- Design Insights: PlaytestingIntro Alright, this is a big one for me. I have a real axe to grind when it comes to this topic. Just to preface this, a lot of this piece will be geared toward those who create custom content for general release to the public (especially for money). This should not be a surprising … Continue reading Design Insights: Playtesting
- The Third Layer of Storytelling AppendixIntro Alright, I’m finally pulling this one down from the shelf and blowing off the dust. I had the full outline for the piece completed and just… never wrote it. This is a direct appendix to The Three Layers of Storytelling, which will be required reading for this piece to make sense. What I’ll be … Continue reading The Third Layer of Storytelling Appendix
- The Living World – AppendixIntro This is a direct companion piece to the ‘Running the Sandbox: The Living World’ piece that can be found Here. I mention toward the end of that piece that there’s a few extra details I didn’t have the chance to dive into. It’s taken me a while but I’ve finally got them laid out … Continue reading The Living World – Appendix
- The Five Types of SessionsIntro In some sessions nothing happens, in some sessions everything happens, and every other session is somewhere in between. Yeah I know, what earth-shattering wisdom. What I’m interested in, though, is what actually happens in those in-between sessions. As I’ve grown more experienced as a GM I find myself thinking more and more in terms … Continue reading The Five Types of Sessions
- Running the Sandbox: The Living WorldIntro How do you make a campaign world feel ‘alive’? I’ve had this one on the slate to get written for a while now. Just today I was re-reading my piece on ‘Why Campaigns Fail’ and there was something I mentioned in it that made fleshing out the concept of this piece fall into place. … Continue reading Running the Sandbox: The Living World
- Getting PaidIntro Maybe this is just a me problem but I’ve always struggled with the whole ‘you get to the final room of the dungeon, beat the boss, and find a bunch of coins and items just sitting there’ thing. In short, I find loot weird. Obviously by default D&D has to have heavily ‘game-ified’ elements … Continue reading Getting Paid
- Make Better CreaturesIntro I’ve had this one on the backburner for a while and finally have a way of expressing the concept. I have in my time DMing created a very useful mental model that helps me easily increase the quality of my encounters built entirely around how I use monsters. Full disclaimer, this advice is geared … Continue reading Make Better Creatures
- Steal This Worldbuilding: The Waning PantheonWhenever I create new settings I always look to lay out some fundamental principles that inform the worldbuilding and, by extension, create unique story possibilities. For my most recent campaign I wanted to take on the idea of a very minimalist pantheon with religion being viewed as something dangerous and even volatile. Below is a … Continue reading Steal This Worldbuilding: The Waning Pantheon
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