by W. Eric Martin

The 2023 Spielwarenmesse trade fair in Nürnberg, Germany doesn't open until February 1, but German game publishers have already started teasing titles due out in the first half of 2023.

• AMIGO will have two spin-off titles to popular game lines, with both Privacy Duo from Reinhard Staupe and Halli Galli Twist from Haim and Uri Shafir being card games for 2-4 players. All of the previous Privacy titles have been party games for at least five players, so I have no idea what to expect here, but you can be sure that Halli Galli Twist will feature a bell to smash. Brand consistency, people!

• KOSMOS has started announcing its early 2023 line-up on its Instagram page, with (like AMIGO) two line extensions, along with two other titles:

—Belratti is a new edition of the Michael Loth party game that became a surprise hit for publisher Mogel-Verlag at SPIEL '18. In the game, players alternate taking turns as painters and buyers, with painters choosing works of art from their hand that match revealed topics and buyers trying to identify these cards from the fake ones that wannabe artist Belratti has shuffled among the actual art.


—Autsch! is a German edition of the 2022 card game Ouch! from Romain Caterdjian, Théo Rivière, and Devir, with players trying not to get stuck by cacti thorns as they collect plants. (To watch the game play out, watch this GameNight! playthrough video.)


—Cartaventura: Karawanen is a German edition of Cartaventura: Caravans, the fourth co-operative narrative card game from Pierre Buty, Thomas Dupont, and BLAM !


—Suspects: Shakespeares Tränen is a co-operative murder mystery deduction game from Guillaume Montiage and Manuel Rozoy that will be sold as part of a trilogy — Suspects 2 — from originating publisher Studio H.


Additionally, in January 2023, KOSMOS plans to release Ubongo Schul-Edition, with this being a special €220 package that contains elements of Ubongo, Ubongo Junior Mitbringspiel, and Ubongo 3-D Family, with components for 28 players, downloads for teachers, and educational supplements for use in the classroom.

Finally, at least for now, KOSMOS has three titles that were delayed from September 2022 to January 2023:

— Die Legenden von Andor: Die Ewige Kälte, a large box standalone game in the Andor universe from designer/artist Michael Menzel.

— Der Herr der Ringe: Gemeinsam zum Schicksalsberg, a 1-4 player co-operative dice-based game by Michael Rieneck in which you need to get Frodo to Mount Doom.

— My Island, a a competitive legacy game for 2-4 players from Reiner Knizia in which each player builds their own island from hexagons over 24 games.

Read more »

by sébastien dujardin

Here is the designer diary from David Simiand and Pierre Voye for Time of Empires, the next game from Pearl Games, which will be released in stores on November 25, 2022. —Sébastien Dujardin, manager of Pearl Games


Even Before Creation...

A game, and part of a game, necessarily starts with an encounter between at least two players. So it was in the games bar in Dijon, the Dé Masqué, where we met. Regularly playing together, we noticed that we had much the same playful tastes. One day in December, David asked Pierre this simple question: "Would you like to play a game of civilization with hourglasses?" The idea came from several inspirations, and we thought there was a way to achieve something.

The first inspiration comes from the game Space Dealer, which already used hourglasses as a means of doing actions. The second is the desire to play with the passage of time to build History with a capital H; it seemed obvious for a game of civilization to use the passage of time in this way. The third is real-time strategy video games (such as Age of Empires), whose loading times are used to produce soldiers and harvest resources, for example. Finally, the last is a lesson from Fernand Braudel, an eminent historian who defined History as several times that flow at different rhythms. For example, the time of war and politics is a short time compared to that almost immobile time of socio-economic structures, and it is this hiatus that we wanted to put in the game. This is why we wanted to create "emergencies" (war, events...) whose temporality can break that of the structural one, which consists, for example, of constructing buildings in order to develop one's economy.

And so, how to make an "expert" level civilization game with hourglasses, which are more associated with party games? This simple question turned into a real challenge that galvanized us immediately. The first was to make a board game — which is a disconcerting idea when you have never created anything: How do you do it? What are the steps? What does it take to turn an idea into a game? We were getting into a civilization game, a type of game we love (as with Through the Ages to name just one of our favorites). As a result, we were going to take inspiration from this type of game and the codes of the genre, with the "style exercise" side of the game being created on our own.

But the biggest challenge was the integration of the "real-time" experience via the installation of workers from hourglasses, a simple but very strong idea. This is how the creation of Time of Empires began.

From the beginning of the creation process as well as for our other fun creation projects, we set ourselves a course to follow a rule: Keep the same state of mind by making games that we want to play and that we miss by their absence in the playful world. It is our main source of motivation and most of our decisions, our good ideas, and our game design mistakes come from this desire to make games that we like.

Alpha Prototype

A few weeks after this proposal from David, we started and quickly several elements were fixed; they will stay until the end.

First, the choice of the action system with two 30-second hourglasses: thirty seconds because it's neither too short (we have time to think) nor too long (we don't get bored), and two hourglasses because just one is useless — it would amount to simple turn-based gameplay — and more than two would be too much to handle.

In addition, we wondered how to solve the action related to the installation of the hourglasses:

• Do as in a video game: We place the hourglass, and we resolve the action at the end of the hourglass because the passage of time represents the time to do the action.

=> This first possibility quickly had to be abandoned as it led to haste and forgetfulness.

• Or put down the hourglass and activate it while it is flowing.

In short, a game that had to be refined as there were too many things, some of which we managed to easily modify, while others took us a lot of time.

The game would take place in three ages: antiquity / Middle Ages, modern times, and finally contemporary times. We like the feeling of development, of going through time.

We have taken up the classic pillars of civilization and 4X games: science, culture, production, agriculture, military, happiness, etc.
What's great in a civilization game is the duality between the need to be strong everywhere (it takes everything to have a good civilization) and the fact that the game pushes you to specialize. Here every pillar is necessary to build a stable civilization. Science provides access to development; resources make it possible to construct buildings; food to increase population; culture to make victory points.

From all these elements, we made a first ugly prototype and here it is:

Eureka! It works!
The game is there: The idea works...but it's way too heavy! We were far too ambitious with too many parameters. And yes, you will no longer have to deal with happiness, revolutions between governments, random events, attacking barbarians, the formation of troops in several times, etc.

Proto Refinement

We then decide to make a nice prototype (drinking too much porto wine) that we rework again and again and that we present first at game festivals: Paris est Ludique! then FLIP in Parthenay, France.


We then had four types of constructible buildings that provide the following four elements:

• Science (in green), which allows you to research very different technologies with various effects
• Civilians (in orange), who bring resources to build buildings
• Agriculture (in yellow), which allows the growth of the population
• Cultural (in blue), which allows you to gain victory points


We develop our board by adding technologies, which allows us to build buildings that help us develop.


For interaction, players will seek to expand their territory on the common board, possibly going to war. There are also leader and wonder cards that players compete to collect.



We go to festivals and win the FLIP creator competition, especially for mechanical originality.


Editorial Work

From there, to our very great satisfaction, Sébastien from Pearl Games is interested in publishing the game. We are a fan of this editor, and he is motivated to edit our civilization game in real time despite the editorial risks: good hourglasses, cost, etc.

And there, Sébastien puts his finger directly on points that we had not seen when we thought we had already mowed the mammoth. Indeed, the game remains too heavy, and some of our mechanisms even break its fundamental principle: the setting of hourglasses! For example, the technologies were very complex and required a long draft phase between ages that could last almost as long as the real-time phase.

Similarly, we were fixed on three ages of fifteen minutes...which was much too long due to two negative consequences. First, that was a lot of actions, with sixty actions per age and 180 actions in total. This forced us to design filler actions, actions with little impact and little interest in order to limit the increase in power. Second, the players ended their games wiped out. When you think about it, 180 actions is huge as most management games are played in 30-40 actions.

Thus, one of the first pieces of feedback from Sébastien was to divide by three the costs of the wonders to divide by three the playing time. We had not even realized that we could simply reduce the costs for a very similar result that would be more effective in terms of playing feel.

The editorial work started then. We received beautiful maps and graphics, prototypes that were more elegant than ours. Little by little, our game became concrete.


We thank Sébastien again for believing in our game, and we hope that you too will enjoy developing your civilization in three ages of nine minutes each!

David & Pierre Read more »

by Candice Harris

BGG.CON 2022 was a fun, soul-refreshing time! It was awesome to reconnect in person with many of my BGG teammates, and it's always a blast playing and talking about games with new and old friends. Unfortunately, I ended up with a bad stomach bug a few days after I got home, which was a setback on all fronts. Thus, I'm finally getting around to sharing a few 2022 releases I played at the convention and found very memorable.

• Shortly after I arrived at BGG.CON, I jumped into a super fun and rowdy 9-player game of John D. Clair's new horse race betting game, Ready Set Bet, from AEG. In each round of Ready Set Bet, players are making bets on a horse race that is happening real-time. You have a few betting tokens of different values that you may place on different spots or cards on the game board as each race is in progress. You are trying to bet on the horses you think will win (1st), place (2nd), or show (3rd) so you can hopefully make more money than your opponents, which is the goal of the game.

There's a companion app you can use to run the horse races, or a player can run the show by rolling dice and moving the corresponding horses on the horse race board. In our case, we had the high-energy, hilarious Grant Lyon running and MC'ing our horse races while throwing in all the best horse race banter you could imagine. We were thoroughly entertained the entire game.


At the end of each race, players make or lose money depending on the outcome of their bets. As the game progresses, players also gain special abilities from VIP cards. Then whoever has the most money at the end of four rounds wins.

• The very next day, my friend Jonah, who I met for the first time in person at BGG.CON, introduced me to Roulette-taking Game, which is a trick-taking game fused with roulette (as its title implies), from designer T親方 and Japanese publisher PaixGuild. In Roulette-taking Game, which plays with 2-4 players, you play tricks to bet on the rank and suit of the card that wins the last trick of the hand.

The cards come in two suits (red and black) and there are some special trump cards too. At the beginning of each round, you discard 9 cards from the deck and block off the corresponding numbers on the betting board before dealing the remaining cards to the players. As players play cards, you also block off those corresponding numbers, since the only number you're trying to deduce is the one that will win the very last trick.


If you're not the current dealer and you win a trick, you get the opportunity to make a bet by placing some amount of money with your player color token onto a betting space on the board. You're placing bets on a roulette style board so you can bet on the exact number, a range of numbers, even or odd, red or black, etc., and they all payout differently. If you are the current dealer and you win a trick, you use your player color token to block a betting space, but you do not place any bets/money. Instead, at the end of the round, the dealer wins all of the money from incorrect bets while the non-dealer players win money for all of their correct bets (if any).

Whoever makes the most money by the end of the game wins. Between Roulette-taking Game and Ready Set Bet I suppose my friends will wonder if my "board game problem" is turning into a "gambling board game problem"? Time will tell.

• I put my negotiation skills (or lack thereof) to work when I played an awesome 4-player game of John Company (Second Edition) from Cole Wehrle and Wehrlegig Games. I wrote a bit about John Company (Second Edition) in a post from March 2021 after a small taste of it on Tabletop Simulator, but I'm so thrilled to finally have a physical copy of John Company (Second Edition) to play and explore. I've been enjoying it a lot already and I've barely experienced all this gem has to offer.


• I played my first game of Matúš Kotry's unique, hidden roles, eurogame, Deal with the Devil, from Czech Games Edition (CGE). It was definitely a learning game as I fumbled through trying to be the best devil I could be, while still figuring out the game and what I should and shouldn't be offering the other players for their souls. We had a lot of fun as you can tell from this post-game photo Steph posted on Twitter.
[twitter=1591979326110851072]
I went into the game thinking it was going to be super heavy, but it felt a lot more on the medium side complexity wise after we played a few rounds. It seems like the perceived complexity stems from its uniqueness of melding a social deduction game with more common euro mechanisms. On episode 5 of the BoardGameGeek podcast, I talked about John Company and Deal with the Devil with Steph Hodge if you're interested in hearing more about either or both games.

• Steph, Michael, and I also played Richard Garfield's 2022 release, Creature Feature, from Trick or Treat Studios. Creature Feature is a hand management, bluffing game where 3-6 players take on the roles of movie agents trying to cast monster actors for monster movies.

Here's an overview of how it works:

Each round you will assign a Co-star and a Star (cards with a number value and possibly a special ability) to audition for a role (a tile worth points). Everyone will reveal their co-stars and then have the opportunity to change what they are auditioning for and instead try for lesser films worth fewer points. Winning a part scores points - but there's a twist! If your star has a lower value than your co-star, you can't win unless everyone else stops competing for that film... but if everyone DOES back off, you score extra points!

Photo posted by Steph Hodge
I really like how thinky this game is from the bluffing element and hand management. You don't draw a new hand of cards until the end of the season, so you have to think carefully about which cards to play each round. Plus, you don't know how many points all the feature films are worth until they're revealed, and you don't know what your opponents might play, so deciding on which cards to play is very interesting and challenging. Then after everyone reveals their co-stars, you have the whole bluffing game of figuring out when it makes sense to stay and audition, or drop a level and try to score (potentially more) points from scoring a twist and/or being uncontested for a short film. There are also a few types of special helper cards you can play at different points in the game to assist you. I'm looking forward to playing Creature Feature more. It seems like a game that'll get better and better the more you play it, as you familiarize yourself with it and discover juicy card synergies.

Still channeling my devilish ways...

• Before heading home, I stopped at the BGG warehouse to pick up some BGG swag and a copy of the Take The "A" Chord (second edition), a unique, jazzy trick-taking game from Saashi & Saashi, which is back in stock in the BGG Store. I've been wanting to play this one for a while, so I had to break it out and play it at the airport. I was happy to find it hit all the right thinky and fun notes that I love in trick-taking games, even with only 2 players.


My cute new BGG hat! Read more »

by Asger Sams Granerud

Introduction

Daniel and I have been designing games for quite some years by now, and it is extremely rare that you feel you "know" you have a hit. Moreover we have had that feeling a couple of times when we just end up being flat out wrong, so "knowing" might also be somewhat of an exaggeration. (The reality = you never know.)

Normally we shop our prototype designs around at fairs to lots of great publishers, but Heat: Pedal to the Metal just had something about it since the very first tests in the summer of 2018. Thus, we have pitched it to only a single publisher, and we even contemplated publishing it ourselves if that fell through. Thankfully Days of Wonder agreed with us not long after we pitched it at SPIEL '18. They even wanted to proceed with our artist of choice, Vincent Dutrait, whom we had already contacted.

Obviously that brief introduction makes it sound like a smooth ride to the present day. It never is smooth, and it wasn't here. Though some very core elements never really changed, the number of iterations that have been tested are staggering. We will try to take you through this journey today.

Daniel: It has been a long journey indeed, and Covid didn't help. Over the years Heat: Pedal to the Metal has been tested hundreds and hundreds of times by us here in Copenhagen, online, and traveling with it to Los Angeles, New York, London, Warsaw, Aarhus, and Paris to name a few places (and Franck Lefebvre from DoW has done the same with even more travels). One of many memorable test days was playing with Quinns and Matt from Shut Up & Sit Down at the Danish con Fastaval in 2019. At the time we thought the game was pretty close to completion. Oh, the naïveté — we still had the turbo die back then. Quinns and Matt shared their experience in episode 95 of their SU&SD podcast. Heat was called "Auto" back then.


Inspiration

Through Flamme Rouge we had seen that an accessible racing game had the potential to gain an audience, including a dedicated fan group on BoardGameGeek. We figured that there could be a similar market for a car-racing game. Obviously the market is already saturated with such games, but personally I'm not a huge fan of the roll-and-move element of the biggest one out there (Formula D), and many other games in the category are racing themed, but combine racing with betting elements or similar. We figured it was the right time for a new racing game to take pole position. From the beginning it was a clear premise that we wanted a pure racing game in which the first across the line wins. I wrote some similar thoughts in my designer diary for Flamme Rouge in 2016, and most of that also applies here.

What Makes It Different?

The elephant in the room that is already being discussed is what makes Heat: Pedal to the Metal different from Flamme Rouge. The simple answer is hand management vs. deck management. For me, the most fundamental design dogma of Flamme Rouge has always been that a card is only ever played once. As soon as it has been played, it is permanently removed from the game. This represents the fact that energy is being depleted as you race towards the finish line, and it is why I have described the design as a deck-thinning game in the past. The remaining cards are discarded and eventually become available again. Flamme Rouge is essentially about managing your energy over time, and jockeying for positional benefits along the way. Draw four cards, play one, and save the rest. It's hand management from turn to turn, about current priorities and chances, with decisions that always have consequences down the line.

However, a car obviously doesn't get "tired" in the same manner as a bicycle rider. Even so, these early racing cars could overheat, malfunction, have tires run down, and encounter a number of other issues. Thus the fundamental design dogma of Heat: Pedal to the Metal isn't about thinning your deck; it is about managing it as the same cards cycle past your hand again and again, with your engine overheating and cooling down. The large hand size allows more immediate control as you don't discard the round's leftover cards. The timing of how you handle the cycling of the deck represents the various mechanical issues that you have to react to, as well as preparation for the corner or straight coming up. The cards you choose not to play don't represent energy you are saving for later in the game; they become part of what choices you may have access to on the very next turn or subsequent ones. Should I hold on to a high-speed card when there are still two corners to navigate before the long straight, or should I discard it for more flexibility in the short run? My mindspace requires more than just clearing the next corner/straight; the hand- and deck-management forces me to constantly prepare and look further ahead.


Core Design

We felt that using a card deck per player coupled with simultaneous play could give us a unique racing experience, which crucially should deliver a full playthrough within the hour. From these simple premises and all the inspiration around it, lots of elements flowed naturally, and never really changed:

• We knew we wanted to implement gears and decided that the gear determined the number of cards you had to play. A higher gear would equal more cards, resulting in a higher speed — perfect to gain momentum on straights.
• Corners would obviously force you to lower your speed, depending on how sharp they were.
• In between corners, we would need straights where you could really reach peak speed.
• Different cards would have different speed values.
• We wanted some way of "pushing" the limits of your car, so that deciding when to time the push would be interesting.

Our expectation was that the above should create tension between when you would want to be in lower gears (corners) or higher gears (straights), and that the different speed values would result in both hand and deck management, causing additional tension. All this within a streamlined and intuitive card play that made sense thematically.


Daniel: The gear = the number of cards mechanism was always part of Heat: Pedal to the Metal. This image is from SPIEL '18 while first showing the prototype to Days of Wonder.

Left Along the Roadside

During that initial process, several elements we thought would be essential ended up being removed. Initially we had different types of severity of "damage", as well as brake cubes as a separate element. Eventually all of these were streamlined into the abstracted "Heat" card. Pit stops were also an initial design goal, which proved to be too cumbersome to implement. The rules for a pit stop could be pretty straightforward, but balancing it for an interesting experience inside the two laps that a race lasts proved outside our capabilities and/or the design's boundaries.

Initially we had a die that we used for the turbo boost before removing it and using the draw deck as a randomizer. Even that feature went through iterations in which all cards had a "flip value", until we simply just tied it to the core speed cards. Often when we design we are looking for the simplest rule to implement that still achieves the desired results, but just as often there are several contradictory dilemmas in what is "simplest". This design is a great example in which we initially wanted the game flow to be as fast as possible (roll one die), then changed it along those lines (flip one card). The result was that in order to avoid flipping many cards for the sake of game flow, we added new values to all cards. When we eventually ditched that ambition, the new rules removed graphic complexity and rules confusion from ALL cards, while the "cost" of occasionally flipping a few extra cards actually became a feature, not a bug.

In many ways this change ended up adding more randomness to the consequence of the boost, and even changed our stance on whether you could check what was in your discard and draw piles. (You cannot.) In all versions the actual boost to your speed had almost identical consequences from a pure mechanical point of view, but even small developments sometimes end up having cascading effects.


Daniel: The flip speed made so much sense...until we removed it and nobody missed it.

Corners

The corners are probably the single design element that went through the most iterations. We wanted a solution that slowed down players but also allowed for creative play and ways to sometimes break out of those restrictions. Considering the simplicity of the final implementation, this may seem surprising. We have tried to show many of the different versions in the photo below, but we are sure we have missed at least a few. There were a lot of minor and major iterations, and even some we can't remember the rules for! Often we find a rule that we are happy with, but still try to deconstruct it in as many ways as we can. For a car-racing game, there really couldn't be a feature we needed to consider more thoroughly than the corners. We even tested versions we assumed would not work, just because we have found our assumptions to be wrong more times than we can count and wanted to be certain.


Daniel: Let me see whether I can remember these old corner designs. A) A very early design. You had to stop in the corner zone and lower your speed to the required number, either as you enter or exit. The marker is there to help you remember when a corner is cleared. Not very elegant! B) I had completely forgotten about this iteration. One speed limit for entering and another for exiting. C) I am not sure what is going on here, but it is obvious from the huge exclamation mark that this corner is super dangerous. D) Two separate lanes. The inner lane is shorter but requires a lower speed to not spin out. E) Here we are close to the final design but with an orange spinout zone where you move your car to slowly re-enter the circuit. F) The final design. Just a number and a line.

Hand Management

Each player has a deck of cards, and each deck has 12 speed cards with three each of the numbers 1-4. The deck also has three Stress cards, which add uncertainty because their speed will be decided by a flipped card from the top of your speed deck. Normally cards can be discarded at will at the end of your turn, but the Heat and Stress cards are exempt from this, meaning you have to consider how and when to get rid of them. Time it well, and you are driving smoothly.


Daniel: I love how Vincent Dutrait expresses speed across the numbered cards. It was an idea we played around with in early hand-drawn prototypes that I am really happy survived to the final product.

Heat Cards

Speaking of Heat cards, not only are they so central that they became the name of the game, they are also the central mechanism used for breaking the core rules. Want to move a little faster with a boost? Spend a Heat card from your player board. Want to speed through a corner? Spend Heat cards. Want to skip a gear? Spend a Heat card. Once you start tuning your own cars, several of the upgrades will also require you to...spend Heat cards.

The trouble with Heat cards is that spending them isn't a freebie. Once spent, they move into your discard pile, and when your draw deck runs out, your discard pile becomes your new draw deck. Thus, eventually these Heat cards end up in your hand, and when in your hand they can be neither played nor discarded. This means they stay in your hand as a "dead" card, reducing your effective hand size, and thus reducing your control.

So how do you get the excess Heat that keeps building up out of your hand? Through the lower gears or specialized upgrade cards, you get access to cooldown. Cooldown allows you to move Heat cards from your hand back into the available Heat reserve, ready to be used again. The trick is not to avoid using Heat cards; it is to use them cleverly and as much as you can without overheating. Time them well, and you will be driving fast and breaking boundaries.

Unsurprisingly this effect entails that timing once again matters. If you have just shuffled a lot of Heat cards into your draw deck, you could be in big trouble. You could draw several Heat cards into your hand at a moment when you want to be in a higher gear playing many cards. On the other hand, if you're heading towards sharp corners and would be using the lowest gears, this might be a great opportunity for you to actually replenish your Heat reserves. Managing how and when you push your car that little bit extra is a big part of the game.

Daniel: I have often described Heat: Pedal to the Metal as 13 Days the racing game, and only half jokingly. In 13 Days you aim to push your agendas during the Cuban Missile Crisis more so than your opponent, but without going to DEFCON 1 and starting a nuclear war. In Heat: Pedal to the Metal you want to drive your car faster than your opponents around the track but without overheating and spinning out. The Heat cards are there in front of you to be used, but be careful!


Daniel: When things go wrong, you end up with a handful of Heat cards. This is extremely unfortunate on a long straight section when you want to go in high gears (insert evil laughter).

Upgrades

Daniel: This is where I step in and admit that I preferred player powers over upgrades for the longest time. I saw player powers as an opportunity to create stronger in-game characters. If the blue race car is always Tango Silva, then he'll be racing regardless of a player or the bots being in control.

So how did the game end up with 48 unique upgrade cards and no player powers? The big push came when we visited Days of Wonder in Paris in late 2019 to work on the game in their office. We saw several people being frustrated by playing a character that didn't perform well on the chosen track, even though it would outperform the other characters on the next.

We always take it seriously when people start blaming the game for their ill fortunes and want to address any underlying issues. The issue at hand was that player powers couldn't be both unique and mechanically interesting, while also being fairly balanced across the different race tracks. We had all these thoughts as we walked back to our hotel. The next morning we had decided to go all-in on upgrades and had sketched the first 20-25 rough designs before we left Paris the next evening.

The final game has 48 unique upgrades (two of each for 96 total). You draft three upgrades before each race in the advanced game, giving players thousands of combinations to explore across the various race tracks. I reckon we have probably tested twice as many upgrades and selected the best, thinking that many of these would only ever be introduced in a future expansion if the game were successful enough. When DoW decided to publish the big box, we were ready with a lot of true and tested concepts.


Daniel: During development we often laid out all upgrade cards on the table, using colored cubes to mark cards we considered too strong/weak/not interesting enough (left image). To the right, the 48 upgrades that made the final cut.

Race Tracks

As soon as we settled on a 1960s car-racing setting, we knew we wanted to create circuits where you can race multiple laps. We also knew we wanted a modular component to keep the challenge fresh if you play the same track twenty or fifty times. The solution: the weather and road condition tokens that modify corners or straights and provide a new randomized set-up every game. For example: That 4 corner you used to speed through is suddenly extra dangerous, or one sector provides more slipstream opportunities to overtake other cars, or it is raining and you shuffle Heat cards into your draw deck at the beginning, giving you a car that is harder to manage from the start line.

There are four unique race tracks in the box. The design goal for each of them was to offer the best play experience, which is why we have created our own tracks from the ground up and not modeled them around real-life tracks where our game system did not fit. They are asking you different questions, like:

• USA: Can you go into the last chicane still in contention and with four Heat cards in your engine?
• Great Britain: Will you time your speed and slipstream to clear multiple corners in a turn?
• Italy: While it is tempting to shoot through the corners, be careful not to end up with a handful of Heat cards on the very long straight.
• France: Can you cycle through your deck fast enough to be able to reuse Heat cards multiple times?

I am sure there are loads of ways to explore new track designs in the future — and hopefully there'll be a community who can challenge and inspire us.


Daniel: The very first prototype used Flamme Rouge tracks (lazy designers), but we quickly concluded that our game would need a proper game board in which you could run laps.


Daniel: How do weather and road condition tokens affect gameplay? Here's an example. Weather forecast is rain. You may draw Heat into your hand early game (bummer), but you can always cooldown Heat on the very long straight (left image). Bad asphalt in the corner. The speed limit is reduced to 1! But on the sector leading up to the corner you may slipstream extra spaces, allowing you an advantageous position as you approach the corner (right image).

Legends

From early days we knew we wanted to create bots to allow for more cars to compete against at both low and high player counts. We were also looking for a solution in which one player could easily control several bots without having to manage multiple decks and flow charts, that is, playing the game of the bots and not their own, which isn't much fun. Solution: A single deck of cards for all bots. Reveal a single card each round.

The second design goal was for the bots to behave like a human player in its most simple sense. (We had to cut a few corners.) That means if they are close enough to the next corner, they'll attempt to clear it, but only sometimes making it through. If they are on a straight, they want to move as fast as possible towards the next corner, but their top speed may vary.

The third design goal was for the bots to actually be playable by others than the two of us. More than once we made a new iteration for the bots only to have it fail miserably when met with real-life testers. In theory that bot design should work fine, but since players didn't understand how to run them, we had to come up with a better solution. Slowly we made them simpler and more intuitive with the above constraints.

The final design goal was to balance them. We wanted them to be a real challenge, while also controlling their performance to avoid having too many outliers of very strong or very bad play. A friend of ours helped us program a bot simulator so that we could tweak values and run hundreds of thousands of tests to tune their performance on a given track, tracking the distribution of rounds they would take to complete a race.
The bots are still designed primarily for players of some experience — which is why they belong to the advanced rules — as we want new players to think only about learning to drive their race car. But anyone reading this is likely to be completely fine using them from game one!


Daniel: I have run countless solo tests against bots to get the feel of opponents right. The bots are, of course, a bit stronger on some tracks. (I'll let you discover which ones for yourself.) Luckily, the difficulty level can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing their top speed.

Championship

We made an expandable core system, and from the get-go DoW was interested in making it possible for potential fans of the game to dive deep, if they felt inclined to do so. This is why so much content was ready.

For a long time we thought it would be an almost simultaneous release of two boxes, but once DoW decided to go with a single bigger box from the beginning, we and the team ended up having to decide what should go in it and what shouldn't, while trying to keep the price point as accessible as possible. Never perfect for everyone, and always hard to find the right balance.

However, the idea of adding a campaign-style experience to the game was possible without being too costly. We knew that a series of games could be linked as in the real world, with a points system based on your finishes across several races, but we wanted the experience to be a little grander, so we didn't stop there. Each such race would have an event that adds a race-wide special rule to the game, and the ten such events in the game can be shuffled and played as you wish. However, they can also be played in order across the 1961, 1962, and 1963 seasons, combining the three championships into a tailored campaign to see who would be the GOAT.

When playing in the campaign mode you gradually improve your car from race to race, starting off worse than the cars in the ordinary races and eventually ending up stronger. You fight for points in the championship, and you aim to please potential sponsors by catching the press attention when racing. Sponsorships provide single-use bonus cards that can help you win if used at the right moment.

Combine the variability of the upgrade cards with the weather and road conditions, and you've already got millions of potential playthroughs. With events and sponsorships on top, that number moves into the trillions before you would expect a repeat set-up.

Daniel (l) and Asger at SPIEL '22
The official U.S. release date for Heat: Pedal to the Metal is November 25, 2022. We hope you will enjoy playing the game as much as we have enjoyed making and playing it. We truly believe in it, and the job DoW has made on production value is, as always, through the roof. Finally, we leave you with two quotes from some of the early days of racing. Quotes that we think fully apply to the spirit of Heat: Pedal to the Metal:

Any car which holds together for more than a race is too heavy.
-Colin Chapman

If everything seems to be in control, you're not going fast enough.
- Mario Andretti

Asger Harding Granerud
Daniel Skjold Pedersen Read more »

by W. Eric Martin

Time to go small in this post to focus on card games:

• Julio E. Nazario's Peanut Butter Belly Time, which I covered in May 2022, is being Kickstarted (link) by Nerdy Nuts, LLC, the game's publisher and a specialty peanut butter manufacturer that has set an ambitious goal for this 2-7 player game:

You are peanut butter makers for Nerdy Nuts!

Decide what flavors you want to create from Chocolate Marshmallow to Banana Cookie and everything in between, then prepare your jars and collect the right ingredients for your special peanut butter creations. You can add mystery ingredients for extra flavor, but don't push your luck too far or your sweet treats might end up too salty instead!

In Peanut Butter Belly Time, players draft ingredient cards to create jars of peanut butter. Each card also has a scoring rule on it, but only one card will score for each jar. Players may take orders from a central display if they can fulfill them, and an order replaces a jar's normal scoring. Players can also compete for ingredient majority cards.

• In 2023, AMIGO Games — the U.S. branch of AMIGO Spiele — will release the new version of Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling's Abluxxen in English, a new version of Kramer's Take 5! with revamped graphics (which I believe is a new version of 6 nimmt!, not the separate but similar Take 5!), and Haim Shafir's Halli Galli Junior.

• Fila is a print-and-play game from Femi of Centroid Games, with a Kickstarter campaign also making physical copies available in 2023. Here's an overview of this 4-6 player game:

Fila consists of a 21-card deck, with each card having a point value. To start, reveal a number of cards face up based on the player count.

On a turn, draw a card from the deck and without looking at it show this card to 2-3 other players, then place it face down in front of you. After all players have three cards in front of them, write down your predictions for which player has the most points or whether there's a tie for high score, then predict how many points each player has. Players win or lose points based on the accuracy of their predictions, and whoever has the highest score wins.

• Studio Tecuanis has been creating Aztec-inspired artwork, apparel, and toys for years, and it launched its debut game — NAWALLI — on Kickstarter (link) in late October 2022, with the game also being available later on its website. Here's an overview of this 2-4 player game:

In NAWALLI, a creature battle card game based on Aztec mythology, you take on the role of a shapeshifting sorcerer known as a Nawalli to summon Nawals — allies such as creatures of the forest, ghosts, and monsters to battle in the arenas.

The game comes with four partially pre-built decks, representing Aztec gods from the four directions: Tezkatlipoka, Tlalok, Ehakatl, and Xipe Totek. In the main game mode, players select one deck, then draft a complementary team of creatures, items, and spells before doing battle in the arena.

Each creature you summon has unique abilities based on the twenty Aztec Daysigns, e.g., Eagle allows your creatures to fly one lane over to attack, Jaguar allows shifting one lane before attacking, and Snake allows eating defeated Nawals to absorb their powers.

Nawals can be combined together to create a hybrid creature with more health, power, and both sets of abilities. Shapeshifting a Nawal restores its life completely, so finish off your opponent's wounded creatures to avoid giving them a powerful play.

Read more »

by W. Eric Martin

• On Polygon, Charlie Hall argues that "[t]abletop creators are trapped in a boom and bust crowdfunding cycle", using Wyrmwood Gaming's failed Kickstarter for a modular desk as (the sole) example.

As for why this has happened, Hall interviews William Michael Cunningham, author of The JOBS Act: Crowdfunding Guide to Small Businesses and Startups, who explains that due to consolidation among banks, funding for tiny businesses is much harder to come by.

In a Twitter thread, designer Cole Wehrle responds by noting that in its ideal form crowdfunding allows people the opportunity to fund projects that they want to see exist:

[twitter=1594492828456992771]
• If you're curious to see what was played at BGG.CON 2022, you can explore the BGG Library check-out stats. Plenty of people brought games of their own to play, of course, but this provides a sampling of what hit the tables.

• On Ars Technica, Benj Edwards explains how a weak AI with an unexpected playing style can defeat higher-level AIs in Go, despite humans being able to beat that weak AI. An excerpt:

"The research shows that AI systems that seem to perform at a human level are often doing so in a very alien way, and so can fail in ways that are surprising to humans," explains [Adam] Gleave[, who co-authored a paper on this project]. "This result is entertaining in Go, but similar failures in safety-critical systems could be dangerous."

• The 11th Rummikub World Championships, which are abbreviated as WRC, will be held on October 20-23, 2023 in Gdansk, Poland. The event normally takes place every three years, but due to Covid the 2021 event was skipped, with the most recent event taking place in Israel in 2018.

• In an October 2022 article on Wired, Kam Burns explains how therapists are using tabletop games to help people. An excerpt:

Role-playing can be especially helpful for people who've experienced trauma and oppression. Cassie Walker, a clinical social worker and trauma specialist, sees games and role-playing as a valuable way to connect with clients and demonstrate that therapy doesn’t have to be serious or painful.

"Trauma disconnects us from ourselves, and one of the first things we get disconnected from is our imagination and creativity," Walker says. Tabletop games allow their clients to reconnect with their imaginations, as the structure of the games provide some comfort and encourage people to start thinking about what could be rather than what is.

• Speaking of role-playing, after an election in Berlin in September 2021 marred by errors such as "long lines, polling place glitches, shortages of paper ballots, voters receiving incorrect ballots, and other issues", the German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel "has built an immersive, in-person game with the hopes that players walk away with an understanding of how their local governments work (and possibly pique their interest in participating in the real thing)", Hanaa' Tameez writes in a Nov. 2022 article on NiemanLab. An excerpt:

Tagesspiegel developed BVV-Planspiel, which translates to "experimental game," in partnership with the German game design agency Planpolitik. The project is managed and funded by the city's public libraries and, after an initial pilot phase, the partners plan to fully launch the game in the spring of 2023...

Planspiel centers around the made-up Berlin district of Biberfelde. The game requires at least 10 players to serve as members of the district's assembly and discuss a range of local issues. Each player is assigned to a fictional political party that's loosely based on a real one. They get a short description of who they are, what kind of values and ideas they hold, and who their character represents.

At the end of 90 minutes, the players have to come to a resolution on the issue that serves the interest of the district's residents. Hosting the game at public libraries — there's one in each of the 12 districts — makes it accessible to all residents for free.

Read more »

by David Thompson

Undaunted: Stalingrad is a deep and expansive standalone game that moves the Undaunted series in a whole new direction — an immersive campaign system that plays out like a legacy game but can be replayed for very different experiences.

In Undaunted: Stalingrad, you lead a German or Soviet platoon and battle over a war-torn city in one of the most consequential battles in history. During the course of the campaign, your soldiers can be awarded for their acts of valor or they can die fighting valiantly, the city around you changes based on your actions, and your victories and defeats shape the scenarios to come.


At the beginning of Undaunted: Stalingrad, your platoon consists of a platoon sergeant, squad leaders, scouts, riflemen, and machine gunners. Over the course of the campaign, you will be able to add many new troops to your platoon, and you will be able to outfit your soldiers with new weapons and equipment — and your infantry won't be alone. To win in the streets of Stalingrad, you will need all the support you can muster from tanks and more. As you command your troops in skirmishes, they have the opportunity to be rewarded for their feats of bravery, with promotions bringing new roles and responsibilities as well as outfitting them with new weapons and equipment. But even though the Battle of Stalingrad offers your soldiers a chance to demonstrate their courage, it is extremely dangerous and many of the troops that you begin the campaign with will not live to see the fate of the city.

Your actions and those of your opponent will reshape the city of Stalingrad as you make your way through the campaign. Buildings will be reduced to rubble by the destructive might of the German and Soviet air forces and artillery fire. You will have to use the environment to your advantage to be successful in your battles, hiding in the rubble left behind by a destroyed apartment building, navigating secret tunnels, and forcing your opponent's tanks into your ambushes.

During the course of the campaign, you will play through up to fifteen branching scenarios, with each path driven by your successes and failures. With over 35 different scenarios in the game, every campaign experience will be different than the one before. Each player in Undaunted: Stalingrad has their own mission briefings, providing players with a story tailored to their perspective of the battle. The game includes over 150 evocative mission briefings for each side written by acclaimed author Robbie MacNiven, providing players with a story tailored to their perspective of the battle that will help immerse them in the campaign's story. And of course the game's rich narrative will be illustrated by Roland MacDonald, with over three hundred unique pieces of art.

This is the story of how Undaunted: Stalingrad came to be...

Origin

The origin for Undaunted: Stalingrad can be traced all the way back to February 2018, a year-and-a-half before Undaunted: Normandy (the first game in the Undaunted series) was released. At the time, Trevor Benjamin (my designer partner for the Undaunted series) and I had completed the design for Undaunted: Normandy and were just getting started with Undaunted: North Africa.

Publisher Osprey Games believed that Undaunted would be well received and wanted us to think about what the next game in the series could be about. In an email exchange I had with Trevor, this is what he said:

Thematically, the game could follow the members of a single Soviet platoon, moving throughout the city. Mechanically, we could add...a sort of persistent state / pseudo-legacy thing. (The player)...saves their deck across games. Maybe?

So even in the earliest discussions about what Stalingrad might be, we envisioned legacy or campaign style mechanisms.

Throughout the rest of 2018 and into 2019, Trevor and I were focused on Undaunted: Normandy and Undaunted: North Africa, but in March 2019 as part of an email proposal to Osprey for our idea on Stalingrad, I said:

Trevor and I have discussed what Undaunted 3 might look like. We both really like the idea of Undaunted: Eastern Front or Undaunted: Stalingrad. It would introduce the Soviets, and concentrate on urban and close quarters combat. It would also introduce more vehicles, etc.

The game was officially greenlit by Osprey in August 2019 (at the same time Undaunted: Normandy was releasing) when Filip Hartelius and Anthony Howgego — the lead developers at Osprey — commissioned the game. Their direction was that Undaunted: Stalingrad should be a "destructive legacy" game, along the lines of Risk Legacy or Pandemic Legacy.

Discussion with Osprey

A few months later in October 2019, Filip, Anthony, Trevor, and I met in Essen, Germany during SPIEL to discuss ideas for Stalingrad. Below is a list of initial ideas we discussed for the game. For those familiar with the Undaunted series, it's worth noting that at the time of this meeting, Undaunted: Normandy had only been released for a few months, the design for North Africa was being finalized, and design work for Reinforcements was still underway.

Essen 2019 discussion: What should an Undaunted legacy game have?

Same core gameplay as other Undaunted titles
Unlock new capabilities
Soldiers get better (upgrades)
Perma-death
Perma-board state changes
Normandy (rather than North Africa) scale
Can't change combat rolls (needs to be the same basic dice rolling system)
Can't change deck-building (though we discussed that same scenarios could use constructed decks)
Core concept is supply manipulation over time
Secret objectives
Secret supply
Obfuscate end of campaign scoring
[o]Sappers
Artillery
Bombers
Flamethrowers[/o]
Timeline:
UKGE 2020: initial design concept complete
March/April 2021: design work complete

While some of these initial concepts didn't exactly make it into the final game, it provided us with a starting point.

Design

Between our meeting with Osprey in October 2019 and early 2020, Trevor and I were focused on completing the design work for Undaunted: Reinforcements. It was in April 2020 when we had our first substantive design discussion for Stalingrad, which revolved around the composition of the German and Soviet units, where they would be similar and where they would be different. We knew from player feedback for Undaunted: Normandy that asymmetry was an important — perhaps the most important — element of the game. The two sides needed to feel unique. And in addition to the general differences between the two sides, we also needed to develop a system of upgrades.

Here are the initial notes Trevor and I made regarding soldier overviews:

• Soldier cards are double-sided. The front shows the soldier as a "recruit" — basic abilities and stats — and the reverse shows them as a "veteran" — extra abilities, improved stats, etc. The extra abilities vary both across units (Scouts have different options than Rifleman) and within units (one Rifleman within Squad A may have a sub-machine gun, while the other gets anti-tank gun).
• Between scenarios, you get to "promote" some of the soldiers in your deck, flipping them from their recruit to their veteran side.
• This will likely be done at a fixed rate (e.g., three cards per player per scenario), but it could be tweaked based on what happened in the scenario (e.g. hidden objectives, who won, etc.).
• For now at least, we think this is done randomly from the cards in your deck when the game ends (i.e., those which have taken part in this fight) (cf. Casualties, which is also random)
• Command cards are double-sided and can be flipped, too, but this only happens through scenario/narrative.

With the exception of flipping cards for upgrades (which would have required sleeves), most of this initial sketch of an idea lived through to the final version of Stalingrad.

By July 2020, Trevor and I were well underway with conceptualizing the "injury" system (which would later turn into Reserve soldiers), upgrades, scenario designs, etc. Here is a screenshot of our notes and responsibilities document from 28 July 2020:


By August 2020, we had worked through the first few scenarios and drafted an initial ruleset. While none of the rules changes in Stalingrad are drastic, we did take the opportunity to make what we felt were improvements to the core Undaunted system.

We changed the way units spawned. Instead of requiring extra tokens on the board during set-up to designate spawn locations, we simplified things by ruling that units spawned at Riflemen locations, which also had the added benefit of adding some interesting in-game tactical choices. In addition, we added a new end condition for routed Riflemen. This meant that we could remove the "Beyond All Hope" rule in the game, which was undoubtedly the most confusing and least satisfying rule in Undaunted: Normandy and Undaunted: North Africa.

We also had a good sense of how the overarching campaign would work. It would be set around 9 January Square in the southern part of Stalingrad, an area that was relatively cut off from the rest of the battle. That made for a perfect location to set a prolonged conflict between the two sides. Because the tiles in Undaunted: Stalingrad map to actual locations (rather than the modular nature of the tiles in Normandy and North Africa), we were able to use a full-sized map of the tiles for our testing. This screen capture from July 2020 shows the earliest version of the campaign board. At the time we were using cards from Undaunted: Normandy to proxy the units.


Between August and December 2020, Trevor and I focused all of our attention on Undaunted: Stalingrad. Usually we juggle multiple projects — other collaborations we're working on, and projects with other designers — but during this time, almost all of our design time was spent on Stalingrad. We met at least three times a week, usually for three or four hours per session. And between these design sessions we each had our own responsibilities: Trevor focusing on the rules and unit upgrades, and me focusing on the scenario designs and overall campaign structure.

In the early stages, we had multiple, sometimes competing, design goals: creating and testing new scenarios, creating and testing new units (with upgrades), settling on which new units we'd need to add to the campaign (and when they would be added), determining what impact each scenario would have on the overall campaign, etc. By September we had locked down the core rules changes, but were still working through exactly how injuries would work. This is something that was challenging for us. The injuries (which would later become the Reserve unit replacements) needed to simultaneously feel impactful, while also not feeling "un-fun". In the end, we're happy where we landed, but it was one of the most difficult parts of the design experience for us.

By December we were closing in on completing the design work for the game. We had settled on all the rules, finalized which units would be in the game, settled on a system for Reserve and Upgraded units, designed the system for damaging structures, etc. It was also at this point that we had completed the structure for the overarching campaign. In the end we had to create over 35 different scenarios to support all the different permutations for the campaign, and there were many, many different endings, depending on the result of each scenario.

Here is a visual of the scenario pathing across the entirety of the campaign:


In January 2021, Trevor and I met with Osprey to brief them on our progress. We were close to completing the initial design work and ready to turn everything over to Osprey for playtesting and the beginning of development.

Development and Playtesting

Within the next few months, development was well underway at Osprey, with Anthony and Filip putting the game through its paces. At the same time, Osprey was running a large organized playtest effort. We needed lots of information from the testers: were there degenerate strategies we hadn't foreseen during the design phase, what was the overall response to the persistent effects, etc.

By mid-2021, the playtest was largely complete, and Trevor and I were meeting frequently with Anthony and Filip to make minor adjustments to units, scenario design, and the way specific actions worked.

I can't stress enough how critical this period of playtesting and development was for the game. It's what really gave it that deep look, ensuring that we — as a complete team — did everything possible to make sure the gameplay was the best it could possibly be.

The Change from Legacy to Resettable Campaign

From the very beginning of discussions about Undaunted: Stalingrad, Trevor and I were in lock-step with Osprey (that is, Filip and Anthony) about everything except one VERY important issue: the topic of destructive legacy versus a campaign system. Trevor and I preferred a campaign system, while Osprey was in favor of a destructive legacy game.

As early as May 2020, even before Trevor and I had completed the initial draft of the rules, we had developed a proposal for a resettable campaign system and sent it to Filip and Anthony for review. Trevor wrote:

A core (if not the core) change is that effects can persist throughout the campaign. If soldiers are killed, they are permanently removed from your supply. If soldiers are promoted/upgraded, they permanently gain new abilities. If a building is destroyed, it permanently drops in defense value and blocks vehicle movement. That sort of thing.

In Essen we discussed using custom stickers and/or pens to handle this persistence. So Stalingrad would be a proper one-shot Legacy game. We wonder, though, if this is necessary. We've come up with a model which, we believe, allows us to maintain the persistence but avoid the permanence, making the game perfectly re-playable. See attached. We feel this is a much more attractive proposition for players. They can have their cake and eat it too — or rather, eat it again and again!

Filip and Anthony pushed back against this proposal, feeling that destructive legacy was the right way to go for a variety of reasons. So that's the way Trevor and I moved forward. And ultimately I feel the design was much better for it. Trevor and I designed the game to be a destructive legacy game, which meant that we could really lean heavily into a high-stakes affair.

In the end, it was not until after Trevor and I had delivered the design for Undaunted: Stalingrad that the decision was made to transition from destructive legacy to a resettable campaign. There were two major reasons that Osprey made the decision to make this change. First, the game would have actually cost more to produce as a destructive legacy product rather than a resettable game. We couldn't ask players to pay more for a destructive game than a resettable game. Second, playtesters strongly preferred a replayable game. This was especially important for Undaunted, in which you often want to experience playing on both sides of an asymmetric scenario.

Filip was the strongest proponent for the destructive legacy approach. This is what he had to say about making the transition to a resettable campaign:

I argued the most vehemently for legacy, and I think it was largely based on making sure that everything felt weighty and full of consequence. We really wanted losing soldiers to have an emotional dimension.

However, the reasons we changed were (a) enough people, including playtesters, were asking for a replayable option, and we came up with the option of swapping out tiles and cards, and that was literally cheaper to produce than legacy, also (b) the richest legacy aspects of Stalingrad aren't the big, dramatic changes of, say, Pandemic Legacy, where there's one big rule change or dramatic betrayal, but lots of small, incremental changes. Stickering a card is fun — stickering half a deck is a chore; ripping up a card is dramatic — ripping up tens of cards feels wasteful.

In the end, this transition from destructive legacy to a resettable campaign after the design was complete was a huge benefit to the overall design, in my opinion. It meant that Trevor and I were designing the game with these high-stakes scenarios, crafting a complex web of scenario progression through the campaign — and then at the end, we were able to take that design approach and turn it into a game that could be played again and again, with very, very different outcomes.

An example of the evolution of one tile: a fully intact building, damaged, and destroyed
An example of an upgraded soldier (my favorite in the game, as an aside!)
An example of a Reserve soldier
The Setting

Undaunted: Stalingrad is set in what was known as the northern portion of the city center of Stalingrad. This section of the battle of Stalingrad, centered around 9 January Square, was relatively cut off from the larger portion of the battle, which was situated farther to the north. The action in the game starts in late September 1942, just after the Germans had captured much of the area around 9 January Square. The game represents the actions of platoon-sized units (bolstered by supporting elements) over the course of two months (culminating around the time of Operation Uranus, when the Soviets launched a major encirclement of the German forces around Stalingrad). This location and time period is the perfect setting for Undaunted: Stalingrad as it represents a relatively isolated portion of the battle where the two forces fought for months over just a small neighborhood-sized area of the city.

I had researched this same area of Stalingrad for a different game I designed (Pavlov's House), so I was intimately familiar with the activity in the area during this time. I also just so happened to have quite a few books to draw on for additional research.


Art

A discussion of the art for Undaunted: Stalingrad should really come from Roland MacDonald, the artist of the Undaunted series, but I'm happy to discuss it briefly from my perspective. First off, much of Undaunted's success is owed to Roland, who developed a fantastic look for the series that somehow manages to appeal to a broad audience, while also evoking the game's war theme. (Earlier in 2022, he did a fantastic interview with Neil Bunker of Diagonal Move discussing his artistic process.)

Trevor and I provided an overview of the battlefield area where Undaunted: Stalingrad takes place to Roland, who transformed our poor quality concept into the beautiful tiles in the final version of the game.

Here's a comparison of what we gave to Roland, and the final version of a similar area:


When Trevor and I were designing the game, we used placeholder cards from Undaunted: Normandy for the first couple of sessions, but then used artless cards generated using a script that drew from a spreadsheet for the vast majority of the design work.

When it was time for Roland to start working on the cards, we didn't provide detailed art descriptions for the units. We just provided a very brief concept and Roland drew from his experience with prior Undaunted titles and his own historic research to develop the art.

Here's a comparison of what Trevor and I used while designing the game, a row of text for the card (to include what Roland used as the basis for the art) and final card from Roland. In this case, we're communicating that this is a rifleman from squad A that has been promoted to a higher rank and "inspires" other soldiers from his squad.




And here's a look at the various versions of the Soviet riflemen from Squad A:


Story

For the first time for an Undaunted title, Osprey hired an acclaimed author, Robbie MacNiven, to provide a narrative for the game. Rather than just provide a quick background passage for each scenario, as had been done in prior titles, Undaunted: Stalingrad follows the action with a narrative tailored for each side in the battle, focusing the story on the commanders: the platoon sergeants and squad leaders. Over the course of the campaign, successes and failures are reflected in the narrative, and the personalities of the leaders for each side will emerge.

The decision to include the evocative story is one of the many reasons that I love collaborating with Osprey. They chose to go the extra step in hiring an acclaimed author to breathe life into the game that – when combined with Roland's art – really helps set the game over others in the genre, in my opinion. Here's a sampling of the German scenario book.

A peek inside the Soviet campaign book
Release

When Undaunted: Stalingrad is released on 24 November 2022 in the UK and elsewhere outside the U.S. (and in December 2022 in the U.S.), it will mark the end of an almost five-year process to make the game a reality. From the very first email where Trevor and I discussed the idea of persistence to the published version of the game that combines Robbie's rich narratives and Roland's evocative art, the creative process for Undaunted: Stalingrad has been the most engrossing and rewarding game design experience for me. I think I can safely speak for Trevor, Anthony, Filip, Roland, Robbie, Filip, Anthony, and everyone else at Osprey when I say that we truly hope that folks enjoy playing Undaunted: Stalingrad as much as we enjoyed making it.

David Thompson Read more »

by Clarence Simpson

[Editor's note: I'm aware of the Nov. 16, 2022 Dicebreaker article regarding accusations of non-payment by and "a toxic environment" at publisher Pandasaurus Games, but Clarence and Ashwin started working on this diary months ago, and I want to give them a chance to tell their story. Please direct any comments about the publisher's business practices to this thread instead of posting them here. —WEM]

The Wolves has had quite an eventful path to publication. We wanted to invite you to take a closer look at that journey with us as we share how we co-designed a game in the midst of a pandemic.

Lone Wolves No More

Clarence: The Tabletop Mentorship Program is a crown jewel of the tabletop design community. They run a service that matches up volunteer mentors with mentees across all different disciplines within tabletop game design. The program is open to everyone and completely free of charge. They matched me with my own mentor, Rob Newton, who helped me pitch what eventually became my first published design, Merchants of Magick.

Since then, I've served as a mentor myself many times, hopefully giving a helping hand to the next generation of designers. One of those times, I was assigned to mentor a passionate gamer who wanted to dive into game design. He had a lot of ideas, but hadn't made anything tangible yet. I was new myself and had only been designing games seriously for about six months, but if you know things that you didn't know when you started, then you can be a mentor, so I thought I might be able to help him out. That mentee was Ashwin, my eventual co-designer on The Wolves.

[twitter=1205189064024047617]First time meeting Ashwin at PAX Unplugged 2019
Ashwin: Just being completely transparent here, with no intention of being punny, I felt like a lone wolf prior to all of this. I was/am missing home, missing family, wishing I could build something for myself. A mid-late 30s transplant in Seattle where art, music, dance and innovation at the community level is masked by not only gray skies and awful traffic congestion, but also mass transit on life support and overpriced housing everywhere you go! Struggling to find definitions in my life, I stumbled upon the Seattle Tabletop Game Designers community, a group that I once mistook for a board game meetup, but is now a group that I call family.

After being a joyous fool overly excited about everyone's projects, one person asked me a simple question, "Ashwin, where's your game?" I stopped showing my face for a few weeks. I always run away. I always do this. When adversity hits, I hit up my favorite burrito joint, play hours of Dota 2, and drown myself in box wine. This wasn't even adversity! This was just me not committing to something creative, joyful, and full of meaning that I quickly discovered about myself when I took a leap, a pounce? of faith. After overproducing a few mechanical concepts trying to show off what I found in the aisles of Michaels and Home Depot, I was guided to this Tabletop Mentorship program to sign up and be a mentee to someone who is definitely going to try to support my goals.

Clarence and I met under these incredibly unique circumstances, where if it weren't for those series of events mentioned before that led to us meeting, The Wolves wouldn't have been made, and we wouldn't have known each other. I am eternally grateful to Clarence, firstly, but I also want to give a special shoutout to the Tabletop Mentorship Program that is hosted by the lovely Mike Belsole and Grace Kendall that led to us getting together.

All right, so after a few months in the mentorship program, I had almost nothing to show for it. I was obsessing over the game Glory to Rome and wanted to do a city rejuvination game with concepts inspired by it. I was off to a coldboywinter start as while I never knew I had it in me, I was approaching things slowly, in my head, without working nearly anything out.

Clarence started to provide some guidance: "show me", not just "tell me" type of guidance. All sorts of real conversations were had to help push it out of me, but the biggest takeaway from all of this was that it's okay to ask for help, and it's a glorious thing to have a person, like Clarence, in your corner, believing in you, and attempting to hold you accountable. It was something similar to a penpal of sorts...getting to know someone cut from the same cloth, offering to be a sherpa or just a person to talk to, and we kept in touch over the weeks/months.

Oh, I remember the day. It was raining outside. I was wearing my favorite shirt and probably shorts, with my pasta water boiling over when I got a notification buzzing sensation in my pocket. Clarence asked what games I was working on and whether we could meet about a potential co-design. Grinning from ear to ear, that moment woke me right up. That was all I needed to hear. It was a pasta primapassion for those wondering what was made that evening.

I love working with others. I love building something and solving problems with others. This had the make-up of something great from the get go. We were in high spirits, and we needed a project to really motivate us, and most of all, keep us connected. We started considering different game concepts and mechanisms to work on with seemingly endless lists of random themes. With a goal of publication in mind, we looked at current games and marketability, eventually settling on basing a game on our mutual interest in wolves.

The Hunt Is On

Ashwin: Underrepresentation is a big thing for me, and not just about me being a minority, but also designing around an under-served subject matter. Shining a bright, elevated spotlight on wolves was a key driver in my desire to theme a game around them. Wolves are hunted still to this day and often characterized as vicious, villainous creatures, when they are quite the opposite. They are nomadic, territorial, and a great indicator of a thriving ecosystem. I wanted to break these harmful stereotypes, educate players about our endangered wolves, and as much as possible, make the game's mechanisms mimic what wolves are like in real life, from how they move as a pack, how they stay territorial, prowl and survey the land for what prey they typically hunt to how they make their homes near water sources.

We looked at types of wolves, and while there weren't many outside of a few regional species, most sources of material were describing wolves in a wolf pack led by a pair of alpha wolves. This clicked instantly with us as we could use wolves in different ways and maybe not asymmetrically. In certain regions, pack sizes are large, upwards of 20-30, but a loose definition of a wolf pack described them peaking at no larger than 8-12 wolves. How convenient. Pinch me. We're really doing this!

It came quickly to us. In mere hours after a 4:30am text from me saying, "Yo Clarence, you up?", we were penciling in major thematic mechanisms from wanting wolves to grow and strengthen their pack, evolve in the types of actions players would do, and hunt in this game while fighting for control of what is considered theirs. It was inspiring. Out of thin air, we found something we could really sink our teeth into.

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Clarence: After settling on a wolf theme, we decided on some core design pillars. We wanted a competitive game that involved minimal randomness. We wanted high player agency and high interactivity. We wanted to support 3-5 players minimum. We wanted games to run no longer than 90 minutes and ideally closer to 60. We wanted the game to be about authentic, natural wolves and not some cartoony or anthropomorphized version of wolves. We wanted strong connections between theme and mechanisms.

We kept these design pillars in a shared Google Sheet that served as a sort of living design document and reference throughout the project. Occasionally, when thinking about what direction to take the design, we'd go back to these pillars to confirm that what we did would still be in service to those pillars.

It was almost too easy to pick a title for our game. Originally, we simply called it "Wolf". We were surprised that no existing games already used that title. Plus, it was one of those four-letter titles that seem so trendy these days.

Our original logo for "Wolf"
We also took some time to brainstorm all the words we could think of that might be associated with wolves. That word list would help guide what components, actions, and systems we built into the game. Mechanically, we quickly settled on grid movement and area control as key game mechanisms that made sense for controlling packs of wolves in a competitive game.

Ashwin and I also had a shared love of the game Hansa Teutonica. From the very first iteration of "Wolf", we had a core system in which you could add pieces to the shared central board from your player board, and when you did so, you simultaneously revealed upgraded abilities on your player board. That system has existed in every iteration of the game and owes quite a bit to Hansa Teutonica.

Game Design Goes Digital

Clarence: One distinctive fact about "Wolf" is that it's likely one of the first board games in which design, playtesting, iteration, and pitching was all done completely digitally and online. We never created a physical prototype or met with anyone in person. In fact, the first time we ever held a physical version of the game in our hands was when we finally received a production copy a few months ago. It was all because the pandemic changed everything.

When Covid began shutting down in-person events in early 2020 and for the foreseeable future, the tabletop game design community faced a moment of reckoning. Either designers could wait the pandemic out and put their designs on hold until some unknown day when things returned to normal, or they could pivot into unfamiliar digital spaces on Discord and Tabletop Simulator to continue creating in spite of the circumstances.

Many designers refused to take the leap to digital, but thankfully an online design community spearheaded by Gil Hova began to take shape and flourish. Although it was started by designers from New York, it quickly reached people across the nation and inspired many similar digital playtest groups that came after.

We built our first playable prototype of "Wolf" in June 2020 on Tabletop Simulator. It was the height of uncertainty with regards to the pandemic, but digital board game design was getting its legs and becoming more and more accepted. By this time, there were weekly online playtest meet-ups, online publisher speed-pitching events, and even weekend-long online playtest conventions like Protospiel Online.

First playable prototype (in Tabletop Simulator)
There were times during the height of the pandemic when I was unsure what would happen to board games in a world where people couldn't gather, but the rapid industry adoption of digital alternatives gave me a lot of hope for our little hobby. I also became very hopeful about the fact that the shift to digital might actually help to democratize design in a way. Suddenly, even if you lived in a very remote part of the world with no local design community or had no money to travel to conventions, you could still design, playtest, and pitch to publishers. All you needed was a decent computer. Marginalized voices had a new way to access the industry.

As strange as it sounds, I've totally embraced the forced shift to digital in this distinctly non-digital industry. Yes, digital prototyping and playtesting have some quirks, but they also have some clear advantages over in-person work. Digital allows for extremely fast iteration when you don't have to print and assemble new prototypes constantly. It allows you to network with and utilize an entire digital world of other designers and playtesters. And it makes for easy pitching and demoing with publishers without having to wait for in-person conventions. Even now that in-person events have returned, I am continuing many of my digital habits that I learned during the worst of the pandemic.

Ashwin: Digital skills were surfacing as a valuable resource, and a willingness to adapt to new, uncharted territories and vibrant communities felt like a necessary trait for which I was prepared. I have quite a unique set of skills that were able to be tapped into, and I crafted time into my schedule to be a resource for many, in addition to honing my skills to make this hobby a reality. I was attending various digital groups to learn from others how they would present, test, and work on their projects in order to implement these practices into my process. I was able to cram what could have been years of playtesting into just months, and from that, bolstered the confidence I never knew I had to exist in this space. Untethered by location, time of day, or group, I found myself in a mix of everywhere I wanted to be all at once.

How convenient! I had access to all sorts of like-minded people who want to exist in this space with me and help "Wolf" stand on its own! I will always preach: Playtest your game dozens of times, with dozens of different people. You won't know until you do that your game is ready for next steps.

Our game took various forms, and you know what — those forms were all great! Learn from those versions, and let all those ideas fly, baby! From making maps that looked like literal wolves, to mimicking 18xx and Age of Steam maps for inspiration, we were able to quickly realize the type of game we could make, and iterate live, in the moment, testing and reviewing dozens of game board designs just because we could. We could actually get a glimpse of games we knew about, but had not played and were able to compare components and table presence with just a click of my mouse.

Decisions were made, easily, with the power of co-ordination digitally, and access to an endless shelf of resources ready for us to utilize. The game Silk had these very distinct-looking wooden meeples. Let's just copy and paste them in! A game similar to Agricola had wooden donkey pieces — and they could easily be used to represent wolves! We're just playing and prototyping with ideas here, finding inspiration along the way.

I also took this time to consider what the game could look like with modular set-ups. Revisit it a hundred times with different permutations, then see what lands and what could work in a physical setting. Digitally, things won't slide or shuffle, but maybe to prevent an issue with a physical copy, perhaps we can design to have the pieces nest within each other, leaving no doubt. Using NURBS Software and the Adobe Creative Suite in conjunction with free vector and .svg sites like thenounproject, we were rolling. Now, if only we could figure out how players would meaningfully enact these wolves on the board!

Building Our Lair

Clarence: During those first design iterations, we already had most of the actions you could take on your turn. You could move, build a den, howl at lone wolves to recruit them into your pack, and mark territory by placing scent markers which also revealed upgrades on your player board. From researching different real-life varieties of wolves, we knew that we wanted the central board to be a hex grid composed of five different terrain types, each of which could support its own wolf type — but we didn't yet know what impact terrain should have on the game. Everything was working fine, but the central board was meaningless.

As days passed looking for an answer, I found myself listening to a game-design podcast, and they briefly mentioned a prototype that utilized double-sided action cards. When you used an action, you flipped it over and revealed a different action you could take next time. I was fascinated by that idea and was quickly inspired to figure out how something like that could work in "Wolf", hopefully in a way that made terrain meaningful.

I started by giving each player five double-sided terrain cards — much like the tiles in the published game — but they were only for movement. To move through grass hexes, then forest ones, you had to flip one grass and one forest card. I also wanted to be able to flip two matching terrains to move a nature spirit component we had at the time.

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Soon after, the way movement worked was tweaked and the nature spirit was scrapped, but the idea of flipping terrain cards to move and flipping multiple matching terrain cards for more powerful actions remained — and it ultimately became the core of what I consider the most unique and interesting system in The Wolves.

Ashwin: You're not wrong, Clarence! Okay, so wolves don't literally pick up pieces of terrain and flip them, but a mechanical hook that leaned into a very popular typology in games, and a heuristic gamers of all kinds can understand — flip this, it becomes that — really helped expedite the feel we wanted in this game.

We quickly glanced at a game called St. Petersburg in which the cards file down and clog up when players are not interacting with them. Before we figured out that five terrain cards were what we wanted, we played around with a deck of cards, as well as cards that were played and arranged, but quickly we became deranged.

We wanted the actual execution of actions to be snappy, quick, and serviceable. Approaching each action may take a quick sweep of the game state, but each action was purposeful and, with the action system implemented, intentional.

So yes, as Clarence mentioned above, we landed on five double-sided terrain cards and quickly made these cards to match the types of terrain, delivering a system in which both sides of the tiles represented a unique sequence. The dark green wolves had grass turn into forest, and another card turning forest into ice, while the light blue wolves had ice turn into desert, and ice turn into grass. With these overlaps, each faction will inevitably be fighting for different types of terrain, but this felt off in one aspect: Shouldn't the dark green wolves have an easier time in their dark green habitat? While we struggled initially with the fluidity of the mechanism, we were determined that we could find an answer that both improved player agency and added tension to the puzzle to make it feel rewarding. To the digital drawing board!

Awoooo

Clarence: Once we had the core action system figured out, it quickly became our and our playtesters’ favorite part of the game. The constant mini-puzzle on your player board was just the right amount of challenge to keep every turn interesting. The game was starting to sing.

We continued to test and iterate over the next few months. We added a faction-specific sixth terrain card to each player, giving the game just a hint of asymmetry. We added the powerful three-terrain dominate action that provided conflict, tension, and memorable moments. We switched from a static central board to modular tiles that could expand with player count. We introduced wild terrain tokens, bonus action tokens, and countless other minor tweaks.

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However, we were still missing one crucial piece. We didn't know how the game would end. We initially thought the game would end based on a player placing all their wolves or dens. What actually happened was that for the first ten or so playtests, we just called the game after an hour when it was clear we weren't going to reach the end trigger within our desired playtime. The answer, it turns out, was moonlight.

From the first day of brainstorming we thought about having some sort of timer element related to moon phases. As we were searching for an endgame trigger, it seemed like a good time to revisit that notion, so we made a moonlight tracker board that looked a bit like a calendar and put moon phases on certain dates that would trigger scoring of certain regions on the board. Players would control the timing because every piece that came off the central board would move to the moonlight tracker, advancing it to the next date.

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It was exactly what the game needed. It gave players agency and a reason to go to a region quickly. It created the sense of migration that is key to the finished product. Most importantly, though, our playtests now actually started to finish within our desired playtime!

Ashwin: This is the meat and potatoes of The Wolves story! You were fed a few appetizers, a glass of wine with notes of tree bark, but this is the main course. The SIXTH Terrain Card! People! This completely changed our game for the better. What was sticky started to feel smooth. Players were able to work with the puzzle, but not be hamstrung because of it. Players could create combinations now, prepare for future turns, and also uncover contingency plans, knowing that their cards won't change, but the drama of what happens on the game board inevitably will!

Most area-majority games come with a feeling of withholding and passivity. What's mine is mine, and if I show aggression, it often benefits the other players. With a pillar of design being engagement and interaction, starting players off in their corners of the world seemed a bit off-putting.

Early in development, we came up with an idea in which players start in the middle, in each other's way from the jump. Listening to feedback and revisiting conversations of our own, we determined that the pair of alpha wolves needed to split off and not necessarily clump up. We wanted players on their toes, sure, but also as a means of flexibility to have options on which action to take when. We created a chasm or donut hole in the middle of the central tile and forced players to split up their alpha wolves. Thematically, this works as often one is hunting, while the other is training or nursing the pack. While grouping up could still inevitably happen, this was now a choice we are giving the players to add to their strategy.

Beyond the elegance and beauty that the game presents in its appearance, which was beyond our wildest dreams by the way, we wanted the game to feel elegant — elegant in that nothing was out of reach or inaccessible and that everything happened to have a purpose. No long-term artificial aspects were talked about as wanting to find its way into the game.

The region tiles, as mentioned before, took on many forms. The patterning math behind it all was set to five players, with every combination appearing twice, but no region tile had the same exact patterning. Intentionally, the free action of hunting prey happens around multiple terrain types, which means it takes more actions to surround the prey. Keeping prey token accrual as unique and not repetitive meant that all wolves had to keep moving, allowing for planning and preparing for future turns while also staying present in your current state of affairs.

We tuned the game to create more story and arc. We added and affixed extra action tokens to hunting prey to give permission to players to go crazy and have everlasting memories and moments in games that often miss the intention of why games exist. Similarly, as mimicry often leads to stagnation, offering another path towards extra exciting and potentially threatening future actions through the use of wild terrain tokens gave players the chance to compete and get out of any possible tricky spot easier, potentially even ramping up the pace of the game.

Lairs being required to be next to water features was a way of guarding players against themselves because if lairs could be built on edges of the map, it could lead to stale game states. By going into each region tile, it enriched the meaning and intentionality to do these actions over others. I could keep going with all the subtleties, but through each iteration and revision, things felt cleaner, refined, and cared for, which reflected how players were feeling.

Finding Our Pack

Clarence: We were now getting consistent positive feedback on the game. Playtesters unfailingly mentioned our action system as the most unique and interesting thing about the game, but maybe more importantly, we finally knew how the game would end. That was the last missing piece before starting the pitch process and looking for potential publishers.

We looked for publishers that had done medium-weight games, had done an animal theme, had done area control and/or grid movement, and had a good track record with their production values. There actually weren't a huge number of publishers that fit all these criteria. We ended up picking out about a dozen publishers and, starting in October 2020, sent out pitch e-mails with a sell sheet and overview video.

Our checklist to prep for pitching
About one-third of the publishers never replied at all. Another one-third said "no". Some had full production pipelines. Some didn't want to publish a wolf theme, but also realized that changing the theme would likely do it a disservice. Some said the idea didn't excite them or didn't fit their plans. But the last one-third were curious about the game and wanted to spend some time evaluating it.

Around this same time, there were a few programs emerging that were trying to help designers get matched up with publishers in this new digital world brought on by the pandemic. We entered "Wolf" into the Board Date Project and The Pitch Project. "Wolf" was selected for the Board Date Project, but we received no contacts from publishers. "Wolf" wasn't selected at all for The Pitch Project. This was pretty disappointing, but we still had a lot of faith in the game.

About a month later, Heather O’Neill of 9th Level Games ran another one of her great Publisher Speed Pitching events. It was at this event that we got to pitch "Wolf" to Alex Cutler at Pandasaurus Games. After demoing the game, Alex was immediately enamored with the terrain-flipping action system and felt like "Wolf" could fit well in their line-up and be developed into a published product with minimal mechanical changes. After a demo with the owners, we were given an offer to sign the game! We also received a comparable offer from a second publisher, but Pandasaurus was a bit higher on our list, so we decided to become part of the Pandasaurus family.

A Wolf in Pandasaurus Clothing

Clarence: After signing, Alex took the lead on development of the game. He liked most of what we had designed and didn't want to make any broad, sweeping changes. It would be more like tweaking rules and massaging numbers.

For most of our design process, we had felt that the interaction between players was key to the fun of the game, and that you needed at least three to get that interaction, so we pitched "Wolf" as a 3-5 player game. However, there was a strong preference from Pandasaurus for adding two-player support, if possible.

Luckily, one of the very last things we did before signing the game was trying it once at two players with no rules changes, just to see what would happen. To our surprise, it didn't completely break or fall apart. It was still an enjoyable game, but it did have some quirks. Alex ironed those quirks out with some special rules for a two-player variant, including tweaked score values and a neutral wolf pack.

Alex also added bonus tokens and VP to the attribute tracks. He also simplified the distribution of prey tokens. Originally, we had a rule that two opposing pieces could never occupy the same hex. Alex introduced the concept of pushing and the piece hierarchy to allow for more interaction.

An early 3D rendering to explore what the board and pieces could look like
There were also a few non-mechanical changes that needed to be made. The double-sided terrain cards would become thick punchboard tiles. That would make them much easier to handle once they finally existed in the physical world.

Scent markers would also need to be changed because dominating a scent marker by howling doesn't quite make sense. Also, there was never a good plan for what a scent marker would actually look like as a wooden piece. The team eventually settled on changing scent markers into small dens and dens into large lairs. This change meant the end of all the pee jokes that inevitably happened during the prototype versions of the game.

Of course, I can't talk about the production process without mentioning Pauliina Linjama. Pandasaurus brought her on to do the art, and we could not be more thrilled with the work she created. It really takes the game to another level. The wolf eye box cover is jaw-dropping and is consistently one of the first things to draw people in.

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With a sold-out debut at SPIEL '22 and a brief trip to the top of the BGG Hotness charts, it's been quite the whirlwind journey for us and The Wolves. We are both very proud of the finished product, and we're excited to see it soon on your gaming tables!

Clarence Simpson and Ashwin Kamath Read more »

by W. Eric Martin

In August 2022, the Hasbro studio Avalon Hill announced HeroScape: Age of Annihilation, a new standalone game from a design team led by Craig Van Ness that would be fully integrable with previous HeroScape titles.

At the start of October 2022, Hasbro launched a crowdfunding campaign for HeroScape: Age of Annihilation on its own Hasbro Pule site, and the $250 price tag for the "Vanguard Edition" (i.e., the only edition) caught a lot of people by surprise given the retail price of earlier HeroScape sets.

When the crowdfunding campaign ended on November 15, 2022, more than 4,300 people had backed the project — committing more than US$1.08 million dollars — but that number was just over half of the 8,000 backers that Hasbro required to meet its funding goal.

Many publishers regroup and relaunch when their crowdfunding projects don't succeed, reworking their financial targets or adjusting the game itself to make it a more attractive package for backers, but Hasbro has instead announced that it will move on to other projects for the time being:

What's next for HeroScape?

Our unfortunate answer is... nothing. As we said during the campaign if this project doesn't meet its goal, we won't be able to produce Age of Annihilation. That has not changed. HeroScape as a project will be shelved, and there are no current plans to attempt a resurrection at this time. The Avalon Hill team will refocus our efforts on the exciting games we currently have coming soon, such as the next HeroQuest Game System expansion, Mage of the Mirror, or the upcoming Yawning Portal D&D strategy board game.

We've all been saved from annihilation! Hurrah?

Read more »

Publisher: Dark Realm Maps

Return to Morley’s Workshop

This is a one shot DnD 5e adventure for 2^nd to 4^th level characters. It leads on from the adventure called “Murder at Morley’s Workshop” and is set in the village where Morley’s Workshop is situated. The players are enlisted to exterminate a creature that has come through the portal which Morley originally discovered.

Story

After the events surrounding Ellen’s return in Murder at Morley’s Workshop, the story of her transformation became common knowledge in the village. This led to the Village Committee deciding that something should be done about the portal as it posed a threat to the safety of their homes. At first, the forest was declared to be out of bounds, which seemed straightforward enough and most people adhered to the rule. But one night a group of youths ventured into the darkness and found that the portal had become unstable, ripping open a permanent passage from the Material Plane to the Feywild. They could see the edge of another forest through the opening, but one that was very different to their own. It was dark, ancient and twisted, overrun with copper flecked mushrooms, and purple veins ran through the looming trunks. Its magical presence struck fear into their hearts. The three youths attempted to flee, but two of them were taken captive by an unidentified beast that charged at them from the portal. The third individual escaped and raved for days about what happened before leaving the village for good.

That is when it started. Soon after, people began going missing and the creature from the wood was blamed for the disappearances. It was sighted going underneath the workshop, as if drawn to it because of what had happened there. Many of the villagers have now moved away, and those that remain live in fear as they have nowhere to go and know the beast will come for them in the end. So, they try to enlist the party of adventurers who helped before.

Price: $3.49 Read more »

Publisher: Osiris

A pack of spells designed specifically to be used with the Mythos Insanity System, these are a part of a preview pack, partially as a playtest of future content to come. Please consider making donations, to this project. If sufficient funds are reached, larger spell packs as well as monster tomes and other rules supplements will be released at cheaper prices and sooner than originally planned.

Note. art is ai generated

Price: $5.00 Read more »

Publisher: Aegis Studios

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Price: $1.00 Read more »

Publisher: Chaosium

Lurkers in the Mist is a 1920s scenario for Call of Cthulhu 7^th Edition, designed for 4-6 characters. It takes the players to the remote mountains of far Northern California as part of an archeological expedition wherein they confront the reality behind local stories of Man-bears and Star-Bugs.

• Six pre-generated characters for your players;
• Black and white portraits for four key NPCs and all six pregenerated characters;
• Player map and handouts;
• An accessible simplified version of the adventure;
• A separate file of fillable pregenerated characters sheets.

Price: $2.99 Read more »

Publisher: Alex Dworman

Have you ever noticed your players only choosing foci from the first few pages? Are they overwhelmed with all that text? This provides a brief summary of the foci from the Worlds Without Number core book and the Atlas of the Latter Earth.

A player can glance through this sheet to get an idea of which focus they are about to pick.

Price: $1.00 Read more »

Publisher: Prudence Publishing

EvenFell is an Open Gaming License ruleset for post-post-apocalyptic roleplay and skirmishing set in a world of analog sci-fi, primitivist zeal, and dread creeping in from the edges of a world divided by the mysterious phenomenon, the Blank, while humanity builds anew.  

EvenFell offers tactical and deadly combat across a spectrum of tech levels, reflecting the disparity of advancement in a world still feeling the effects of its Fall.  Additionally, it aims to offer a game that is largely playable with or without a GM, seeking to enable solo and cooperative play while minimizing "authorship as gameplay".  

Includes:

• Modified resolution system derived from the Year Zero Engine;
• Robust overland travel system;
• Dozens of weapon and vehicle templates and gear, from muzzleloaders to powered armor;
• Campaign-turn based play structure outside of combat;
• Detailed hex-based combat system;
• Deadly and debilitating Injury and Trauma systems;
• The Blank, a creeping phenomenon that threatens to kill those exposed to it over time - or worse;
• Random job/skirmish generating tables to allow for varied play without the need for complex story writing each session;
• Random world generator inclusive of hex flower terrain and feature generators;
• EvenFell Character Sheets;
• NPC Tracker Sheet Template;
• A royalty free compatibility license.

All under the Open Gaming License.  

Price: $2.99 Read more »

Publisher: Skavenloft

This is a simple, ready to print tournament bracket to use with Yin Yang Panda role-playing game (or any other martial arts related game you like). Print it, fill it and have fun with your friends!

Price: $0.00 Read more »

Publisher: Chaosium

Magic has returned to our world

“I think becoming a wizard is about discovering what's real and what isn't.”

—Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London

In Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game, players take on the roles of newly recruited members of the London Metropolitan Police Service’s special magic branch, aka “the Folly.” You will solve mysteries, catch criminals, and come to grips with the “demi-monde”—those who have been irreversibly changed by magic.

What's Inside

The Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game core book contains everything you need to start exploring Ben Aaronovitch's magical version of London.

Price: $29.99 Read more »

Publisher: ZealZaddy

Khalil Azmi

A Merchant Prince With A Vast Fortune & Vaster Secrets

Years ago, the Kemeshite plutocrat Ptahwer was at the height of his power, with an enormous fortune at his disposal, and political influence at the royal court of Kemet, the sorcerous Serpent of Zul. Then, a palace coup brought everything crashing down around him, and Ptahwer was forced to flee with little more than his life. Resurfacing in Vadashar, he slowly rebuilt his fortune, under the guise of the merchant prince Khalil Azmi. But the past has a way of catching up with one, and now the powerful captain of commerce finds himself in a race against time and his unseen enemies.

Included:

• A fully detailed NPC description of the fugitive merchant prince Khalil Azmi, including background about his dark past.
• Adventure hooks, including a seed for an Ocean’s Eleven style heist of a Treasure House
• A brief history of the Free City of Vadashar.

The Free City of Vadashar

The Free City of Vadashar includes a line of sourcebooks, adventure supplements, campaign guides, and extensive information about the unique setting of Vadashar, which was introduced in 1980 and combines a variety of fantasy elements: sword and sorcery evoking the worlds of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, Karle Edward Wagner’s immortal wanderer Kane, Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique cycle, the Sword and Soul fiction of Charles R. Saunders, the shared universe of Thieves' World, the intrigue and derring do of Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard sequence, the carefree swashbuckling of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and the modern film science fiction horror of the Alien and Prometheus franchise.

About ZealZaddy

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Today, we’re going to look at a setting that has been around for almost 20 years but isn’t an official Dungeon & Dragons setting. The Midnight Campaign Setting was released by Fantasy Flight in 2003 using the 3.0 version of the OGL. An updated version came out for the 3.5 version of the OGL in 2005. On DriveThruRPG, you can find seventeen additional supplements for the setting there were produced in the D&D 3^rd edition era.

This was apparently a property that Fantasy Flight regarded highly, as it was used as the basis for a Runebound board game in 2006, and in 2008, The Midnight Chronicles were produced. This was a live-action movie set in the Midnight setting that was meant to serve as a pilot, if any production company wanted to jump in to produce the series. Unfortunately, it seems like this push for a live-action treatment fell in the lull in fantasy interest between the Lord of the Rings movies and the Game of Thrones television series.  While I have seen the movie, I unfortunately have not seen the 4^th edition D&D adventure that apparently was released at the same time.

What is Midnight?

There is a lot of talk about modern fantasy and how it is defined by Tolkien’s tropes. In this case, Midnight is a setting that wants to play with those tropes, but with the twist that the fallen god that is master of The Shadow won his bid to dominate the world. Players are running characters trying to survive and perhaps put up a resistance to an all-encompassing evil that has (almost) destroyed every bastion of peace in the world.

When Fantasy Flight was purchased by Asmodee, their RPG properties appeared to be in limbo, but eventually, Edge Studios emerged as the new company spun off by Asmodee to handle the RPG properties now inherited from Fantasy Flight. Once Edge Studios began to establish a social media presence, one of the first things the account teased was a return to the Midnight setting. Because of some of the changes to how magic and classes worked in the setting, I was fully expecting a Genesys implementation of the setting, but instead, Edge studies went back to the roots of the setting and created a 5e OGL version.

Disclaimer

I owned the 3^rd edition version of the Midnight setting, and I have watched The Midnight Chronicles, but I have not had the opportunity to play in the setting under any edition. I am, however, very familiar with D&D 5e both as a player and as a DM. I am working from my own copy of the Midnight Legacy of Darkness book, but I have received a review copy of other products from Edge Studios in the past.

 Midnight Legacy of Darkness

Previous Editions Design and Development Greg Benage and Robert Vaughn
Current Edition Design and Development Sam Gregor-Stewart
Additional Writing and Development Jeffery Barber, Greg Benage, Ian J. Brogan, Shannon Kalvar, Eric Olson, Wil Upchurch, Robert Vaughn, and Sam Witt with Jack Holcomb
Editing Christine Crabb
Proofreading Max Brooke and Kate Cunningham
Sensitivity Review Coordinator Erin Olds
Sensitivity Readers Heba Elsherief, Savannah Tenderfoot, and Tova Seltzer
RPG Manager Sam Gregor-Stewart
Graphic Design Paco Dana Graphic
Design Manager Curro Marín
Cover Art Antonio Maínez and Paco Dana
Cartography Francesca Baerald
Art Director Antonio Maínez
Interior Art Yunir Bagautdinov, Klaher Baklaher, Massinissa Belabbas, Michael Bierek, Mauro Dal Bo, Caravan Studio, Javier Charro, Paco Dana, Nathan Elmer, Victor García, Yorsy Hernandez, Tomas Honz, Pawel Hordyniak, Nicolas Jamme, Sarunas Macijauskas, Antonio Maínez, Monsters Pit, Tomasz Morano, Daniel Pinal, Adrian Prado, Unreal Studio, Halil Ural, Bram Willemot and Ting Xu
Development Manager Luis E. Sánchez
Studio Coordinator Stéphane Bogard
Head of Studio Gilles Garnier
Fantasy Flight Games Midnight Setting created by Greg Bena

The Midnight Book

This review is based both on the physical book and the PDF version of the product. At the time of my purchase, the book came plastic wrapped, with a code for PDF redemption inside the front cover.

The product is 373 pages long, including endpapers, a code redemption and publication page, a title page, a credits page, a one-page table of contents, a three-page index, an ad for an upcoming supplement, Crown of Shadow, and a full page OGL statement.

I’ve now seen two Edge Studios 5e OGL books, and they are both gorgeous. This book is full color, although that palette runs to darker colors with muted backdrops. While the artwork in the original was excellent for its time, the artwork in this volume is thematically consistent with its topics and meshes well across the book.

Differences between Editions

I wanted to quickly touch on the differences between the 3.0 version of the setting and this version. The first thing to note is that the original version of the setting was about 250 pages, which means this volume is over 100 pages longer than the previous version.

While much of the broad strokes of the campaign setting remain consistent, there are some changes between them. The original version of the setting introduced new classes like the Channeler, the Defender, and the Wildlander, because traditional versions of classes like wizards, sorcerers, paladins, and rangers weren’t allowed in the setting. The Channeler could learn traditional spells much more slowly than casters in the core game, and classes could pick up lower-level spells by learning feats. This was to simulate the hardships of learning magic in a setting where spellcasters are hunted down.

The races in the setting included a section called “half-breeds,” which included dwarf-orc children that were framed as always having a tragic origin rooted in slavery and abuse.

Orcs in the original setting were a race created to be evil by the fallen god Izrador, mutated from existing dwarves. Instead of making them created servants, the new edition adds more cultural details to orcs before they were pressed into service by Izrador and clarifies that they were a naturally occurring people that were no more likely to be prone to evil, except that Izrador’s first conquered territory happened to be their homelands.

The version of Heroic Paths that existed in the original version of the setting were lists of abilities, based on the individual path, that automatically granted new powers at each level of progression, often in the form of spells tailored to help that character act out their destiny, and framed as innate heroic magic, rather than learned spellcasting.

The Night King known as the Sword of the Shadow got a name change between editions. In the previous edition, the Night King’s name was Jahzir Kamael, but this was changed to Othaeron Mortenbreth, possibly to avoid the Tolkien-originated trope of allying folk with MENA attributes (or names) with the evil overlord of the setting.

And finally, the original version of the campaign setting contained a sample adventure, which for all the expanded page count of the new edition, this version did not include.

Setting Material

Much of the page count of this book is invested in the campaign setting’s history and locations. There is a broad section that describes what laws exist in occupied lands, how spellcasters are hunted, what lands remain free, and what languages exist in the setting.

In the World of Midnight section, there is information that may be largely known to player characters. This section details the three human cultures of the setting, including the former human nation comprised of the other cultures, now under occupation, as well as the riders and raiders living on the run from Izrador’s troops.

This also looks at the halfling’s lands, where the halflings are often subjugated by occupying forces, and the river lands, home of the gnomes, who carefully work for Izrador’s forces while acting as smugglers and spies.

The dwarven lands remain free of Izrador, but that’s largely because they are isolated. They take in some humans that have fled to their lands but prepare to eventually be overrun once the armies tunnel into their underground lairs or scale the peaks.

The massive forest Caraheen is the battleground between the Witch Queen and her elves, and the forces trying to press into the forest or burn it down. The forest is large enough to have rainforests in the south, and snowy regions in the North, and the elves use the spirits of the dead, bound to the trees, to create the Whisper that warns them of what is coming.

The lands controlled by Izrador’s forces are covered in The Secrets of Midnight section of the book, which discusses the Northern Marches, the lands formerly settled by the orcs, as well as the occupied sections of other lands. This also details the various temples of Izrador and their Black Mirrors, sacrificial altars that are slowly sucking the magic out of the world to help Izrador rebuild his physical form.

This section also spends a lot more time discussing orc culture, looking at how orcs have some of the most sophisticated linguistics of all the species in the setting. They also delve into the orc’s matriarchal culture, and how there is a growing matriarchal cult that is encouraging orcs to desert Izrador’s service and reclaim their own society.

Unique Creatures of the Setting

The interesting thing about the Midnight setting is that it’s in some ways the aftermath of what a D&D setting might look like after an evil overlord’s shadow passed over the land, but not every D&D-ism is native to the setting. In this way, it’s not entirely unlike Dark Sun, but minus the ecological disaster and the separate masters of individual city-states.

The Creatures of Midnight section touches on each of the major monster types used for D&D, and explains, in broad strokes, which ones exist here, which ones used to exist here, and what shows up here that doesn’t appear elsewhere.

As an example of some changes to the setting’s lore for creatures, many Dire animals are actually intelligent creatures that seek to preserve nature and resist Izrador’s troops, although not in organized resistance. Constructs are strictly the product of divine magic, so only those created by followers of Izrador function in the current age. Dragons are unique entities, rather than individual species. The only surviving giants are hill giants, who are pressed into Izrador’s service. Because of the barrier keeping out the gods, celestials and fiends that were in the world when the barrier went up are trapped in the world.

Of the unique creatures in the setting, the Astirax are fiends used by the Legates, Izrador’s clerics, to sniff out and hunt magic, and they do this by possessing natural animals. Fiends and celestials that have been destroyed, but can’t reform in their home planes, become possessing spirits known as Wrathstalkers and Haunting Angels. Halflings have the absolute best friends ever in the form of Wogren, “monstrosities” that appear like dogs and can sense the presence of supernatural creatures. They use these senses to help keep halfling communities safe, and the Wogren puppy artwork makes me want one.

NPC stat blocks include varying CR stat blocks for soldiers in Izrador’s legion, Legates of different orders, including the Witch Takers, who specialize in finding spellcasters for reeducation or sacrifice. There are also a few stat blocks for different resistance fighters from various cultures.

The Night Kings, Izrador’s most powerful servants, all get stat blocks as well:

• Ardherin, The Sorcerer of Shadow (CR 25)
• Othaeron, The Sword of Shadow (CR 25)
• Sunulael, The Priest of Shadow (CR 25)
• Zardrix, The Wrath of Shadow (CR 26)

All the Night Kings were once servants of good, who became tempted, corrupted, or lost hope in the face of Izrador’s victory. Each one commands an aspect of Izrador’s legions or a facet of his overall plan, although Zardrix, the tragically corrupted dragon, is largely a force of destruction let off her leash when Izrador needs wide scale destruction.

Mechanics

While this version of the setting no longer has the custom core classes, there are still some mechanical changes and additions that the book introduces. There are no tieflings, dragonborn, half-elves, or half-orcs in the setting, and there are no clerics, monks, or warlocks.

Unfortunately, the book still uses the term “race” for the individual cultures, and it presents them in the older 2014 standard, meaning that stat bonuses are attached to these races. None of the entries include an alignment line, because the book assumes that no one is playing villains in the game, and anyone can be a survivor or a hero. The “standard” races included in the book get Midnight-specific statistics, and these include:

• Humans
  • Dorns
  • Sarcosans
  • Erenlanders
• Dwarves
  • Clan
  • Kurgun
• Elves
  • Caransil (High)
  • Danisil (Wood)
  • Erunsil (Sea)
  • Miransil (Snow)
• Gnome
• Halfling
  • Enslaved
  • Nomadic
• Orc

The Heroic Paths that existed in the previous editions are present here, but instead of a level-by-level “add-on” set of benefits, characters interact with these Heroic Path abilities via feat trees (not unlike how characters in previous editions gained access to spellcasting). These Heroic Paths are:

• Avenger
• Beastborn
• Believer
• Channeler
• Dragonblooded
• Earthblooded
• Guardian
• Ironborn
• Preserver
• Speaker
• Sunderborn
• Wildblooded

While each character can choose an initial Heroic Path feat, the later feats in the feat tree are only gained if the character uses their normal progression choices to pick those feats. Each of these feat trees has five feats, and the last four feats in this tree have prerequisites of 4^th, 8^th, 12^th, and 16^th level, as well as the requirement to take the previous feat in the chain.

Some of these feat trees can shore up missing elements from traditional D&D settings. For example, the Believer gains the ability to turn some kinds of foes due to their belief in something better beyond Izrador, while the Preserver picks up some extra healing ability.

There are also unique backgrounds to the setting, new spells (many of which interact with elements that exist in the setting, such as the Astirax), and new feats. There are also notes on what spells do not function in the setting. These consist of various spells that rely on access to the planes, as well as some divination spells.

This does lead me to a bit of confusion over a comment made in the book about returning the dead to life. Revivify, Raise Dead, and Resurrection aren’t on the list of spells that don’t exist in Midnight. Later in the book it mentions that the only way to avoid death for a PC is to be raised by a Legate of Izrador (bad option) or to be reincarnated by a Druid. However, Bards have all those spells on their class list, and Paladins eventually get Revivify.

The DM facing mechanics include the rules for Power Nexuses, as well as several examples of where they exist in the setting. Power Nexuses can be tapped into to cast spells, but each only generates a certain number of charges, and has a cap on its maximum charges, as well as a set limit to how many charges regenerate per day. In addition to assisting in casting spells, Power Nexuses are the only locations where new magic items can be created.

There are also Keeper of Obsidian, Soldier Legate, and Witch Taker class options, not for players, but for the DM that wants to build a Legate villain using the same rules for PCs. While I’m not usually too interested in spending time building NPCs with PC rules, it is interesting seeing cleric options that are framed around clerical orders instead of domains.

They still mechanically get bonus spells and Channel Divinity options, but these play around with the assumptions that your 8^th level subclass ability will revolve around cantrip casting or additional melee damage, and by using “order” instead of “domain,” it feels like you can cast a slightly wider net when it comes to telling a story with the abilities. I’d be interested to see this used for other clerical orders in a different setting.

Running the Game

Right from the start, I’m glad that the first section in Running the Game is a discussion of calibration and safety tools. In addition to explaining what Lines and Veils and X-Cards are, this section gives a shorthand of what content warnings to give players about the setting:

• War (an especially bloody, grueling, and often asymmetrical war) and occupation by a foreign power.
• Murder and human sacrifice (especially by the legates).
• Child abduction (especially by the legate Witch Takers), child soldiers (especially amongst the orc legions), and potential child abuse.

Not only does it give these out as general content warnings, but also tells the DM to do what they can to work with players to remove content that they don’t want in the game, even if it is included in the setting itself.

One thing that I noticed in all of the setting information is that while there is a lot that a DM can extrapolate as elements that can be added to a game, the gazetteer section is very “traditional” in its presentation, in that it doesn’t stop to address the reader about what kinds of adventures or adventure hooks might be facilitated by a specific region. Sometimes it’s not hard to do this work, but I think it’s always useful to have that more overt discussion with the DM as someone running a setting, not just reading fictional background material.

Because of this, I was excited that there was a section called Midnight Adventures and Campaigns because I was really hoping to see outlines of what a long-running campaign might look like in this setting. Unfortunately, most of this section is about what standard D&D stories won’t work in Midnight.

The biggest friction, to me, is that the advice is to always give the PCs hope of doing something positive, but always make sure its on a small scale. It specifically spells out that the setting isn’t about defeating Izrador and bringing a new age of peace to the land, it’s about saving this group of villagers that were taken by Legates for whatever reason. That’s fine, but it feels strange to provide heroic feat options up to 16^th level, while still constraining exactly what the PCs should expect to be able to accomplish.

I’m not even saying that a single campaign should always have its ultimate goal as defeating Izrador, but I could envision a generational approach to the setting where different campaigns managed to defeat different Night Kings, and undermine Izrador’s plans over the course of generations. Is that beyond the scope that we should be looking at for a 1^st to 20^th level campaign? I’m not sure from reading this.

Honestly, I just want to see some bullet points on “this is what a tier one Midnight game should do,” “this is what a tier two Midnight game should do,” etc. But unfortunately, in this edition, we don’t even get a sample adventure to model what our first foray into the setting should be. While I have ideas on how I would run this game, I really wish we had more tools to bridge that gap from traditional D&D to this kind of setting.

Promise of Hope

This setting was compelling to me in the 3^rd edition era, and it remains compelling to me. I love the increased lore and texture given to orc culture, and I like some of the course corrections made in the content of the campaign. In many cases, these feel less like things were removed, and more like they were slightly realigned and given more context. I like that the 5e implementation doesn’t attempt to swim upstream by reworking the magic system and creating alternative classes, given that this setting should feel like “a D&D setting where evil won.” I think swapping around too many assumed abilities, like higher-level spells, really messes with the ability of the DM to use their existing skills to plan adventures and encounters, so I’m glad that magic is a little more forgiving this time around.

The Sundering

I think there is going to be a disconnect between being excited about the potential of the setting and using the tools in this book to implement the setting in a game with other gamers.

 I can picture lots of individual adventures in this setting, but it’s hard to piece those together into a building narrative in my mind. All the things that feel like they should be adventurer goals, especially at higher level, are held out as things that are just part of the status quo. By 15^th level, I’m not supposed to be planning how to invade a temple and destroy a Black Mirror? That doesn’t feel quite right to me. I loved the setting information, but I wish we got a little bit of a breather after individual sections, talking to us as people using this material in a game.

Tenuous Recommendation–The product has positive aspects, but buyers may want to make sure the positive aspects align with their tastes before moving this up their list of what to purchase next.

My hesitation in giving this a greater recommendation isn’t because it’s not a compelling, well-written setting in a gorgeous package. It’s because I think there is going to be a disconnect between being excited about the potential of the setting and using the tools in this book to implement the setting in a game with other gamers.

I think as this line gets more adventures and supplements, it’s probably going to be a lot easier to envision what your characters should be doing as they progress through different tiers of gameplay, but as it stands now, it feels like maintaining the status quo of the campaign world is one of the primary GM principles, and that means the play space needs a lot more definition.

Do you have a favorite post-apocalyptic setting? What are your goals in those settings? Can you play a long-term game with your primary expectation being personal survival? We want to hear from you in the comments below.

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We’re talking about our favorite baddies and then get a little deeper into the variations of adversaries in our ttrpgs.

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Players never like to feel unprepared when it comes to situations in games. If there is a way to have an upper hand or even to “hovervan” past an encounter, the players will usually take that as a win in their book. That desire to be ahead of the game can often lead to massive slow downs and lags in the game as the players endlessly attempt to position themselves perfectly to address a challenge – especially if you are playing any flavor of Shadowrun. Luckily, any game that uses a point system to affect the narrative or mechanics in any way has a built in structure to help lubricate these slowdowns while also helping the players feel prepared for situations.

This happens all too often

Rogue’s Player: I want to look down that tunnel, but I’m going to be very quiet and I’m going to look for traps along the way.

GM: Okay, give me a stealth roll and two perception rolls.

Rogue’s Player: Is one for trapfinding?

GM: I can’t tell you otherwise it would reveal there is a trap.

Rogue’s Player: But I get a bonus to trapfinding.

GM: Okay, roll one with and one without the bonus.

— 2 minutes of dice rolling and adding up bonuses and feats later —

GM: There was nothing down the hall.

Rogue’s Player: Okay, I go down the next hall – VERY carefully and VERY aware.

Fighter’s Player: I want to hit something! Can we just move on!

Yeah, it’s a tropey scenario, but I can think of at least 3 or 4, wait 5, wait 7 times from games where that exact sort of scenario played out in some fashion. One player with a particular skill-set (sneaking, hacking, magical sensing, etc.) wants to use it to the best advantage, but that takes time to really bring their abilities to bear. Part of that is a game design issue, but part of it could be handled in a different and quicker way. The player who is playing the rogue isn’t doing anything wrong. They want to get the most out of their character and be of benefit to the party, their play loop is just built to be separate in some way. Everyone engages in combat, but if everyone engaged in sneaking around it would be detrimental.

You don’t actually have to prepare to feel prepared

So, how do you make those scenarios quicker while still making sure that players with those types of characters feel relevant? SUMMARIZE!

Rather than splitting one character off, pull that side-scenario into a more compressed meta-space. Before going into the situation, and maybe even at the start of the session, ask the person doing the sneaking / hacking / magical scrying / etc. to give you a handful of the relevant rolls. Depending on the number of successes and any perceived difficulty modifiers for the task  – such as more difficult because it is a well guarded space or easier because it is an ancient computer system with 12345 as the password – you can award a number of extra inspiration points that can only be used when relevant to that research or skill.

When you get to the time those points are used, narrate a brief montage of the event, or even better let the player do it within some guidelines, and you can move into the more group based play loops. With those extra inspiration points available, the player can get advantage and then call back to some element of their sneaking, hacking, or preparation phase. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t, but the player now has a currency to use and feel justified in the use of their skills and their character build.  You can also ask for a multitude of rolls without triggering any suspicions about specific areas.

If you want to acknowledge that the player might have found a trap or accessed a blueprint and thus know where a laser grid is, you could just let the player know they have 3 “prep points” and that you will remove a few things based on their successes. Maybe you ask them if they want to spend a point before they go down the next hall. When they do, you show one trap they would notice, tell them about an ambush spot they could avoid, or reveal a secret door that bypasses the lockpicking challenge on the main door.

It all comes down to abilities, reward, and currency to spend in some way. The players with solo (ish) gameplay loops want to use their abilities, and you should reward them for doing well with those. Sometimes those moments should be zoomed in on but sometimes they pull you away from the rest of the game. Adding in some method that justifies the expenditure of time and effort without always having to pause the rest of the game for it can create the same sense of accomplishment. This sort of system doesn’t remove the solo-gameplay loop, it just moves it outside of the shared action phases while still letting that character interact at the same pace as the others. The rolls may happen earlier in a mini-game sort of situation, but the narrative is experienced at the same time as the other players.

Points and Meta-Currency

One of the reasons this works well is the idea of a meta-currency that you spend for benefit on the narrative. Gaining this currency is the reward for the rolls, but it also triggers that core idea of being prepared. Even if the players don’t know the narrative around how it is used when they gain it, they get to use it to circumvent disaster and thus feel like they were prepared. If you wrap in the narrative requirement as well, it mimics the concept of the heist movie prep scene, but in reverse. Rather than the protagonists explaining the heist and seeing small snippets of it, you know how prepared you are for the heist and then get the flashbacks of the preparation showing off how cool that character is on their own.

When a game system has some kind of points that affect the narrative – like D&D 5e’s inspiration, 3.5’s Action Points in Eberron, Fate Points in Fate, XP’s non-level up use in the Cypher System, etc. – you can easily tack the prep point idea on top of that. Hacking an existing framework like this gives a way for the players to easily tie into it. It gives a framework for the benefit to be applied and you can limit it to only certain uses. Can the advantage be used in combat or just for avoiding traps? Maybe the player can give a good narrative for why it is relevant for a combat use.

“I knew there were a couple of loose cobblestones in this hall from my sneaking through, so I back up until the enemy is on one of those and it puts them off balance a bit.”

That solution is clever as heck, so why not? It also lets the player be heard for their clever ideas and their character builds.

Of course, the prep points don’t need tied to the exact use of the already existing point, such as inspiration being used for advantage. You could have them be spent in an entirely different way. Maybe the player has 4 prep points that can be used to grant advantage or… as the character gets into the dungeon you offer to reveal as many traps as they want to spend prep points on. They give you two and you show them two traps they can now avoid. They save the rest for other uses and when they get ambushed they ask if they can spend the other two to retcon that they knew it was going to happen and avoid the first surprise round.

The fact that these are treated as currency lets them be malleable in just that way. You can spend them on different areas and still feel as though you have the same amount of benefit, even if the results are vastly different. Do you spend that $20 on 3 fancy coffees, one good meal out, or a new game book?

Another way to take this concept is to make the prep points shared. It’s not just the hacker who benefits from knowing the base blueprints after all, but everyone. Creating a generic challenge of 5 rolls of relevant skills with a threshold of 3 successes for the hacker / rogue / scout /etc. could give every player two more inspiration or story points to use. Rather than the hacker getting 4 points, this helps everyone benefit while also making the traditionally solo play loop feel relevant to everyone. You can still do the flashback and narrative justification for the character who did the solo loop, but now the fighter or cleric gets to narrate it or ask the other player to. This makes their contribution feel relevant while also removing the time sink that might disrupt the flow.

Conclusion

I have iterations of this that I use in different games, but ultimately the concept needs tailored towards your play style. In my D&D games I give 5 inspiration at the start of every session. I then find ways to bleed them out earlier in the game before big climactic battles, but if the players are wise to that they save them and pull victory from the jaws of defeat with them. Because of how I use inspiration in my games, 1 – 2 more per player for prep doesn’t overbalance things, but that’s because I run from the Tome of Beasts or at a few CR higher than the player levels. In a game that is less generous with inspiration – and closer to RAW – maybe leaving prep points as their own kind of currency makes more sense. In a game where the “Plot Points” are very powerful, maybe you have a chart where a certain number of successes in the prep phase yields different results.

However you use it, the idea of separating the narrative and mechanical elements of the more solo-centric gameplay loops and generating a type of currency to reconnect them during the group gameplay loops can really change the dynamic. It prevents the solo-action from bogging things down while still letting the player make full use of their character. Have you used systems like this before? There are some games where this style of mechanic is baked right in, but those usually focus around more heist-centric mechanics or investigation as full-game sorts of scenarios. What point-based systems would you envision this working well with?

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I’ve been a bit absent lately because of a lot of personal stuff happening all at once in my life. It’s been a difficult year. I was stressed out, and even considered putting a stop to all the Game Design aspects of my life. On July 11th, I received a mail from the great Mario Ortegon saying I’ve been whitelisted for a PoC scholarship in Big Bad Con. PoC scholarship? Big Bad Con? What the heck are those things? I didn’t know it then, but a whole journey that would literally change my life was about to happen.

Hey! This is a different article from the norm I used to write. There are no monsters or tips. It’s just me, plain Tomas Gimenez Rioja writing about an experience I recently lived through. For those who don’t know, I’m an aspiring g… *ahem* I’m a game designer from Argentina (that place all the way at the bottom of the Americas) that started blogging about D&D and gaming in general 4 years ago until the folk at Tribality noticed me and had me write weekly columns. I wrote for many things, and applied for the Gnome Stew, where I got accepted and now you have me right here writing this. But why was I of all people contacted and sent to a convention in the US?

What is Big Bad Con?

Big Bad Con is a small convention in comparison to things like PAX. However, that small number of people allows one to easily get to meet and chat with more people, aside from just playing games. Its level of security and COVID protocols (COVID tests were given for free, people got tested all the time, and you were required to use mask at all times), apart from being an event that not only allows, but also encourages diversity makes it possibly the event I’ve felt more secure and comfortable in ever. Its PoC programme started in 2019 (y’know, before the calamity). The con missed 2020, and 2021, only to come back now in October 2022. Then, stronger than ever, the PoC programme started recruiting people.

The Mail

Let’s jump back to my side of the story for a bit before we go back to the con. For those who don’t know, the history of Argentina is quite weird (it can be fun to research as well, in 2001 we even had 5 different presidents in less than two weeks), and the country received a whole load of European immigrants mostly during and after the two World Wars. For those, it was the promised land. Spoiler alert: it only felt that way for a while. The reason I’m saying this is because my ancestors (many generations ago) were actually European, both from my mother, and father’s side. You may be able to tell that from my surname as well, heh. That means I’m caucasian, male, and cisgender. Why was I included in a PoC (People of Color) program? My friends even call me the whitest in the group, and pretty much everyone I told looked at me with a weird face as I said I was being invited as part of a PoC programme. Lots of thoughts went through my mind as I read Mario’s mail.

 While Big Bad Con cannot currently offer you the scholarship, we may be able to offer it to you in the upcoming months if we have additional funding or if the selected recipients are unable to accept or have other issues attending down the line.

I apologize, as this may not be what you are hoping to hear. Your work in the TTRPG space is nothing short of exceptional, and the PoC Programming Team looks forward to seeing what comes next for you. Our team includes Ajit George, Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Sean Nitter, Surena Marie, Carlos Luna, Justice Arman, Anthony Joyce-Rivera, Pam Punzalan, Mario Ortegón (that’s me!), and Indrani Ganguly.

“Exceptional? Me? I’ve got to talk with big people in the industry, yeah, but I’m still a nobody next to all those names included in the team for example.” It was a bit of a shock to me, especially because I was a big fan of Mario’s work. Mario contacted me through other sources and said there was a big chance I could get chosen, but it was very difficult for me to see it. I continued my life with zero expectancy of being chosen. It didn’t make sense in my head, there are surely people that deserve it more than I do. On August 31st I received another mail from Mario. I was the chosen one…

Maybe I was worth inviting? I mean, I did create products of my own, and even took part in two big setting books from Tribality Publishing. I wasn’t sure. I knew only a few faces from profile pictures on Twitter, but apart from that I was feeling like a fish out of the water. I was nervous I could get too anxious and end up having a bad time. But then the time to travel arrived.

The arrival

I was finally in San Francisco! It was “just” a 13 hour flight, with two hours of wait time in Texas (ouch), while having the allergies. I coordinated with Morgan (@SirenaBesos on Twitter) to meet as they had just arrived as well. I knew nothing about them, and so I was extremely nervous at first. When we met, Morgan was just the sweetest and coolest! We shared the RPG stuff we worked on, and I had to swallow my fangirling when hearing they worked on Kids on Bikes.

We got to the hotel and place where the event was going to take place (The Hyatt), and that’s where I started seeing more and more faces! Firstly, I met with two familiar faces for me: Pam Punzalan (@TheDovetailor) and Mario Ortegón (@elwarius). Pam I had met before while playing one of her games online with her as a GM two years before: Sundo (click here to get it. It’s free now!). I have been following her ever since because I really enjoyed the game, and I couldn’t believe she still remembered who I was. Mario I knew from his stream (Sendas en Los Reinos), and I had chatted with him at some random moments because we are both latinos, and I really like what he is doing with his Ixalba setting. Later, I got to meet with Jaime Reyes-Mondragón (@JaimeRysmon), who I had arranged to be roomies with, and would then become a fantastic friend all along the con (looking forward to seeing you again!). He and Alastor Guzman (@Alastorgv) even worked on a Power Rangers-like game that Matt Mercer himself bought (Tezca Sentai). Apart from some shenanigans in a Mexican place to eat with Morgan and Andy Munich, that was all for my arrival, and then it was time for the con to start!

The Con

The first day involved meeting a whole lot of people! I mean… I met a bunch of people all weekend long. Remember that nervousness I talked about before from not knowing anyone? It all went away because everyone was amazingly friendly and eager to include you in games and conversations. You know the phrase “never meet your heroes”? That doesn’t apply for these folk. I got invited to dinner by Carlos Cisco (@carlos_cisco) in a Japanese restaurant (sorry if I sucked at using chopsticks, hehe), and he told me he recognized me from the Arcadia review I made about his article. It feels weird to hear someone say that even my negative opinions made sense to him. It’s going to be difficult from here on out to review stuff about people I met and made friends with.

Indrani Ganguly (@nonagondice) had a contagious aura of positivity, and even gifted me (and pretty much everyone) some dice that I would proceed to paint with many others in the weekend. She also brought a whole table of Indian snacks for everyone to try out, with Alika Gupta (@capefoxalix) (a great friend I made that was always there to chat, along with Raya Sarkar (@rabbitbucket), both incredible artists) and Cris Viana (@crislv) (a fantastic designer, and friend who even created my business cards) adding some extra snacks, from India and Brazil. Sorry if I forgot to add in someone else who brought snacks. They were all delicious!

I got to meet and play with Leon Barillaro (@barilleon), and Willy Abeel (@theWillyBoo) as well! Two people full of positive energy that were playtesting their games. O Captain from Leon is being crowdfunded at the moment! Go help it reach the big numbers! Willy, on the other hand, was playtesting a smaller but frenetic game with dice whose name was about to change due to copyright reasons with the big gaming N, so I am not sure what’s the name going to end up being. Make sure to follow him to know first hand! Playing Stealing the Throne with these two, Jaime, and Hannah Rose (@wildrosemage) was definitely one of my stand-outs of the weekend! I loved the amount of energy Hannah brought to the table as well, mimicking her character movements.

Another thing to stand out were the Werewolf games ran by the great Justice Arman (@justicearman) and the Blood on the Clocktower game (seriously, if you haven’t tried this game try to find one game online, it’s fantastic!). I got to play both of those games with James Haeck (@jamesjhaeck) who I really admired from his work. After some mutual backstabbing and roleplaying our characters, I can say we did become good friends as well!

The Panels

The panels were one of the best things from the con. There were many spaced throughout the weekend, all with goldmines of knowledge to gather. I learned a whole lot from everyone, even though I missed one I was really looking forward to. Some phrases stuck with me, such as “If you are designing games, then you are no `aspiring` game designer, you are a f@#ng game designer” (I may have paraphrased a bit). There’s not much more to say about them because I’m not going to share the entirety of the panels, but if you do come to Big Bad Con, make sure to attend them. They are definitely worth your time! The only problem I had with going to this many panels is that I had less time to actually play games. Next time, I’ll make sure to choose strategically!

PoC Dinner and PoC Meet & Greet

These were the events that blew my mind! The PoC dinner had us attend all in as-formal-as-we-wanted clothing, meaning that people brought attires from the regions they are from. I’ve never been to such a diverse (and might I say sexy) event! We got to connect even more with each other, eat delicious food, and lastly hear some deeply impacting words from some of the PoC Programming Team. I wanted to stand out Ajit A. George (@ajitgeorgeSB) and Strix (@the_strix) who almost broke me into tears with their inspirational speeches. We are the third wave of designers, and we are going to make us heard! This is the moment I understood I was enough. I am no simple game designer; I am a latino from a third world country who struggles to have their stuff be seen, or be taken into consideration by other better positioned folk. I may be caucasian, but I’m still a minority, and will make myself known to the world! If I had to choose my favorite moment in the whole con experience, this one will possibly be the most life-changing one.

The Meet & Greet, on the other hand, had us meet fantastic people from the industry, where we introduced ourselves to them and had to sell us as possible work partners, as well as provide pitches of our products and skills. The inspirational speeches from the day before definitely made this part easier, but it was still pretty nerve-wracking. Getting to be face to face with these folk was impressive, and I can’t thank the PoC team enough for making it happen! I think it was Anthony Joyce Rivera (@AJoyce_Rivera) who made papers for everyone with the people we should definitely meet as what we do is what they are looking for in their company, and vice versa. I got the chance to chat with people that might offer me jobs or projects in the future and that’s just marvelous.

Always feeling safe and secure

We all introduced each other, and had a piece of paper with our name and pronouns. The whole convention felt diverse with queer, black, people with disabilities everywhere to be seen and one could truly be themself at all times in this area. What’s more, the COVID protocols were top notch. There was one single COVID case detected and it didn’t get to spread anywhere because of how quickly the staff handled the situation. Tests were asked to be done, and even given to all that were at the event

The People

I believe the real con was the friends we made along the way… In this particular case, it was the people that actually made the con such an unforgettable experience. All the chats while resting for a bit, sharing of stories, created a truly comfortable space. I’ve never lived anything like it. I know I didn’t mention a whole lot of you who I spent time with and definitely deserve to be mentioned, but if I was to name you all one by one this article would be three times its size, hehe. You know who you are, and I love you folk! If you haven’t yet, go follow everyone in their socials: HERE. I wanted to give some honorable mentions though:

• Mario, you would get me in the middle of the event and present me to new people to chat (and possibly get a job with?), and the amount of effort you put into having me meet all those people is something that truly deserves praise.
• Pam, I think you are possibly one of the people I spent the most time with, and I feel we forged a beautiful friendship. I do also consider you as some kind of mentor because of all the knowledge you have provided me both in the panels, and while sharing cocktails at the bar.
• Jaime, and all the Spanish speaking people, you acted as some anchor to reality for me. I’d been speaking English all day long, but I knew I could go back to them to talk again in Spanish and have a notion I wasn’t in a dream, finding some comfort again when feeling a fish out of the water. And you all are amazing, let’s not forget that part.
• The whole PoC crew that managed the scholarship, including Sean Nittner (@seannittner) and Eric Mersmann who made sure I could get from Argentina to the US and back.

Every single person I met was great. It’s been fascinating to meet you, and I definitely hope… Nah, I know we’ll get to see each other again!

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After another 13 hours of flight (with now 10 EXTRA HOURS OF WAIT IN TEXAS) I’m finally back in Argentina. I got a ton of new games to try out, a plethora of people to talk to, and most importantly, am inspired to carry on as a game designer! This isn’t my last rodeo. Hopefully you will start seeing more and more of me in the near future, and it’s all thanks to Big Bad Con!

Also: Check out Dan Muñoz’s (@Nat1Fun) experience in the con and why he believes it’s the BEST thing to happen to you.

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Part of the game master’s job at the table is to make trouble for the PCs. This can be puzzles, obstacles, monsters, hostile environments, traps, riddles, or any other host of things. However, the trouble that gets the party into the hottest waters are relationship troubles. This can be opposing factions, spurned lovers, overbearing authority figures, enemies rising from the past, or new enemies that have been freshly insulted or bloodied.

The previous list is a selection of options for antagonistic relationships. Non-malignant relationships can also cause trouble for the party. This trouble can be found in the form of parents who mean the best, siblings with friendly rivalries, children that are trying to discover who they are in a rebellious manner, best friends with a bag full of practical jokes, and so on.

I like pulling these relationship troubles from a character’s backstory. Those are the juiciest bits, but sometimes they have to evolve naturally out of the story as it unfolds. There’s plenty of meat on the bone for trouble from either source. Of course, trouble won’t take root if the PCs don’t latch on to it, so I’ll be talking to the players in this article as well.

Set It Up

The setup for relationship trouble only has two main sources: backgrounds and in-story evolutions.

If the relationship comes from a character background, and you want to leverage an NPC into causing trouble for the PC, you’ll need to get explicit consent from the player first. Even if it’s “clearly obvious” that there are relationship issues in the background, don’t ambush a player by making an NPC from the background into a BBEG (Big Bad Evil Goon). You don’t have to show your full hand and entire plans, but you do need to show enough information to allow the player to consent.

During the course of the unfolding storyline, many NPCs will come and go through the PCs’ lives. If the players showed special affection (or hatred or dismissiveness) of an NPC, then that NPC is fair game as a return character to cause relationship trouble. In this case, the NPC is your character, so you don’t need explicit consent from the players to introduce the troubles.

Further Words About Consent

The first thing to know about relationships is that they are deeply intimate, can be emotionally triggering, push on boundaries, and can bring up buried (or even recent) trauma. Tread lightly and get consent from the players when you want to establish a particular type of relationship. Also, please be cognizant that the players can revoke consent at any time for any reason (or no reason at all). Don’t judge. Don’t probe. Don’t get upset. If you’re in a tight-knit group of friends at the table, it might be okay to have an open and honest discussion about why the consent isn’t given or is revoked. You’ll have to judge this for yourself. If a player is willing to talk about it, be respectful and kind. If they’re not willing to discuss the topic, accept this and move on.

To the players: If you do withhold or revoke consent, I encourage openness about why, if you can. This will allow the GM and other players to respectfully avoid the same or similar topics. However, if you’re not ready to tackle the discussion behind your reasons, stand firm. No one wants another player at the table to be upset because of out-of-game experiences that are being reflected in the game.

Dish It Up

Once you have the relationship ready, dish it up to the player. Make it clearly obvious that this is not just another NPC, but someone that will be important in the character’s life. I have friends who can’t tell that they’re being flirted with. I’m in that same boat. Those subtle social clues go whizzing over my head at 50,000 feet, and I just don’t catch them at all. Being coy or sly can cause your well-laid plans at a relationship to go missed or inadvertently avoided. No one wants that, so be clear.

Don’t Dodge; Lean Into It

To the players: Once the GM has dished up a relationship for your character, lean into it. Claim it as yours and run with it. Don’t dodge the relationship. These character interactions can add so much depth and flavor to the storytelling, so do your best to embrace it and go for it.

To the GMs: If a player has expressed interest in a serious relationship with an NPC, lean into it. This can present wonderful opportunities for adventure hooks, exceptional storytelling, and robust world building. This is a golden opportunity, but make sure you and the player are on the same page as to the nature of the relationship. If you set up an antagonistic role, but the player wants the NPC to be “friends with benefits,” then it’s time to reconcile the NPCs role in the game. If this means metagame or “out of game” talk, that’s fine.

Make It Interesting

This is advice for everyone. The relationship needs to be interesting. What I mean by that is that the interactions between the PC and NPC need to matter to the story. If the relationship is merely, “We play poker together every third Tuesday when I’m in town,” that’s not going to go very far in changing the storyline. It could, but only if you make it more interesting than that. Altering the above example to, “Our every third Tuesday poker game is a cover story for my character and the NPC to exchange coded messages to exfiltrate state secrets to an enemy nation,” can make things much more interesting. This opens the door to the poker buddy suddenly vanishing, missing a poker game, or scheduling an “emergency” poker game off-schedule.

Targets of Opportunity

NPCs in a relationship with a PC might, on the surface, appear to be targets of opportunity for a plot hook. This is entirely true, but you must handle this with care. Killing an NPC to “motivate the PC” is a tired and abusive trope. It’s called “Fridging.” Don’t do it. It’s weak storytelling and pathetic motivation. Now, if the NPC dies in an effort to save the PC (such as jumping in front of a bullet or on a live grenade or whatever), that can be good storytelling depending on how things are set up and how you handle it.

The same warnings apply to kidnapping, abusing, beating up, or threatening the NPC. Find a deeper, relationship-based motivation to trigger in the PC when it comes to the NPCs.

Yes, And

I’ve mentioned this before in other articles. The concept of “Yes, And” can propel a story forward to tremendous speeds that will get you to the highest peaks of collaboration. While establishing or deepening the relationships between characters, find more than one hook. Find more than one reason these two people are tied together. This allows you to knot those plot threads together to a binding that can only be broken through extreme effort.

Conclusion

This article has already gone on long enough, and I’ve not even touched on multi-partner relationships, love triangles, love tents (it’s a thing), battling for the attention/affection between multiple people from a single person, and so on. Relationships are generally a two-way interaction, but it can get so much more complicated when more than two people are involved.

Just treat it all with care and consent, and you’ll do just fine.

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Free League Publishing has made a name for itself with some major hits in recent years, with heavy hitters like the Alien RPG, The One Ring, and Twilight: 2000. However, another aspect of the publisher has been to bring RPGs from the European market into wider distribution. Not only has this brought projects like Vaesen and Symbaroum to the wider market, but it has also created a space for smaller, more focused RPGs, like Mork Borg and Death in Space. Today, we’re going to look at another one of these RPGs, Into the Odd Remastered.

Disclaimer

I received a copy of Into the Odd as a review copy from Free League, and I have received other games from Free League for review in the past. I have not had the opportunity to play Into the Odd myself.

 Into the Odd Remastered

Publisher: Free League Publishing, Bastionland Press
Rules and Writing: Chris McDowall
Graphic Design and Art: Johan Nohr

Odd Format

This review is based on the Into the Odd Remastered PDF, which is 152 pages in length. This includes endpapers, a title and credits page, a two-page table of contents, and a one-page index.

The layout for Into the Odd is single column. There are various color pieces in the book, but most of these have a limited palette that is not shared by all the artwork in the book, but rather seem to be chosen to reinforce the individual feeling conveyed by the art. There is both original art, as well as historical photos and images that have been manipulated to add color and chaos to evoke the tone of the setting.

The format is very clear, with wide margins. Most of the book uses black lettering, with examples called out in blue. I think this is a case where the limited number of people working on the rules has allowed for a much more intentional presentation.

What Is This Setting?

Into the Odd takes place in a fantasy world, but one that has reached its industrial age. There are dirty factories and mass-produced tools, but there are alien artifacts and the remnants of ancient civilizations to produce wondrous effects. Bastion is the primary city of the setting, and the place from which adventurers set out.

The Underground runs beneath everything, and the sewers of Bastion naturally merge into it. The landscape has lost cities, ancient broken statues, and evidence of cosmic horrors and strangeness housed in multiple ruins.

The feeling that was pervasive to me was similar to China Mievilles’ New Crobuzon stories, but with less of the biting political commentary. There are amazing machines that don’t work the way we assume they work in our world, strange intelligences, but also familiar cities trying to mass produce a new world while ignoring the wonder still left in the setting.

What Do You Do?

Adventurers are a part of society in the setting. When new ruins are found, a wall in the sewers reveals an alien temple, or people go missing on the way to the city, adventurers are expected to investigate, and potentially make some money along the way. In many ways, it is a very traditional formula applied to a non-traditional setting.

What Are the Rules?

The game uses a traditional set of polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20). Characters have three stats, Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower, and HP (in this case, referred to as Hit Protection).

Whenever a character is trying to avoid a detrimental effect, they try to roll equal or under their relevant ability score. Whenever an attack happens, you roll damage and subtract armor from the attack. An attack that is hindered does 1d4, and one that is enhanced does 1d12, but most weapons fall in the d6 to d8 range.

Some effects do damage in HP, and some in Ability Score damage. HP recovers on a short rest (a few minutes), while Ability Score damage recovers after a full rest (a week of downtime in a safe location).

When you create a character, you roll 3d6 in order, and the rest of your character is determined by cross referencing a chart that gives you your Starter Package. The Starter Package gives you gear but may also give you another trait. The lower your Ability Scores and HP are, the more likely you are to have a more overtly supernatural and/or beneficial starting ability.

Most rules are discreetly detailed. For example, if you do have a special ability, there isn’t a section that describes the full list of special abilities, you are just told what the relevant effects are in the entry.

Whenever the group finishes an Expedition, they gain a level. At this point, they roll for more HP, and roll to check if any of their ability scores go up. Character levels aren’t numbered, but use the following titles:

• Novice
• Professional
• Expert
• Veteran
• Master
• Beyond

There are also simplified rules for dealing with actions taken between Expeditions. Characters can make a few simple rolls to see if an Enterprise is making money. They can take on an Apprentice, who can level up as you adventure (and might make for a good replacement character if something goes wrong), or you can fight battles.

Characters leading a group in battle make a Detachment. The Detachment is effectively a single character, but with more HP, and the ability to always do Enhanced damage to individuals. These Detachments can come on adventures, but only if it makes sense to bring a company of troops.

Arcana

Arcana are the leftover artifacts that produce special effects. These are divided into Arcana, Greater Arcana, and Legendary Arcana. Like most of the rules in this game, the details are provided in the descriptions of the items, rather than referencing a range of possible Arcana effects. A GM creating new Arcana must model their creations against what is presented in the game, rather than against specific guidelines that are laid out.

As an example of these different power levels, a regular Arcana may let you sense the direction of something you are looking for, a Greater Arcana might summon a creature to fight for you, and a Legendary Arcana might bring the dead back to life.

Hazards and Monsters

There are a few pages of example hazards, which usually involve a character making an Ability Score check in order to avoid an effect. Some of these do standard damage, while others do Ability Score damage. A few may even cause you to be possessed into taking actions you otherwise wouldn’t take.

Monsters usually have a drive associated with them to explain what they want in a scene. Particularly large monsters may not be affected by attacks from single creatures, and some may inflict specific conditions in addition to the damage they cause.

More Oddities

In addition to the standard Starting Packages, the Appendix of the book provides alternate Starter Packages and notes for generating characters that begin as “simple folk,” as well as Mutants from the Underground and Unhumans (sapient beings from other worlds). There are also random tables to provide prompts, NPCs, campaign events, and even some suggestions on what is in the next room.

Adventures

A lot of the system struck me as clean and “comfortable” as I was reading it, but the adventures really engaged me. There are a number of items presented in this section, although the primary adventure is The Iron Coral, a dungeon crawl through a growing fortress made of metallic coral that has only recently appeared along the coast.

In addition to the levels of the Iron Coral, however, there is a hex map showing the locations between Bastion and the coastline. There are a number of random encounters that can happen in each hex, but this isn’t the part that really struck me.

There are individual sites in different hexes, and some of these locations help to add context to why some of the other encounters happen. There is another settlement, Hopesend, where characters can gain rumors on the location, and together, it forms a number of webs that allow for almost the full context of any of the encounters or locations that the PCs may visit.

I’ve seen different encounters provide context for random encounters before, and rumors that reinforce the story of the adventure have existed since the beginning of the hobby. That said, all of these things are so tightly woven, it feels especially compelling to follow the through line of rumor, encounter, mini-adventure site, to get the whole picture.

In addition to the locations and encounters, there is also a table to roll on to see how the Iron Coral changes over time, in case the PCs decide to (wisely) investigate a little bit at a time.

Legendary Arcana

 The example adventure and the surroundings are so well woven together than I think it’s going to be enjoyable just to see where all the threads lead. 

This book is a pleasure to read, and wonderfully imaginative, even if those flights of fancy are only one step removed from the kind of fantasy that the hobby originally revolved around. The emphasis is on getting into play as quickly as possible, and interacting with, well, The Odd. The example adventure and the surroundings are so well woven together than I think it’s going to be enjoyable just to see where all the threads lead.

I Eat the Stuff (Yes, that’s a Table for Determining What Happens When You Eat Random Stuff)

Whenever you have a wide-open setting like this, it’s always possible for people to not share a common vision of what the setting is like. Much of it is drawn from a collection of images and words that may be more symbolic than proscriptive. In addition to making sure everyone is on board with the tone and presentation of the setting, there is no discussion of safety tools, either for campaign calibration or for active feedback. Finally, while I think there is a lot of fun to be had in iterating from the designs already present for things like Arcana, Monsters, and Threats, some GMs are going to be less comfortable with this than they would be with clearer guidelines, or possibly even more items to pull from.

Qualified Recommendation–A product with lots of positive aspects, but buyers may want to understand the context of the product and what it contains before moving it ahead of other purchases.

I think this is a beautifully realized game that shows some great imagination. It may even appeal to gamers beyond the desire to play the game, and also appeal to gamers that just want to see the presentation and how it builds connections through content. That said, the simple rules coupled with the very loose guidelines on creating content may not appeal to gamers that want a bit more structure and guidance in their content.

What are some of your favorite games that add a new twist to an existing genre? Are you a fan of rules-lite games that also assume a degree of proficiency in those light rules in order to generate content? We want to hear from you in the comments below!

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I recently wrote up an article detailing the simpler setup I use for my FFXIV x DND game for currency. In that setup, I distill costs down to ranges for various categories of items and just figure out the appropriate cost within the range on the fly. Part of that concept is based on using the “Silver Standard” concept for fantasy gaming. There is a lot of information and discussion on the Silver Standard out there, and there are various versions of it. Since I’m basing part of my current currency system off of the idea, I thought it might be a good idea to talk about just the silver standard side of things and how it might be applicable.

What Is The Silver Standard?

There are multiple takes on the silver standard, but the core concept is to use silver coins as the main available currency rather than gold coins. Some versions merely replace the gold cost with silver, so a set of ring mail that would be 30 gold becomes 30 silver. Some versions change the conversion rates and tweak things to represent prices differently. In some of these systems 100 silver equals 1 gold or 20 silver equals 1 gold, etc. The goal here is to create a more realistic pricing model to medieval societies. That’s a very tall order in a fantasy world, but the various silver standard conversions change the paradigm to make gold feel more rare.

The big benefit of any silver standard system is that things “feel” more realistic based on our modern sensibilities. Gold is a much rarer metal and there is always a bit of a disconnect to think of things in gold coins. The modern exchange rate (currently) for an ounce of gold is ~1,650 USD. That means we would value a single, small gold coin at well over a thousand dollars in the real world. While there may be other societal factors at play in a fantasy world, it’s always hard to get around that idea. The mind wants to fall back to what denomination prices are listed in and match that to our understandings, so seeing 50 feet of rope listed at 1gp creates a weird mental accounting. The silver standard aims to fix that by putting things in easier to conceptualize denominations.

The Simplest Implementation Of The Silver Standard And Why It Works

My own take on the Silver Standard is inspired by this forum post and this comment by WIK:

“Well, when I did it, I just made sure that I made most transactions in silver pieces. When you do that, you start getting a bit more precise when you do prices – what would normally be a 10 GP per week stay at a nice inn is now 115 silver per week…while the one down the street is 110 silver, but they don’t do your linens (or whatever).”

That resonated with me and that simple concept works about 90% of the time. Change gp to sp and multiply by 10. The ring mail that was 30 gp becomes 300 sp and that feels more correct  in my mind. It’s easier for my brain to connect a silver piece as about a dollar and to conceptualize a 300 silver piece of armor. An inn stay costs about 8 silver per night while a very nice in stay costs about 20 silver and a super nice inn stay costs about 40 silver. Inflation and other factors make those not match up exactly to most real world costs, but they provide a better basis to work with. A decent dagger costing about 20 silver feels more realistic, even if you pay for it with 2 gold coins. Determining price variations becomes much easier. Is it a really fancy dagger – how about 35 silver or 90 because of the jewels.

So that’s it, the simplest – and in my humble opinion the best – implementation of the Silver Standard is to mark all gold prices in silver and salt to taste.  It will change the tone of the currency while not really changing any of the mechanics. You and your players can conceptualize the costs better and make quicker changes to provide the feel of a more alive economy. A chest of gold coins feels much more valuable and carrying around larger denomination coins becomes a way to rationalize not carrying 40 lbs of coins if you are playing more realistic, old school. It doesn’t quite mesh up to a real world currency but feels more in line and doesn’t require any other math.

What do you think of a silver standard this simple? Have you used one of the many versions of the silver standard out there or a totally different currency system? What works for you and doesn’t with pricing in gold pieces for D&D / fantasy games?

 

 

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When a group of people first get into tabletop gaming together, there’s usually one fateful question: Who is going to be the Game Master? That question can be hard to solve when the group is entirely brand new to the rules and have only a vague understanding of the time and effort it takes to run a game.

If no one in your group is an enthusiastic volunteer, then not all hope is lost (and you don’t have to force someone to step up). Here’s a few alternative paths you can take when your group can’t decide on who will be GM.

Go on a rotation

If no one wants to be the GM, then everyone can be a GM! Each player gets a turn running a oneshot (a game that takes place within one to three sessions) for the entire party on a rotation. Best case scenario, you have one (or more!) people interested in running their own game. Worst case? You keep rotating the GM indefinitely on a cadence that fits right for your group. Some parties prefer it this way – especially if all of the games take place in the same world.

No matter where your group lands after testing this out, there’s an upside; everyone at the table gains a better understanding and appreciation of what it takes to run a game. Getting a taste of the other side of the screen

This strategy won’t work so well unless everyone at the table is fully on board to give it a shot. If you make an exception for one person, then you may need to make an exception for everyone else – and then you’ll be right back where you started!

Play a GM-less game

If your table is open to games other than Dungeons & Dragons, then you can take your pick of GM-less games like Gloomhaven, Fiasco, or  Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Similar to other TTRPGs, you have the benefit of playing virtually or in person, either as a physical board game or on Tabletop Simulator. 

A game like Gloomhaven mechanically leans towards being combat-forward, but there are plenty of opportunities to customize and role play whatever character you’d like to make – not to mention you can play a cohesive story over dozens and dozens of sessions with the same party. 

On the flip-side, Fiasco is a majorly story-driven game about ambitious, ordinary people with poor impulse control. You can play with up to five players with no setup needed. 

For a balance of both role play and combat, Arkham Horror: The Card Game blurs the lines between card game and role playing game in a Lovecraftian setting. This one is especially good if you were originally looking to play a horror game such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green.

If your group is looking to play a very specific tabletop game, then this route may not make everyone at the table happy. But if you’re willing to give it a shot, these games are very accessible for when no single person wants to step up to the plate.

Look elsewhere for a GM

Nobody at the table has to compromise if they don’t want to – there’s a whole wide world out there of GMs willing to run games for people they haven’t met yet. 

For an in-person adventure, check out your friendly local comic book store or game store – some stores host regular games for local DMs. You can also search on places like Meetup, Reddit, Discord, or Facebook to see if there’s a community of gamers in your area.

If you’re looking for an online adventure instead, you’ll generally have a lot more options to choose from (scheduling dependent). Roll20 has a section of their site dedicated to looking for games to join. You can also try your luck on a subreddit on Reddit like /r/lfg. 

Keep in mind that GMs are sacrificing their time and energy for you, and so many are looking for a paid GMing opportunity. If your group all just wants to be players, and doesn’t mind chipping in, then this option is probably your best bet. Free GMs exist, but they tend to be harder to find, and you typically have less guarantees for how the games will run. In addition to Roll20 and /r/lfg, you can find DMs for hire online at sites like StartPlaying. If you’re looking for an in-person game, you can reach out to your local game store to see if they can put you in touch with someone interested in being a hired GM!

 

With these options at your group’s disposal, you can talk together and figure out what works best for you. You may stop at one of these choices and decide that’s the best option – or you may try all three before sticking to your favorite. No matter the outcome, perseverance is key!

What other ways have you tried to solve this age-old conundrum? Let us know in the comments!

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A new trailer for the upcoming tactical RPG Marvel's Midnight Suns - some more prequel shorts videos can be found here: Marvel's Midnight Suns - Combat Overview Trailer Read more »

Mortismal Gaming checked out WH40k: Inquisitor - Martyr withe the new Sororitas DLC: Check Out | WH40k: Inquisitor - Martyr   Read more »

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Version 1.0.3.0 of Tactics Ogre: Reborn is now available: Version 1.0.3.0 Now Available Patch 1.0.3.0 has now been released for Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Update contents: Save stability improvements Bug fix to address game launch failure under certain conditions Various minor bug fixes and general stability improvements PS: The game runs now on older CPUs without AVX instruction set, too.... Read more »

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Noisy Pixel checked out the upcoming RPG Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song: Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered Review – Your New Favorite JRPG; After A Significant Time Investment The SaGa series is one that many JRPG nerds stand by as one of the standard for non-linear adventures.... Read more »

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If you take nothing else from this article, consider this:

A monster's challenge rating is a loose approximation of a monster's difficulty. Many factors not included in challenge ratings often affect the difficulty of a battle. Use the lazy encounter benchmark and dials of monster difficulty to build and run fun encounters and don't be afraid to run easy battles sometimes.

The 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons uses "challenge rating" (hereby referred to as CR) as a measure of the challenge of a monster. Every stat block for a monster or NPC has a challenge rating. Here's the description from the front pages of the Monster Manual.

A monster’s challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is, according to the encounter-building guidelines in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Those guidelines specify the numbers of adventurers of a certain level that should be able to defeat a monster of a particular challenge rating without suffering any deaths. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one.

Monsters that are significantly weaker than 1st-level characters have a challenge rating lower than 1. Monsters with a challenge rating of 0 are insignificant except in large numbers; those with no effective attacks are worth no experience points, while those that have attacks are worth 10 XP each.

Some monsters present a greater challenge than even a typical 20th-level party can handle. These monsters have a challenge rating of 21 or higher and are specifically designed to test player skill.

I've highlighted a couple of key sentences. The first highlighted sentence is the one we should pay the most attention to. A monster should be a worthy challenge — but not a deadly challenge — for four characters of an equal level to the CR of the monster.

That's not a terrible rule of thumb, but it's not terribly useful. Many factors go into whether a particular battle is going to be challenging beyond just the challenge rating of a monster and the levels of the characters. These factors include

• How many monsters there are in the battle compared to characters
• Who wins initiative
• How well rested the characters are
• What spells the characters have access to
• What magic items the characters have
• The environment in which the battle occurs
• How well the characters work together

and more.

What's important to note from the CR description above is that a single monster is roughly equivalent to four characters of an equal level to their challenge rating. That doesn't help us understand how multiple monsters work out, though. Which is why the Dungeon Master's Guide has it's crazy two-dial system for figuring out combat difficulty — a system both overly complicated and inaccurate in its results.

Challenge rating is a loose guide at best. Not only does monster difficulty vary significantly within a given challenge rating but monster difficulty also changes as challenge ratings go up. CR 1/2 creatures, for example, are much more deadly to 1st level characters than CR 5 monsters are for 10th level characters.

An Average of Multiple Statistics

Challenge rating is an aggregate score of several statistics in a monster's stat block. A monster's challenge rating is the average of two measurements: offensive challenge and defensive challenge. Each of these two categories have various characteristics, measurements, and weights affecting their final calculation. You can find a full breakdown of these characteristics and measurements in the "Creating a Monster" section of chapter 9 in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Sometimes these weighted characteristics dramatically change a monster's challenge rating but might not come into play in an actual battle. Other times, particular characteristics are overweighted, giving a monster a greater challenge rating than the actual threat it brings to a battle.

I often complain that high challenge monsters aren't nearly the threat that lower challenge monsters when compared to appropriately leveled characters. I argue that the characteristics of higher challenge monsters are weighed too heavily — high CR monsters need those abilities to challenge high level characters. An example is "legendary resistance" which counts as increasing the hit points of a monster but the whole reason a monster has "legendary resistance" is because it's going to be a huge target of "save or suck" spells. It needs those resistances because of the role legendary monsters play in the game. That's one example of many.

It's not important to break down every characteristic to see why a monster landed at the challenge rating it did. Instead, note the most important conclusion of this article:

Challenge rating is, at best, a loose approximation of the difficulty of a monster.

How do you make sure high CR monsters fight at their challenge rating? Bump up their damage.

Tools for Encounter Measurements

Two online tools help calculate encounter difficulty using the math from the Dungeon Master's Guide: Kobold Plus Fight Club and the D&D Beyond Encounter Builder. Both use the DMG math which, as noted, isn't particularly accurate in a vacuum. I'd argue "hard" encounters by these calculations aren't actually hard above level 7 or so given what characters bring to the table.

CR Guidelines to Keep In Mind

If you're looking for easy measurements of combat challenge you can keep in your head, consider the lazy encounter benchmark. This benchmark doesn't break down "easy", "medium", "hard", or "deadly" levels. Instead, it focuses on identifying potentially deadly encounters. Encounters below that benchmark are easier and things above it are harder. Here's the benchmark:

An encounter might be deadly if the total of monster challenge ratings is greater than 1/4th of the total of character levels, or 1/2 if the characters are above 5th level.

These are loose measures at best. Due to all of the factors described earlier in this article, this comparison is only a loose gauge. Various circumstances and criteria change an encounter's difficulty dramatically.

The Higher the Level, the Swingier Things Get

High level characters have so many resources at their disposal that combat gets even less predictable. In the original Monster Manual description above I highlighted the section talking about CR 20+ monsters being significant challenges for 20th level characters. That's certainly not been my experience. I've watched high level characters eat through challenges far greater than a single CR 20 monster.

So What Does CR Mean Again?

Returning to the main question, what does CR actually mean?

Challenge rating is a loose approximation of the difficulty of a particular monster compared to the level of the characters. Only when combining it with some encounter building math can we figure out its true relationship to the characters and those results are, at best, a loose approximation of encounter difficulty. Many factors go into the difficulty of a battle and thus it's up to each of us DMs to gauge each encounter and the potential difficulty it brings to the table.

What can you do with challenge ratings? Use the lazy encounter benchmark to gauge a potentially deadly encounter and use the dials of monster difficulty to tune monsters to suit the situation and pacing of the game.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos including the Lazy D&D Talk Show and Session 7 of my Scarlet Citadel Lazy DM Prep.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• Level Up Advanced 5e on Bundle of Holding
• Justin Alexander on Pointcrawls
• Morrus on One D&D and the Open Gaming License
• Dragon+ Goes Offline
• Is Takhisis Tiamat? Who Gets to Decide?

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer some of the questions I get on the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon questions and answer thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• Using Side Initiative
• Reading an Entire Campaign Adventure
• Making a Campaign World Feel Alive
• Curing Lycanthrope with a Wererat PC
• Focusing Over-Preparing
• Non-Lethal Attack Options
• Making NPCs Stand Out in Online Games
• Player-Driven Character Motivations

D&D Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:

• Leave blanks in your story and setting. Fill them in as the campaign moves forward.
• Don't get too wrapped in the zeitgeist of D&D. Focus on what helps you and your friends enjoy the game around the table.
• It's easy to get overwhelmed with how awesome this game is. Remember it's just a game and focus on what will make it fun at your next session.
• Build overland travel like a dungeon with paths and locations instead of hallways and chambers.
• Increase the detail of a location only when you know the characters are going there.
• Add interesting side locations to your overland travel. Fill them with interesting lore and treasure to discover.
• Playing D&D one-on-one is a fantastic way to focus the campaign around a single character and much easier to schedule. Give it a try.

Related Articles

• A New Dungeon Master's Guide For Building Encounters
• Building Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons
• D&D 5e Numbers to Keep In Your Head
• Thoughts on Unearthed Arcana's Encounter Building Guidelines
• The Lazy Encounter Benchmark, a Simple Measure for D&D Encounter Deadliness

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

Campaigns like Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Descent into Avernus all have themes to them. Your homebrew campaign has a theme to it. We can best try to articulate this theme by defining it with a short phrase or even a single word. Here are some examples:

• Rime of the Frostmaiden: Isolation
• Wild Beyond the Witchlight: Whimsy
• Descent into Avernus: Redemption

You may not agree with the themes above. That's cool. Reinforce the themes you want for your campaign. Perhaps, instead of "redemption" for Descent into Avernus, you prefer "fall from grace". You get to choose.

Defining the theme of your campaign gives it focus. Every strong start, every scene, every secret or clue, every location, every NPC, every monster, every piece of treasure; every component of our prep and story reinforces this theme.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight doesn't just have bullywugs, it has bullywugs in a silly court of constant betrayal all while wearing funny hats and frocks. Descent into Avernus doesn't just have death knights, it has death knights who once were members of an angel's army and now serve her after her fall knowing how far she has fallen. Rime of the Frostmaiden doesn't just have a ruined city, it has a city trapped under the ice for thousands of years.

Here are two questions to ask yourself right now:

What is the one-word theme of your current campaign?

How do the components of your next game reinforce this theme?

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos including "Describe D&D Character Abilities on Leveling Up" and "lazy DM Prep for Scarlet Citadel Session 6".

Patreons of Sly Flourish got lots of cool new things this past week:

• A biography and stat block for the assassin-priest Brother Cavel for the City of Arches PDF.
• A greatly expanded section on the Worlds Beyond the Arches for the City of Arches PDF.
• A new Lazy DM Generator with random generators for all sorts of people, places, items, and worlds.

Check out the November Patreon preview in the Lazy D&D Talk Show. Patrons can find them in your Patreon rewards post.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• November Patreon Rewards
• WOTC's New Inclusivity Review
• Jaquays-Style Design for Dungeon and Overland Travel

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• Keeping Villains Alive in Combat
• Using Paper Notes for In-Person Games
• Mourning the End of a Campaign
• Deciding on a Campaign to Run
• Using Time Flies Rules from the Midgard Worldbook
• Tips for Promoting Paper Character Sheets with Players
• Scaling Up Monsters and their Stories to 11th level

D&D Tips

Each week I ponder what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:

• Prep scenes with fantastic locations, interesting NPCs, potential secrets to unravel, and a situation to unravel.
• Expose history and narrative in small bites over the course of an adventure.
• Don’t take away magic items.
• Keep a list of potential magic items that fit the characters. Award them when it fits the situation.
• Make each magic item unique with a history and, if it makes sense, a once per day spell effect.
• Be wary putting the characters up against undefeatable foes. It’s a downward beat before it even begins.
• Dot your maps with small lairs and old ruins to explore as sidequests.
• Draw simple pointcrawl maps by hand. Be a kid again!

Related Articles

• Build Cities Around the Characters
• Tying Characters to a Campaign's Theme
• Write Down Page Numbers on D&D Prep Notes and Character Sheets
• Reach Satisfying Campaign Conclusions
• Prep Lazy D&D With Handouts

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

Handouts are a valuable and under-appreciated element of D&D game prepration. Building and delivering handouts for our D&D games serve many purposes.

• They help us focus on what's important in the game.
• They hand over import names of NPCs and locations in a permanent format. * They clarify the current drive of the game to both you and your players.
• They give your players something physical to hang onto and read — something that looks like it's right out of the world we're playing in.
• They're easy to make.

For a video on this topic, see my YouTube video on Building Fantastic Handouts for D&D.

We don't often think about how building handouts helps us prepare our game, but they surely do. Thinking through a handout helps us understand what's happening in the game and in the world we share with our players. It tells us what's important. It forces us to think about things in concrete ways. We need real names, real places, real plots to fill in our handout.

A handout might include details of the characters, descriptions of coming events, secrets of the villains, location names, the names of important NPCs, descriptions of potential monsters, and potential treasure — components of all eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. In this way, the handout itself is our game prep.

Often a handout is a note found by the characters (and thus handed to the players). Such notes might include:

• Instructions from a boss to an underling.
• A journal or diary entry.
• A lost letter from an NPC.
• An order of goods or services.
• A formal proclamation.
• A contract or signed agreement.
• A local newspaper article.
• A final confession.
• A note to remember something.
• An inventory.

Each of these can give valuable information to the characters, and thus to the players.

Construct a Cool Handout

To build a handout, use any word processor with fancy fonts. Google Docs works just fine for making handouts and has a bunch of fonts that work well for fantasy fonts including:

• Aguafina Script
• Alex Brush
• Bilbo Swash Caps
• Monsieur La Doulaise
• Nothing You Could
• Rock salt
• Rouge Script
• Unifrakur Maguinta

Other word processors and the website Dafont also have hundreds of potential fonts to use for our handouts. Select a font that makes sense for the writer. A drow high priestess is going to have a fancier and more beautiful font than a ratfolk ruffian.

Print your handout on fancy copper parchment resume paper to make it feel like cool parchment. A 500 pack of fancy resume paper lasts a long time. For a cheaper solution crumple up and soak normal paper in coffee. It's cheaper but takes longer.

Tear the edges of the page to make it look unique and non-uniform. Crumple it up and flatten it back out to make it feel even more rustic.

Use Handouts in Online Games

If you're like many DMs and running your games online, you can still make great use of handouts. First, you can still make it physically and share a photo of the handout in your online platform of choice. Photos of physical things still give players the feeling that this handout is real even if they can't touch it themselves. Instead of, or in addition to, sharing a photo of the physical handout, you can send the handout as a PDF or a screenshot so players can read it. Instead of printing it out on resume paper, you can use textured backgrounds for the documents to give them the same rustic feel even online.

Write a Great Handout

When writing handouts, keep these thoughts in mind:

• What would the author write down in such a handout?
• What information do I, the DM, want to give to the players?

Balance both of these questions when writing your handout. What would the author put down on paper? Lean towards revealing too much. Players only grasp half of what you're throwing out so being too coy and secretive means they're going to miss stuff. Instead, lean towards revealing clear and useful information in your handout.

Second, ask what information helps the player and put that in the handout. Fill your handout with specifics. Don't be too abstract. Say what's really going on. Use proper names. Use specific location names. Use nouns and verbs. Give important details. Pack your handout with clear information useful to the characters. If you want to make it even easier, bold the important words in a note to make it easy for the players to reference them.

Keep your handout to one page. Any longer and it'll be too hard to grasp. Fancy fonts can be hard to read so make sure the font is big enough to represent handwriting.

Prep With Handouts

Writing handouts isn't just about building an accessory we hand to our players. Writing handouts helps us prepare our games. It helps us get our hands around the story — identifying what's important and where the focus of our story lies. Handouts don't just help the players focus on what's going on, they help us focus on what's going on too.

Handouts are a fantastic high value element of game prep. Write an awesome handout for your very next game.

Sly Flourish Patreon Releases

The Sly Flourish Patreon had a lot of big releases this past week.

First, I added a new NPC villain biography and stat block for the priest-assassin Brother Cavel. I also greatly expanded the "Worlds Beyond the Arches" section with new adventure hooks and more narrative descriptions. Patrons can find this in the City of Arches PDF.

I also released a new random generator for items, monuments, locations, treasure, encounters, and adventure hooks that flavor the results with factions from different worlds including Eberron, Midgard, Forgotten Realms, and more. The link for this generator is on your main Patreon rewards page, pinned at the top of the Sly Flourish Patreon homepage along with all your other rewards.

Patrons also get a sneak preview and playtest of a new project I'm working on with Teos Abadia and Shawn Merwin. The most recent Patreon post has details.

The Sly Flourish Patreon is packed with lots of fantastic stuff. If you're not a Patreon, you should really check it out.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• Mastering Dungeons Goes Independent
• D&D on ESPN??
• Heretics Guide to Devotion and Divinity
• Ultimate Guide to Foraging, Harvesting, and Natural Discovery

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer some of the questions I get on the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon questions and answer thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• Managing Pacing with Heavy Roleplay Scenes
• Does Writing Help You Become a Better DM? No.
• Players Coordinating Leveling Up
• Magic Items for Higher-Level Pregen Characters
• Feelings on Boxed and Read-Aloud Text
• Heroes and Anti-Villains

D&D Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips. What tips did you learn in your last game?

• Build fantastic locations from random tables and your own imagination fueled by fantastic fiction.
• Use monuments, items, and locations to tell small pieces of the history of the world.
• Print or screenshot pictures of NPCs or monsters to hand out during the game.
• Look for opportunities for roleplaying and discovery even in the thick of a battle.
• Pull on the characters’ backgrounds during NPC roleplaying. How do the NPCs act based on the characters’ history?
• Note new character features, magic items, and wish lists in your character notes. Review before every session.
• End on a cliffhanger. Give yourself a strong start next session.

Related Articles

• Making Great Handouts
• Things Worth Preparing
• Write Down Page Numbers on D&D Prep Notes and Character Sheets
• Spending a Whole Day Preparing a D&D Game
• Reinforce the Theme of your D&D Campaign

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

Wizards of the Coast released a new D&D Starter Set with a brand new adventure — Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. This article intends to help DMs, both new and veterans, make the most of this excellent starting adventure.

Choose Your Format

These days, more DMs than ever run their games online. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle is available on the three most popular online platforms for running D&D games:

• D&D Beyond
• Roll20
• Fantasy Grounds

The digital version on D&D Beyond gives you everything you need to run in other virtual tabletops such as Foundry, Owlbear Rodeo (my personal favorite), Above VTT, or even directly over Discord.

Of course, you can play Dragons of Stormwreck Isle in person using the D&D Starter Set box. To do so, you'll want some other tools and accessories to make the most of the game. Zipperon Disney has a fantastic YouTube video showing how to fill out the Starter Set with some fantastic crafted accessories for under $20.

Top Tips for Running Stormwreck Isle

Here are my top tips for running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. These are detailed further in this article.

• Combine the "additional encounters" together to build interesting dynamic situations.
• Be ready to deal with the zombies' "Undead Fortitude" ability. It can drag the fight.
• In Dragon's Rest, focus on a few NPCs instead of trying to introduce every one of them.
• In any given location, feel free to move creatures from one room to another, remove them completely, or change their hostility to support the pace your game.
• Lean in on the lore presented in the adventure. Let the characters learn about Sharuuth, Bahamut, Tiamat, and Orcus and the draconic battles plaguing the island for centuries as they explore the island.

Read the Initial DM Tips

The beginning of the Stormwreck Isle adventure book includes a short section of tips for new DMs. Whether new or experienced, it's worth reading over these tips to refresh yourself. If you're looking for more tips for new DMs, see my Getting Started Playing D&D article.

Drowned Sailors

The first scene in the game has the characters witness a handful of zombies coming up the beach. This is a great encounter to get the characters into the action but gives them the option to leave well-enough alone if they choose. I expect most players fight the zombies. This isn't a difficult fight, and perfect for a Starter Set adventure. All too often published adventures throw 1st level characters against extremely difficult battles. This is a fresh change.

Note that the zombies start far enough away from the characters that the characters have a round or two to fire arrows or prepare for the attack. The zombies begin 30 feet away which means on their turn they must dash to reach the characters if the characters don't charge up first.

Choose How to Run Combat

You have options for how you want to run combat in this and every D&D encounter. This battle is simple enough that you can simply describe what's going on without any tokens, maps, or visuals — a style known as the "Theater of the Mind". You can, instead use tokens or miniatures to represent monsters and characters. See my Lazy Monster Tokens guide for building nice tokens to represent monsters and characters or, again, check out Zipperon Disney's video to see how to make tokens out of glass beads. If you want a more tactical 5-foot-per-square grid, check out the Pathfinder Flip Mat.

If you're playing online you too have the choice of running the battle in the theater of the mind or using an online virtual tabletop for gridded play.

Saved by Runara

Pay attention to the sidebar in chapter 1 called "Runara Saves the Day!". Should the characters fail in this adventure, they don't simply all die. Instead they awaken back at the temple under the care of Elder Runara. You can use this feature everywhere in the adventure, ensuring that a "total party kill" never ends in full defeat. Runara likely wouldn't describe exactly how she saved them, only that she was in the right place at the right time. This can further allude to her true origin as a bronze dragon.

Choose Your NPCs in Dragon's Rest

Chapter 1 is packed with NPCs to introduce to the characters. Instead of introducing every single one, choose the most important ones for the adventure so you and your players can keep them in mind. This includes:

• Elder Runara
• Tarak
• Varnoth
• One of the kobolds. I'd recommend Myla who has a connection to chapter 3.

Dive Into the Lore

Dragon of Stormwreck Isle is a largely traditional and straight forward D&D adventure. It's simple in its structure but heavily enriched by the lore presented in the text. Expose the characters to this lore as they talk to NPCs and explore the island. The histories of Bahamut and Tiamat, even the epic poem in the beginning of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, can tell the characters more about the lore of dragons.

The lost effigy in the Cursed Shipwreck can likewise reveal information about Orcus, demon prince of undeath.

Lean in on the lore. Let the players discover this lore as they explore the island and its inhabitants. Such lore binds the actions of the characters to the world around them.

Move Things Forward

There isn't a sense of urgency going on at Dragon's Rest. Give the characters time to explore the place, enjoy a dinner, and talk to NPCs. Then be ready to move things forward if the characters don't start exploring. The kobolds, for example, can push the characters to ask Tarak and Varnoth about their quests. Too much sitting around the temple can get boring fast so be ready to move things forward.

Combining Additional Encounters

Dragons of Stormwreck Isle includes three additional encounters you can run as the characters explore the island. Consider combining the "Kobold Renegade" and "There There Owlbear" encounter into one single situation. The characters might be tracked by two of the kobolds early on who decide they're not enough to take on the characters. Later, the kobolds run past the characters as the owlbear crashes in. You can combine these two encounters however you like to build a fun crazy situation the characters can get involved in. Mixing and matching encounters like this is a great way to keep situations unique and interesting.

Tips for Seagrow Caves

Like all of the chapters in this adventure, Seagrow Caves runs well without much modification. The one major tip I'll offer is to choose which battles you want to run and which you want to skip. As written the characters could face one battle after another between the plant octopus, the violet fungi, an the stirges. Feel free to skip or move around these encounters to pace the game so you're not throwing battle after battle at the characters which can get stale fast. Move both the violet fungi and the stirges around to suit the pacing of the game.

One fun detail I added to the two Stormwreck adventures I ran is to give the guardian plant octopus one of Tarak's boots. Not only can it whack someone with a tentacle but bonk them with a boot as well. Don't be afraid to give the octopus another melee attack as long as it's against a separate target. This makes it a more dangerous threat when facing four or five characters. Tarak will be happy to get his boot back when the characters defeat the octopus.

Lean in on the idea that the myconids, as afraid as they are, aren't hostile. Stage things carefully so it doesn't end up a mushroom bloodbath.

In the final battle against the fume drakes, let them share information about Sharuuth's tomb or prison beneath the island. Let the players ponder whether Sharuuth is alive or dead and what power she may possess but make it clear that answering such questions is better for another day far away.

Tips for the Cursed Shipwreck

The Cursed Shipwreck is an excellent derelict ship dungeon crawl. Like Seagrow Caves, be ready to move combatants around to suit the pacing of the game you want to run. Add or remove zombies and ghouls to increase or decrease the threat the characters face based on what feels right for the fun of the game.

Let the characters learn more about Orcus and his terrible realm of Thanatos based on the characters' religion checks when they discover the effigy and its accompanying note.

Tips for the Clifftop Observatory

Depending on how the characters approach it, there may not be a lot of combat in the observatory. If this fits the pacing of the game you want, that's fine. Otherwise, you can use the kobolds and flying kobolds as your combat dial — making them more aggressive and clearly villainous if you want an extra fight or more goofy and easily intimidated if you want to focus on the final battle with Sparkrender.

The puzzles in the observatory can be a little tricky so freely offer up clues to the more perceptive characters in the group if it helps keep things moving. Pacing such situations is always key. Don't be afraid to tell the players what their characters would notice.

When it comes time to run Sparkrender, a variety of circumstances can make the battle either easy or hard. Thus, you'll want to have your hands on the dials, changing up Sparkrender's hit points, number of attacks, and any allies who help him. If you have more than four characters you may want to add one or more flying kobolds into the battle to harass back-line characters. You can also give Sparkrender an additional claw attack if he doesn't seem very effective. Use his bite attack but change the piercing to slashing and don't include the lighting damage. Increase his hit points if you think he's going to go down too fast.

The fight against Sparkrender should feel epic but not completely deadly. Be ready to change things up to keep that danger high without completely wiping out the characters.

Continuing Your Journeys

Should you wish to continue your journeys, you can have the characters return to the Sword Coast by boat. I've written a bridge adventure in partnership with Scott Fitzgerald Gray and Jeff Stevens called Stars Over Stormwreck. This adventure connects Dragons of Stormwreck Isle with Light of Xaryxis, the adventure in the D&D Spelljammer boxed set but you can use this same adventure to tie to any adventure going on in Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Luskan, or elsewhere on the shores of the Sword Coast.

If you want to set Stormwreck Isle in the lands of Exandria, the world of Critical Role, you can connect Dragons of Stormwreck Isle with Call from the Netherdeep by placing Stormwreck Isle in the Emerald Gulch Sea and having the characters catch a boat that takes them to Jigow and the beginning of the adventures in Call from the Netherdeep which begin at 3rd level.

Stormwreck Isle is a fantastic adventure for both new and veteran DM's alike. Hopefully these tips help you run this adventure for your family and friends.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week on YouTube I posted my Scarlet Citadel preparation of session 4 and a tip video on How Surprise Works in D&D.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• Free MCDM RPG Safety Toolkit
• The Gloaming Wild 5e Survival Horror
• Running Ravenloft 2022 with Level Up 5e Vampires

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer some of the questions I get on the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon questions and answer thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• Keeping Big Battles from Being Boring
• What Other RPGs Do You Recommend?
• Filling In the Gaps During the Game
• Faction Ideas from Blades in the Dark
• Targeting Loot for the Characters
• Better Level Draining and Exhaustion for Vampires
• What to Get for Staring Out with Numenera
• Comparing Midgard to the Forgotten Realms
• Including Every Character's Story Arc
• Showcasing High-Level Abilities
• Building Open World D&D Games
• Building Problems Without Solutions
• How Many Encounters Before a Long Rest?
• Offering Headquarters and Lair Upgrades to the Characters
• Secrets in Clues for Dungeon Crawls and Combat-Focused Games

D&D Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:

• Build motivations for the characters to enter the room in combat to avoid the dreaded doorway fight. Flaming walls, hordes of skeletons, necrotic gas. Whatever works.
• Build encounters from the story first and challenge rating second.
• Paint your adventures and locations in short descriptions of lore, history, and setting.
• Double-check spell descriptions. If it feels too good to be true, it probably is.
• Tie third-party spells to single-use magic items. If the spell is broken, it only works once.
• Let tag-along NPCs handle their part of a battle off-screen. Keep the focus on the characters.
• Give the characters secret paths and side quests during travel sequences.

Related Articles

• How to Play Dungeons & Dragons
• Build Cities Around the Characters
• A Guide to WOTC D&D Published Adventures
• Two Years Playing D&D Online
• Write Down Page Numbers on D&D Prep Notes and Character Sheets

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

Introducing cities can be tricky in D&D. Even small ones have lots of locations and lots of NPCs. Big ones, like Waterdeep, can have hundreds of notable locations and thousands of NPCs. How can we introduce cities to the characters and their players without overwhelming both them and us?

For a quick minute-long video on this topic, see How do you introduce players to big cities in Dungeons & Dragons?.

As difficult as it is for you to make up or internalize so many locations in a big city, it's just as hard for the players to remember those locations. The minute you describe the eighth location the characters see, they forget the first one.

Instead, focus on the important locations. These might be the home base for the characters — a place to hang their hat. It might be the place they pick up quests, like an adventurer's hall or the local bulletin board. Maybe there's a clear adventure location like the old abandoned well, the creaky house no one goes to anymore, or the ruined watchtower out in the bay everyone says is haunted.

After these main locations build your city by thinking about what locations fit the characters. Where would they want to go. Bards like taverns, dance halls, and theaters. Clerics and paladins like temples or monasteries. Wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers might like a shady library or an arcane guildhall. Druids and rangers might like an overgrown wild grove with a grumpy caretaker. Fighters and rogues like shops where they can "buy" stuff or sharpen their weapons.

When you're building out a story, build from the characters outward. What do they want? What would interest them? This helps focus down to just a handful of places. Here's a quick checklist of the locations you might want to focus on in your next town or city:

• Places to pick up new quests.
• Places to rest, recuperate, and call their own.
• Places their particular character might want to visit.

When you're introducing a story, focus on the locations designed to draw the characters into the rest of the story, adventure, campaign, and world.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a video on Running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle with Tips for New DMs and my Scarlet Citadel Session 3 Prep video.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• Under the Harvest Moons
• Venture Maidens Campaign Guide
• D&D Lead Designer Ray Winninger Leaves Wizards of the Coast
• One D&D Expert Playtest Feedback Survey
• One D&D Ideas We Can Use Right Now

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer some of the questions I get on the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon questions and answer thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• Using NPCs as Assets in D&D Games
• Using 5e Rules with Numenera's Ninth World
• Props, Decorations, Accessories, and Themes in your D&D Games
• Filling Out Big Climactic Boss Battles

D&D Tips

Each week, after my Wednesday game, I try to think about what I learned from that game and offer them as tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:

• Prep interesting and unique magic items for each of the characters. Reward them when the time and situation is right.
• Build scenes from interesting set pieces, creatures, and situations.
• Offer a couple of meaningful choices for paths of overland travel.
• Use monuments as the backdrop for a scene.
• Make random encounters meaningful with interesting lore and the revelation of secrets and clues.
• Describe fantastic features of a city and the locations of most likely interest to the characters and their players.
• Tie monuments to the history and theology of your campaign world so the players can learn about it a piece at a time.

Related Articles

• Write Down Page Numbers on D&D Prep Notes and Character Sheets
• Reinforce the Theme of your D&D Campaign
• Running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle – The 2022 D&D Starter Set Adventure
• Reach Satisfying Campaign Conclusions
• Prep Lazy D&D With Handouts

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

Add page numbers to your preparation notes and character sheets. This is a tip for both D&D DMs and players. For 1,500 years people have learned how to create the equivalent of digital hyperlinks in physical books by referencing locations in an index.

While many of us prep our games or run our characters using online tools, sometimes we're using PDFs of products which still have page numbers and no easy way to hyperlink specific locations. For others running in-person games using physical books, writing page numbers in your notes or character sheets speeds up referencing spells, powers, character abilities, magic items, monsters, locations, NPCs, campaign information, and just about everything else in D&D right at the table.

For players, think of your physical character sheet as an customized index of specific options in the books you use to make your character. Write down the book's abbreviation and page number next to spells, feats, class features, and anything else you might reference. Write down the page number while building your character. It'll save you considerable time during play.

If you're a dungeon master, write down page numbers next to monsters, magic items, locations, NPC descriptions, or anything else you think you might reference during the game. You can do this in your notes whether they're digital or physical. You can also recommend and help your players write down their page numbers as well.

Writing down page numbers pays huge dividends in gameplay. No longer do you have to rifle through the Player's Handbook trying to figure out how big the cone of a cone of cold is (PHB 224). No longer do you have to page through Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts to find the empty cloak stat block (ToB 176). No longer do you have to scramble through your copy of the Midgard World Book to learn more about the dwarven canton of Grisal (MWB 71)

Use technology proven over 1,500 years. Write down page numbers in your character sheets and game prep notes.

Other Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a video on customizing your Lazy DM Notion Template and recorded my preparation for session 2 of my Scarlet Citadel game.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• New Patreon Adventure - The Silver Grotto
• Midgard Sale - 30% Off
• Apocalypse - The Complete Guide to Ending the World
• Torrents of the Spellhoarder
• Elder Brain 5e Survey
• Experiences Running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer some of the questions I get on the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon questions and answer thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• Differences Between DMs and Players and Tips for DMs Becoming Players
• Adventure for New Local Game Shop Group
• Modifying Published Adventures with a Different Map
• Injecting Horror into our Adventures
• Pontification on RPGs Moving Towards Digital
• Warlock Patreon of Evil God?

Last Week's D&D Tips

Every week I ponder what I've learned from my last game and put them into some D&D tips. Here are last week's tips! What did you learn from your last game?

• Build two-stage bosses that turn into their final form after their first defeat.
• Add environmental features that weaken bosses. Destroy the four unholy glyphs to remove the boss's advantage on all attacks and saving throws.
• Reward lots of healing potions for groups with limited healing spells.
• Clarify the lack of urgency when traveling so players can go off the trail sometimes and enjoy the sites.
• Every few sessions ask your players what they're enjoying about the campaign and what they want to see more of.
• Every few sessions run a "campfire tales" scene in which the players describe what their characters think of the current situation, their hopes for the future, and what it reminds them of from their past.
• Combine multiple random encounters together to build something rich and unique.

Related Articles

• Build Cities Around the Characters
• Reinforce the Theme of your D&D Campaign
• Reach Satisfying Campaign Conclusions
• Two Years Playing D&D Online
• Running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle – The 2022 D&D Starter Set Adventure

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

K. Ivan R., a Patreon of Sly Flourish, asked:

Most of the games I've run and played did not have a satisfying conclusion. This jives with what I've heard talking to every gamer I've brought this up with, and received wisdom I've heard from people online: Maybe once in your life will you get a campaign that goes every week for multiple years, only a handful of times in your life will a campaign come to a satisfying end, and for every campaign that ends, five or more will fizzle out before anything major happens. And yet, you run campaign after campaign, straight bangers - two campaigns a week and every man jack (??) of them ends properly. How do you do it?

I wasn't sure I agreed with Ivan's assessment of the situation so I ran a YouTube poll and the results astounded me:

Question: This is a poll for D&D players and dungeon masters. How often do you reach a satisfying conclusion to your D&D campaign?

YouTube poll posted 25 August 2022, 2,600 respondents.

Response	% of total
Almost Never	26%
Rarely	21%
Sometimes	31%
Often	14%
Almost Always	7%

About half of polled players and DMs rarely or almost never have a satisfying campaign conclusion. That's appalling.

I had lots of thoughts about how more groups might reach satisfying conclusions but I wanted to get a better gauge on why this is the case. So I hit up Twitter, asking why people didn't reach satisfying conclusions. You can read the Twitter thread here.

Scheduling was, by far, the number one reason. There were others, though, including:

• Getting excited for the new thing
• Changes in players and groups
• DM burnout
• Conflicting playstyles
• A general lack of interest
• Lack of campaign clarity
• TPKs

I've managed to run two dozen successful campaigns since 2014 and a good handful of campaigns before I started counting. I've rarely had a campaign fizzle out before a solid conclusion, but it has happened.

It's clear survivorship bias to assume the the things I do in my game more likely lead to a successful campaign. Having read peoples' experiences, however, I do believe the following things helped me run as many successful campaigns as I've run. So I humbly share my ideas for reaching satisfying campaign conclusions:

Run Six Full-Time Players and Two On Call

Finding and maintaining a D&D group is the hardest part of D&D. One way to manage a group once you've put it together is by keeping an on-call list. Try to have six regular players who can make it most of the time and have two "on call" players who know that, when available, they're standing in for one of the open seats if someone can't make it. Then be ready to run even if you only have four players. This way it takes five people cancelling before you can't run a game. Ensure you bring in new players should anyone step away from the group. If one of the regulars steps out, ask the on-call players if they want to step in. If on-call players tend not to be able to make it, extend your list of on-call players.

Run Shorter Sessions Weekly at a Regular Day and Time

I run regular games on Wednesday nights from 7pm to 10pm and Sunday's from noon to 3pm. The Wednesday game has gone on for about fifteen years. The Sunday game for about eight. We don't schedule these games — that's when they happen. When games happen at a regular time they become part of people's weekly rituals. Their lives get scheduled around the game, not the other way around.

Run Short, Focused, and Flexible Campaigns

The longer a campaign goes, the more likely it is to fall apart for any number of reasons. Shorter campaigns are more likely to reach a clear conclusion. I tend to run campaigns of roughly 12 to 14 months — about 50 three-hour sessions. These are good meaty campaigns but have a clear ending. This solves a few problems I saw from those who described why their campaigns fell apart. It's easier to stay interested and still move on to the new cool thing if your campaign is short enough to accommodate this.

A focused campaign keeps you and the players engaged. You all know there's an ending and you know where things are generally going. This doesn't mean railroading but just knowing there's a single focused goal.

Keep these campaigns flexible. Avoid focusing on one character only to have the player of that character leave. Do your best to incorporate the stories of the characters into the game but ensure the campaign, or even a specific session, isn't so wrapped around one character that it can't go on if that player is there.

And what do you do if that character's missing? Just let them fade into the background. Everyone knows why the character isn't there.

Each session ask the players who attended the last session to summarize what's happened so players just coming back to the table can catch up.

Ask For "One Year Later" Character Conclusions

It's really easy to blow a good conclusion by trying to turn the story on its head. Instead, give players what they want in the conclusion. Let them fight the big bad. Let them enjoy a tremendous victory. Let them tie up their loose ends.

How do you ensure each character gets the ending their player wants? Let them narrate that ending. I call this the One Year Later montage. Warn your players before your final session that you're going to ask them to talk about where their character ends up one year after the end of the campaign. Then, when the campaign closes, ask each player to talk about where their character ends up one year after the final conclusion of the game. I've done this for dozens of campaigns and every time the stories delight me. It's my favorite part of the campaign and it ensures the players get what they want out of their characters arc. It's one of my favorite lazy tools for awesome campaign conclusions.

Run Games Online

I love in-person games but having spent the past two years learning how to play D&D online, it's clearly made attendance at my games more consistent. Online games fit easier into peoples' lives. They don't have to travel anywhere. They can keep an eye on the kids. It's just plain easier.

Playing online also opens up your potential pool of players by many orders of magnitude. Instead of only those who can make it to your gaming space, you can recruit players from, literally, all over the world. You can seek players who best fit your style and can commit to the times, leading to more consistent games.

Nothing beats the fun of playing in person but solid and reliable online games are better than inconsistent in-person games.

Send a Reminder Email

Even though we've played for more than a decade, I still send out a weekly reminder email two or three days before our game. This gives players a weekly reminder to get their affairs in order and make it to the table — or let you know they can't make it with enough time to do something about it. I schedule a reminder to myself every week to send reminder emails to my friends for our upcoming games.

Continual Efforts

Keeping games going takes continual effort. Game scheduling and attendance doesn't happen on its own. Getting people to your table and keeping them coming week after week takes regular work.

Building and maintaining a solid D&D group is the hardest part of this hobby. Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to keep your own group going and let you finish more awesome campaigns.

Last Week's Sly Flourish Stuff

• Last week I posted my prep for my first session of Scarlet Citadel to YouTube.
• Patrons of Sly Flourish received The Silver Grotto. A 10 page 7th level City of Arches adventure written by my friend and long-time colleague, Scott Fitzgerald Gray.
• Enjoy my D&D tip video on Prepping Awesome D&D Handouts on YouTube

D&D Tips

Here are some quick D&D tips I learned this week.

• Fill travel with interesting situations with choices to make and lore to discover.
• Watch carefully for players having a poor time from bad luck. Find ways to give them an upward beat.
• Maps, minis, and terrain work as well for exploration and roleplaying as they do for combat.
• Bathe in the lore of your world, whether your own or published.
• Write down page numbers in your notes for quick referencing at the table.
• Offer tactical suggestions for hard battles. The characters know more than the players.
• Offer multiple paths with clear choices during travel.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• Stars Over Stormwreck Released on the DM's Guild
• Dread Thingonomicon by Raging Swan Press
• Grimoire of the Grave by 2C Gaming
• Dungeoncraft Review of the Lazy DM's Workbook and Lazy DM's Companion
• New Senior Vice President of D&D
• Keeping D&D Resilient for Us and our Groups
• Other Commentaries on the One D&D Experts Playtest
• D&D Lego Contest

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer some of the questions I get on the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon questions and answer thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:

• New Lazy Combat Encounter Benchmark for One D&D?
• How to Destroy Artifacts
• Managing Dungeon Crawling and Offering Useful Options
• Good Material from Older Editions
• Changing Character Personalities with Magic Items

Related Articles

• Finding and Maintaining a D&D Group
• Managing Player Attendance with an On-Call List
• Ending Campaigns
• Two Years Playing D&D Online
• Interviewing New D&D Players for Online Games

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I went from running D&D exclusively in person to running D&D exclusively online for more than two years. Though the circumstances are terrible, this was an opportunity to re-learn how to run D&D games — this time online — and I found it tremendously valuable.

I wrote a few articles one these experiences including:

• Shared Experiences Playing D&D Online
• Playing D&D over Discord
• Owlbear Rodeo: A Simple D&D Virtual Tabletop
• Call on Individual Players During Online D&D Games

I also took to Twitter to see what other DMs learned.

Today, with more than one hundred online games under my belt, I wanted to share my experiences running D&D games online.

It takes more to engage players

Digital distractions abound and not being in front of other people makes it easy to stray away from the game. The whole internet is one tab away and that's hard to compete with. I definitely notice, both as a player and a DM, how easy it is to get distracted from the game.

It takes work on the part of the DM to keep players engaged. Calling on individual players for questions instead of dropping general questions to the whole group helps. So does reiterating the current situation in the game. Don't shame players who get distracted. Summarize what's going on and ask them how they want their characters to respond.

Communication lag is a real problem

Voice lag over the internet definitely causes a social change in how we talk to one another. Even sub-second delays can make it sound like everyone's talking over one another or no one wants to talk at all. Ginny Di offers excellent suggestions for dealing with this social communication change and I touch on the topic in my article, Call on Individual Players During Online D&D Games.

Sharing maps and images is easy

I became so spoiled with the ease of sharing portraits of NPCs, images of events, and maps of locations online that it made me question how we ever managed to do it in physical play. The idea of hand-drawing maps after spending two years dropping Dyson maps into Owlbear Rodeo feels like the difference of writing out a novel long-hand and typing one up in a word processor.

I'm not done with physical maps or terrain at a physical table but I sure look at the problem differently now that I've had two years doing it easily online.

Games are more consistent

I've definitely had better attendance at games, both as a DM and as a player, with online play. This comes as little surprise. Committing to three or four hours in front of a computer in our own home is much easier than committing to a drive across town. Online D&D fits better into many peoples' lives than in-person play. I'm not abandoning in person play, but playing online definitely became a regular way I play D&D from now on.

I can play with people all over the world

I've had the great joy of playing in D&D games run by Ennie-award-winning DM Paul Gabat multiple times — a DM who lives in the Phillipines. During 2021, one of the players I used to play with in person moved half-way across the country yet we still continue to play weekly. I've attended multiple gaming conventions, playing as many games as I used to play in person, without leaving the comfort of my own home.

Playing games online immeasurably improves your access to players and DMs. Instead of only being able to play with people within five to ten miles, you can literally play with anyone on earth. Being comfortable playing D&D online exponentially improves your access to players and games.

Prep times vary between DMs

I find lazy DM prep easily fits online play. The stack of tools I use (Discord, Notion, D&D Beyond, and Owlbear Rodeo) are easy to prepare and easy to run during the game. This isn't true for everyone. For those spending a lot of time tinkering with maps, lighting, tokens, and integrations in thick VTTs like Roll20 or Foundry, prep time is still an issue. I've heard DMs say that it takes them about 1.5x as long as a session to prepare a game. For me it's about 30 to 60 minutes for three hours of gameplay.

We each decide how much time we spend on prep and where we spend that time. If setting up custom maps with dynamic lighting is important enough to you to spend the time doing it, go with the gods. If you're looking to speed up you're prep, there are ways.

Digital accessories are much cheaper than physical and scale much better

Digital tools, products, and assets offer a tremendous value to DMs running games online. If I want four balor miniatures, I'd have to pay about $180 on the miniature market. Four balor tokens for my virtual tabletop? Essentially free. Hell, forty balor miniatures are basically free.

Searching the internet for an image and then banging out a token with Token Stamp is fast, free, and extremely powerful. It's fast enough that I can do it during my game for improvised situations.

Even with a tremendous heirloom-level collection of physical miniatures, I still struggle to find the right miniature for the right situation in a physical game. In an online game, I can build a token for any monster in under a minute (I actually timed myself).

The same is true for maps. Getting a full color map of Loomlurch from Wild Beyond the Witchlight would run like $50 for a full-sized color map. Online I can grab the map from the D&D Beyond version of the adventure and throw it into Owlbear Rodeo in no time at all. Yes, the adventures run about $30 on D&D Beyond, which isn't nothing, but $30 for every map in the adventure is pretty cheap. Third-party versions of maps are often far cheaper.

Technology offers a lot but we must be selective

There are many options for digital tools we can use for our online games. There's a plethora of different virtual tabletops with different features, sources, and levels of complexity. There are tons of sources for online maps, music, visuals, and sound effects.

As DMs, we must be selective about which tools we choose to add to our toolbox. Some offer a wonderful experience for us and our players — often at the cost of time spent preparing.

Seek those tools offering the most fun for you and your players.

I still miss, and prefer, physical games

As much as I love running D&D games online, I desperately missed my in-person games. I've only recently returned to playing games in person and I still much prefer it. The first time my friends gathered around the table laughing, eating chips, rolling dice, and enjoying the game — I almost cried. I was so grateful to have them back at my table again and, whenever possible, I try to run my games in person.

That said, running games online offers me a powerful alternative and wonderful option I have no intention of ever stepping away from.

Some of my favorite sites and tools for online play

Over the past two years I've come to the following stack of software which I regularly use and love.

• Owlbear Rodeo
• Tokenstamp
• Dyson Logos
• Kenku.FM
• D&D Beyond
• Discord
• Notion

I'll give an honorable mention to Above VTT, a Chrome plugin that lets you run a full virtual tabletop atop D&D Beyond. If you're running official modules in D&D beyond, its fantastic. I've not fully incorporated it into my stack because I'm just comfortable with Discord and Owlbear, but it's a fantastic option and worth checking out.

Thankful for Online Options

I can't think of what it would have been like not to play D&D over the past two years. As terrible as the last two years have been for many of us, having the options to play D&D online not only made it bearable but showed me an entirely new way to play the game — one I plan to use for the rest of my life.

Other Sly Flourish News

• Last week I released Stars Over Stormwreck, a bridge adventure between Dragons of Stormwreck Isle from the new D&D Starter Set and Light of Xaryxis from the D&D Spelljammer Boxed Set. Watch the release video!
• I discuss my Numenera campaign finale and offer tips for D&D DMs from Numenera and tips for GMs considering running Numenera.
• I recorded my preparation for my Scarlet Citadel Session Zero for my brand new campaign focusing heavily on Kobold Press 5th edition material.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• Free Drowned Sailors Encounter from WOTC
• Stars Over Stormwreck Adventure Coming This Week!
• The One D&D Experts Playtest
• Dungeoncraft on Why D&D Editions Don't Matter
• Teos Abadia on Freelance Rates

Patreon Questions

Every week on the Lazy D&D Talk Show I answers D&D-related questions from the Sly Flourish Patreon. You too can join in the conversation by becoming a Patreon of Sly Flourish.

Last week's questions and answers came out in two videos with links to each question below:

• Your Thoughts and Plans for Patreon
• Practical Jokes with Tiny Hut
• Experienced Player Tips for Inexperienced DMs
• The Three Most Useful Third-Party Products
• What's In Front Of You When You DM?
• How Do You Choose and Run Lots of Campaigns?
• Helping New Players Avoid Bad Choices
• Charismatic Players with Non-Charismatic Characters
• How to Get Value from Purchased RPG Material
• Is a Focused Campaign Railroading?
• Drawing Quiet Players and Barbarians Into Political Intrigue
• The Morality of Killing Cultists
• Running Lotsb of Allies in Combat
• Coming Up with Exploration and Social Encounters Instead of Just Combat All The Time
• Verifying The Difficulty of Third Party D&D Monsters
• Balancing D&D in our Lives
• Can Three Villains Work in One Organization?
• Tips for Game Prep from Adventure Writing
• Dealing with the Characters of Abscent or Missing Players

D&D Tips for the Week

Every week I write down seven tips I learned in the last game I ran. Here are this week's D&D tips.

• Give players meaningful choices when exploring a dungeon.
• Address the characters of quiet players.
• What ten secrets and clues might the characters uncover in your next game?
• Focus your game around the plotlines you enjoy the most.
• Embrace third party material. Expand your selection of campaigns, adventures, monsters, and character options.
• What can the characters learn about the activities of the villains behind the scenes?
• Write and email short flash fiction between games to keep players engaged.

Related Articles

• Shared Experiences Playing D&D Online
• James Introcaso on Running Great D&D Games with Roll20
• Owlbear Rodeo: A Simple D&D Virtual Tabletop
• Interviewing New D&D Players for Online Games
• Call on Individual Players During Online D&D Games

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »

We all feel it. It's game night and your friends are coming over (either in person or online). We feel it in the pits of our stomachs. Will this be the one? Will this be the game we drop on the floor? Are we stuck like Carrie White hearing a voice in our head repeating "they're all going to laugh at you!"?

For some who have not yet DMed a D&D game, even getting the confidence to run a D&D game is difficult. But even for those of us who have been doing this for years or decades, the nervousness of running a game doesn't go away.

Many DMs feel this pre-game nervousness, regardless of their skill or longevity in the hobby. It's common and it's ok. We're about to engage in a complicated performance. We're going to be spinning a lot of plates and throwing out words to build worlds no one has ever seen before. We're going to be mananging rules and adjudicating complicated mechanics and, somehow, keeping it all together so at the end of the session our friends walk away with a smile on their faces. That's a lot to manage and not feel anxious about it.

This feeling is normal. It's ok. We all feel it. I feel it every time I'm getting ready to run a game. This nervousness is an old friend and I know where to put it. Sure, I'm nervous, but it will be ok.

If it helps, you can check out my five minutes to D&D pep talk or "You Are Not Prepared" - Battling the Resistance videos on this topic.

Here are some things I try to remember when I feel this nervousness before a game:

• My friends want me to succeed in this. They'll help me out. No one is out to get me.
• Soon I'll be laughing alongside my friends in an activity we all enjoy.
• I know what I'm doing. I've done it before.
• I have what I need to run the game and go where the flow takes it.
• Every game is an accomplishment.
• Running a game helps my friends as much as it helps me.
• My friends have been coming for years and keep coming back.

These little sayings help keep my nervousness in check. They remind me that, as Steven Pressfield would say, my doubt is "the resistance" and it's always out to keep me from creating things.

Trust Your System

I think Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is popular because it gives DMs a system — any system — that works well enough to prepare and run games. I never claim that the eight steps in Return are the end-all be-all of dungeon master prep, but the system can work and does work for lots of DMs, myself included. I feel like Return is a piece of boyant driftwood in a raging river of untamed creativity. It gives us some structure to build our games around.

Having a system, any system, helps tame pre-game nervousness. We can channel that nervousness into our game prep. If we don't have a system, such prep becomes a bottomless hole into which many DMs fall. They prep and prep and prep, taking their nervousness and thrashing about in all sorts of directions — many of which have no value to the game they plan to run. They wire whole sessions so tightly that there's no room for the story to twist, turn, and breathe as the game travels into new directions.

A framework like the eight steps helps us feel prepared for a game but not tie it so tightly together that we freak out if the game goes in a direction we weren't ready for.

Whatever system you choose, keep it focused on what you need and ensure there's an end to your prep other than burning every hour you have until its time to run the game.

Find Your Tricks

What helps you break past the pre-game nervousness you feel? What sayings do you have? What rituals do you conduct? Know that your nervousness will be there before your next game and know what you need to do to deal with it. Whether it's a set of preparation steps or a handful of mantras to remind you that we're all just here to have a good time, keeping these tools in mind will help you deal with your pre-game nervousness.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

• WOTC D&D After-School Program
• Good Digital Tools for WOTC + Third Party Product Use
• Sharing Third Party PDFs With Your Players
• Running Wild Beyond the Witchlight for Tier 2 Characters
• When Is It Appropriate To Hit Downed PCs?
• Advice I Regret from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Dealing With Player Optimizing Away From Fun
• Why Do NPCs Not Use Character Classes?
• Is 5e Too Complex?

Related Articles

• Battling the Resistance That Wants You to Fail at D&D
• Gaining Confidence to Run D&D Games
• Managing D&D Tips
• 2016 D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master Questionnaire
• Interviewing New D&D Players for Online Games

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Read more Sly Flourish articles
• Buy Sly Flourish's Books
• Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
• Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
• Support Sly Flourish on Patreon

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• The Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Fantastic Lairs
• Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more »