Category Archives: Stonetop

Stonetop was first released as a village playbook for Dungeon World 10 years ago yesterday. It’s come a long way since then, and I keep discovering new things I love about it. Stonetop has the best system of magic items I’ve used in a tabletop roleplaying game, with unique items, shared with players as cards or inserts, which require taking action to unlock custom powers. Minor and Major Arcana Here are examples of a card for a minor arcanum (front and back) and a major arcanum. Note some major arcana […]

Stonetop consists of two books, the second of which is unique in RPGs, to my knowledge. As I wrote in my review of Stonetop: Book I, Stonetop, has the rules, including probably the best fantasy PbtA GMing advice out there…. Book II, The Wider World and Other Wonders, is an almanac of locales and creatures, full of unique beasts and places, but presented in a way so as to be immediately useful to the GM. I just recently read an RPG that spent pages discussing a race, their culture and outlook, reading like an […]

During its beta, I ran Stonetop pretty much Rules As Being Written, though we didn’t always update to the latest version.  As I wrote in my review of Stonetop, “My hacks to the system were minimal: integrating a Flashback move to keep things advancing, and experimenting with different forms of prep (threat maps, Monster of the Week countdowns).” More often I brought in material that Jeremy Strandberg, Stonetop’s author, and Jason Lutes, his publisher, had created elsewhere. Flashback For my Dungeon World campaign, I had hacked together this move: Flashback When you propose that you took some previously undeclared action in the […]

When preparing to run a PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) TTRPG, keep in mind how experience is gained. Many PbtA games have an End of Session move that awards experience points. Make sure you’re giving players chances during the session that align with this move! Here is the End of Session move in Dungeon World: When you reach the end of a session, choose one of your bonds that you feel is resolved (completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise). Ask the player of the character you have the bond […]

How some RPGs get coins wrong: they matter a lot until they matter not at all. It’s fun to play until your PCs are rich, but it’s even more fun to be able to buy things with those riches. Absorbing Excess Wealth At early levels, PCs lack coin and equipment, and they spend whatever coin they get on gearing up. Then eventually the coin no longer matters. There aren’t enough weapons, gear, luxury items or magic items to buy. You’ll know you’ve hit that point in 5e when PCs are […]

Because Stonetop wants you to zoom out and see the passage of time, and because players are encouraged to co-create the village and its traditions, I’d often prep questions for my players to think about prior to the session. Initially, I’d send these out with a reminder for our biweekly game. My warmup questions were always to encourage my players to do some world building. Not all players are comfortable improvising in play. So then my players asked to get the questions the day before, so they would have some […]

One of the things I love about Stonetop is its anti-canon nature, procedurally generating situations, which players are then encouraged to help flesh out. There’s lore, but much of the lore is player generated, meaning it will differ from table to table and that players rarely have to worry about contradicting established canon. Instead of tales from a book think of it as tales told around a fire, changing with each telling. The Ustrina Beneath Gordin’s Delve Here’s a good example of the power of this approach. One session my […]

Most RPGs require players to carefully track the items they carry. For instance, in 5e, you track how many pounds each item weighs, and the total weight you can carry is 15 pounds times your Strength score: for example, with a Strength of 10 you can carry 150 pounds (!). While 5e doesn’t require you to specify where your items are (e.g., your hands, your pack, your belt, etc.), anti-hammerspace systems require you to specify such details. Such detailed inventory and gear systems are simulationist. As a result of such […]

Tl;dr: If you enjoy fantasy RPGs, buy Stonetop! Excellent GM advice, collaborative worldbuilding, and easy to improv. The beta materials are copious (over 200,000 words!), beautifully illustrated, and available to backers now. Over two years ago, in December, 2020, I promised Jeremy Strandberg that if he sent me the beta-test materials for Stonetop, I’d play at least three sessions of his system and give him feedback. We ended up playing 41 sessions—the system is that much fun! And while the printed books haven’t gone to press yet, that’s a testament […]

After our Microscope worldbuilding, and before our first actual session of Impulse Drive, I ran a Session Zero based primarily on Stonetop’s Introductions procedure. Stonetop is a hearth fantasy PbtA by Jeremy Strandberg (you can back it here, for a limited time). Each playbook has two customized sets of questions: one set for the player to answer about NPCs and one set for the player as PC to pose to the other PCs. Here’s the process for the Ranger— Stonetop is about adventuring for the sake of protecting and growing […]

One of the great bits of tech from Apocalypse World 2e is the threat map, which provides a concise summary of campaign prep. You can adapt it for other systems as well, if your play centers on a holding or home base. Here’s an example from last year for my Stonetop campaign: D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker describe the process of using threat maps as follows: List the players’ characters in the center circle. As you name NPCs, place them on the map around the PCs, according to what […]

The Line separates what the GM narrates vs. what the player narrates. In D&D, the player narrates their backstory and their current activity; the DM narrates everything else. Of course, even some DMs in 5e shift the Line a little – “You killed it! Describe your final blow and its death throes!” On the other extreme, take One Shot World by Yochai Gal. The players and GMs collaboratively develop the world. “Set out a blank sheet of paper and ask the player who is the most well-traveled to draw a […]