QuasiWizard

Probably a year or two ago I read a blog post from outside the DnD-sphere, Reality has a surprising amount of detail . It stuck with me all this time, and eventually the little worm in my brain that this post spawned crawled and ate its way through my neatly compartmentalized mind into my DnD brain. I haven't reread the article since my first reading, but the title is what really stuck with me. The worm has digested this idea, and the result is a little nugget of an idea I want to expand upon here. The blog post talks first about how constructing a set of wooden steps, in a precise manner, is actually quite difficult. Figuring out how the pieces of wood should be cut, fit together, and secured take some planning and precision. This is all to make stairs that simply fit together. Bearing weight is another manner. The OSR is all about having a "realistic" world - one that operates on consistent internal logic, even with fantastical elements. That means if you really wanted

Just a quick explanation of an OSR dungeon design principle for those unfamiliar. This is maybe not a well-touted idea, but I've been brewing on this idea lately. Of course, this is all centered around how I want to play, run... etc... Take with coarse grained salt if you think your goals are different. If you've got a dungeon, you should have some empty rooms that don't.… do anything. As in, there is nothing 'to do' in the room. I have been brewing this idea based on what Luke Gearing said in his interview on the "Into the Megadungeon" podcast. I'll just rehash what Luke conveyed in my listening: Empty rooms provide a place to rest (my words) Empty rooms give space to a dungeon so that you don't die at every turn Empty rooms are tactically important for managing encounters, especially in conjunction with loops   Luke gave an easy example of how to utilize empty rooms: You pass through some empty rooms, and eventually encounter a big room with a

 I want to explain a philosophy for adventure design I have developed on, I hope: thinking small. Honey I Shrunk the Adventure! Many good adventures give lots of play out of small packages. This is not a new idea. The 3 hex campaign start and 5 room dungeon are known for giving creativity via constraints (a well-touted idea). Brevity in the adventure text is also a much-loved and effective way to give creativity through vagueries. I see these as a part of a core rule of thumb: do more with less. I think this is a great design philosophy. I would like to push it a bit further, and to a potentially new aspect of the rule of thumb, that deserves just as much attention. Before, I have written a  scenario premise , which you can get a whole session out of (in most cases), and I've mentioned before having a cool idea . I want to propose a design philosophy: have the core danger of a setting fit into a single coherent description, and a summary of an adventure location fit into a paragrap