17 August 2026 DM's Guide: Creating Magic Items, Magic Items, and the Appendices (pg. 114-230)

     

    Finished. The last part of the book lent itself to some skimming as there are many, many tables and a long section of alphabetical monster stats. But no matter! This was a fun little project for me. Magic is hard: hard to come by, hard to live with (i.e. you need to live a long time before you can become powerful with its use), hard to fashion, and hard to manage! I was struck by how many cursed items exist in the comprehensive list of magic items; things that are designed to make characters have a very bad day. I was also struck by how weird some this shit is (the Goat of Terror for the win!) These are detailed and exacting processes for the creation of items of power. Artifacts, in particular, are a lot of fun. We used so little of this stuff as kids! 

    I think it was re-discovering the Appendixes a few years back that got in interested in the old ways of play that are illuminated in this book. There is a guy on Youtube who goes by the name of Mr. Wargames, and he did a video series on playing solo AD&D. I watched a few, then took his advice and started rolling on the random wilderness generator. I was astonished, and delighted, to watch as a world took shape on the paper in front of me. As I said in a previous post, the randomness is a creativity pump. With some dice, a 50 year old book, and a notebook, and entire fantasy region came into existence in about 30 minutes. It was so, so cool...and something I hadn't done since I was 13 years old. 

    Dungeons&Dragons, in its current form, is an entirely different game. One of the things I was struck by in this book is how Gygax viewed the role of a Dungeon Master: it is his (or her) game and the players are in it. It is his or her decisions that matter, rules be damned. He can change it, shape it, modify it, or ignore it as he sees fit. AD&D is gamemaster oriented: you, the DM, are doing the work and the players are playing the game. While I can see how a bad DM could be a complete asshole and ruin a campaign by being some kind of despot, in my 44 years of play, I have never once seen that happen. 

Here is an example:

However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might wish ta do this to keep them from knowing some specific fact. You also might wish to give them an edge in finding a particular clue, e.g. a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining. You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur (pg. 110).

And here, from the Afterword (pg. 230; all caps as printed in the book, highlights are mine):

IT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE GAME, NOT THE LETTER OF THE RULES, WHICH IS IMPORTANT. NEVER HOLD TO THE LETTER WRITTEN, NOR ALLOW SOME BARRACKS ROOM LAWYER TO FORCE QUOTATIONS FROM THE RULE BOOK UPON YOU, IF IT GOES AGAINST THE OBVIOUS INTENT OF THE GAME. AS YOU HEW THE LINE WITH RESPECT TO CONFORMITY TO MAJOR SYSTEMS AND UNIFORMITY OF PLAY IN GENERAL, ALSO BE CERTAIN THE GAME IS MASTERED BY YOU AND NOT BY YOUR PLAYERS. WITHIN THE BROAD PARAMETERS GIVEN IN THE ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS VOLUMES, YOU ARE CREATOR AND FINAL ARBITER. BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE. MAY YOU FIND AS MUCH PLEASURE IN SO DOING AS THE REST OF US DO!

    What a different view of the role of a Dungeon Master when compared to the current edition. From D&D Beyond's article How to Be a Dungeon Master:

In basic terms, the main responsibilities of the DM are to narrate the adventure, control the monsters during combat, roleplay any nonplayer characters (NPCs) that the party might encounter, and help move the story along.

 Gygax did understand that players and DMs are in the game together, and that the best games create a fantastic synergy. For example:

This is not to say that an occult power takes over. It is simply that the interaction of judge and players shapes the bare bones of the initial creation into something far larger. It becomes fleshed out, and adventuring breathes life into a make believe world (pg. 87)

    With that said, having cut my teeth on 1e and AD&D, I found that the role of the Dungeon Master in 5e was very, very different than what I had learned back in the day. The player characters are incredibly powerful, and have so many options (classes, subclasses, specialty classes, feats, bonus actions!) that it is impossible for a mere mortal like myself to keep up with all of them. Players just push 'paper buttons' as Mike Shea calls them, and their characters do insane things. A modern DMs job seems to be trying to figure out how to challenge the Justice League party as they stomp the shit out of everything in their path.  

    "I would prefer not to,' as the Scrivener said so long ago.

    Finally, Appendix N: Inspirational Reading. Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games (and creator of the incredibly fun Dungeon Crawl Classics) did something amazing: he went back and read all of the books on Gary's list and used them to create his own game, which is gonzo, weird, and wonderful. Jeffro Johnson wrote a wonderful book called Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons&Dragons that argues that the game as originally created was meant to be weird as fuck: dinosaurs, spaceships, mutants, lost cities flying through space, demons,cowboys, and ninjas all mashed together in an insane cornucopia of imagination, fantasy, and fun. This game is based on weird tales, in the best sense of the phrase. "To adventure amongst the weird," as Gygax wrote, "is fantasy enough"(pg. 21). 

 

16 August 2026 DM's Guide: Territory Development, a Sample Dungeon, NPCs, Construction, Problem Players, and Conversions (pgs. 93-114)

     I continue to be bemused by the organization of this book. The topics just seem...random. In this section, we range from how to develop a territory, followed by a sample dungeon, a long example of actual play, how to build things, what to do with asshole players, and how to convert your game to Gamma World and Boot Hill. A lot going on here, to say the least. My favorite part of this chunk was the NPC generator: you just start rolling on all these tables, and a personality begins to emerge. As I have played these game longer, I have come to respect randomness as a primer for imagination. Just by rolling dice, I came up with a concept for a guy who was a bit like Arthur Rimbaud: wealthy, world-weary, a bit gross, and a lot annoying. Fun! 

11 August 26: DM's Guide pgs 80-93 Saving Throws, Hit Points, Insanity, Experience, and the Campaign

     This is, literally, the most insanely organized RPG book I have ever read. Gygax starts to write about the mechanics of saving throws, then goes into a deep and moving discussion of heroic fantasy adventuring. I have never liked saving throws, but this section has given me a look behind the curtain at Gygax's thinking, which is helpful. There are five saving throws in AD&D (vs. 13 in Castles&Crusades). Personally, I think Dungeon Crawl Classics does it best with just three: Will, Fortitude, and Reflex vs. a DC, like "Make a DC 12 Will saving throw." Roll, add mods, beat the target. Easy-peasey. 

    On that note: generally speaking, I like a unified d20 mechanic. Everything is roll-high with modifiers added on to boost your number upward. Saving throws in more classically based systems are roll on a table. In C&C, saves are linked to an attribute, plus possible class and race benefits, but the SIEGE Engine needs to know if your attribute is primary or secondary, and you get to add your level..mostly. Needlessly complex. 

    His description of what hit point are is something I wish I had read as a teenager, or in my early 20s when I was running AD&D. I thought--incorrectly--that hit points were merely a measure of physical well being, and physical damage, but no: they are an abstraction of fatigue, wear and tear, and death by a thousand cuts, both physical and mental. I remember being frustrated by AD&D combat feeling like a treen that was being chopped down; hit, miss, hit, miss, hit, miss, but now I see that my understanding was incomplete. 

    Then instantly we are transported into the impacts of intoxicants, descriptions of various insanities, and how experience points work, followed by how to create a campaign world with a long discussion of social ranking, types of government, economic systems, monster and treasure placement/densities, and how many magic items should be left laying around. Somebody. Edit. This. Book. 

    Note: Gygax loves the world 'milieu,' and uses it no less than 72 times in the Dungeon Master's Guide. My computer counted for me: 72! 

2 August 2026 DM's Guide: Exploration and Combat, Including Spell Casting (pgs. 47-80)

     As I've said, I played the shit out of this game for about 20 years, but I never actually played it rules as written (RAW). This next section covers outdoor travel, air combat, underwater combat, types of ships, the planes of existence, infravision, ultravision, and invisibility. Then, combat, which is extraordinarily granular--weapon speeds, initiative, surprise (including while taking a dump, pg. 62), encounter reactions (something I've definitely never used), and grenade-like weapons.  Morale, pursuit, evasion, combat positioning, and rules for a monk's open hand melee on a chart that includes level, height, and weight of opponents! Grappling, pummeling, and overbearing, attack roll matrixes, and turning the undead. A lot going on in these pages! 

    Of particular interest is the section on spell casting during melee (pg. 65). It is not easy to be a wizard in this game. If a caster is interrupted during spell preparation, they lose their spell.  I quoth the Gygax: "Intelligent monsters able to recognize the danger of spells will direct attacks against spell casters if not engaged by other opponents so as to be prevented from so doing." Spell casters cannot use their dexterity bonus while casting, and must be motionless (so no movement). Compared to the D&D 5e rules for wizards in combat, this is incredibly difficult stuff. 

28 July 2026: DM's Guide--Magic pgs. 38-47

    Magic. Meh. There, I've said it. Never a huge fan, and have seldom played pure spell casters when given the opportunity in D&D. Sure, throw a spell here or there. Have some cool magic items. Monsters can do this or that. Fine. But when I started playing 5e in 2019, I learned very quickly that magic can be, and is, a game shaker. It became--for me as a 2e DM thrust into a 5e ruleset--a great source of frustration. I simply could not get over how powerful the characters, especially the spellcasters, were. Turns out that's the overall vibe of modern D&D, but spells were my first indication that things had gone very, very wrong in the game.

    If I have ever read this part of the DMG before, I don't remember, but it was eye-opening for me. There is a passage that opened up a whole train of thought about role playing and clerics:

Lesser clerics, then, draw only upon their education, training, and experience to gain spells, just as higher clerics do when they renew their first and second level spells. In order to gain third, fourth, and fifth level spells, however, higher clerics must reach intermediaries of their respective deities in order to have these powers bestowed upon them from the plane of their deity. When clerics become very great, they must petition their deity personally in order to receive the powerful words which enable the casting of sixth and seventh level cleric spells. It is obvious, therefore, that clerics wishing to use third or higher level spells must be in good standing (pg. 38). 

    I mean, that's awesome! It opens up tremendous opportunities for great gaming. I wish I had thought of it!

    With regard to wizards, I have speculated over the years about just what in the fuck magic is. Like...why, though? Where does it come from? What does it do? What, at its essence, is it? I sort of concocted this idea that magic was a force like gravity that was created by the planes of existence, and that wizards could tap into this force through arcane words and gestures. Imagine my joy when I read the following: 

All magic and cleric spells are similar in that the word sounds, when combined into whatever patterns are applicable, are charged with energy from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. When uttered, these sounds cause the release of this energy, which in turn triggers a set reaction. The release of the energy contained in these words is what causes the spell to be forgotten or the writing to disappear from the surface upon which it is written...The triggering action draws power from some plane of the multiverse...The energy flow is not from the caster per se, it is from the utterance of the sounds, each of which is charged with energy which is loosed when the proper formula and/or ritual is completed with their utterance... When spell energy is released, it usually flows to the Prime Material from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. To replace it, something must flow back in reverse. The dissolution and destruction of material components provides the energy that balances out this flow, through the principle of similarity (pg. 40).

    That literally explains it to me. That's why a caster needs spell components! That's where magical energy comes from!  45 frigging years, man, and I never read that page? Shame on me.

    Gygax then goes on to offer some commentary and clarity on a number of cleric, wizard, illusionist, and druid spells. I imagine these explanations arose from issues at the tables he played at. I skimmed a bit. 

    I can see a little bit of DNA from this book in the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules as I think about it. Not only is there a brief section on character backgrounds (secondary skills table on pg. 12), but there is a longer section about spells, spell books, and spell acquisition that makes wizards even harder to play. So that's a brake on the power, too. Being a wizard is really, really hard, but the payoff is enormous if you can survive long enough to become seasoned. All of this is new to me, or I read it so long ago that I've forgotten it. Much to think about. 

 

27 July 2026: DM's Guide--Pages 9-38 Characters, Dice, and Parasites (plus diseases, gems, and wereboars)

    There is a lot going on in the first 38 pages of this book. Gygax begins with an overview of who this book is for (Dungeon Masters), how the dice work (distributions) where to buy miniatures (from TSR), how to generate ability scores (various methods), character aging...and then the chances of parasitic infestation. I was reminded of J.R.R. Tolkien beginning his 1,000+ page fantasy epic with a detailed breakdown of the types of pipe weed one would find in the Shire. Holy shit. People have suggested that the DM's Guide of 1979 is poorly organized...and they are 100% correct! 

    Nonetheless, I have not read this thing since I was a kid, so I'm making my way through it. By page 14, we are into a detailed table about diseases with descriptions of each kind (connective system, joints, urinary system). EGG uses the term 'milieu' so frequently that I had to look it up to make sure I understood the definition (the social and physical setting in which people live).  Next up: descriptions of abilities, then followers per class, then right back into the depths with warhorses, spying, and ways for thieves to set traps and climb walls. 

    Monsters as player characters? Not encouraged. Alignments and alignment languages (which is so fucking odd), the cost of changing alignments, then money, the value of gems, and types of armor with descriptions. Squeeze in dexterity armor class bonus and weapon types 'to hit' adjustment notes, followed quickly by rules for hirelings, a long part about sages, and henchmen. 

    I've written before  about EGG's thoughts on time in a campaign--something the author says (in all caps) "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT," before transitioning with no segue to character spells. 

    I am not making this up. It's like he just...wrote whatever popped into his head at the time and put it in without rhyme or reason. It is amazing.

Quotes of Note:

"In a well planned and well judged campaign this is not too likely to happen, for the superior DM will have just enough treasure to whet the appetite of players, while keeping them lean and hungry still, and always after that carrot iust ahead" (pg. 12).

"To adventure amongst the weird is fantasy enough without becoming that too" (pg. 21).

26 July 2026: DM's Guide--Preface

 

    In 2012, Wizards of the Coast released a copy of the 1979 Dungeon Masters Guide. This premium version was a way of fundraising for the Gygax Memorial, and is a complete facsimile of the original. I have my own OG book, of course, but it is old and wrinkly and showing its age, so I picked up this copy from Noble Knight Games in order to re-read it while taking notes, underlining, highlighting, etc. I am not going to read (and in many cases, re-read) every jot and tittle of this classic, but I am going to go through each page slowly and mindfully, learning what I can from this source of wisdom. 

    In the preface, Gygax (who really does write in what others have called 'High Gygaxian') talks about the importance of having a common set of rules in order to allow people from all over to play the same game together. In other words, because there is an agreed upon framework, player A could use his characters in a campaign being run by anyone, anywhere. Sounds like common sense, but I imagine there were a lot of variances at tables early on...just as there are today. Everybody house rules! That's just part of the game. When this was written, I don't think (?) there were many other TTRPGs out there (maybe Runequest and Traveller?) so Gygax's advice makes sense since the majority of people playing were playing his game (AD&D). The Holmes basic set--slightly different, and simpler rules--would turn into the Moldvay line (BECMI), neither of which used the exact AD&D rules. 

    I don't think I've ever played AD&D RAW (that is, rules as written). We certainly played a lot of 1st and 2nd edition D&D, but we never used all of the rules, and would often play a bastardized mash-up of Basic and Advanced. The thing about D&D back in the olden days was, you couldn't really learn how to play the game from the books! Someone had to teach you, then you sort of figured it out yourself as you went. It's little wonder that we were playing is wrong all those years (wrong meaning 'not using all of the rules'). Not that it mattered. We still had a blast! 

22 June 2026 Old School Rules

 I've mentioned the BrOSR before. I'm reading one of their books, Winning Secrets, which is a re-hash of a blog run by the champion of this sort of play, Jeffro Johnson, along with commentary about how these ideas were (re)discovered, applied, etc. It's a fun read, and despite how acerbic all of this was on Twitter a few years back, I'm finding the movement's insights to be thought-provoking (there are some politics involved re: Jeffro's less than pleasant comments about...stuff, but at this point, I just don't give a fuck anymore). In any event, I'm thinking through all of this (again) and finding it compelling. A few points:

1. I have gotten rid of 75% of my ttrpg books. It's not that I don't love them: I do, but...with the exception of core rule books for systems I have/will play (AD&D, LotR, OSE, C&C, BRP, DCC) why have tons of games just sitting there? I'm not going to play Basic Fantasy, Dolmenwood, Shadowdark, Hyperboria, or any Call of Cthulhu variants (maybe Gaslight...someday). I love world books, so I'm keeping those (Glorantha, Midgard, Aihrde). I got rid of a bunch of modules. I got rid of a bunch of supplements. Why? Because I want to use my imagination, and not have others imagine things for me. This summer, I am going to use four or five books while I design adventures: the 1e DMG, PHB, MM, FF, and maybe MM2, along with my 1982 Greyhawk book. That's it. (Note: C&C, too, since that's the system I am currently running). Old school for sure. 

2. One of the more thought-provoking ideas in the BrOSR is having players with multiple characters running around in the same campaign setting. I love that idea! It will only work using 1:1 time, but I think it would be great, especially during the summer when I have a lot of free time (#teacher).

3. Having my players be factions--that is, have them actually run factions, bastions, and powerful NPCs to make the world move and feel alive is brilliant! They can make stuff up and I can adjudicate how all those moves go in the game. So imagine if Dan is the orcs, Ed is the elves, and Dennis is the humans. With proper background info. and some limitations on what they can do week to week...suddenly we have a ballgame.

4. Add mass combat rules, which might(?) be harder on a VTT, but not if we simply scale up (1 token =s ten guys or something ) and figure out a way for the PCs to interact with the fighting. Maybe each person could run their faction. I have to think more about this (and actually learn how to do Chainmail/Fields of Battle).

5. With regard to PC level play: 3d6 down the line, henchmen, adding the weeks of training to level up rules, and other fiddly things that will change the overall vibe of the game to make it more in line with AD&D. Maybe let the dice decide who your character is? Much to think upon!

15 June 2026 Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy

     I saw a Troll Lord's post on Instagram (which I no longer use; cancelled my account) that said "Three Word: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy." The poster (Grace, I assume) is referring to the world of Aihrde, Troll Lord's house setting, which I really like a lot. It is a standard fantasy world--they are not trying to reinvent the wheel--but unique enough to be quite interesting. I've read the world's origin story, called The Andunuth, twice now and enjoyed it both times (it's about 150 pages long). 

    Fun fact: I learned on a podcast yesterday that andunuth is the dwarvish word referring to their oath to the All Father. In return for the gift of life, each dwarf has vowed to create at least one beautiful thing that will outlive them. Aihrde is a very dwarfocentric world, which I like. The elves are not exactly an afterthought, but they are not central to the world the way they are in many fantasy settings (I'm looking at you, J.R.R.!) The world is littered in the ruins of ancient dwarven kingdoms, and the rune magic is connected to the magic of the dwarves (and goblins, interestingly enough). 

    Without going into too much detail, at the beginning of all things, the All Father had a nightmare which became the a dark and powerful god called Unklar. Unklar dwelled in the deep void of nothingness for epochs. A wizard named. Trigal, attempting to learn and master dwarven magic, contacted this creature, and inadvertently summoned it to the world of Aihrde, beginning a thousand year period called The Winter Dark. No sun, evil reigns supreme, horrible horrible horrible stuff. A band of heroes--and I think this is what Stephen Chenault calls 'the Big Game' i.e. his home campaign--managed to banish Unklar back to the Undeeps of the Void, ending his reign and return the world to some semblance of normalcy. 

    All of this brings us to the present campaign settings, After Winter Dark. One hundred years after the war that liberated the world, we have what the Troll Lord's refer to as post-'apocalyptic fantasy.' That's not a trope you see too often in fantasy game (there are certainly plenty in sci-fi, like Gamma World or Mutant Crawl Classics). I think The Sword of Shannara, or The Prince of Thorns are examples of fiction, but I can't think of any other ones off the top of my head. I am noodling this through, and asking myself: what would it look like for players in this setting? You could certainly run it as a bog standard fantasy game with little hints and bits for flavor, but that seems like it's missing something really unique. So...then what?

    1. Fear. The elder races--dwarves, elves--would remember some of the final war the ended the Winter Dark. Their behavior would be shaped by this experience. There would be blame (Trigal was human), a lack of charity toward any who were seeking rune magic (which is what brought the world to ruin before), and wariness toward men. The halflings, in particular--they were hunted for sport by Unklar's minions--would be very insular and untrusting. Essenetially, these communities are experiencing trauma, which should inform how they act and react.

    2. The search for answers. This is a pre-literate society, for the most part. The average person would know about the Winter Dark from stories passed down from generation to generation. This is about four generations removed from the end of the war, so great-great grandparents were children when it ended. I keep thinking about the English king in Vikings who was collecting Roman artifacts, but had no real idea who they were because that knowledge had not been passed down to him or his people.  The powers in this world--royals, mages like the White Order, the Paths of Umbra--would know more about what happened but your average human is just trying to survive day to day. 

    3. The looming threat. The powers that were aligned with Unklar want him to either return, or to replace him with themselves. They will constantly be working toward that end. There would be an alliance of evil: all sentient, evil creatures are, in some way or another, working toward that end. Sewing confusion, attacking nascent powers that oppose that objective, searching for magic to help them further their goal, etc. 

    4. Mystery. As above: there are things related to the Winter Dark--runes, magic, locations, bits of stories and songs-- that the average character may find, or experience, but not know how it plays into the overarching story of the apocalypse. There are deeper things, too, that pre-date the Winter Dark, that they would have no understanding of unless they very purposefully sought out knowledge. 

    I'm not sure when or if I'll run a game in this world. I have The Undying War and Beneath the Canopy Green, which are two full-length campaigns in Aihrde. We shall see!

    

12 June 2026 Cleaning House

  This week, I sold 50 books (well...two of them were bundles of scratch-off character sheets for DCC) to Noble Knight Games, who offered me $350 cash/$450 store credit, which was a fair deal. I took the cash, and here is why: I have to stop buying so much stuff. A lot of it--not all of it, but enough--just sits on my bookshelves. I have enough games that I already like--Castles&Crusades, OSE, BRP--and I don't need any more. I have found that, because I like this stuff so much, I am trying to 'keep up' with what it being produced, even in just one silo of the hobby--say OSR--and I am wasting money and attention on things simply because I get game FOMO. It is a waste of money at a time when my wife and I have just purchased a very expensive second property. It is also an enormous distraction from my own imagination, something I recognize can be stunted by those books because I am allowing people to imagine things for me. That's not bad per se: there is something important to be said about inspiration and evocation (especially through fantasy art), but generally speaking, I want to make up as much of this stuff as I can. I have gotten much better about this as I've moved through the current era of gaming (2019-present), and I know what my sweet-spot is: give me the world, the place names, the gods, some NPCs, some factions, and a map. The rest of it is all me. 

    Also, I have about 500 PDFs that I can have bound and printed very cheaply should I choose to do so. I have a small binder-making tool myself if I really want the paper version of something small. I can do a lot of this on my own, in other words. So I jettisoned a lot of stuff: some DCC stuff, some C&C stuff, my Shadowdark/Hyperboria/Dragonbane stuff. Some CoC stuff that I'll never use (I may get rid of more of that), and a bunch of random things. I will not miss them. Less is more. 

None of this stopped me from backing Hellcrawl, or planning on buying the Demonic Grimoire for OSE.

9 June 2026 "There are other worlds than this..." Module vs. Campaign vs. World

     There is a small but vocal (and caustic!) faction online the the TTRPG space called the BrOSR. These guys tend to be Christian, conservative, and deeply knowledgeable about the roots of Dungeons&Dragons. They are often bombastic and drive the sparkle-trolls insane. While I am reminded of the old saw about academic politics (they are so viscous because the stakes are so low), I admit that I often find their gleeful dick-slappping-across-the-forehead of 5e players to be...satisfying. 

    Yesterday I got sucked down into a BrOSR rabbit hole by one Jeffro Johnson and another dude who goes by Crossface. The essential point taken by these two (and this is a generalization) is that all of us who have been playing D&D have been playing it wrong. That the rules exist for a reason, and if you are not playing with the rules as laid down by Gary Gygax (he of blessed memory) you are doing it wrong. We can call this point provocative, to say the least, but like the best Biblical scholars, they back up their assertions with chapter and verse: the words of Gygax himself, in the seldom (never?) read introductions to books like The Dungeon Master's Guide, or in Dragon Magazine, or wherever else. It's a jarring thought: I have had my DM's guide since 1981, and played a melange of D&D/AD&D for a decade without using 1/2 of the rules in the book. So what was I playing? Folk D&D, I guess, not 'fantasy wargaming D&D' as envisioned by Gygax, with his weapons speed tables, his strumpet tables, his wind effect tables...In the olden days, someone had to show you how to play; there was an oral tradition behind the game, and I think it is safe to say that Gygax was writing--at least at first--for wargamers who already knew how to war game, and who were adding his rules to games they already played. 

    All of this got me thinking about how I play D&D. In the olden days, 1981-1992 or so, I just ran modules. There was no idea of a 'campaign' in our games: they were episodic adventures based in whatever TSR was selling. I did linked modules for sure: Pharaoh/Oasis of the White Palm, Giants-Descent-Demonweb, Master of the Desert Nomads, etc. but overall none of these adventures had any connective tissue going between them. They were more like Conan stories: in one story he's in Aquilonia, in the next story he's in Stygia, etc. Call of Cthulhu was similar: I ran modules and investigations that had no real connection to each other. I wouldn't have occurred to me to run a campaign, at least in the modern sense of the word.

    When we played 3rd edition in the late 90s-early aughts, I was a player in my brother's campaign, and that's just what it was: all of the modules were connected together in an overarching story. When I returned to GMing in 2019, I did the same thing: a group of adventurers playing through a bastardized version of Tyranny of Dragons. The characters had backstories, there was an overarching narrative (Tiamat's return) and all of what we did was related to that larger story. It was set in the Forgotten Realms, where most of my games took place post-high school (vs. Greyhawk, which was the assumed setting in the early days). My second 5e campaign was based--again, loosely--on Descent Into Avernus, although I mostly used Adventurer League stuff vs. the main book. I made up a lot of this game on my own (believe it not, for the first time!) and played very loosely with the actual published book. It was fun! By the end, when the party had moved to the Moonshaes, it was all home brew setting and storyline. 

    What I have never done is a sandbox. I have never let the game emerge from player choices, and have things I've already put into place and lightly penciled in--factions, say, or NPCs, or 'campaign characters'--evolve and change in reaction to what the players do...or even harder to grok, evolve and change on their own! So that's my next challenge: an emergent game world using 1:1 time with some kind of verisimilitude in regards how the world operates. Ed did a little of this with his DCC campaign: as my group moved through the world, we heard tell of things his other group had done, like legends and rumors and tales of their adventures. This kind of world building creates a 'subreality': a sense that things are happening in the world despite, or inspite of, the players' actions.

    On interesting idea: keep NPCs and campaign characters (kings, wizards, demigods) on index cards.

    I am hoping to do this using the OSE rules, set in Greyhawk. I also am going to sell a lot of my stuff: games I am not playing (or going to play), books I purchased on a whim, just stuff that is imagining for me vs. sparking my imagination. I want to have a little of this imagined for me as possible. I want it to come from my own mind (with a liberal helping of the many, many, many fantasy books I've read thrown in!) We shall see how all of this develops. 

 

 

7 June 2026 The Harlot's Tale-- Shadowdark and OSE

     Yeah, yeah, I know: I am a game whore. I admit it. I spend more time thinking about games than I ever will playing them. This week I have been thinking about Shadowdark, and here is why: first, I own it (because...of course I do). Second, it is very popular. People love this thing! Third, I have listened to a bunch of podcasts interviewing the creator, one Kelsey Dionne, and she is just good energy; a lovely person who loves these games and seems incredibly sweet. The rules of Shadowdark are simple (to say the least).  The designer basically took the parts of OSE, 5e, and DCC that she liked, disregarded the parts that she didn't like, and poof! Here's the game. Interestingly, Shadowdark is written at an 8th grade reading level (vs. Castles&Crusades, which is written at a college level). So we end up with a game that is a melange of modern rules--unified d20 system, funnels, advantage and disadvantage, luck points, etc. and written in very bare and simple prose with really cool black and white art. Even the torch system--something I've never seen before--is derived from Index Card RPG (I think...)

    I have not played this game, but I think I could pretty easily. There isn't really anything "new" here ("new" meaning post-2014 #I-am-old); it is instead a culling, and reorganizing, of modern RPG rules. It looks like it would be great for crawls, and probably serviceable for overland adventures. The role playing is on the players and the DMs; you don't really need a lot of rules and/or tables for that (do ya hear me, 5e?). It is a highly lethal game (like DCC...). Naturally I backed The Western Reaches Kickstarter because...have you met me? I also think my crew would find it a bit boring, to be honest. With the exception of the torch timer adding tension, this might be a bit too basic. Maybe I'll do it as a one-shot or something, just to see how it plays. 

    Which brings us to Old School Essentials. OSE is a redo of the old B/X rules of blessed memory (Moldvay and Cook), with a further reorganization of Gygax's AD&D (the Advanced Fantasy Player's and Referee's Tomes). The rules are essentially the same as they were in 1981, with an option for an ascending AC (vs. THACO, which is in there). The art is beautiful, the books are beautiful, and the rules are...well, old school. Roll high saving throws (only five!) Roll low attribute checks. THACO or ascending AC (either/or).  Very retro action economy: declare spells and melee movement, initiative, monster morale, movement, missile attacks, spell casting, melee attacks, repeat). It has been decades since I've played this version of the game, and I remember being a bit frustrated by it at higher levels because combat felt like chopping down a tree. In modern D&D, the action economy is very different: readied action, action, bonus action, movement variance, etc. I suspect this game will play great, but I'm unsure of how my crew will react to it, although I have to say: no one seems to miss the superhero vibe of fifth edition. 

    I also noticed that the amount of arguing with the GM (me!) is vastly reduced in both DCC and C&C because the expectations of what the character can do are vastly reduced. All my guys did was fight with me when we played 5e; it was like someone cast Rules Lawyer on all of them. Super annoying. So I am looking forward to running OSE in the near future, but I think I'm going to solo-play first and see how it goes. 

    I wonder if Pirate Borg is any good...

    

29 May 2026 Ending the Seige

     We are on our 24th session of a Castles&Crusades game set in Greyhawk, and it's been great so far: super easy system to use on my end as a GM, and more challenging--in a good way--for my players. The magic system is stable (I'm looking at you, Dungeon Crawl Classics!) and the characters are not overpowered in the least (that's right, 5e!) which has required the lads to be a bit more strategic and cautious. All in all, we are rolling right along.

    At the end of our game last night, Ed mentioned that he didn't love the Siege Engine mechanic because it seems like you have to roll really high to so something simple. For example, Ed's dwarf was trying to jump from a boat to the shore. The dwarf was fully armored, it was pouring rain, so I said we'd make Dexterity check to see if he could do it. Seemed reasonable. In order for the dwarf to do this successfully, he had to roll above an 18 or above since Dexterity was not a primary attribute. Because he had help--his companions were with him, giving him a shove/hanging to to him in cased he slipped, I didn't add a CL to it. Nor, as it turns out, did we remember to add the dwarf's level to his roll, which is a part of the mechanic. 

    Ed--who is one of my best friends, who is deeply committed to gaming, and who is a hideous rules lawyer--pointed out that he didn't love this part of the game, and upon reflection, I think I agree. The Siege Engine was created in the very early 2000s, and has remained a constant over the past decades as a core part of C&C. It is mathy, with primary, secondary (optional tertiary) rolls that require applying a CL, adding levels and modifiers, then beating a target number. It's not that it doesn't work; it's more that it isn't as good as the D&D difficulty class system. In D&D, the game master states a DC, and characters use whichever attribute is appropriate to roll above. The only thing you add is your attribute modifier (and your proficiency bonus, but that's not in C&C). Same with saving throws, which may have class or racial bonuses that are applied to saves: roll a d20, add mods, beat the target. Easy. [C&C has 13 different saving throws. No gracias!]

    I don't think that would break the game, but is it solving a real issue? Kind of. I like rules-lite, mechanics-in-the-background systems, so simplifying this game even further is appealing. My fear is that there would be a downstream issues that I am not anticipating. For example, without primary and secondary target numbers, would it somehow make saving throws (which I hate) janky? I need to noodle this more. 

1-3 May 2026 Adventure Idea: The Red Queen

     I need to looks this up, but as I recall, in Aihrde, the Red God Ornduhl put gems and jewels in the earth that can corrupt those who find them. Ornduhl is the greed of the All Father personified, and it was under his influence that the first goblins were made from dwarves who fell under his sway. 

As is told, Ornduhl mined all the deep places of the world and set there precious metals and gems of his own design. These he buried in the rock so that none might find them, for they were his most precious creations. But more, he imbued the precious metals with his own desires, casting enchantments upon them, so that any who handled them ran the risk of being cursed with the desire to possess it ever after. These precious gems, gold and silver veins, and other metals lay hidden from all for many ages (Codex of Aihrde, pg. 199). 

    I am trying to find any information about a region of the map of the world of Aihrde called Damenfaur. So far, I can't find a thing. But I'm trying to place something far enough away from the core areas (the lands of Ursal) so I can world build without stepping on anyone's toes. 

    My thought: there is a large farm in an agricultural area (sort of Anglo-Saxon vibe). On one of these farms is a little girl named Margen. Margen is the daughter of a thrall who died giving birth to her. Margen has known nothing but cruelty, want, and indifference her entire ten years of life. She is barely fed, treated slightly better than the dogs, and is either tormented for sport or completely ignored. She is, literally, no one, has no one, and is cared for by no one. Her life is horrible.

    One day Margen, after being soundly cuffed for spilling a pail of goat milk, runs off into a stony field to cry tears no one will ever see or care about. While she is standing there, miserable and alone, a new emotion begins to arise in her young mind: hatred. Hatred for those who hurt her, hatred for those who ignore, and hatred for everyone she has ever met. As she stands there, turning red with rage and black with hate...she notices an unusual glint in the frozen ground beneath her holed shoes: the glint of a gem! Falling quickly to her knees, she begins to claw at the hard dirt until she uncovers something utterly beautiful: a many faceted, richly red gemstone the size of her fist. Where this treasure came from she does not know, but to Margen, this is the most important moment of her sad life because this gem begins to speak to her. 

    The gem warms Margens heart, and for the first time in her life, she feels love. She begins to sob even harder as the gem fills her mind with visions of ample food, warm clothes, a soft sleep pallet by the fire, and the smiling faces of people who understand her, care for her, and wish to hear her thoughts and desires. All this, the gem whispers, all this for you, Margen, but first... 

    Margen can feel the gems power burning around her, then in her. The gem fuses to her right hand and begins to emit an hellish, pulsing light. Margen returns to the farmhouse, then enters into the main room where the large family and their servants are eating their dinner. There are bright flashes of blood red light, screams of pain and horror, then silence. Moments later, Margen emerges. Her tattered frock has changed to a long crimson cape that she wraps around her thin body. Her eyes, too, glow with the red fires of Orndul while behind her, those who tormented her or ignored her lay dead...for a moment. With a flick of her gem-fused hand, those whom Margen slew raise again to serve her. 

   Six months later, in [someplace] rumors have began telling of a great evil that has been born in [someplace]. A creature calling itself the Red Queen has been destroying thorpes, villages, and towns with armies of the ravening dead. Worse still, these armies are now moving toward [someplace]...

    Fun, right? So what's the adventure? The party can be hired as spies by a local ruler to go and learn what is really going on. They could be part of a militia that encounters the forces of the Red Queen and get stranded in lands she has conquered. They could simply be curious, or be sent on an errand by a patron. Whatever it takes to get them into the area where Margen and her forces are becoming more powerful. So...a point crawl? 

    In any event, I'm kicking this idea around. 

3 May 2026

    Thinking this through a bit. This isn't an adventure, it's a campaign, or a very long scenario with overland travel, point-crawl encounters, random encounters, and some kind of exploration/crawl at the end. One of the problems I have re: designing is my canvas is always too big! This would be like 30 pages were I to write it all down. Maybe I will, just for fun, but I have found that I don't really enjoy writing adventures that other people will read. I like making them for my players, but it's a bit tedious to do for (possible) public consumption. 

 

16 April 2026 Greyhawking (1)

    I had a printed copy made of the 1983 Greyhawk Box Set, which we have an original of, but I wanted one to mark up and carry around. The actual box and its books are now 43 years old, so it's better not to handle them too much (although, in reality...what are we ever going do do with it?) So I have nice bound copy that I am reading through and writing in, reestablishing my connection with this venerable setting. I have also been listening to The Greycast, a podcast about Greyhawk. 

    I don't think I've read through this material since I was an early teenager. I distinctly remember sitting on the porch in Marshfield going through this book with the huge map spread out in front of me, and being a bit numbed by how much of what was being described was related to troops and military powers. Knowing what I know now--that D&D arose initially from miniature wargaming, and that Gygax was a wargamer--I understand why it is like this. War is a feature, not a bug, in this world. Similarly, since this world is so old (relatively speaking), there are far fewer muppets races to be, and to interact with, in Greyhawk. Definite classic feel.

I have a huge map of Greyhawk on the wall in front of me, so I've been locating each place on the map as I read, which has been harder than it sounds! There are a lot of kingdoms, baronies, prelacies, theocracies, brotherhoods, counties, marches, lands, and holds! I'm not onto the "Geographical Marvels, Regions, & Prominent Features" part of the book, which will be fun.

    Thus far, a few places are jumping out at me as far as potential campaign settings:

- The Bone March (overrun by humanoids; humans enslaved)

-Highfolk and Highfolk Valley (elven realm, reminds me of Raymond Feist for some reason)

-The Horned Society (deviltry and humanoids!)

-Irongate and the Iron League (an organization created to oppose Ivid in the Great Kingdom)

-The Scarlet Brotherhood (humancentric nation what hates all demihumans and humanoids)

-The Spindrift Isles (Bone Hill, lands becoming Fey again; elves dominate)

-Country, Principality, and Dutch of Ulek (demihuman nations)

-Valley of the Mage

-The Wild Coast

    My current campaign started in Perrenland, then moved north to Blackmoor. The only reason I did that is I didn't want to learn all of Greyhawk, and wanted someplace smaller and more self-contained to play in. 

12 April 2026 Castles&Crusades and Greyhawk

 12 April 2026

    Not too much going on, gamewise. We are playing Lord of the Rings 5e, which we are all enjoying. Dan is certainly a master of Middle Earth! I am desperately trying to get my Greyhawk/Blackmoor game up and running again, but it's been hard since people--including me--have to keep cancelling. It pisses Ed off to no end, and I don't blame him. He's a social guy, and when he plans to play, then doesn't, he gets cranky. Of all of the players in our group of six, Ed is definitely the most consistent. 

    I am going to sell some stuff to Noble Knight if they offer me a fair price. I am getting rid of things I don't want or need, and I am not buying anything new, even though there are some tasty Kickstarters out there from the Troll Lords. If I am patient, I can get the stuff for 50% off once its in circulation. One thing I learned during Lent: do not impulse buy. But: it is hard. My precioussssss...

    I also told my brother that I am not too into his grand idea of turning this into a business. I love, love, love these games, and I love playing them, but creating content isn't something I really enjoy. I take stuff from all over, chop it up, slap it back together, add my own ideas, then run it. That's what I've always done; that's the joy for me. I love being a game master. Writing modules? Not so much. 

    So I'm kicking around the idea of just running in Greyhawk going forward, and using Castles&Crusades as the ruleset. I do still really like DCC, but it's a bit silly for me, even though it's super fun to play. It's a true beer-and-pretzels game, and all we do is laugh! But I like to run a bit more serious of a game, so C&C in Greyhawk will be my jam. This week. God knows I've changed my mind before. I have been listening to a podcast interviewing a guy who has been running the same campaign for 46 fucking years! Amazing. 

    This guy, Lord Gosumba, has had God knows how many players and does something I find interesting: he sets up a region that evolves in response to what his players do, but also evolves on its own without their influence or input. So I thought a bit about this as I was walking this PM. Identify a region, set up an onion (low level danger, connected to medium level danger, connected to high level danger), advance the timeline, and when when group is done, start the next group in the same place. Ed has done something similar with his DCC game and I like it. I'm thinking this through, but it's an intriguing idea. 

26 Mar 2026 On Not Being A Writer

     I have come to the realization that I don't like writing adventures. I'm not sure why this should be a surprise: in 45 years, I don't think I've ever actually written a full adventure. What I do do is take what other people have written and make it my own. I suppose this is good information to have and my little brother is trying to start up some kind of a gaming company, and would like me to be a part of it. I fear he may be disappointed. 

    Here is a true story related to this issue. In the summer of 2003, I decided to finally write a novel. At that time, Wizards of the Coast was still publishing many, many fiction books set in their de facto campaign world, the Forgotten Realms. The things that had always held me back from my dream of becoming a writer were no longer an issue. I had a full-time job, I was happily married, I was no longer in school. My life had settled down into a very happy and comfortable place, and now--now at last!--I could do the thing I had dreamt of doing for most of my life: write. I had the summers off. I had a genre I loved. I had time, time at last, to be a writer.

    And...I fucking hated it. I wrote one chapter then stopped (it was a good chapter, I'll say that much). I would put off writing, write then delete, write a little, write a lot, disregard, avoid, and generally not do the thing that I had told myself I wanted to do for (at that point) twenty years. I felt guilty. I felt frustrated. I felt disappointed. I felt a bit angry. I felt sorry. Finally, by mid-August of that year, I gave myself permission to stop putting so much pressure on myself and just stop. When I did, I felt this enormous wash of relief come over me. I knew then, 23 years ago, that I was not a writer, that I wasn't going to become a writer, and that the gap between how I imagined it and how is actually was was unbridgeable. I don't think I've written a single piece of fiction longer than five or six pages since then. 

    So pecking away at module/adventure writing over the past six months or so has reminded me that I am, in fact, not a writer. I don't enjoy it, I'm not that good at it, and I feel the same kind of pressure that I did in the summer of 2003. I am stopping. I don't want to. And that's fine. 

    My wife is a writer. She writes full-time. She published books, goes to author signings, and makes mad money. The sheer amount of work that she does--most of it not related to actual writing, but rather to the running of her business--is exhausting to simply watch, let alone do. Living with a real-life working author has only underscored the reality that I am, in fact, not one. So be it. 

What does that mean going forward with the inchoate Wicked Place Games? Well, my super power--the thing I absolutely love to do-- is run games. I am a game master, and I am good at it (I think). Running games, creating stories, connecting things together, taking an idea and running with it, and using my imagination to cobble together disparate parts from all of the bats flying around in my belfry--books, stories, movies, songs, legends, lore, myths--is the part of the TTRPG space that gives me energy and gets my mind roaring. So Dennis and I will work out something; some way to make this a part of our lives as we approach retirement and begin the next phase of life. But writing is not going to be it, I think. I just isn't something that I enjoy. 

18 March 2026 On the Design Struggle Bus

     I admit: writing TTRPG stuff is hard. I don't love it. So far, I have written three scenarios--The Slime Lord, Old Gnaw, and the Spring Tower. They are fine. They need to be play tested and refined. I started to write a module for Castles&Crusades, The Runes, but I got in over my head really quickly. The reality is, I am not really enjoying the process. I love playing games, and running games. Writing them is less fun. I haven't been able to GM since October because things at home are challenging right now (and have been for almost two years). I just don't have the bandwidth.

    I wonder if I am casting my net too widely. I am thinking about working backwards, i.e. starting with an encounter or two, like as gourmet as I can make it, then building outward. I have been kicking around the idea of populating a small city and seeing how that feels (vs. a region with various encounter points--random, set, etc.) 

    I like Matt Colville. He is the main guy behind MCDM, a small gaming company that punches very much above its weight (it's only 12 full-time employees, but makes remarkable things). His Running the Game series on Youtube has been a delight over the past five or six years as he is a guy who thinks deeply and well about TTRPGs: how they work, how to think about them, and how to design them. He is an open book about game design, and as he (and his team) developed their own game, Draw Steel, he produced design journals on Patreon so that people could watch, almost in real-time, how their game was being built. Fascinating stuff. One of the things I've learned from him over the years is to question assumptions. Why do we use dungeons? What is a dungeon? Why do we use the six stats, generally speaking? How do we do monsters, and why? These kinds of inquiries get to the root of game design. 

    So I'm wondering if I am going to large at the outset. The reality is, I haven't ever done this before. I've played and run games for 45 years. I've never written actual material for someone else to play. I think I'm going to try narrowing my lens; making the aperture smaller, and see how that goes. Let's see how a five room dungeon goes. That's the most basic unit of ttrpg writing. 

28 February 2026 Lent and Drinking from the TTRPG Firehose

 

    I have a buying problem. I buy too much TTRPG stuff. I see things, I get Dragon Sickness, and then I purchase them. Sometimes I'll sell them just so I can buy more stuff. There is something to be said about being a collector for sure: I love these books, and--at least in the past--they tend to become more valuable over time, but truthfully, I am often just buying stuff to buy it. There is so much TTRPG product out there, and it is so incredibly compelling to me, that I feel like I am trying to drink from a fire hose. In January, I realized I spent close to $600 on game stuff! A bunch of books from Troll Lords, a bunch of online stuff for Foundry/Forge, and an entire expensive set of books for Dolmenwood. It's not like I don't have the money, but when I added it all up, I was given pause. Felt wasteful. So for Lent, I decided to not buy anything at all re: gaming and books. Sounds like such a simple thing to do, and it is, but...it's hard. I have noticed the tempation already, multiple times in just one week. I crave...I covet...I desire...I needs it...I wants it..the Precious...

    We have been playing Lord of the Rings, which is fun. I have wanted to get my C&C Greyhawk game going again, but things at home are often times unstable due to issues with my younger daughter, so I can't really focus or commit to game mastering. I've been feeling a bit off lately, too, so that's made things spicy. I have been dicking around with different adventure ideas that I have, trying to lock in and figure out what I want to work on next. Generally speaking, all is well right now, so I'll save my money and use my imagination for free for the next several weeks.

20 Feb. 2026 "Curses to the dragon! Curses to Smaug!": AI, Foundry, DCC, and C&C

     It's been a while since I wrote. I fucked around with Foundry for a few weeks and ended up not loving it. There is a lot you can do with it for sure, and there are many more games available on that platform than there are on Roll20 (at least, the ones that we play). But I got entirely sick of fiddling around with settings every time I touched the thing. So as me brudder pointed out, you can set things up exactly the way you want them (true), and you get better at it the more that you do it (also true). I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point, when we are playing OSE or something, but for now, I think I'll stick with Roll20 for the games I am running/would like to run. 

    But even Roll20 is getting a bit fancy, which brings me to my thoughts about AI. Just screwing about, I was able to make a short .gif of an AI generated video that captured what was in my imagination with near perfection. It looks awesome, and I was able to add it to Roll20. Really cool for atmosphere. So instead of me trying to describe what is in my imagination, I outsourced it to Grok, which scoured the internet for other people's work then regurgitated it for me. 

    I admit, I found it a bit depressing, but AI is now everywhere, all the time. It is unavoidable. How much I want it to be a part of my life is something I think about a great deal. For me, the core satisfactions I get from this hobby are social (it is something I do with my friends) and imaginative (it is my creative outlet). While AI and VTTs are helpful tools--and to be honest, we wouldn't be playing at all without a VTT (or would we? More on that in a moment)-- I have this uneasy feeling that AI is going to consume everything if we let it. If you are interested (whoever you are, reading this unremarkable blog) you can see my deeper thoughts on the subject here: Against the Machine

    Tolkien hated the Machine, too, so I will stand with the dwarves of Erebor and pledge myself to resistance in this most important part of my life. Make no peace with evil. Curses to Smaug! 

    So, anhwhoo, I have been reading and writing some DCC content. Thus far, I've completed three DCC adventures and I'm kicking around an idea for a fourth. We've been playing The Lord of the Rings (the Free League 5e variant) with Dan in the DMs chair, and we've all been enjoying it a lot. Last night we tried Basic Role Playing on Foundry--Dennis running the show-- and had a good time with it. It was just a short science fiction scenario based on the old TV show Space: Above and Beyond, and it was a lot of fun. I am hoping to re-engage with my C&C Barrowgate game in the very near future. That is a good campaign that we all like.