rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ring52 Monsters
Visit site Feed Incoming links Search this blog
On the ring since 2026-04-24
Latest activity 17mo ago
326 posts
Older posts · Back to profile
Earlier
-
Falling far enough to cause harm is a common-enough event in these games. Pit traps. Ten feet deep. Twenty. Spikes at the bottom. Snakes at the bottom. Previous unlucky...
-
Undead feature frequently in the D&D-ish realm of TTRPGs, with good reasons. They don’t have moms or babies – at least in their undead incarnation – so it’s easier to kill them...
-
In the wild grasslands west of the walking city of Boru Dzeh, the death’s eye watches and the wind and earth sing in strange tones. These are the Ivory Flag Hills. She is the...
-
Story and narrative can be a useful part of a D&D-ish game, under the right circumstances. What those mean, exactly, can vary a bit from table to table. I’m using them...
-
Having written on trolls already, explorations turn to the troll-adjacent. In addition to stoneskippers, the eager troll-hunter can expect to find other strange,...
-
An insistent question arises in the back of the mind, and so we explore. Following a creature’s death, it rises as an umble fungus zombie. How far will it travel before...
-
Do your players love rolling plastic polyhedra? Obviously. More dice, more fun! The problem, of course, is when they get so excited to roll so many dice and get such high...
-
In the wild grasslands west of the walking city of Boru Dzeh, the death’s eye watches and the wind and earth sing in strange tones. These are the Ivory Flag Hills. A great clan...
-
If magic is an expression of the impossible, a manifestation of Chaos brought under control, wild energies shaped by the will and skill and life of the wizard, what business...
-
It happens as part of the game, this hobby where we get together and share time week after week. Life has other plans, and a player steps away. We retire the character, the...
-
In the wild grasslands west of the walking city of Boru Dzeh, the death’s eye watches and the wind and earth sing in strange tones. These are the Ivory Flag Hills. Tallgrass...
-
Okay, so you’ve got a party member infested with umble fungus. And now, as occasionally happens in this line of work, they’re dead. You’ve rummaged through their pockets and...
-
“That poor feller, we found ‘im too deep down, stumblin’ through some dank corridor. Just ain’t makin’ much sense, nosir, askin’ the way back out. Fraid he weren’t never gonna...
-
There’s a thing that often happens with rules: you run into odd situations that require clarification. I had a thought the other day: what’s the best option when rolling up a...
-
Monsters. Not born, but made. The most satisfying make themselves. This time, it’s the ghoul. Foul, terrible things. Often undead, but not always. Eaters of the dead. The human...
-
To follow up on my last post, about random encounters, here’s a little deeper digging on how dice-dropping shifts probabilities when we allow for adjustments. This is all using...
-
What’s the purpose of random encounters? Depends on you and your situation, I guess. For me, a few related ideas. Random encounters impose a clock on exploration, particularly...
-
Yet more exploration of what simple adjustments can do for our dice. With graphs! “Dropping” dice is a well-worn means of skewing distributions, sliding them into...
-
Mechanics month continues, apparently. Filched with gratitude from Goblin Punch. First off: I just took Arnold’s idea and put it on the table. No real changes, except what he’s...
-
I really didn’t plan for January to be “let’s explore game mechanics!” month, but here we are, I guess? Sometimes an idea keeps poking, and the only way to escape the...
-
We have fictional worlds; let’s have fictional languages. It doesn’t require building up your own conlang, or even having specific words, though that’s fine if you’re into it....
-
I want more nuance in the landscape of languages in my fantasy TTRPG. After reading through the 2e book for The Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City, I’m excited to pluck...
-
W.F. Smith over at Prismatic Wasteland is putting out a call for those unfinished analog games you’ve all got gathering dust bunnies under the bed. Whether you’re looking for...
-
Consider another use case for the exploding die: trap danger. This is hypothetical, untested, and I can’t wait to give it a try. Let’s continue on past the first stages of the...
-
If we’re going to introduce exploding dice to our array for gaming tools, we’d best have some potential plans for bringing the mechanic into play. First plan: bombs. What PC...
-
And that’s it for 2024’s “keep doing stuff” effort. It was strange, and the end result is, I think, more of a curiosity than anything else. It does have good ideas scattered...
-
It’s that time of year, with fireworks and cork-popping and excitement, so why not explore the joys of exploding dice? For all the simplicity of rolling little numbered...
-
Blutlag Legends say that Blutlag was once a skilled warrior, one whose exploits on the battlefields of the icy Farnorth were the inspiration for songs to strike fear into the...
-
Who wants a magical, fantastic Swiss Army knife? I do! Make it look like something innocuous – a wooden figurine, a cracked spyglass, a half of a baguette – and be sure to...
-
Pronka’s Fine Handaxe Crafted with exquisite care by Pronka themself over two centuries ago, each of these rare weapons features a well-honed and balanced head set in an...