Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Seraph’s Boxes of Mysteries. The good wizard Seraph wanted to create a box. A box containing a perfectly warm, safe place for his pets to travel with him when he was on the road. He tried many times, but each time another failure. These items represent his best attempts. Four identical boxes one he kept, and one gifted to his son in law as part of the dowry, and two gifted to local lords / patrons as thanks for their tireless support. Physical Description: Each box is exactly two cubic feet, made of a fine hardwood stained deepest black. All of the panels edges are reinforced with thin strips of iron.Each box has a well crafted lock (DC 20 to pick) and latch on it’s lid. This latch allows the whole top panel to be removed. The interior of the box is lined with purple velvet, the interior surface opposite the lid is a endlessly ebbing and flowing pool of darkness. In play: Any item that can fit into the boxes opening can be placed in the box. The box can hold up to 20 items. There are ...

Explanation: Yes, this is a dead blog and i'm not writing new material, but occasionally I will find something on my hard drive I think is worth cleaning up and throwing on here. In fact I wrote this months ago and never finished it. I think I stopped because I found better options. I don't remember. This material is presented unfinished, unbalanced,and untested. I'm hoping it may give someone a tingle of inspiration.  Disclaimer: because the internet is full of martial arts experts: This work is not meant as an accurate representation or simulation of the  Filipino martial art Panantukan /Suntukan which is sometimes called "Dirty Boxing". I did some reading about them, but I don't know enough about them to claim any level of expertise. Don't correct my usage of the  term "dirty boxing" in the comments I just thought the term sounded better than "Huggy Fighty" Again it's a dead blog..no one is reading the comments anyway. For the r...

This  might  tangentially  tie into The Disorientated Ranger's latest post found here: There has been a trend for a while no within the group I game with. Some of our characters come with endings. Even if the  end game is known it doesn't mean we know how the game will end. The wilhelm example: In our last game Wilhelm the  Dwarf, finally tracked down the band of thieves who "ruined his  life. * " The party gained entrance to their hideout, talked to a massive snake, avoided some traps, stole a large nutria, bashed some heads and cornered the thief guild's leader. After some talking, the thief leader offered to  restore the connection between wilhelm's wrist and his hand. The thief leader also offered to bring Wilhelm into the guild. They could work together and make some money on Wilhelm's triumphant return. I'm going to be honest here. I really thought Wilhelm was going to growl something dwarfy and hit the weasel thief in the face with his ham...

Let's break some  5th edition today. Attributes are a great way to measure Characters against the environment: (For most of these examples I'm going to use the "Strength" attribute because it's easy to quantify.) "The wizard has a strength of 8 there is no way in  heck the wizard is going to beat the  cleric in arm wrestling  because the  cleric has a strength of 14.  Meanwhile, the  warrior who has a strength of 17 laughs at both of them." I like to look at attributes in D&D almost the same way as the Amber diceless RPG did*. In my mind if a one character has a higher strength than another, even if it's only by one point, the character with the advantage is unequivocally stronger. A strength 16 warrior will NEVER beat A strength 17 fighter at arm wrestling unless they give themselves some kind of  exterior advantage.**  Attributes are so useful as this kind of comparative standard I feel it would be a shame to ditch them altogether....

Players fall quite often, because heroes are constantly leaping off things. TLDR Version: Here is how I do it. I give heroes the first 10 feet for free.. Nice of me right? I figure Urkuk the 12th level fighter has learned how to tuck and roll.  After 10 Feet, Every additional 10 feet causes 1d12 damage up to 8d12 at 90 feet.  After 90 feet each additional 10 feet of falling simply adds 10 points of damage. (100 feet is 8d12 +10 for example) After 90 feet the character still takes the damage and also has to save vs Death, or make a Constitution save ( adapt this to whatever edition of D&D floats your boat.) Modify the save with +1 difficulty for every 10 feet of fall beyond 90 feet. ( again  adapt this to whatever edition of D&D you are using.) If they fail the save they straight up die. You fall 500 feet in one 6 second round. The first 90 feet as described above assumes falling onto a hard surface, and the character not landing on their head. The DM can modify da...

The traveling Druid. Part 2 of “playing the warrior druid.” A while back I wrote a post about druids. In particular I had a guest poster and player from the games I run, Russ write about druids. Russ plays druids and he knows more about druids while he is sleeping than I know about them while I am awake. My contention is this. An actual druid has no reason to leave the grove and the lands that he or she is protecting. I can’t see any reason why a druid in the traditional sense would ever wonder away from the grove and go delving into a tomb with a bunch of adventurer types. In my own game I had to go back into the archives of what has happened over the years in my campaign and give the druid a quest to reestablish lay lines all over the place. In effect he has to move around to get this done. The 2 nd edition druid had that whole, you have to challenge a higher level druid to go up levels aspect. This is a good way to get the upstart druid out of the grove and into the world, which is...

From the pages of Rolderic The Bard. "Once in every five years the  bards hold a moot, a gathering if you will. It is here that we swap information, stories, and do the business inherent of our trade. Last summers moot was no different than any other, a few fine fall days on a hillside encamped with a number of like minded and talented souls. Let me assure you there is  much merriment mixed with the business as bardic schools compete in the  ways of instrument, verse and voice. I say all was normal last moot, and I do not lie up until the  moment Roderic arrived. A bard in title yes. Infact he was once a talented voice crafter, but he has disappeared on a journey far to the north. Few recognized fair Rolderic as he entered the moot.  A sight that was such, one of our less hardy members (Jalarad Birdboned) fainted straight away. Shirtless, Painted and tattooed, a shaved head, a vast dark beard woven with strange bits of cloth, he rode. And ride he did! Roleric ro...

This is a guest post by my good friend and long time player Russ C. Russ is our resident Druid player and I know he has some strong feelings about what a fantasy druid is and how they can be played. For me the D&D druid is a bit of an enigma.  In game terms they are a spell casting class with  decent melee abilities and abilities useful in the wilds. The fact that they have been included in every flavor of D&D since the original advanced D&D  astounds me. I would think they would be a niche that could have been closed by giving the  Ranger a more spell focused option, or beefing up the spell list of the priestly earth sphere. However the  Druid as character class persisted over time and across editions. Perhaps they have remained because players realize instinctively that there is...

This is a post cross written with my long time friend and gamer ally Otto over at Quarzis Games . Here is his post on the same subject .. GO READ IT! We have picked a subject that has come up in our games and decided that we woudl both write posts about it. Neither one of us really knew what tact the other woudl take when writing our posts so the  "FIGHT" part of this title might be a bit misleading. (it's not.) Z For the  record Otto is  how shall we say ... ummm.... Smart, like wicked smart, eloquent, perceptive and humble about it. So I am in the  position of bringing a knife to a gunfight here, I best be on my game.  Hey though at least I'm not surprised! Scanned from the D&D 5th ed PHB That is my clever segway to bring us all the  way to this ugly son of a bitch. I need to say a couple things before I continue. In one of my blog posts I said: "The best thing about  5th edition D&D feats is that they are optional." I stand by that. The abi...

If you are only here for the The 5th edition Background (The Anti-Hero) Skip down  to beyond the  horizontal rule below. Otherwise read on ... I don't post pictures of myself on here. No one wants to see that. but here I go with pic including myself, talking to Roddy Piper back in 2007. Better writers have done better pieces about piper than I am able to. Please read: This From "The Ma sked Man" I'm going to write my own anyway. Let me frame this. That guy to the left of me in the picture is Captain Lou Albano. (Who passed away in 2009 at the the age of 76.) This is a Comic convention in New York City. Generally I don't do comics or conventions for that matter, I was there to hang with my friends and meet Piper. I was there to get a signed picture for my father, because we have a shared joke / expression in our household that consists of this. When I was growing up, if something unexpected happens to someone, that person is said to have been "Hit by the coco...