1d12 Things the Goblins are launching from their slings.
Digression: Finding and disabling traps is a goddamn dungeon staple. It’s bread and butter. And yet Perception + Disable Device is the shittiest fun way to handle it, because you’re just throwing those skills at problems like a robot. It becomes a test of the character sheet, rather than the player.
..alternatives to the “wake up in a dungeon cell” method of starting a scenario.
David Hargrave’s Critical Hit Table (Classic) V 1.0.1
OD&D Annotations: A Closer Look At A Seminal Work
Gary Gygax’s Whitebox OD&D House Rules
I deleted my Twitter account. It’s a breeding ground for thoughtlessness and contempt (via Cal Newport)
Procedures for the Liberation of Sir Uravulon Calcidius
Tower of the Stargazer
Everything Herein is Fantastic
https://www.paulsgameblog.com/2011/11/16/bx-changelist/
BX Houserules; interesting pdf
Last-Minute Keys and Locks & Last-Minute Keys and Locks Revised
Every locked door forever in my game.
My advice to anyone currently fretting over which edition or retro-clone or whatever they should use is to just pick one. It doesn’t matter which one. No matter which one you pick D&D isn’t there. It’s your job to take that text and turn it into D&D. Interpret, interpolate, edit, house-rule, mangle, spindle, mutilate. Run that text into the ground. Import crap from other editions, other games. Break it and remake it in your own image. Only once you have your own version of D&D up and running does D&D in any way exist.
I frequently conflate communion and ritual with D&D so this.
Why D&D Has Lots of Rules for Combat: A General Theory Encompassing All Editions
Basic Megadungeon Play and Procedures (via Chris Tamm)
A DECADE OF AD&D – CHRONICLES OF ETINERRA IS TEN YEARS OLD
Bone Marshes Workshop I and II
d100+ directions, higher numbers weirder
If Symbolist/Decadent Artists Ran D&D Campaigns
Ten Foot Pole: Pollute the Elfen Memory Water
Room five tells us:
5. Frigid and icy. Vegetation here is dead and withered. Blocks of ice stacked against wall.
* Pink tendril worms frozen in blocks of ice.
* Some blocks have melted and pink tendril worms either wriggle slowly half frozen or plop onto the frigid ground.
Note how it moves the from the general description, as the first line, to the additional lines providing more info if the party looks closer. The wanderer table has them engaged in some activity. The rando flowers on the wall get a little rando table. The monsters have short descriptions, with goals and motivations clear and terse, the writing focused on party interactivity.
Oh, my heartstrings! A literal call to adventure, tt’s a pretext for all those players that seem to need one, and there are about a dozen different ones buried in the speech. It’s does this with a playful wink and a nudge. We’re all playing D&D tonight. Further, the guild is an interesting design choice. I’m usually not down with adventurers guild, but this one is a little different. It’s loose with requirements, gives the folks benefits, like food and lodging, provides the occasional pretext, AND DOESNT BACKSTAB THE PARTY. It also gives the DM a couple of tools, like magic portals, etc, to get the party moving across the game world and interacting with stuff.
Iambic tetrameter flavor text of the entrance to the woods:
Beyond the mossed and tumbled walls, the air convolves with inky swirls. Beneath the moons dance shimmering wisps. But on the road, beneath the looming trees, the night is dark and clear.
Questions to establish characters, via Alex Schroeder.
On Skill Deconstruction: Why Roll for Resolution? via When to roll
A Set of Unified Wilderness Travel Procedures
Procedural Dungeons
