A dojo for players of fantasy role-playing games
Fresh from a lucrative quest and loaded with gold, the adventurers have arrived in a city large enough to handle a thriving market. “I wonder if I can find someone who will sell me a...
If you flip through enough GM guidance, you see repeated disdain for one fantasy-gaming trope in particular: the tavern opening. You know the one: You’re all sitting in a bar full of tough mercenaries, enjoying...
Dating back to the early days of Gygax and Arneson, alignment is an old standard of Dungeons & Dragons, one of the bits that makes D&D feel like D&D. With every new edition, however, alignment feels more and...
Our previous two articles explored equipment themes for 5th edition, specifically some options for attunement and ways to handle high-quality but nonmagical items, respectively. For more cool trinket goodness, we highly recommend Sly Flourish’s article...
I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut. — Hattori Hanzo, Kill Bill, Vol. 1, Miramax Films, 2003....
Blending Approaches In this series on low-prep, reusable scenarios, I have described five fun types of low-stress campaign. However, so far I’ve tackled each of them one at a time, without looking at how they might be...
The Arena The Scenario in a Nutshell: Let the players practice tactics or find out how tough their characters are by having them fight creatures or NPCs. Note that this scenario works best for players...
Glen Cook’s Goblin Recon The Scenario in a Nutshell: The realm is at war with vicious enemies who have started sending teams of operatives through a buffering or bordering forest, marsh, or similar terrain. The PCs have...
The Sandbox Campaign The Scenario in a Nutshell: Instead of using random location generators, you could grab an existing dungeon map, a published setting, or even a map or guide to a real historic setting, and then...
The Tarterian Highway The Scenario in a Nutshell: A fun twist on the random Nostalgia Crawl is a Vault of the Drow-style dungeon, or what I’m calling the “Tarterian Highway.” It’s a linear dungeon crawl...
Game-Mastering Advice / Settings / The World of the Vault / World Building
November 10, 2019
City Adventuring / Game-Mastering Advice / Get Medieval
Get Medieval: The Village in the Middle Ages
October 28, 2014
City Adventuring / Settings / World Building
Introducing the Ludus Population Engine
October 21, 2014
Welcome to The Ludus, the School of Games We’re writing The Ludus for players and game-masters of tabletop fantasy role-playing… Read more…
