Mythscribe

Making Interesting Monsters

2026-06-28T20:00:00+02:00

The article in question is called Make Monsters Unique. In it, Mike Shea writes, that with description we can make monsters unique. So instead of just labelling the monster as an ogre, we can describe a towering mass of muscles with a tree trunk in its hand.

What is interesting about this is, that the players come to the conclusion, that this monster will hit very hard, so it is important to avoid getting on the wrong end of that tree. And in my opinion this is the core of what makes monsters (and in extension combat) more interesting: Players and characters having to adapt their strategy, because of things they see (or experience).

Beyond the Stat-Block

At the beginning of every monster is the stat-block. Some numbers and words that describe it in its physicality. I've discussed in the past how it could be improved, especially in pre-written adventures.

As a GM this is what stops me in my tracks the most often when either preparing a session or actually running a combat. I have to scramble for that stat-block again. How much was the AC again? How many life points? Oh, you want to grapple it. Let me check the strength score of it.

In actuality, the exact numbers do not really make a difference here. Often the stats only differ in like 1 or 2 points for monsters on the same levels. Or the values are switched around (Strength instead of Intelligence as its highest stat). Higher level monsters just have more of it in the same stat.

Look for example at stat-blocks for some of the dragons in D&D.

Just some slightly different numbers, but in essence they are just the same. I know why they probably did it that way, so that they have a different CR value. But CR never worked anyway and who actually cares? Well, Hasbro because they can sell a thicker book I guess.

A conclusion that others have also come to, and proposed to Just use bears. You could concentrate it down to a "handful" of stat-blocks and that's it. One Dragon stat-block is more than enough.

Look Mom, No Hands

What is then actually different about these dragons? Their breath weapon. And what does it do? Well you can guess or infer it from their colour. And here we are back at what I said at the beginning: Let the players figure things out and then adapt their strategy around it. It also gives you a hint on how you could describe the monster. The air is crackling with energy as the dragon steps into view, opening its mouth.

So what you need is special abilities or behaviour. That's what makes them interesting in the first place. The stat-block is just extra. Who cares if the goblin has 6 or 7 health. If they sneak around and use dirty tricks to gain the upper hand, they stay much more in players memory, than just a mere stat-block.

So when adapting or creating a monster, all you have to do is to take one of the universal stat-blocks like a bear and put some interesting abilities on it.

That's what videogames do. Simplified, there are three variables for an enemy: Speed, Resilience and Damage. Pick two of them to be great and one to be bad. So for example a quick and high damage enemy, should not have a lot of health (or armour). The typical glass cannon. Similarly a high damage enemy with a lot of health, should be slow (ogre anyone?).

So you see, videogame enemies also just have a pool of simple stat-blocks. As a seasoned player you can already guess which is the bad variable. But what makes it interesting is how the enemy behaves. That what makes cool and memorable enemy design in games. The enemy knows about their weakness and could for example hide in a force-field that you first need to deactivate before you can hit them.

And we can use these same principles for designing and using monsters as well. It also makes it easier for me as a GM to run and more fun, because I get to roleplay more instead of focusing solely on the mechanics of a stat-block. I can taunt the players from behind the force-field.

Taking Notes

2026-06-15T20:00:00+02:00

It was time that I sat down and thought hard about this. Note, that everything I'm going to say might not work for you. Everybody is different. Do what works for you. This is not the solution but a solution. A solution that has to work for me.

What makes notes good?

It has to be legible, sure, but that's not the scope of this post. Training and improving your handwriting is a different beast.

Good notes, retain the necessary information quickly, consistently and can be easily retrieved from those notes.

Quick for me means, that taking notes should be simple enough that it doesn't hinder the flow of writing them down. If I have to get out a flow-chart to write down my notes, it wouldn't be good.

Consistent means, that the same things are noted down in a similar way. This means introducing some rules on how to write the notes (that should be quick to implement, as per above).

The resulting notes should then also be readable by other people and they should understand the notes without even necessarily needing to know the rules to write them.

The impossible made possible

There was an old advertisement in the 90s for Kinder Suprise that had the tagline: "3 things at the same time? Impossible." But then I found Lonelog, which almost looked like all I was searching for.

Conceived to take notes for solo sessions (there's a variant now for party notes as well, called Partylog), it provides a simple core notation.

Symbol	Description
`@`	Player action
`?`	Oracle question
`d`	Dice/mechanics roll
`->`	Result/answer
`=>`	Consequence/outcome

So some notes might look like this.

@ Sneak past the guards
d: Stealth d6=2 vs TN 4 -> Fail
=> Something happens

? Do they see me?
-> No, but... (d6=3)
=> Something happens

Pretty simple and self-explanatory. There's a bit more to it but in its core, you would only work with these symbols and be done.

Some minor grievances

All in all, Lonelog was mostly the answer to my problems. But I had some minor issues with the notation. I feel that some of the symbols are either redundant or ambiguous. There are some optimizations in Partylog though.

For example, the oracle question could also be formatted as such:

? Do they see me?
d: d6=3 -> No, but
=> Something happens

There's also two "hidden" symbols not declared in the initial table: gen and tbl, which are basically d but with a fancier name. Most often it is clear from the context what roll is being made, so why bother having two new symbols for that.

Another thing is, that there's a bit of a heavy reliance on []. When writing quickly these will often turn into (). I don't like that.

Furthermore there's the following claim in Lonelog:

[The symbols] are carefully chosen to avoid conflicts with markdown formatting....

I don't know about you, but [] are a hard conflict with markdown formatting.

They are also heavily used for different purposes, kind of a catch-all. And if you add some extensions, they are also hidden behind brackets.

[Thread:Escape the City|Closed]
[PC:Elara|HP 15|Ammo 3|Status:Wounded]
[N:Jonah|friendly|injured]
[Clock:Ritual 5/12]
[Track:Escape 3/8]
[COMBAT]
...
[/COMBAT]

Adjusting to my needs

I took another quote from Lonelog to heart.

The system is fully modular: grab what works for you and leave the rest behind.

So I invented my own dialect, which I preliminary call Mythlog.

My core symbols are as follows:

Symbol	Description
`@`	Action
`?`	Uncertainty
`!`	Change/Effect
`$`	Definition

They are very similar and mostly work the same way. So here would be the same example from above in my dialect.

@ Sneak past the guards
?(Stealth:TN 4) d6=2 -> Fail
! Something happens

?(Do they see me?) d6=3 -> No, but
! Something happens

This follows also the natural flow of play. Some actions are taken, there's an uncertainty and then there are consequences, that result in changes and effects on the world state.

You can also track for example Tension Pool with this notation:

!(Tension) 2 -> 3
?(Tension:Reckless) 3d6 = (1, 3, 5) -> Complication
?(Complication) d12 = 7 -> Setback
?(Setback:Random Encounter:tbl) -> 4 Giant Rats, close, angry

Again this should be pretty self-explanatory on what has happened here.

What you see also, that next to the symbol I include an optional context, that is within (). You can use them with all symbols to make it clearer. So you could also use it for @ to for example clarify who is doing a specific action.

I introduced also another symbol that is not present in Lonelog which lets me define stuff I can use later on in an easier fashion. If you are familiar with programming this would be a variable definition.

$(NPC:Jonah) friendly,injured
$(Clock:12) Ritual
!(Ritual) 4 -> 5
!(Jonah) injured -> healed

I also handle scene headers a bit different. I employ here a format stolen from screenplay writing: Slug Lines.

EXT. DARK ALLEY. - NIGHT

Problem solved?

Not entirely. I have used this notation now for some sessions as player and GM, but I'm not fully happy with it yet.

I'm trying to keep track of everything that happens. Especially as a GM that means, that I often have to "pause" the game to write things down. Of course I try to write things down as the players are conversing, but sometimes I have to take my 10-20 seconds to write things down, were everybody is waiting for me. I have to figure out, what is really important to write down and what not. This isn't necessarily a problem with the notation.

Especially with the scenes it takes a bit of time to write down the complete slug line. But it is really helpful to keep track of the current watch and position in the world for me. It is worth the effort. I also want to make it a bit better visible in the full text. Maybe I add some symbol in front of it, but I don't know yet what. I want it to be different to $ so I can easier spot scenes.

Where the slug line is a bit of a nuisance is inside of dungeons. There's a lot of redundancy.

INT. DUNGEON. ROOM 1 - MORNING
INT. DUNGEON. ROOM 2 - MORNING
...

I have to find a better notation for that.

Also unclear for me now is how to handle combat. Currently I just keep track of enemy health and that's it. I do not log every single hit and damage roll. Especially not when I GM.

So there are some things still left open.

100 Topics - Topic #73

2026-05-31T20:00:00+02:00

Brennan has a point here. Almonds, or any nut, makes a very good snack. It's energy dense and somewhat healthy. The important things for me in a snack are twofold.

You should be able to eat it quickly. It kills flow if I have to chew for 2 minutes and everybody has to wait. This is especially the case if you're the GM. As a bonus, if you don't have to chew so much it is also less distracting in online games, where microphones tend to pick up everything.

Second it should not make too much of a mess. Chips for example crumble everywhere and leave a sticky or fatty residue. If you play with minis or a map, this can be really bothersome.

Nuts fit these criterions perfectly. But every now and then we take a 5 minute break and that's were I munch on a fine chocolate chip cookie.

Home sweet home?

2026-05-17T20:00:00+02:00

We have concentrated on stocking our settlement. The next step is to breathe some life into them. But what does that actually mean? Instead of adding even more procedures, we can reuse existing one. It will all fit like jigsaw pieces.

Settlements as Factions

We already introduced Tiers as a measurement of Wealth of a settlement. You know what else has a Tier? That's right: Factions.

As a faction, a settlement will have a status towards your characters. A positive status (and I consider 0 to be positive here) means, that they are safe in this settlement. A Haven. This is where your characters go back time and time again after their adventures. The Keep on the Borderlands.

As a faction it is also affected by the world itself. Settlements will have a stability. Shake it to much, it will loose Tiers and could ultimately be abandoned. One way to achieve that is by introducing negative goals, or Troubles. Other factions could also have it as their goal to topple a specific settlement - or it could be yours if you want to deliberately destroy a settlement.

What is a Trouble exactly? As I've mentioned it is kind of a negative goal. Once its progress track is filled, instead of going up in Tiers you go down. Troubles are something internal to the settlement, like a plague or a volcano that is going to erupt. If somebody is acting against the settlement it is also troubling, but not a Trouble. You can also think of it as Pressure.

As characters you can now interact with such Troubles and goals. You can help in stopping or advancing them. Once it is fulfilled it will move a settlement from stable to unstable and ultimately the settlement with loose Tiers. The size will remain unchanged, but they will no longer be able to provide certain services. Shops are getting closed due to less demand and wealth.

To keep things simple, limit the amount of Troubles of a settlement to one and only give a Trouble to the settlement, the characters are currently invested in. Keep the focus of the lens on their current location. Progress it normally during the faction turn.

Settlements as Sites

When it comes to navigating a settlement, you can handle it as a site. Either each district is its own site (the fractal nature of sites), or you can use a single site to represent the complete settlement. This also gives the characters a layout of the place and might introduce some barriers, for example they can't access the upper city because they don't have the necessary papers.

You can also use a site, to generate a settlement. This is especially interesting if you are not in a Haven but are rather exploring an enemy city or opposing faction camp. At that point it becomes a dungeon and you have to sneak your way around. This also makes monsters more integrated into your world, if you give them a settlement.

Actions and Complications

Now that there's some live in your settlements, characters want to interact with it. Go shopping, explore the city or do some other stuff. All of this takes time of course. And if there's time, there will be tension.

If you are in a Haven, the Tension Pool will not increase when you take actions. It is a safe place after all. If you take reckless actions however, you will still roll the pool. Same goes, if you are not in a Haven, you will use the pool as normal.

Within a settlement actions will take about a watch. Depending on what they are doing of course, you can maybe have multiple actions within a watch (like quickly shopping for some stuff).

Speaking of shopping. You don't need to fully play out a shopping episode if you don't want to. Your merchants can be nameless and faceless NPCs if need be.

100 Topics - Topic #43

2026-04-29T20:00:00+02:00

I have to do a (hopefully) quick tangent here.

Magic spells have a built-in resource management. Not all characters can use magic (in general) and/or there is a limitation attached on how often or well you can use a spell. Potions and spells counteract this. Scrolls allows a magic user to preserve spell slots for example or prepare other spells. Potions on the other hand allow non-magic user to benefit from magical effects.

So one has to always keep this in consideration when trying to giving access to certain effects, be it in a scroll or a potion. There's a reason why a "simple" healing potion is 50g. It shouldn't be easy to gain access to a spells effect in masses. Of course this is somewhat counteracted by systems, that keep tight track of their inventory (such as most OSR systems).

Okay tangent over.

When it comes to potions, I like the approach that Zelda: Breath of the Wild has with their Elixirs. Certain parts of creatures can be used to cook into a potion that then gives an effect. Most often associated to what the creature is known for. So a Frostbeetle would give you resistance to cold for example. A great inspirational source is for example the Monster Overhaul.

Considering the above tangent, you should expect resources or creatures that are hard to get. So an effort has to be paid. So normally I would reserve potion making to some very specific situation and not directly allow creating "common" potions.

I also award player ingenuity on what they want to use and what they expect for an effect. For example if a player would want to use some "weed" to create a Potion of Flying because it makes you so high, that you think you can fly, then I'm all for it. Throw in a potential side-effect (you will get the munchies after all) and you are all set.

For scrolls you should also incur some additional cost for creating them. At least the required additional requirements (such as diamonds for Revivify). As a fun exercise you can let the player draw the scroll. But they are not allowed to use any letters or such. So once they want to cast the spell on the scroll they have to recall what exactly the spells' effect are.

The other component that is crucial in creation is time. For this you can use our old friend the progress track. Make it harder or easier depending on the effect. Let them describe what they do in every step, then let them roll to see if they succeed in what they wanted to do. Attach a clock to the track and fill it every time they fail a roll.

Do not let the process fail completely, especially if they expended considerable resources to create the potion or scroll. Let them have the item, but attach a side-effect to it. So it becomes a risk-reward scenario.

There's no place like home

2026-04-19T20:00:00+02:00

It seems that I procrastinated long over this subject. There had been a bandwagon in the meantime, that I completely missed (like so many others). To be fair, I think that this particular subject is very debated. Even considered as a holy grail.

But does it have to be?

Down the Rabbit Hole

You might be enticed to look onto medieval settlements as inspiration on how they have looked like. That looks like a good start, considering that's its inspiration. You end up with a first idea: The 100-Person Rule.

Services can cater to about 100-200 persons. So for every hundred people in a settlement you would need a tavern for example. But it breaks a bit down, when you think about more expensive luxurious services.

People far more patient then me, have gathered statistics and produced excellent material based on this idea.

Medieval Demographics Made Easy by S. John Ross
Fantasy Demographics by Robert S. Conley

The principal is the same. For different professions and services you get a rough number on how many people would need to be in a settlement to even have that particular service and how many.

So take as an example an Artist. If your settlement has 2000 people in it, then there are about 2.07 artists present (according to Fantasy Demographics). Maths is hard, so you can head over to donjon that has a neat little generator and calculator for it (although that one uses Medieval Demographics).

Focus. Focus. Focus.

Keep it simple, stupid!

If I would go with above number, I would need for a settlement of 2000 people, about 15-16 Taverns. That's a lot to take care of. And if you are realistic, your players will maybe only visit 2-3 of them. So why bother.

Be more player centric in your work. Only design that, what is actually needed. And in most cases it just suffices to say: Yes, there's a blacksmith in town. They don't have a name or specific place. Only if it's central to the players and their story, flesh them out.

You can take the above numbers as an indication if a settlement can actually provide a specific service or not. But you shouldn't lean on it for the exact number.

Wealth as Indicator

I have talked about economics before. And we can apply this here as well. Instead of thinking about on how many people are needed for a specific service, we can think on how much wealth must be available in a settlement instead. This results in a much cleaner table (and less maths).

Profession	Wealth	Profession	Wealth
Artist	II	Metalsmith	II
Baker	II	Miller	II
Carpenter	II	Miner	III
Chandler	II	Ostler	II
Clerk	III	Physician	II
Engineer	IV	Pilot	III
Finesmith	II	Potter	III
Fisherman	III	Religious	II
Games	III	Sailor	III
Glassmaker	III	Scholar	II
Harper	III	Servant	II
Herbalist	II	Shipwright	III
Jeweler	II	Tailor	I
Laborer	II	Tanner	III
Leathercrafter	I	Tavern	II
Legal	III	Teamster	III
Luxury	IV	Timber	II
Mason	II	Weaponsmith	II
Mercenary	III	Weaver	II
Merchant	II

This gives you an indication if a certain profession is present in the settlement or not. A profession or service needs a minimum Wealth. If a settlement has a higher Wealth, then it can also provide better services. So a weaponsmith in a Wealth II settlement has different offerings than one in a Wealth V settlement.

If you have a big enough settlement, you can split the settlement up in different districts and give each of these districts their own Wealth rating as well.

When deciding on creating a dedicated building or location for your players to explore and interact with for a certain profession, limit yourself to 1 per district. They won't probably visit more anyway.

100 Topics - Topic #97

2026-03-25T20:00:00+01:00

No one.

That is the simple answer. Maybe not the fully correct answer. One has to argue first, what a dungeon really is.

I think we are far from the actual definition of a dungeon. Those damp cells somewhere beneath a castle or garrison, where the cries of the tortured can not be heard. These kind of dungeons are of course built by someone. Whoever built the castle, will inevitably build a dungeon somewhere.

But in our hobby, we have a broader sense of a dungeon. Let's have another look at what wikipedia has to say about that.

The word "dungeon" has come to be used broadly to describe any labyrinthine complex (castle, cave system, etc.) rather than a prison cell or torture chamber specifically.

And these kind of dungeons are not built by someone. No one goes around and thinks: Well, I should create some sort of complex, with puzzles and traps for no apparent reason other than to entertain an adventuring party.

Funnily enough, in video games this seems to be common practice. I often thought to myself, who goes to work in such a place, when they have to always solve some puzzle to open the door to the dining room. Best example would be the first Resident Evil. Oh, you want to go into that room. Well, too bad, play first the right song on the piano to get the key.

So, no. Dungeons in the definition of our hobby aren't dug, built or whatever.

There's two parts in a dungeon: The structure and the denizens.

The structure is rarely custom built to be a dungeon. It often served a different purpose in the first place: a temple, a cave system or a manor of a crazed vampire. Yes, someone has to build these (in the case of the caves, it would be nature itself). But they are not build as "dungeons", they are built to serve that specific purpose.

Only by the denizens it becomes a dungeon. A castle is just a castle. A cave system is just caves. You wouldn't consider a castle full of friendly people to be a dungeon. It is rather a settlement where you go shopping. But if you put a host of evil bandits in there, it suddenly becomes a dungeon. And the denizens also change the structure to fit their needs. Bandits will probably start erecting some traps to keep themselves save. Traps that wouldn't have been there before.

Denizens also bring treasure. Bandits do, what bandits do and gather gold and valuables from the unwary. Dragons have their hoard and many monsters are probably attracted to the shiny things. Adventurers themselves bring treasure too. Maybe another party ventured into the dungeon and failed. But their equipment remains, for you to take.

Dungeons are a living thing in itself. The structure is only there to give, well, structure. The denizens is what shapes the dungeon. And there could be multiple denizens in the same dungeon. Maybe at the same time, maybe at different times. When creating a new dungeon, that are the things you should think about. Who was in the dungeon? What was it's original purpose? Who is now in the dungeon and how did they make it their own? I have some tables to give you inspiration if you need it.

Under Pressure

2026-03-09T20:00:00+01:00

A solution I came up with, is Pressure (a concept that I share with this youtube video). There are external forces, that make conflict inevitable if left unchecked. It's not the GM giving an arbitrary goal, but the environment pushing the characters to take a decision. A decision that is in conflict with that external force.

Clocks

The simplest form of such a pressure, you might already have come across, are clocks. Something is happening in a set amount of time. This can be rounds, days or something more abstract like scenes. Then at the end, something happens.

A clock is therefore a simple pressure system. You know something is going to happen, for example a bomb going off. So everything you do is trying to oppose that pressure. This creates a conflict. In this case, the bomb actually going off. The opposition is trying everything to make it still happen. The bomb having a complicated mechanism for example.

The beauty of pressure is in general, that you can choose to ignore it. Instead of defusing the bomb you can just flee, ignoring it in the process. You can also choose on how to approach that pressure. Evacuating people instead of defusing it. Each decision creates its own conflict. And by letting the pressure resolve without you interacting with it, still has consequences.

Progress Track

Clocks however have the disadvantage that each step on the clock has that set amount of time. But there might be pressure for which we don't have such a timeframe. They sometimes happen fast, and sometimes a bit slower. Triggers for advancing them can be different. I've talked in the past about such a system: The Progress Track.

But a progress track alone, doesn't make a pressure. A core change is, that the players know of the track at all times. It is public knowledge to them: What the track represents (the exact detail might be still secret, like the goal for a faction), the difficulty and the current progress. Similarly to the clock they can then gauge the risk if they want to interact with that or not. In contrast however, advancement (in the case of dynamic tracks) is random. There can be big leaps or small steps. So this opens up another dimension on when they want to start accepting the pressure, since even waiting for a little bit, can advance it in big steps.

Milestones

What makes progress track to a real pressure system is another small addition: milestones. We already have a milestone. The end itself is a milestone. The big thing that happens. But big things don't just happen out from nothing. Pressure can be felt before.

So we can add additional milestones. For example at 5, 10 and 15 progress. These milestones can be open as well, or just looming over the player and be revealed once they are reached. Think of them like different phases of a boss fight. By the nature of the system, it can be, that several milestones are reached at the same time. Then each of them will take effect.

These milestones might also reveal some of the end-goal of the track to the players, if it was secret before. So they can start to think if they want to act on that pressure or not.

You can set the milestones wherever you want on the track. They key thing is (same as with the track itself), the players have to know where they are. Not necessarily what they represent, but they know that something is going to happen.

Example

Consider a small kingdom, where the people are very unhappy against the ruler. A pressure is forming, that they want to rebel and forcefully dethrone the ruler.

A progress track gets started. Let's call it "Civil Unrest". It has 4 milestones

(0) Farmers openly renounce their ruler
(7) Farms start to get sabotages or destroyed
(13) People start to attack the king's men, hurting or even killing them
(20) Full rebellion erupts

This example also shows, that pressure doesn't have to be directly antagonistic towards the players. They could even help the people and thus the track will advance faster. But the king will hear about this (and others as well) and conflict arises from that.

Or they help the king to stop these unrests. Trying to slow down the progress towards the end.

Use

A full-fledged progress track is not always needed. If something has a defined timerange and there's an urgency behind it, use a clock. Progress tracks with milestones should be only used for things that have a longer timeframe, that is undefined and where progress is uncertain and can be stopped. Clocks always tick forward, even on "success" of the players. Tracks don't.

The key to pressure is, that it is known information to the players. Show them. Suspense over Surprise.

100 Topics - Topic #67

2026-02-22T20:00:00+01:00

Whenever someone says legendary, I hear that familiar pling from Diablo as a Pavlovian Response somewhere in the back of my head.

For me there are two types of Legendary Items.

On one hand we have the MacGuffins. They are items that in itself do not hold any power, but are needed to complete something. They act as keys. Players will have to collect them, to either destroy them (like a Horcrux) or use them to destroy the BBEG. Apart from some inherent problems when designing such quests, this type of items are more bespoke to campaigns and I do not feel that they are treasures.

The other type of legendary items, are those magical artifacts with immense powers. The kind of items that have a badass name. I particularly love the concept of the Vestiges of Divergence or progressive magic items in general. Items that level up with you and they unlock more and more power. They could also change on how you play your class, adding a unique spin to it or giving you abilities that normally you wouldn't have access too.

Four is also an interesting number. There are four cardinal directions or four elements (at least in the western world). When designing a set of such legendary items I would suggest to use this kind of common theme. The idea is, if the player's find one item they can guess that there might be other items and thus they are more likely to go search for them.

Similarly if there's a common background connecting these items, they can also be grounded into myths, legends and folklore around the world. Let's say, four heroes had slain a BBEG in the past. Their souls now rest in parts of their equipment scattered around the world. This would also explain some of the powers the items would have, as they are the lingering powers of those heroes. You can also unlock more and more memories from these heroes, unlocking more powers from their items.

These kind of legendary items are truly unique. They are not just some items were a powerful wizard has cast an enchantment on them. A good legendary item has a history. Not only who crafted it and how, but also who might have wielded it in the past.

I can recommend Artefact a fun, little Solo RPG, that let's you explore the history of an artifact. I did something similar for a spaceship (from the same author) in my Bucket of Bolts playthrough.

Here are some ideas for items, based on these concepts:

Shadowbane, Sword of the Southern Hero
Dusksong, Tome of the Western Hero
Edge of Time, Mantle of the Northern Hero
Reclaimer, Branch of the world tree, Staff of the Eastern Hero

Taking Inventory

2026-02-09T20:00:00+01:00

I have just recently read an article by SlyFlourish where he contemplates, what would be included in the TTRPG hobby. One of the things he mentions, is collecting. So I feel partly validated.

Time to have a look at my collection.

The Beginnings

On the bottom - this is in no way a reflection on the quality of the product - of my shelf, is where I started in my TTRPG journey. Classic. With Dungeons & Dragons. There's the core books, some supplements and adventures.

My journey began directly by GMing and I choose an evergreen in Lost Mines of Phandelver with some mix-ins of the Essentials Kit. I had a blast for almost 2 years and then it took another 2 years to complete Rime of the Frostmaiden. From the materials I have, this is probably the stuff I've played the most.

A little bit of everything (Part 1)

Next up, we have a shelf, where I had to put mostly the large books (A4).

The newest addition to my collection are the Dolmenwood books, very prominently using a lot of space. They are gorgeous but I don't know whether I will be ever able to run it. At least the Monster and Campaign book can provide me with ideas if need be. I'm probably not interested in the rules itself, although I'm using parts of it (Rune Magic) for a OSE game already. I also included the four Dolmenwood adventures in my collection.

The small books next to it, are part of Colostle. I really liked the art. Not pictured are a set of playing cards and additional "class"-decks, that are also part of my collection.

Next up, we have a plethora of other systems and supplements. Stars Without Number is an excellent source to generate worlds and space sectors. Mythic Bastionland is also high on my list to play. And every good collection should include Monster Overhaul. The shelf is completed with some additional booklets with random tables, SlyFlourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and some other adventures.

A little bit of everything (Part 2)

Here we have a shelf with smaller books. We have some prominent books in here. Forbidden Lands I tried to run solo a while back. Since then, the books were never used again.

The other prominent books are Ironsworn. The three ring-bound books next to it, include the reference tables for Starforged and Sundered Isles. Starforged I played for a full year. The core Ironsworn started my podcast. These games are phenomenal and out of everything in my collection (apart from D&D) I played the most. And I regularly use its tables.

Some recent additions are Knave, Cairn and Shadowdark RPG. They start to get used more and more.

Vaesen

My personal highlight is the top shelf: Vaesen

The art of Johan Egerkrans is just gorgeous and the game that Free League created from it is superb. It is the right kind of horror and mystery that I like. Nothing to ridiculous like cosmic horror. And I also recognize some parts of it in the mythology that I grew up with. So it has a little bit a special place in my heart.

Whenever Free League publishes something new for Vaesen, you can be sure that I will buy it.

I also play it. From time to time our society meets and we go on an adventure with rotating GMs. It is a lot of fun and the simplicity of this system makes it great for newbies as well.

Oh, and there are some Knock! books as well. Still shrink-wrapped. But since I also have the PDF, it is more of a collectors item. I've heard if it is shrink-wrapped it is worth more.

Not Pictured

There is some bits and pieces I didn't take pictures of. I have a bunch of zines. For example Cursed Scrolls for Shadowdark. But also some other zines, I picked up from Zine month and other kickstarters.

There's also the Hexcrawl Toolbox from which I also written a Review for one of the adventures.

I have also recently started to pick up some of the old D&D modules, like Keep on the Borderlands or Isle of Dread.

I have a Game Master Companion from Dragon Shield, where I keep all my - well - GM stuff in. That might warrant another blog entry in the future by itself.

Conclusion

And now what?

As I've mentioned it is good to reflect once in a while what you already have. I have decided to focus myself more on running and playing Shadowdark and Cairn more. I feel Cairn is ideal for short games at conventions or one-shots, whereas I want to try a campaign using Shadowdark. The other material I want to mostly use as reference and ideas. Or just to have something beautiful on my shelves.

I also found out, that I don't really have a Sci-Fi system for group play. Stars Without Number is a great reference, but I do not entirely like the system. Starforged is also great, but the focus of that system is a bit more narrative. I'd like to have something in the middle ground.

Lucky for me there's some space left...

Bag of Dungeons

2026-01-18T20:00:00+01:00

Like I alluded in my review of Desert Tomb Raiders I used the Deck of Dungeons by Tales from the Stinky Dragon to create random dungeon crawls. But these rules were done for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, so I adapted them (with some changes) to Cairn 2nd Edition. I finally was able to formalize my notes into a coherent rules document for you to use.

This article shows the process and changes I did to the original rules and my thought processes behind it.

Inspiration

Let's start with the original rules for those that are not aware.

A dungeon, which can be for a example a labyrinth or maze, is represented as a deck of cards. Every round the top three cards are presented to the players face down. It is an abstraction of the paths the characters can take in this dungeon. The active player can then do an action, which manipulates these three cards or the deck, and then flips over one of the face down cards.

Depending on the card flipped, different effects will happen. The goal is to flip over 5 "Clear Path" cards. This then means, the characters have found their way through this dungeon. Along the way they might have encounters or face obstacles, which essentially block a choice from the three cards.

This system is great, since it lets the player have an active role within the dungeon. They can use their environment as an adventurer naturally would. There's choices to be had and since you go around the table with the player that flips a card, everybody does something. Dungeon crawling does not degenerate into one player just going ahead and repeat the same actions over and over.

Balls, balls, balls

However there are some points I wanted to change in my implementation after some testing. Instead of having a deck of cards, I choose a bag full of balls.

The reasoning behind this is, that it is much easier to shuffle and manipulate the contents of this bag than it is a deck of cards. The deck normally contains of something like 15-20 cards which is somewhat awkward to shuffle efficiently. A bag I can just shake.

The other thing that happen to me is, that I quickly forgot which pile was the discard pile and which one was the actual draw pile. This is, because in the original rule, you should always discard all cards face down, face down. So you end up with two face down piles. A problem I will never have with a bag. It is completely opaque so the players will never know its content. I don't have to differentiate.

Consequences

Cairn has a different philosophy when it comes to actions and dice rolls. Dungeons & Dragons is much more frequent and might not necessarily have an impact. You would roll to see if you succeed in doing an action. If you don't, you just don't get to do an action.

In Cairn however, when you roll it is because there's a possibility of consequence. That is why it is called a save. There's a risk. Otherwise you wouldn't roll.

I'm a fan of delayed consequences as you should know by now. And my system allows for a very elegant version for that. When you fail you just add balls into the bag. The dungeon is fighting back in some way or another. That's the risk you take. It might not affect you at all, or it might be the consequences of your actions.

And it is quick to implement for the GM. Just throw a ball into the bag. Shake. Done.

It creates very tense and memorable moments. I had a game, where the players needed one Progress to complete the dungeon, but they also had three encounter balls left in the bag. From a previous action, they knew these odds. In their mind it played out, like they were chased by some horrible monsters in this dungeon. Their only chance was to flee as quickly from this place. They drew: Progress. They cheered. We had fun. Epic.

Actions

Which brings me to the point of the actions. I had the feeling that the original actions didn't have too much impact in the overall structure.

Let's take the Optimize Options action. Essentially you exchange one card of the three face down cards with a new one. But you don't know where it is. You might have some more information sure, that one option is good. Still you just take a guess as if three unknown cards would lie before you. It's a false sense of choice. A quantum ogre.

My actions mostly manipulate the odds and give you a little information. I don't give you the illusion of choice. I give hope or dread.

There are two different actions per attribute. And each attribute has a designated consequence, that should give a flavourful consequence when you failed that save.

To avoid, that some actions are taken more often than others, I implemented a simple system where the action that you can do, changes. This can be achieved by simply having the actions for each attribute on a single card that you flip over.

Toolbox

I now keep this bag with the three cards in my GM bag. Whenever I need to create a random dungeon on the spot, I can just grab it and play. It is a wonderful and easy to implement tool in my arsenal. It takes very little prep and gives the players so much depth.

Try it out. Give Feedback.

Get 'Bag of Dungeons'

Five new(-ish) Sci-Fi TTRPG campaign ideas

2026-01-11T20:00:00+01:00

While I'm describing these campaign ideas for a Sci-Fi setting, you could most likely make them work in a fantasy setting as well.

1. Going Places

A classic plot in fiction is the Travelogue. Somebody has to go from point A to B. And what happens between these two points is what is interesting for the viewer or reader. This type of plot goes back to ancient China with Journey to the West, but you might be more familiar with a more contemporary story: The Lord of the Rings.

In this campaign you're travelling thus from one point to another. This could have different hooks:

Far from Home: Think Star Trek: Voyager. Your crew got stranded in an unknown part of space and has to find a way home.
There's treasure to be had: One Piece or Treasure Island but in space (hey the idea is not so far off, Disney had the same idea years ago). Race to some hidden planet or artifact in the vastness of space.
Return the MacGuffin: Here we go into the classic Lord of the Rings territory. It's the journeys of Sam and Frodo. Safe the universe by returning something very important.

2. Galaxy in Peril

A classic hexcrawl can also fit in a Sci-Fi setting. Focus on a small part of the universe. A small sector. But there are multiple problems brewing in this part of the galaxy. Your crew is part of some sort of peace-keeping force.

The problems can be political in nature. Or even teeter to the strange. An inspiration is Mythic Bastionland. Instead of knights you can have some ancient order (*cough* Jedi *cough*) that has to handle these issues.

You can even go a bit more into the darker side, and imagine a universe like Warhammer 40k. Humanity has scattered so much, that communication between different colonies is very hard. So everybody has to fend for themselves. There's chaos streaming in everywhere so somebody has to keep stuff at bay.

This kind of campaign also lends itself to a West Marches style of a campaign.

3. In the dark forest

One of my all-time favourite television show is Stargate SG-1. And this lends itself to a campaign naturally. Humanity just discovered some form of FTL or other means of exploring the vastness of space. But there's already a force, that tries to subjugate all other species in the universe. Now it is up to your team of adventurers to find ways to defend themselves against this enemy. They can travel to other planets to find ancient technology, allies or more information about the enemy.

Alternatively you can also play the very beginning of human exploration of space. Go out find new civilizations or claim new planets for the ever expanding human race. Of course, not everyone will be happy about this. The players can be part of a colonization force, that tries to find a new suitable planet for colonization.

Which brings us organically to ...

4. They're right behind us

The enemy proved to be far too strong to handle. Humanity is about to be extinct and now only a handful of ships remain. If this sounds familiar, well this is pretty much the premise of Battlestar Galactica. Or in a smaller scope, you can even think yourselves on the run, similar to FTL.

As a new dimension you now also have to keep track of a fleet of survivors. So the first priority becomes in finding resources and keeping as many people alive as possible. But also a way to either defeat your pursuers or at least get them off your scent. You have a limited time on planets to explore, before you have to reunite with the fleet and jump ahead.

5. A safe place to stay

Or get into an even more political nature. Babylon 5 was an exceptional series (man, I miss the 90s). Political intrigue, conspiracy, some old prophecy and military conflict. The show had it all. And all centred around a single space station.

You don't need to prepare hundreds of planets and star systems. Factions are more in the forefront and a strong conflict that produces tension, that only you can resolve.

This type of campaign tends to be more about diplomacy and political intrigue. But you can still have some exploration outside of the station. Some missions to retrieve something, send a diplomatic party or end a military conflict.

New Year Resolutions 2026

2026-01-02T20:00:00+01:00

Statistics

Let's have some fun with some actual stats from my blog. First of we have the categories I posted entries on my blog.

Category	Posts	Percentage
A.D.A.	1	4%
Adventures	6	22%
Essay	19	74%

I mostly put everything in a catch-all category - Essay. Now if this is good or bad, is left to be debated. On one hand it will reduce the visibility of some posts, since they get shoved into a big pile of articles. Conversely I don't have many categories with just single articles. The only article I wrote for A.D.A. was, that I will no longer write articles for A.D.A.

In total we have 26 posts, which is about a biweekly schedule. We will see later, that this is a bit skewed to the beginning of the year.

I wrote a total of 1 new adventure - Beneath the Temple. I wanted to write more, but that's where we are at.

Let's split this up by month and analyse this a bit further.

Month	Posts	Words (Total)	Words (Average)
January	4	8685	2171
February	2	3738	1869
March	5	7550	1510
April	2	3767	1884
May	2	1602	801
June	3	2100	700
July	2	1366	683
August	3	2476	825
September	1	1285	1285
October	0	0	-
November	1	931	931
December	1	669	669
Total	26	34169	-
Average	2.1	2848	-

(a) number of posts by month, (b) number of words in total and average by month

My longest article with over 3000 words is Solo Hexcrawling (Part 2) and the shortest with just 100 words is Solo House Rules Quick Reference.

We can clearly see a decline in number of words and posts over the whole year. From September on, we just have one article. I took a long vacation in October, so that at least explains the big gap there at least. There was definitely less motivation to write something. Partly because I didn't know what to write and most of my ideas didn't seem good enough.

I lacked some form of long-running project (something I had in 2023). So I should get some ideas for it now and plan accordingly.

When it comes to the length of the posts, I'm actually happier when it goes down. I think 1000 words is about the sweet spot. I don't get burned out too quickly and it is a reasonable length to keep the attention of the reader.

Nothing in this statistic says something about the quality of the posts. This is hard to gauge. I unfortunately don't have any usable data from website visits, that could maybe give some idea. I changed the way how I gather these statistics, so maybe next year I have better data.

Behind the scenes

I did change some stuff behind the scenes, which is maybe not that obvious when visiting my blog.

First of all, I did change the server I'm hosting all of this (and other projects). I have now a bit more space and power. The change should've been very transparent on your end. It still looks the same for you, but for me some things have changed (for the better).

There was also the launch in August of my collection of RPG Tools, that have since then been updated several times. Behind that, there's also a "complex" build pipeline, so I can create further updates with more ease.

I also spend a lot of time, compiling all my house rules and guides into one single place - The Codex. It has been there before, but I did update it with a lot of information. I didn't announce this much. I'd rather highlight some of the articles in there if time comes. Most of the stuff is also feeding directly into the RPG Tools.

Lastly I moved all my earlier episodes of Iron Stories onto my own server (one of the reasons I needed more space).

All of these things mostly happen in the later part of the year, so maybe this is also why we have less blog posts then.

Reflection

Let's also have a look back on what we promised last year.

Write at least two articles about a new adventure
Write at least one TTRPG article showing my view
Minor rebranding and behind the scenes stuff

So I fulfilled all my resolutions for the year. Good? Not really. The resolutions were actually only for January. I wanted to do a check-up in February. Looking over the year, yes I fulfilled it, but maybe a little bit later than expected.

I did for example take 3 Months until I would actually have written two articles for Beneath the Temple. And it took 6 months overall until I finally published it fully.

Still, I'm proud on what I have achieved.

Resolutions

Let's therefore make some new resolutions for 2026.

Biweekly Schedule - Quality over Quantity. I don't think I'm ready to have a really increased schedule in posts. But I think a biweekly schedule should be feasible.
More Publications - At least once per quarter I should publish something. Be it a new adventure, some form of hack or tool for an existing system.
Actual Plays - I want to revive my Iron Stories a bit. But not in an oral form, but more as flash/short-fiction on this blog. This might also include some preparations for other games.

Until next year!

In favor of delayed consequences

2025-12-20T20:00:00+01:00

Telltale Games produces a series of narrative games, where you occasionally had to take a decision. This would then prompt a message in the top-left corner of the screen, that the person you were talking to, will remember this decision. Your decision then had a consequence, but not immediately, but somewhere down the line. Sometimes even in later episodes (these games would typically come out in several episodes, each one sometimes several months apart).

This stuck with me. I don't know if they were the first to do so, but it is at least the one I remember (see what I did there). I became a fan of, what I call, delayed consequences.

Sometimes we fall into the trap, that if we roll badly on the dice, that this means we do not succeed at something and something bad is happening. A very binary outcome. This also leads a group being stuck at an obstacle, because they continue to fail that test.

Not only does this sound boring for the GM, calling for the same check over and over again, but it also takes away competency, and ultimately agency, from the character. A rogue should be able to pick mundane locks pretty easily. There should be maybe not even a check, but rather the die should inform how well of a job they did.

The door is opened, but it was done so poorly that it doesn't close anymore, always swinging open (preferably with a loud creak). Somebody is going to notice. Not now. Sometimes later. Maybe never. But the players know they screwed up and they have the decision to either follow through with their plan or bolt.

Immediately this gives the agency back to the players. They are always in control, but must live with the consequences.

This is something I allured already way back, when talking about Hexcrawling. They key is suspense over surprise. Don't spring the city guard on them, when they fail, but make sure that they know, that their actions might have alerted them. Tension Pools can help you. Clocks are another tool. I wish more games and books would actually implement these kind of helpers into their systems.

Delayed consequences are also a way to make your world a living place. Think about the Cannibal's Prison in the first Monkey Island game. Every time you escaped it, they improved it's supposed security (of course it had one fatal flaw - but that's not important). The world is changing around you, on things the characters did.

Do you always have to use delayed consequences? No. There are places, where classical immediate consequences are perfectly fine. Probably a lot of checks in games, will have immediate consequences. Combat is a prime example. But this is also enforced with mechanics in game.

It is here, where your experience as a GM comes in. You will get a feeling when it is better to put on a little bit of a break and let the players feel the consequences later. As a rule of thumb, whenever a character tries something that should be within their expertise but fails, let them succeed, but let it have a delayed consequence. Things that are done within a tight timeframe or out of expertise of a character has immediate consequences.

There's two pitfalls, that you have to know, though.

First, don't create too many delayed consequences. In the end you will have to track all of them. If the consequence is not of importance or adds an interesting twist to the story, forego it. Have meaningful consequences.

Secondly, always telegraph these consequences. Do not surprise. Suspense over surprise. Let the players know something is going to happen, but not when. Trust me, they will interpret enough into these kind of things and make the wildest assumptions.

Bring your own Monster

2025-11-23T20:00:00+01:00

I often have problems though, when converting some pre-written adventures to the system I want to use or the group I'm playing with. Let's have a look at an example. This is the first room in the Caves of Chaos from Keep on the Borderlands.

For the moment you do not need to understand the stats on the kobolds. You can easily just use a Kobold from your preferred system (most if not all fantasy TTRPG will have some sort of kobold). But the encounter plays way differently when you play it with four level one characters or six.

As a matter of fact, back in the days, adventuring parties were normally bigger than today. Apart from the players, there were often hirelings and henchmen in the party as well. Keep from the Borderlands was designed for 6-9 players. So back then, this was considered probably an easy encounter.

So, when trying to adapt this adventure to your players, you would need to know such things. This isn't something that's plaguing old-school adventures either. Lost Mines of Phandelver had the exact same problem. This lead players creating calculators to balance the encounters. Otherwise you would get the famous TPK on the Goblin Ambush.

Now, you could argue that encounters don't need to be balanced. And this mostly comes from the Old-School camp. But there's a difference between not balanced and not fun or interesting. Stomping the big-bad at the end of the dungeon just doesn't feel satisfying. And let's not forget me as the GM. I want to have fun as well. Gatekeeping my players isn't really fun for me either.

Furthermore the author of the adventure had a specific difficulty, tone or intention behind that encounter.

Is there a better way?

The answer to that has kept my up lately. I don't have a definitive answer, but some ideas.

All started when I was running Desert Tomb Raiders a few times in the past month. The encounter descriptions were pretty minimal. Just a simple low-level or mid-level to describe their difficulty. Now, the issue becomes a bit, what you mean with "level". But it becomes clear, that a lower level should be easier than a higher level.

The difficulty becomes relative instead of absolute. That is way easier to adapt and balance.

What is missing in this kind of description is the amount. Often you have a die attached to it. So let's say 1d6 mid-level monsters. But that suffers from the same issues. I'd rather have something relative, such as many or few. Again it becomes clear, that many, low-level monsters are harder then few, low-level monsters.

And you can scale what many means for different sizes of parties. If you still want to have random numbers in your encounters you can assign a die to to these descriptions. You do this at the very beginning of the campaign and don't have to change it.

Players	few	several	many	countless
4	1d4	1d4+2	1d6	1d10
6	1d6	1d6+3	1d8+2	2d12
8	1d8	1d8+4	1d12	1d20+10

The next problem arises, when you have a monster for which you don't have a stat-block in your system. Can I introduce you to the Niff? Never heard of it? Then this makes two of us. It comes from Dragon Town and the Darkness Below by JP Coovert.

In the whole book, you will find these kind of stat-blocks. No numbers. Just four stats that range from 1-4 (denoted by filled circles). You can already imagine, that this monster has a very high armor class. If you encounter this with low level characters or high level characters, it makes it easy for you to adjust. It may have AC16 at lower levels and goes to AC20 or higher.

A similar problem exists for monsters, that are well known, but many variation exist. Best example are dragons. There are different colors and they can have different ages. Which one should I use? Which one did the author think of when designing this adventure? Of course I can look at the stat-blocks, but if I need to convert from one system to another I have to understand both systems. And then I have to find out, what the difference between each type is.

Last thing to mention is, to give monsters special abilities. Even your standard enemy can become way more interesting and memorable if they can do something, nobody else can. Make a Kobold Bard that charms your players. The abilities shouldn't be some other form of damage, but more battlefield or environmental control.

In essence, I wish more relative descriptions of monsters. This allows me to adjust and adapt easier. Yes, I have more work. But then I can run the adventure as intended, not as written.