W. F. Smith 8/12/21 W. F. Smith 8/12/21

Hostile Negotiations: A Framework for Social Combat

Rules for negotiations that don’t impede roleplay.

W. F. Smith 8/6/21 W. F. Smith 8/6/21

Overloading the Damage Die

Into the Odd revolutionized combat by jettisoning the “to hit” roll. This post offers a combat system that maintains single-roll attacks, but imbues that roll with a greater variety of outcomes.

W. F. Smith 7/27/21 W. F. Smith 7/27/21

Design Commentary: Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl

I walk through the process for making my first adventure, what it did well, and what it could have done better.

W. F. Smith 7/8/21 W. F. Smith 7/8/21

How to NOT Run You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge

No adventure survives contact with the players. And that’s a good thing! I discuss You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge and Canal of Horrors.

W. F. Smith 6/24/21 W. F. Smith 6/24/21

A Better Approach to Deadly Games

Don’t let character death slow down your games. If you want to run a deadly game, you do not need to make it easier to die. To run a deadly game, make it easier to live.

W. F. Smith 6/4/21 W. F. Smith 6/4/21

Spell Lists Are Not Magical

Why do magic-users pick spells like they are ordering from a menu? An evaluation for alternate systems of picking spells to evoke the awe and wonder befitting magic.

W. F. Smith 5/26/21 W. F. Smith 5/26/21

Ashcan Rule: XP for Coal

An unused rule that got cut from my Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl, with some suggestions for a Minecraft TTRPG.

W. F. Smith 5/22/21 W. F. Smith 5/22/21

Failure, Diegesis & Ability Score Increases

A diegetic method for increasing ability scores, stolen gleefully from another system.

W. F. Smith 5/13/21 W. F. Smith 5/13/21

Spelling Errors: A Magic Miscast Alternative

When a magic-user flubs a spell, they mix up a few letters but the magic remains. Thus does a Charm Person spell become a Harm Person spell. Oops.

W. F. Smith 4/27/21 W. F. Smith 4/27/21

A Preview of Coming Attractions

I discuss the TTRPG projects I am working on: Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl, Barkeep on the Borderlands, Unaccredited Magic User Boarding School, and Prismatic Wasteland.

W. F. Smith 4/22/21 W. F. Smith 4/22/21

The Motorcyclops! Lone Biker of the Apocalypse

A new monster for use in post-apocalyptic settings: the motorcyclops!

W. F. Smith 4/15/21 W. F. Smith 4/15/21

Hacking Lockpicking to Unlock Hacking

I take Errant’s excellent rules for lockpicking and hack them to make rules for hacking into computer terminals in modern or sci-fi games.

W. F. Smith 4/8/21 W. F. Smith 4/8/21

Megadungeon Malls & Collaborative Caverns

Advice for sparking ideas for building megadungeons, from mall maps to a collaborative dungeon design procedure.

W. F. Smith 4/1/21 W. F. Smith 4/1/21

Bury Your Gold: On Abstract Wealth

In which I express dissatisfaction with the standard counting-gold-coins mechanic and suggest an alternative in the form of abstracted Wealth, Reputation and Supply.

W. F. Smith 3/24/21 W. F. Smith 3/24/21

Exploding the Encounter Die

A twist on the overloaded encounter die mechanic that makes the dungeon more dynamic, and provides risk vs reward tradeoffs for players as they explore a dungeon.