Mythscribe

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.

Review: Desert Tomb Raiders (Hexcrawl Toolbox)

2025-09-17T20:00:00+02:00

I recently attended a small event from a local club. Each month we gather to play various TTRPG games. There's always a variety of players, from newcomers to veterans. I decided to run something and I wanted to see, how little prep I needed to run an adventure.

I bought the Hexcrawl Toolkit some time ago on sale, and I thought it was the right time to dust it off. The box comes with four adventures on postcards so I picked one of them and ran it - Desert Tomb Raiders.

Adventure overview

The hook of the adventure is short and to the point - Find the MacGuffin within 10 days before the world ends in an apocalypse. This is ideal for a random group. Directly into the action with a clear goal.

The adventure presents itself as a little hexcrawl, using the tiles from the Toolkit. Kind of like a showcase.

Image courtesy of Patchwork Paladin

The crawl consists of 19 hexes of which 11 are keyed. Normally I don't like empty hexes, but being in the middle of the desert, there might actually be just nothing at all. So it fits. There is a good mixture of different things to do as well.

There are a total of 7 spots that contain a "treasure". Each of these spots has the chance of being THE treasure (a.k.a. the MacGuffin). Whenever you pick up one of these treasures you roll a die and then there's a chance that you get the MacGuffin or not.

The crawl also contains two dungeons. They are not fleshed out but rather reference the booklet that comes in the box on how to generate one. Or you can use your own dungeon. I choose a different method for the dungeons, more on that later.

The adventure is fairly system independent. Monsters are given as short description and have a "difficulty" rating such as low-level etc. Mostly you can just find an appropriate monster in the manual for your system and plug it in. Special monsters are also given some special flavour. For example the Glass Worm has spews sharp glass-shards.

The session

I ran the adventure for four players. As game system I used Cairn 2nd edition, sprinkling in the Tension Pool and other house rules I mentioned before. I wanted to get to play very quickly and Cairn offered quick character creation and little rules. In addition the fights should be quick as well.

I used the original hexcrawling rules from Cairn instead of my own. A day was 3 watches and going from one hex to another took a watch. They way it played out, the players mostly spend the day moving from one hex to another and then exploring it. So in the end it ended up being one hex per day anyway.

Which was a good pacing as well. The day wasn't over to quick, so that the time constraint was not too restricting. Players were still able to make meaningful choices where they wanted to go, but they were aware they couldn't visit everything. Be aware of that, when you choose the system for the hexcrawl. Being able to visit more hexes, means that the time limit can be ignored.

The group managed to find the MacGuffin within the three hours we played. But just because they rolled really well.

Which is my first critique on the adventure. Getting the right treasure is a die roll. You could be very unlucky and have to visit all 7 spots to get it (the probability increases with each treasure found so far, but still there's a possibility). Which is something I do not like. Especially when I have limited time running the adventure in the first place. I don't want to finish too early, but I want to bring the adventure to conclusion in one session.

I suggest that, if you play this as a one-shot, to hand out the treasure at an opportune time and let the roll be.

Which also brings me to a second point of critique.

The hexcrawl was designed under the assumption that players will spend 10 minutes per hex. That would make for 19 hexes just about three hours. In my three hour session I was only able to maybe visit 6 hexes. So something is not adding up. Patchwork Paladin came to the exact same conclusion and had about the same experience.

There were two fights and they visited both dungeons. How this should fit into one hour is beyond me. Even though Cairn is pretty quick in combat, it still takes 20-30 minutes (setting the scene, etc.).

On the other hand, if you imagine you can get to a hex containing a treasure within 2 moves. So according to that time calculation you could finish the whole adventure in maybe 30 minutes or so.

Visiting 6 hexes brings it in line with a 5-room dungeon. And these run about a session of three hours. That is a way better estimation. Hexcrawling is very similar to dungeoncrawling. So having a different assumption about time spent is beyond me.

Maybe somebody out there is rushing their players for these 10 minute sprints. I personally do not like to rush players - a point that I criticize about the torch timer in Shadowdark as well. Do not go into this adventure under the assumption the players will visit all hexes. Thus rolling for the treasure doesn't make sense at all in the first place.

Procedural dungeons

Another thing I tried was using Stinky Dragon's Deck of Dungeons. I did some modifications to make it work for Cairn (maybe it will be a future post).

The idea is, that you have a deck of cards with monsters, obstacles and loot cards in it. Every round you put three cards face down in front of the players. This represents the path through the dungeon. Then the active player is flipping a card over and an effect based on the type of card happens. There are special actions players can take to manipulate the deck and thus give more favourable outcomes.

The only thing you need to prepare is some random tables for encounters and obstacles to give the dungeon some flavour. Otherwise it just plays itself. You don't have to draw any map and it is a little mini-game for the players.

My players enjoyed it. I still have to tweak the rules a little bit more. They were originally written for DnD 5e, so certain aspects don't fit directly into Cairn.

These kind of dungeons work really well, if you need to go into a dungeon to fetch an item and then leave again. Which fit perfectly here. The deck is reusable and you can change the composition of the cards as you see fit, making the dungeons easier or harder. A nice little tool to have in the GM binder.

Conclusion

I didn't go into detail about the contents of the Hexcrawl Toolbox. You can check out other reviews and unboxings for that. I wanted to give an impression on one of the adventures that come with the box.

They are not the reason why you should buy the box. A nice additions but not great. They do the job of being an example what you can do with the Toolbox. You need to tweak them, but that might be expected of such very minimalistic adventures. It is also a bit of a shame, that you can't acquire the adventures separately from the box, although I would not pay too much for them.

What I definitely can recommend is the Dungeon Deck. It is a nice tool to have in your arsenal, whenever you need an impromptu dungeon.

RPG Design - Ending a project

2025-08-31T20:00:00+02:00

I had an idea. I had a vision. Ultimately it should end in my "fantasy" heartbreaker. To be honest, I've lost interest and drive to continue the work. Let's reflect on the journey.

At the beginning

I came from a high from (re)watching Warehouse 13 and The Librarians (and the movies). I like a good mystery and if it included some sort of supernatural elements I like it even more. I don't seem to be alone, otherwise Uncharted or Tomb Raider wouldn't have gained such traction. Even forming entire sub-cultures such as the SCP Foundation. Not to forget Raiders of the Lost Ark which inspired all of these.

During that time we also all lived through the Pandemic. So another thing on my mind were Solo RPGs (the most prominent of which is certainly Ironsworn).

Why not combine these two things?

Rules, rules, rules

So I set out and scoured the internet.

Of course I would find something. I was not the first with the idea of an artifact hunting group. Nor will I be the last. What I found, was kind of old material, so I thought myself justified that something new was needed. That I was on the right track.

The sheer amount of possibilities and ideas ended up being one of the nails in the coffin. Like a puppy I chased all the butterflies. I ended up changing the core rules several times. And every time everything had to be rewritten again, because of course everything else depended on that core mechanic. It didn't help that the rules at that point had around 40 pages. Rewriting took more and more time. And then you had to test these changes.

You start to see no end. Around the corner waits the next flashy thing. So you don't really end up with a finished product at any point. Playtesting is not the same as enjoying playing it for "real". For me that was the second nail. Even though I enjoy a good puzzle - and designing an RPG from scratch certainly is one - you enjoy something straightforward from time to time.

The rules became something of a whish-list of what I wanted from other games. A way of how I wanted things to happen. A reflection of my playstyle. A weird mixture of house rules and half-baked ideas.

Development Hell

There's a clear distinction between designing and development. Designing is the process of creating a framework, a base. Development is filling that framework with actual content. In this context it meant producing a lot of random tables.

And that was not something I was looking forward to.

I have a newfound appreciation of the amount of time and work must have been spent on all the tables in Ironsworn: Starforged. And in all the tables that other people come up with. I often have a few good ideas but still end up with a half-filled table.

With the advent of AI (particularly LLMs) this could be a thing of the past. With just a few clicks you can generate as many tables about different topics as your heart desires. This of course opens up a whole other box of issues. Using AI to inspire yourself for the next game session is probably okay. Using it to fuel your project (that could potentially be sold) not so much.

The competition never sleeps

The TTRPG community is always evolving and doesn't stop to amaze me. As mentioned, hunting artifacts seems to be a theme in many peoples heart. So it doesn't surprise that over the last few years, others designed for that space. Triangle Agency and Liminal Horror are just two examples.

It becomes a bit discouraging if someone else is stealing your thunder. A reminder that your idea wasn't that unique after all. Why continue with your project if there's already something finished around? Yes, it might not be exactly what you wanted, but it was close enough.

Takeaways

Do I look for an excuse? Maybe. Do I think it was all a mistake? No.

Shedding projects opens up creative energy for something else. We often keep too many doors open, so we should close some, from time to time. Closed doesn't mean gone. It just means we concentrate more on the few that are left open.

I had to kill my darling, but that doesn't mean that it was all for nothing. You should always look back and learn from the things you have done. What I've created is still around. I can use parts of it elsewhere. Not everything is wasted. That is a key takeaway. Keep the things you've created. Just because it wasn't working in one project, doesn't mean it can't work somewhere else.

I want to concentrate more on single aspects of the game. Things that can be applied independently of each other and the ruleset that I'm playing with. House rules and hacks that reflect my playstyle. Hexcrawling rules for example. A kind of living ruleset that changes with my experience.

Does this mean I will never try my hands on writing a TTRPG again? Probably not. In fact I still have some ideas around. And a dream...

Maybe some things never change.

Mythscribe's RPG Tools are here

2025-08-06T20:00:00+02:00

It all started because I wanted to create Site graphs that looked similar to the ones in Mystic Bastionland. Up to that point I was always "handdrawing" them, and they didn't look that great. Apart from that, it also took me quite some time. And I could imagine that other people might have a similar "problem". Although you could be totally fine, by just sketching them out on a piece of paper.

I still choose the option to overengineer this and create a little tool to generate them.

My initial idea was to just play around with GraphViz. I used it in the past to generate generic graphs, so that would be a good fit. It is flexible enough to make graphs that look pretty similar. The only issue was, that the nodes were not aligned to a hexagon.

So I took the base syntax of GraphViz and modified to my needs. Instead of writing 1 -- 2 [style=dotted] for a secret path, I could abbreviate this as 1 .. 2. In the end the syntax is very close to GraphViz but I added a lot of "syntactic sugar" to make it very fast and easy to create Sites.

Take this example:

site MySite {
   1 -- 2
   2 -- 3
   3 xx 4
   3 -- 5
   3 .. 6
   5 xx 6

   1 [entrance]
   2 [type=danger]
   3 [postern]
   5 [type=danger]
   6 [type=treasure]
}

This would lead to the Site as presented in the core rules of Mythic Bastionland.

It does not exactly the same as in the book, but it is the same (they're isomorphic).

The biggest challenge was actually to align everything to the hexagon. I'm currently using a very brute-force approach by just trying out every permutation of possible position that every node could be and checking if I can come up with a proper graph (an embedding).

There are certain constraints that make this harder. First, every path should not be longer than 1 (or all paths have the same length). The second is, that paths are not allowed to cross each other. Third, it should be somewhat "minimal", in the sense it should occupy the least amount of space.

My approach works okay-ish for low number of nodes. This is because the algorithm can degenerate to factorial time. Which is very bad. 6-7 nodes works well enough that I don't bother much optimize it. The higher I go, it might take several minutes to compute and sometimes doesn't even find a proper embedding.

Once I had the program I imagined, I could put it all onto a nice website and also slap on a generator for good measure as well. The Mythscribe's RPG Tools were born.

Start Tools

There will be more tools in the future. I will release them from time to time, so stay tuned. There are some improvements I want to do on the Site generator for example, that let's you create a complete dungeon.

Site, Site, Site!

2025-08-06T20:00:00+02:00

Such a revelation came to me in the form of Sites from Mythic Bastionland (the quickstart rules are free on itch.io). But what are Sites?

In essence, a Site is are a collection of locations that are connected with paths. You could think of them like a pointcrawl. There's unfortunately not much more definition given in the core rules of Bastionland, so there is some room for interpretation.

Locations and Paths

In the easiest sense - and the way I first interpreted it - each location can be seen as a room in a dungeon. Each path is the connection from each of these rooms - be it a door or a hallway. That is certainly one aspect of it. But that does not cover all of it.

A location can just as easily be a whole area in a dungeon. For example a prison with multiple cells, a guard room etc. This can also be expanded outward. The inside of a hex can just as easily be represented by a Site. Different landmarks will represent the locations.

Similarly the paths are not a direct connection from room to room, but is just some path that connects the two locations. This can be a door, but can also be more elaborate, such as an underground river. A path just means that you can get from one location to the other via this path.

Sites are fractals

A location could also be a Site itself. So if you have a multi-level dungeon, you can represent each level as a site and connect them together. This makes Sites recursive - a fractal.

Let's take as an example the map of Super Metroid.

Location	Legend
1	Wrecked Ship
2	Crateria
3	Maridia
4	Brinstar
5	Tourian
6	Norfair

You can represent the 6 major areas as a Site. But similarly you could create a Site for each of the areas. So a Site can represent the full map of Norfair or Maridia etc.

Applications

Dungeons

Representing dungeons is the first and obvious application of Sites. This is how I first used Sites. But that was back, when I didn't see the full picture.

Instead of having one huge dungeon (which certainly would work as well), I would now have a bunch of "normal" Sites (meaning 6 locations) interconnected via another Site (if it is a multi-level dungeon).

A huge dungeon, for example, was previously 37 locations. But this neatly goes into 6 Sites (minus 1 location, but that's okay).

Theming can now be applied on each (Sub-)Site. This is similar to the Super Metroid map above. Each of the areas has its own theme.

As a side bonus, since a Site normally consists of 6 locations, you could easily apply techniques such as 5 Room Dungeon.

Sub-Hexes

One example that is also given in the core rules, is using Sites for sub-hexes. My system is already bound to 6 landmarks within a hex anyway, so a Site gives a clean way on how the hex has to be navigated.

So for an example, you could be on a mountain hex. One location would be the base of the mountain (which is the entrance) and another the top. These are connected via a path (naturally). There's also a secret path to a mountain cave, that houses a dungeon.

So when you want to go to that cave, you first have to enter the hex via the base of the mountain and then use the secret path. You can't go directly to the cave from another hex. This resolves a bit the problem of where do you actually enter a hex (and how do you leave it).

Similarly you have to go back to the entrance of the hex if you want to leave. So this works well together with the Tension Pool - as you can't just "quickly" leave a hex, when things don't go your way. You have to invest some time to reach the "entrance" and thus complications could arise.

Hacking the Rules

The core rules actually encourage to do so. One thing you can play with, is the number of locations. I would not go over 6, but you can certainly try Sites that are smaller. I'm going to use that, for the Sub-Hex Crawling. I don't want 6 landmarks every time.

The other thing is to rethink the distribution of the different types of locations. The default is 3 features, 2 dangers and 1 treasure (which I interpret as Opportunity). But you can easily go 3 dangers, 2 treasures and 1 feature. Or go full chaos mode and roll for each location separately (1-in-3 chance for each of the types).

The same goes for the type of paths.

Going forward

There's one sentence in the core rules, that I want to follow a bit more going forward.

Sites can be created as areas that warrant more detailed exploration, [...]

Sites are an interesting concept, that integrate into my playstyle easily. There are some small adjustment needed, but I think I can make it work. I now need to play with them a bit more to really get the feel for it.

I'm really intrigued by Sites, as they make my life as GM a lot easier. I don't have to draw elaborate maps, but can use very simple symbols and rules to still make (hopefully) interesting things. They area a very abstract way to display relations between locations.

Have a look yourself and try them out. I was positively surprised, maybe you are too.

A seed to grow a tree - Conclusion

2025-07-17T20:00:00+02:00

Last time we finished up with our preparations. Up until now, we were in full control of our ideas. But they will not survive ~~enemy~~ player contact. Our primary goal is still to make this as simple as possible.

So without further ado, let's get to the next step in the process.

Step 4: Characters

You will now gather your players and let them create their characters according to the chosen system in step 1. Best time to do this is in a session 0. Here you can also present them some of your house rules for the game (for example how to roll for stats etc.), safety-tools and much more.

This is also were you will start to depart from your primer and incorporate your players more. Small changes to your primer will be okay. Maybe they want to slightly alter some parameters to fit their characters better into the campaign. Let them. Be vary for big changes though.

Once the players are finished creating their characters, create a company - a faction, that represent your player characters. This is basically the reason why they are travelling together. The game only works if they actually band together. I don't like to roleplay this "will-they-won't-they". It is clear that they will end up together. It's part of a contract to actually play the game. You don't need to name your rag-tag team, yet, but give them a first goal with a progress track (rank easy should do the trick).

As an optional step, every character can create a motivation. Why are they doing things? Why are they out there adventuring? It is a dangerous life, so there should be a good reason for it. This motivation is also a goal and has a rank. This highly depends on the length of the campaign you are planning. If it's just a few session, skip this part. For longer campaign, set the rank to something like extreme.

Then let them choose were in the region they want to start (if you gave them multiple choices).

Step 5: Threads and Actors

As a last step we will start a list of Threads and Actors. This is the beating heart of your campaign. Together with the list of Faction it will give you as a GM an endless supply of what to prep for your sessions.

But what are Threads and Actors?

The idea comes from the Mythic Game Master Emulator. There it has a slightly different name: Threads and Characters. I don't like Characters (since it is confusing), so I just renamed it Actors. But the principle is the same.

Threads are specific tasks, that take some effort (most often time) to resolve. Thus we represent them as progress tracks. This are typically quest or questions that need an answer.

Actors are a bit more vague. They are mostly outside of the characters control. They could represent events that might happen, NPC's that act independently or even a location. The only way to interact with Actors is through Threads (getting rid of an NPC for example).

We can seed these lists already.

For each of the characters motivation (if they have one), create a new Thread. If for example, a character has the motivation "To seek revenge for my parents murder", they might have a Thread, that they seek for more information in the town. A potential suspect has been seen, so they want to ask around.

Similarly you can create a Thread from the company goal.

Remember that you can't progress goals directly. You have to complete Threads in order to progress a goal.

To make the world a living place, add a Thread for each of the additional landmarks you placed around the starting towns.

Lastly create an Actor, that is an NPC of one of the factions in the region, and an Actor that stems from your world Truths.

Pre-Made Adventures

But what about pre-made adventures? You can easily fit these as well.

The company goal is one of the adventures hooks. There will most likely a list of those. You can either choose one randomly or not (or let the players pick one).

Threads and Actors can be filled similarly. Starting towns will have quests attached to them. If you look at Rimes of the Frostmaiden again, you have plenty to choose from. I did choose 3 of them, that I liked most and made them Threads. Same goes for Actors. There were multiple NPC's.

Pre-Made adventures are a framework for you to use. You don't have to follow them in every little detail. I made one of the characters having nightmares of the city under the ice. Their whole motivation became to find out, what that means. That was not written into the module, but fit our story.

Session Preparation

There is a lot of advice out there on how to prepare your sessions, so I will not go into detail for that. Do, what looks right for you. What I will do, is explain to you, how you can incorporate this seed into your preparation.

As mentioned, the most important things are your Threads and Actors, and the Factions list. They will constantly evolve. Use these list during preparation to see what scenes could happen. Which Threads do you want to push? How are the Actors influencing the world around the players.

Whenever the players have an idea such as "Let's have a look at this", note it down as a Thread and then use it for your preparation.

During preparation you will most likely also do a Faction Turn. How does this affect the situation for the players. Is there maybe a surprise attack, because the players are getting too noisy (check their Company Tier)?

Summary

As you can see, a lot of the material I previously introduced, is now starting to come together in one cohesive system. It doesn't take month-long preparations either. Everything is created as needed and flows naturally from what came before.

Start a new campaign today with these easy to follow steps.

Core Concept
- Game System
- Frame
  - Theme: Why / What
  - Setting: When / Where
  - Tone: How
  - (optional) Twist or Setting Distinction
- World Truths
- (optional) Special Mechanics
- Inspiration
Starting Region
- Create or select an area of the world that includes a settlement and its surrounding area
- For each settlement in the area, create or select a landmark in its vicinity
- Create 2 factions
  - one should be at least Tier III
Compile Campaign Primer
- Keep it short, to one-page
Characters
- Create characters according to chosen system
- Create a Company for all characters
  - Create a Goal with Rank Easy (since Rank 0)
- (optional) Each character creates a Motivation
  - A goal with Rank Extreme
Threads and Actors
- (optional) Motivations - Add new Thread for each goal
- Company Goal - Add new Thread for goal
- For each additionally added Landmark - Thread
- Create new NPC for one of the factions - Actor
- Add one Actor coming from the Truths - Actor

Tucked away

2025-07-06T20:00:00+02:00

I did apply the reduction of text as mentioned last time and I was finally able to fit everything into the legendary format of a trifold pamphlet. I could have even shrunk even to a one-pager if I really wanted to.

But I wanted to keep it a trifold. The reason is, that I managed to put all the monster statblocks on one of the folds. So you can fold it onto map, whenever you needed the stats. That, I'm really proud of.

My only concern would be, that with the reduced text, that maybe some of the core idea or design is not entirely clear. But so far the feedback I got was good.

So I consider this project finished and I want to start new ones. I spent far too much time on this already.

Get Adventure

Leave me some feedback if you do play or GM it. Either as a comment on itch.io or over @bluesky.