A Butterfly Dreaming » Advice

Adding Fear to Your Game

Scott — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:45:15 +0000

…Okay, obviously, my last plan didn’t quite work out. So, rather than tempt fate again, I’ll just say I’ll post when and as I’m able, and leave it at that. Moving on… Happy Halloween. In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d say a little about fear in your game. Maybe you’re [...]

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Adding Fear to Your Game

Rampant Sects

Scott — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:31:58 +0000

(This is a repost. This article was originally posted on November 24, 2008.) In my last post, I talked a little bit about how religions are rarely monolithic in reality — how they splinter into a network of related sects, some of which can believe very different things. Today I offer a brief illustration: three [...]

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Rampant Sects

Character Development: Flashbacks

Scott — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:01:39 +0000

(This is a repost. This article was originally posted on August 9, 2008.) We’re all familiar with the use of the flashback in literature, film, and television: The “current” narration fades out, showing us a sequence that establishes some event or events that took place in the past of the story. This device is used [...]

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Character Development: Flashbacks

Character Development: Quick and Dirty Backgrounds

Scott — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:44:53 +0000

Ever needed to sketch out a replacement player character or a major NPC when time is short? Want to add a little depth to that cult leader or the deputy mayor? Sometimes you just don’t have the time to dedicate to preparing a full, in-depth background — or you want to leave some room for [...]

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Character Development: Quick and Dirty Backgrounds

Musical Inspiration

Scott — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:11:41 +0000

I’ve written a little about my brainstorming methods before, but lately I’ve been using another method I hadn’t touched on there: plucking phrases out of existing works and building something around them. A good phrase can be inspiration for an NPC, an object, a location, or an adventure. They can come from novels, poetry, movies, [...]

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Musical Inspiration

Action!

Scott — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:43:42 +0000

(Since I’m working on the back end of my blog, and that’s cutting into my writing time, I’ll be reposting an article a week over the next couple of weeks. The following article was originally posted on August 6, 2008.) Action Points are one of the better additions to fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons. We’ve [...]

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Action!

The Lighter Side

Scott — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:45:07 +0000

Last Saturday’s post wasn’t just a bit of silly fun. It’s an example of something I might actually drop into my game on any given night. Maybe that sounds strange — if you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I prefer heroic, cinematic games. So how does a groaner like the Grape Jelly possibly [...]

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The Lighter Side

War and How to Wage It

Scott — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:49:07 +0000

March’s RPG Blog Carnival on War, hosted by The Book of Rev, will soon be drawing to a close. Before it does, here’s that post I promised about war within a fantasy setting. The typical D&D campaign is set in a fantastic version of late-medieval to early-Renaissance Europe, so that’s the setting I’m considering. Gunpowder [...]

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War and How to Wage It

Adventure Design 101: Dungeons That Live

Scott — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:20:00 +0000

It’s a little delayed thanks to the self-destruction of my network card a few days ago, but now that I’m back online, it’s time to wrap up my thoughts on dungeon design. My previous article covered some important questions that I like to ask when stocking my dungeons. There are other questions you can ask [...]

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Adventure Design 101: Dungeons That Live

Adventure Design 101: Dungeons That Make Sense

Scott — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:09:14 +0000

I recently wrote about making your setting work for you. Today’s topic is related: How do you make all of these dungeons feel like a realistic part of your game world? Say you’ve got a dungeon with goblins in one complex of rooms, a dwarf necromancer and his ghouls down the hall, and a colony [...]

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Adventure Design 101: Dungeons That Make Sense