Spider Queen

Let's talk about Traveller. Part of the reason I've not been updating the blog is that I've refocused my energies on a new campaign. I've always wanted to run a Traveller game - something about the setup of the rulebooks just inspires me, especially with regards to the little black books of Classic Traveller. Traveller seems, in some respects to be exactly set up for the on-and-off, open table sandboxes I've come to love (and in some ways not, but that's probably another post). But I've clearly drunk too much of the OSR DIY Kool-Aid - the idea of setting my campaign within an already established setting with lots of details doesn't spark my imagination like the idea of coming up with something of my own, tailored to my tastes (and stealing liberally from my favourite sci fi authors). Building a sci fi setting for adventuring in, though, is a different job of work from building a fantasy milieu. And that's what I want to discuss today. Specifically, I...

 Musings I was having today: It's pretty well known that Gary Gygax was a stickler for detail when it came to dungeons - the name "Gygaxian naturalism" is used to refer to the approach to dungeon design that foregrounds the dungeon's "ecology", and demands a level of realism usually regarded as absurd in the context of a fantasy game. There's a lot to unpack here that I'm going to try to skip over. For one, the idea of realism being opposed  to fantasy is, in my view, an irritating fallacy. The response "Well it's fantasy, it's not supposed to be realistic" misses the point: An immersive and engaging fantasy requires at least some level of consistency, and a certain amount of relatability to anchor the players' interpretation of what's going on. If one nitpicks a detail like a character's being able to shrug off a stab wound, or goods in a shop costing more than anyone could possibly afford, the response "Well why d...

Something my players did in this week's game made me think. They trekked several days out from their home village, completely of their own accord, to visit a repository of lore (aka a library) and learn about... well, everything. History, people, places - lore stuff. It set me thinking, because you see a lot of GMs on the internet asking how they can get their players to care about their lore (and how to deliver it without "Lore dumps"). I've long had a pet theory on this, and in my mind this experience confirmed it. It basically amounts to the following principle:     Action Principle: Players fundamentally care about stuff that affects their actions in the game. Specifically as regards information, this gives us the principle that players only really care about information that is actionable . And this is a big problem for lore, because the word 'Lore' has effectively evolved into a bespoke game term referring specifically to the information players receive...

For my new Old School Essentials campaign, I wanted to give my critters a dose of flavour. I love the tiny greebly monsters, but they can seem a little bland, especially when fighting hordes of them at low levels. My solution is to make them distinctive - by which I mean "weird". I love Kobolds, and I love Ratfolk, so kobolds largely resemble ambulatory rats in my campaign world (the fact that I have a load of Skaven miniatures is purely coincidental). I struggled for a while to give goblins a flavour, but I've found a way that I like. I've always wondered about why Brian Froud's goblins looked so heterogeneous - now I know why. Goblin Soup: Goblins are a bit like a lumpy soup or a gumbo. Stuff floats to the surface from time to time, and the lumps you get in one bowl might not match those in another - goblins don't necessarily share all the same characteristics. Plus goblins can combine. This process involves an incantation and the use of an awful substance ...