Trans-Real News is Complete at 41 (Gamable) Episodes

I wanted to point my readers once more to my podcast Trans-Real News. It is one of the main reasons why this blog is being so scant lately. And I hope that you will find that it was a worthy diversion. It is now complete with 41 episodes averaging about 8 minutes in length.

Trans-Real news is my surreal science fantasy comedy audio drama. It follows the lives of the cast of a daily news show as they attempt to report on a world where time, space, and reality has malfunctioned. Please to things like rampaging hordes of barbarians coming back through time too eliminate people they think made humanity weaker, much of the Monterey Bay area of Northern California turning into a swamp full of Carboniferous life forms, Los Angeles turning into a shining 1950 science fiction-style Utopia, and a hive mind of talking insects taking over hollywood. 

If I were to try to describe it, I might do so as a Murphy Brown and meats Bill & Ted, while a selection of comics from Heavy Metal play out in the background. 

Throughout the series, I make a lot of references to Dungeons & Dragons. There are even a couple of scenes of the characters playing it. And one of the things I have tried to do with it is make sure that it is gamable.:

I tried to create a podcast where every episode might give a dungeon master six or seven new ideas for adventure hooks or strange events in their campaign world. 

Throughout it, I also  did a lot of World-Building, and there is definitely a setting all its own there where modern people are facing fantasy and science fiction dangers while trying to learn to navigate time travel, alternate dimensions, and the world where magic is coming into its own. 

It is my intention to start working on a setting book for it based on an in-world book a couple of the recurring characters wrote. I would love feedback from my readers as to whether or not this is something they would be interested in. 

I will post the trailer here. You can find it on most of your podcatchers, such as spotify, youtube, Podcast Addict, and itunes. 

If you have a few hours to spare, I would love to have a chance to entertain you!

Detectives in Space, Desperate Cowboys, Freezing Barbarians, Mystic Pilgrims... Or all of the Above!

Looking to start a game? I have some campaign ideas that might inspire you.

How I Pitch my Campaigns

When I am ready to start a new campaign, I put together a handful of "pitch documents" that give the players a taste of what they might expect with the game. The style of my pitch documents varies a lot by mood and inclination.

Recently my wife and I concluded a one-to-one Fabula Ultima campaign, and have been, after a couple of false starts and a few weekends where life just got in the way, looking to start something new. I recently prepared a document with four campaign pitches for a one-to-one game based on our current leanings, taste, and media intake.

As this could be a useful tool for assembling a group, I thought I would share a (slightly tidied up) PDF version of the document.

Pitches May 2024

Generally speaking, I give a fictional preview either written like a movie trailer, or a summary of precipitating events written like the back of a book cover.

Then I create a couple of paragraphs explaining the game of choice, the role the PCs might start with, and what kind of overarching experience I hope to provide.

I used to add in some evocative art hunted down on Pinterest. These days, I try generating something custom using an AI. It seems like a good, non-commercial use for the tool.

The Pitches

In this case I have a Scifi Detective Noir that is drawing a lot on Philip K. Dick, as well as an old favourite podcast, Black Jack Justice; a natural fantasy story based on a fusion of Babylon 5: Crusade, The Slayers: Try, Legend of Mana, and Sorcerer Hunters; A cowboy story that is intended to be a massive and dark expansion of my Vulture Rock wargame scenario played in Cowpunchers; and there is an AD&D scenario there inspired by the copious amount of Manowar that has been on my CD player in the last week (I'm also on my 15th play-through of Skyrim).

Feel free to steal and use these, and I am happy to answer questions, if you want more information about how I intended to use them.

But these particular campaign pitches just didn't sing. They weren't quite what we were looking for.

Trying Again

I sat for awhile trying to think of what I might try differently, and started taking the most appealing elements of each into a totally different beast.

I am currently enjoying the novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons as well. If you're not familiar, it is a dark and surreal (and much more serious) science fiction take on The Canterbury Tales which involves a group of pilgrims being sent to their deaths on an alien world, telling about their experiences on a previous voyage there. Hyperion is a pretty influential book in science fiction media, but is not itself very well known. If you have played Borderlands, Bio-Shock, Mass Effect, or Amnesia games, you have probably heard a lot of references to it.

I decided to blend my four campaigns together: a dark western story, but with a mystery focus, set in my own science fiction world, to which I would add in some heavy metal notes. And while I was at it, I decided to toss in some elements of Mass Effect and Borderlands (a fantastic Sci-Fi Western setting)

 What I ended up with is a frontier space colony world full of ancient hyper-tech ruins that can create miracles, where runaways, psychics, criminals, and cultists are rampant. I called it Adaro. 

I've written a lot about realizing a science fiction setting in the past. One thing that I find to be axiomatic is that if you are not using an established setting, you need to work a lot harder to tell your players about it. When I write science fiction pitches, I add a lot more detail to it before I pitch it.

Adaro is written as a series of three monologues from very different perspectives, and two dossiers written for a government agent, plus a couple of definitions, and I feel it does a great job of doing heavy lifting.

Steal This Planet!

Tragically, it just didn't sell to my wife as a home game setting. However, i feel like Adaro might be just the thing someone else is looking for, so I am going to toss the pitch document up here, and see if any of my readers want to steal it and make it their own.

Download it as a PDF here:

Adaro: A Mythic Space Western

Redefining the Wargame (for us Lunkheaded TTRPGers)

A while ago I wrote an article on how wargaming has a great deal to teach role-playing groups. The reaction I got was interesting, and best in cancellated in this comment:

It occurred to me that when a lot of people think of wargames, they think of something like Warhammer 40K, and so the definition they're using of wargames is very narrow. It is hard to understand where are the idea of Dungeons & Dragons being still heavily influenced by, and improved by cleaving its wargame origins might be confusing.

I thought it might be helpful to give a broader picture of what a wargame is, and why that is relevant to modern Dungeons & Dragons.

Example of a World-Driving Rumor Table for a Sci-Fi Game

I am starting a game with my wife in the same setting as my Starfarer game. I needed to set up a starting star system and space station to use as a home base. 8 have some big mysteries and ideas to work with, but I decided to let automated tables do the rest:

I created a star system using the Donjon Star System Generator 

Once I had a star system, I went through and made some notes about how people would live and operate on each of the planets, if they would have a reason to be at them at all.

I came up with a name of a cantina and a marketplace, and a few characters who would be doing vital functions about the space station.

Then I ran the Donjon space jobs generator. I could have also used the space job generator from the Science Fiction Codex of Lists 2e, which I have also used heavily in my solo gaming.

I went through the list and deleted a few repetitive entries. I renamed some characters and to change their species to add a little variety and fit my larger setting. Then I tucked that away in a GM notes document so I knew what was a trap, A scam, or had other difficulties.

I posted most of the jobs on the news board for the space station. Omitting any details of my giveaway surprises, and re-writing them with fees and contacts. 

I then added some flavor posts: a spaceship for sale, but entertainment event, and a couple of items sales to give the sense of the space station as the center of commerce in an active star system.

For every inhabited planet,  I added one or two "flavor jobs" to give a sense of what goes on on that planet. For example, Veles V is a highly volcanic world with a colony on a moon that does experimental hostile environment mining. I got the idea from the fact that it had a moon, and was a volcanically active Rock Planet. Advertising for mineral scanning and engineers to help them work on hostile environment mining Tech seems like a great way to describe that without telling the players what goes on on that planet. 

Likewise, Veles VIII is an ice mining planet with some eccentric, geeky characters turning it into a anarchist party planet. Adds for courtesans, casinos, rock bands, and dangerous sporting events seemed like a great way to get that impression.

In the end, with a little art and flavor added, I've ended up with a very interesting document that I will have beans to the calm link of the player characters when they arrive at the station. It will give them a pretty solid setting with over a dozen hooks in one swoop.

Anything the PCS don't pursue, if it doesn't have a timer already built in, I will give a cumulative 1-in-6 chance of changing or disappearing and being replaced every week (rolling new items from generated tables.)

Here's my final result. (The original tables will follow.)

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WELCOME TO VELES STATION

Please check in with Sergeant Lōm after arriving.

Thirsty? Say hello to Itha-Q6 and Brenna at Bubble & Fizz! Genuine Earth and Uzz-III cuisine.

VELES STATION NEWS

Game Review: Mythic Game Master Emulator

Author: Tana Pigeon
Publisher: World Mill Games
Marketplace: Amazon 
System: System Neutral 

Because I test every game I review for at least one adventure,  I have found myself playing solo TTRPGs a great deal. Before my review of Pacts & Blades, I'd never played solo in my life, and it has been a very strange journey,  finding what works. Running through a dungeon made in Donjon without reading it first is all good and fine, but you require more if you want a rich experience that really let's you kick a game's tires.

I started expanding my experience using Parts Per Million's Dungeon Crawl Solo. It's oracle system was handier than just grabbing a tarot deck or assigning a 2-in-6 chance to everything. Once I started using an oracle of some sort, I started having a much richer experience. Combined with a big hex-crawl setting like The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putresence or What Ho, Frog Demons! I could get a lot more spontaniety of play. Threads and plots emerged of their own accord once in awhile that kept play surprisingly fresh.

I have been searching for another toolset that does so with even more torque and less emphasis on dungeon crawling for awhile now. I picked up Tom Scutt's DM Yourself last Summer, and was quite disappointed in it. I have also been using the tools from the free version of  Scarlet Heroes on occasion, which I have enjoyed. I've not reviewed the free version as I have been meaning forever to pick up a full - preferably print version, and keep putting it off. Scarlet Hereos does a much better job of spontaneous emergent play, but it is very much focused on the lone hero, which isn't what I am looking for as a playtesting tool.

I've been hearing about Mythic GME for some time now. and I listen to a handful of solo RPG podcasts that use it to great effect. I decided that I would pick it up this month and give it a try. And I am very impressed.

Classy World-Building Phase 2-3

 For the next region, I wanted something that screamed "Time Wizard" for The Demalion... weird contraptions, clockworks, legacies from thousands of years in the past that feels strangely futuristic.

 The Gehenna of Obsol

The Technocracy of Ull was destroyed so long ago that few historians agree when it ruled the known world. It's impact, however, has carried on through untold Millennia.  The Ull created marvels that fused magic, machinery, advanced science, and reality-bending primordial forces into a Super-technology that made their small kingdom a paradise of leisure and study.

From their hidden cities, the Ull sent out emissaries riding giant constructs and guarded by biomechanical war machines. They offered machines to ease labor, spells to shape the land, and advice to lead an orderly, safe life. But at the cost of tribute, obedience,  and by giving up their best and brightest to be raised by the Ull. Ullan Technomancers built marvelous automated temples where their gifts were manufactured and maintained by initiates.  No outsider was permitted to learn how to make, repair or maintain Ullan marvels; only how to use them.

Classy World-Building Phase 2-2

 So, here is round 1 of building a world to go with the classes in the Drowned World. I started with The Braid, and I will work through the list at a pretty random pace. Once I can get Campaign Cartographer onto my new system I will start putting these places on a map.

It's tight, it is simple, and it is full of hooks to work with.

Why Some Games Need to be Silly

 

I had a flash of insight last night after my oldest son had a bad night last night. My son, who sits somewhere on the autism spectrum, has a hard time regulating feelings. He has outbursts when confronted with negative emotions, especially when it comes to competition and losing.

In a bid to teach him sportsmanship,  and expose  to competing, winning, and losing until he has effective strategies to handle it, I have been playing Pokémon TCG Online with him a couple of matches per day.

It has been an uphill battle. Her number of reasons. Some of them are very relevant to understanding TTRPGs, and why some styles of play are more suited for particular types of people than others.

See, my son has been on a winning streak. My first round draw of cards in Pokémon TCG has been consistently abysmal.

Roll Your Own

 With the OGL 1.1 leak, the non-apology from Wizards of the Coast, the surprisingly successful #DnDBegone campaign, the lies, and eventually  the sad walk-back on it all, there are suddenly a lot of people looking for a new system to play instead of Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

A lot of them are planning on going to Pathfinder 2e, , I can understand that. If nothing else, the ORC (Open RPG Creative) License has been a smart maneuver and made Pathfinder look pretty appealing.

But I think jumping from one crunchy fantasy TTRPG to another is a missed opportunity.

And, no... I am not about to tell you to try OSR games. (Though they are awesome...)

I'm going to tell you that you don't need to buy a new system. There is an even cooler option: make one that is tailored to your game world. 

Book Review: Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master

Author: Michael Shea ("Sly Flourish")
Publisher: Self-Published
System: Mostly System Neutral (w/ some focus on D&D5e)
Marketplace: Amazon, DrivethruRPG

 Here's a Confession for you: I have a hard time deciding how to best plan a session.

When I was in elementary and junior high I would occasionally draw a map and part-roll-, part-choose- a treasure hoard. I gave out more magic items than I should have, but they were usually the weirdest, most situationally useful, odd, or simply off-beat custom magic items I could choose. I ran a fusion of AD&D and BECMI D&D, with occasional forays into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Palladium Fantasy RPG.

In Highschool I ran mostly AD&D2e, RIFTS, and Shadowrun 2e. I did almost nothing for prep. I ran it off the cuff, and didn't sweat treasure. I just rolled on the treasure tables occasionally, but mostly ignored it.

When I was in University, I managed to create a more balanced approach of at least writing down the names of a few NPCs and the major points I wanted to handle. I prepped treasure that might tempt PCs in one hoard per session, and made sure the bad guys had some interesting loot. Of course, at that point I was running Shadowrun 3e most of the time, which, contrary to popular opinion, is a really easy game to run on the fly. And occasionally HōL, which is inimical to planning.

The Disease

But then, along came Dungeons & Dragons 3e... and the game was somehow a bit traumatic to me. D&D3e had a Challenge Rating System, and for some reason, I thought the idea was so cool (maybe because I had TPKed a few parties on too-hard encounters,  and made a few adventures that were way too easy early on) that it became my obsession in adventure design. I also had problems when my players fell way behind the power curve from lack of appropriate treasure. I spent a huge amount of time on the D&D forums trying to figure out how to make best use of CR and treasures by making sure I was keeping within the parameters of "game balance."

Whenever my players found treasure, I would grind the game to a halt as I rolled the treasure hoard during a break. I eventually resolved to pre-plan a lot more of the game to avoid that.

What's in a Label?

 This is yet another essay brought about by Twitter exchanges. There has been a lot of young new-school players lately taking shots at the idea that D&D is a war game or was ever such a thing.

And, of course, there are plenty of people willing to argue the other side as well, because on many levels D&D in particular continues to hold a lot of war game elements to it.

Personally, I find the whole debate, (if you can call it that as it is typical Twitter shouting,) misses a critical point. Which is that the map is not the territory. Genre labels are not solid objective measures of anything.

100 Statement World-Building Challenge

Shoggoth did A Monit
by Flannerius CC-BY-SA 4.0

This is a challenge that I saw Samwise7RPG doing that looked like a lot of fun: create a setting in 100 statements. I worked on it on what spare time I could steal between watching my little guy and recovering from the pneumonia that wrecked me this month.

It got too big for Twitter pretty fast. And Twitter was exceptionally unpleasant yesterday, so I moved it here.

I let my imagination just flow when I had time to type. This represents about 5 hours of stream -of-consciousness brainstorming, starting with the idea of a fractured world with an elder god serving as it's sun and just running with it .

1.  Lim-Obol was uttered into existence by U'ulul, the greatest of the Shoggoths.
2. U'ulul was among the first shoggoths vomited forth by Mother Hydra, and shared much of her divinity.
3. For Aeons U'ulul gibbered only nonsense in the heart of the void until, growing quiescent for a time, he projected his eyes through the multiverse.
4. It is fever dream he left it into existence his own Twisted reflection of the reality his half seeing eyes witnessed.

   

   Image generated with Dall-E Mini

   
   
5. Only his sense of smell was not fooled, nor subject to his madness. And so he created around himself a shell of sweet air.

Building a Science Fiction Setting that Lasts (pt. 6)

In the last article in this series, I discussed in detail how the Themes (and Thesis, if you have one,) of your setting can help you make decisions about what technologies to include or design in your Science Fiction campaign setting.

Those same themes can help you design dilemmas, locations, alien races, villains, and revelations for your campaign. In the next few, I am going to unpack those other components.

Dilemmas

Ultimately, every adventure in the campaign is built around a singular dilemma. What do we do about situation X?

Coming up with the X helps you decide what your adventure is going to look like. It is where that short paragraph or one-sentence premise you start every good adventure with comes in.

If I have chosen a theme such as, The Gods are False, I can come up with numerous ways of expressing that idea in dilemmas that trigger adventures.  This was one of the core premises of the film Stargate, and it's spin-off TV series Stargate: SG-1. 

Stargate and the theme of False Gods

Main cast, Stargate: SG=1
Stargate:SG-1 is C 1997=2007 MGM Studios

In these early Stargate media, the U.S. Military discovers an alien device that creates portals to other worlds. They discover that the deities of Ancient Egypt were alien parasites, the Goa'uld, that used human hosts to extend their lives and wielded their advanced (mostly stolen) technology to perform miracles and inspire worship. They used the network of portals to take human slaves  and spread them across hundreds of worlds as laborers.

To fight the alien threat, the protagonists must convince the humans from other worlds that their gods are False, and help them rebel. This creates a huge range of dilemmas over the original film, 213 television episodes, and made-for-TV film sequel film Ark of Truth. Some of the prime examples include:

• How do you persuade people to fight against gods?

• Do you have the right to destroy the deeply held beliefs of a culture? Especially when you are going to benefit?

• What happens when your own people follow the example and start demanding worship from more primitive cultures?

• Can you ever trust allies who worshipped your enemies?

• Can you still believe in your own faith when you have seen how religion is used to manipulate others?

• When beings have the power to raise the dead and heal any sickness, are there times when maybe they deserve veneration.

• When a False God can force you to worship them with mind control, or by holding your very life hostage, how do you deal with the moral hazard of fighting their followers?

Each of these problems is easily transformed into at he first part of an adventure hook:

The Eternal Ocean Setting Book is Live

I have just added a version of The Eternal Ocean to my Eternal Ocean and Wreck project on Itch.io.

This is a system agnostic setting book designs to give players an idea of where their characters are from and what kind of characters they may like to play.

In effect, it is a campaign primer: it's goal is to stimulate the imagination of players and GMs. To get them thinking about what kind of Adventures and experiences they might like to have using this game.

Accordingly, I lot of the book is done as fiction. Particularly samples of correspondence, official documents, and short stories. A little of it is basic facts, but I try hard not to spend more than 40% of the book on raw info dumps.

What of the funny thing is about this book is that it necessarily must be incomplete. The whole purpose of this setting is to have player characters going to a planet based on information that is woefully out of date. In the eight year since the initial colonial effort failed, the planet Rusalka has been radically changed. It teems with life, mysteries, and a terrible traps.

Ultimately, I cannot give all the information one would expect in a campaign primer, as I'm creating this as a tool for other GMs that they can hand to their players without giving the game away. There are quite a few different tones one can set on Rusalka. The final book, the Depths of the Eternal Ocean will have advice for GMS on how to set the tone and style for a number of different kinds of campaign that could be run using this setting, as well as a set of secrets and dangers for the player characters too experience that the GM may or may not choose to use.

Get The Eternal Ocean and Wreck here!

Building a Science Fiction Setting that Lasts (pt. 3)

One of the most critical components of any Science Fiction setting, whether it is in literature, film, video games, or ttrpgs, is the tone you choose to set with it. Tone is more than just the mood you try to set with the backdrop, it will tell us a lot about who the people in a science fiction setting are, and what kind of world they create

The technology that appears in your campaign will also need to reflect the tone. A Star Trek replicator that can all but end hunger would strip the need for money and that's the need to do dirty jobs that drove the characters in Firefly. Your choice of tone will help you decide what should be in a game, and what should not.

Development Blog; Designing the Eternal Ocean

 

As I work on The Eternal Ocean , I intend to blog about the process here. And I wanted to start by talking about what my structure is going to be and my rationale for it.

To start with, what is The Eternal Ocean meant to be exactly, and how is my presentation going to reflect my ideas?

Because I am taking some pretty odd steps.

What Do I Want to Accomplish?

This is probably one of the most important questions you can ask yourself starting almost any project, and it is intimately tied with another question:

Who is this for?

The answer to that one is already in the dedication to Wreck to some degree: I made this game for my oldest son, who wants to be a marine biologist and study deep sea creatures. He loves anything to do with sea exploration from cartoons like Octonauts and The Deep to watching me play video games like Subnautica to just watching old Jaques Cousteau documentaries. 

He has already consumed an impressive amount of science fiction set in the deep sea, and I would love to help him explore the tropes of that particular brand of SF.

But I also wanted to create a world that reaches a little farther than Subnautica or even The Deep does. I wanted to create a setting where the kind of weird and wonderful stuff that you can see in classic science fiction works like 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Time Machine. So I want a world full of secrets and mysteries. Not just Traveller underwater.

Of course, this idea hasn't stayed just a game for my son. I wanted to create something that, after I had done the work, I could also play with grown-ups. I wanted to make something for fans of classic science fiction like my gaming buddy Thomas.

Accordingly, I decided to make a game that relied a lot on exploration, and a world that had a lot of secrets. And I also wanted to make sure that there would be an incentive for discovering those secrets.

IIn other words, I want to create a game world that is full of secrets that feels satisfying to discover, and that feels more like a classic science fiction story then cinematic sci-fi.

What This Mean for Writing

Rather than creating a mechanical incentive,, I wanted to create an overall narrative reward for making discoveries. To this end, I have created a huge collection of secrets that can reward the characters with rare and unique gear and abilities. More importantly, the game is set up so that if the players wish to leave the planet, they will have to discover one of several particularly complex secrets at the end of a chain of revelations.

You Don't Build Your World Alone

One of the things that I feel is important to stress when building your world, is don't build too much of it. The Aldrune and Xen campaign setting documents I have shared are rapidly approaching excessive even if I am running Xen campaigns at the same time.

It is important to remember that World building is not the same as session prep. You aren't doing as much as you might think to prep the next adventure by constructing elaborately detailed worlds.

But more importantly, the more detail you throw into a world, the more your players are going to try and conform to it. And that is a missed opportunity.

If you focus on giving players a clear idea of the vibe you are looking for in the style of play you intend to create, they will take it and run with it in amazing and unexpected directions.

When I started my second Xen campaign, I was surprised at what my players came up with based on what I had told them.

Your Campaign Goals Dictate Your World Design Tools

While I was doing my first piece of writing on World Building a couple of weeks ago, it was happening real time in my head.

In my last article, I detailed how looking at the artwork of Yoshitaka Amano inspired me to create a world called Xen. In it's original inception, this was going to be a world designed for games played less than 2 hours at a time that drew on some of the weirder fusions of Science Fiction and Fantasy that appear in the best of Appendix-N lit. 

I wanted the strange sci-fi technology of Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom, the complex and mystical politics of Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, the psychedelic fantasy qualities of Abraham Merritt's Ship of Ishtar and The Face in the Abyss.  I wanted the strange and highly pervasive magic of Jack Vance's Dying Earth.

And for good measure, I thought it might be fun to add in some of the Gain mysticism and high concepts of peak Final Fantasy.

The more I created this world, the more I fell in love with it.

I had been building Aldrune with the idea that it might be a world I can spend quite a few campaigns in. Generally speaking, I make a new world every campaign or two because I always want to try new things. The only exception was a world called Astraea, which I ran five campaigns in back in the mid-naughties. Intentionally building a world that I feel like I could stay with for a while felt like it would be a great way to help grow my abilities as a Dungeon Master.

And here was Xen. A high-concept weird kluge designed for play in short bursts after the kids have been put in bed and my wife had finished your planning for the next day. I'd made it weird, because that way I could toss whatever oddball sword and planet trope I wanted to into it and it wouldn't feel too out of place.

It was as alien to the idea of the high chivalric fiction I wanted as I developed Aldrune as you could imagine. And it was something I wanted to play suddenly far more.

And so, I decided to develop Xen further and produce a document like Aldrune's. Something that has details about where the classes fit into the campaign world, what races are available, appropriate house rules, and enough lore to work.

The importance of Encumbrance, And How to Make it Easy in Your Game

I want to talk about one of the most contentious mechanical issues in table-top RPGs: Encumbrance.

I know a few readers are just going to shrug and skip this one. There are plenty of tables that see encumbrance as such a pain in the ass that they  simply ignore it. Hell, when the Dungeons & Dragons Next playtest was running it took them months to notice that they forgot to include an encumbrance mechanic. The developers admitted in the development blog that don't use it themselves.

And for every GM that just throws encumbrance out, there is a few more who ensure that a Howard's Handy Haversack or Bag of Holding shows up in an early treasure hoard, then "forgets" the item's limitations. They usually follow it up with a Murlynd's Spoon, Field Rations Box, Portable Oasis, or Wand of Goodberry. And maybe Decanter of Endless Water or Alchemy Jug for good measure. Or if you are mean like me, an Omelet of the Planes.

But here's the thing: Encumbrance can make your game better.

When your players have to manage resources, it introduces constraints into the game that the players must adapt to. Needing to choose their gear carefully, because they need to carry it all. It creates limits to how long they can spend in the dungeon by limiting the torches an oil that they can carry. Not to mention the rations,

This in turn gives them reason to engage hirelings and animals. This requires them to spend the gold they are bringing out of the dungeon, which makes treasure seem meaningful.

It also makes exploration more interesting, as the PCs have to limit their range, plan for diversions, take into account terrain. They will have a reason to push themselves during a mission, and find ways to make it pay because It represents an investment of time and planning. Developing a company to ensure supply trains might even be in the cards.

When the strategy, logistics, and planning pay off, it can be incredibly satisfying. 

Why We Ignore It

Here's the thing: the way almost every edition of Dungeons & Dragons traditionally handles encumbrance is dull and fiddly. It feels like accounting. I will cover the common methods of tracking from D&D (and other mainstream TTRPGs) and then compare with some if the more innovative tools in the indie and OSR scenes you might want to consider as a replacement. 

Simple Adventure Builder

Yesterday, my son foundered badly as a GM. He had no idea how to describe what was in a room, or come up with a role-playing based encounter other than the same wandering peddler character he has been using on and off for months.

To give him a hand, I built a series of random tables that can be used to build a cool five-room dungeon on the fly or with only a few minutes of prep. He intends to use it for Tiny Dungeon 2e, but it is completely system-neutral.

Want a quick and dirty set of dice tables for designing something short and sweet? Simple enough for a little kid to use? Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Simple Adventure Builder

So far, the best creations have been a model castle in a fish tank where a princess has hidden herself away to scheme against her father guarded by magic squid and illusions, and a dungeon where a witch is guarded by goblin servants which is lit by shining bugs and has an entrance to a sea cave with a shipwreck below.