024-08-06 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostI’m almost done with the series on subclass design, with only the wizard to go. To let that series wrap up at the end of next week, I’m dropping in a post on monsters to balance out the schedul...
2024-08-01 13:00:20 +0000 UTC View PostDeath comes to us all, but some warlocks seek to begin that relationship much earlier in their lives. Warlocks who take on Death are rare. They come to this power only after an encounter with Death...
2024-07-30 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostFrom its first appearance in 3e’s Complete Arcane, the warlock is one of those rare D&D concepts that graduated from a supplemental book into the core game. Back in 3e the warlock wa...
2024-07-25 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostLight bearers are chosen, rather than made. Sometimes, the life-giving energies of the positive plane, the realm from which all life force emerges, reacts to the rise of death, shadow, and doom. Wh...
2024-07-23 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post