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by userMarch 15, 2017November 20, 2017

BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek

Designer Diary: Satori
by Paco Yanez

Hello, I'm Paco Yanez, the designer of Satori. I am also a Japan lover who almost always gets inspiration from Japanese culture when starting work on a game, at least to feel more comfortable testing whether the preliminary ideas work. At the same time, I'm aware that most of the time the theme may change when the game is published, depending on the publisher's preferences. However, in the case of Satori, it evolved while maintaining the essence it had from the beginning, including the name.

In December 2021, I came up with the idea of creating a game centered around Buddhist monks' meditation while using time as part of the mechanisms. The monks would venture to the mountains to meditate and attain certain "things", which would enable them to reach other things and so on. In other words, they will experience "satori", a Japanese term describing the moment of enlightenment in Buddhism.

From the beginning, I consider the feelings I would like to convey with the game as this prevents me from easily losing my way. I wanted each game to be different and to have a lot of interaction between players — the more interaction, the better. I wanted to have many moments of satisfaction throughout the game...even on each turn, if possible.

On the other hand, I enjoy incorporating common elements that create synergies and offer variable benefits to players depending on the moment. Furthermore, I try to make the theme relevant in the game since it simplifies the mechanisms and ultimately enhances the gameplay experience.

First prototype
In January 2022, I began working on the initial ideas for the game. I started by designing several altars and the three mountains where the monks would go to meditate. The altars each represent the available actions in the game, and players can build new altars that will alter the initial actions since new altars would be customized when built, giving the game dynamism and variability.

At first, monks in the mountains "connect" with the devotees at the altars to receive "bonuses", and these bonuses were delimited by the available actions of the altars. However, once satori tiles were introduced, the game saw a rise in variability, which intensified the decision-making and increased the potential for chain reactions.

I like to impose restrictions or limitations on components as it helps me get the ideas flowing, especially at the beginning. Therefore, I changed the devotee's meeples to cards, which facilitated the introduction of a draft mechanism to trigger interaction from the start of each round.

Devotees as cards
Besides the altars and mountains, there was an area with two reward tracks. You had to choose on which track to progress when you executed this action, weighing the benefits of immediate rewards versus end-of-game points, which also depended on other elements you had developed during the game.

The two pagoda tracks
The next step was introducing the pagoda in the game. It became another way to score points and ended up replacing the two previous tracks.

The pagoda brought more options to connect with other game elements like the satori tiles, which also function as a ceiling, turning it into another resource for the game and suddenly, connecting all the elements of the game becomes essential.

First test of the pagoda
As testing progressed, I tried to manage the weight that each element and mechanism had in the game to ensure that they were balanced without any isolated element. I used to do checkpoints at regular intervals to check each layer of the game, and one of these checks brought one of the first changes, which was to turn devotee cards into meeples again and get rid of the constant draft mechanism, which in practice was an additional layer that contributed nothing, while meeples allowed turns to be resolved faster.

Thanks to this, the area where the devotee cards were played within the altars made way for the idea of incense burners (jokoros), which at first were built only on the altars, boosting your final score based on how many different altars on which you had built, but later the jokoros extended to the pagoda, where the scoring depends on the pagoda's level of development at the end of the game.

Devotees become meeples again
I continued playtesting the game for an extended period until I discovered the most significant change that transformed it from an idea into a more serious prototype. This change introduced the prayer wheel, then incense as a new resource. These additions completely transformed the gameplay experience, intensifying chain reactions and enhancing game variability.

Incense burners as cubes on the pagoda's floors and the prayer wheel
Conversations with different publishers were held until November 2022. I eventually signed a contract with Perro Loko Games, a small Spanish publisher known for the care and commitment put into each of its games, and this is what I was looking for. Then, as an incentive, they told me that the game would be illustrated by Edu Valls, who you might recognize for his work in Bitoku or the recent 3 Ring Circus. I couldn't have been more excited...

From that moment on, we started working together. The amazing Perro Loko testers and I spent around four months working on and enjoying the game twice a week. During this time, we adjusted many elements, and even ideas that had I discarded at the beginning came up again, such as the objective cards that were polished during this phase.

I took statistical notes by rounds, tracking the source of points of every single game during this period so that I could compare the impact of every change we made.

I was not the best player
Although the temples were adjusted throughout the development of the game and provided variability of the available actions, we felt that they were a little out of the player's interaction — until I introduced the offerings' track, which now allows all the elements to be connected.

Offering track on TTS
Soon Edu's first illustrations began to arrive, and it was brutal to see how the game was coming to life.

Incense burner (above) and an altar (below)

The solo mode and the pagoda's sōrin (the vertical shaft on top of the pagoda) were the last elements to arrive. The sōrin came in to boost a variable scoring source in the last round of the game.

For the solo mode, I wanted you not to have to learn to play a different game, so in Satori, the AI reacts in one way or another to your actions through simple rules. You must try to optimize each of your turns as in the regular game, while also preventing the AI from taking too much advantage from its reaction to your turn; at the same time, you want to shape the actions of the AI for your own benefit.

Satori has been a lot of time and work, but it was satisfying in the end, so I would like to give thanks to all testers. Every single play was valuable to me and helped me to make the game better.

Paco Yanez

Images of the production components Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 30, 2023 - 6:00 am
Designer Diary: Friedemann Friese vs. 2023 (and 2022)
by Friedemann Friese

Given my surprise to harsh reactions over my design decisions in Findorff, I decided to write short explanations of my games before the Essen game fair starts.

With Findorff, people complained about all of the cards having a fixed amount of 50 VPs. Some even called that decision a result of "laziness".

However, initially the game design was only about building these cards, and in the first prototype you got five cards, and whoever built them first won. That turned out not to be suitable for this design, but I prefer race-style games to VP-optimizing games and wanted to focus the game strategy on building these cards. I hate that in almost all modern VP games that my focus while gaming is directed to micro-optimizing points. I think the idea that all games have to be balanced to death is a trap for modern game design, and a result of this goal is that often no matter what you do, you will still be fighting for victory in the end.

This might sound satisfying as a design goal for a game, but on the other hand, what are the consequences of this? No big (emotional) events in a game are possible because no one can make a giant leap; you get points for everything — even breathing, it seems — and in the end the person who does micro-VP calculations best wins because everything else is so balanced that it is unimportant.

I took a different approach in Findorff. If you manage to build more cards than the others, you win.

I want to design games I like to play, and in Findorff I can focus only on big points to win — and if somebody plays as well as I do, then we have to fight for small points because we've equaled out our big points.

•••
But let me stop lamenting about last year. Another year has passed, so let's look at other choices I've made in designing my games.

First, I did an expansion for Fancy Feathers — It is getting colorful!

Fancy Feathers doesn't have the highest BGG rating — not a surprise for a filler game — but it sold well and was easy to expand because the concept already has you using only some of the sets of cards included in the game. Now you have more sets from which to choose.

Also, Fancy Feathers won the 2023 Austrian "Spiel der Spiele" award for card games, and a successful game needs an expansion!

•••

Faiyum is my second-best game, based on the average rating at BGG, and I already said in the rules that I planned to do an expansion — but even successful games receive complaints, and when complaining about Faiyum, gamers think the game is too long, that it has too many cards, especially for two players. A lot of people just cut out a number of random cards from the beginning and seem to be happy with this. We had this discussion in the prototype times, and I agreed with one of my testers that the game needs this length to build up the strategy, but tastes differ.

I wanted to make this expansion, but had in mind that the game already has more than enough cards in it, so it took me some time to think about how to add more cards without making the game longer. It was a paradox, but while thinking about the situation, I had the idea of introducing privileges: cards that do not enter a player's hand.

If these cards are added to the game, the pile of cards will be bigger, yes, and the number of turns in which you buy cards will be higher, yes, so the number of turns in the game will rise, yes! — but the turns in which you buy cards are the fastest in the game, and if you buy an instant card and use it right away, it's done and gone, so that's not much longer.

Permanent privileges
On top of that, if you buy a card that stays on the table and gives you discounts or more resources, you can have better turns, and more importantly you can get rid of the least powerful cards in your hand earlier in the game, so the cards from the starting deck will not played as many times as before, so you'll end up taking fewer turns overall, which sounds weird but is true.

In the end, the game is nearly as long as it was without the expansion, but now you have more different options, so what's not to like...

•••
Freaky Frogs From Outaspace is a solo game, one of several I've made.

Some people tell me that Friday is the best pure solo game ever. We've sold over 100,000 copies, so it is a huge success. Finished! is not such a big success, but I play it every single day, and (if I look in the daily high scores on the app) about a hundred other people play it that often. Finished! is a game that you dislike or become addicted to. I often meet these addicted gamers, and they tell me that they play it very often. I only play the app now because I've worn out fifteen physical copies of the game. (I try to have single-player modes for my other games, but I do not like to play against bots, so I try to make version without bots.)

Freaky Frogs From Outaspace is a pinball machine game for one player. I had really looked forward to playing Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade, but when I played it the first time, I was disappointed because it does not simulate a pinball machine. It is just a very well done roll-and-write VP-optimizing game with a well-matching theme, but not pinball as a game. Pinball has to be a game in which you can theoretically play endlessly. (It's not very probable, of course, but it is possible.)

So I started to design a pinball-machine card game. In Freaky Frogs From Outaspace, you will start to be happy to go over 10K points, but the more you play, the better you get, and my actual high score is over 350K. (It took me over an hour real time playing it that was long and exhausting, but great.)

Prototype
Dale Yu from The Opinionated Gamers helped us on the English rules, got the game for playing, and had a similar experience. I met him earlier this year, and he came to me asking, "If I get the Multiball early in the game, I could play forever?!" I agreed and said that this was the purpose of the design. To be honest, it is like a game in which you roll a die and as long as you do not roll a "1", you stay in the game. This is theoretically endless, yet in practice not — but I wanted to have that feeling.

In Freaky Frogs From Outaspace you have, of course, more decisions than only rolling a die, and there is a learning curve to get to know your card deck and the pinball machine better. Maura is a real pinball enthusiast, so the artwork is amazing.

Final pinball table
That said, I am a bit stressed because I know many people will not like it because this game can be absolutely unfair (like a real pinball machine). When my first physical copy arrived, I played my first game and got over 100K points, but the next four(!) games, I didn't even score my final ball because they were all around 1K or 2K points. My sixth game, though, was over 170K, and this is the reason I love the design: If I lose, I do it quickly, but if it really goes well, I play longer and get into the flow and this is so satisfying.

•••
FTW?! is one of these filler card games to play just for fun — sitting around a table, shuffling, dealing, playing a card, and looking at how the next player reacts.

I had very good games at the Gathering of Friends in Niagara Falls with a lot of different people, but a while later there were BGG ratings — not-so-good ratings, that is — from people I did not play with. Looking into what happened, I discovered that one player had put it on PlayingCards.io and the game could be played there. (I don't recall anybody asking if it would be okay to put it on this platform.)

Personally I think a game is everything together: the physical copy, the players with me at the table, and the artwork. I think I would not like this game as much as I like it now if I had played it only as an abstract challenge online without the direct reactions of my fellow players. I hope this will not lower the game's chances on the market.

The game is surprisingly good, and you have to play it at least two times. The rules are easy, and you can play it as a kind of climbing-number game. When you cannot or do not want to play a higher card, you still have to play a card, but you also take a card from the discard pile. The most interesting idea about this game is that it ends when one player has only one card left — you don't have to get rid of all your cards — and you try to have one very high card left because you score positive points for your highest card and negative points for all other cards in hand. The first time you play FTW?!, you cannot imagine what will happen in this endgame. The second time you play it, you will change your strategy and see something new.

In the end, I think this game is for people who are sitting at a table (maybe with some drinks) and playing it. Playing it online is only a theoretically analytical challenge — not so much fun!

•••
Black Friday is the new version of Schwarzer Freitag, but really it's a new edition with major changes.

Schwarzer Freitag had one of the worst rulebooks ever made, and only pure fans managed to play it right and enjoy it. The game still has these fans, and some tried to influence Rio Grande Games into making it again. Additionally, in Asia stock-trading games are very popular, so our Asian partners were really happy that we wanted to republish it.

I still think it is one of the best stock-trading games and was happy to rework it. First, I did normal things like changing the values of the shares so that the higher numbers end only with a "0", which means players can more easily calculate the money to pay or to get.

Second, the most important change was cutting out the loans. In the old version, you took loans only when you needed money, but with this theme you should be able to take as many loans as you are permitted to. However, some players don't like having loans and always think they are bad. (In real life this might help your finances, but if you play a game with a finance shark, you should think differently.) These players lose the game only because they try to avoid loans, and this was not the intention of the designer.

Game board
To have a better game experience, every player now gets initial money and this works so much better. Putting the shares in the drawing bag and drawing them to change the stock prices and the built-in crisis is still the core mechanism of the game, but the passing action now has more strategic use, which is good for players who sold all their shares (in the endgame) to have some more decisions to make when passing.

•••
I do my designs the way I like them and hope you all like them as well, but sometimes I feel so misunderstood. Every single design has this problem. I have to like the design and must get a feeling for it in order to put so much work and time into it, but in the end I also want to make games that the gamers like.

Even so, I'm still not convinced to work only for the market, and I like my design philosophy: "If I like the game, then there will be enough people out there who will like it as well!" Sometimes it works better like with Power Grid, sometimes not.

Another year, and I think: We made great games...again!

Friedemann Friese
2F-Spiele Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 29, 2023 - 6:00 pm
Welcome New Editions of Nexus Ops, Kraftwagen, Ponzi Scheme, Dragon's Gold, Mine Out, and More
by W. Eric Martin
Another week, another round-up of new editions of old games being announced by publishers far and wide.

I know some folks view this as a bad thing, presumably because they would prefer effort by spent on original designs, but (A) that's not how a market works and (B) reprints put a title in front of a mostly new audience that might have heard of the game, but never got their hands on it. I mean, sheesh, how many editions of Frankenstein exist? (At least these forty.) Ideally games end up in the right players' hands, and everyone has a great time.

• Renegade Game Studios has already released a number of Hasbro titles in new editions — Acquire, Diplomacy, Robo Rally, Axis & Allies: 1941 — and now Renegade has announced four new Hasbro titles that will be "refreshed" and released in 2024: Nexus Ops, Vegas Showdown, Risk 2210 A.D., and Risk: Godstorm, all of which debuted between 2001 and 2005.

As with its other Hasbro releases, Renegade notes that it's not altering the gameplay of any of these designs: "Renegade plans to implement minor quality-of-life upgrades to provide a modern, high-quality gaming experience for fans, plus a complete visual refresh for Avalon Hill titles Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown."

• Spanish publisher Samaruc Games plans to debut with two new editions of older designs.

First, Matthias Cramer's Kraftwagen — which debuted in 2015, then was updated to the Kraftwagen: V6 Edition in 2016 — will be re-issued as Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering "with improvements and simplifications that lessen the luck factor".

Second, Samaruc Games will publish a new edition of Dragon's Gold, a Bruno Faidutti design from 2001.

A warning for sensitive eyes: This new edition will feature anthropomorphic animals, as seen in this image of the green knight:

• UK publisher Bright Eye Games plans to bring Jesse Li's Ponzi Scheme back to the market in 2024, with new art, new graphic design, some component changes, and no changes to the rules other than "the exception of Luxury Goods becoming part of the main game rules".

• Muneyuki Yokouchi, who has designed the trick-taking games Cat in the Box and 7 Symbols, and 7 Nations, plans to release a new edition of 2008's Mine Out at the Tokyo Game Market taking place at the end of 2023.

The original edition of this release from Ayatsurare Ningyoukan was available in SPIEL through Japon Brand. Will this version be available outside of Japan? Wait and see...

Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 29, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Designer Diary: Fit to Print
by Peter McPherson

From Inspiration to Concept

The idea for Fit to Print came together quickly after a conversation in early 2019 with my wife, Indiana. At the time, she was a reporter for a local paper, where she's since been promoted to editor. This got me thinking about how a game about running a newspaper might work. My brain got working on ideas, and after making notes and sketches, I started on the first prototype.

The theme came first, but the mechanisms followed moments later. To capture the chaos of a newsroom, real-time tile-laying was the obvious choice. The tiles are the articles, photos, and ads of the paper — and the board is the front page itself.

Influences and Gameplay Concept

Let me get this out of the way early: I adore Vlaada Chvátil's Galaxy Trucker, and it is the second inspiration for this design after Indiana. Chvátil does a lot of things right that I found necessary to include in this design, namely flipping tiles (one-handed!) in the center of the table and taking them or leaving them face-up for other players, as well as three boards that increase in size each round (though this came later in the design process for me).

A newspaper isn't necessarily laid out as pieces are written. Generally speaking, the content comes first — and then it's laid out and sent to the presses.

Thus, unlike Galaxy Trucker, players explicitly cannot place tiles on their boards as they take them. Instead, you must place tiles you have chosen to keep on your desk, a 3D cardboard structure. When you think you have the right amount and mix of tiles, you say "layout" and switch to placing tiles on your paper, all within the time limit of the round. Each player enters the layout phase at their own discretion, so you decide how much time to spend collecting tiles versus arranging them on your paper — but once you've switched phases, there's no going back.

First Prototypes and Gameplay Developments

I wanted to give players just a few too many things to think about in a three- to five-minute round: tile types that cannot touch, photos that score off of adjacent tiles, ad revenue that makes or breaks your paper, and a balance of good and bad news.

Players are likely to forget at least one of these elements, and that's okay. Unlike many polyomino games, Fit to Print is a game about imperfection, about getting the front page of the paper as good as it can be, but almost never "perfect". You'll have gaps of white space, or you'll take too many or too few tiles. Whatever the case is, the paper will hit the presses one way or another.

My first prototype looks remarkably similar to the final product. If you've already played the game, you'll recognize many of the tile sizes, as well as the dimensions of the paper.

The three tile types were present from the start, but the role of ads changed a couple of times before settling on its final effect: Your total ad revenue has no bearing on your final score, but if you have the lowest total after three rounds, you are exempt from winning. This was popular among playtesters from the start, and it became a core part of my design.

Next came unique centerpiece tiles that give players abilities and are drafted based on the order in which players finished. The last major change before development was increasing board sizes across the three rounds, which increased the potential for points as the game progressed, along with the hilarious side effect of making the tile-estimation puzzle even more challenging.

During the whole process, I had the advantage of playtesting with Indiana and getting her input on what feels right and which elements accurately evoke the feeling of the newsroom.

Working with Flatout

I first met the whole Flatout Games team —Shawn, Molly, and Robb — at Gen Con 2019. Both Tiny Towns and Point Salad were debuting at that show, and during a pre-con event by publisher AEG, we got chatting, and I showed them my prototype. They enjoyed it enough that we ended up playing at least one more time during the con.

Though, of course, I was aware they are a publishing team, I'm so glad I got to know them as friends first. Some time after the convention, they expressed interest in developing and crowdfunding Fit to Print.

During the Flatout Games CoLab development, several additions were made to the core gameplay, such as player powers and "Breaking News" modules. We also replaced the flat desk "boards" with 3D desks, which add another dexterity element. To make the game less punishing, tiles with placement errors are flipped facedown rather than coming off of players' boards, which fills more white space.

Additionally, they added several modes: the family mode, turn-based mode, puzzle mode, and a refined version of my solo mode. At the tail end of development, we decided to include my ridiculous team-based "Newsroom mode", which has up to twelve players (with one box) working in teams: a reporter who collects newspaper tiles in one room and an editor who lays out those tiles. This was my initial gameplay concept, and I'm so happy we worked it in.

Once we landed on the bustling woodland town theme, we had a lot of fun coming up with a variety of headlines and the names of the papers themselves. There's even a couple of stories to be found among the articles and photos if you look closely.

There was a lot of discussion about the ad revenue instant elimination rule. We knew it wouldn't be a hit for everyone, but with a game that takes around twenty minutes to play, we could get away with including such a harsh rule.

Ads contribute nothing to a paper's news content, but without them, the lights don't stay on. We wanted players to balance two things that are difficult to quantify: the number of point-earning tiles they include, and the number of "don't get eliminated" tiles they include. Ultimately, being knocked out due to ad revenue is relevant only if you had the highest score, but since the player with the highest score likely dedicated the most space to things that aren't ads, this happens more often than you might think.

Working with Ian O'Toole

I was overjoyed when Flatout Games brought Ian O’Toole on board as the illustrator and one of the graphic designers, alongside Dylan Mangini. While I knew his work would be fitting and gorgeous, I didn't realize how much he would contribute to the world and lore of the game.

My early prototypes had a vague American 1920s–30s theme, and all of the ads and photos (and many of the headlines) were from that era. I wanted to include real historical events, which meant I had to either thoughtfully include sensitive topics or pretend the time period was simple and cheerful.

Flatout Games worked with Ian to find a style that might make the game more fanciful. After brainstorming themes to match the game's lightheartedness, Molly had the idea to set the game in a The-Wind-in-the-Willows-style universe, which let us explore more cheerful headlines and photos that are appropriate for a wacky twenty-minute puzzle game. While we gave Ian detailed descriptions of the illustrations we'd like, he often came up with his own concepts and frequently tweaked our suggestions to do something much more charming. My favorite example is this illustration; we'd asked him for an image of a dam breaking, and instead we got this sad beaver engineer:

He expanded upon the team's prompts for the ad tiles, and he often added his own jokes and puns — and with him being responsible for the in-game graphic design as well, the result is a collection of tiles and newspaper boards that feel cohesive and grounded in the world of Thistleville.

A Team Effort

Oftentimes when I work with developers, artists, and graphic designers on a game for months, it starts to feel like a separate thing that I couldn't have possibly come up with on my own. That's especially true with Fit to Print because I didn't. Indiana was always up for a playtest and gave me guidance and encouragement for years. Shawn, Molly, and Robb contributed so many ideas (and entire game modes), and our vision for it was shared from the start. Ian O'Toole threw himself into the project and helped to craft its world and characters. Dylan Mangini designed a rulebook that taught the core game concisely and highlighted the various modes and achievements. Then there's the 8,059 backers on Kickstarter, along with John Zinser and AEG, who brought this game to retail.

So many people made this game possible, and I am extremely excited to share it with you all.

Peter McPherson

Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 29, 2023 - 6:00 am
Stack Number Tiles Anew, Revisit Zooloretto, and Build a Town Seven Houses Wide
by W. Eric Martin

• In February 2017, I previewed NMBR 9, a delightfully simple game by Peter Wichmann and ABACUSSPIELE, that challenges you to stack number tiles in a meaningful way. You're playing against other people (usually), but the challenge is mostly internal as you're all just doing your thing side by side, trying to score as much as possible and looking at what others did only at game's end.

SPIEL '23 will see the debut of NMBR 9 ++, which includes four sets of numbers 0-9, as well as twenty number cards (0-9 twice), so with this box you can play NMBR 9 with only two players. Alternatively, if you already have NMBR 9, you can now play the game with up to six players at once.

NMBR 9 ++ also includes expansion components that you can use with this box or with the original NMBR 9 game or with both combined. You have six different starting tiles, for example, with each player taking one at random before the game begins, which makes it impossible for players to build in the same patterns as one another.

You can give each player two "gap filler" tiles — one that is a single square and a second that is two squares long. You can use one or both at any point in the game when you're placing a number tile.

You can deal out two of the six "rule breaker" cards, then give each player two cubes in a different color. During the game, if you want to use a "rule breaker" card — e.g., move a tile previously placed, place the current tile upside down, or reserve the tile for placement later — place one of your cubes on the card, then use its power. You can use each card only once.

Some of the components
Finally, NMBR 9 ++ includes variant rules that can be used with 1-4 players. In "2 out of 3", you create a deck of thirty cards (0-9 thrice) and put all of the number tiles on the table. Each round, you reveal three cards one by one. Each player can place the first number tile revealed or refuse it; if they refuse it, they must place the next two number tiles; if they place it, they must refuse one of the next two tiles. In the end, everyone will place twenty number tiles, as in the basic game.

In "Level to Level", shuffle all forty cards into a deck, place all number tiles on the table, and lay out new tokens numbered 0-4. For the first two turns, draw a card and placed it under 0; each player must place this number tile in front of them following the usual rules. For the third turn, flip a card into both the 0 slot and 1 slot; the tile showing under 0 can be placed only on the ground level and the tile under 1 can be placed only on the first level. You can refuse to place either or both tiles.

Once a player has two tiles on the first level, next turn flip a card under slots 0, 1, and 2, with the latter number tile being placed only on the second level. Continue play until the deck runs out or you can't flip enough cards to start a turn.

• Among other releases at SPIEL '23, ABACUSSPIELE will have a new edition of Michael Schacht's 2007 Spiel des Jahres-winning Zooloretto featuring art by Michael Menzel.

In case you haven't played, here's a short description: On a turn, you either draw a face-down animal tile and place it in one of the available trucks (each of which can hold three tiles) or you take one of the trucks, exit the round, and add the tiles on it to your zoo. Once everyone has claimed a truck, you start a new round.

Each player has a zoo with a few enclosures, and once you place an animal in an enclosure, only more animals of the same type can be added. If you run out of enclosures, you're penalized for other animals you take. If you place a male and female animal in an enclosure, an infant will magically appear, which can be good since you want to fill enclosures to score. You can also place concession carts next to enclosures to score more points. Money actions allow you to move animals and gain a new enclosure.

• Another new-and-improved version of a game is Town 77, which Oink Games will debut at SPIEL '23.

Gameplay is identical to Town 66 from Christoph Cantzler and Anja Wrede, except that the game includes an additional color and shape, which results in more tiles and a game that now supports up to five players:
The residents of Town 77 — located just down the road from Town 66, mind you — can't stand it when houses with the same shape or color are lined up with each other. Try to build as many houses as you can while keeping in mind which houses in your hand can be built at the end.

In Town 77, each player has a hand of tiles, with each tile showing one of seven house styles in one of seven colors/patterns. (The color/pattern of a tile also shows on its reverse side.) The game has 49 tiles in total, one of each possible combination. Each player starts with a hand of random tiles.

The first player places a tile in the upper-left corner of an imaginary 7x7 square, then on each subsequent turn a player adds a tile to a row or column in this square so long as this tile is adjacent to at least one other tile and the color/house style isn't already present in this row and column. After playing a tile, a player can choose to draw a new tile or not. Once you lower your hand size, you can't increase it again. If you can't play on a turn, you're out of the game, and once everyone is out, whoever has the fewest tiles in hand — or who played latest in the event of a tie — wins.

If you play your final tile, you win, but if you don't draw new tiles, you might find yourself unable to play!
Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 28, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Designer Diary: Cyberion, or How I Created a Rewarding Game
by Shadi Torbey

The Dangers of Addiction

Ever since I bought my first iPad in the early 2010s, I have often found myself addicted to a whole bunch of digital/online games like SolForge, Kard Combat, Samurai Bloodshow, Kingdom Rush, Hearthstone, and the list goes on...

To avoid getting sucked into a game for too long, I ended up developing a "containment discipline": When I discover a new game like this, I play it fairly intensively but for a very limited time — then I never open it again.

The last game to get this "treatment" was Marvel Snap: I played for a week, had a great time, then erased it entirely, losing all the nice cards I had already gathered.

Over the years I couldn't help wondering: What made all these games so addictive? Yes, they were undoubtedly well designed and fun to play, but no more so than good "real-life" solo games.

Where did their addictiveness truly lie?

An Explanation

One day an answer dawned on me: These games are addictive because they are rewarding.

And I don't mean intellectually rewarding (although they also often are). I mean, plain and simple, literally rewarding:

• Opened the app for the first time today? Get some crystals.
• Won your first three games? Here's some gold.
• Played a specific class or type of card? Move a couple of steps up some ladder.

The gold, the crystals, the ladder will often open up more cards or abilities, giving you the impression of increasing power.

Two Paths, One Destination

It got me thinking: Could I transpose this rewarding feeling into a board game? And — more challengingly still — could I do this within the framework of an Oniverse game, which has a relatively short playing time and no legacy or campaign system?

Throughout all of the Oniverse games so far, there has never been a reward mechanism of this kind: the Doors in Onirim, the Ships in Aerion, the Ordeals in Castellion are all goals in and of themselves.

They don't bring you anything game-wise except, obviously, getting you closer to victory. (Some expansions mechanisms like the Mages in Nautilion or the Factory cards in Aerion could be considered minor exceptions.)

At about the same time, I was thinking about designing a "suits game on steroids" in which pretty much all the cards could have powers (like the keys from Onirim), while also being needed to complete game-winning goals.

The combination of these two ideas became Cyberion.

In Cyberion, you have to repair 25 Machines to win the game, and each Machine needs you to discard 2-5 specific Robot cards from your hands. (Yes, hands, plural. More on that later.)

But since each card also has a potential power, you're faced with the following dilemma: Is it best to use a given Robot for its ability or as part of a repair crew?

And the Reward?

A repaired Machine brings you closer to winning the game, but it's also currency to buy upgrades. Each Robot card does indeed have a power, but this ability is not active at the beginning of the game. Only by spending a certain amount of already repaired Machine cards will you switch on (and later upgrade) an ability — and since there are not enough Machines to buy all the upgrades, in each game you have to decide which powers you want to invest in (and whether you want a greater number of different abilities to be available but at lower levels, or fewer but stronger abilities instead).

These abilities open up extra options to stock up cards for later, have more cards available until the end of the turn (the hands of cards I mentioned above), manipulate cards from the deck, retrieve discarded Robots, or make a Machine easier to repair.

And since the Machines get harder to repair as the game unfolds, you really need these upgrades. Each repaired Machine is thus a promise of getting something better for the rest of the game — a much needed reward!

Conclusion

And this is how I created a rewarding game — at least in the plain and simple literal sense. Is it intellectually rewarding? That's for you to say!

Shadi Torbey

Cyberion should be available soon in your FLGS and will debut in Essen at SPIEL '23 in October. (Visit us at booth 5-K121.) Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 28, 2023 - 6:00 am
Create Paths to Tombs, Mark Six Numbers, Pile Up Kings, and Boost TCG Values
by W. Eric Martin

With just over a week to go before the opening of SPIEL '23, I'm still receiving game announcements from publishers and adding titles to BGG's SPIEL '23 Preview. Here's a few of the smaller titles that we've added recently.

• German publisher KENDi launched in April 2023 with three games from designers Steffen Benndorf and Reinhard Staupe, and in October 2023 it will release one title from each of them, although Sixto is actually a co-design by Benndorf and his son Florian.

Gameplay in this 1-6 player roll-and-wrote design feels reminiscent of Benndorf's Qwixx, but even more free-flowing in how you can play:
Your goal in Sixto is to mark off as many numbers as you can...although a lone mark counts against you, so don't mark carelessly.

Each player gets their own player sheet, which features six rows of numbers, each in a different color. The row contains the digits 1-6 in a random order, and each player should have a different sheet from among the twelve designs in the box.

On a turn, the active player rolls the six colored dice, one for each of the colored rows. If they don't like the results, they can re-roll all six dice once. After the final die roll, for each die, each player can choose to mark off the leftmost available number matching the die result, skipping over any intervening numbers. Skipped numbers cannot be marked in the future. Thus, on each turn, each player makes 0-6 marks on their player sheet. The active player then passes the dice left.

Sample player sheet from the rules
The final three columns on a player sheet are designated the "target area". If any player marks two spaces in a single row in the target area, that die is removed from the game at the end of that turn. When the third die is removed from play, the game ends.

Each player then scores each row and each column on their player sheet, losing 5 points if only one mark is present, scoring 0 points for zero or two marks, and score 5+ points for 3+ marks. The player with the highest score wins.

• The other KENDi release is Staupe's 2-4 player card game Ku-Ka-König, which he described to me as follows: "What if you always get what you want? What if everything that you own at the end of the game is exactly what you have chosen, to 100%? This means that there will be no more excuses! If you win or lose, it's completely up to you!"

Narrator: It is, in fact, not completely up to you. Here's why:
Choose the cards you want in Ku-Ka-König, and ideally they'll end up in your collection — and not be thrown away.

To play, shuffle the 112 cards, then lay out three cards in 6-8 numbered columns depending on whether you're playing with two, three, or four people. At the same time, everyone declares which column of cards they want to take. If no one else has claimed that column, take the cards and add them to your collection; if two or more player choose the same column, discard the final card of that column, then all tied players simultaneously declare a column number once again. Keep going until all players have taken cards from a column.

Refill the columns to three cards each, then play another round. When a player has collected at least 13 cards at the end of a round, score everyone's collection, with ties being friendly:

—Kings score based on how many you have: (n-1)² points.
—Knights are 1 point each, unless you have the most in which case they're 2 points each.
—Churches give 10 points to whoever has collected the most.

And so on. Some cards bear an X, and these cards are discarded after the first scoring. Players then continue playing rounds until the deck runs out, then players score for their collection once again. Whoever has the highest combined score wins.

• Before KENDi debuted, Staupe was a developer at German publisher NSV, and his last project for the company is debuting at SPIEL '23: Phil Walker-Harding's Silver & Gold Pyramids, the gameplay of which is an evolution from 2019's Silver & Gold:
In Silver & Gold Pyramids, you want to explore as many pyramids as possible and locate the tomb within each one.

To start play, each player takes four pyramid cards, then keeps two of them face up in front of themselves. Shuffle the eight exploration cards, each of which shows a different polyomino.

On a turn, reveal the topmost exploration card. Each player then marks off spaces in the shape of this polyomino on one of their pyramid cards. The first space covered on a card must be the entrance square. If you cover gems, torches, or skulls, mark off these spaces on your personal player board; if you cover a potion, erase two covered skulls. If you cover a red X, mark one additional space, either on this pyramid board or your other one; all marked spaces must connect orthogonally.

If you cover the tomb on a pyramid board, set that board aside and take a new board from the four on display or from the deck. When you've completed your second, fourth, or sixth pyramid of the same color — and the deck includes three colors — score the highest color bonus available.

After seven exploration cards have been revealed, the round is over. Shuffle all eight cards, then start a new round. After four rounds, players count their scores, earning 10 points per tomb reached, 5 points per pair of colored gems found, 5 points for each round in which they covered at least one torch, and their color bonuses, after which they lose points based on the number of skulls covered. Whoever has the highest score wins.

• The cover of CGT: Card Game Traders from Damjan Miladinović and Dažbog Games clues you in as to what the game is about: collecting precious trading card games (TCGs):
CGT is a closed economy card game in which players are collectors of valuable cards from famous trading card games. In each game, players will create the "Meta", which will indicate the values of each card. Players will try to control the Meta to make their collection the most valuable.

There are seven different cards in different quantities. At the beginning of the game, each card is given an ability that is used when the card is played or that will change the card's value. The game includes 24 different abilities, which makes the game unique every time you play it.

On a player's turn, they play a card from their hand, increasing its value, carry out the ability of the card, then buy new cards from the market that are collectively valued the same or lower than the new value of the played card.

This overview sounds promising, and I'm curious to discover more about this design at SPIEL '23. Ideally I'll bring several small treasures like this home where I can don medical gloves and examine them closely under a strong light... Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 27, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Designer Diary: General Orders: WWII, or Can You Really Make a Worker Placement Wargame?
by David Thompson

General Orders: World War II pits two commanders against each other in a tug of war for control over a crucial Second World War battlefield, either in the mountains of Italy or the islands of the Pacific. Players strive to seize crucial strategic assets that unlock special abilities, while preventing their opponents from doing the same. They balance the desire to gain these advantages with the need to secure supply lines, ward off aerial assault and artillery barrages, and protect their vulnerable headquarters.

General Orders: WWII combines the dynamic tactical gameplay of a traditional wargame with the cut-throat decision-making of worker-placement games.

This is the story of how General Orders came to be...

Origin

The origin of General Orders dates to 28th December 2021. That day, I sent a string of messages to my design partner for the game, Trevor Benjamin, describing a concept I had. This is what I sent Trevor:
I've been thinking about (this game idea) quite a bit. Each player takes the role of a commander. Their "workers" are their sub-commanders, leading units. Each player would have their own personal board with non-contested actions (logistics, artillery, etc) and there would be a central board with contested actions.

I went on to say, "I think it could work, and the mashup of Euro and a wargame would be interesting. I think a historic setting would actually help separate the game from other worker placement games. What do you think? Crazy?"

Thankfully Trevor was willing to entertain the idea. Over the next couple of days, we messaged back and forth, tossing around concepts, asking each other questions that would tease out the key elements of the design. One thing I was firm on, though, was that I wanted the game to be a worker-placement game, first and foremost. In fact, during this initial period Trevor and I referred to the concept as "WPWG" (worker placement wargame) as a shorthand.

The Design Begins

On 30th December, just a couple of days after Trevor and I began discussing the game idea, we created this initial concept for the board layout and played our first two games (from concept to playtesting in two days – not bad!):

In some ways, the general topography and some space ability ideas from this initial draft live on in the Alpine map in the published version of General Orders: World War II.

From that first session, we decided to add cards that would go on to be the operations cards in the final version of the game, as well as randomized area bonuses for some of the spaces on the board. Many of the concepts we sketched out for the cards and areas bonuses would end up in the final design.

I don't view myself as an especially talented or clever designer. Instead, I think my attributes that serve me best are dedication and perseverance. Trevor and I usually require quite a bit of iteration to reach the final states of our designs. (Unlike me, Trevor is quite a clever fellow, but I hold him back a bit in our collaborations!) Fortunately, though, General Orders was coming together quickly, we felt.

We got together again on 2nd January 2022 for another playtest session. It was during this session that we developed the concepts for how supply would work, how units would be reinforced, and what the basic mechanisms were for advancing into combat, as well as settling on both the threshold for a "normal" win through victory points and the instant victory condition of removing a player from their headquarters. Again, things were moving along quickly, and we were able to lock down core elements of the game that would allow us to shift our focus to the variable elements like the cards and area bonuses.

We continued to test over the next week and a half. By 11th January, we had completed the design for the game – or at least the part of the game that would become the Alpine map and all of the elements associated with it.

The Gameplay

The core gameplay for General Orders is streamlined. Barring an immediate victory by one of the players clearing their opponent's HQ of units, a game plays out over a series of four rounds.

During a round, players alternate taking turns, deploying one of their five commanders (or "workers"). They deploy the commanders to spaces on the board to perform actions such as advancing, conducting paradrops, and firing artillery barrages. Separately, they deploy commanders on a side board to reinforce their troops and gain operations cards.

Controlling certain areas on the board will grant the players special bonuses, and the operations cards can be used for special effects.

The player with the most victory points (which are scored by controlling key areas) at the end of those four rounds wins.

The Pitch

We reached out to Osprey Games on 17th January to pitch the idea for our game, which we had started calling "Take Command". At the time, Filip Hartelius and Anthony Howgego were the lead developers at Osprey, and we had worked closely with them on the Undaunted series, so we had a strong relationship with them and felt the game would be a good fit.

We included a screenshot of our Tabletop Simulator playtest version of the game in our email. Again, from a topography perspective, the board hadn't changed considerably from the initial draft, and while the "point-to-point" map design was replaced with hexes in the final product, the actual board layout (space adjacency) did not change.

We met with Filip and Anthony on 28th January to pitch them the design and play a sample game. After the meeting, we provided them with our Tabletop Simulator module so that they could play the game for themselves. On February 1st, they let us know that they wanted to sign the game.

Trevor and I were very happy with the progress the game had made over a short period of time. In just a little over a month, the game had gone from a basic concept (little more than the idea of smashing up a "worker placement" mechanism with a wargame theme) to being signed by a fantastic publisher.

But the real work was yet to begin...

Further Design and Development

The Alpine side of the board — the board design we had given to Osprey — is symmetric in its topography. While it has a variable set-up due to the way the area bonuses are randomized and placed, the layout is the same for both players. This meant that Trevor and I didn't have to "balance" the board layout for the Alpine map.

Osprey wanted to add a second map to the game, and it wanted the layout for that map to be asymmetric. In addition, we all decided on adding a different element to the second board: aircraft. Trevor and I knew the addition of a new map with an asymmetric layout would require extensive design and testing, so that's what we set out to do.

From February to September, Trevor and I worked on what would eventually become the Island map – that's eight times longer than it took us to design the core game! By September, we had begun an extensive playtest effort. We were comfortable with the Alpine map, so we asked playtesters to first familiarize themselves with the game using that map, but once they knew the rules, we asked them to move to the Island map and collect as much data as possible. For the next month or so the playtest data came in, and Trevor and I carefully analyzed every report. We were fortunate that the feedback was almost universally positive. The balance that we were striving for and had worked so hard to deliver was evidenced in the playtest results.

In October we delivered the final design to Osprey.

The Product

One of the initial responses Osprey had for the game was for it to be a compact product. This is what Filip Hartelius had to say about the idea:
...the direction we want to take is to make it more compact...I'd love to put it into a small box so it's a punchy little portable game. In that format, it'd have a board (roughly A4 size), wooden discs for commanders and wooden cubes for (units), punchboard for the variable tiles, dice, and ops cards. I've attached a photo of my very rough conceptualisation.

This was the image Filip included to help convey his idea:

You can see as early as Filip's initial email about the game that Osprey was also leaning towards transforming our point-to-point map into a hex-grid concept.

Obviously Osprey kept true to Filip's idea for a compact game as General Orders comes in a refreshingly compact box that has been met with universal praise by the boardgaming community.

Next up was the art. Osprey contracted Alex Green, who had not previously worked in the boardgame space, to serve as the artist. Although all art is subjective, we fell in love with the idea of bringing Alex's fresh art style to our hobby. In my opinion, everything from the box cover to the Operations card and especially the boards are both evocative of the subject and also refreshing in their style and color palette. Osprey is well-known for its incredibly high quality art — one of the many reasons we love partnering with the company — and General Orders, with Alex's brilliant work, certainly follows that model.

The Release

General Orders was previewed at Gen Con 2023. Osprey Games was able to bring some stock ahead of publication to the convention, selling out its daily allotment in the first ten minutes each day. Demos ran throughout the convention, and the tables were packed the entire time. We were super excited to see how well the game was received.

Additional early copies and demos will also be available at SPIEL '23
When General Orders is released on 24th October, it will mark the end of an almost two-year process to make the game a reality. From the first email where I pitched the idea to Trevor for a "worker placement wargame" to the published version that includes Alex's incredible art, the creative process for General Orders has been an absolute delight.

David Thompson

Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 27, 2023 - 6:00 am
Video Designer Diary: Bonsai
by Martino Chiacchiera

Designing board games is like nurturing a bonsai as in both situations, patience is key.

Today, we're diving into the Zen-inspired journey of creating Bonsai, a game designed by Massimo Borzì, Rosaria Battiato, and Martino Chiacchiera. This is a tale of six years of growth, collaboration, and friendship.

The Seed of Inspiration

The story began when Rosaria and Massimo pitched the idea of Bonsai during a contest at Etna Comics, an Italian games and comics convention. The concept of arranging hex tiles to form a bonsai was intriguing, but the jury found the gameplay short on depth and the scoring seemed unfulfilling. More work was needed to make it shine. The game yearned for more thematic richness, more "Zen-feeling", and the chance for players to create their own unique masterpieces.

That's when Martino, former developer at DV Games and currently a freelance game designer, stepped in. He instantly fell in love with the bonsai-themed game, and sensing the potential for something special, he immediately reached out for a collaborative effort.

Then he waited for ages. Well, it was about one or two days to get a reply, but it felt like a long time as he was so excited to be allowed to work on this project, he couldn't bear to wait even a second.

Eventually Rosaria and Massimo joyfully agreed to co-design the game, and together they embarked on the journey to rebuild the game from the roots up.

Some playtested versions of the game
Hold On — Why Bonsai and Not Some Other Plant?

It was a choice driven by passion. Massimo, Rosaria, and Martino shared a deep love for Japan, with a Zen garden nurtured at their home and years of studying Japanese (to list a few of our related side hobbies). The dream of nurturing a bonsai held a special place in our hearts, a dream that time and the dedication required never allowed. Creating the game wasn't about profit; it was about realizing a cherished dream together.

In other words, we enjoyed the idea of caring for a bonsai so much that doing a game that would "make us do it" was already a payoff greater than anything else.

A picture of Massimo's Zen garden in Sicily
The Art of Pruning

Over two to three hundred years, erhm..., playtests, we meticulously cultivated the idea of Bonsai. In growing bonsai, patience is key, and here are some key areas we managed to achieve:

Growing Resources
We needed a system to get resources and another to get cards. We didn't want to introduce the usual action just to get those, and we didn't want to introduce a currency to pay for resources and cards as first of all that idea lacked theme, and secondly it wasn't as elegant and interesting as something else.

But what else then? After a few other ideas, we realized we could combine the two problems to get the solution! We therefore introduced a line-drafting system in which the longer a card remains untaken, the richer it becomes in resource rewards. This elegant mechanism mirrors the passage of time and the evolution of both the bonsai and its caretaker. As the ancient proverb says, "A bonsai is the reflection of the grower's soul."

This system would provide interesting and dynamic choices every turn, and it's up to the player to consider each time which card is optimal at every given turn, evaluating also which resources are gained by selecting it over another.

No bookkeeping is needed since the board itself tells you what reward is attached to each card
The Cards of Wisdom
To keep the game accessible while still offering depth, first we tried many different effects that cards could possibly do, then we proceeded to streamline the list of effects to focus on the most engaging possibilities. Minimal design is all about removing the unnecessary because less is more, and that's exactly what we did.

Balancing the Deck
Fine-tuning the deck of cards was like shaping a bonsai as it required meticulous care. We had to ensure that the game remained variable and balanced without resorting to predetermined card orders. Players had to adapt, much like a tree bending with the wind.

An insane amount of different prototypes were done, all differing just by the composition of the deck. We therefore proceeded to stress test all of them, iterating and iterating each time in the effort of "finding the perfect combination", and we never rested until we got to a point we felt nothing could be done to improve it further — or so we thought...

Reading the Canopy
While Bonsai doesn't have direct negative player interaction, the ability to anticipate opponents' moves is a crucial skill. Like a bonsai's branches reaching out to the sun, understanding others' intentions can provide a vital edge.

Every card on display is a juicy opportunity for boosting the growth of your bonsai or scoring more points with it, but none of that is useful if you fail to work with what you have.

The Artistry of Interface
We thought the placement rules were easy and logical: wood grows adjacent to other wood, leaves hang on wood, flowers hang on leaves, and fruits show up between leaves. Also, two fruits cannot be adjacent one to another because that's the way it usually is.

A player aid is included to help someone remember both the placement and scoring rules of each of the four elements, but the game's interface already guides the player to follow them naturally. Each of the four different pieces, in fact, elegantly visualizes its placement rules, creating a harmonious blend of form and function.

The Beauty of Aesthetic
Looking for a great art style, one that could capture the unique feeling of the bonsai world, we had the luck to stumble upon Davood Moghaddami, a talented artist who was instantly in when we found out that along with being a great artist, he is a passionate bonsaist!

Speaking of visual art, we also want to thank the talented Spoiled Boiled for making this amazing video. Watch the official teaser now!

Youtube Video
Harvesting Objectives
We wanted the game to be all about the theme, and one thing that no bonsai can miss is style. Objectives, akin to the goals in Kanagawa and Augustus, were therefore implemented to add depth and tension.

Players now face choices and predictions as they pursue three tiers of goals. To take a small reward now or aim for a bigger prize later, that's a tough choice to consider as soon as you achieve the requirements to score an objective. To keep the game fresh and make the game-puzzle differ each time, a unique mix of three different objectives is selected in each game, and you can claim only one tile in each color.

Freedom of Self-Discovery and Self-Expression
In the world of Bonsai, the most beautiful bonsai is not just a work of art but also the one that scores the most points. Just as wisdom and care transform a humble tree into a living masterpiece, your decisions shape your bonsai's destiny. In order to achieve that, we implicitly made the tiles score more points if added to your bonsai in a thematic way, so to speak.

Rules for placing tiles and the requirements of the objectives are specifically designed to make you build something realistic, but the objectives also differ from game to game — and in the end how you shape that bonsai is up to you anyway.

This, in the words of many playtesters, happened to create a “Zen and relaxing experience” without losing the puzzle and challenge for scoring the most victory points. On the contrary, having more freedom, players also have more agency than usual in finding their unique path to optimal scoring.

The implicit effect of this is that both the tile scoring and the objective requirements leave you space to get to them as you prefer. They provide requirements, but not an exact way to fulfill them. Players are therefore free to build the bonsai almost as they like, and no two are going to look the same!

Watering Bonsai
Before presenting Bonsai to the world, some more aspects were meticulously cultivated:

• DV Games developers Marta Ciaccasassi and Luca Appolloni started right where we had stopped, and spent countless hours polishing the deck and rules, ensuring every card was a piece of the puzzle.

• Together with us, the designers, they nurtured our solo mode, now enriched with unique scenarios to challenge even the most introspective bonsai enthusiasts.

• Several playtesting groups and board game clubs were involved in intense blind-testing sessions to gather feedback, pictures, and numbers in order to assess whether the balancing of all elements was right. This blind-testing process gave us more perspective on the end-user perception and provided great insights on how to improve the game and all its assets.

• We did extensive research on the topic of bonsai and also consulted with the UBI ("Unione Bonsaisti Italiani", an Italian bonsai association) in order to double-check and review all aspects and info related to the game and the world of bonsai. Some of these are summarized in the rulebook for people interested in learning more about this beautiful hobby.

•••
As we wrap up this designer diary, we're reminded of these words of wisdom: "The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second-best time is now."

It was this quote from the Internet that really got us and the publisher thinking; we realized we could do more than "just a game" as everything is a chance to make a difference. First, even though it was more expensive, the game has been entirely produced with FSC materials, including the wraps and inks!

Second, the publisher arranged an agreement with Trees for the Future, a nonprofit organization committed to building more resilient communities and a healthier planet. Through Trees for the Future, DV Games was able to plant eight thousand trees in the last two years.

The Final Blossoming

Bonsai sold out at Gen Con 2023 within minutes, and while it's going to be available only in English and Italian at SPIEL '23, many countries are going to release it soon after in their own language. It's not released worldwide yet, but it's already a success! We are grateful for that and couldn't be happier. As mentioned before, it has always been about the journey, not the destination. We enjoyed working on the game no matter the end result, and therefore the fact that we can finally share the fruit of our labor and passion with so many people fills our hearts with pure joy. We cannot wait to see YOUR unique bonsai growing!

This project is the culmination of years of care, patience, friendship, and collaboration. It's an invitation to embrace the art of shaping and growing, both in the game and in life, so whether you're a seasoned gamer or a novice in this field, come and discover the beauty and tranquility of Bonsai.

How to Play Bonsai

Now that you know everything about how Bonsai was born, learn how to play it by following the tutorial made by Watch It Played!

Youtube Video Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 26, 2023 - 12:00 pm
SPIEL '23 Preview: Add Sea Animals to Your Zoo and Relive a Famous Chess Match
by Candice Harris

• I had the opportunity to play the highly anticipated Marine Worlds expansion for Ark Nova from designer Mathias Wigge, on a review copy provided by Capstone Games. As someone who enjoys Ark Nova, but is not necessarily gaga for it, I was really curious to see how it felt to play with the Marine Worlds expansion and if it would push me closer to being gaga for Ark Nova. If you're not already familiar with Ark Nova, you can check out Eric's first impressions post and video from April 2022 to get a feel for this popular zoo-building game that debuted in October 2021 from publisher Feuerland Spiele.

Ark Nova: Marine Worlds adds sea animals and new aquarium special enclosures for you to add sea animals to your zoo. There are new zoo cards for the new sea animals, as well as new sponsors, and new conservation projects. The new cards are great for adding more variety to Ark Nova, especially considering how much of the gameplay is centered around the cards.

All sea animals have a wave icon on them, which has no effect when playing the card, but whenever you replenish the card display and add a card with the wave icon on it, you'll discard the bottom card of the display and replenish again. I really love this addition because Ark Nova has so many cards and you're often looking for a particular type of animal, so it's nice to have a way to cycle through the cards in the display more frequently.

A few sea animals & aquariums
About half of the sea animals in this expansion have a coral icon on them indicating they are reef dwellers, which introduces a fun, new mechanism to the game when you have reef dweller sea animals in your zoo. Whenever you play a reef dweller card, you trigger the effects of all reef dwellers in your zoo, including the one you just played. These are nice special abilities you can build up in your tableau. However, if you're not planning to collect multiple reef dwellers, you'll miss out on the satisfying feeling of triggering a bunch of them.

Aside from introducing sea animals and aquariums, the Marine Worlds expansion adds 4 alternate versions of each action card. To incorporate the new alternate action cards, each player gets 3 of the new cards at random, which are then drafted – keep 1 and pass 1, etc. From your 3 drafted action cards, you'll choose 2 different types of action cards to keep, swapping out the corresponding original version of each. Each of the alternate action cards have small bonuses, which gives each player a slightly asymmetrical set of action cards to play with. I found this to be a very nice change, and I love the variety of having 4 alternate versions of each of the 5 action card types.

All of the alternate Animals & Build action cards

Player board with Alternate Animals & Build action cards

Marine Worlds also comes with a new association board to accommodate new universities. When you perform an Association action to gain a partner university, there's a new generic university tile that allows you to gain one of the new animal-specific universities (associated with a particular type of animal), if you don't already have one. This adds a research icon and an animal icon to your zoo, and allows you to immediately gain a card from the deck that matches the corresponding university's animal type. I found this to be very helpful because it's another way to get more animal icons you need in your zoo.

New universities
There are new bonus tiles, new final scoring cards, and new base conservation project cards that add even more variety to Ark Nova. In addition, there are 38 replacement cards; some cards needed updated iconography to incorporate sea animals, and some card effects were changed as well. I didn't notice any major impacts from these changes, but I definitely appreciate the variety.

Another bonus in the Marine Worlds expansion is the cute, upgraded components for the 3 main tracks and animal-shaped player tokens to use on the left edge of your zoo map instead of cubes.

It's the little things...
Marine Worlds adds cool, new elements to Ark Nova that I found enjoyable. It's one of those expansions that feels smooth to integrate with the base game, since the new elements are interesting and add more variety without adding a lot of bloat. While it's not something you must have to enjoy the game, I don't think I would ever play Ark Nova without it, and I certainly don't think it adds much complexity-wise where new players couldn't jump right in with the expansion. If you are already a fan of Ark Nova, this expansion is a no-brainer. If you're not an Ark Nova fan, don't expect this expansion to sway you much, but maybe the few new twists are just what you're looking for. Either way, the additions are great, and the game still plays similar to the base game, just with a tad more variety and nice component upgrades.

• The past few years, Capstone Games has been knocking it out of the park, bringing awesome, small-box, two-player games to the U.S. from European publishers such as Frosted Games (Watergate), 1 More Time Games (Riftforce), and Deep Print Games (Beer & Bread). If you enjoyed any or all of the aforementioned games, you should definitely check out Match of the Century from Paolo Mori, which is a SPIEL '23 release from Deep Print Games and Capstone Games.

Paolo Mori (Ethnos, Libertalia, Dogs of War) needs no introduction, and clearly knows his way around designing excellent, tense, two-player games, which I discovered by playing, loving, and sweating through Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes and Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes!, from PSC Games. Thus, I was very excited to get my hands on an advance copy of Match of the Century, which Clay Ross let me borrow to play with Eric during Gen Con, and then kindly sent me a copy ahead of SPIEL '23.

Match of the Century is a two-player, unique card-driven game where one player assumes the role of Bobby Fischer and the other player plays as Boris Spassky, recreating the final match of the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik. Each player has their own asymmetrical decks, and you alternate playing cards to simulate multiple short and tense chess games until one player reaches 6 points, winning the title and becoming a chess legend.

Eric & I playing our first game at Gen Con
In Match of the Century, as in a real chess match, you play a series of games. To avoid confusion, I'll refer to the chess "games" as "rounds" within a game of Match of the Century. Each round comprises up to four exchanges, where you and your opponent play exactly one card each. As a result of an exchange, you usually gain or lose advantage relative to your opponent, and this is tracked on the left side of the game board as you resolve each exchange. If the advantage marker is on your side at the end of the round, you score a point. Otherwise, if it's on your opponent's side, they score a point. If it's on the neutral space indicating a draw, you both score a point.

Each player has their own unique deck of 16 cards, and each card represents 2 of 32 chess pieces. The cards are separated into two parts: one part shows a white chess piece and the other part shows a black chess piece. Each side of each card has a strength and an effect. When you're playing Match of the Century, you take turns playing as white and as black. In the first round, Spassky plays with the white pieces so that player will have the white queen as a reminder, and Fischer plays with the black pieces. It's helpful to flip your cards in your hand so they're all showing the color pieces you'll be playing for the current round.

Card examples from each deck
Players sit on the side of the table such that the Fischer player is facing the blue side of the game board, and the Spassky player is on the red side. Each player has a mental endurance track on their side of the board to represent changes in their focus and fatigue throughout the match. Throughout the game, when you gain or lose mental endurance, you'll adjust your mental endurance track accordingly. Your mental endurance level is mostly important because it indicates your hand limit. The more cards you can hold, the more flexibility you have when it comes to exchanges. Depending on your mental endurance level, you also may gain some pawns to strengthen the cards you play for exchanges, and it also may affect where the advantage marker starts at the beginning of a round. In any case, it's important to keep your mental endurance in a good position relative to your opponent's as you play Match of the Century. It's also beneficial to avoid some of the punishing disadvantages of low mental endurance. This is a great thematic mechanism in a game about a major chess competition.

Each round, you play up to a max of four exchanges. Starting with the player who has the initiative, each player plays one card onto to any open exchange space, with a piece of their current chess color pointing to the center. In addition to playing a card, you may immediately strengthen its piece by adding up to 2 pawns from your personal reserve to the 2 pawn spaces above the card. You gain these pawns from either the mental endurance track, or from card effects. After the player with the initiative plays a card, their opponent must play a card on their side of the same exchange section, and they may also optionally add up to 2 pawns from their personal supply to strengthen their piece.

Advantage & Mental Endurance tokens pictured are substitutes
since I misplaced the original discsOnce both cards have been played, compare the strengths of the two pieces on the cards, noting each pawn adds +1 to the strength of its piece. The player with the lower strength may then trigger their piece's effect. There are a variety of different effects associated with different chess pieces on the cards, such as drawing additional cards, gaining/losing mental endurance, gaining pawns, shifting the advantage, and more. After the player with the lower strength resolves their card effect, the player with the higher strength gains the advantage that's shown in the middle of the exchange section between the cards, which means you'll move the advantage marker a number of spaces towards you, depending on the exchange section. Whenever you win the exchange showing "IIII", you move the advantage marker 4 spaces towards you, but you also lose 1 mental endurance.

The exchanges are the meat and potatoes of the game. There are so many rich decisions that come from the hand management in Match of the Century. You have so many things to consider when you're playing a card into an exchange whether you're playing a card first or second. If you have the initiative and you're playing a card first, you have to not only decide which card you want to play, but also which exchange section you want to play into. You are also factoring in how your opponent may respond, and when it makes sense to add pawns to strengthen your card. Plus, you also need to consider what's on the opposite part of the card because it may be a card you want to save for next round when you're playing the other color. When you win an exchange, you're going to start the next one and sometimes that can put you in a vulnerable position.

As the player playing the second card, you have so many decisions as well. Is it important for you to win this particular exchange? Do you want to play a stronger piece, or perhaps a weaker piece then add some pawns to win this exchange? Does it make sense to tie and make it a draw? Or do you want to intentionally lose so you can trigger a powerful ability on your card? Again, lots of awesome decisions to consider and lends itself to tense, thinky gameplay...just like chess!

Player aids...yay!After each exchange is resolved, you check to see if the current round is finished. If all four exchanges were resolved, the round ends. The round may end sooner from certain card effects, or if the sum of the advantages of the unresolved exchange sections (with no cards) is lower than the advantage that either player has already gained on the advantage track. Also, if it is a player's turn to play a card but they cannot or do not want to, they must resign, and the other player would score a point for that round. Otherwise, you start another round by resetting the advantage marker to the neutral space, discarding the cards and pawns on the board. Players may also optionally discard any number of cards from their hand at the end of the round before drawing back to your hand limit for the next round, but beware. Whenever your draw deck is empty and you need to draw a card, you'll reshuffle your deck to draw cards, and immediately lose 1 mental endurance. The flow of the game is also broken down on the player aids included, so you'll barely need to consult the rulebook after you play it once.

Again, if whoever wins a round scores a point, and if players tie, they both score a point. As soon as a player's king (score tracker) reaches the center space on the match track (6 points), that player wins the entire match and the game ends.

Intimidating my friend Jason with my masterful "chess" skills
If you are a fan of games with simple rules, tough choices, and tense gameplay, Match of the Century might be right up your alley. I really dig it for those reasons, but also because it's thematic and unique. The component quality is great and it can be played in less than an hour, which is great. It's also super cool that Match of the Century includes a 23-page historical context booklet, which is awesome to have for a game based on a real historical event. Read more »
Source: BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek | Published: September 26, 2023 - 6:00 am

DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items

● Misfit Studios October 2023 Newsletter
Publisher: Misfit Studios
The Misfit Studios October 2023 Newsletter

The monthly newsletters by Misfit Studios presents news regarding what is going on with the company, recaps the products it released during the previous month, and offers a product promotion.

The Misfit Studios October 2023 Newsletter Contains Release Details on:
Price: $0.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 4:54 am
● d66 Nightmarish Visions
Publisher: Sad Fishe Games
36 nightmarish visions a modern explorer of the mythos or delver into other horrors may experience in their trauma and exposure to terrors beyond their reckoning: bleeding walls, cannibalistic rituals, horrific paralysis, grinning teeth in the night, and more.

The entirety of this product is available in the preview. Please use it with our blessing.
Price: $0.99 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 4:03 am
● Toothberries - An item for Mork Borg
Publisher: Grim Goat Games
Deliciously crunchy teeth that heals the body. Eat too many and more may grow.

Toothberries is an independent production by Grim Goat Games and is not affiliated with Ockult Örtmästare Games or Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License.

MÖRK BORG is copyright Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell.
Price: $1.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 3:45 am
● Second City Nocturne
Publisher: Michael Brown
After Prohibition was enacted in the United States, the streets of Chicago ran red with blood as organized crime kingpins such as Al Capone, Bugs Moran, and Joe Aiello battled viciously to control the bootleg alcohol trade.

But not all the blood was the result of Tommy guns and knives in the back. Some of it was due to the presence of age-old evil that most people simply considered a myth. Count Vlad Dracula, his eternal thirst for blood having driven him to take up residence in America, took advantage of the violence and chaos to establish a new feeding ground.

But to his dread, two others of his kind muscled in on his territory: Countess Elizabeth Bathory and Carmilla Karnstein also decided to establish hunting grounds among the unwitting Chicagoans. Thus, another war erupted in the streets of the Windy City, this one not for pieces of the liquor trade, but literally for blood.

Second City Nocturne is a dark urban horror mini-campaign setting. Intended to be system-agnostic, there are no rules or mechanics for any particular RPG system. GMs (Referees, Judges, etc.) are free to adapt the setting to their worlds however they see fit.
Price: $1.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 3:27 am
● Interstellar Terra
Publisher: Chaosium
In this Game Novel YOU are an accomplished scientist; expert in astronomy and interplanetary teleportation. Originating from a planet similar to Earth, you have explored many worlds within your solar system.Your home-planet and its neighbouring worlds however, exist in a parallel universe to that of Earth.

Whilst observing the skies with your unique telescope, you discover a dark and frigid interstellar planet which you plan to explore. But on attempting to teleport to this world, things don't go to plan, and you arrive at a place which throws your mind into debate as to your true location. Will you ever find out where you are, and will you ever get back home?
Price: $0.50 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 2:57 am
● Maps for Fantasy RPGs 8
Publisher: Laidback DM
Laidback DM's Maps for Fantasy RPGs 8 is a collection of 20 hand-drawn, full color maps (3 zip files, totalling 100 digital image files, in CMYK Print format, RGB Screen format, full size A3 & A4 grid and grid-less and grid-less VTT size). These maps come with a limited commercial license allowing you, the purchaser, to use them royalty-free in your own commercial or private publication projects.

Dungeons, caverns, temples, ruins, lairs, tombs and more! All map images are high quality 300-600DPI (print quality is 300DPI) full color JPEGS.

These maps are system-neutral and can be used with any fantasy game.

(Note: The three compressed zip files total approximately 2.2 GB - please be patient while downloading).

Price: $20.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 12:37 am
● The White Forest - A Fairy Tale Setting Overlay and Adventure
Publisher: EDGE Studio
Amend an existing setting to play on fairy tale tropes and emulate your favorite classic adventures. The White Forest offers nine archetypes, fourteen talents, thirteen adversaries, advice on curses and enchantments with examples of each, and a simple system for combining the various villain types to create prototypical fairy tale villains.

Mix and match the pieces your setting can use to tell a fairy tale in any universe, or jump into the included adventure prompt and undertake a quest to the White Forest to recover the artifact that can save the kingdom from a terrible curse.
Price: $3.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: October 1, 2023 - 12:26 am
Specialty Books
Publisher: Free League Publishing
Specialty Books contains rules for Twilight 2000 4th edition, detailing how to use various books to learn Specialties.

Inside this 14-page supplement are
- The rules on how to use these books to learn Specialties.
- Short descriptions of over 125 books that can be scavenged, looted or bought by your player characters.
- 14 new specialties.
- An optional rule for reading books during downtime Rest periods to heal additional Stress.
- The posibility of the player characters finding a Twilight 2000 book, and sitting down during downtime to play some roleplaying games.
Price: $2.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: September 30, 2023 - 11:47 pm
Five Visits to Goldrun's Grotto
Publisher: Leicester's Rambles
Welcome to Goldrun's Grotto, a cave complex out in the wild lands. Over the years, the complex has been claimed and reclaimed by numerous occupants.

The adventure consistes of five short scenarios crafted for various levels of RPG play, and on a number of themes. Not all of the scenes are straight kill-things-and-take-their-stuff, and bosses may be dealt with in numerous ways. Depending on your game, you may be able to dovetail a scenario into an ongoing campaign as a one-shot or location to acquire a resource. Enjoy.
Price: $1.99 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: September 30, 2023 - 11:44 pm
d12 Monthly Issue 28 FULL Version - Halloween 2023
Publisher: YUM_DM
This is the FULL version of issue 28 of the successful zine, d12 Monthly. This issue is the Halloween 2023 issue.

The FULL version of this issue contains 5 additional articles over 28-pages.

A zine for fans of the longest-running roleplaying game, or any fantasy TTRPG, in the same vein as the roleplaying magazines of old.

You will find articles intended to spur on ideas for your own campaign.

The FREE version of this issue is available free from my website, but this is a way you can access the FULL version, plus have all your TTRPG stuff in one place, and help support me and my work.

This issue contains the following:

The Art of Fear – An article giving you techniques and tips to help you craft a bone-chilling atmosphere for your next session. This also includes a simple fear mechanic you can use.

The Traveller Has Come – Rumours and stories talk of a strange traveller who only appears on Halloween night – use The Traveller in various ways to help or frighten your PCs.

I Put It On… – 16 new cursed items to add to your treasure piles and make your PCs think twice before trying on that magic item.

Items Most Foul – Items, after being used long enough or for an extraordinarily heinous or holy event, will take on the characteristics of what it was used for. Listed are four powerful and unique items.

Carnival of Horrors – A series of articles on a macabre and eerie travelling carnival, including nine different exhibitions, three games of skill and three games of chance that your PCs may (or may not) want to play. Plus a list of macabre prizes that can be won.

A Fractious Night – Six devilish factions to use in your world, either in a one-off Halloween game, or for a long campaign.

Random Monsters – Two completely new monsters: the Goblin-Spider, and the Aarachin (a humanoid race of arachnids). Both come from the demi-plane of Gossamer (see below).

Gossamer – Gossamer is a stunning and enigmatic demi-plane nestled within the vast expanse of the Ethereal Plane, and is controlled by a familiar, but deadly enemy.

Witch’s Grimoire – This article contains six bloody and macabre rituals that witches in your campaign can perform to achieve their sinister goals.

Quite A Scare! – Over time mystics and hedge wizards have started creating scarecrows to ward off more than just birds.

Don’t Make A Mis-Stake! – Six wooden stakes that serve as a deadly weapon against vampires (and sometimes other beings).

Enjoy this zine!
Price: $4.00 Read more »
Source: DriveThruRPG.com Newest Items | Published: September 30, 2023 - 11:21 pm

Gnome Stew

Retool or Dump
I almost canceled my new Cyberpunk: Red campaign. Well…I thought about it. I was four sessions in and the game had not gelled. That is a red flag for me. I did some introspection and pondered what about it was not working for me. When I had a handle on what wasn’t working, I talked to my players. After a good discussion, we decided not to dump the game, but rather re-tool the campaign. So, I thought I would talk today about the two options, we have when a game is not quite doing it for us: Retool or Dump.

Gelling The Campaign

A new campaign is like the first season of a TV series. The characters are not fully developed, and everything is a bit clunky. With a good TV series, within a few episodes, it either comes together and forms a solid series, or it never gels and winds up getting canceled.

The same holds true for campaigns. In those first few sessions, everything is a bit clunky. Players have not fully embodied their characters, the first story never has the same emotional hooks or depth, and if the system is new, everyone is fumbling with the system. After a few sessions, one of two things happens… It gels, that is everything starts working, players get a good feel for their characters, the emotional investment in the story takes hold, and everyone starts getting comfortable with the game system, or it does not.

I can’t list all the characteristics of what a campaign feels like when it gels, but you can feel it. The game starts working, people are interested, the story is compelling, the system is fun to play, and overall everyone is having a good time. When it does not gel, it’s the opposite, everything is a struggle.

Fail Early

I have in my 40+ year tenure as a GM, had a lot of campaigns not take off. I have canceled more of them than I can keep track of. Over the years, I developed a philosophy of: “Fail Early and Move On.” This means that if a game is not working out after a few sessions, it’s time to make a decision about retooling it or dumping it.
If your game is not generating joy for you, scrap it and find another game that will bring you joy.
The idea is that time is limited and precious. If your game is not generating joy for you, scrap it and find another game that will bring you joy. For those of you who only play one system, scrap the campaign you have for another one…

The Four Session Rule

To help this along, I have what I call the Four Session Rule: Play four full sessions of the campaign, with no changes. I like four sessions because it gives you a few sessions to get used to the rules, as well as enough play to engage most of the core rules of the game. It also lets you get at least one full story done, so you can see if the setting and plots are working, and four sessions lets the players get comfortable with their characters.

At the end of the fourth session, discuss as a group if this game is gelling or not. If it is, keep playing. If it is not, what needs to be changed/fixed to get the game to gel?

This rule has become a part of the Social Contract for my group. At the end of the fourth session, we have a discussion and make a decision.

What to Look For

So how do you know if you should dump a campaign or just retool it? Again, there is no exact science on this, but here are the criteria that I use.

The problem areas I look for are the following:

Rules are not a good fit

I am a person who likes a light to moderate amount of crunch to a game. I like rules and I like mechanics until they become too complex. So if a game has rules that are either too simple or too complex, then the rules are not a good fit for me. That is also true for my players. If the rules are not working for them, then it also is not a good fit. I am lucky in that my players have about the same range of rule complexity as I do.

In this same category is also something a bit more subjective. Are the rules fun? That is, is the game fun to play? If the rules are annoying or frustrating then they are likely going to be a pass for me.

Setting Is Not Working

The next issue, for me, is if the setting is not engaging or worse is frustrating. As a GM, the setting of the game is the foundation for the stories that I am going to facilitate. If the setting is not exciting, or designed in a way that is hindering my ability to craft the plots I want to tell, then the game is going to be less enjoyable for me and start draining my energy.

The Core Loop Is Not Interesting

The core loop of the game is the main type of story that the characters engage in. For something like Blades in the Dark, these are jobs. In a Gumshoe game, investigations. For a D&D game, it might be Dungeon Crawling. Whatever that core loop is, it needs to be interesting and enjoyable for more than one session. After all, it’s the core loop, the majority of stories will be centered around this activity, so if this is difficult or a struggle, then why are we playing it?

Issues with Characters

Are the characters fitting into the setting, the core loop, and within the rules? Are the characters interesting, the kind of people I want to get to know through a campaign? Are they a good team/group/party?

No matter what you think, as a GM, your best plots and ideas, don’t work unless the characters are interesting, work mechanically, and can operate as a team.

Retool or Dump

Once you know what is not working. Now you have to decide if you want to retool or dump the campaign. This boils down to the following question:

Can you easily change something or several things to get the game to gel?

Some things are going to be easy to change and some things are embedded into the fabric of the game. Here is what I think about:
- Rules – Can a house rule or two fix the issues? Then retool. Otherwise, dump the campaign for a rules system that is a better fit.
- Setting – Can you change the thing you are not enjoying with the setting without the premise of the setting unraveling? For instance, can you just move the game to another location and solve the problem, or are you fighting with the concept of magic in Eberon? The former is easily fixed, but the latter is not.
- Core Loop – This one is tricky. Some games tightly couple the core loop of the game to the setting and rules (e.g. Blades in the Dark). Whereas other games have a far less tightly coupled core loop (e.g. D&D). You can’t really play Blades In the Dark if you do not want to “do jobs”, but you could find something else to do if you did not want to Dungeon Delve in D&D.
- Characters – Are the players amenable to making changes to their characters? Would some of them make new characters? Make mechanical changes to them? Can the group change the premise of how they came together as a group?
After you look at the changes that need to be made you can decide if you want to retool the game or dump it.

If you Dump It

This is pretty easy. Stop playing that campaign and look for something that is going to work better. Use what you learned as a way to inform your next campaign choice.

If you Retool

If you retool, figure out what you need to change. Discuss with your group what story and continuity changes may need to be made to make the adjustments. Keep the parts of the game you like, anc change out what is not working.

You can decide to have an in-game reason for why these changes took place, or you can just make the changes by fiat, and move on.

CPR Case Study

For my Cyberpunk Red campaign, there were a few issues that were preventing things from gelling:
- The Red setting is different from 2020 or 2070, and I struggled with how it at times felt more post-apocalyptic and less chrome and neon. That was an issue that I could not fix wholesale, but I could lessen it by keeping the characters in Night City and not putting them out on the wasteland roads.
- Core Loop – our campaign idea was to be a Nomad family traveling around helping people, but that was emphasizing the setting issues.
- Characters – I had one player who made a variant of the Rockerboy (Celebrity Chef) that on paper worked, but at the table never worked for me. We also did not have anyone who could do healing and we lacked a Netrunner. Not having a Netrunner in any Cyberpunk game was making writing plots a challenge.
As I said, we decided to keep the game, and here are the fixes we made:
- We centered the game in Night City. Our Nomad clan existed, but the characters were charged to set up a home base in Night City where the Clan could come to when they were in town, and the characters could acquire supplies for the nomads while they were on the road.
- Instead of helping people on the road, the characters are going to clear out and then take responsibility for some city blocks in the combat zone. They can still do good and help people, but it will be centered in the city, and in doing so will also allow us to have more recurring NPC, which is something the players wanted.
- The one player who was playing the Nomad retired that character and created a MedTech, so the group had access to medical aid. The Rockerboy/Chef retired their character and made a Netrunner.
We have had two sessions, since then, and the game is running much better. It is starting to gel, and I think overall we are all happier.

A Watched Campaign Never Gels? (That isn’t true, but it’s catchy.)

Campaigns are tricky. Some work and some don’t, and it’s hard to get all the factors right before you start playing the game. At the same time, your gaming time is valuable and you should be getting energy from your game. So run a new campaign for a bit (I like 4 sessions) and see if it gels. If not, figure out why it’s not working and then decide if you need to retool or dump it.

How about you? Do you have a set number of sessions to see if a campaign is going to gel? Do you retool struggling campaigns or do you just move on to something else?
Read more »
Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 29, 2023 - 10:00 am
mp3 Gnomecast#173 – Welcome Back Walt

The gnomes are happy to welcome back Walt to the gnome tree. Walt is one of the original gnomes and an RPG game designer with more writing credits than he can remember. From Cubicle 7s Victoriana to Green Ronin’s days of DC adventures. Check out this conversation that’s nostalgia, interesting, and informative.
Read more »
Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 27, 2023 - 10:10 am
The Gamer’s Bane: Scheduling
Is it time to game yet?

When I first started playing, I was just a teenager and it felt like there was never anything getting in the way of us gaming. We played every weekend and more than that during the summer. When I got to college it was pretty much the same, but I also had a license and a car and could drive myself to games. Gaming was glorious and often.

Today, though, the biggest obstacle to playing is getting games scheduled. I think we can all acknowledge that the desire to play does not always equal the ability to get a game to the table.
I think we can all acknowledge that the desire to play does not always equal the ability to get a game to the table.
Scheduling is a topic that has been covered before her on the Stew, both directly and indirectly, but it is a recurring issue we all face when engaging with this hobby. I am blessed with several ongoing games, but lately it seems like everyone has stumbled due to scheduling issues. Long gone are those rosy days of youth when our obligations were few and our free time expansive. Now we juggle our jobs, our families, our commitments, and any other hobbies we enjoy. Life is complicated.

When the D&D Movie, “Honor Among Thieves” had its opening pushed back this past March, we all joked that was about the most on the money thing that could happen to a movie based on an RPG.

So, let’s talk about some thoughts regarding scheduling:
- Have a cat herder. The title implies an impossible task, which it can certainly feel like, but it’s a crucial one for the health of a group. The cat herder can take different forms, but in my group it’s the person who starts the conversation about when we’re going to game and sends out the reminders or calendar invites to make sure everyone stays on the same page. Treasure your cat herders because they are most likely the glue keeping your gaming group together.
- Become a cat herder. If your group doesn’t have a cat herder or you’re trying to get one together, it’s time to look at learning what it takes to become one. This is a set of skills that can be developed over time. It’s a mix of managing a calendar to keep track of what’s supposed to happen when, but also of communication so everyone else knows what’s what. Believe me, if you can manage this skill, your gaming life will be better for it.
- Be consistent. Consistency matters for both communication and the dates that you play on. Whatever cadence of play the group has agreed on, try to stick to that. This doesn’t mean be inflexible about things, but if the group agreed that Sunday afternoons are good, don’t suddenly start asking that group to show up on Wednesday evening. The other key to this is communicating about when you’re going to play. Some of my groups have a particular day we play, but we still e-mail a few days before to remind everyone. Other groups will plan out when we can play over period of time through a poll and pick days that work for the group as a whole.
- Be realistic about your time. We’ve all seen someone, or been the someone, who commits to a game and then misses a session. Then another session. And maybe out of four sessions, they’ve made it to one. Groups should have an understanding that real life comes first, but we also must understand when we’re overcommitting. When that happens, the best thing to do might be to gently bow out of the game with apologies to the rest of the group.
- Time of year doesn’t really matter. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that everything will be easier when we get to summer, and everyone’s schedule opens up. Then summer gets busy, and we start thinking, “Well, in the fall everyone will be available again.” But then before you know it, we’re careening headlong into the holiday season. When you’re trying to get a group of several people together, schedule conflicts are going to pop up throughout the whole year no matter what your plans are.
- Know you’re not alone. When you’re starting to get frustrated that it seems like it’s impossible to get a game together, take comfort that this is a common problem most of us are dealing with. Even the most secure and longest lasting groups still deal with scheduling issues on occasion. It’s not the end of the world for a group to take a short hiatus while scheduling conflicts are handled. More than likely you’re gaming with friends, or at least friendly acquaintances. Show yourself and them a little grace.
- Be kind to one another. We all want to play. Very rarely is someone intending to be malicious or purposefully rude with scheduling difficulties (and if they are, why would you want to game with them anyway). While everything I have already said is important: consistency, communication, etc., we still need to remember that life is complicated and we need to keep a degree of flexibility. And sometimes kindness is admitting when a game may not be working for everyone involved.
Thankfully my gaming schedule seems to be smoothing out a bit. Well, at least until we hit the holidays coming up. Ah well, I’m sure it will all work out in the end. Have you had schedule problems to deal with like this?
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Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 25, 2023 - 10:00 am
mp3VideoGnomecast#172 – RPG A Day Conversation
Ang, Chris, and Senda get together to talk about some of the RPG a day questions from 2023.
- Baker Mealtrain: https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/lk908w/
- Sean P. Kelly and how2 RPG just released a great video all about Vassen. https://youtu.be/HuRUr27nSV4?si=fNaYtAH86hVC4J00
- Seth Skorwkowsky on a ‘Great Player Mindset’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNElPzNkgOs
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Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 13, 2023 - 10:00 am
Video The Crusty Old Gnome: Back to Basic
So many choices for the Wayback Machine…

I wanna go back and do it all over but I can’t go back, I know.
— Eddie Money, “I Wanna Go Back”

Can you make what’s old new again?

Hi, all! It’s been seven years since this Original Gnome has been a regular contributor and six years since I’ve produced anything for the Stew. So why have I finally gotten out of the rocking chair and off the porch? Well, because I’ve finally found new things to say about, well, old things!

Specifically, I’ve spent much of my gaming time this year running Old School Essentials (OSE), which is essentially a repackaging of what is commonly known as the B/X edition (1981) of Dungeons & Dragons, and I thought I’d share some of my insights!

How it Began

This journey started when I was watching a YouTube video last year by Matt Colville and my eldest daughter said that old school dungeon delving sounded like a lot of fun. I decided that I’d show her how we used to play by putting together a group and playing like it was the early 1980s.

I also printed her a copy of A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming and shared it with the budding group before play, as well as took a look at the notes for the West Marches campaign, which, like I was hoping to do now, emulated that 1970s playstyle.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the Wayback Machine. I realized that, despite owning and playing the B/X edition (my first roleplaying game), I’d never actually played in the Old School style. If I was going to pull this off, I had a lot of learning and adapting to do!

Disclaimer

Before continuing, I feel that I should point out that I am not claiming any familiarity with the way Dungeons & Dragons was originally intended to be played nor am I familiar with the Old School Renaissance/Revival/Rules movement (OSR) beyond playing a big game of catch-up this year.

Nor am I claiming that I am playing OSE exactly the way Gary Gygax’s group did in the 70s or even the way Tom Moldvay intended in 1981. This series of articles is my interpretation and implementation of old concepts for my gaming group.

The First Lesson: Defining a Campaign

While the ruleset I’m using is a restatement of the B/X rulebooks and written by someone other than Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson, there is a lot of terminology and assumptions regarding familiarity that simply went over my head as a kid (which I later cheekily termed “High Gygaxian,” although I’m sure that I’m far from the first!) and only now, decades later, do I better understand what was being conveyed in many of those Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books.

But let’s step back a minute. As a forever Game Master (my preferred title), I’m used to thinking about my games in terms of sessions, adventures, and campaigns. “Sessions” is by far the easiest to define, as it is the time that the group gathers (physically or virtually) to play. It doesn’t matter what happens during that period; being together is a session.

An “adventure” is the journey to complete a shared objective. This could take one session, multiple sessions, or even just part of a session. As long as the player characters are given a goal and they go about completing it, overcoming the challenges along the way, that’s an adventure.

It’s “campaign,” that I sometimes struggle to fully define (I often resort to US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s description of obscenity when defining a campaign: “I know it when I see it”). When I come across a GM that proudly proclaims that they’ve been running the same campaign for 20 or 30 years, I just can’t comprehend it. Three decades? With the same characters? With the same storyline?

To me, a “campaign” is a series of linked adventures that builds to a hopefully exciting conclusion. The final adventure in a campaign might be having the now-powerful PCs taking on the Big Bad of the campaign, or it may simply be the last adventure that these PCs have before walking off into the sunset. Usually, a campaign has roughly the same cast of PCs at the end as at the beginning, but sometimes PC turnover can lead to a completely different cast finishing the campaign.

But while preparing for my OSE campaign, I realized that I needed to replace these definitions.

Old School Definitions

In the Old School (at least as I recognize it, see the above disclaimer!), there is no concept of a “session.” Everything is defined as an “adventure” or a “campaign.” To take the latter first, a “campaign” is merely the playing area that the GM (or Referee or Dungeon Master) prepares for the group to go adventuring in.

When Old School players speak of exploring the world, they really mean this map. Thus, the “world” can be as small as a single town and nearby dungeon, or as large as an entire world (and beyond!). It’s really up to the GM how much they want to create. But whatever they design, Old School players want to feel free to roam all over it at their discretion.

For them, an “adventure” means the same thing as a “session.” It is understood that the session begins with the group gathered at a home base (usually a town or a keep out on the borderlands). The group decides where they want to explore, they spend the bulk of the session doing it, and at the conclusion of the session they return to their home base to bank treasure, learn about magic items, gain XP, and potentially level up.

Since the group probably doesn’t explore an entire dungeon in a single adventure/session, the terminology can be a bit confusing to modern minds. Cleaning out, for example, the Tunnels of Terror, might take several adventures. It’s also possible that the group might move on to explore the Caldera of Doom before finishing the Tunnels.

One Last Point about Campaigns

I stated above that the campaign is simply the area that a GM has prepared. While that is true, there is a bit more to it in the Old School. The GM’s world is a “living” place, and any group of players that plays with that GM is assumed to be playing in the same campaign.

So, you could literally have a situation that a group that meets on Sundays may be exploring the Tunnels of Terror, only to find one Sunday that a group that met on Wednesday finished cleaning it out. It’s even possible that some of the same Sunday players and characters might have been in the Wednesday group.

This is the thinking behind Gary Gygax’s infamous line in the 1979 Dungeon Master’s Guide, “YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT” (emphasis his). As Mr. Gygax was running several groups through his campaign at once, he needed to keep track of where all the characters were at any given time. He assumed that all other GMs would be blessed with the number of players, and opportunities to play, that he had.

Wrapping Up

Having educated myself on the terminology, I knew I couldn’t fully embrace them. My campaign was going to take place at a set time (about once a month) and whoever showed up that day would go on an adventure. The group would start in a safe place and end in a safe place.

As a nice bonus, this meant that there wouldn’t be a need to worry about missing players. Anyone who couldn’t make the session simply didn’t join the party for that adventure, and it also allowed present players to swap out characters if they wanted to.

On the potential downside, I also needed to get the PCs back to a safe place at the conclusion of each adventure. This meant that I’d sometimes have to handwave things to ensure that happened, no matter where the group found itself by the session’s final hour.

Hopefully, you found this discussion as insightful as I did! Next time, I’m going to talk about setting up my Old School campaign!
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Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 11, 2023 - 10:00 am
My experience with Forgery! (Why you should try it!)
All images were taken from the Forgery game

Among the many indie games and zines that came out in Zine Month there was Forgery. This is a solo journaling experience that has you painting a cursed painting while creating a story, created by Banana Chan, and with a small team behind her. I’ve always really digged the vibe of everything Banana creates, so I was pumped to try this game out. I backed it, and it is only just now that I’ve got the chance to play it. Let me tell you… It’s quite different from other things I’ve tried.

A brief idea of what Forgery actually is

In Forgery, you put yourself in the shoes of Tempest, a girl who’s struggling as a freelance artist in the city of New York. Everyone told you to follow other easier lifestyles, but this is your dream, and you are going to do your best at it. How is it going, though? Poorly. That is until you get a commission to copy a creepy painting of a fiendish creature. You still don’t know it, but that painting is cursed, and things are going to get weird pretty quickly.

Similarly to Choose Your Own Adventure stories, you have to read the zine page by page, jumping from one chapter to another whenever you make a decision. However, there are prompts that constantly appear throughout the text to allow the player to indicate Tempest’s thoughts, responses, and to add depth to her backstory. Then, once Tempest receives the painting commission, you’ll have to paint the cursed painting following a set of instructions. No dice, no character sheet, no cards. Only the rules, a journal, the demonic drawing, and something to paint it with.

The Story
In fact, it is so good Carlos Cisco wrote a whole script to possibly create a movie out of this.
I can’t talk about Forgery without putting emphasis on the story being told. The story itself isn’t that different from other tales we have already seen or heard before. However, Forgery goes a step further and makes it not only very adult but heavily emotional as well. In fact, it is so good Carlos Cisco wrote a whole script to possibly create a movie out of this. In many moments during the game, I would feel as if I was playing a Telltale or Life is Strange game. There is a set story to tell, but the decisions you take might allow you to encounter substories that are happening as you play. In the end, like in these sort of stories, you always end up moving along a straight route. You may come and go, but the result leads you to the same focal decisions in the story. Does this mean the game doesn’t allow much freedom? Mmmm… Actually, even though the story being told is similar on every playthrough, the ramifications you choose and the responses to the prompts you give make no two runs alike.

I do believe that what truly makes the story stand on its own and feel really emotional is not only the great writing, but also the prompts. The story puts the character you are roleplaying into all kinds of situations, and in those moments, it may ask you how you react, or what is going through your mind at the moment. Every single time I had to write these what I wrote ended up heavily influencing my later decisions in the story. That makes it much more interactive than a Choose Your Own Adventure book, pretty much at the same level as the story based videogames I named before, maybe even more. It may not end in a whole plethora of different finales like Choose Your Own Adventure books, but still, the story got me hooked til the end. Nevertheless, I don’t think I would replay the game but would love to hear which paths other people took and how their own stories went. The story must have taken me 6 hours to complete from start to finish, but I am a slow reader and don’t paint really fast either, so take that into consideration.

The Painting

The selling point of the game is the fact that it is not only the protagonist who is painting, but you as the player are also doing it. I didn’t know how much this was going to work for me, but I was astonished to see how much more immersive it made the game. The game comes with the lineart of the painting already done, and it has numbers all over the place so you know what you have to paint at each moment in the story. You can see the drawing below. At certain moments in the story, you will be asked what is going through your mind at the moment and choose from 3 predefined options. One choice is symbolized with warm colors, another one with neutral ones, and lastly, cold colors. Once you have chosen, you must paint all sections in the drawing with the indicated number using only colors from the choice you made. That choice will affect the narrative going forward.

What’s really important about the painting mechanic is how it tells you to do it. First of all, I’ve got to say that I love that one of the very first things you paint in the fiendish creature is the eyes. I could feel as if they were constantly looking at me while I painted them. Secondly, every time the game asks you to paint, it tells you to continue thinking about the decision you chose about how you feel all the time. There were some tough decisions I took, and having a whirlwind of those negative thoughts as I painted hurts. There’s something zen-like when painting that makes it easier for these feelings to get to you easily. The fact that you are always painting with a color associated with the feeling makes it extra powerful. Warm colors are usually tied with strong emotions, and cold ones with sad feelings. One of my last decisions was a depressing one, and the fact that I had to keep thinking about my decision while I painted, and I was using cold colors for that made it feel like a gut punch. If there is one thing I would criticize about this, however, is that at times I felt like I was taking very long to carry on one same feeling or decision in my mind because I had to paint a bunch of things.

You can check my resulting art piece by clicking on the link [HERE]. It may be spoilerish, but not really. Just in case, you are free to enter and see the final disturbing result if you like.

Art & Layout

This is a game about the player playing an artist, and painting, so of course the art needed to be good. There is an art piece at the beginning of every chapter, all creepy or disturbing in some way. They don’t affect the narrative or the game in any way but help grow this feeling of uneasiness in the player, which is what the game is mostly about. As for the layout, the game went with a simplistic route. All pages are flat colors with text on top. The text can be found in many colors, and sometimes even bold, all of these variations to indicate the player must do something, as explained at the beginning of the game.

—

Conclusion

I’ve never thought a game about painting could affect me this much. At the same time, I got to read a really entertaining story with awesome characters (love you Cody and Kara <3). It was definitely an unforgettable experience and something that definitely makes me excited to see what Banana will make next! If you do enjoy horror, or are looking for something out of the norm, then you should definitely check out Forgery!

GET THE GAME THIS NEXT SPOOKY SEASON HERE
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Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 8, 2023 - 10:00 am
Creating A Setting
There are quite a few world building articles (and podcasts) on Gnome Stew. Heck, I’ve even written one. However, that’s not the point of this article. I’m not going to talk about tectonic plates, rivers, mountains, trees, natural and political boundaries, and so on that make up some of the elements that go into building a world. Instead, I’m going to zoom into a defined and limited geographic area and talk about creating a setting within that area.

Genre Selection

If you’re creating a setting, I’m going to assume it’s for a game you’re about to run or a campaign that is underway. Either way, you should have the genre determined for the game/campaign. This means you’ll know the genre you’re setting is going to reflect. Dropping a neon sign in the middle of a remote halfling village probably won’t match the theme, style, or tone of a fantasy setting. Sure, there can be exceptions to this if you’re mashing up genres. Do whatever is appropriate for the genre(s) of your game, but make sure the choices are thought out in advance to not break the tone or tropes of the genre you’re representing at the table.

The Area First
I would recommend thinking small and immediate.
Determine the physical size of the setting that will contain your game. This can range from a single building or grow to be a sprawling complex of buildings. It could be a small village, a neighborhood in a large city, the large city itself, a region containing many settlements, a nation, a continent, a world, and so on. In some science fiction settings, you might even get to multiple planets, a star system, a local cluster, a galaxy, or the universe itself. However, I would argue that each settlement, nation, world, planet, etc. can be broken down into its own setting.

I would recommend thinking small and immediate as opposed to bloated and wide-ranging. Handle what your PCs are going to encounter in the immediate few sessions and grow out from there. The trick to “grow in the right direction” as the PCs expand their horizons, so you’re a step or two ahead of them in creating new settings.

If the “world” that you’re in is a metropolis for its time, then I would start with the immediate neighborhood for the initial adventure or two. Give the party gobs of reasons to stay put in their neighborhood and some motivation to stay away from “those other areas” of the city. Basically, keep the clues, NPCs, villains, action points, and encounters centered around and important to the neighborhood. Make sure the plans you have are tight-knit and attached to the neighborhood, so that if the party wants to explore outside the neighborhood, you’ll let them know that it will take time to get there and back and do whatever it was they wanted to do across town. If you have a timer going, this will consume some of that timer until Something Bad Happens. That should be ample motivation to keep the party attached to the local area.

Styles, Themes, and Tone
Set a timer!
Step one: Set a timer for twenty minutes.

Step two: Head on over to TV Tropes.

Step three: Plug your genre into the search bar at the top.

Step four: Start reading and clicking and absorbing what you don’t already know about what builds the styles, themes, and tones for your genre and setting.

Step five: When the timer goes off, STOP. Close the tab(s) you have open.

Step six: Let what you’ve read rest. Give it time to percolate on your own. You’ll be amazed at the ideas that will bubble to the top over the course of some time. If you have to do something, make it a low mental effort. Something like a shower, doing the dishes, vacuuming, or walking the dog. You’ll be amazed at what the seeds of information from TV Tropes will do for your idea growth.

Governments
You don’t need to go into deep detail about the levels of government.
What governmental entities control or influence the area for your setting? How strong or weak is that influence? Are your PCs aligned with or against the various governments? In most RPGs, we tend to lean into a monolithic government, but this is rarely true to reality. Granted, we don’t want to get as convoluted as reality because that way lies madness. However, you can represent various controls (or granted freedoms) at the national, state, county, city, and HOA levels in a modern setting. There is plenty of give and take there between all of these entities.

You don’t need to go into deep detail about the five levels of government that I listed above. Just hit the immediate needs that touch upon the game. Also, it doesn’t hurt to make up weird laws/rules that the PCs may or may not be aware of that can alter the story being told. True story: I’ve had a friend almost fined into the poor house because the head HOA person didn’t think the paint on his house was “fresh enough and too faded.” Strange, eh?

I’m also going to put police and military under the government umbrella because these organizations are typically created by, controlled by, and ruled by the government at different levels. Don’t forget to include some level of law enforcement in your setting because for as long as humanity has had laws there have been people tasked with the enforcement of those laws.

Companies/Unions/Guilds
Governments aren’t the only official structures in an area.
Governments aren’t the only official structures that can control or influence an area. There are plenty of opportunities to create companies, megacorps, unions, guilds, and other organizations (see the HOA mentioned above) that the party can run into, bounce off of, become enemies with, befriend, or work for. These are a type a faction, but I have them listed out separately because they generally operate with some level of blessing or approval or licensing from the government.

Depending on your setting and genre, the list of companies, unions, and guilds can be wild and varied. Like with establishing the area, think of your genre and how you implement these aspects of a setting. Everything here should be in support of the themes you’re using. Having a megacorp buy up all of the farmland in a rural, fantasy setting is probably not going to happen. However, the nation’s leader could easily invoke some sort of divine right or imminent domain ruling to come in and claim all of the farmlands for himself or herself in a fantasy setting. If you jump to a cyberpunk setting, my two examples above would easily flip places. In other words, megacorps would be the true sources of power while the national leader would most likely be impotent or weak.

Religions
Religions have influence as well.
Religious organizations can influence a setting as well. If you have an area that is monotheistic in nature or a strong theocracy, then the higher power of the religion is going to have a strong grip on what does and doesn’t happen in plain sight or in public spaces. If you have a polytheistic set of religions, then each individual higher power is going to have varying degrees of control over how people act. At an extreme (especially in a fantasy setting where diving power is real and tangible), there may even be a governmental restriction (or ban) on religion as a whole.

Factions
Factions also interact with the setting.
Factions tend to interact with the setting in a manner similar to companies, but typically outside any government regulation or control. As a matter of fact, some factions are going to be illegal in some manner. Factions range from minor amounts of influence to international control of massive business (or financial) ventures. Not all factions are bent on global dominance. Honestly, most factions in most settings are going to be focused on the “core setting” and maybe the immediately surrounding areas.

A short list of factions includes:
- Political parties
- Youth groups (think scouts)
- Social Activists (legal and otherwise)
- Gangs
- Organized Crime
- Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods (Masonic lodges, VFW, Elk lodges, etc.)
- Fraternities/Sororities
- School clubs
Independent NPCs

Down near the bottom of the “influence ladder” that I’ve been building thus far are important or independent NPCs. Look at everything you’ve developed above and try to find small nooks and crannies left behind where NPCs can be slipped in like cement between the larger stones. This is where you’ll find your powerful or independent NPCs. They’ll be there to provide services, tasks, missions, quests, support, advice, or even opposition to the party.

Missions/Objectives/Quests

What jobs are there to do in the setting? Who is giving out those jobs? Why are they giving out the jobs instead of doing the task themselves? What is the objective of the job itself? What are they paying? What are the risks? What are the rewards? What personal ties do the PCs have to the job? What organizational entities (from above in this article) are allied with the party during the job? What entities are opposed to the party? What entities just don’t care if the PCs succeed or fail?

There are definitely more questions you can ask yourself about each job that you present to your party. The important part is that the job needs to originate in the setting and conclude in the setting. It’s best if the entire job occurs within the setting you’ve built, but this is not a requirement. If you send your PCs off into the unknown parts of the map, be prepared to have some settings ready to go to fill in those blank parts of the map.

Weaving in the PCs
Get character hooks from your players that apply to the setting.
I’m leaving the most important part for last. Once you have the above built, it’s time to present a brief set of information (2-3 pages) to the players in a quick-read format. This should present to them the government style, active religions, major organizations, important factions, well-known NPCs, and so on.

Once your players have read this information (and don’t count on all of your players reading everything, sorry), you can ask them to build out a background with hooks during session zero. One hook should place them in alignment with at least one organization. They should also have an optional hook that puts them in opposition with at least one organization. Another hook can have them be in some sort of relationship with an independent NPC. This relationship doesn’t need to be romantic or even friendly, but they need to know each other. Lastly, there needs to be some intra-party hooks between the characters. However, this is typically outside the setting building, but it can be influenced by the setting quite a bit.

Conclusion

I hope this information helps you build stronger and more three-dimensional settings for your games. Obviously, there are many other aspects of settings that I have not touched on here. What are some of your favorite ways to approach building out a setting? What aspects or angles do you include in that building process? I’d like to hear from you.
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Source: Gnome Stew | Published: September 1, 2023 - 10:00 am
mp3Gnomecast#171 – Shadow of the Weird Wizard Interview
http://misdirectedmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/CG-171_Weirdwizard_final.mp3
JT sits down with the Demon Lord himself, Rob Schwalb from Schwalb Entertainment to talk about his newest game, Shadow of the Weird Wizard.
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Source: Gnome Stew | Published: August 30, 2023 - 10:10 am
Letting them Enjoy Their Power
In my most recent Cortex Prime game, Aux, one of the players was making a roll to repair an ancient, alien machine. A roll that, back at the start of the campaign over a year ago, was a bit of a daunting task, and one that could result in failures with unexpected consequences. The stakes were no different, but this time the player made his roll and looked down at their dice with a smile on their face. They had not only made the roll but had accomplished a Heroic Success, which resulted in not only the repair but an additional direct benefit to the people they were helping. It was at that moment that the table recognized that the characters were no longer the novice geniuses who started the campaign, but now, seasoned, experienced, and most importantly capable geniuses who now create and fix things at a level that looks like sorcery to those they help. They were Luke returning to Tatooine, in Return of the Jedi.

So I thought we would take today to talk about when your players become competent – how to let them enjoy that feeling, while also still providing them a challenge.

The Need for Struggle in our Games

TTRPGs require some kind of struggle in order for them to be interesting. Struggles have a few components. One, they have some kind of conflict – fighting, stealing, etc. Two, they have characters who have the abilities to engage in the conflict, and finally, they have mechanics, often with some kind of randomization, to resolve the conflict.

Quick for instance:

In my Aux game, the characters are alien super-geniuses who travel around the galaxy helping people who are in danger or in need. A common conflict in the game is to repair broken or malfunctioning alien tech from the previous empire. The characters have various skills in different sciences and technologies, and using the Cortex Prime rules, they build dice pools and roll to see if they are successful or not.

Struggle is what makes a game interesting. The game asks the question, “Can the characters do X?”, and the mechanics answer that question. The outcome of that question then drives the narrative of the game. It is this constant asking and answering of this question that makes games so compelling. If the answer was a foregone conclusion, would asking the question be that interesting?

The Role of Difficulty in Struggle

In the framework of challenges, we talked about three elements – a conflict, the characters, and the rules. One part of those rules is mechanically representing how difficult something is. The mechanics of the game help define something that is easy and something that is difficult. This is represented in things like Stat Blocks and Difficulties. Nearly every game I know has some range of easy to near-impossible.

The mechanics of the game also define how competent a character is at any given action. The character sheet is a set of mechanics that translate between the narrative of who the character is and how that is represented in the game. Characters also have a range of abilities from incompetent to hyper-competent.

The Character Power Curve

Most RPGs (not all) are based on a power curve. They start the characters with a low-to-modest competence in their abilities and then through play, through struggle, they reward the character with the ability to advance and increase their competency.

Typically a power curve is somewhat logarithmic, meaning that at the start of the game, it is easy to increase your competency so that you go from stumbling to walking in a few games, but then plateaus in the later phase of the game, so that there remain some challenges at the higher end of the game mechanics.

How fast characters progress through this curve is set by the rules of the game, tempered by how the GM interprets those rules. GM’s have been known to tweak that power curve by doing things such as: starting players at higher initial levels, granting a few more power points for character creation, increasing XP bonuses per session, etc.

Becoming Competent

If you play a game long enough, eventually you will advance to a point where what was once a challenge is no more. What used to be a “normal” challenge for the GM now is easy. This is both good and bad.

On the one hand, it is a great feeling if you are a player. The things you struggle with are now so easy for you to accomplish. Let’s go back to Luke Skywalker. In Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Luke has a lot of trouble wielding the Force. He struggles to get his lightsaber out of the snow before the Wampa eats him, he gets his ass kicked by his Dad on Bespin and loses his hand as a result.

But when we get to the opening of The Return of the Jedi, Luke is badass. He mind-tricks the Twi’lek and force-chokes some Gamorrean Guards, he runs a break-out scheme for Han that has put a tear in more than one TTRPG player’s eye. He is competent, he is cool.

On the other hand, the lack of struggle makes things less compelling. As mentioned above, if the answer is a foregone conclusion, is there any excitement in asking the question? So there still have to be some challenges for the character, otherwise the game will become stale.

Again, The Return of the Jedi does a great job of showing us this. Yes, Luke is all badass now, on one level, but Vader and the Emperor are now his challenges, and they are of a sufficient level of power to pose a threat. Can Luke, as good as he is, beat the Emperor? Can he save his father? Those questions are uncertain as we go through Jedi. Thus Luke’s storyline remains compelling.

Creating A Balance

As with most things in life, the more interesting option is to find balance. When characters reach a level of competency, you need to balance scenes where they get to be competent and ones where they struggle. Allow them the time to revel in the character they earned, by giving them moments where they shine, and then contrast that with newer, more powerful threats.
Sometimes the Wizard gets to cast Meteor Swarm on the goblin army.
As I said at my table when we talked about that roll in the opening story, “Sometimes the Wizard gets to cast Meteor Swarm on the goblin army.” Meaning that when you have earned your way to casting Meteor Swarm, you should be allowed to have the time to cut loose and look like the terrifying power Wizard you are.

At the same time, you as the GM now have to move the goalposts for some of the encounters to make them challenges. Because sometimes you need to cast Meteor Swarm on the Tarrasque.

I say this because there is a tendency for GMs to just constantly move the goalposts so that the characters never feel more competent. As the characters advance the GM just keeps raising the difficulties. That does not make a character feel competent. They may have more options to do things, but they don’t feel more powerful. They are having a more complex version of their starting character experience.

By giving characters a few easier challenges, it reminds them of how far they came. Their beginning characters hid in terror as the goblins searched for them in the forest in their first adventure, now they are repelling a goblin army by themselves. That feels great! It feels like they have grown, because they have, and it is a reward for the hard work they put into their characters.

The End Game and Chasing The Curve

When a character reaches a high level of competency that is more than halfway up the power curve, the game tends to thin out in terms of challenges. How realistic is it that every week another world-shattering threat shows up (more acceptable in a Supers game, than anywhere else, but also still…)?

At the higher range of competency comes a signal that the campaign needs to end. The characters have traversed the power curve, it is time to give them a great threat/challenge, and then be ready to retire the game.

Otherwise, what happens is that each week the game is about some world/universe-ending event, and hitting the same beat over and over, becomes stale. When they reach this phase, it is time to give them one great challenge and then close out the campaign.

That is exactly what is happening in my Aux game. The story I told is during the character’s final journey where they are looking for knowledge to stop a subspace fracture from destroying their world.

“I Know Things”

Competency in TTRPGs is a journey. Characters start on the lower end, facing struggle everywhere they go. Through their wits and ability to survive, they gain experience and traverse that curve, getting better and better. At some point, they are so competent that what was once a struggle is no more.

In those times, remember to let your players feel the success of their hard work, and let their characters be the badasses they are. Temper that with greater challenges, but also know when to end the campaign before those challenges become cliche.

How do you handle your competent players in your game? Do you give them moments to shine? What are some of your favorite moments? When do you know that it is time to end the campaign?
Read more »
Source: Gnome Stew | Published: August 28, 2023 - 10:00 am
On Killing a Campaign: What To Learn From It And How To Do It
Last week, my year-and-a-half campaign I ran of Kids on Brooms was brought to an end. However, despite the campaign being over, the story was not. I decided to bring it to an end before we came to a conclusion to the story. We all probably have campaigns we were a part of that ended abruptly. Let’s talk a bit about it so we can all see and share where it is they go or can go wrong.

Making it too long

After running 4 campaigns as a GM, some short, some long, I’ve started to think that I do better at GMing campaigns that go as long as 1-1.5 years. This is usually different for every GM. However, if I go on with my game for too long, you might need to turn into the guy from the meme with the whiteboard connecting all the plots. In my first 5+ year campaign I actually had a player who did something like that and had a ton of fun connecting all the details, but not every player wants to go to that length, and that’s ok. Then, I got to run 5e’s Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for a year and a half and it went excellently. A shorter 4-month-long one didn’t end up being as good as expected, but everything tied in nicely by the end as well. Lastly, we come to this last campaign, which was supposed to be about 6 months long but turned into a 2-year-long campaign that I couldn’t finish.

How can you know which type of campaign might suit you best? There are prewritten campaign modules, or you can run your own thing. This will not only depend on you but also on the players you are with. Even if you like creating long campaigns, your players may not be up for that. This is why it is so important to set expectations from the very beginning in a session 0. I always say that the best way to get good at GMing is GMing, and getting to understand better your GMing style can only be done that way. So, try it all, if possible. Run long campaigns, campaign modules, short campaigns, one-shots…
Frustration from each of the two sides of the screen can quickly kill a campaign.
But how was it that making the campaign too long affected my games? I like to create complex characters, with their own objectives. If the PCs don’t decide to interact with a character or get to know them better, the NPCs will keep doing their stuff, creating more mysteries or unknown stuff. On a short campaign with about 10-15 important NPCs that’s not that big of a deal. However, if the campaign goes for too long there may be 40+ things going on behind the scenes, and that not only is frustrating for the players, but also for the GM (me) to conclude the story by tying up the loose ends. Frustration from each of the two sides of the screen can quickly kill a campaign.

I was not lying when I said that 5+ years campaign was complex. Props to my player who was such a fan of the game he decided to build this to explain his theories to the others.

Scheduling

I am pretty sure you all expected this to be here: TTRPGs greatest BBEG. One of the reasons why my last game and many others failed, is due to scheduling. Once we become adults, we all have thousands of things we have to do, so finding one single moment 4+ people can meet is extremely tough to accomplish. In my case, due to job changes, college life, and things in life, it was difficult to set a specific moment, and not change it. Add in the campaign length, and maybe a time that was comfortable for everyone becomes one where 1 or 2 can’t make it most weeks after the first year. Luckily for you, we gnomes here at the Gnome Stew did a whole Gnomecast episode full of tips and ways in which you can solve scheduling issues, or what has worked for us. Check it out RIGHT HERE or on your Podcast app of choice.

In addition to all the problems scheduling can cause us when finding a day to play, there’s also the fact that people may arrive tired after a full day of work. The fact that they decide to go to the game nonetheless even if they are beaten up is great and speaks greatly of how eager they are to play. However, a tired person might not be able to be as focused on the game, or willing to go through some moments in the game as others. We need to keep this in mind when scheduling, as it can play a part in the campaign’s demise. If possible, try to find a moment in which everyone can play and be well-rested.

Pacing

Something I have been noticing quite a bit is that mixed in with all the tension, horror, intrigue, mystery, etc. quite a bit of fuc*ery goes on at my tables. I love to allow players to throw in jokes as it can release tension in serious moments, and make the game more fun after a tiresome day. Nevertheless, one has to be a bit restrictive with this, as it can easily break the pacing of the game. If you are already playing late because you all struggled to find a good time to play, having bad pacing makes players not be as hooked to the campaign as they could be. In addition to this, I struggle to keep the pacing of the game, causing some games to feel like a thousand things happened, and others like the players only did one or two things. Unfortunately, again, the only way to get better at that is by practicing and making mistakes. One book I’ve seen often recommended for those who struggle with pacing in their games is Hamlet’s Hit Points by Robin D. Laws. I haven’t got to read it yet, but I am planning to.

One other way you can get better at pacing is by listening to your players. I am always open with my players that if they are uncomfortable or believe something could have gone better they can always talk with me about it. This not only has helped me better understand my players’ playstyles, but also how much time they are comfortable with certain moments in the game lasting. Some may enjoy combat over roleplay, so I always make sure to drop in some action to keep the game moving forward. On the other hand, if others want long and profound RP moments, I need to plan in advance scenes that can create these moments without lasting so long that the player who loves action falls asleep.

Managing Expectations

One other thing my last game suffered from is that expectations weren’t managed extremely well from the beginning. I originally planned to create kind of a Harry Potter experience, but we set the world to be a bit more adult and set in the 60s. I wanted to add a bit of horror once everyone had created their characters and they all agreed. Additionally, we all thought it wasn’t going to take that much longer than 6 months and we planned on it being episodic. The game ended up being about a war between the magic world and the normal humans while the Cold War was going on, so the US and Russian governments were involved, as well as a governmental organization similar to Area 51. In addition to all that, the game wasn’t episodic and lasted for almost 2 years. By the end, most of the player characters weren’t too interested in fighting the big bad guy of the campaign.

Since I’ve got to know them, sessions 0 have become essential for me, and what happened to me is exactly why it is that way. Defining expectations from the very beginning, as well as indicating which things shall never appear in the narrative are key to having a successful game. I’ve gone more in depth about how to manage expectations for your games in a past article. Be sure to check it out!

Choosing the appropriate game for the campaign

One last aspect when looking to run a game is making sure the game system is made for the story you are trying to tell and play. Again, by managing and setting expectations from the very beginning, and depending on how long you want the sessions and campaign to be there are several games that might apply. However, systems like Blades in the Dark should not be your first choice if you are looking to run a slice of life style of game, just like D&D or Pathfinder might not be the best choice for a college life campaign. In my case, Kids on Brooms doesn’t have a progression system as robust as other games, and there isn’t a predefined setting either. That made the system quite difficult to handle when things started getting out of hand and many magic duels began to appear.

If you don’t have a setting already thought out from the beginning, the session 0 might be the best time to do a bit of research and find the best one for what you want to play. Ask in forums or discord servers if necessary, and you will surely find the perfect game for the story you all want to create. If not, you can always create a story around the game all players want to play and know the rules of.

Closing off a Game

No roleplaying game should make the players or GM have a bad time. Sometimes you are all moving forward trying to conclude a tale, but is it actually worth it? It’s not wrong to put a stop or a pause to a game that isn’t doing it for you. There’s always the possibility of one of the players running another campaign everyone is excited about to give the GM a rest. Who knows? Maybe you can finish that campaign later when everyone is eager to return to their characters. Burnout is always a thing that can happen!

Killing a campaign might not be easy for everyone, so it is always a good idea to communicate it gently and create a space for everyone to talk about it if needed. Frustration, sadness, or even anger might arise, but if it really is the best for everyone they will come to understand. At the end of the day, it is always better to remember the campaign for all the great fun it once brought.
Read more »
Source: Gnome Stew | Published: August 25, 2023 - 10:00 am

RPGWatch Newsfeed

● Mystic Land: Search for Maphaldo - Official Trailer
Couchpotato spotted an official trailer for the dungeon crawler Mystic Land: Search for Maphaldo: Mystic Land: Search For Maphaldo - Official trailer Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 8:36 am
● The Thaumaturge - Preview @ Mortismal Gaming
Mortismal Gaming checked out The Thaumaturge: Check Out: The Thaumaturge Thanks Couchpotato! Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 8:32 am
● Stray Gods - Interviews @ IGN
Couchpotato spotted two Stray Gods interviews at IGN: Stray Gods: RPG Musical - Talking Abs, Troy Baker & Songs with Laura Bailey & Anjali Bhimani Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical - A Conversation with Laura Bailey & Anjali B... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 8:29 am
● Core Decay - Trailer
Couchpotato spotted a trailer for the immersive sim Core Decay: Core Decay Trailer - Realms Deep 2023 Trailer Explore vast facilities across a dying Earth and uncover a sinister plot to preserve humanity no matter the cost - even if it means redefining what makes us alive - in an atmospheric immersive sim that explores the nature of consciousness and individuality.... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 8:24 am
● Dungeons of the Amber Griffin - Gameplay
How do spells and traps work in Dungeons of the Amber Griffin? Spells and traps [UE5 Gameplay Reveal #2] We're polishing up Niagara's spell effects in Unreal Engine 5 Take a look at a short video of our game. We're polishing up Niagara's spell effects in Unreal Engine 5.... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 8:10 am
● Dark Envoy - Summoner Class Preview
Henriquejr spotted a preview of the Summoner class in Dark Envoy: Summoner - Class Preview Take a closer look at one of the adept specializations. Summoner is a druid-like Adept who uses their bond with spirits to summon them onto the battlefield and has a strong link with the destructive power of nature.... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 8:05 am
● Monomyth - September Update
Henriquejr spotted the September update for Monomyth! Monomyth - September Update State of the Game: Video Devlog 7.0 | Beta Patch 4 Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!The new video devlog is here! Sorry for the delay! In this update, I would also like to draw your attention to a promising little Kickstarter project that is launching its campaign shortly: Sorceress As always you can find the video transcript below.... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 7:58 am
● Wargroove 2 - Review @ PC Gamer
PC Gamer reviewed Wargroove 2: WARGROOVE 2 REVIEW A familiar but filling all-you-can-eat strategy buffet The original Wargroove came at just the right time. The world had been starved for more Advance Wars style strategy for years, and Chucklefish's cheery fantasy reimagining of War World's tanks n' choppers combat into knights and dragons hit the spot.... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 7:51 am
● RPG Crawler - RPG News Roundup
Like every week the RPG Crawler sums up the computer and tabletop RPG news: RPG News Roundup (9-30-2023) Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: October 1, 2023 - 7:21 am
Islands of the Caliph - Released
The dungeon crawler Islands of the Caliph has been released: Islands of the Caliph Islands of the Caliph imagines an ancient, seafaring Middle Eastern empire, spanning several islands to which the player may venture and explore. Set in a fictional Island civilization, Islands of the Caliph is a unique mash-up of the old school RPGs the developer played in the 1980s, and Middle Eastern folklore and religion.... Read more »
Source: RPGWatch Newsfeed | Published: September 30, 2023 - 9:59 am

Sly Flourish

VideoShare PDFs With Your Players
There are times when we're running our RPGs where we want to be able to share PDFs of game materials with our players. Maybe we're including 5e published material not available on D&D Beyond. Maybe we're running an entirely different roleplaying game. In either scenario, it can be either expensive for players to buy the material themselves or we'd be breaking the law (and generally behaving badly) by sharing copies of our RPG PDFs directly with players.

It isn't reasonable to expect each of our players to drop $20 to $60 on PDFs for one campaign or one run of a new RPG and not every game offers cheap or free alternatives. I expect a lot of GMs send players copies of these PDFs but doing so is illegal and risky. Many of these PDFs are watermarked to the person purchasing the PDF. Should the watermarked PDF be widely distributed, the original purchaser could be under considerable risk. It's also morally questionable. Don't bootleg PDFs.

So here's a better way – a free and safer way to share PDFs with your players. This content-sharing method follows the same content-sharing model used by D&D Beyond and Roll20. Just about all popular VTTs with roleplaying content allows this sharing model. This method, however, doesn't require a VTT – just Google Drive.

If you'd rather watch a step by step video on this tip, please check out the Share PDFs With Your Players YouTube Video.

This trick uses Google Drive so you and your players each need to have a Google account to use it.

These steps are for the person sharing the PDF to others.
1. Create a "shared PDF" folder in your Google Drive folder.
2. Open that folder and upload the PDF or PDFs you want to share with your players.
3. Select the files you want to share. Right click and press "Share".
4. Add the Google email addresses for each of the players with whom you want to share the PDF. Make sure they're selected as "Viewer".
5. In the upper right corner of the share window is a little gear "settings" icon. Click that icon.
6. Ensure that "Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy" is not selected. This ensures that the viewer can't download or print the file.
7. Save your settings and notify your players that you shared your file.
For the reader, they can go to their Google Drive and see that these PDFs are now shared with them. As long as the person sharing the file continues to do so, they'll be able to read the file through their browser on Google Drive but can't download it or print it.

Sharing PDFs using Google Drive is an extremely useful trick to keep on hand anytime you want to give the players new character options, player guides, or entire rules to a game without worrying that they'll get out there to the open internet and without requiring each player to drop a lot of cash to get the materials you want to share. When you're done with the campaign, remove their access.

Pass this tip, the article, and the video to anyone you think will find it useful!

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a YouTube video on the Return to Wardenwood – Shadowdark Gloaming Session 4 Lazy GM Prep.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Ensure there's a choice and multiple outcomes in every scene.
- Strong starts need not be combat but they should draw the characters (and the players) into the game.
- What's your minimum viable set of tools and prep to run a great game?
- Discard NPCs that don't resonate with the players.
- Let the characters' exploits follow ahead of them as they meet new NPCs.
- Give gods "masks" – alternative personas they wear while engaging in the world of mortals.
- Give each monster you run an interesting flavorful move or power that defines them in the world.
Related Articles
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Articles
- Newsletter
- Bookstore
- Patreon
- Podcast
- YouTube
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: September 25, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoLimit Sources While Using D&D Beyond
Over the lifespan of D&D 5th edition Wizards of the Coast released dozens of sourcebooks including new races, subclasses, spells, backgrounds, and feats. Allowing access to all features from all sources for every campaign can result in strange character combinations fitting no particular theme and create weird game-stressing results at the table. The expansion of materials leads to players choosing the same optimal selections regardless of the direction a campaign takes (I'm looking at you, Toll the Dead) .

Limiting sources lets you focus a campaign around a theme. For a draconic-focused campaign you might limit sources to the Player's Handbook and Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. For a more gothic horror-focused campaign you might add Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. However not every sourcebook fits in every campaign.

D&D Beyond's Limitations

D&D Beyond doesn't do a good job of limiting sources or identifying where material comes from. If a player owns a particular sourcebook, the options from that sourcebook appear in the character builder even if a DM limits sources in the campaign manager.

The character builder itself has limited functions to filter out Magic: The Gathering and Critical Role content but books it considers "core" sources (I don't know whats included in that category) are always available if a player owns them. Thus, if a player owns Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, all options from that book show up.

Even though the introductions of many of these supplemental D&D books state that their rules are optional and at the DM's discretion, D&D Beyond includes them automatically regardless of what you select in the character builder.

Thus, if we want to limit source material (and I argue we do), it's up to us to communicate clearly to our players how to choose from limited options.

During our session zero we want to clarify which sources are allowed, which sources are not, and how to use D&D Beyond with these limitations in mind. Here's an example list we might offer to players during our session zero of a dragon-themed campaign:
- This campaign uses a limited set of character options from specific sourcebooks. We do not use every option available in D&D Beyond.
- Races for this campaign include those in the Player's Handbook and those in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
- Character options and spells for this campaign can be selected from the Player's Handbook,, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. We also use the "Customizing Your Origin," "Changing Your Skill," "Changing Your Subclass," and the "Optional Class Features" from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (but not its subclasses or most of its spells).
- We'll replace the Players Handbook "conjure" spells with the Tasha's "summon" spells.
- Please note that D&D Beyond doesn't clearly display which options are from which sources. There's no good way to limit sources in D&D Beyond. Thus, pay careful attention to which races, subclasses, spells, and feats you select and ensure they're coming from the sources above.
- When selecting features, look up subclasses, spells, and feats from the sourcebooks above. Don't browse options in the character builder. It displays every option available and doesn't make it clear where a source came from.
- Likewise the "Game Rules" links often show all available sources such as every subclass for a given class. Instead, read the sourcebooks mentioned above under "sources."
- Once you've selected the features you want from the sourcebooks directly, select those options in the character builder.
Here's a potential shorter explanation suitable for a one-page campaign guide:

This campaign uses limited sources. When using D&D Beyond, ensure you browse and select options from the sourcebook directly before choosing options in the character builder. The character builder does not filter out options from other sourcebooks.

Selecting from limited options in D&D Beyond is an arduous process but without a good way to filter sources, we have to work with our players to help them select only the features available in the sources we want for our campaign.

You might ask again if it's worth the trouble to limit sources in your campaign. I argue it is. Limitations fuel creativity. Selecting specific sourcebooks lets every campaign we run feel different from the others, with new and often undervalued options available to players who might otherwise focus on the most optimal options regardless of the theme of the campaign.

With some work on our part and that of our players, we can weave a rich tapestry of unique campaigns we run for years to come.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on The Idol of Unduluk – Shadowdark Gloaming Session 3 Lazy GM Prep and Choosing Perfect Monsters.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Build big scenes involving combat, exploration, and roleplaying all mashed together.
- Think about your dungeons in three dimensions. What's above and what's below?
- Throw in lots of extra monsters and let your characters get away with all sorts of shenanigans.
- Let players hurl bad guys off of cliffs.
- Provoke opportunity attacks.
- Are your characters particularly powerful? Throw more monsters at them.
- Avoid stereotypical intelligent creatures. Derro aren't "crazy", they see multiple worlds simultaneously!
Related Articles
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Articles
- Newsletter
- Bookstore
- Patreon
- Podcast
- YouTube
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: September 18, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoRun Homebrew Adventures in a Published Setting
Running your own adventures in a published campaign setting offers the best benefits from both – the freedom to customize homebrew adventures with the high production value and depth of lore of a published campaign setting.

Mixing Two Common Approaches

According to polls I’ve run, most GMs run their own adventures in their own campaign worlds while those who run in published campaign worlds often run using published adventures in that world.

Today we're going to look at the benefits of mixing these two approaches – running homebrew adventures in published campaign settings.

For a video on this topic, see this Lazy RPG Talk Show segment on homebrew adventures in published settings.

Benefits of Homebrew Adventures

While published adventures offer the benefits of a highly-produced product, it’s hard for a published adventure to adapt with the backgrounds, motivations, directions, and actions of the characters. They also don’t easily adapt with our own ideas – we have to modify the adventures to fit our own new paths. Adventure publishers encourage GMs to make published adventures their own by customizing adventures to fit the game taking place at the GM’s own table, but that’s still a lot of work to be done.

Homebrew adventures have none of these problems. Homebrew adventures are exactly what you want them to be. You decide their story, their villains, their locations, and their style of play. You can build entire adventures around your specific characters. As things change during the campaign, you can shift your whole direction to flow where the story takes it. That’s often not an option for a published adventure unless you throw a lot of it away.

Benefits of Published Campaign Settings

Published campaign settings don’t force any one style or path of adventure. Campaign settings give you well-produced material, often with excellent artwork, deep histories, ongoing political turmoil, piles of NPCs, fantastic locations to explore, and, hopefully, lots and lots of adventure seeds.

Some example campaign worlds fitting these criteria include:
The Best of Both Worlds

Running homebrew adventures in published campaign settings gives you the freedom to let your adventure go where you and your players take it, but with the well-produced framework of a published campaign setting. As a GM, you don’t need to worry about building your own theology, history, geography, or global politics. A whole team of designers, developers, editors, and publishers did that for you.

Understanding the Shared World

Running in a published campaign world has the added benefit of being potentially familiar to your players. If you’re playing in a common setting, players who recognize the world already have their feet on the ground. They may already know the pantheon or the state of global politics. It's already familiar.

Some GMs might see this as a disadvantage, particularly if the players know more than the GM does. The best way to deal with this is to bring them on board. Count on their knowledge to help share information with you and the other players as you play. Build off of their knowledge - don’t fear it or dismiss it. You’re all on the same side watching the story expand as you play.

Not for Everyone

This isn’t to dismiss running published adventures. I’ve run dozens of published adventures for years and still tend to grab onto them when it’s time to start a new campaign. The games I’ve shared with my players have been wonderful. But the times I look back at the homebrew adventures, it brings back fantastic memories and stories. Those twists and turns couldn't be accounted for in a published adventure.

Mix It Up

If you tend to run published adventures or tend to build your own adventures in your own campaign world, think about running a homebrew adventure in a published campaign world. You may find great value in being able to run custom adventures in a rich campaign setting and have a lot of fun with your friends around the table.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Shadowdark RPG Prep: The Ruins of Black Marrow and dndblogs.com and the TTRPG Fediverse.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- What choices can the characters make in each scene you prepare?
- Double-check those NPC names to make sure they're not silly.
- Build environments with fun z-axis features. Build with height, not just length and width.
- Focus your prep on the characters outwards.
- Add upward beats when all seems grim.
- Are your players enjoying the theme of your campaign? If not, change it up or move to something new.
- Set up situations instead of combat encounters.
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- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
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Source: Sly Flourish | Published: September 11, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoRe-Using Secrets and Clues
In Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, I recommend writing down ten fresh secrets and clues during your prep for your next session. In Chapter 6, I state:

Sometimes your unrevealed secrets will make their way to your next session’s list. Other times, they simply fade away. You might be tempted to keep a huge list of past secrets, but that can end up being unwieldy. The world is a dynamic place, and it’s fine if you throw away old secrets. Just make sure you come up with a fresh list of ten new secrets and clues for every session.

I've often recommended that GMs not keep a big list of previous secrets and clues, but often during my Lazy RPG Prep shows, I find myself copying secrets and clues over from a previous session to a next session. I initially considered this reuse a violation of the rule, but now I think it's better to amend the rule.

Transferring relevant secrets from a previous session to the next session is a practical, lazy trick to speed up prep.

There are some caveats. We should keep certain things in mind to ensure we're maximizing the true value of secrets and clues.

First, make sure the secrets you transfer are still relevant. Do they still matter to the characters? Are they still something that could be true?

Second, confirm you haven't already revealed a secret you're considering moving forward. It's worth the time to review your previous notes and see which secrets you revealed. I typically reveal about half of the ten secrets I prepare for a session. It's fine to reinforce a secret already given if you think the players forgot it or it wasn't as clear as it could have been. Don't fill up your ten secrets with things the characters already know.

Third, avoid stockpiling secrets and clues. At some point, a massive list of unused secrets becomes a burden. You won't want to read through a list of 200 previously unreleased secrets before each game. It's simpler to start fresh. Assess the current situation in the game and determine what secrets are relevant for the upcoming session. Cluttering up our GM toolkit makes it more difficult to find what we need when we need it. Instead, stick to just reviewing and moving unused and relevant secrets from your last session to this one.

Moving secrets forward isn't a violation of the ways of the Lazy Dungeon Master – it's a shortcut that helps us more easily prep for our game.

Review your previous notes, identify unused relevant secrets, and carry them forward.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Shadowdark Session 1 Prep and Scarlet Citadel Tips, Recommendations, and Campaign Conclusion.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Alert your players before running downtime scenes so they can prep their activities.
- Warn players of the potentially lethal dangers their characters face.
- What choices can the characters make in any given scene?
- What are the common pitfalls for particular scenes you plan to run? How do you avoid them?
- What process do you have for buying or crafting magic items?
- Think one adventure out so you can seed your next session in your current one.
- Review old NPCs to see who you can reintroduce into the story.
Related Articles
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- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: September 4, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoUse a Damage Pool for Lots of Monsters
Sometimes, when running lots of monsters, it's a pain to track the damage done to each monster. Thus, GMs don't tend to run more than six to eight monsters at a time.

But some of the best fantasy fiction focuses on a small band of heroes facing overwhelming odds. It's a staple in the genre and we want to have that option available to us when running our game.

One tool to manage this problem is the "damage pool" – an easy way to track damage being done to as many monsters as you want to throw at the characters. This trick is one part of a larger set of guidelines for running hordes available in the Lazy DM's Companion.

For a video on this topic, see my YouTube video on Running a Damage Pool for Lots of Monsters.

Track Damage in a Damage Pool

Here's how a damage pool works:
- Instead of tracking damage done to individual monsters, track damage done to the whole monster group in a single tally – the damage pool.
- Each time the damage pool takes enough damage to kill a single monster, remove the last monster hit and reset the damage pool to zero, rolling over any remaining damage.
- Round each monster's hit points to the nearest 5 or 10 so the math is easier.
- If you're running combat in the theater of the mind, track the number of total monsters. Remove monsters from this number as they're killed. If using tokens or miniatures, use the tokens or minis to track the number of monsters.
- If a creature takes enough damage to kill multiple monsters in group, remove multiple monsters and narrate how the attack kills those extra monsters. Remove whichever monsters you want. Reset the pool.
- If the horde gets hit with an area of effect doing enough damage to kill a single monster, remove all of the monsters hit by the spell.
- If the group gets hit with a smaller area of effect spell, like burning hands, multiply the damage by the number of creatures in the area and add the total to the pool, removing monsters when the pool crosses over the hit points of a single monster.
Example: Fifty Skeletons

Let's say you're running a battle with 9th level characters who opened up a huge tomb and unleashed fifty skeletons. We round the hit points of each skeleton up to 15 just to keep the math easier. We could lower it to 10 hit points if we wanted them to drop faster.

Our fighter hacks at the skeletons twice, using power attack. On the first hit, she does 22 damage. That hit hews down one skeleton, and carries 7 damage over in the damage pool. Her next swing hits for 25 damage. This second attack brings the damage pool to 32 – enough to kill two skeletons. We remove the two nearest skeletons, reset the pool to zero, and carry over the remaining 2 damage.

Now the wizard drops a fireball into a horde of the skeletons. The resulting inferno likely kills all of the skeletons in the blast, so we remove them all as their burning bones fly through the air. No math needed – just colorful narrative.

If the wizard instead fires off burning hands for 10 damage against four skeletons, we multiply the damage by the number of monsters hit – a total of 40 damage. We remove two skeletons and carry over the remaining 10 damage to the pool. If that remainder was enough to kill a third skeleton, we kill three and reset the pool once again.

Explain the System to Your Players

When you're running a new system like this one, describe it to your players so they won't be surprised. When you've used it enough, players understand how a damage pool differs from damage done to individual monsters. It often benefits them so players aren't likely to complain.

Why Not Minions?

Some GMs prefer the 4th edition style of "minions" which have only 1 hit point. If a minion is struck with a successful attack or fails a saving throw, it dies. While this shortcut is simple to use, it tends to make monsters too weak. The damage pool solves this issue by giving monsters the same hit points they have as individual monsters but an easier way to track the damage done to the group.

A Tool for Fantastic Storytelling

This damage pool concept goes hand-in-hand with other techniques for running hordes such as managing multiple attacks and multiple saving throws. The damage pool, however, works well on its own to manage tracking damage even when you have lots of monsters on the table.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Finding Players for Other RPGs and my prep for Shadowdark Session Zero – The Gloaming.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Run an RPG with a Focus on Roleplay
- Pacing Going Too Fast?
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Ask players to describe old memories in impactful situations.
- Offer opportunities for characters to set up businesses, trade routes, and other establishments that operate while they're off adventuring.
- Aim for four to six players.
- Consider what choices you offer in any given scene.
- Think about what pitfalls a given scene might have.
- Roll up treasure during prep.
- Mash together mysteries, dungeon crawls, and big battles with waves of opponents into one big adventure.
Related Articles
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Articles
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Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: August 28, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoBuilding a D&D Situation – Castle Orzelbirg from Empire of the Ghouls
I love running situation-based RPG sessions. A situation-based session is one in which the GM sets up the situation at a location and lets the characters navigate the situation as the players wish, while inhabitants of the location react to the actions of the characters. The easiest way to think of a situation is a heist, even if the characters aren't trying to steal anything.

When prepping a situation, build the following components:
- The location. Where is this situation taking place? Often it's a big location like a castle, a manor, a bunch of caves, a lair, or a dungeon. We ensure the location has multiple ways in and multiple ways to move throughout it.
- The inhabitants. Who resides at the location? These residents might be guards, villagers, cultists, or whoever populates the location. Some denizens might be powerful and hostile. Some locals might just be the serving staff or non-combatant villagers. Some areas of the location might have intelligent and organized creatures while others have nasty monsters or ravenous undead. This presents a good mix of options the characters can choose from when dealing with the inhabitants. Few adventurers try to negotiate with an otyugh.
- Behaviors. What are the inhabitants actually doing here? What patterns do they follow? What would they be doing if the characters weren't here? Knowing what their normal behavior is will help us determine what happens when the characters start doing things.
- The goal. Why would the characters come here? What do they want? Are they trying to steal something? Recover something? Save someone? Stop a ritual? Give the characters a reason to come to that location and set measures for success other than killing everything.
- Potential complications. What complications might take place? Is someone big and powerful returning soon? Is another group trying to steal the same thing? What might shake things up in the middle? These complications help shift the course of the situation as it plays out in ways no one can predict.
Once we've planned this situation, let the characters learn about location and inhabitants, and allow the characters to reinforce their goal. Then, during the session, we let the players choose their characters' approach and enjoy the outcome.

Setting Up Castle Orzelbirg

In Empire of the Ghouls, Castle Orzelbirg is a keep overtaken by servants of the vampire King Lucan. In my running of the adventure, I determined that it's inhabited by followers of Hristina, duchess and grand marshall of Karakva.

Location. Castle Orzelbirg is a keep on a rocky hill above the broken town of Orzelbirg whose people felt the claws and teeth of Hristina's forces at their throats for years. They're a broken people going about their days trying not to think about the oncoming night. The castle is well fortified with guard towers, an outer wall, an inner wall, and a central keep. A well in the inner courtyard leads to a series of caves in which servants of the Red Priestesses throw failed experiments. These cast-asides become beggar ghouls, wandering the caves and seeking any living creature to devour.

Inside the castle is a mess hall, a dungeon, and a chapel in which the resident high priestess of the Red Mother conducts her rituals. There's a bunch of other rooms you'd expect in such a place which are outlined in the adventure so I didn't need to prep them.

Inhabitants. The current inhabitants of Castle Orzelbirg include:
- 36 conscripts (guards)
- 8 men-at-arms (veterans)
- 3 ghost knights (the high lord, the master at arms, and the third in command)
- A high priestess of the Red Mother
- Six cult fanatics of the Red Mother
- Three darakhul ambassadors of the Ghoul Imperium
- A vampire ambassador of King Lucan
- 12 village servants (commoners)
- 20 beggar ghouls (failed experiments)
You'll notice the challenge rating of the inhabitants ranges from very low CR 1/4 guards to CR 8 vampires and ghost knights. Just because the characters are 6th level doesn't mean the guards all turn into veterans. Killing guards with single attacks is a lot of fun. When they kick in the door to the chapel and see three darakhul (intelligent and powerful ghouls), a vampire, a ghost knight, a high priestess, and six cult fanatics – the characters are challenged with a real threat. Facing all these monsters in combat might not be the best solution to the problem.

Behaviors. One of the ghost knights takes four of the men at arms and a dozen conscripts and patrols outside of the castle looking for any trouble. Another dozen of the guards are usually asleep or eating while the remaining dozen conscripts watch the keep's towers and doors. At the time the characters approach, the high priestess, her cult fanatics, the ghouls, the vampire, and the high lord ghost knight are conducting or observing a ceremony in which a powerful warrior of Sif is being transformed into a darakhul. They're all in the chapel. The remaining Sisters of Sif are being held in the dungeon below guarded by two men-at-arms. The caves beneath the keep are filled with beggar ghouls. The ghost knight third in command walks through the halls and outer courtyards of the castle with two men-at-arms keeping an eye on things while the ritual takes place.

The goal. The characters come to Castle Orzelbirg to rescue the kidnapped Sisters of Sif and recover an artifact held by one of them, a reliquary of the holy robes of Sister Adelind. Four of the five sisters are in the dungeon while the fifth is being turned into a darakhul in the central chapel.

Potential complications. The ghost knight patrol could return. Allies of the characters might blow up a granary outside the castle to cause a distraction. The ceremony might cause the ghouls from below to crawl their way to the surface. A commoner cook or housekeeper might see the characters and scream. The ritual could cause arcane instability in the area.

A Blueprint for the Story to Come

With the description above, you can get a general idea of the situation without knowing exactly what the characters are going to do. Maybe they try to stop the ceremony first. Maybe they rescue the other sisters. Do they go in fireballs blazing or sneak inside? Do they pretend to be villagers or guards or do they crawl their way up from the ghoul caves below? We don't know and that's the fun of watching a situation unfold.

Hopefully this gives you a good example how to set up situations so you too can enjoy watching them unfold at the table.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Projecting Deadly Battles and Scarlet Citadel prep Session 32.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Consider what you really need for your very next session.
- Everyone feels nervous before running a game. Remember your friends love you and just want to have a good time.
- Secrets are the rewards of exploration.
- Build boss battles around waves of combatants.
- Give wizards big groups of low hit point monsters to fireball.
- Give characters who love to crowd control big weak-willed monsters to banish, polymorph, or hypnotize.
- Give heavy-hitters big low-AC monsters they can tank and cut down.
Related Articles
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Articles
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Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: August 21, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoHow Do You Feel Rolling a Crit?
When you roll a critical hit for a monster attacking a character, how do you feel about it? Does it feel awesome? Does it feel like justice? Do you feel guilty about the crit? Do you enjoy the suspense and heightened tension it brings?

What about when players roll a critical hit on a monster? Does their surprising success bring the same level of excitement? Does it make you frown? Do you check your monster stat block to see if there's any way to negate it?

How we feel about critical hits tells us a lot about what sort of approach we have towards the game itself. Are we fans of the characters? If so, we probably enjoy their critical hits and clench our teeth when the monsters return the favor. Do we see them as adversaries? Maybe those character crits don't feel so great if the plans we had for our big monster falls apart when they get squished.

What if you Don't Like the Answer?

What if, in your soul searching about critical hits, you realize character crits make you frown and monster crits make you happy but you wish it weren't so? What can you do about it?
1. Let go of trying to control the game. Remember that we play to see what happens. We set up situations and let the characters navigate them. We don't dictate a specific outcome. If a player crits and drops a monster early – cool!
2. Show off those awesome character abilities. Use lightning rods to set things up for characters to blow away lots of monsters or banish big ones to the forbidden zone.
3. Be fans of the characters. Learn about them with campfire tales. Ask for stars and wishes. Talk to your players.
Think about how you feel about critical hits. Think about how you feel about your relationship with the game and with the characters. Are you their adversary or are you their biggest fan?

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted YouTube videos on Using a Monster Damage Pool in D&D 5e and Scarlet Citadel Prep Session 32.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Make NPC names distinct from one another.
- Select a handful of solid NPC names during prep.
- Give dungeons multiple potential entrances.
- Warn players when their characters should get back together after splitting up.
- Switch regularly between two or more split up groups of characters.
- Offer options in situations that fit the pillars – combat, exploration, or roleplaying.
- Don't overuse that one well-loved NPC.
Related Articles
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Articles
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Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: August 14, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoAsk Players to Describe New Character Abilities
Each time characters level up, ask players to describe their characters' new abilities.

One way to make our games great is to regularly talk to our players. I've written before about the value of talking to your players, running a session zero, using pause for a minute, and setting up campfire tales.

Another way to keep our players engaged in the game is to ask them what new abilities their characters picked up when they leveled up.

Like many of the best lazy dungeon master tricks, this idea offers many benefits.

Learn About and Showcase New Character Abilities

Players get excited by their new abilities and want to see them work. When they describe them to you, now you know what they're looking forward to and can build encounters to showcase those new abilities. Write down these skills and spells so you can consider them during your first step, "review the characters", from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. How can you give them a chance to use those cool new things they got?

Other Players Learn About those New Abilities

Players often focus on their own characters but they'll listen as other players describe their new abilities. They may come up with fun ways to work together. They might better spread their abilities around if it looks like they're aiming for the same feature or spell. Letting the whole group discuss their new abilities brings them closer together.

You can Audit Character Abilities

This one's a bit of a negative but hearing players talk about their options makes sure everyone understands them. If you're playing with a limited set of sources (a great way to focus a campaign), this review gives you a chance to ensure players choose abilities from the sources selected for the campaign. If you're using new character options from 5e publishers outside of Wizards of the Coast, both you and your players may be unfamiliar with these abilities and you can learn about them together.

You Hear from your Players

Anytime we ask questions like this, we get feedback from our players about the things they're enjoying and maybe the things they're not enjoying. Any chance we have to hear from our players often gives us information we can use to make our game better. This discussion about new abilities is just one opportunity for more dialogue.

Keeping Communication Open

Communication with our players is critical to making our games fun session after session. Each time your characters level up, ask them to describe their new abilities. They'll enjoy talking about them. Other players will enjoy hearing about them. And you'll get brand new ideas on how to make your game even more fun.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Experiences Running a Shadowdark RPG 0-Level Gauntlet and Scarlet Citadel Session 31 – Lazy GM Prep.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Share information freely. Tell the players what their characters would know.
- Mix in opportunities for roleplaying right into combat. Talk while you fight!
- Keep a list of all those proper names you've been throwing out.
- Think about what the monuments in your big set-piece battles do.
- Help the players make important decisions at the end of a session so you know where things are going to go in the next one.
- Move things forward by summarizing the remaining exploration of a completed dungeon.
- Tell players when they've fully explored a location.
- Designate a note taker and treasure keeper.
Related Articles
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Articles
- Newsletter
- Bookstore
- Patreon
- Podcast
- YouTube
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »
Source: Sly Flourish | Published: August 7, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoUnderstanding the Six Truths of Your Campaign Setting
Joshua, a Patreon of Sly Flourish asks:

I'm having trouble squaring the Six Truths about a world with not providing spoilers to the players. What if one or more of the truths are entirely unknown to the characters? What if one of the Truths is also one of the Secrets/Clues within the campaign? I don't see how a DM should share that in a session zero without "giving away too much."

For reference, chapter 16 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master describes using "truths" of a campaign world to help you and your players focus on what makes this particular campaign different from others. These truths are known facts about the world. You know them. Your players know them. Their characters know them.

These truths aren't the same thing as secrets and clues which are bits of more specific information the characters might learn in the next session you run. Secrets and clues aren't known until the characters discover them. They don't even become true until the characters learn them.

If there are secrets about your campaign world that the characters don't know, exclude them from your list of truths. Those secrets are better kept in your own brain. You might be tempted to write out and plan the revelation of big campaign secrets but I recommend against it. These big secrets aren't real yet. You might change your mind as the campaign moves forward. Focus that energy on the things your players and their characters are going to see in the next session you're going to run.

Example Truths from 5e Campaigns

Below you'll find example truths from my [one page campaign guides] I give to players before we start a new campaign.

If you're familiar with these campaigns, you'll see these "truths" aren't the same as secrets and clues. They help players understand what's going on in the world but they don't tell them the whole story.

Campaign truths summarize the main points of your campaign you want your players and their characters to know as they begin a campaign. Secrets and clues are the elements of the story and the world the characters might discover as they explore the world around them.

Truths from Wild Beyond the Witchlight
- The Witchlight Carnival comes to your land only once every eight years. A few days later, it disappears.
- The Carnival is said to visit many worlds and rides the edge of the border between the world and the realm of the fey - the Feywild.
- The Feywild is beset by a strange corruption. Some folks believe this corruption is a collision of the realm of the Fey, our world, and another world.
- In the land of the fey, the archfey Zybilna has gone quiet. Those attuned to this patron have not heard from her in more than a year.
- Beings from the fey know that within the Feywild, visitors and natives alike best follow the Rule of Reciprocity, the Rule of Hospitality, and the Rule of Ownership.
- For unknown reasons, the numbers eight and three have power in the realm of the fey.
Here's my Wild Beyond the Witchlight One-Page Campaign Guide for more details on this campaign.

Truths of Rime of the Frostmaiden
- The sun hasn't risen in Icewind Dale for two years.
- The two-year night has cut off the frozen north from the rest of the Sword Coast.
- The Children of Auril demand sacrifices from the people of Ten Towns in the Frostmaiden's name.
- Ancient and powerful secrets lie under the ice.
- Shadowy figures lurk in the mountains hammering upon strange black metal.
Here's the Rime of the Frostmaiden One-Page Campaign Guide.

Truths of Empire of the Ghouls
- City at the Heart of the World. The Free City of Zobeck stands at a great crossroads, south of the vampire-filled Blood Kingdom, east of the dwarvish cantons, north of the chivalrous Magdar Kingdom, and west of the ancient Margreve Forest. It is a city where adventurers, merchants, and scoundrels from all nations intermingle and a place where wondrous inventions of steam and brass are forged.
- Within the Last Century. The citizens of Zobeck overthrew the longtime rulers – House Stross – and Zobeck became a free city, governed by a mayor and 11 consuls.
- Ley Lines and Shadow Roads. Midgard is alive with magic running in great, invisible rivers. Centuries ago, the elves used these rivers, known as ley lines, to create fey roads across their vast empire. After the elves’ retreat, most of these magical roads fell into disrepair. They are now known as the dangerous and unstable "shadow roads"".
- Rise of the Blood Kingdom. The vampires who rule Morgau and Doresh, known collectively as the Blood Kingdom, joined forces with the ghouls who live underground to conquer the Electoral Kingdom of Krakova, which sits a few hundred miles north of Zobeck. The surviving members of the royal family went into hiding, and the common folk now suffer under undead rule in the new province of Krakovar.
- Rising Tension in Zobeck. The dangers external to Zobeck create rising tensions within the Free City where normally friendly citizens seek scapegoats for the dangers lurking outside the walls.
Here's my Empire of the Ghouls One-Page Campaign Guide

Hopefully these examples help you see the difference between truths the characters know right from the beginning of the campaign and the secrets they discover as they explore the world around them.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on a Shadowdark RPG Deep Dive and Prepping for a Shadowdark 0-Level Gauntlet.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Reskin published NPCs as character relations – relatives, former lovers, former enemies, lost legends, and so on.
- Offer multiple meaningful paths and options in most situations.
- Use swarms of undead or necrotic mists to push characters through doorways.
- Drop monuments into combat encounters, let the characters manipulate them to shift the environment.
- Quick sketches of maps on a dry-erase map work well for dungeon crawls in in-person play. Print out bigger detailed chambers as needed.
- Print or post pictures of monsters, NPCs, scenes, and villains. Show them to your players.
- Share information freely. Tell the players what their characters would know.
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Source: Sly Flourish | Published: July 31, 2023 - 6:00 am
VideoAnatomy of an Environmental Effect – Chernobog's Well
Including monuments with environmental effects the characters can dork with is a great way to spice up combat encounters. It's important to get the mechanics of said dorking correct though, or they can end up being boring or a slog. We can also prepare such environmental effects to have different effects depending on the timing or beats of the encounter.

Here's an example for Chernbog's well, an unhallowed ritualistic circle outside of a tomb to the elven god Bacco from my Empire of the Ghouls campaign set in Midgard.

The Setup

In this encounter, the characters face eighteen skeletons, four skeletal veterans (from the Level Up Advanced 5e Monstrous Menagerie), and a Marsh Dire (from Tome of Beasts 2). The cultists of Chernobog created the circle and animated the dead surrounding the tomb. When the characters arrive, the cultists are gone but the twisted circle and animated dead remain. Given the power of the characters (6th level) compared to many of the monsters (big piles of CR 1/4 skeletons), the monument can significantly affect the whole battle without making the monsters too dangerous.

Effects of the Well

Chernobog's Well gives all undead the following traits:
- When a character hits an undead creature affected by Chernobog's Well with a melee attack, the attacker takes 3 (1d6) necrotic damage.
- The skeletons have advantage on attacks and inflict an extra 3 (1d6) necrotic damage on a hit.
These effects are powerful but given how much weaker the monsters are than the level 6 characters, it's probably appropriate.

Disabling the Well

To disable Chernobog's Well, a character must be within 5 feet of the well and use an action to make an Intelligence (Arcana or Religion) check with a DC of 15 to pull the unholy energy out of the well like drawing venom out of a wound. It takes three successes to completely close the well. A character can automatically succeed if they cast remove curse or dispel magic on it. A character can attempt to disable the well recklessly by using a bonus action instead of an action. If they fail the check while doing so recklessly, they take 9 (2d8) necrotic damage.

One important note is how the characters learn about the mechanics of a monument like this. Three words solves this conundrum: just tell them. Tell them how it works. Share the DCs. Negotiate with your players when they have an idea they want to try. Don't bury the info – share it.

Balance Effects and Consequences

When creating an object like this, we want the effects to be powerful but not so powerful that there's no choice but to deal with the artifact. Having advantage on attacks, extra damage on attacks, and a damage shield is a lot of stuff but it's survivable even if the characters decide to skip dorking with the well.

We also want to offer options to deal with the well itself. The characters can use normal ability checks or spells if they make sense. They can also use actions to be careful or bonus actions if they're willing to take a risk. They have to get over to the well which gets them moving around — always a good thing — although spells can be cast from a longer range, which is also a nice option.

Add Dials to the Monument

We can even put some dials onto this monument. What if, during play, the well turns out to be too powerful? Maybe we have one or more of the effects go away when only a single check succeeds. Maybe we remove effects behind the screen without telling the players. Maybe only certain undead have the abilities. Likewise, if things aren't enough of a challenge, maybe the effects get more powerful as the rounds go on until the monument is disabled or the monsters are destroyed.

When we look at an object like this, we need to think about it from the point of view of the player. Is it worth getting over there? Is it just a pain in the ass? Is it fun? Is the threat too hard or challenging but doable? We want such a monument to matter but not matter so much that there really is no choice.

Dorking with monuments is a good place for negotiation. Can a character knock out two of the three required successes with a casting of a higher level dispel magic? If two characters use their actions together, can one of them roll with advantage but have it count as two successes? Let the players come up with creative ways to screw with the monument and negotiate with them with an eye towards their success.

An Option for Ending Combat Early

We can also use the monument as a way to end combat early if we want. If combat goes long, maybe all the skeletons are destroyed when the well is disabled. This flexibility gives us another possible end-state for the battle other than just destroying all the skeletons, which, of course, is also an option.

Change Up Combat Encounters with Monuments and Effects

Adding monuments and environmental effects to combat encounters is a great way to add another variable to combat encounters. We don't need them all the time but they're a great way to shake up the situation.

If you're looking for some good generators to spark your own imagination while coming up with fantastic monuments, check out either the Lazy DM's Workbook or the Lazy DM's Companion.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos including a Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands Deep Dive and Top Tips for D&D Dungeon Masters

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- How are you going to get the characters out of that stupid doorway?
- Use published maps as inspiration for your own designs or story ideas.
- Game cancelled? Take the extra time to flesh out what you had planned.
- Review and refresh your notes as close to game-time as you can.
- Pantheons are a fantastic wrapper for otherwise mundane locations. It's not just a crypt. It's a crypt in worship of Anu-Akma!
- Don't expect the characters to choose a given path. Be ready to go with whatever choice the characters make.
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- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
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Source: Sly Flourish | Published: July 24, 2023 - 6:00 am

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