Diary of a Failed Game Designer

 Roll: 1d12 1. The thief's guild travels with a carnival, moving about the lands, welcomed everywhere. Quietly recruiting, quietly taking contracts. setting up tents, selling candy, putting on grease paint, committing murders. 2. The match book is filled with tiny paper scraps. on each scrap a name. Each name is a thief, or a fence, or a mark, or a target. When you enter the guild, you receive a matchbook. The rest is up to you. 3. The rob from the rich and kept it until they got rich, and some-one robbed them. The retired thief wants money back. 4. The brickworks is a sprawling affair. It covers a vast area with it kilns slag piles, quarry, and drying sheds. Home to at least two gangs, when the sun goes down the violence starts. 5. There is a dagger known as "Pseutis" It is said to kill in one blow and seek treasure like a compass. It is also told that, it's pommel contains a small piece of a stone from the shore of the river styx. The dead seek the blade as well as ...

Of villages and Names: Roll 1d30 for the name of the  town then 1d6 for why the town is named in such a manner, or some other  tidbit about the place. Black Wash A silty flood brings black soil to the area every  year. They grow excellent crops. All of the houses are stained a chalky black each spring with a mixture of  melted snow and the winter's ashes, The river runs black once a year and that is the only time a certain breed of  immature eel can be harvested. This  town is known for it's fine ink produced as a bi-product of the ell harvest mentioned in entry 3. There is a legend that this town is where a raven first bathed the darkness out of it's feathers to become a dove. There is still a ceremony held on the spring solstice in which  a raven is caged overnight and when the sun come up the  next day  the village children emerge from their homes to find a white dove in it's place. Gifts are then exchanged.  It is said that a demon w...

cam·paign kamˈpān noun 1. a series of military operations intended to achieve a particular objectiv e*, confined to a particular area* , or involving a specified type of fighting. "a desert campaign" synonyms: military operation(s), maneuver(s); More verb 1. work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one. "people who campaigned against child labor" synonyms: crusade, fight, battle, push, press, strive, struggle, lobby "they are campaigning for political reform" When using the term "Campaign" to describe a roleplaying game the phrase"Particular Objective, confined to a particular area" part puts me off. Moreover I think it's just a convenient term held over from the hobbies wargaming roots. What I normally run is not by definition a campaign. There is rarely a particular objective. I generally put situations in front of the players then conduct my GM'ing duties largely based of...

A couple of posts ago , I wrote about  playing Basic D&D again for the first time in several a couple of decades. We are two short sessions in now playing exclusively on roll20 in the  evenings. Things are going well, the  players are exploring room by room, the game is going basicly as planned. For this post I'm going to  go back to my  other post and comment in RED  on how my original observations have stood up to actual play. Here it goes. Original Post starts here: _________________________________________________________________________ I have players who have never seen Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling presented as classes. It took them a few minutes to accept that as how it is. I always like Race as class. In my mind it lets an elf be an elf, and a dwarf be a dwarf  (halflings are a bit underwhelming but .. should be given their literary source.) A demihuman class is something a player will choose because they want to play that race on it's own meri...