Best of the Web - Paralysis, Micro-Sandboxes, and Dungeons as Theater of Operations

• Goblin Punch has a post called Scraps of Undeath about paralysis and making ghouls more interesting. I have to agree, I've never liked paralysis much, and losing a level is even worse, yet both make undead different and pretty horrific, so what can replace them? I'll try his solutions but my own is keeping paralysis but instead of having it suddenly occur,  adding a new Disadvantage each round until the character is helpless. This should act like a horrific count-down to. I'm also a fan of having booze be the cure for a number of things as this forces the players to counter a deadly rehabilitating effect with a temporary one.
• Came across an old Gothridge Manor post (2015) called Micro-Sandbox. It's a 3 page hex-crawl island location It's the first time I've heard the term and I really, really like it. Seems everyone is creating worlds, or really large wildernesses when it would be easier, and more useful to create multiple micro-sandboxes. If they are islands or small continents, or someone sets up a standard of how to handle the edges they could be assembled like square geomorphs which would be ideal for a beginning campaign.
• The Alexandrian has an intrigue post on Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Dungeon as a Theater of Operations. It's about expanding combats beyond the one room in which they occur. he warns against going to formal but it seems this one could easily work. Treat a series of room as a single encounter area. A single theater of operations to use Alexandrian's term. Give that area a number on your key and the rooms within that region letters. Describe the content of the lettered rooms and give the whole a number of encounters that work together. Characters would run into an encounter in certain spots if they aren't super-careful (and any combat will draw the rest of the roster into the fight).
  Also a note or two about possible defensive plans the locals might have: Seal the door between A and B, use the table to create a barricade across the archway to C, snuff out the lights and drop the tapestry over the window to make the place pitch black could make the encounter come alive in a way the standard toe-to-toe combat in a static location never has.
  Lastly this ensures the Dungeon has more than a few empty rooms and the rooms become a bit scarier as who knows it sounds will act as a trip-wire to draw a dozen Orcs onto your head or not.