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When did a backstory become a warranty? It establishes your character’s past, but some players expect it to secure their future too. Their "heroic destiny" becomes something the DM is supposed to deliver. If keeping you alive until you get a satisfying ending is part of the deal, I call it plot armor.

A campaign arc gives the group a shared goal. It doesn’t guarantee any individual character’s destiny. I want us to have something worth pursuing, with our decisions determining whether we get there and what it costs us. Having a stake in the outcome doesn’t mean my character is entitled to survive it.

Expectations also change how players approach danger, which is where combat as sport comes in. It’s probably my biggest issue with modern D&D. Once players assume every fight is suitable for their characters, “should we fight?” starts giving way to “how do we win?” They’re choosing tactics instead of deciding whether those monsters are worth tangling with. That changes the whole game before anyone rolls initiative.

A fight designed to be winnable doesn’t automatically mean the DM will prevent you from losing. But pair that expectation of suitable fights with a heroic destiny the DM is supposed to protect, and how dangerous is this adventure supposed to be? It’s Avengers with swords. Everyone gets to be a superhero, and the DM gets the job of making sure it works out.

When the dice or the players’ decisions threaten that promised future, the DM steps in with a deus ex machina. Someone arrives just in time, and everyone lives to fulfill their destiny. Keep doing that, and players learn that getting in over their heads is the DM’s problem to solve. Sure, plot armor has always existed, but I object to being expected to provide it.

I want a traditional fantasy adventure with actual stakes. If you guarantee everyone survives to fulfill their “heroic destiny,” then you’re playing a cozy story game with dice. Putting a dungeon or a dragon in it doesn’t make it dangerous.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Official Book of Amigurumi by Lee Sartori promises to help you "Crochet your way across the Four Nations with 20+ designs featuring Team Avatar!" Take a peek inside, and enter to win your own copy of this yarn-bending collection below! Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book for review; […]

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I think I found French artist Cassegrain Didier's Instagram a few years ago and followed him, but didn't pay much attention. I mean... I follow a few thousand people on there. I don't pretend to keep up. Stumbling upon his work again, I'm quite blown away.

I know absolutely nothing about this guy other than he's French and does comics. What strikes me about his work is that he draws very lovely figures and his approach is naturalistic... not Frazetta, but in a similar mode. Which is kind of catnip to me.

Anyway, good stuff.

 

By Fabiano R de Azevedo
Self Published
OSE
Levels 1-3

A witch burns. A curse remains. The fate of an entire village rests in your hands. The peaceful village of Torfjell is about to witness the execution of a convicted witch. Whether the adventurers intervene or stand by, the outcome is the same: a terrible curse is unleashed, bringing sickness, madness, and mysterious deaths to the village. With each passing day, more lives are claimed. The only hope lies within an ancient legend: the forgotten Tome of the Light Shaman, hidden deep beneath Mount Inhaltyr in a long-lost dungeon guarded by dangers far older than the village itself. The heroes must uncover the truth behind a centuries-old myth, explore a dungeon filled with secrets and meaningful choices, and confront the creature that protects the tome. But legends are rarely as simple as they seem, and not every monster is truly evil.

This thirty page adventure uses about six pages to describe fifteen rooms in a small dungeon with a manticore. It’s got a nice little set up but the dungeon, proper, makes little sense. 

The set up to this one is interesting. As the party enters a village they comes across, live and in progress, the village major just pronouncing sentence of witchcraft on a woman tied to a stake and about to be burnt. If they do nothing then the village burns her and she does the old “pronounce a curse while burning” routine on the entire village. Which now includes the party. Oops. If they free her then she goes off and kills someone and curses the party for their troubles.  She is a witch and she DID murder a couple of innocent people. She has to kill three people to extend her life and she had already killed a mother and child, so, you know, it’s D&D and “shes a witch who did bad things” can, actually be true. Noice play on the trope. Anyway, one person a day dies from the curse. Ouchies. Turns out though you can go get a book in a dungeon nearby which will take care of the curse; this shit happened before long ago and the village elders know about the book. So off you go the dungeon.I love the play on the trope and the party getting whats coming to them for meddling in local affairs. Sure, WE know there’s no way out of the hook, but the set up is still a nice one, with a decent curse. 

The dungeon is a weird one though. There’s a convoluted backstory that has mom & dad turning their son in to a manticore and the dungeon gets built and the holy book with the curse cure is placed in it. Both mom and dad have “rooms” where a stone golem resides that the party can animate, one to attack the manticore and one to defend th party while fighting the manticore. Got it? Dungeon, purpose built, manticore in it, a couple of golems to help the party out. 

But then the place is designed, weird? This is more than a random other monster appearing. In one room there’s a sconce on the wall and if pull it then it casts animate dead on the skeletons in the room. Huh? Why do you do this? Why build a dungeon to HELP defeat the manticore and breaks the sons curse/put him to rest and then include a hidden sconce pull that animates dead? I’m not a fan of the “the tripwire cats a spell that then … “ stuff, it’s trying to explain WHY and you don’t need to do that, but, more than that, why put this kind of … trap? in the dungeon. And why does it have this hidden trigger mechanism? There’s more things like this in the dungeon that just don’t make sense, from a dungeon design standpoint. There’s no hint of something gone wrong over the years, or anything like that. 

This is more than natural aging of a dungeon. There’s a decent “bandits attack while you cross a rickety bridge” on the way to the dungeon, always a classic, although there are no hints of bandits even though the bridge is close to the village. There’s a room with a collapsed floor and monster at the bottom, also a classic and I love the classics. Those fit in. But the out of left field stuff is just jarring. Offputting. Looks, it’s a dungeon, not everything has to make sense, but this stuff just doesn’t match up with the rest of the vibe of the dungeon. Why is there a skeleton throne room? And why is the skeleton wearing a golden crown? If this were some kind of rando dungeon, ok, but its supposed to have been purpose built. Remember mom and dad?

Formatting here is all bullets. Bullets can help bring clarity. The EXCLUSIVE use of bullets, though, is seldom a good thing. If everything is important then nothing is. 

It’s an ok adventure. The premise is nice. There are some ok elements to manage, like the collapsed room/pit and bandits on the bridge. The formatting isn’t great and dungeon doesn’t make sense, as a whole, which I think is a problem for parties trying to do a thoughtful exploration. Treasure is quite light. Descriptions are bland. Meh.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is three dungeon pages, so, good preview. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/578862/a-cursed-fate-for-torfjell?1892600

The Velunans pride themselves on being the first people to adopt the faith of Nomism. Whether or not this is true, it is certain that the Velunan branch predates the Aerdian church. In fact, it may be that, as is popularly claimed, the religious communities of Veluna predate the nation itself. When Veluna was organized as a part of the Viceroyalty of Ferrond, the archimandrites of the church were treated as fiefholders.

In the Velunan version of the religion, Rao is considered the personification of divine law. He is a serene and distant god, and the monks spend much time in meditation upon his glory. The common folk are more interested in the earthier Saint Cuthbert who is believed to intercede with Rao and allow those who achieve less than spiritual oneness with the Law to enter Heaven.

The Canon is the spiritual and temporal head of Veluna. The Canons are held to delay their own spiritual perfection so that they may minister to the needs of the people. The Canon is supported in the task of managing the country a council by ministers, but also has a council formed from the remaining nobles of the country whose fealty the Canon commands.

Veluna has at times been controlled by Keoland, though that land too recognizes the spiritual authority of the church.

 Published by Emperor’s Choice Games (the long-time stewards of Dave Hargrave’s legendary Arduin multiverse), the Arduin Trilogy Boxed Set – Harbinger Edition is a modern retro-clone/restoration release designed to preserve and expand upon the classic 1970s Arduin Grimoires.It serves as both a pristine reprint collection of Hargrave’s foundational books and a treasure-trove package loaded Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Here is a statistical write-up for the Wishmaster Djinn tailored for Sword of Cepheus (2D6 2D Sci-Fi / Old-School Fantasy RPG).The Djinn (Wishmaster)Born of fire in the dark void between light and darkness, the Djinn are malicious, immortal entities of pure reality-warping malice. A Djinn cannot act on its own accord to alter reality—it feeds on human desire and is bound to grant the wishes of Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

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Circuit Breaker continues as the Doctor and Martha close in on the final piece of the puzzle: The Kaleidoscope

All summer, the Fugitive Doctor has been returning a mysterious shopping list of items to their rightful place in time and space. It’s taken her from ancient Greece and medieval Italy to early Skaro and even stranger places. Its course has also taken her through audiobooks, comics, short stories and games. Now, as she prepares for her final mission, this year’s Doctor Who multimedia event Circuit Breaker enters the world of novels with The Kaleidoscope.

Currently head of the UNIT Black Archive, Osgood has recruited Martha Jones to assist the Doctor on her task. The debut novel by actor, playwright and script writer Jo Martin (aka the Fugitive Doctor itself) delves deep into the Doctor’s troubled past. The pair have set out to discover the secret of this seemingly ordinary kaleidoscope. But this is a children’s toy displaced in time and glowing with strange energy. But the answer will also bring them face to face with they mystery of the Doctor’s heavily edited memories…

 

Doctor Who: The Kaleidoscope. Cover by Lee Binding (c) Penguin Books Doctor Who: The Kaleidoscope

When memories lie, the truth can be fatal.

In the aftermath of an improbable mission, the Fugitive Doctor and Martha realise that something is interfering with their minds. Something that doesn’t want to be found.

Their investigation leads to a curious artefact in the British Museum: an apparently medieval toy known as the Kaleidoscope. But the object refuses to stay in one place, one time – or one identity. And when the Doctor is repeatedly mistaken for someone she’s never met, fragments of unfamiliar memories begin to surface.

Across the Earth, a hidden pattern emerges; evidence of a secret that someone has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal. As ancient enemies close in and innocent lives are put at risk, the Doctor learns the hard way that some truths were buried for a reason…

You can order your copy of The Kaleidoscope now, as a hardback or an ebook, from your preferred vendor with the links here.

The post Doctor Who: The Kaleidoscope – OUT NOW! appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 This d100 Random Martian Encounter Table blends planetary romance, dying gods, reaver bands, Terran imperialists, and ancient alien entities. Scattered throughout are unique Exemplar NPCs—key figures who can act as patrons, rivals, or bosses for a campaign on the Red Planet. This blog post picks right up from Adapting North West of Earth By C.L. Moore - Orbital Decay (MicroRed version)Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

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By Dylan Hyatt
Rampaging Snail
Shadowdark
Level 1

It’s Sunday and I try to watch a detective mystery on Sundays. SO you’re getting a detective adventure review.

In ‘The Swan Hollow Intrigue’, the adventuring party must solve the mystery of the murder of a monk from the Silverhelm Monasteey. The village’s two inns are close to open confrontation, and what has the haunted ruin of Tamwoth Manor to do with mystery?

This 52 page adventure presents a small murder mystery in a halfling village. It understands what a traditional D&D mystery is, its various parts and aspects, and it gets there in spite of leaning heavily on mechanics and exposition.  Lot of classic village/inn tropes are present to lean on.

Hey, charming cover! I don’t do bonus points, but if I did I’d give you one for it.

So, Brother Lothario, up at the monastery, comes in to town A LOT to flirt with the innkeepers daughter. One night he comes in to the village to flirt with her and then ends up dead in an alley. Lothario’s brother runs the other inn in town, and is calling for justice! He wants the barkeep/dad hung! He obviously did it! Mayor McCheese wants you to gather evidence. Turns out the barkeep/dad run out after Loathrio when chasing him out on the night in question. And had a big cudgel in his hand when he did it. And someone say him in the area and throwing the cudgel over a wall to get rid of it. Oh, and Lotharios brother seems to have hated him. And Lotharios throat was cut. And he stinks of fish. And he gave waitress Cocktease a note about an abandoned ruin nearby. And … you get the picture. In reality this is a Name of the Rose situation. Lothario stumbled upon the secret bookshelves, learned something about the abbey, and the abbot has the librarian hire a lowlife fisherman to kill Lothario. Also, the secret is that the last group of human monks in the monastery made a deal with the devil, literally, to stave of the plague from themselves and now the old abbot from 300 years ago is a ghoul in the basement. So, you know, pretty please? 

There are some classic elements at play here in the events going on. There’s a drinking contest in a bar, and a bar fight, and someone wants a drink paid for to talk, and there’s a chase scene and there’s a village mob. All of the things one would expect to see in a village inn. And this extends a bit in to the adventure as well, a minor haunting can be resolved by placing a child’s ragdoll on her childhood bed. You know ol Bryce is a big softie, so I’m down for all of these classic elements. The overall mystery investigation is not a bad one. A couple of things to discover and leads to follow up on. It’s not really complex in ANY way. It is supported by a coupe of events, like a village mob and a chase of a suspect through the village. Both of these are good in concept to add, just handled rather poorly in execution.

Alas, the implementation of all of this is not great. If it WERE great then it would simply be Yet Another Mystery adventure.

There’s A LOT of text here for such a simple adventure. There is a long background, most of which is unneeded. There are long stretches of read-aloud, in italics. Read-aloud should never be long and italics should never be long. Long read-aloud causes players to loose focus and pull out their phones. They don’t pay attention. Long italics is hard to read, cognitively. Together they are a nightmare for both the DM and players. 

There are long bouts of exposition in here, everywhere. A lot of explaining and detail that just s not relevant to what’s going on. Well, I mean, it is, but only in a tangential way. You want to include things that are directly related to the adventure, to play at the table. More is not better. That shit, that trivia, it gets in the way of the DM finding the information they need to run the adventure. Further, instead of including that shit and spending time on it you COULD be making the core of the adventure, the actual things relevant to play at the table, better. The same goes for mechanics. We’ve got mechanics for a bar fight, mechanics for drinking contests, mechanics for a chase scene, mechanics for … and, yes, this is to be expected to some extent. But there is an appropriate level of detail to mechanics. You don’t want to drone on and on and on and be prescriptive about them. You’re not in charge of the game. You don’t know the specifics of the table. You want to give the DM some guidelines and let them run the thing. 

There is, I think, often great confusion about details vs specifics. In this context detail is bad. It is trivia. It explains why’s or how’s that we don’t need to know, or almost certainly don’t need to know. Specificity, though, are those things that inspire us to greatness in running the game. It is terse, meaning it doesn’t get in the way of scanning an adventure and it doesn’t require a long pause to read while in the midst of running a game. It is the sort of thing that once you read it it stays with you. You grok it immediately. If a picture is worth a thousand words then one well written specific sentence is worth more than a page of details. It communicates exactly the vibe the DM should be going for. 

In this adventure there is a wandering traveller table for one of the inns. One of the entries is for a Quack selling (dubious) portion of healing. That’s the entry on the table. That (dubious) in parens tells us a lot. There’s a decent sized paragraph expanding upon this one liner, which adds little of value except perhaps “Vagdoran” is his name and he’s got a wooden case with six vials in it and that by the time the party discovers the scam he’ll be far away. Not nearly enough snake oil in D&D games, ya know? Anyway, we’ve got something specific here. Still far too long for what it is, but this in the same neighborhood. Compared with “generic pilgrims” or “generic travelling merchants” it’s the spice of life.This is why something like those quick adjectives/adverbs used to describe NPCs hit so well. And it’s why putting in a long section of italics read-aloud for each NPC that is supposed to communicate their personality fails. I need to know Kylo Rens personality in half a second, not struggle through a bunch of second person dialog in italics. I get that they both get us to the same place, but one is much more effective during gameplay.

Mechanically the thing falls down a bit also. In one place we need to make a DC check to tell the innkeeps wife is not being exactly honest with us. However, with regards to the innkeep proper, there is no such opportunity to detect his honesty/dishonesty. I’m not arguing for either case to be correct, but noting that the inconsistency here is the issue. Are we rolling for this shit or not? And this is not an isolated example. There might be another example with the ghost of a child, that I mentioned earlier. We’ve got some specific (convoluted) say a prayer/perform a rite shit that is detailed, and noted about replacing a specific doll on her bed. Rather than the specifics of a rite that the party has absolutely no fucking chance of figuring out, all that mechanical detail can be removed with just some advice to let a party that seems to be doing the right thing/making an effort succeed. (Hmmm, does a Bless need to be sincere, or can you just Constantine the thing?)

The dungeon, proper, is quite small. Just a few rooms with a few undead, and, in fact, may not actually be a part of the adventure. Do you go underneath and kill the old abbot/ghoul? Well, maybe. If things play out the right way I guess so. So, right to handle it as a kind of an aside but the detail, again, gets in the way of anything memorable happening. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is the first six pages so you get to see miles of backstory. The preview should show us some of the actual adventure text so we, as potential buyers and DMs, can judge if the writing is something we can hack or not.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/574699/the-swan-hollow-intrigue?1892600

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 The cult of Set thrives on secrecy, dark sorcery, ancient poisons, and serpentine monsters. Designed specifically for the SIEGE Engine (Castles & Crusades), these tables flesh out encounters, cultist factions, foul beasts, and ophidian relics for desert temples, tomb hexcrawls, or urban cult dens. This blog post picks up from D100 Servants of Set & Serpents Plus Treasures &Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Tom Baker’s Sir Sherlock returns in Holmes’ most… cinematic outing yet

 

Tom Baker will return for another adventure as the aging Sherlock Holmes in the audio series from AUK Studios. Sir Sherlock: The Parting Shot once again co-stars his former Doctor Who co-star John Leeson. The K9 actor returns as Sir Sherlock’s unshakable companion, Dr. Watson.

Gary Hopkins provides the script for The Parting Shot, having written the series’ first story, The Red Letter Day. Notably, Hopkins previously dramatised four classic stories for the Granada TV series starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke,

But this time, the roaring 1920s push our Victorian heroes into new territory – a film set!

Sir Sherlock: The Parting Shot is now live on Kickstarter, where fans can pre-order the project here. Chinbeard Books are also publishing an official novelisation, available to pre-order in paperback and hardback. Author Kenton Hall has adapted the novelisation from Gary Hopkins’ original script.

 

The response to the first two Sir Sherlock stories has already changed plans for The Parting Shot to be the finale

The Parting Shot is not just a cinematic pun. It’s also a reference to the original plan for the final Sir Sherlock release to end with this release. However, AUK Studios now say that the response from fans has been so incredible that production plans have changed.

As Gary Hopkins explains: “The Parting Shot was originally the third of only three audio plays planned for the run, until it became apparent that the series could continue for a little longer. It therefore represents an ending and a beginning for Sherlock Holmes, in a story featuring some faces both old and new.”

Sherlock Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was never shy of bringing the latest in crime-solving technology into his stories. “It therefore made sense, as the Great Detective was now at work in the 1920s, that Holmes and Watson should find themselves investigating a crime linked to the fledgling film industry!” continues Hopkins, who calls the juxtaposition of Holmes’ Victorian origins with slightly more modern technology “part of the fun.

“Although Conan Doyle lived long enough to see in the age of the ‘talkies’, he never actually incorporated moving pictures into his Holmes stories, but I dare say he’d have got there eventually.”

 

Fellow Doctor Who star Sophie Aldred joins Tom Baker and John Leeson for the new adventure

Another Doctor Who star joining the iconic duo of Tom Baker MBE and John Leeson in Sir Sherlock: The Parting Shot is Sophie Aldred as the grand and ice-cool Lady Vanadia Vallance. Famous for her role as the Doctor’s companion Ace, her link to Baker and Leeson “didn’t go unmissed!”

Sophie Aldred says: “When I was asked to join such an illustrious cast in such a soon-to-be classic series, I couldn’t believe my luck. Such fun, such a lovely part and such a talented group of actors. What could be better?!”

Cast regulars Katy Ashworth and Nicholas Rowe (Young Sherlock Holmes, Mr Holmes) return as Emily Lestrade and Norton, respectively, with the late Norman Eshley appearing posthumously as Lord Lestrade. Wink Taylor (Ivor Novello, Alfred Hitchock) and Conrad Westmaas (Freddie Valance) round out the cast. Meanwhile, even producer/director Barnaby Eaton-Jones moonlights in a voice role.

“There’s a cinematic flavour to this new adventure, in setting and in denouement,” says Eaton-Jones. “It’s fun to hear a very young Alfred Hitchcock and a very young Ivor Novello (both played by Wink Taylor) sparring with each other.”

 

Sir Sherlock: The Parting Shot (c) AUK Studios Sir Sherlock: The Parting Shot

Now that Sir Sherlock and Doctor Watson have returned to 221B Baker Street, there has been renewed interest in their stories by the most modern of entertainments: the motion picture.

Whilst visiting the set of a film, Watson witnesses what appears to be a tragic accident.
>Holmes, Watson, Norton and Sergeant Emily Lestrade are drawn into the world of the movies to discover that show business is, indeed, like no business they know.

Should they keep the culprit from the gallows? What does the case have to do with a villain from their past? And who will still be standing when the credits roll?

The post Tom Baker’s Parting Shot – Coming Soon appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 Subsector Sourcebook: Mazu is a setting expansion published by Independence Games for their sci-fi 2D6 / Cepheus Engine space opera universe (Earth Sector / Clement Sector).Overview & Setting ContextSubsector Placement: Subsector F of Earth Sector. It borders Gansu ("The Chinese Gate"), frontier subsectors along the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Thanks to Prismatic Wasteland's post, I was made aware of a blogwagon in the GLoGosphere about naming. I am not a GloGger, but that post got me thinking about the posts I have written about naming:

In 2021, I wrote a post giving my thoughts "On Fantasy Naming."

In 2023, I made some "Observations on Science Fiction Names."

In 2025, I advocated following Tolkien's practice and engaging in strategic translation.

In 2018, I presented this potentially handy Sword & Planet Name Generator.

In 2015, I discussed cultural naming practices in the Strange Stars universe.

 Adapting Gary Gygax’s D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth into Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) transforms a high-level AD&D dungeon crawl into a logistical, domain-scale Underworld campaign. While AD&D assumes high-level heroes teleporting or slogging through grid squares, ACKS II gives you explicit mechanics for supply lines, Underworld exploration turns, domainNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0