The Apothecary hands the Paladin a vial of murky green liquid. 'This will push you beyond your normal limits, but for a price.' He crows. The Paladin does not hesitate. Lives are at stake. He downs the bottle. His blood pounds loudly in his ears, thrumming like the beating of a dragon's wings. His chest … Continue reading The ‘Heroic State’: Epic Heroism, Immersion and Realism
Month: March 2020
Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Appendix
Intro Hey guys, I’m back with a short follow-up to my recent 5-part series on using tenets of puzzle game design to help with dungeon building in DnD. I felt there were a few pieces of wisdom related to the overall concept that I could not fit into the series, so I wanted to release … Continue reading Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Appendix
Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 5
Intro We’ve really been through a lot together by now, and I like to think we need no introductions between us. Still, I will at least provide the courtesy of recapping the series so far and outline what this final piece will discuss. This series has focused on using lessons from puzzle game design to … Continue reading Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 5
Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 4
Intro Welcome back! And this time I’m not going to apologise for the previous part. If you’re coming in to this fresh, first of all you really ought to read the previous posts to get properly up to speed, but in a nutshell this series is focusing on using lessons from puzzle game design to … Continue reading Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 4
On Content Releases
So by now the blog has garnered a little bit of a following, and so far I've mostly been posting things I have previously written for r/DnDBehindTheScreen. I wanted to make a post that properly outlined my plans for the blog and other content of mine moving forward. Content As mentioned above, right now I'm … Continue reading On Content Releases
The Gold Problem, and Solving it with Rest Variants
This is an immediate follow-up to my most recent post here where I discussed the notion of switching between different modes of resting that changed the exact times while preserving relative time difference. I mostly discussed this in the context of pacing play and also managing your encounter quota. However, those are not the only … Continue reading The Gold Problem, and Solving it with Rest Variants
Rests, Realism and the ‘Dungeon State’
Today I'm posting one of my more successful submissions to DnDBehindTheScreem. It shares the lessons of one of my more recent undertakings as a DM: Gritty Realism and how to make it work for you (imagine that as the title of the corny self-help book you just grabbed off the shelf). Intro Firstly let's talk … Continue reading Rests, Realism and the ‘Dungeon State’
The Mortal-Made Wonders of the World
Today's post is in the same vein as the Hire-A-Healer post from a few days ago in that it's more of a resource to provide inspiration for your own games. I started mentioning mortal-made wonders of the world in some of the setting guides I give to my players ahead of new campaigns, and I … Continue reading The Mortal-Made Wonders of the World
Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 3
Intro Welcome back! If you’ve made it this far I’m more than a little impressed. This series has been dense so far. To go back over the background of this series, I’ve so far discussed the concept of the ‘Holistic Dungeon’ and an approach to building one that takes lessons from puzzle game design. We’ve … Continue reading Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 3
Hire-A-Healer
Today's post is a bit of a different one. This one failed to garner much traction on r/DnDBehindTheScreen, though I chalk that up mostly to when it was submitted (I live in New Zealand, so hitting peak times for posting on Reddit can be difficult). This post concerns a concept that I developed several campaigns … Continue reading Hire-A-Healer
The Gunsmith Expansion
This immediately follows on from the Gunsmith class I released here yesterday. After (mostly) finishing that brew and getting through a big chunk of playtesting I felt there was some thematic space I hadn't explored yet, and around the same time Xanathar's Guide to Everything had just launched. So I decided to make my own … Continue reading The Gunsmith Expansion
The Gunsmith
The next class I'm going to release here is my oldest, and the one that has easily had the most play hours in my games. That class would be the Gunsmith. Like I said this is the first brew I ever made and I think it still reflects that in places. I want to share … Continue reading The Gunsmith
Running an Evil Campaign: The Whole World is Evil
This is a sort-of sequel to the previous post on how to have an evil party, and very much builds on notions I discuss there. At the very least, the things I'm going to discuss here relate to how I have built the world for the campaign I am running, and it has a party … Continue reading Running an Evil Campaign: The Whole World is Evil
There Is No Such Thing as a Problem Character, Only Problem Players (or ‘How To Run an Evil Campaign’)
This is an older write-up of mine that was based on the experiences of the campaign I was running at the time. The party included a lot of morally grey characters (and some who were outright evil) who often engaged in the sorts of behaviours that are normally considered 'problem behaviours', like stealing from party … Continue reading There Is No Such Thing as a Problem Character, Only Problem Players (or ‘How To Run an Evil Campaign’)
Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 2
Intro Welcome back, and thank you for coming back after that first post that seemed so void of applicable advice. If I were to give an alternate title for this part it would be ‘Actually Beginning To Build A Dungeon With This Advice’, but that wouldn’t be very snappy. I digress. I’m here to continue … Continue reading Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 2
The Oracle
The first homebrew I want to share here is the Oracle class for D&D 5e. This is the most recent brew of mine, and quite possibly the last I'll make for 5e for a while. The Oracle is a supportive full-caster built around dice manipulation and spell preparation. The download link is below, and after … Continue reading The Oracle
Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 1
Intro Hi folks. Due to popular demand I'm consolidating a number of my posts from r/DnDBehindTheScreen into a blog. For now, all of my content will also be posted on that subreddit, but this should stand as a place to more easily find other articles I've written for other DMs. This here is the first … Continue reading Building Better Dungeons Using Puzzle Game Design: Lesson 1
Apothecary Press 