The Trouble with War

 Recently I introduced a war into my home game. Two factions aligned against each other and they began fighting in the capital of Bissel, Thornward. The immediate action was easy to narrate. I described scenes of chaos and fighting around the players. Explosions happened down streets, dead bodies were left behind and the sounds of combat could be heard off in the distance. 

 Where things get difficult is when you begin to have the war exist outside the players immediate awareness. Where are the forces? Who is winning? Who are the good guys?

 These are questions I'm struggling with at the current moment, but I'm thinking that looking to war gaming for the answer may provide me with a way to resolve all this. Maybe.  

World of Greyhawk: Sultanate of Zeif Map

The Sultanate of Zeif is one of those tantalizing parts of world of Greyhawk. It sits on the edge of the officially mapped world, and actually extends beyond the map in the west. This gives us an opportunity to imagine the world beyond the Flanaess and to wonder what goes on there.  

Map from the 2024 DMG via reddit

 

As you can see from the 2024 DMG version of the world of Greyhawk, Zeif is a bit bare bones. There is the river Tuflik in the east and then the vast, endless plains of the Zeif to the west, with the city of Antalotol sitting alone in an ocean of grass.   

I've become a bit interested in Zeif lately so I decided to draw my own map with boarders that would help me in exploring the region.  

Map of the Sultanate of Zeif drawn by Me. 

 

When I drew my version of the map I wanted to put in borders for the Sultanate so that I could distinguish where it began and ended. The east was clear with the Tuflik river forming the eastern boarder. The west though was nondescript grasslands, and then there was Antalotol. The city of Antalotol sits alone in the vastness of the grasslands and its position made little sense as there was no fresh water abundantly clear on the map, but you could see the swaths of darkening grass that seemed to meander across the plains. So I made them into a river and tributaries. 

I plan on exploring this region more in the future, but for now I just wanted to drop my map out into the world and see how it feels to others exploring that section of the world. 

November is a Drag

 November always seems like it will be a fun month. You have big sales, Thanksgiving, and just around the corner is Christmas and the end of the year. 

It never is for me. 

I have worked in retail management for over twenty years, and this time of year is the hard times. Things move constantly, customers buy too much, and tempers become hot. So please forgive me if I'm slower to update during this period. 

I'm still writing, but posting here becomes more difficult when I'm picking up lots of overtime and pushing myself to get everything out the back.  

Greyhawk and Rivers

made by me

 One of my favorite things to do is to draw maps. I really like making my own versions of the World of Greyhawk, as you can see from the map above. I tend to make more tributaries than the official versions have because I grew up around mountains and rivers and it's weird for there to be so few. Even the number of rivers that I have in this map are probably too few for how many there would actually be. 

The below map, from databayou.com, provides a look at just how many rivers there are in the United States of America. It's rather eye opening when you think about this in relation to the sparse number of rivers in Greyhawk. 

 

from https://databayou.com/american/rivers.html

  

A Time for Heroes

Twenty years ago when I first started playing D&D the people I played with all wanted to play anti-heroes, and mysterious, self-indulgent loners that barely connected with anyone else. The truth, of course, is that you can't play a team game where everyone is a loner so no one really played that way - but they wanted to. God, did they ever want to. 

In a lot of ways this predilection towards the anti-hero and the loner was a reflection of the wider zeitgeist  of the time. Heroes had become boring and lame. They were things that only naive children really believed in and the world was all a bunch of shades of gray. Good and evil were subjective view points dependent on the perspective of the people involved. 

Let's be honest, it was an excuse for the players to justify their shitty behavior in the game without real consequences. By consistently claiming that an action was "in character" or that their character believed that they were acting in a 'good' manner they could often excuse terrible things. It's the same reason why people can look at an obviously evil character like Homelander and argue that he's actually a good guy. 

 

Homelander from The Boys

That sort of mentality is exhausting and over the last decade I've spent a lot of time pushing players who still cling to that style of play away from my table. I want to see my players be the heroes of the game and to see them rise above the worlds we play in to make the world a better place. 

I think that may be why I have begun to play with an eye towards my players being the heroes of the setting rather than having them be just adventurers that are exploring the world.  Both styles of play are a lot of fun, but right now the world is a bit of a scary place. We have the rise of authoritarianism throughout the globe, wars are sparking off, and civil unrest is found all over the world. It's a good time to find heroes we can believe in - even if they're just in our silly role-playing games. 

Granite Mountain Prison, Part 3 The Villains (3 of 3)

 The adventure "Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker appeared in DUNGEON magazine JULY/AUGUST #36 and if you want to make the most of this Remix then I highly suggest picking up a copy of the issue.

Aside from our target for rescue, Jathan Paark, there are four villainous, named non-player characters (NPCs): Lex Justicia, Nero Falconis, Teron Rotner, and Topper. These three deserve a bit of prep work on the part of the Dungeon Master (DM) as they will represent the major antagonists throughout the adventure. 

Lex Justicia

Lex is the warden and is treated as a cartoon-ish villain in the text. He illegally imprisons a merchant who he believes did him a bad turn and consistently abuses his position to accept bribes. There are some important points to note about his character:

1. He has plans to rise above this posting 
2. He gets "over zealous" with his questioning of prisoners
3. His leadership is efficient enough that the prison runs well.  

The way that Lex is described reminds me of the stereotypical middle manager. A man who takes himself entirely too seriously and has plans to move up the corporate ladder but never will due to his own foolishness. I plan on playing him similar to Bill Lumbergh from Office Space in how he'll talk and behave. The biggest thing is to avoid leaning into the cartoon-ish elements and to instead focus on the banal evil of his role in this prison. The players will hate him because he is deserving of their ire, but they won't dismiss him because of his silliness. 

Bill Lumbergh from Office Space

Nero Falconis 

Nero is the assistant warden and the description in the text makes him sound more like a maintenance technician with a fancy title. He's the one who maintains the lubricant for the wheel of woe and covets the Warden position. He's also a coward who will sacrifice the lives of his men to save his own. 

I think of him looking a bit like Gary Oldman's character from Slow Horses with many of his mannerisms. I want the players to think of him as a disgusting slob who is too enamored with himself for his own good. I'm also going to be using the hand rubbing of Peter Pettigrew from the Harry Potter Films.

Gary Oldman from the BBC series Slow Horses

Teron Rotner

Teron is an odd character. He wears a robe of eyes, boots of speed and is a fighter. His equipment implies that he's a bit paranoid and yet the way he is presented makes him sound more like a man who is just a bit too concerned with his own advancement. He is a neutral evil character, the only one among the four, and as such he comes across much more normal. Less starkly evil and more commonplace, everyday evil. 

I think that I'll present him more like Count Tyrone Rugen from The Princess Bride. I want him to come across as someone brave until confronted by a mortal danger. He'll be capable, evil, but ultimately a coward who will fight when cornered.

Count Tyrone Rugen from The Princess Bride

Topper

The character of Topper is a necromancer who is attempting to become powerful in his profession. Of the four he presents the greatest danger to the players over the long term so my goal is to make him someone they pity and perhaps let go. I would like to see him become a reoccurring villain, or even just a reoccurring bit part in the narrative that will give them someone to have as a touch point in the world. 

I think that I will play him a bit like Woody Allen from his early career. This means that he'll lack confidence in what he's saying. He'll come across a bit like a loser who will give me room to drop in some funny one liners. But there is this dark underbelly (the necromancy) that will always be present in all the guy does. I want him to still be evil, but I want him to stick around so he can make additional appearances in the world.  

 

Granite Mountain Prison Remix Part 2, The Prison (2 of 3)

 The adventure "Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker appeared in DUNGEON magazine JULY/AUGUST #36 and if you want to make the most of this Remix then I highly suggest picking up a copy of the issue.

The Prison of "Granite Mountain Prison" is described in the following manner, ". . . Three hundred and ten years ago, the king who ruled Bangor commanded his court wizard to build a prison. The records say that he requested 'a prison of surpassing security, an engineering marvel that will amaze and terrify generations to come' . . . the wizard . . . completed the prison in three years. The final product was as much an engineering marvel as it was a terrible place of punishment, and despair . . ." (25)

The prison is a trick prison where prisoners are positioned in one of 365 cells that are then rotated by the efforts of the combined prisoners (a wheel of woe). The idea of the prison is that only one prisoner can enter and leave on any single date. They are put into the cells through a spell that shrinks them and released through a similar method as there are no doors, only an opening to look out at their doom and a tray slot to allow food to enter. From the description of the prison you might expect it to have a unique design, but the only thing unique about it is the wheel of woe.

Granite Mountain Prison 1st Floor from page 29

As you can see from the included map this design isn't inspiring the imagination towards some magnificent engineering accomplishment, rather, it feels more like the designer was looking to substitute complexity for efficiency. Let's compare this map with a more famous, real life prison: Alcatraz.

Alcatraz floor plan from National Park Maps

The reason why I want you to see these two is to highlight how a complex floor plan isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to making something effective. We already have the trick of the prison in the wheel of woe and by focusing on creating a difficult pathway that would make things more challenging for the players we've lost the nature of the dungeon. A simpler path structure might work better.

Simplified version of the map

I have eliminated a lot of the rooms and the circumnavigation from the map here for the purpose of demonstrating that the extra rooms aren't needed. As referees we gained nothing from including 26 rooms before the players meet the wheel; all we did was put up unnecessary blocks and slow downs.  

The prison's strength doesn't come from having a convoluted structure but rather from the trick of the wheel of woe. If you add all these other layers you create an impression for your players that there is hope that they will be successful. They need to know that the reason why you aren't filling the building up with countless rooms and traps isn't because you fear a breakout, but because you know there won't be one. It needs to feel inevitable - because that makes success feel so much more special. 

This adventure requires you to help the players build the skills necessary for success prior to this adventure. In order to do this it's important that we provide them with examples of the challenges they will face prior to appearing here. The best practice is to provide an opportunity to accomplish the three big challenges prior to encountering all of them here in earlier adventures. This way when they come upon them they are able to think of ways to beat this scenario that doesn't end in frustrated exasperation. 

Learning Scenarios 

1. The players should encounter a situation where someone is trapped with no door but with a small opening that food, air, and water could enter. The key is to help them figure out how to get them out. 

2. The players should encounter a situation where they must bluff/sneak past guards towards a goal. These guards must be hostile to the players normally so that they are challenged to get by without killing or alerting the guards. The key is to teach them how to infiltrate a hostile area so that they can accomplish their goals. 

 3. The players need to encounter an automaton that has an intelligence. This key is to teach them how to interact with creatures that may not have a hostile disposition towards them, but that can be used as allies if approached correctly with the right triggers. 

Scenario 1 will be connected to a natural disaster in my campaign so that the players will learn the lesson without feeling like it's shoehorned into the game. 

Scenario 2 will be done within 3 sessions of the prison infiltration. The lessons they learn, from planning to sneaking through the building towards their goal will need to be fresh on their minds. I want them to see what success and failure feels like in a less high stakes environment so that they are able to be prepared for the challenge of Granite Mountain Prison. 

Scenario 3 is going to be brought into the game in the next session. I want them to become familiar with automatons so that they are able to deal with the adventure's unique monster and can come to a conclusion other than, "Let's smash it."

Granite Mountain Prison Remix 

Part 1, The World Set Up
Part 2, The Prison
Part 3, The Three Villains

 

 

Works Cited

"Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker from DUNGEON MAGAZINE Issue #36 JULY/AUGUST, 1992. pg 25, 29

 

Granite Mountain Prison Remix Part 1, The World Set Up (1 of 3)

The adventure "Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker appeared in DUNGEON magazine JULY/AUGUST #36 and if you want to make the most of this Remix then I highly suggest picking up a copy of the issue.

illustration by P.L. Wolf from pg 24

 

"Granite Mountain Prison" is, at it's core, an adventure where they players are working against a fascist government. This adventure allows them to approach it from a couple of different angles:

        1. As mercenaries hired by either the "Order of the Holy Ring" or by an allied rebellion group
        2. As participants in the uprising against the High Council
        3. As fellow prisoners looking to escape from the Prison.
        4. As agents of the High Council seeking to infiltrate the rebellion's organizational structure.

The players in my home game are my son and his friends (all teenagers) and have been working to undermine a tyrannical government in my home setting, "The New Sun," so I'm going to be proceeding from the second option (If you read this and would like help proceeding from another avenue please let me know in the comments). This means that I need to make sure that two elements from the Dungeon Master (DM) section are highlighted in play:

        1. The Secret Police of the High Council must make an appearance and be a clear threat to the players.
        2. The Order of the Holy Ring must provide an alternative to the High Council.

To make the Secret Police work in the scenario I need to start implementing them into the game 5-6 sessions before this adventure makes it's appearance.  I'll begin by introducing them through word of mouth long before the players see them in action. The idea is to talk about actions they've been involved in and the get the players aware of them.

"Have you heard about Louis? They came and took him last night. Gods only know where they're taking him."

"Margaret's husband Thom was snatched off the street by the secret police. They claim he's a terrorist." 

" Did you hear about Jean-Luc? They found him with his brains smashed out in the square. It's a message."

"Paolo's wife Adrianna was released last night. Those bastards tortured her for days. Paolo says she's catatonic." 

The Secret Police aren't the good guys - no secret police force ever is - and I want my players to catch onto this early so that there is no ambiguity. I'm going to take role-playing queues for the Secret Police from the Cold War and spy films I watched as a kid. Lots of menacing stares, pregnant pauses, and deadly responses.

I'll follow this up by showing the Secret Police acting in brazen ways as they abduct people on the streets and behave like the thugs they are. The players need to see them and hear an increasing number of rumors about their vile actions. Before the players actually interact with them their minds need to be filled with ideas about who and what these people are within the context of the game. This way when the players finally meet them they will feel fear about the dangerous Secret Police.

The Order of the Holy Ring is described by author Roger Baker as, ". . . a religious order that at one time commanded a large following, including several members of the council. Using the secret police to harass, bully, and terrorize the order's adherents, the council reduced this once-thriving organization to a few hundred die-hard faithful . . ." (24). I'm going to change this as religious orders don't connect well with my players. 

Instead I'm going to make the Order of the Holy Ring a social organization, like the Korean Association that operates in my city, so that they have a connection that my players can recognize. This Order will be focused on societal changes and on bettering the kingdom rather than on a religious artifact or deity. This should also give them a bit more latitude in being introduced to the players as members could be shop owners who display their order's seal, bar patrons who wear the order's seal on necklaces or rings, or they could be running soup kitchens and homeless shelters with their symbol featured prominently. Regardless of how they're introduced I need to ensure that there is a clear line between the tyrannical High Council and the Order of the Holy Ring. 

The players' goal for the adventure is to rescue Jathan Paark, a leader of the resistance. The adventure plays it up as though Jathan is the only reason the resistance has succeeded when no resistance has ever done so through the efforts of a single individual. Jathan is treated as a charismatic figurehead who the movement has coalesced around and without whom it will fall apart. 

I have little interest in a movement that is so unenthusiastic that a single man's imprisonment will doom it. Instead I will treat his imprisonment as a galvanizing moment that will enhance the revolution's reach and cause ferment greater resistance to the High Council's fascist actions. While the players are on the rescue mission the movement will push forward against the oppressive High Council. 

Granite Mountain Prison Remix 

Part 1, The World Set Up
Part 2, The Prison
Part 3, The Three Villains

 

 

Works Cited

"Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker from DUNGEON MAGAZINE Issue #36 JULY/AUGUST, 1992. pg 24

 

Why Play 3rd Edition?

Over the past 21 years I've spent a lot of time playing Dungeons & Dragons; and of the versions I've explored none has captivated me quite like Third Edition. Where Fifth Edition made the game more accessible, and Fourth made it feel more gamey, Third Edition was the version that taught me to tinker with things. It was the one that said, "If you don't like the rule, change it. That's what all the supplemental books with their countless alternative rule sets were effectively saying. 

The game was a massive beast when Wizards of the Coast (WoC) finally decided to end it and release Fourth Edition. There were over 150 books published throughout the life of the system by WoC that ranged from setting books, like Dragonlance, to adventures and supplemental books that changed the nature of how the game functioned, like Tome of Magic. With all those books as a Dungeon Master (DM), which I was throughout that time, you had to pick out which rules you were going to enforce, which you were going to ignore, and which you were going to modify. 

When I first started playing the rules were more a blanket that I could wrap around myself and use to support my own authority as a DM. I didn't have to be the one responsible for stopping a bad form of play (disruptive nonsense, abusive moves, ect.) - it was the rules. I never had to be the bad guy. 

The thing is, as you grow older you realize that sometimes being in charge means that you have to be the bad guy. You have to be the one responsible for making a decision that others won't like for the betterment of the group as a whole. Yes, within rules the Wizard could feasibly create a chain of villagers to move a rock forward and create a devastating weapon to effectively nuke the Big, Bad, Evil Guy (BBEG) but it wouldn't be fun. It would create a world where the BBEG could do the same thing to the heroes or one where an even more inane and stupid idea could overcome everything and end the game in one massive blah moment. 

That's not what we're here for. 

The game is a vehicle for us to have fun together. You, me, and all the other players at the table. We have to work together to create an environment where we have the most fun. This can be stupid ideas that work, brilliant ideas that fail, and even Total Party Kills (TPKs). 

Third Edition made me realize that the role of the DM is about making decisions that affect how the game is played and it was liberating. I wasn't just referee creating a scenario for play and impartially deciding the outcome of the dice. I was an active participant in the game. 

Fourth Edition, for me, felt like that was taken away. The game was too gamey - by which I mean that the game felt more at home on a board than in us playing with the "Theater of the Mind" as I was more accustomed. I didn't feel confident in such a system with breaking by changing it and ignoring rules that might fundamentally affect the overall experience, as I had been in the older system.  

Fifth Edition brought that fun back for me as I was able to adjust the game once more without feeling like I was doing something that would make it less fun for everyone else. It didn't hurt that I was watching others do that very thing from the day that the first playtest document launched. I loved it - still do, but my son is interested in some more crunchy systems and has asked to play 3rd Edition. 

So we're going to do just that.  

Cleaning up the Look

I decided to change the banner on the blog this afternoon. The old one had been there for the better part of the last five years and it was . . . boring. For this one I decided to continue the background color into the the blog itself so that things would feel more organic in the their color design. 

The Path is Blocked. Drums Echo from the Valley.

It's been a few years since I last posted on this blog. During that time I worked on another, Dragons Never Forget, because I thought it might be fun to try something new. And yet everything I wrote still felt like it was a part of this blog. 

 So I've come back home - for now, at least.

 As this is 2025 and some things need to be said:

        This blog will never use AI.

        I will still talk about nerdy shit that delights me.

        Comments are back on. 

 I hope I'll get to see old readers back to the blog, and maybe some new ones as well.   

Closing Comments.

Due to the influx of spam comments on Dyvers I am closing the comments. I'm not currently doing anything with this blog, but I don't want to see the comment section become a flooded sea of "Check out my knockers" and "Who wants some swamp land at the highest price possible" spam.

I'm also removing the email link on the front page. I've had too many spam emails lately so it's done as well. A

If you'd like to see what I'm doing currently come check out my new blog, Dragons Never Forget. I'm writing a lot over there about AD&D 2e, Greyhawk, and in general just doing the same sort of things I always did on Dyvers. It's refreshing to start over, and challenging too, but I like it all the same.

2019 GREAT BLOG ROLL CALL IS LIVE

After working on the next iteration of the Great Blog Roll Call for the better part of the year I've finally finished it! This year's list has over 450 blogs!

Check it out!

I've Moved Blogs! Have You Joined Me?

Hey everyone!

I know that a lot of people tend to bookmark a blog and then move on but I wanted to remind all my readers that I have a new blog called Dragons Never Forget. I've been writing there this year and I've actually managed to update every single month without fail.

If you've like my stuff in the past I sure would appreciate you checking out my new blog when you have a chance!

Check out DRAGONS NEVER FORGET TODAY!

  

Oh! I almost forgot. I'm currently working on the 2019 Great Blog Roll Call on Dragons Never Forget. I've just passed the 2014 GBRC with 378 active blogs reviewed. I'm up to the R's (arguably the largest section of the Roll Call) so I've still got a long way to go before I'm done but there's a lot of progress going on there!

Hope to see you all there soon!

Traps, Not Just for Ex-Girlfriends Anymore

When I first started running Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) I tended to treat traps as an exercise in dice rolling to overcome the challenge I had placed before my players. There was the roll to detect the trap and then another roll to disarm it. All this rolling tended to make for rather dull gameplay.

In an effort to remedy all this tedium I started looking for more complex traps, such as those found in Grimtooth’s Traps, and began to describe them to my players in detail. We still rolled to determine the chance of success but by actually describing the traps it made them exciting in the game and players spent time discussing how to conquer the challenge the trap presented.

I got so wrapped up in the process that I started neglecting the traditional, banal traps: arrow, pit, door, and poison traps were all too mundane. This neglect resulted in me falling back into the old habit of rolling to overcome. I was dissatisfied with this aspect of my Game Mastering but then Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition (D&D 4e) was announced.

Continue Reading at Dragons Never Forget

The Best Villains Money can Buy

I own seventeen monster manuals, tombs, and guides across a variety of systems and editions that now clutter up my gaming shelf – the vast majority of which haven’t been opened in years. The monsters that fill these volumes range from the common flesh and blood variety, so gauche, to clockwork creations that move about automatically and deliver a sterile, clinical death. 

I have demons, deamons, devils, extraterrestrial beings, reality shifting monstrosities, and even the odd elemental man. There are robotic dragons, electric men, ambulatory furniture, and sentient toasters. Tribes of goblins, gobbers, hobgoblins, bugbears, ogres, ogrun, and giants for every type of geological feature and weather pattern imaginable. 

Read More

Dragons Never Forget

Over the last few months I've largely been absent from Blogger. The website has been aggravating me as I've lost posts I've scheduled, and the integration with Google Plus has become a joke. So I decided to start a new blog over on Wordpress called, Dragons Never Forget. If you liked the stuff I've written on Dyvers I imagine that you'll like the things I write on Dragons Never Forget as well. The site is a bit bare right now as I'm still learning Wordpress but should begin having a lot more content showing up on it. Anyway, my first real post has gone live last night and is titled An Introduction to the “Amazing Engine,” the Role-Playing Game to Conquer Them All that Never Did.

Dyvers isn't entirely dead, by the by, but it's largely shelved for the time being.

GM Toolbox: Things to Do from January 24, 2005

Shortly before I was going to run my first game back in the early months of 2005 I was sitting in the Den working on a list of things that I felt like I had to master before actually running my first session. Thought I'd share those with all of you real quick.

TO DO

1. Know all the rules
2. Internalize everything about the world of El Fantasma del Sur (a homemade world I was using at the time)
3. Plot out the path of the campaign for the first six months.
4. Create an award system to encourage the players to role-play correctly!

Not a long list but full of bullshit that cripples a game at the outset. 

Know all the rules

This is the trap that a lot of players fall into when they first start talking about running a game as a Game Master for their friends. They convince themselves that the only way to do so is to know everything about the game - to achieve mastery over it - and as a result they never actually get around to playing the game. I was in that very stage of fucking off when my brother pushed me into running because he understood what I didn't at the time: that if I didn't actually run the game I would never get around to it on my own because the game isn't something that you can know perfectly. There are too many rules that are either conflicting with other rules, poorly worded, or vague enough that it's left up to the individual Game Master to come up with an understanding of how the rule is used with their group. 

When it comes to running a role-playing game knowing the rules perfectly isn't the most important thing. Getting your players to become immersed in the game, to push their own creativity, and to challenge your conceptions of what the game could be is what's most important. The rules are a framework to build your home game around. They are there for you, and your group of players, to build a game that all of you can play in together and that will allow for an experience that kicks all of your tails!

Internalize everything about the world of El Fantasma del Sur

Fucking A. This is the one that would have hung me up forever if I had really stuck to my guns on it. A game world is supposed to this organic experience where you and your players discover it piece by piece until you've built up this wholly unique thing. Whether you're in a homebrew world like El Fantasma del Sur or in a published setting like the World of Greyhawk the story that you all craft together creates a unique experience. Those settings are your own. Let them live.

Plot out the path of the campaign for the first six months.

HA!

God, I was so fucking dumb. 

Create an award system to encourage the players to role-play correctly!

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I once created a split in a dungeon. Down one path I hadn't figured out what I wanted to do on it so I made it supper fucking scary with spider webs, screams, and a troll dragging a crying drow. On the other hall I had path out the dungeon and some smoking hot elven women looking down to them. They took troll road and would every time because, as my wife later told me; "When ever something seems like it's going to be okay we get nervous. If you give us two paths and one has certain death while the other has hot chicks and hard dicks we're going to take certain death every time. We can beat that. We have before. But hard dicks and hot chicks brings on mystical chlamydia, jealous ex-lovers who will kill us in our sleep, and six months of demons, devils, and dragons trying to use us as biological weapons. Fuck that."

Old Files and Transitory Thoughts

When I first started getting into playing role-playing games back fourteen years ago I tended to go online a lot searching for articles that I could use and that would inspire my imagination and improve my games. Often I would copy these into a folder I lovingly called my "DM Toolbox." The thing is that after fourteen years the Toolbox has become more akin to a junk drawer filled with all kinds of odds and ends than anything useful. 

I need to remedy that.

My plan is to explore some of those resources on here every so often and see if the articles are still worth using or if they should be deleted off my hard drive altogether. You'll be able to tell when I'm doing these articles as they'll be indexed as "GM Toolbox" on the blog. This should make it easier for people to search them. 

More later.

We Were Strange Before You Thought it Was Cool

I was sitting down this evening and thinking about playing Dungeons & Dragons when it occurred to me that I hadn't done a Greyhawk poster in a while. So I figured that I should fix that tonight.

The question though remains: how do we bring more eyes to Greyhawk? How do we get Dungeon Masters who have never plumbed its depth to start exploring it's caverns, forgotten citadels, and foreboding tombs?