The Worst Tavern in America
François Jean de Beauvoir, the Marquis de Chastellux was part of the French military expedition to support the new United States in the American Revolutionary War. His duties left him considerable time to sightsee. Once, on the advice of Thomas Jefferson, Chastellux visited what must surely have been the worst tavern on the continent. File […]
An Inscrutable Ruin
This inscrutable ruin is a backdrop for a puzzle and a combat, making both more colorful and more memorable. Its backstory is left intentionally mysterious. What function did it originally serve? How is it so well-preserved? What value did it hold for its creators? There is no way for the PCs to answer these mysteries. […]
Small Changes and User Experience
I recently ran some sessions of two RPGs that strive to emulate related genres of fiction. Though they don’t seem so at first blush, under the hood, the two systems almost identical. Yet they play very differently. Let’s look at why. Space: 1889 is a game about an alternate late 19th century where marvelous technologies […]
Stealth Rules
Stealth in most RPGs suffers from a problem of attention and consequences. If the stealthy character wants to go off somewhere and sneak around, that’s great, but since the rest of the party isn’t there, those players wind up twiddling their thumbs while he does cool stuff. A certain amount of this is fine, but […]
Hellas and Glory
I recently ran a game of Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone. It’s classical Greek mythology meets space opera – fickle gods, spaceships, glory, tragedy, laser pistols, and apotheosis. Hellas has a really fun parallel experience track called ‘Glory’, which represents your esteem in the eyes of gods and men. As you gain Glory, you […]
Treasures that Drive the Plot
Treasures which, once acquired, drive the plot in an interesting direction. Let’s look at two examples. Infernal Solidus This piece of metal looks like a Roman solidus (gold coin), but no one can identify the emperor it depicts. Whenever someone picks it up, if it’s the first time since sunrise she’s picked up a coin […]
Stone Boat
I wanted my players to encounter a boat in the Underdark, one that had been abandoned for centuries. I also wanted it to be weird and a little bit alien. Of course, boats don’t last for centuries, so this is what I wound up creating. The boat is made of stone, thirty feet long, ten […]