Lmst

#adventuredesign

Me: "I will pick a trad RPG at random that I've never designed an #HTTRPG adventure for! And I will design one!"

Me: [rolls dice to pick a random page in Heroic Worlds, then again to pick an RPG from a page with 3 such games, ends up on Creeks & Crawdads]

Me: ...

Me: "I will re-roll!"

#TTRPG #AdventureDesign

Hit a rare blank when pondering today's warmup adventure design.

So I did what the playwrights do when _they_ hit a blank: I designed an adventure about a troubled playwright. 😆

It'll fit right in. #Hammondal has lots of support already for theater-based campaigning. Plus there's enough crime to make it a good prowser* run!

* Private eyes, ish.

#TTRPG #AdventureDesign

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.

#HTTRPG #TTRPG

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.

#AdventureDesign #TTRPG

High-Trust Trad

Traditional RPG where gameplay favors in-character creative problem solving and problem design favors the non-presumptive.

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)! 😅

#TTRPG #AdventureDesign #HTTRPG

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. 😂

#AdventureDesign #TTRPG

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.

#TTRPG #HTTRPG #AdventureDesign

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]

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/

#TTRPG #GameDesign #AdventureDesign

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)

#TTRPG #AdventureDesign #worldbuilding

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. 😁 With a one-line premise and just six bullet points, two tiny designs can play very differently.

#HTTRPG #TTRPG #AdventureDesign

Duke Meany is Oppressing the Snoobles! (V.1)
You must fight him!
In a formal duel!
To the death!
In the Courtyard of Zoof!
Using your uncle’s sword!
As a suppository!

Duke Meany is Oppressing the Snoobles! (V.2)
He’s competing with his brother, Duke Jerkface!
Duke Mom makes them both feel like failures!
Duke Meany’s soldiers resent their own mistreatment!
Some Snoobles are forced to spy on their neighbors!
Duke Jerkface (who oppresses the Wimbles) actually admires his brother!
Duke Meany uses Mayor Snooble’s addiction to fluffy toy collectibles against him!

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

#TTRPG #worldbuilding #GMTips #GameDesign #AdventureDesign

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.

#TTRPG

A simple diagram emphasizing that the high-to-low spectrum of trad gameplay has "In-Character Creation and Implementation" at the highest end and "Out-of-Character Selection and application" at the lowest.

Minimal Features of a . High-Trust Trad Adventure

A High-Trust Trad adventure provides for gameplay fo-

cused on in-character creative problem-solving (the fusion

of roleplay with gameplay). To that end, it’s just regular

Trad, with some critical points of emphasis:

e An adventure consists of a problem or (more often) a tangled set of problems for the PCs to solve.

o Central problems are non-presumptive: there is no presumed, correct, or optimal approach to them (so, no mechanized set-pieces, puzzles, or riddles), nor is there a notably finite solution-set (so, no Videogame Questions/Trolley Problem:s).

e To the greatest extent possible, the adventure (and gameplay) is free of anything that would require the out-of-character attention of the players.

Since trust is a spectrum of emphasis, these are only stars

to steer by, not absolutes. “No puzzles” just means no

puzzles given central importance. Low-Trust elements can still be fun as side-matter, sprinkled with a light hand. Features of an Excellent . High-Trust Trad Adventure

o The adventure’s stakes are designed to complement and/or challenge the PCs’ motives and natures.

o The adventure’s central problems are rich with char- acterizing potential.

o The adventure’s challenges are designed and tested for fairness. This is a non-adversarial form, so the idea is not to defeat or stymie the PCs, but to give them op- portunities. So, while neither the ...

Text continues beyond the alt-text character limit.

Over the years I've used many shorthand summaries to describe High-Trust Traditional roleplaying. Like the explainer graphics, each is accurate, but limited (sometimes fatally) in the interest of brevity. But often, online, anything more than shorthand will be ignored.

For the player, nothing.

It's trad emphasizing Characterized Tactical Infinity.

It's trad emphasizing in-character creative problem-solving.

It's trad leveraging the full potential of having a GM.

It's the fusion of roleplay and gameplay.

It's when roleplay and gameplay are the same play.

It's an RPG you can play by roleplaying, instead of while roleplaying.

It's RPGs doing the things computer games can’t do.

It's about providing so much gameplay for the PCs that there’s no need to bother the players.

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/

#ttrpgs #Traveller #AdventureDesign #5e #PettyGods

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 mage’s 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