My warmup #AdventureDesign for today is something that could be fairly called "The Morrow Project if the Morrow Project Were Stripped of Its Military Fetish."
And I'm _really_ liking it. Most of my warmups just get tossed straight into the archives, but I'm kind of itching to GM this one.
A hurdle: explaining that "non-presumptive" is a quality that requires design. It's not just an attitude.
If the problem is "The refrigerator door is open," GMing that with an attitude of "... and the PCs can do whatever they want!" gives the table (diddly^squat) toward #HTTRPG play. As a problem, it lacks the nuance to qualify as non-presumptive.
Once you learn to spot the 'fridge doors' in design, it's pretty easy to learn to replace them with well-rounded problems.
In addition to trying to map out the scrawny timeline of #HTTRPG designs that made it to retail shelves back in the day, I find myself categorizing the "cousins" a bit, too ... other open-ended #AdventureDesign styles that catch my eye. Two that keep popping up:
The Long Line: Storyish adventure that's explicitly open to CTI near the very end but strongly presumptive until then.
The Charged Situation: Places the PCs into a multifaceted chaos and invites them to make of it what they will.
Today's warm-up adventure design is a kind of "seize a generic hook from dozens of low-trust adventures and concoct a high-trust piece from it." Today it's the rusty, creaky, leaky old "remote station has gone silent; go check it out?" hook.
Will anything come of it? Probably not. I do several of these a week; they're just how I get my fingers typing. But this one is a medical reaction to recent reading (and it's turning out surprisingly upbeat)! š
Yesterday's links:
Pomerium: twilight city
https://goodberrymonthly.blogspot.com/2025/05/pomerium-twilight-city.html
Kitchen, empty
https://whosemeasure.blogspot.com/2025/05/kitchen-empty-adventure-component.html
D8 volatile city states
https://iapheia.bearblog.dev/d86-volatile-city-state-governments/
D6x6 lugubrious locks
http://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2025/06/d6x6-lugubrious-locks.html
#TTRPG #urban #MiniSetting #AdventureDesign #tables #CityStates #worldbuilding #dressing
Yesterday's links:
Lands of Parsantium
https://richardgreengames.com/2025/05/26/lands-of-parsantium-city-at-the-crossroads/
Talk them up, not kill them all
https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/06/romantic-fantasy-revisited-4-so-what.html
And rework the keep
https://aquifer.bearblog.dev/romance-on-the-borderlands/
Let's convert the monster manual to DCC
http://ravencrowking.blogspot.com/2025/05/lets-convert-monster-manual-chimera.html
Mage war era skyships
https://githyankidiaspora.com/2025/05/27/d6-tables-in-mage-war-era-skyship/
10 mental attributes
http://sswstation.blogspot.com/2025/05/10-distinct-mental-attributes-to-flesh.html
#TTRPG #setting #Parsantium #AdventureDesign #monster #skyships
When I've got an hour to kill and I'm just tapping on my phone, I often do a quickie RPG adventure design for a non-RPG setting (Firefly, Doctor Who, Danny Dunn, M*A*S*H, Trek, etc) because I like to design for specific "PCs," so I let the franchise characters serve as PC surrogates.
Whenever I'm musing about how I long for certain licenses, it's usually because I've designed a _good_ one and I wish I could publish it as-is without smudging the serial numbers. š
Too much text for a post, too much text for the Alt-Text, too much text for a graphic, really ... but too skimpy for a blog-post. Ah well. Made it anyway, so I'll show it to you folks.
![In the latter half of the 80s I dove hard into RPGs, playing dozens of different games with hundreds of players, thanks to a town with three busy game shops (and having a job at one). Most of my experiences were amazing; some were so amazing they probably saved my life. A few experiences were dull, or even awful, but they were the exceptions.
* I spent the 90s developing as an RPG writer and designer, and trying to nail down the elements of play, design, and attitude that _delivered_ the awesome, and find ways to build upward from those. Lots of trial and error. The successes were as amazing as I hoped. The errors were usually pretty embarrassing, but they were the exceptions. Industry colleagues described some of my work as "high-trust," and that stuck with me as describing many of the conclusions I'd come to, about the awesome. Meanwhile, the industry was busy discarding everything I'd realized I love the most.
* I left the industry in the Noughties and dove into projects designed to express all I'd learned and all I'd loved in the prior years (Risus Companion, Uresia, Encounter Critical, Fly From Evil, Troubled Times and so on). I did so with the joyful certainty that these works would help me find others with interests similar to mine. That didn't work out, but these works (even the unpublished ones) led to many amazing connections, and lots of great roleplaying.
[Text continues in the graphic, which should be OCR-friendly, but this hits the Alt-Text cap]](https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/114/384/005/837/514/350/original/253ee5199e1d9fef.png)
Yesterday's links:
Game design: I spy
https://www.enworld.org/threads/worlds-of-design-i-spy.712350/
The lost art of running away
https://www.enworld.org/threads/worlds-of-design-the-lost-art-of-running-away.673677/
Making B plots (Star Trek)
https://theweepingstag.wordpress.com/2025/03/27/generating-b-plots/
Yesterday's links:
How to write adventures that don't suck (for publication)
https://alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com/2025/03/most-adventures-are-bad-adventure.html
Deep Janeen
http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2025/03/deep-janeen-vote-remastered-development.html
(Dao equivalent)
Since G+, my go-to jokey contrast example. The exaggeration is absurd, of course, and its own brevity limits its value, but I still like it. š With a one-line premise and just six bullet points, two tiny designs can play very differently.
Yesterday's links:
Khurramiyya revolts
https://www.medievalists.net/2022/03/khurramiyya-revolts-mazdak-sunbadh-rebellions/
Old Margrave POI
https://koboldpress.com/forestry-service-top-5-margreve-destinations-your-pcs-should-visit-on-spring-break/
Lore book: ebony bindings
https://faxfire.blogspot.com/2025/03/lore-book-ebon-binding.html
Hex mapping: settlements
https://hexedpress.itch.io/joy-of-hex-maps/devlog/907505/expanding-communities-from-hubs-to-extents
Reimagining: the queen of dragons
https://wardagainstevil.com/2025/03/17/the-queen-of-dragons-part-ii-the-swamp/
Fighter variants
https://tabletopcuriositycabinet.blogspot.com/2025/03/fighter-variants-stars-prison.html
Spark tables
https://behindthehelm.bearblog.dev/building-spark-tables/
The tropics of cancer - a Gygax 75 minutes challenge
https://icastlight.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-tropics-of-cancer-gygax-75-minute.html
Some ways of trying to describe #HTTRPG to strangers. It's mostly about #AdventureDesign, in a style that existed commercially (on the fringes) from the early 80s until sometime in the mid-to-late 90s, before disappearing from game retail.
I'm ghalev on Discord. I run free workshops that teach the basics of designing in this style. Even if you don't have an interest in this style, there's plenty to pilfer for other styles.
Yesterday's links:
Reasonable sculpts of females
https://ttrpg.network/post/12715787
How to rule a medieval kingdom
https://www.medievalists.net/2023/12/almost-kings-anglo-norman-england/
When and where secret doors
https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2024/12/12/why-when-and-where-i-place-secret-doors-in-dungeons/
On people centered adventure design
https://weirdwonder.bearblog.dev/on-people-centered-adventure-design/
#TTRPG #medieval #kings #dungeondesign #AdventureDesign #stl
Meaningful choice as a motivator for your RPG players
Erin argues for giving your players significant choices as soon as possible as a way of getting them engaged with the game.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Sz8XB9Ehqw0
#GMTips #DMTips #AdventureDesign #ModuleDesign #TTRPG #ttrpgcampaign #DnD #RPG
Links of the day
Flavorful hamlets
https://missivesfrommooncastle.blogspot.com/2024/11/points-of-interest.html
HTT problem identification
https://dice.camp/@SJohnRoss/113557730567082671
Vicious Mockery redux
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/51810/roleplaying-games/vicious-mockery-back-to-the-drawing-board
Guidance
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46797/roleplaying-games/guidance-sucks-in-fifth-edition
Six dungeon gods
https://nothicseye.blogspot.com/2024/11/six-dungeon-gods.html
Reaction roll and morale in MgT2
https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2024/11/28/traveller-reaction-rolls-and-morale-for-mgt-2e/
Happy weekend all! I got some amazing news a few weeks back so to celebrate both the City Lost to Dream and Silence of Stonetree are 50% off this weekend! These top-rated adventures are compatible with 5e!
Scale a shattered wizard's tower in the ruins of an ancient floating city to stop a powerful mageās dread creation from escaping out into the Material Plane before venturing into the fey to find the fountain of Legend! Each adventure comes with new monsters, VTT-friendly maps (colour & BW), handouts and a terrifying boss encounter (see below). All for $1.50! Don't miss out!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/24444/brave-robyn-art
(All images protected by glaze)
#MastoArt #FediArt #Art #DnD #TTRPG #SelfPromo #SelfPromoSaturday #MonsterOFTheWeek #AdventureDesign #DiceCamp #Sale #DriveThruRPG
Keys to designing Canyonings šļøš§āāļø
Safety, protection, variety, and flows are some of the factors that determine artificial canyoning circuits. š”ļøš
š READ the news, see MORE PICTURES or either SUBSCRIBE to our summary of news and updates through link: https://amusementlogic.es/noticias-de-la-empresa/claves-del-diseno-de-canyonings
#amusementlogic #canyoning #adventuredesign #outdoorfun #designtips #design #architecture #construction #engineering #ideas #proposal #conception #ingenierie #arquitectura #diseƱo #barranquismo #construccion #ingenieria
Going to be sending out another newsletter tomorrow for the next project update! I usually aim to send them out on Tuesdays but I'm behind.
I'll be talking about the development of the boss of this adventure! Here is an out-of-context sketch from the newsletter.
https://braverobynart.com/newsletter
#MastoArt #fediart #DnD #AdventureDesign #adventure #newsletter
