My Works

 

Temple of the Weaver


















Ruins of Ardust
Sacred Wings Monastery






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Taking the 3 LBBs Seriously

I had the opportunity to play OD&D for the first time ever tonight as a DM, and it was an incredible experience. Easily tied for the greatest D&D experience I have ever had. I ran it on the philosophy that the rulebooks, no matter how unhinged or unfinished, are completely correct in everything they say. It not only required enormous worldbuilding work to justify why Martians are in the desert, Arthurian Knights in the woods, and Dinosaurs in the swamps, it also tested every skill as a DM when the players interacted with this zany gonzo world in utterly unexpected ways. It proved to be the most unpredictable game I have ever been a part of, and I love it for that.  On a game design level though, the experience was illuminating in one especially important regard. The 3 LBBs (and OD&D in general) reference the Chainmail wargame rules regularly; its referenced in combat, in monster determination, in castle encounters, and the rules assume it is standard. The "Alternate Co...
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Lords of a Ring: An OSE Session Log

Beneath the crumbled ruins of the Jeweler's Sanctum, an adventure in Volume 1 of the OSE Adventure Anthology, there exists a Queen of Rats. Skilks, as she has called herself, has accidentally slipped a magic ring onto her finger. The ring is a trap - it grants the wearer basic sentience, the ability to speak common, and little else. It overwrites the user's previous operating code, so to speak - a rat will have its brainpower enhanced with these skills but a human(oid) will be reduced to them (to model this more concretely, the ring reduces intelligence to 3).  Skilks is a gracious queen to the 5 giant rats that follow her (none with magic rings of their own), and eager to trade with visiting diplomats from other nations (i.e., wandering adventurers). She is pretentious and ambitious but utterly naive and basically harmless.  The same could not be said for Norrin the Illusionist, a player character with a lust for the magic ring. The party went through an extensive trade sessi...
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Thoughts on Open Tables & Megadungeons

As we enter the sixth and final month of my open table game of Arden Vul, I think its time to put some of the many lessons I've gained to paper. The experience has been illuminating, to say the least, but as my first foray into this style of gaming there is so much I would do differently if I could start again (which I will, in due time, just not with Arden Vul). The game I ran was designed to follow the implicit philosophy of the first edition Dungeon Master's Guide, made infamous in OSR circles by the "BrOSR" movement. While I'm not enamored of them or their work, they do raise an important point: the original game implicitly assumes something akin to an open table megadungeon campaign with 1 day passing in game for every day that passes out of game. In the background of the megadungeon campaign is a simulated world in which characters are expected to live full and meaningful lives, with rules and guidelines being provided in AD&D for everything from harlotr...
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