Some thoughts on TTRPGs with DIY & OSR roots
I don t usually do play reports, but what the heck I discovered that the youngest Henchling had invited his friend over (his friend s older brother decided to come along too) to play D D (well AD D 1e) over the Easter break. The other Henchling, FOMO, decided that they wanted join in. The catch was, I [ ]
I came across the below highlighted text in Jorge Luis Borges The Book of Imaginary Beings: Borges seems to believe that while the writing became fancier over time, the vibe was lost. Why, because of the lack of belief in the thing itself. Monsters became a writing exercise. I sometimes wonder why the writing and [ ]
I have no idea if anyone out there in internet land might find this useful. Kids Lego Solar System project Here s an Excel grid layout if that helps: Scale all planets have been scaled proportionally to where Mercury is 1 Lego pip . Obviously, the smaller planets have the biggest rounding error. In the top [ ]
For those that observe, it s that anniversary (2011-2019) G➕🪦
EDIT Might also make an interesting magic item property random table From a project that I will probably not take anywhere, so instead of binning here it is: Here is the PDF if want it Also, as a sort of D20xD20 spark table Or, try it out on this Perchance tool, Actually, combining any [ ]
I ve only just learnt about Sicherman Dice One die has sides 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 and the other has sides 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 What is fun, is when you roll and sum these two dice they have the same probability profile as rolling and summing normal 2d6 (peak at 7, [ ]
EDIT Individual images: I ve decided to keep this page for the mile stone updates, making collages. I bought this broken down, split spine, board separated, sorry state AD D 1e Monster Manual: The idea is that I m going to colour my way through it. A bit of meditative self time. At the moment I m doing [ ]
Asking for a friend: Does Everything have to be a Point Crawl? I put out this post that contain this statement: PS While we are at it, we should probably acknowledge that every adventure format in TTRPGs/D D is a point crawl. Dungeons are a point crawl if you consider the connective passages to also [ ]
Blurb: I listen to podcasts, some of which often throw out a game design nugget . If I find a nugget interesting, I think I m going to put a pin in it and post it here. Consolidated List #6 Dungeons Dreamboats (what else is a Dungeon?) Bastionland Podcast Season 6, Episode 2 Amanda [ ]
Ever wanted to play a table top war game (like Warhammer Fantasy Battle) solo, that is against an army commanded by A I General? Well, this is attempt to do that, using a Hex Flower as that A I General PDF on DriveThruRPG LINKPDF on Itch.io LINK The idea is that you can [ ]
I saw this blog post (All Hail King d12) and it made me chuckle I presume it was at least partly tongue in cheek! Anyway the central idea was this: I want to see more wizards and dragons and shit! Of course 2d6 looks like the orange line below and a simple d12 gives [ ]
This Hex Flower Game Engine is a homage to the classic arcade game Pac-Man. In this case Hac-man runs the maze eating pellets and being chased by Ghosts. Can you get past Level 3? I got sucked into making this Hex Flower when I read that the my Hex Flower edge rules were a bit [ ]
Blurb: I listen to podcasts, some of which often throw out a game design nugget . If I find a nugget interesting, I think I m going to put a pin in it and post it here. Consolidated List #5 Make Drawings Descriptions additive Bastionland Podcast Season 6, Episode 2 Amanda Lee Franck This [ ]
Blurb: I listen to podcasts, some of which often throw out a game design nugget . If I find a nugget interesting, I think I m going to put a pin in it and post it here. Consolidated List #4 Taking the Pith (keep it short) Between Two Cairns Warped Beyond Recognition – 6 Nov 2025, [ ]
Blurb: I listen to podcasts, some of which often throw out a game design nugget . If I find a nugget interesting, I think I m going to put a pin in it and post it here. Consolidated List #3 Narrative Abhors a Vacuum (~ missing link meets narrative vacuum) Bastionland Podcast Season 6, Episode 2 [ ]
Blurb: I listen to podcasts, some of which often throw out a game design nugget . If I find a nugget interesting, I think I m going to put a pin in it and post it here. Consolidated List #2 Thoughtful Randomness (Random with Purpose) Between Two Cairns Beneath the Muckfort 20 Nov S4 E12 [ ]
Blurb: I listen to podcasts, some of which often throw out a game design nugget . If I find a nugget interesting, I think I m going to put a pin in it and post it here. Consolidated List #1 Fixed Random Encounter Between Two Cairns BSOLO Ghost of Lion Castle 13 Nov S4 E11 [ ]
Adding a minotaur hunter mini to the Hex Flower maze pursuit gave the kids more buy in! PS they made it to the center of the maze, got the prize (the gilded mushroom; which was siting on an island surrounded by a lake of mercury) and out again, evading the minotaur using: a [ ]
People use the word terse a lot when describing RPG content/adventures with concise content. I think they mean this in a positive way, but to me terse has a negative quality abrupt to a fault. I prefer the term pithy . I m hardly a RPG publishing powerhouse I ve released 2 adventures and neither has [ ]
The OSR/NSR (and splinter movements thereof) fly high the flag and associated benefits of random tables and procedurally led outcomes. I m fully behind this idea and the benefits. That said, when listening to one of Fear of a Black Dragon or Between Two Cairns podcasts, one of the commentators said something that resonated with me [ ]
You might not know, but I have a YouTube channel. It s nothing to shout about, but it is there. Here are some actual plays if you are interested in that kind of thing: Kids Play Mausritter (4 sessions, two adventures) On hold Kids Play AD D 1e (2 sessions) Ongoing Beast Hunt Play Test [ ]
A Hex Flower mini-game for learning your times tables. The idea is to make learning your Times Tables more fun, by turning it into a game. :: Link to PDF on DriveThruRPG MatheMat-HEX Hex Maze Runners :: Link to PDF on Itch.io: LINK The game is pay-what-you-want so you can download it for free [ ]
This post relates back to the Forget polyhedrals Cubism is in !! post I made recently. The original idea of that blog post was how to make a (linear) die using 2 dice so a D12 or D18 using 2 x D6. In that post I had throw away remark saying you could [ ]
This post relates back to a composite dice post I made a little while ago. Recently, I got thinking there is another way to generate composite dice in a similar way. I figured, let s do this with D6 first (to explain the thing), and then back it out to all dice. Composite die I hear [ ]
2024 was a reasonably quiet year for me (reasons). In 2024 I posted 6, arguably 7 posts (that were more than just update posts), and one of those was on 31 December. In 2025 by mid-February I ve put out 8 posts, all of which (I think) have something to offer a niche within a niche [ ]
Edit: No animals were harmed in the writing of this post Very important context I recently got included in this Meme (What the dice doin??? †): †= felt the Meme was in need of a modest but absolutely necessary codifying tweak ^ and within a 24hr window another Redditor stated the below about my [ ]
I ve been listening to a bunch of Call of Cthulhu (CoC) actual plays recently (Andy Goodman s Grizzly Peak Radio) and was interested in the dynamic of a Pushed Roll . From my understanding (forgive me if I m preaching to the choir here), a Pushed Roll is an option when a PC fails a skill type check [ ]
I ve only recently realised that I ve had a Random Table Itch that I’ve needed to scratch for some time. In this post, I’m going to delve into the general idea of making a single random table which uses different access “windows (i.e. rules) to situationally access the content of the table. Setting Up Random Tables [ ]
CC image click to see source (in theory the above is the opposite of my idea :O ) In a similar vein to my “Random Encounter Tables – When the Boss Monster comes out swinging” blog post, I like the idea that only certain parts of the random encounter table become progressively unlocked after some [ ]
(Image Credit: Big Trouble in Little China) I like random encounter tables (maybe you do too!) But, I often wonder, after all the ruckus the PCs have been creating, why has the Boss Monster not decided to come out and deal with the troublemakers themselves? Here’s an example of how this idea could be done [ ]
I saw a post on BlueSky by Ktrey of the d4 Caltrops blog fame about Usage Dice , and wanted to spotlight this idea on my blog. Here s what Ktrey had to say: But my biggest advice for Usage Die in general is never deplete to Zero: The d4 can go down to last one instead, [ ]
I bought an old game on eBay. It came with some odd dice the 1s were replaced by 2s (and the 6s were replaced by 5s). These were not standard for the game and were a bit of an anomaly. But, this got me thinking, what would happen if you rolled D D type Stats [ ]
I saw this post by Kyana and really liked the idea that changing something’s name a little can conjure up a whole new idea. I m looking at it as sort of impressionistic wordplay. Kyana’s idea and execution is subtle and intelligent, my ‘take’ (as you will see) on Kyana’s idea is much more low-brow, but [ ]
I was listening to the Swords against Madness podcast (maybe you should too) and there was a bit were some giant beetles where about to do something fancy and for some strange reason I thought they were a custom monster that was going to spin a spell-like ability like Phantasmal/Prismatic ya-yas. I was only [ ]
Last post of 2024!! Made this: Get higher resolution the PDF here If you are interested, here s a link to original post where posted about this idea
I m writing an adventure. I might even get round to publishing it one day! The adventure at the moment has quite a lot of NPC-NPC relationships going on, and I thought it might (initially) be tricky to follow these relationships as a GM running the game. So, I wondered if providing some sort of relationship [ ]
Edit behold a 5e version (not mine) of this idea and in the spirt of Lego builds: LINK I’m sure like most of you, you get Ben Milton’s The Glatisant news letter (if not, you should). In Issue #56, I saw this title ‘Thermodynamics for Game Design’ and I was like a moth to [ ]
I saw this interesting post by Joshy McCroo (a sort of psychic card guessing resolution mechanic) and this cool looking crowdfunding project by Aaron A. Reed (Downcrawl 2e). This got me wondering if you could make a card type oracle with a “memory”. That is, the last card effects the result of the next card. [ ]
Get the higher resolution PWYW PDF here It s been a little while since I made a Hex Flower, so I thought I d make a new one. I ve seen quite a lot of webposts looking for a good mechanic for mass combat, this is a Hex Flower version which I hope might be of interest to [ ]
Just some work updates: In the Heart of the Unknown recently went platinum metal best seller on DriveThruRPG (following in the footsteps of my Hex Flower Cookbook) This is particularly pleasing because it s Pay What You Want (PWYW), so despite being essentially free, at least 1001 people wanted to give me at least 20cents [ ]
Get the PWYW PDF here I was recently asked about interesting ways to generate D D type stats (more below) and that got me thinking about the possibility to generate these using a Hex Flower. Tricky to get this to work with a 19 HEX flower to replicate (or at least ape) the probability profile of [ ]
I ve not been blogging much lately as I ve been following the invasion of Ukraine by the genocidal regime in Russia. You can donate to a reputable aid charity to help Ukraine here (LINK). So, to break out of the rut, I thought I d post something RPG-ish (see the title above edited to add the [ ]
Marcin s the artist in many OSR works need of some help: LINK: https://www.gofundme.com/f/xy5nzg-i-need-help The details are on the GoFundMe page and I hope collectively we can give a great artist a hand up. Some of the work that Marcin has been involved in:
A (hopefully) fun festive idea an Advent Calendar Dungeon ( Advent(ure) Calendar ). Open a door each day to see what s behind the door. See if you survive to Christmas. Simply scan the QR code on each door to see what lies behind I originally wrote this in 2022, doing one day each day [ ]
Update: On my Drivethrurpg page there are now playing card decks versions of these LINK1 LINK2 We all know that giving NPCs some character can be difficult, and so I wondered if a set of cards (or booklet) of personality profiles might be a helpful start. Well I finally pulled my finger out and finished [ ]
I love the idea of mazes. They captured my imagination when I first encountered the story of the minotaur The problem is, mazes are not very interesting in RPG / D D like games. Well, that is not quite true – mechanically mazes are not interesting to explore because of the language barrier; that is DM [ ]
UPDATE Reddit said this better: I think more precisely, flipping the sign of a die doesn t change the distribution, just the offset I have to admit my brain did not intuitively grasp the below when I recently stumbled across this (mathematicians wince much!!): https://anydice.com/program/30be1 That is, 2D6+D6 (i.e. 3D6) and 2D6-D6 have the same [ ]
We all know that giving NPCs some character can be difficult, and so I wondered if a set of cards (or booklet) of personality profiles might be a helpful start. Something like this: These Tree Charts group thing by biggest contribution left to right (or top to bottom). The idea is that the DM [ ]
To celebrate Face Folio going Gold Metal Best Seller on DriveThruRPG, I’m making available 10 community copies of Face Folio: COMMUNITY COPY CODE Of course, the idea is for people to use the code if they cannot afford to buy a copy (life stuff). There is no date limit on this offer, but after 10 [ ]
I recently added a helper file to my In the Heart of the Unknown product (see below). Basically, it gives 6 days worth of randomly generated hex crawling adventure goodness. The Table part show what was rolled on the 2D6 and what direction you would move off in on the Hex Flower. And the Hex [ ]