100 unedited anima

1. truth is a constant force - shotgun, you are unable to tell lies while in possession of this weapon and are compelled to punish liars
2. honeymoon dream - normal sword that has the ability to ignore armor and gain lethality 10, but breaks afterward.
3. The most precious piece - It’s the middle to a 9 piece puzzle. Completed, the puzzle acts as a permanent teleportation circle.
4. evil man's mind - helmet, allows you to transfer consciousness with one sentient being you see
5. hug it out! - gloves, anything successfully grappled by these gloves becomes pacified until let go
6. crowd noise - hand canon, the gunshot can sound like anything other than a gunshot
7. Airstrike - boots, allow you to float continuously up, they don’t allow you to go down
8. Gigantic - large, aperture-science-esque orb canon, can make one thing LARGE but it must make another thing SMALL
9. frightful silence - cloak, as long as the PLAYER doesn’t talk, their CHARACTER is completely silent
10. sigmar's ult - a large gold medallion, will spin infinitely but requires at least two people to spin
11. the maw of god - gauntlet, stores one item inside the palm. If another item is put in, stored item is propelled out at dangerous speeds.
12. museum of war - old war banner, turns whatever its draped over to stone.
13. Dreadclaw - indestructible wolverine claws, the arm that it is affixed to grows a foot of hair a day
14. vault of the fallen - old war banner, keeps whatever its draped over alive.
15. the end. - orb, once cracked causes 3D of Mind damage to all those around.
16. Goblin Emperor - a crown of animate emotion. Wear it and your emotion will be personified as an animal of appropriate color.
17. Dreadbringer - title, 1/day you can put a living target to sleep (Mind save) or cause horrid nightmares (1D of Mind damage)
18. Witchfire - a ball of living fire that can locate any fire nearby, and can talk to fire 1/day.
19. Hive Fleet Issue - allows you to communicate to insects and makes them more likely to follow direct orders
20. Vindicator's Daughters - pair of bracers, makes your brain twice as large, if two people wear them they can share thoughts
21. Lunar Matora - half-moon stained-glass shield, shines brightly in the dark and smiles when the wearer is in danger
22. Hound - helmet fit for a dog, gives them super strength
23. Mauler 1 - massive gauntlet, if charged for one round it can shove a target with such force that they smash through other objects
24. Hulk - leather armor, makes you grow twice as large and twice as strong when you become jealous. You also become green
25. Malediction - hand cannon, lethality 5, deals an additional 1D per death you are currently suffering
26. Dark Sorcerer - staff, can link with a target to read their thoughts, and if they fail a Mind contest you can put a thought into their head
27. Whirling Zephyr - tiny hot air balloon that can carry a single person
28. Zebra - long barrel rifle, alternating shots heal 1, lethality 3
29. Tyrantosaurus - boots, 1/day you can move 4x as fast and crash through objects
30. Unbowed - prosthetic limb, shield 1, lethality 2
31. Danger Days - A pair of goggles that let you see who has an intent to harm you. They glow red.
32. Reverberation - orb, when cracked, everyone body save to keep hold of what is in your hands
33. Benevolent Sacrifice - broach, breaks upon suffering a Body death, you can choose to suffer a different death
34. Vigilance (Duelist) - rapier, when drawn you choose a target, they must face you and only you until the sword is sheathed
35. Blinking Eyes of the Sun - clock, you can set it to day or night to turn all surrounding light on or off
36. Dark Sun - clock, at night you can activate it to raise 6 skeleton minions to serve you
37. Stardust - bag of dust, 3 uses, turns whatever its sprinkled on invisible
38. Fairy's Bane - short sword, can hit intangible targets and seeks out invisible targets
39. Mantra of Creation - cloak, when laid out and a name is spoken teleports that person under the cloak if they are willing
40. Black Cat Eye - if place into your eye socket allows you to see in the dark
41. Apex Vanguard - tower shield 5
42. Apex Scout - long sword, lethality 5, when paired with the Vanguard you can attack twice
43. The Fused Core - Robot brains connected into a rat king. Smarter than most things on an instinctual level.
44. The Hive Mind - a bee nest that produces 1 use of brain control honey per month
45. Fated Exterminate - knight’s armor 3, you can take all Body damage that would otherwise affect another target
46. Sons of Sorrow - crying robot, can answer 1 question about your future per day.
47. Carnage - mask, allows you to become gelatinous 1/day
48. The Covenant of Regret - armor, allows you 1 take-back a day
49. Prey - you choose a target and they are marked so you can track them
50. Killer Swarm - injects your arm with a swarm of poisonous hornets that follow your command
51. Rescue Mission - ray gun, choose a willing target, they are teleported back to the community house
52. The Exile - ray gun, choose a target, if they fail a Mind contest they are teleported back to their “home”
53. Toxic Waste - green goop, if exposed all people in the area must make a Body save or  mutate
54. Dreadnought - 3 temporary tattoos, if laid on a sentient target it acts as a doorway into their dungeon
55. Golem Hive - magical seal, allows you to create a homunculi
56. Goliath Corp. - lion sash, allows you to talk to felines, 1/adventure you can turn into a lion 
57. Widowmaker - veil, you can see and communicate with ghosts, 1/day you can become a ghost
58. Zombie Ward - beacon, creates an aura that doesn’t allow anything without a beating heart to pass
59. Flamestrike - sword that can become wreathed in flame
60. Ironbeak Owl - an owl that will bond with whomever wins its trust. It has an unbreakable beak.
61. Sealmaster Overspark - Orb, floats around your head, if you go unconscious it jolts you awake
62. Snowcrag Geist -  boots, 1/day you can freeze solid for an entire round, no damage can harm you
63. Voidfang Champion - purple helmet that turns your arms into snakes.They’re both super old.
64. Banecaller Apprentice - staff, call the name of the last target to harm you, they are paralyzed for a round
65. Cabal Shadow Priest - gauntlet, animates your shadow 1/adventure, shield 3
66. Argent Protector - robot guardian, carries things and compliments you, can sacrifice itself for you
67. Deck Build - orb, draw a car, if the Ace of Spades is drawn you get a one-word wish
68. Starry Eyes of Nightmar, Part I - black eye, allows you to see through a shadow and out of another
69. Plethora of Flames - sunglasses, set objects on fire, the size of the object and the material determine the time
70. Starry Eyes Part II - white eyes, allow you to travel through a shadow that Part I looks through.
71. Carcass Jackhammer and Gauntlets - immovable hammer, the gauntlets make it weightless
72. Grimgrine - green orb, allow you to talk to plants, you grow flowers from your head
73. The Red Eye - one-time ticket that allows travel to anywhere, but you must sleep a full night afterward.
74. Oblivion's Embrace - boon given to those who pass Oblivion’s Gate, she hugs your shoulders
75. Manticore's Bane - helmet made of two faces, the other face is sentient and can communicate
76. Caldari Dreadstalk - blessing, when you sleep you astral project
77. Lilith's Eye - eye of the Earth, 1/day see the history of a thing, where, why, how, who?
78. Crimson Fangs - Gain a vampiric bite that absorbs damage and heals you 
79. Zarak's Crown - the jaw of a mighty beast made into a crown, dogs fear you but you can talk to them
80. Scythe of the Dragon Gods - made of dragon hearts, can kill/harm demons, favor with dragon slayers
81. Dragonfly Nest - orb, can contained one willing target at a time, no time passes for them
82. Huge Toad - Untraceable storage for any one item. 
83. Darkheart - a still-beating heart, black ooze pumps out, creates 1 use of poison per adventure
84. Ectopus - Can bring up to eight people to the afterlife without death once, getting back is more difficult.
85. Cursefish of the Lake - a strange trout that can hold a lake of water in its mouth
86. Ogremnoth's Crown - allows your mouth to open up large enough to eat an entire human.
87. Dirty Birdcage - holds spirit of a messenger bird, can send messages to spirits 
88. Bustard's Wreath - a necklace, creates two duplicates of you when you are stressed
89. Blackbird's Hex - boon, allows you to summon a large blackbird to do a complicated task
90. Cerberus' Chant - sword, lethality 3, 1/day can attack 3 targets at once
91. Hound's Tail - whip, lethality 1, deals no damage but can restrain one creature indefinitely
92. Pulverize - hammer, 1/day it can smash through any surface (wall, door, floor)
93. Nightmare's Favour - boon, allows you to enter the Dreamwave 1/adventure
94. Breath of the Wind God - cloak that allows you to treat air as water 1/day
95. Dragon's Blood - highly flammable liquid, spreads quick, burns through steel, 3 uses
96. Thrasher's Wing - sword, lethality 5, if it causes a Body death it decapitates the target
97. Mantle of the Thunder God - belt, 1/adventure you can cause a minor earthquake with a big stomp
98. Brick and Mortar - shotgun, ignore armor, lethality 10
99. Fog of Despair - banner, when planted fog surrounds the area, planter of the banner can see
100. Pale Moth's Horn - SUMMON THE PALE MOTH

The edited version of this list will be in an upcoming PDF release. Songbirds is out now, check the sidebar.

2d6 Potions in the Vending Machine

2 - Bee breath; after drinking, the insides of your cheeks develope (bee) hives and buzz a low, sallow drone. As long as you do not open your mouth, the bees will stay inside and do their work, creating honey-snot that drips from your nose at a rate of 1-drone dosage a day (anyone who tastes your drone dosage becomes a drone to your thoughts for an hour). If you open your mouth, it acts as a breath weapon, but made of angry, jobless bees.

3 - Technolyze; after drinking your conscious is sent into the nearest piece of electronic technology (like a phone or whatever). You have complete control over the technology, can see what it can see, and do anything it might possibly be able to do. After an hour you return to your body. During the hour, your body is inhabited by the technology...so that might be kinda funny to watch.

4 - Crystalized Drunk; the essence of being drunk is to be numb and ever flowing. Now you too can float through the air as a canon ball, crashing into walls and people with such force and not feel a damn thing. Lasts for about 30 minutes then you fall asleep.

5 - Gelly Belly; this small, sentient ooze scoots through your body and cleans all the pipes. Cures sickness and negative conditions over the course of a day.

6 - King Monkey; you grow a monkey tail. It rips through your pants and drags on the ground. If the tail is cut off before the sun goes down, you are cursed to become a monkey every night at sundown.

7 - Disasterflex; you become a walking disaster after ingestion. Every dice roll counts as a natural 1, and anything you do will cause as much damage as humanly possible.

8 - Tuesday; drink this and you'll return to last tuesday.

9 - Jeeshwa; If your name is Josh this drink is half-off. But it's just a normal drink.

10 - Bottled Ghost; There's a tiny spirit inside the jar, which somehow keeps the intangible little guy trapped. If you open the jar the ghost will fly away. BUT if you can convince it to live inside you, then you'll always have a friend :)

11 - Regret; This drink is a little bigger than the others and says "share size" on the label. If you share it with someone, you will learn each others greatest regret. If you drink it all you'll regret all those calories you ingested and probably have a full tum.

12 - Buzzing Little Bumble Bee; When you drink this you must pollenate. Kiss someone and then kiss another to create a strange little hommunculi based on the two people you kissed.

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This is an article from my upcoming Endsville zine.
Until then, checking out Songbirds!

Rooftop Dragons

An apartment complex U-shapes around a tiny garden of slender trees and trimmed bushes. The alleyway walls are etched in vines that bloom the perfect tea-leaf in the spring, and circle up under the gateway arches on either side of the building, finding their way up to the roof, where time itself sits perfectly still, unable to find its voice in the shape of such soft feathers.

When the sun sets, the sleeping minds bleed their dreams into the world as streams spitting into an ocean, but the twisted antlers of the comatose serpent rip into the unseen and dam the streams, pooling it into a delectable pond of random memory. Forever it sleeps and pools and pools, growing and shedding with it until the coiled body might spill over the parapets, like a cup in clenched fist.

They say that it’s not every roof that gets such a guest, but that it happens far more often than you’d want to believe. Dragons themselves being the dreams of a decapitated giant, remembering the ghoulish glares of the world serpents devouring its kin whole. They come crawling from his scalp and into his blood, hungry and thirstily slurping up mouthfuls of the red. They taste his memories and lose just a moment of energy as their bodies rapidly speed into a heat-spawned death.

The lucky ones make it to Endsville and find it in their minds to rest.

Beautiful..

Arcane scholars seek rooftop dragons to find the Pool of Dreams gathered. The juice is pulp and butterflies, and catching it in hand or mouth is a shock of life to the system. Ramping up the brain inside of a softened skull. Ripening it up to crack open and grow the yellow flowers inside.

The blade-kin, flaymakers, and clay dolls seek to dip their weapons in so that they may grow old and give birth to new weapons. Sword begets sword of cosmic fluid that rips through the air by molecule to create a burst of sun and draught. The staff twists inside itself to form an orb of dull, beaming night, eating color and light from the eyes of those around and growing new ones on itself, so that it may become sentient.

The Moon Cats watch these places from the gardens, keeping tabs for their Queen.

This is why there are no Landlords in Endsville. When a vacancy pops up, the antlers of the dragon spread dreams to those seeking. You may pay your rent to the neighborhood council, but you pay the dragon first. If there’s one up there, that is. Have you even gone up to take a look?

Space Inspiration

Click here to make a new thing. 

Here's some Cyber things!

MUCK session 3

Layout and play-testing continues with MUCK. It is looking beautiful:

That's a dragon!

And the play-testing is going really well. The party is knocking dominoes over. Shaking the foundation. They killed/eliminated one of the witch clans and also led one witch clan to killing the Giant head that likes to play games. 

They haven't left the bottom half of the map yet. They haven't met three of the other factions. And they've already done so much. I'm in love with this adventure location. 

I'm learning more about Muck. The characters there are all very transactional. This for that. Do this and I'll do that. And they all have their secrets. Things they'll do when other things happen. 

For instance - the Ladies of Oolice are all pretty chill and laid back. But when they found out one of the characters had an item that could harm the giant that protected faerie land, they traded as little as they could for it, and went and got some information. 

They didn't tell the party of these plans because, even though they're chill, the party had not done anything for them. The party had the option. They had the head of another witch clan and planned on giving it to the Ladies of Oolice, but instead gave it to another person for a favor. 

So they gained that possible ally, and didn't gain another. 

Everything is transactional. And gaining favor with one might gain enmity from another. 

I'm excited to see where Muck leads and feel that the writing won't be completed until the party leaves. 

Snake Train #1

Snake Trains take you from point A to point B. They exist in your world for those time where you party wants to go somewhere and you have no idea what's in between where they are, and this new place. They're big snakes. And trains. Kinda like the catbus from Totoro but moody.

The first issue is a free, 8-page supplement detailing 5 passengers on the train, what the train actually does, and the first stop on this new journey your party is taking.

You can download the free pdf here. 

Zak

This post is about Zak. It has nothing to do with DnD.

I'm writing this after reading this and revisiting this by Patrick.

I've read every blogpost Zak ever wrote. I don't remember how I found the blog itself, probably through Goblin Punch. But over the course of the 2016 summer, I read every. single. post. I did it because Zak is a good writer, and he changed me. My ideas of D&D and rpgs were entirely 3.5 based. All forgotten realms lore and monster manual lore. And his blog opened things to me. I had (up until just a few minutes ago) a folder full of 20 or so of my favorite blogposts that I would revisit.

The way he talked intimidated me. He talked with such conviction and unrelenting "rightness". He was never wrong, you just misconstrued what he said. I didn't know what to make of it. I was always reserved and never spoke like that. I lived with a lot of shame and didn't think my opinion was worthy of such devotion.

But I tried to be more like him. I defended myself, and fought, and was stubborn.

I was an asshole.

I am an asshole.

I remember feeling uncomfortable by the way Zak talked to people but "since he was famous" it was okay. I though that was the right way and *I* had been wrong all along.

Then I read Patrick's post, and False Machine was one of my favorite blogs. I still think Patrick is my favorite writer. Just. Period. I read Patrick's post and it was like my thoughts had been given a voice. Everything he said felt right and it made me feel better. "I'm not the only one."

I'm mentioning this because I believe Mandy. I believe Patrick. I believe their opinion more than my own, and more than the many more opinions that will become public soon after this information spreads. This coming from an avid fan of this man. From someone who wanted to be like him, to emulate him. Now I just feel gross and unsure of which parts of me are better because of him and which parts should be thrown away.

I believe Mandy because she was in a relationship with this man for a decade. People will say "there are two sides to every story", and that...is a poor defense. If one person makes a claim against another saying they're a terrible person, and they come back and say "no I'm not", that's not a good argument for a defense. Then if MANY more people say the same things as the original claim, and you still defend with the "no I'm not" defense, then you've lost.

THAT. IS. PROOF.

The testimony of the people who know this man as a friend and lover are more important than those of colleagues (though colleagues should not be discredited) and definitely more important than those he only interacted with online (though those TOO should not be ignored). All testimony is important, but when the people closest to you stand again you...there's a problem.

I'm not here to condemn anyone but myself. I don't know Zak. But I believed him. I was witness to his side of the story for all of these attacks that came against him. And I believed him because of the same things Patrick pointed out in his post. I was duped. I feel manipulated. I feel...gross.

I don't care what Zak has to say to defend himself. Because he'll be really good at it. This is what he's good at. This is why it worked on Mandy. Patrick. Me. And many others. This is what he does. His statements coming out in the next couple of days...they will probably convince many more people that Mandy is lying or something. Or just false. I doubt he will actually attack her.

All I can do is say that your opinion means jack when compared against the opinions and experiences of a person who *lived* this man, and the people who corroborate the story.

Read Patrick's recounting. See the tactics. Learn when you're being manipulated. Don't be like me.

Spinning Plates

I've been testing MUCK on my players.

Session 1 saw the party enter the swamp, meet some heretic cultists and some spider-loving witches. It was bog-standard D&D. In my mind, I'm sitting there wondering "is this place *fun* enough? there's nothing *happening*..."

I worry about that a lot. When writing fiction, I think about drama. When I'm writing a film I think about the fun. The scenes, set pieces, characters. And I think, in that regard, an rpg adventure is more like a film. And instead of putting them in an order that already tells a story, you lay them out in a way that they, when interacted with by the party, can create a story.

But in past adventures I've written, it was often about *that* scene. By that I mean, the particular scene the party was in. The party goes somewhere, meets a thing, interacts with it, drama, then they move on. And each scene is beneficial to the last only by how, together, they tell a story about a location. If the party decided to dig, they would find the web that connects it all.

So after the first session of MUCK I was worried. "Is this fun?" The spider witches gave the party a fetch quest to earn safe passage. "Go get some feather from a Maneater Crow," the head witch said. The session ended with the party member who stayed up for watch, snuck into the witch tower to investigate. He was caught.

THAT'S what I mean by the players interacting with things makes the story. But even then, I didn't know if MUCK was worth the price off admission. Would the party leave this place saying "eh, whatever"? I thought about this while writing stats and shit.

Then session II came along. And a lot was revealed to me.

Muck is made up of factions. Humanoid factions, of varying degrees of *cool*. The spider witches took their friend to a place to marry him to a witch. "If you bring us the head of the punk witches, we'll let him go." Another fetch quest. All of these faction have fetch quests. They all want *someone* dead, and are in such a state of stasis that they can't do it themselves.

This place is sort of locked in a cycle and the party is who breaks it up.

And by breaking it up, they start to spin plates. They are spinning the plate of the Heretic Cult and the Spider Witches. That's two plates. A fairly easy task for charming adventurers. That's why I worried about the un-fun. They had just begun.

Throughout session two they gather more plates. They're spinning the betrayal of the spider witches, the friendship of the punk witches, the secret assassination of one of the punk witches, the knowledge of trapped demons, the spider wedding, the Dumb Metal Angel on her tower that reads "DOOM TO US ALL", and then the Goatmen who run the catacombs, a literal heart turned into a cave.

They have A LOT of fucking plates to keep balanced.

And as I learned--the fun of spinning plates is watching them all come crashing down.

So MUCK testing is good. These two sessions show me that I need to do a bit more graphic design when it comes to this one. I need to present these plates in a way to show how dangerous it can get. A chart for the party to keep track of who they meet and what they owe them. And also a kill-tracker for those parties that come in here to just slaughter witches. A forward about the dangers of spinning plates, and writing everything in a way that makes it easy for the DM to learn the factions wants and dislikes.

This will be my most ambitious project to date. The biggest by far. 20 locations, over 50 statblocks. Shit.

Working with Stats

So I was talking about stats some more with a friend. We were working things out, doing some math. Keeping it casual.

Then they left and I went overboard.

I'm working how to determine a creatures HD based on Number Encountered and Difficulty.

Here's what I started with.

Top one is the Hit Dice, and the bottom one determines how many are in a "group". These numbers did not make it to the first draft because they were all over the place. But they were a starting spot.

I tested the numbers by using a 5 Player Party at level 1 and at level 20. If the number matched the desired effect at both extremes of the spectrum, I am going to assume that the middle will work out just fine.

REGARDLESS

With some tweaking, I landed on these as the first draft.

Big difference, but in the end these are the results when tested under the same idea.

It does what I want it to do. With a little tweaking it might be even better, but the idea is to ignore the numbers as much as possible by using these designations (easy, medium hard, solo, duo, group) and make the encounters more about what the monsters do and how they fight. The purpose of this is to make it so that I can create monster types and they can level up with the party and adjust to different party sizes.

I just want to be able to run an adventure without any fucking prep. So to get to that point I'm writing a lot of stuff before hand. A lot of pre-prep.

Using Halo to Plan Better Encounters

Halo was my favorite game for all of high school. It has bled into my subconscious and has affected the way I design encounters since day one. Here's the big points.

1. Break the enemy into rankings

• In Halo you have varying enemies rankings that each have their own abilities and level of difficulty.
• Grunts - Elites - Brutes - Jackals - Hunters - uhhh, the others
• Fourth Edition did this really well with the various types of each creature and giving each one a role
• In 5e you can do this by assigning different monsters from the Monster Manual to each role
• Some are already grouped like this through lore, but you can use or ignore this. CREATE YOUR OWN LORE
• Example using the basic lore of D&D: Goblins (grunts), Orcs (elites), Bugbears (hunters), stirges (drones), hobgoblins (jackals)
• I would use these stats to create my own, rooted in my own world.
• FURTHER - in Halo, as you progress, each of these rankings has sub-ranks inside of them. There are many variations of the grunts and elites throughout all of Halo 1, adding more variety.
• You can accomplish this by giving them different weapons, more health, and spells

2. Group the rankings into Encounter Groups

• In Halo there are several encounter groups that you will run into over and over again
• You could break these down into a random encounter table and use it to build your own

1d8	Encounter Group
1.	2d6 grunts
2.	2d4 grunts, 1d2 Elites
3.	2d6 grunts, 1d2 Elites
4.	2 Hunters
5.	Swarm of drones
6.	2d4 jackals
7.	d4 jackals, 1 elite
8.	2d4 grunts, d4 jackals, 1 elite

• That might be an oversimplification, but still, using that you can have a base encounter chart with different locations
• You can get creative by expanding each of the encounter groups to include the different types of each ranking.

1d4	Grunt Encounters
1.	2d6 grunts fucking around
2.	d4 kamikaze grunts
3.	d6 grunts, d2 fuelrod grunts
4.	d4 fleeing grunts

• It gets more and more complex and detailed as you combine the ranking types and the encounter groups

1d4	City Encounters
1.	d4 kamikaze grunts, d2 sniper jackals
2.	d2 fuelrod grunts, d6 grunts, sword elite
3.	2 hunters, d6 grunts fucking around
4.	d4 assassin elites

• You can customize your own encounter groups to show the flavor of each area
• The goal is to have a bunch of encounter groups that you can mix and match to keep the encounters focused on the same rival force, but keep the encounters fresh and new each time

3. Overwhelm the PCs

• The best parts of Halo are when you have way too much to do
• The flood are on all sides of you and won't stop coming till you move on
• Do not be afraid to overwhelm your PCs by throwing more than one encounter group at them at once
• Or throw them one after another, in a wave-style of encounter
• Your players will get creative to get out of these situations
• It's totally normal for a player or two to go down in an encounter, it's why they have short rests
• If you're really worried about the party being beaten up too much, give them more toys--

4. Vehicles are toys designed to make you feel EPIC

• Vehicles serve one purpose in Halo: to allow the player to face more enemies at once, giving encounters a grander scale
• A vehicle is a toy for the player to use
• Other toys include the power weapons
• Vehicles and power weapons are the equivalent of magic items in DnD
• If you give the players a Necklace of Fireball, you SHOULD be throwing a lot more opponents at them at once, specifically squisher groups of grunts
• If you give them a +1 sword, you should be throwing opponents with more health and AC
• I often see people asking how to handle accidentally giving the players items that are too powerful so that they end up stomping all encounters
• This. Should. Not. Happen. The reason being - you can ALWAYS throw bigger and badder things at your players. Finding the right balance takes time, but always opt for giving them more they can handle, and then mitigating when it seems like too much.

5. OVERWHELM THE PCS

• Yes, this one gets a second chance.
• I'm serious people. You need to try this. I know it might make you nervous. I know you fear that your friends and players will think you're being mean.
• But trust me. Your players will find a way to make it out. Especially if you've given them toys to play with.
• This is why I am never worried about handing out potions and strange, single/limited-use magic items all the time. Because one day they'll remember they have it and it will save the day. And it will be memorable.

5b. Here's how I do it

When it comes to designing encounters I follow these basic rules

• The opponents Hit Dice should be AT LEAST equal to the PCs, which means if there are 5 level 3 players, that's 15HD to spend. So 15 1HD opponents, 2 7HD opponents, 1 big 15HD opponent. This works out to a good encounter 95% of the time.
• The opponent should get 1 attack per 2 PCs, at least. So in any given round against 5 PCs, you should be rolling 2-3 attacks. MINIMUM. Action economy is a big thing in 5e and you need to level the playing field.
• Their to-hit bonus should be their HD + 2 (for proficiency). This is not always sound, but it's a good rule of thumb.
• Their damage bonus should be 2 at a minimum. So even 3 attacks at 1d6 each can do a max of 24 damage.
• I always increase the number of dice they roll before the die type. So 2d6 before 1d8.
• I always increase the number of dice they roll before increasing their damage bonus. So the big 15HD bruiser might roll 6d6+2 instead of 2d6+12. Rolling dice is fun.
• For every 5HD an opponent has, give them an extra attack. So the 2 7HD opponents will each attack twice.

Alot of these guidelines are based on 5e's proficiency scale and player-leveling.

These are some of the bigger things I've taken from Halo. I hope you learned at least one thing from this.

If you want to see some of these things in action, check out my book.

D6 diseases to use in TTRPGs

I’ve been following a train of thought. We all take inspiration from real life, from our experiences. And in order for us to be writing *fantasy* instead of just fiction, we personify that into something grander and more representative.

And when it comes to DnD, there are 3 things which I feel don’t do this properly. Diseases, Potions, and Poisons. In my many years of learning 3.5 in high school, I never once used a disease from the source books. They were boring. They were just real diseases. They didn’t do anything new or *mean* anything.

I started to follow this train of thought as I try to expand what I do in games. I’ll be honest, I mostly do NPCs. That’s what I use 99% of the time. I like to talk. I’m getting better at including combat, but I still don’t use traps, poisons, diseases, or any of the other obstacles that are present in the real world, and very often in a fantastical world.

Today we’re going to talk about diseases. 6 of them. The BIG SIX of my world, and maybe you’ll find one to use in your world. These are all my way of looking at real diseases and trying to translate them. The horror. The isolation. The pain. I like to write about things that personally scare me. That’s the root of horror. So yeah...let’s dig in.

Cuernosis

Also known as the Demon’s Disease. It’s a fairly common disease that has sprouted up recently, which causes the cells to multiply and harden in strange patterns. The outward effects of this are the horns which grow, usually from the head, but not always. They always grow in pairs, and can reach a length of 12 inches. To cure the disease, the horn must be sold to a demon, who will then find a new host for the disease. No one is sure how it started.

If the disease is left unchecked, horns grow on the inside of the body until something is punctured and the patient dies.

Auto-Engrosia

This disease only affects humans, and can show signs starting as young as adolescence. It begins small, around one finger tip. It would take luck to see the signs at this point, but the finger tip is no longer under your control. And when the disease is left unchecked, it expands down the fingers and outwards to the others until the entire hand is no longer under your control.

Amputation is the first step. But that rarely works, as the disease is not in the limb itself. It’s in the brain. And without intervention from a mage, the disease will spread up one side of your body until it reaches the brain itself, where it will then have full control of your motor functions, leaving your conscious mind trapped in shell that is no longer its own.

Those fully taken by Auto-Engrosia will not be discernible from the general public. Your neighbor could be living with it. Your friends. Family. The only way to know is to present the inflicted with something draconic. The closer to a real dragon the better. Because those taken by Auto-Engrosia will stop at nothing to be eaten by a dragon. There is no known cure, only safety nets that a wizard can put in place, such as simulacrum, resurrection, and permanent paralysis.

The Elven Curse

Named such because all elves are cursed with it. It is why they must stay in the woods. It keeps the curse at bay. Half-Elves can be carrier but cannot be affected by it. Humans and other races are in danger of getting it if cursed by an Elf (or Half-Elf).

To put it simply, this disease affects all internal organs, animated them and turning them into animals. Intestines turn into a giant centipede, liver turns into a large toad, heart flutters into a bird, bladder into a mess of butterflies, brain into a giant crab. You will be alive and feel everything as this happens, even as they try to escape your body. You will stay alive until those animals are killed, as they are your organs.

There is no cure. But you can live with this disease by capturing the animals and taking care of them.

Aquarium Disease

This disease changes the lungs. They can no longer breathe oxygen and must breathe water, like a fish. If you are not submerged in water you will suffocate. But it doesn’t stop there. You will just wake up one day like this, and as the disease progresses you will need to breathe deeper, and deeper water. A pond will suffice, until you’ll need a lake, and then the sea. Until you’re sunken to the seafloor and are left to die.

There is no known cure, but on the seafloor you may find something...

Carnal Dementia 

This disease affects the elderly. It replaces their memories with either fake memories, or just memories that are not true of their life experience. It starts as a slow growth, little dips into another personality, until eventually the patient is no longer who they were before. They have a new name, a new personality, a new life. They want to get out of the hospital and find this new life, but no one has been able to follow a patient to their destination, and most families are reticent to allow their grandpa/grandma to go wandering the world like an adventurer.

Mage Liver

This happens from the constant exposure of potions to your liver. The organ itself begins to grow technicolor, as the remnants of all the potions are soaked up. You see, when a mage makes a potions (or anything) it's impossible for a little bit of themself to *not* get put into it. So as the liver absorbs these potions, they are also absorbing little parts of mages, alive or dead. You have nothing to fear from the living ones. But the dead ones...they will infect you through the liver, granting you spell slots of their old spells. This in and of itself doesn’t sound that bad. But if you cast them, or begin to learn more, all of that energy is going to the dead mage. Every spell learned is imprinting their brain onto yours. Every spell cast is teaching *your* body *their* movements. This is the resurrection long-game. This is immortality.

dten encounters in a weird desert

i wrote these for Micah a while ago. not sure if he ever used them. basic premise - there are tears in reality in this desert due to eldritch hearts.

1 alchemy assassins
Drinkers of the heart, they trip on the shit and go into a comatose state. When they do so, out in the desert, from the tears in reality spill these Mr. Game and Watch looking, multi-colored little fuckers. They are 2-D and use this to their advantage (if they stand sideways they essentially vanish). Their psychedelic colors mirage in the hot sun and mesmerize those who stare too long.

2 scar-sniffing hounds
gangs of hunting dogs from rival tribes try to "set up" around these tears in reality. You can discern a reality tear if there are too many dogs around. Additional signs: if a dog is howling at the sand, or several sizes too large as if seen through a magnifying glass, if it floats lazily like a half-filled balloon, and if the dog is in fact a human pretending to be a dog.

3 reality warping cockroaches
As strange as it may seem, through these tears in reality, cockroaches crawl out. Maybe they really can survive anything. There isn't much strange about them, except they they seek the comfort of human companionship. They like to crawl between clothes, where fabric meets skin. When they find a nice spot (underside of wrist or under left breast) they give you an exchange. The truest of sight in exchange for control of your body. What they do when they control your body varies, but it typically involves additional human companionship, platonic or not. But with the truest of sight you can see all things broken, from a broken belt buckle to a broken heart.

4 bleeding-sky syndrome
The sky gets sick sometimes. Maybe not your sky, but this sky, here in the desert, it gets sick and hurts itself. It's a dark thing, yes. The ideal of it at least. But the execution is strange more than dark. Cloud cut the sky, parting the blue like a bed sheet (with much the same noise) and letting the black behind it spill out. The the cut bleeds. It's like rain except it comes out like blood from a wound, and is black like the night sky. Inside this plasmic liquid are boiling hot stars which can be harvested. If they are not harvested they give birth to changelings (or something else equally strange).

5 horror faces
These are people who has touched the reality scars, or were there when they were made, or who have merely looked at one such scar for too long and maybe said some things about the scar they really shouldn't have. Their faces warp into picasso-esque portraits which alter with their moods. Limbs can sprout from these new heads. They cannot control these limbs and sometimes they cannot even control their mood. Keeping them calm is paramount, lest you be dragged kicking and screaming into their gaping purple maw, never to return.

6 hot heads
Bald giants with weak, frail bodies and big, fat heads. If their head gets to hot it explodes, so they bury their head in the sand to stay cool. If you see normal sized bodies sticking up from the sand, be careful there's not a large head under there.

7 straw tooths
These pale kids walk with umbrellas that cast jet-black shadows (so they appear like floating umbrellas with a sheet of black underneath). They will not tell you where they came from. They will only float to the nearest scar, stick their bendy-straw teeth into said scar, and drink whatever is inside. If interrupted they will drink you instead, even if they hate the taste.

8 sand druids
Sand druids eat sand and lay under shallow pools of sand to sleep. They do not come out in the light, only at night. At night they crawl on the sand, eating tasty patches. They are afraid of humans and most things and prefer to hide. But their knowledge of the desert is tremendous, even if accidental. You see, the patches of good sand all seem to form a line, like a leyline, that leads between places of magic (the tears, certain cities, etc). So if you follow them they will surely lead you someplace interesting.

9 court of glass
This mausoleum made of glass appears to the holy in mirages. When you see a mirage in the distance reach out as if to grasp a doorknob and you will find it. Inside it is cool and safe, and you can see out into the desert through the glass walls. Everything inside is glass and fragile and the building demands ease. If you shatter the walls (or anything inside) then the Glass Angels will come for you and force-feed you your future sharded in glass.

10 landmines
There are landmines under the sand. Be careful.

Basilisk - redoing the 5e MM

My skills in MS paint are unrivaled.

I liked the Chamber of Secrets. The basilisk was cute and had poison fangs and SOMEHOW never quite petrified people.

We ain't playing that game.

Basilisk in the Cage are born from the nightmares Giants have of the snakes that almost killed them. They are taken as pets by the Akumu (Nightmare Pirates) and crawl into dreams when they can. Their Cheshire-Cat-nature allows them to exist in either reality, the dream or the real, whenever they choose.

Their blood is not theirs. And the eyes on their flappy parts are so familiar to you that it's painful. Their hissings make nightmare voices in your ears that act as the spell Suggestion.

To kill them you have to scare them.

As the DM, you have a bit of a challenge at hand. Staring at someone until they run out of things to say. Trying to strike at foes without looking at them. Rolling the dice and picking it up carefully to read the number...

This is better.

The Player/Character Divide

This is probably the first of a few articles I want to write on this topic. 

I

I ran a campaign for the entirety of the 2014 summer where most the challenge came from physical puzzles, usually word or math, that the players solved. There would be chunks of the game where they would be sitting there at the table, while I prepped a combat encounter, just working on this puzzle.

They were a lot smarter than me, but with the help of the internet, I was able to push things for them into a difficult space. One puzzle took several sessions to solve, the two lead solvers passing the paper back and forth between each other as the group made their way through a dungeon.

It was one of the best campaigns I've ever run. Half the challenge was Player challenge, not Character challenge.

When I watch Critical Role, the best parts of it for me are the talking. Between characters, between the NPCs and a character, even between two NPCs. It's what makes CR special, and it's also what people point to as the biggest criticism. The Players' skills as actors are given value, instead of just the charisma of the Character.

People complain because not everyone is an actor and since CR is the "face of DnD" it creates an unfulfillable promise to new players that they will be able to act like this and be given NPCs who are well acted. But really they aren't criticizing the people playing CR, they are criticizing the Player/Character divide that CR uses.

I mention these because CR is the best place to start when discussing the ideas that *I* find fun in games, TTRPGs in particular but also videogames and boardgames. The Player/Character divide is the idea that a game can challenge the Player, the person sitting at the table, as well as the Character, the piece of paper that the Player has written.

Critical Role does this without much backlash (besides the criticism above) because it is perceived as part of Dungeons and Dragons already. In the Dungeon Masters Guide (and in the PHB) there are listed the Three Pillars of Play: Combat, Exploration, and Social. But Social does not equal acting. You do not need to be an actor to interact with the social pillar of DnD.

The social pillar in this theory is the Character interacting with NPCs. What they are saying with these three pillars is that, in a game of DnD, you should explore a place, talk to some stuff in that place, and fight some stuff in that place. That's is all they are saying. Thinking that acting is the social pillar would be equal to saying that being in shape is necessary to enjoy the combat pillar. Which as my chubby body shows, is not true.

There is something to say though about how many people are coming into DnD because of CR, and having this misconception about acting = social pillar, and that all tables *need* to have this in order to play the game the correct way.

It tells me that there are a lot of players who want this. There are people who have never played DnD who watched Critical Role, who say the Player/Character divide that exists at their table, and thought "That looks fun".

It tells me that there is a place for the ideas that I have. It tells me that the Player/Character divide can be used to create fun. At least in the way of acting. You can be goofy and silly and funny and serious and depressing and brooding as a Player, as a DM, and you can still have fun. Being sad or mad doesn't mean you aren't having fun.

And it tells me that you can maybe push it further. Beyond just acting. Beyond the social pillar.

II

Munchkin is a card game heavily inspired by old school Dungeons and Dragons, that features a lot of oddly fitting crossovers in the form of expansions, each with a plethora of cards that accentuate the Player/Character divide and make it a tool in your arsenal. Where you play a game of munchkin can come back to bite you in the ass or save you. Who you play it with will change the game dramatically. What fucking clothes you wear can have an effect on how strong you are on a given turn.

These kinds of ideas have existed in board and card games since their inception. Poker requires strategy, math, and ultimately the ability to lie. Monopoly requires money management and the cold-hearted, calculated eye of a banker. Risk requires charisma as well as military dominance. Games have always played on the Player/Character divide. They use it as part of the mechanics of the game. Anyone can play chess, but the smartest person wins.

These are analogous to physical games which are strongly tilted towards Player skill. In football, you play the quarterback, a role which has its own unique abilities and ways to interact with the game, but its the Player's strength, quickness, and intelligence that leads to victory. That coupled with the mastery of the quarterback role itself creates a legend on the field.

Munchkin creates a very tongue-in-cheek version of this that *I* find fun. Instead of a Player/Character divide, where the player and character can be challenged separately, there's a conversation between the Player and the Character, and it takes both of them to win the game.

An example, website on the card

The goal of Munchkin is to build a very powerful arsenal of armor, weapons, and items so that you can get to the 10th level of the dungeon and beat a final monster. Where the fun of the game comes is cheating, player cooperation and this player/character communication. If you're like me and you like to get drunk while you play games, then this card is going to be better for you than it will be for your sober friends, and it could mean the difference between all of your friends teaming up to beef up some low-level goon so it can stop you vs. you sneaking out victorious and taking all the glory. 

There's a monster that is Steve Jobs but as a goblin. He gets more powerful for every window that is in the room you are playing the game. There's a card that allows all cultists to go off into a corner and trade cards and plot the downfall of the rest of the table. The game plays off of which class you get, which gender your character is, what your marital status is, what color shirt you're wearing, and so many other factors. 

Every game is different, and every single one of them is so unpredictable. It never lets me down when I need a good, fun game. And the little stories that it makes at the table are hard to forget and even harder to write.

III

With the history of games having the player/character divide as a basis of them, I'm very curious as to *why* the current state of DnD is the way it is. I shouldn't just lump it as DnD either. TTRPGs in general have this (what I see as an) issue of trying to divorce the Player from the game as much as possible. Making the divide into a chasm. They just want to challenge the Character. 

You even see the same mindset in the original example I gave against it. Critical Role. A character says something convincing, something really fucking good, and they act it well. Turn to the DM. "Roll a persuasion check." And you can see it on their face. That expression of "but that was fucking awesome!"

That's a limitation of the game itself. Saying something persuasive tends to lead to the allowance of a role where there otherwise wouldn't be. I'm someone who believes in the dice. I think they are the perfect abstraction for factors beyond our control. In combat, rolling the dice is the game's way of saying "you are fighting living things in a living world and your skill won't always mean as much as it would in a training room". 

But when it comes to acting? When it comes to saying what would *actually* convince the NPC? I say don't roll. 

And I've seen the counter arguments. It's part of the reason I'm writing this now. They are counter-arguments that have kept me reigned in when writing adventures. "Just because I'm not charismatic doesn't mean I can't play a charismatic character." I don't really have an answer to that. Or, I don't have an answer that's going to make you feel better. What I want to say to that counter-argument is "why are you so boring?" But that's mean and not fair. It's cruel. 

The correct thing to say, which is less of an answer and more of a way to just stop the argument, is that we play different games. Fundamentally, what you find fun in a game is not what I find fun. I like to be challenged. Me, as the player. I don't want things to be fair, or based on what's on my character sheet. As a DM, you never roll to convince the players of what you're saying. You talk.

I think there's a hybrid though. Instead of the Player/Character divide, try to take from Munchkin. The idea of the Player/Character conversation. The marriage of both, and the skills of both, which opens a toolbox filled with fun odds and ends that can be used at the table to solve problems and tackle the odds. 

I think in a way, that's what the DM already does. I think there's something there to be mined.

Dark Souls and the Beauty of the Megadungeon

I used to think the idea of a dungeon, let alone a MEGADUNGEON, was boring. Going from stone room to stone room, fighting orcs. I was fourteen then, and it wasn't for another 4 years, when Dark Souls came out, that I learned the beauty of the Megadungeon.

1. Megadungeon as a style of play

• In Dark Souls, you measure your progress in several things - areas cleared, bonfires lit, and bosses defeated. In Megadungeons, you measure your progress in rooms cleared.
• Dark Souls uses the idea of a room as a metaphorical thing. A room is any place where a thing is located. Firelink Shrine and the NPCs are a room. The cemetery below is a room with the skeletons which do not stay down. Keeping it simple like this can make designing a Megadungeon much easier.
• Dark Souls tells story through this process - each region has a tale told by the order of its rooms, and the encounters in those rooms. While designing your own megadungeon, think in these terms. How can the rooms and the encounters tell a story?
• In this way, Megadungeon is a style of play, rather than a location. It's a style of play that focuses on the ROOM and the ENCOUNTER and how those are linked together to tell a story.
• Continuing the war example: the battlefield region could have 1.) foxholes filled with terrified soldiers, 2.) a trench with wounded men clogging the route, 3.) front lines with constant machine gun fire and an incompetent commander, 4.) no man's land, with enemies charging with bayonets. This tells a story of the region, and the players that move through it will forward the story of the Party.

2. The Beauty of the 5e Adventure Day

• Dark Souls is a game of attrition. Resources are your only way of survival. Health, Stamina, estus, spells, etc. This. Is. DnD.
• In 5e, health, HD, spells, potions, etc. are the resources you need to continue adventuring.
• In Dark Souls, reaching a bonfire is a goal because it means rest and replenishing resources. In 5e, this is the adventure day.
• The adventure day - typically - says that a party can handle 5-8 encounters from easy-hard difficulty before needing a long rest. During this day you can have short rests to expend HD and replinish certain abilities.
• You can use this in your Megadungeon game to create story. Nothing is more exciting and tension driven in Dark Souls than when you're running low on everything and having to decide whether you are going back or moving forward in hopes of a bonfire.
• Take this example and place safe spots (bonfires) in your Megadungeon. Place them at the end of Adventuring days.

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EXAMPLE

• Taking a look at Dark Souls as an example of excellent design - From Firelink Shrine to the first bonfire, there are 5 necessary encounters: the undead on the stairs, the undead playing dead, the undead where the dragon lands, the crossbow undead, and the undead with the shields and spears. Each one takes place in its own "room", with the crossbow-men being able to fire down on you while taking on another encounter.
• Not only this but there are 3 optional rooms for extra xp and treasure - the rat in the sewer guarding the humanity, the secret jump to get the treasure in the building, and the hidden NPC downstairs which sells stuff.
• THAT'S the perfect example of how to design an adventure day. In DnD that entire thing might take a session, maybe two, depending. And when you start looking at Dark Souls like that, you can see that all areas are the same. And they USE the Adventure Day to build tension. Sometimes making them shorter, and sometimes forcing you to go 14-15 encounters before reaching the next one.

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2a Adventure Day Continued

• When designing your regions for your Megadungeon, use the idea of the adventure day to add another layer to the story. The layer which taxes the PLAYERS resource management. With this, you have both layer of the game engaged - the characters and their buy-in, and the players with their character sheets.
• Continuing the war example: after crossing no-man's land, the opposing force is pushed back and the Party can finally rest before being awoken by artillery the next day.

3. The importance of NPCs

• Dark Souls uses NPCs for very few reasons - covenants, buying/selling, and optional story. But all of these impact the world of Dark Souls, a lonely world where you make it on your own.
• Let this influence your own NPC design. Let the theme of your world influence your NPC design.
• Ask yourself what role they fill. Are they here to buy/sell? What would a buyer/seller look like in your world?
• In this hypothetical war campaign, a buyer/seller would be the guy at the barracks, or a medic on the field, or the guy riding around in the jeep with all the bullets.
• The other NPCs, keep their story on an optional level, but don't be worried about having NPCs reappear, like when Big Hat Logan shows up after being freed.
• Have NPCs disappear, like the Cleric that stands near the back of Firelink. If this draws interest, then great, if not, then that's one less NPC you have to worry about.
• NPCs as optional stories in the War Campaign could be a soldier that joins the squad, a tank sergeant that keeps needing help, a daring spy that is offering coin for info, a cartographer that needs help mapping the enemy territory. People that can enrich the world, but aren't necessary if the party isn't interested.

4. Locks, Keys, and Gates

• Dark Souls has some backtracking, to say the least. There are doors that can't be opened, paths that shouldn't be traveled, creatures which can't be beat. These require you to go do some other shit then come back later.
• When designing your regions, don't hesitate to put in rooms that need a key. Just like the room, the key can be metaphorical.
• In the War Campaign, a key can be a new rank that gives access to new areas/information, it can be a commanding officer that you have to get in good with, it can be an injury that puts you in a new location for recovery.
• 5e has some locked gates built in - certain spells such as Fly allow access to the air in a new way. Water breathing potions/spells give you access to new locations. Druid wild shapes could give access to animal areas previous unallowed. Paladin oaths can give you access to locations. Perhaps your wizard school gives access to a certain portion of the library others can't go to.
• You can use both 5e's system and your world's theme to build your own series of locks/keys/gates and place them around your regions to have your own little secrets.
• When someone finally discovers one and unlocks it...it'll make it all worth it.

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This is a continuation of my new series where I take a look at some of the things that inspired me and pull out the wisdom that has carried through. You can follow me on reddit by clicking on my name and going to my profile. I have an AMA on the 21st, my book "Haunted" is coming out soon. Got the proof back from the printer and just had to tweak some things. I'm excited for the end of this year and I think there's big things coming.