Regional Geomorphs

Why does every campaign you buy have to be an entire continent? Half the fun of being a DM is creating worlds so why steal that? There is the time issue but that's not really an answer. I don't think published modules should cover so much territory in such limited detail. 

I'm thinking of Regional Geomorphs as the title says. IMagine if TSR had develop a micro-setting (like the wilderness in B2 but a bit bigger) then dropped B1, B3 and B4 and others into that setting to really populate the Regional Geomorph with adventure and create a sandbox. Then develop a micro-setting for C1, C2, etc. That second setting could be next door or miles away. Encourage the DM to create a world but enable them to drop these microsettings into their creation.

This is a far more useful level of information for a DM to work with. The DM could then handle the big picture (or not, do adventurers really need to know the extent of the continent in most cases?

If the idea happened now DMs could homebrew their own and make it available (for sale or free, you do you). A DM then starts with one and chunks together a greater world when the players start to explore near the edges.

The only sticking point would be Gods and the Cults that worship them. Cult Geomorphs is another place it would have been nice if the DIY side of the hobby had explored. Imagine if DMs wrote up their religions and posted them online for free, or sold them, and other DMs would have the ability to pick and match however they saw fit. 

I'm imagining a buffet approach to world building and I think it would be better than what we have now with the Meh Forgotten Realms dominating a massive section hobby.

Footnotes & Endnotes

Idraluna Archives had an post on Footnotes in RPGs that grabbed my eye. My degree was in Graphic Design and usability is a big thing with me. The article didn't seem to allow comments so I thought I'd spew forth here on my own blog. The point Idraluna Archives is about making the flow of the prose, of a dungeon key, easier to read and uses the Gygax wall of text vs a minimalist example from the Cairn house style(1) and Idraluna Archives believes using footnotes would solve the readability problem.

I think the Idraluna Archives picked a bad example as dungeon keying is not about flow and readability(2) but about quick access to information at the table and dumping all that information into footnotes would make the footnotes massive. For use at the table the Cairn house style is nicely written. It does attempt to utilities a multi-level 'information hierarchy' except unlike footnotes that make you hunt for the information it drops the info right there where you can skip it or not (depending upon how curious the players are). Just read the bits without the bullets and it should flow very smooth. Add the bullet points and you get extra information on different aspects that were highlighted in the first sentence. They act like footnotes but are placed closer for easier readability. They also have a third-level of info, presumably to help the GM if the players keep asking questions or do a Perception test(3). This is really good design, maybe not for someone that wants to read read read but from a usability stand-point it is well thought out.

So by choosing dungeon keys as an example Idraluna Archive is asking for design that actually hurts the functionality. What they should have picked was game books. The core rules that is. And instead of Footnotes which as they pointed out are difficult in a modern word processing program they should have narrowed in on Endnotes. The industry could really use some love for Endnotes.

An RPG rulebook should have design notes and examples to help make understanding easier to understand (and as a good way to add humor). These are things you don't need to read often and that will make the prose clunky if mixed in with the text. The reader would be better served if they were dumped into the last chapter of the book. That way if you know the rules well you can ignore the little numbers but if not you keep one thumb at the end of the book and flip back and forth to ensure you understand. Also if written properly you can just read the End Notes as a design chapter and if linked backwards(4) will have examples from the text.

So Idraluna Archives, thanks for the design experiment. You got me thinking and made a good point, you just used the wrong example(5).

Thoughts on Storm King's Thunder

Giants crushing Phandelin (or they should be)

259 page adventure that takes players from 1st to 11th level, or 5th to 11lth if you enter from Lost Mines of Phandelver and skip the first chapter. And there you have a good example of the first problem with this module, throw away content. The thing is 300 pages but:

1. 16 pages is skipped if you started with Lost Mines of Phandelver
2. Chapter 2 has you pick one of three attacks to involve the party so you use 6-9 pages out of 25.
3. 60 pages is a gazetteer of the Sword Coast and not really specific to this module.
4. The bulk of the Campaign has you pick one of five paths, each of which average 10 pages so we're throwing away another 40 pages here. 

So you are skipping half the book. Yes some might run it again and use the skipped parts but for most that's a huge waste of content. That might have seemed like a good idea to the wealthy folks at WotC but that's just crazy. Also I think as an adventure path its falls apart at some point. 

How I Would have Designed it Differently

1. I would have removed the gazetteer section entirely. That should have been added to another product, along with the maps and info for Nightstone, Bryn Shander, Goldenfields, and Triobar. DMs using the Forgotten Realms could use this sort of reference info and shouldn't have to buy an adventure module to get it.
2. I would have loosened up the structure a lot. Removed the adventure path and left it as a bunch of site based mini-adventures that aren't necessarily linked into one grand campaign. 
3. I would have dumped the Great Upheaval and started the thing at 5th level as one of two followups to Lost Mines of Phandelver (Phandelver and Below the Shattered Obelisk* being the other). I would move Dripping Caves to Phandelver and Below as well.
4. I would create a Southern Giants Mini-campaign. Fighting against Hill Giants with the Stone Giants there as a possible addition. Take the Goldenfields attack and rewrite it to be an attack on Phandelin. The PCs presumably have some investment in saving the place. Set it up so the players have to figure out how to defend the place or lead the Giants off or whatever. The players can then track the attackers back to the Den of the Hill Giants (which has a great map) to free captives, scout out the area for greater powers, or whatever they think might work. Lastly I'd yank Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (the old G1) from Tales from the Yawning Portal (released a year later) and put it here with better maps. The Canyon of the Stone Giants would be there as well, these two might be wound into the mini-campaign as another threat, or allies that could be used against the Hill Giants.
5. Next I would create a Northern Giants Adventures. This would include Berg of the Frost Giants and Forge of the Fire Giants (both of which have great maps) as well as G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King (both with cleaned up maps and removed from Yawning Portal where they don't belong). This mini-campaign is just a bunch of stand-alone adventures easily justified by Giant raids. When Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden was released 4 years later it would include notes on how to include the Northern Giants Adventures into the mix. Also whichever product had a better map of Bryn Shander would get it.
6. The Cloud and Storm Giants would be stand-alone adventures. Just sort of bonus content for a really high level challenge. 
7. I would take a note from Tales from the Yawning Portal and include a bit about where the different adventures might be located in Forgotten Realms or in Greyhawk or other settings.

It might not have been a perfect 259 pages my way but I'd be happy to dump the Cloud Giants or even the Storm Giants if we need space or add a second Stone Giant adventure if we need to bulk it up a bit. The point is that all the giant modules should be in one product and they don't need to be connected. I'd probably add Mountain Giants and ettins and other Giantkind to the adventure to show how they fit into the mix. There is also a 4E product Revenge of the Giants that could be looted and updated for 5E if it has anything worthwhile.

Interesting bits I found in D&D Adventures League modules

 A friend gave me a couple of old D&D Adventurers League Modules and I have a few things to say. I mentioned yesterdays post that I really like the way two of the modules used a neighborhood  map. The map is simple, beautiful, and the perfect scale and running a few adventures in the same neighborhood to give a nice sense of the area. Here is the one from Gangs of Waterdeep.

Neighborhood that doesn't exist in other Waterdeep sources

In addition to that Gangs of Waterdeep has a nice use of the skill system. I don't think they are using DC right (I haven't really read the DM's Guide on the matter), and they don't explain what they are doing, but its clear enough to me and I think 5E should have done a lot more of this. In fact it reminds me a lot of my 1-page rules I've been doing, really using the idea that the better the roll the better the result. Yay Gangs of Waterdeep! I'd give the authors props if only they hadn't ruined the great read with a silly coach with ejector seats in the same module.

The issue I really decided to write a post about though was from the module Once in Waterdeep. We all dodged a bullet that this one didn't become the style of 5E. For example:

The plot is a railroad which I can forgive because the module has a time-limit, and most convention modules are a bit railroady. But if time is an issue why waste it creating plot points with the players instead of just having them written up already?  The determining plot points with the players make this basically a Storygame. It doesn't feel very D&D at all. Here's more.

So it is not only story-gamey but it's like a lame school assignment when you had to get into groups and make some kind of presentation. Guess I just don't like/get storygames at all.

 

Cognitive Load and 5E

This video puts a word for what I've been noticing about 5E and Forgotten Realms. Cognitive Load. I recommend DMs watch the first 8 minutes of the video where he talks about the Cognitive Load issue. 5E may not look complex but every time they level up each PC gets a new ability or two. Over time that load starts to slow things down. I think that's why folks are drawn to Shadowdark.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to dump initiative, the VTT makes that pretty simple, but a lot of the other stuff I've already trimmed (or ignore, trusting the players to be honest).

Waterdeep and some thoughts on the Organization of a City-based product

So my players got a bit tired of killing Giants, they hit a point in Storm King's Thunder where they wondered why it was their business? Attaining wealth and glory is not enough to get into the middle of a Giants vs Dragons war. We all enjoyed the factional politics of Neverwinter while it lasted so I wanted to get back to urban adventures but I didn't want to go back to Neverwinter again, not yet at least. I decided on Waterdeep. Unlike Neverwinter there is a ton of stuff about Waterdeep and I'd collected a lot of it over the years. Most of it pretty meh. But for this post I'm thinking about urban campaigns, organization, and Maps. Mostly maps. I love maps.

5E has Waterdeep Dragonheist. First I have to say I love Dyson Logos maps but they feel a bit out of place here. The map of the city is pretty muddy looking and lame. You can zoom in pretty far but not really far enough. If they'd done a map of each ward it would have scaled better for a VTT, why Roll20  didn't do that is a surprise, I guess they just stuck with the book as written. Sad. 

City of Splenders Ward Map

Even better than making a map for each ward are the maps in Citysystem for 2E. That book has some beautiful 3d maps of the port broken down into 8 beautiful detailed maps (the picture below shows all 8 combined). Each would size about right for a VTT map), but if you look closely you'll see that over half the city isn't there at all. Big miss Citysystem. Still the map looks great and if WotC had style they would have re-done them by Ward in their 5E product.

Citysystem Poetic Map of Dockward

Additionally, the Citysystem book diced the entire city into 10 fairly detailed street maps (peaces of a poster I don't have because I got the book used). These don't follow the wards all that well (the colors on the map below indicate different wards) but are a good size for a VTT. These maps also include some nice interior maps. Below is map 007 Showing bits of Dock Ward (yellow), Castle Ward (purple) and Southern Ward (Red).

Citysystem map of 1-10th of Waterdeep with interior maps to boot

Below is a closeup to show the street level details. Thats a map you can use. But they didn't. They didn't even make the big map into the Phandelin style they use so often in 5E. They just half-assed it all. 

Closeup of that citysystem map

I have a few products they gave out for Adventurer's League when they were playtesting Waterdeep Dragonheist (don't ask how I got them because I don't recall) but two of these modules have a really nice street level map (the same map in both). They are in the poetic style I love but even if they were in the Phandelin style maps of that size would be great. Here is a screenshot of that one.

Neighborhood Map from Somewhere in Waterdeep

Ignore the writing on the map, that has to do with the adventure and I'm only willing to spend so much effort cleaning up a screenshot. The other adventures had different writing. The writing isn't the point. Another fun fact about that map is Chapel Street and The Rake don't seem to exist in Waterdeep. Not as far as I can tell (or ChatGPT can tell for that matter). 

That map is the perfect size for a GM and players. A small chunk of the city, the size of neighborhood where if you lived there, worked there, frequented a pub there, or whatever you would get to know that neighborhood and the people in it pretty well. Small enough that the local Thieves Guild might have a Capo running the area (with protection money, gambling, etc). The size is perfect. The map area reminds me of the beautiful maps in Eyewitness travel books, which I'm sure they tested for usability as well as if the info fit on the two-age spread.

So anyway I imagine how nice it would be to have a Waterdeep product that had all the overhead info you find in these products, with a map of each ward drawn like the Citysystem Dockward map. Then have each ward cut-up into neighborhood size maps with a bunch of interior maps to give the thing depth. If it comes out being to long you could divide the city in two, or chop it up by Wards. 

I think if I ever do a City product that's probably how I'll do it.

Also I'd like to mention that Waterdeep seems a bit overly dangerous place in all the books I have. I mean you have very powerful mages and adventures living there but they just tolerate a Beholder crime lord living beneath the city? They have an inn with a great portal that occasionally has monsters climbing out among the drunks? Whimsical to the point of just plain silly.

Legend of the Drunken Master Meets Shadowdark

Back in the 90s when Rumble in the Bronx came out I got interested in Jackie Chan movies. I liked the humor, was impressed by the stunts, and enjoyed the Kung Fu. I ended up watching a ton of them, the only one that I remember well is Police Story (with the hillside chase through houses that was repeated in Bad Boys 2). Legend of the Drunken Master was the only one I saw that was a period piece. 

 

Kung Fu Hustle Meets Shadowdark

 I loved Shaolin Soccer. I introduced my nephews to it when they were old enough and played soccer themselves. Stephen Chow's sense of humor hit just right, so when I discovered the more adult, and funnier, Kung Fu Hustle it was a joy. Unfortunately its hard to find Stephen Chow films these days, I don't know if he went into Chinese television or if the PRC doesn't allow his films to be exported or what. Still Kung Fu Hustle is an action packed humorous gem worth digging up.

Big Trouble in Little China Meets Shadowdark

I love Big Trouble in Little China. It's one of my favorite movies. It's shocking how many people didn't get the humor. Having said that I'm not thrilled by talk of a remake or sequel. Hopefully I'll be surprised. Anyway I was reading the Sand Pebbles and got thinking about Chinatown in SF and thought why not have a Khitai town in my campaign some day, that way some fun Chinese tropes can be used in an otherwise Western Campaign. I'm still working on the idea, perhaps its a walled off community like the foreign settlements in China, or more likely a large number of Chinese Junks in the bay. Anyway all that led my mind to Big Trouble in Little China.

And for those saying why doesn't he just type these things on the blog normally, why the png? Well I hate the way html screws up the formatting of stat blocks, it displays on the page here legibly, and blogger can handle them so it doesn't require a pdf hosted elsewhere.  

So save the png to your desktop, open them all at once, and then print to pdf and you'll have a nice pdf. I wish more people would do this folks could cobble together a best of book with minimal effort.

Crew Morale

Shadowdark (and most OSR systems to be fair) has a morale system but nothing about ongoing morale for hirelings or companions. This started as fun business I could add during a caravan to give the guards, merchants, and other help, something to do. This would be in addition to normal encounter rolls. Then I decided to make it a bit more generic so that it applies to a ships crew or mercenary group or whatever. 

Donning Armor

5E has a simple number for donning armor but I think it should be just a bit more than that. PCs should not be sleeping in their armor, at least not the metal armors, not if they want to get Long Rest credit. That means they need to be able to put it on quick whenever whomever is on watch calls the alarm. Should make things interesting for turn or two at least.

Camping

Camping is another thing I've always hand-waved but which should probably have at least a roll, a roll that might provide a few seeds. This one is kind of basic but in times I could see it being useful, like when the PCs need rest, and if they blow the roll they won't get the expected healing. So in my latest 1-Page rules I present Camping.

Shopping

Sometimes you just don't want to deal with the haggling, or role-play out the shopping trip at all. Generally that's my take, but just pick from the list of stuff in the book is a bit lame as well so heres a table to add a bit of variety to this common task.

Haggling

I never liked role playing out haggling, it seemed a good place to create a silly little one-page rules so that something happens without my having to play it out. 

 

Music of Ericha Zann and Finish Death Metal Bards

Prince of Nothing at Age of Dusk has a review of the Music of Ericha Zann (Lotfp). Prince of Nothing says it is loosely based on a Lovecraft musician. That's fine and good but it seems to be a big missed opportunity. I mean James Raggi III wrote about metal music prior to writing LotFP which seems a natural base to build your Bard from.

Imagine the Finish Death Metal Bard. Who's music can put you into a trance or drive you away screaming. Who causes prime and proper adults to want to chase them from town, but who draws the teens and young adults in to do their bidding. Who has panty-dropping solos that act as powerful charm spells for the ladies who will follow them dutifully. Maybe if you get three Finish Death Metal Bards together their playing gains the power to melt your face. One drawback is they can drink nearly anything without it effecting them so potions are reduced in potency, but poisons just don't work at all.

Take the idea and inject it with specifics based on Song titles and more specific Finish Death Metal ideas and you might have had a great, memorable class. Anyway Mr Raggi, the idea is all yours if you want it. Maybe it's an on-line freebee-level idea, maybe its trash I don't know but the new Spinal Tap movie shuffled into theaters to day so goofy music is on my mind.

I had originally written up this idea on Prince of Nothing's site but wordpress gave me crap and then dumped the post in its effort to get me to sign up so. Sad move wordpress, sad move.

Public Opinion

This idea comes from a scene in one of my favorite movies and the quote that has been bandied around my table for decades. "There's no food for you here..." Of course its from American Werewolf in London where the Americans stumble into a bar on a bad night and get a nasty response from the locals. 

If you think about it a bunch of blood covered adventurers are probably not gonna be welcomed right away and the normal reaction rolls take the charm of the party into account the way they should when used in a civilized area. Plus, any chance to make CHA useful... 

Dungeon Foraging

I was thinking about foraging from the previous post and thought Shadowdark is designed for a lot of gaming spent in the Shadowdark, so foraging rules for a dungeon environment might be nice. I really liked the last one, how different levels of success gave better results and figure I'll keep that format for any other rules that pop to mind. Perhaps I'll end up with enough 1-page rules someday that I'll bundle them for easy use. Anyway, since light is such a big factor I decided to add some desperate light options for success.

Living Off The Land

I ran across a news story about quick quartering, that's how hunters up in Wyoming quickly dice up their game to pack out the meat, being far from your truck and hunting solo, you've got to do it fast before bears catch the scent.  

That made me think about surviving off the land in RPGs and I've never really found a mechanic that handles thing that I was happy with. I particularly like the idea that a better roll means more rations and less offal to draw in hungry beasts. I included foraging rules as well because in my game Elves are herbivores and followers of the Goddess Gede are vegetarians. The rules are for Shadowdark but obviously adaptable to any system.

Weregild & Wampum

I was watching a video on Youtube and they mentioned weregild which lead to a rabbit whole of Chatgpt and Wikipeda on the subject. I played a lot of RuneQuest back in the day and don't remember them ever covering the topic but apparently they did at some point.

I think more RPG settings should have some kind of Weregild. I know I'm gonna write up something at some point specific to my setting, until then I'll drop a few notes here. I particularly like that they added an extra 100 shillings for killing a low ranking cleric during mass. Can't have that.

Act / Victim Type	Wergild / Compensation
Severed foot	~50 shillings
Eye loss	50 shillings
Ear loss	6–12 shillings
Nose pierce / mutilation	~9 shillings
Finger / Nail injuries	1–9 shillings
Freeman killed	~100–200 shillings
Nobleman / Thegn	300 (Kent) to 1,200 (Mercia)
Cleric (low-ranking)	300 shillings; 400 if during mass
Duke / Archbishop	~600 shillings (Lex Alamannorum)
Archbishop / Nobleman (Cnut-era)	15,000 thrymsas
King	30,000 thrymsas
Missi dominici (Charlemagne)	3× regular wergild

I imagine a weregild arrangement with local Goblin tribes to prevent all-out war. Something PCs may know little about. Since PCs tend to be wanderers and somewhat outside the system they could be forced to pay or be handed over to the Goblins to satisfy the weregild for their raids into Goblin caves, etc. This could balance out the treasure gained and might encourage PCs to determine the status of a tribe before going berserk on them.

Campaign Update

Not that anyone probably cares but I thought I'd update what's been going on in my current campaign and my thoughts about it.

Phandelin

So I ran the players through the Lost Mines of Phandelver + The Dragon of Icespire Peak. The two starter campaigns go together well and by using both you can dump the lamer missions (or merge them into other missions) and still have plenty to work with. 

They enjoyed all that but then when it was winding up I put it to a vote. Keep going with these players or write up new ones and start fresh. We'd started with the Basic set and thus had limited Race and Class options, I thought they might appreciate having more options. But not they all voted to continue. I did allow one Elf Fighter to become a Ranger and allowed everyone to pick Feats. Its rules as written mostly so I sucked it up and let them pick the feats they wanted. I've decided Feats are overpowered and I won't use again.

So then I had them vote on what they wanted to do next. Stay in Phandelin (in which case I'd use the Shattered Obeliks levels to continue their journey, or leave Phandelin. They all voted to leave. They were a bit sick of the place. 

Storm King's Thunder

So I looked over different adventure options. We were playing on Roll20 and I wasn't super-confident with creating for 5E yet so I bought Storm King's Thunder. The first chapter takes the players up to 5th level and tells you how to segway over if you come in from another module which seemed perfect at first. I took the Dripping Caves map for later use and plugged on. The next part of the adventure is a Giant attack on one of three cities, GMs choice. I decided to mix things up and have the Hill Giants attack Phandelin. That would make a nice send-off to the little village and if things got tough the PCs could retreat into the dungeons/redbrands hideout. 

The party stood their ground and defeated the Giants with missile fire before most of them got close enough to do anything. At this point Storm King's Thunder has a bunch of mini-quests that all seemed stupid and took away any sense of urgency regarding the giants. So I invented a Giant Attack on the nearby city of Leilon and had a small  number of giants holding civilian prisoners in that Dripping Cave map mentioned earlier. When that was done I bought Against the Giants and used the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief module. Players enjoyed the sneaking around aspect and avoided any true combat with the Giants in that one. 

Some time in Neverwinter

Then I bought White Plume Mountain which I don't think anyone really enjoyed. Too funhouse and the magic weapons are overpowered (players liked that). 

One player wanted to get into faction fighting so they went to Everwinter where I had had to make up pretty much everything which was fun as I was tired of prepared modules. I had different factions after the Magic Items attained from White Plume Mountain. Blackrazor was a family artifact stolen from one characters asshole Uncle recently and that Uncle wanted it back and would be sending envoys and eventually a small army to get it. Crazy water-gd cultists wanted Wave and attacked to get it, but eventually a small cult started to form around the player possessing the thing (still figuring how I'll work that one out). Dwarves wanted Whelm and put a bounty on it. That player, a Paladin, in a moment of actual true role playing gave the Hammer back to the Dwarves and earned their friendship.

They met up and helped the rebel group in town, the Sons of Alagondar. They dealt with the conniving Lord Neverember. 

They cleaned out terrorists from the Moonstone Masks place and got semi-safe and free room and board for a few weeks. They cleared out the Castle Never, killing a Lich and minions took that over as a place to stay short term. They attacked the Temple of Tempest currently occupied by Red Wizards and broke the Red Wizards power in the city. When that was done they learned Lord Neverember had been assassinated and that evil Uncle had entered the city with a small army looking for Blackrazor. The cousin met secretly with the party, planning to betray his Uncle. 

They found the Uncle had some kind of psychic connection with his old sword Black Razor and used that to feed false information to the Uncle. They arranged to meet in the cemetery but the players double-crossed the Uncles double-cross. They killed him. Then brought him back to life so the PC with Blackrazor could kill him again and suck his soul out. 

At that arranged to put a puppet on the throne of Neverwinter. They traded control of Castle Never for proper ownership Cloak Tower on the East edge of town which I found to be vacant. And they got a bit tired of fighting against factions, for now.

As an aside Wizards has blown it with Neverwinter. They should have the place mapped out and updated for 5E. Most of what I found was all 4E related materials. I mean the movie took place in Neverwinter, why didn't someone think to release a Neverwinter setting book at the same time? I found some nice maps but it took a bit of looking and everything had to be imported into Roll20 because Wizards would rather make shitty adventures than useful products.

Back to Storm King's Thunder, Sort of...

After hearing from the Harpers that the Hill Giants were trashing the countryside and taking hostages to their queen to eat the players went into the wilderness to hunt them down. They fought a few small groups near Neverwinter, then went after a group with hostages and destroyed it. Then they learned a large group of Hill Giants had been destroyed in battle by human cavalry and wounded groups were about trying to work their way to their home base. They decided to use guerrilla tactics and kill Hill Giants in small groups, letting a few Giant allies escape to tell the tale and fill the Hill Giants sleep with nightmares.

Then a battle near Grudd Haug left the possessor of Blackrazor flush with hit points sucked from dead Giants. The group decided it was time to raid the place and do some damage, and that's where the campaign is currently.

Note the map of Grudd Haug is significantly better than the Hill Giant Stead from G1 but I find the over-arching plotline of Storm King's Thunder to be lacking and full of holes the GM has to fill in. I'm considering changing things up but I'm not sure how or where. i do think if I go with the Storm King's Thunder plan I may have them go after three Giant horns instead of just one. That'd be more interesting at least. We will see.

So to recap, I enjoyed the low level stuff in Phandelin, mostly. Didn't really like the way 5E handles things above 5th level, especially if you consider feats. I really liked the urban/faction play we had in Phandelin but think WotC wasn't a lot of help in that regard. I like a few of the maps in Storm King's Thunder but think it's not terribly well put together as a campaign. And I'm ready to dump 5E entirely and go for Shadowdark when this campaign is over, but we'll see.

Tremors Meets Shadowdark

 I've always loved the Tremors series (although I haven't seen the TV series, I didn't even know there was one until recently). I even love the later installments. Burt Gummer is a great character, over the top yes, but they turned a one-note character into something when they brought him back. Unfortunately what makes him so much fun doesn't work in a medieval fantasy environment so I left him out and stuck to the Graboids and there are a lot of them.

Yes they are more or less Bulettes but they have more character, and they really make you think, what would I do in that scenario which is what I really want from a horror movie (that is why I love Zombie movies). So here I present the Graboids for Shadowdark.

 

 

 

 

 

Army of Darkness Meets Shadowdark

I've always loved Army of Darkness. It has the right sense of humor and violence and really finished the trilogy  nicely. I even like both endings and find it hard to pick which I prefer. So it seemed a no-brainer to run it through AI and see what the system had to say.