Market Research for Wargames, RPGs, and Tabletop Games

Greg Costikyan shares a great example of the market-research sophistication of wargame development at its height in his elegy, “A Farewell to Hexes”: Perhaps Strategy & Tactics’ most important innovation, however, was its feedback system. Using primitive Burroughs, later IBM, minicomputers, Dunnigan put together a highly sophisticated system to obtain marketing information from his customers. In every issue of the magazine, there was a response card, with 96 numbered blanks. At the back of the magazine were a series of questions, to which a reader could respond by entering a […]
Best Delayed Plans color cover ideas

RPG Session Prep Techniques

DMs and GMs have a lot of different ways they can prep for role-playing sessions, as I’ve learnt over the past three years: These days I’m still using the core of the Lazy DM outline, supplemented by the other techniques. Sometimes I find switching prep techniques just helps be to me more creative and motivates me to actually do some prep! Which, of course, is what I should be doing now! Updates: These essays are now collected in my free ebook, Best-Delayed Plans. Post updated 2022-04-03 with link to threat […]
Viking people https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/a-loving-male-and-female-viking-couple-in-an-outdoor-setting-gm1232896682-362265696

Signaling Gender in 5e Fantasy Names

I analyzed the spellings of 422 first names from the Player’s Handbook: there were 219 male names and 203 female names. Half of the female names ended in –a, and none of the male names did so (pity players named Joshua, Dana, and Dakota). Frequency of the top 7 endings of female names (note: these are letters, not sounds)— And for male names— Here’s the likelihood a name is male or female based on its final sound: Keep these tendencies in mind when naming your own 5e characters. You can […]
Castle of Estaing

PbtA Moves for City and Village Encounters

TLDR: Compendium of 20 Settlement Moves for PbtA Games Many PbtA adventure starters and scenarios have location-specific moves. I particularly like how in Stonetop there is this move when you are in the town of Marshedge: When you go unwary into the bustle of Edgemarket or the crowded streets of Dropoff, roll +WIS: on a 10+, you spot the pickpocket coming or catch them in the act; on a 7-9, they make off with only trifles (1d4 uses of Supplies, a purse of coppers, a skin of whiskey, etc.); on […]
Narrative Line in TTRPGs -- see body of article for text

Drawing the Line: Shared Narration in TTRPGs

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 […]
dungeon with two passages

Alternatives to Dungeon World

Dungeon World helped popularize Powered by the Apocalypse games by capitalizing on players’ familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons. Enough so that it is sometimes used as a reference point by gamers who ask, “Can you recommend a game like Dungeon World but…?” Here are some common answers. Next-Generation Fantasy PbtA OSR For a comparison of the more popular systems, see Table Comparing Dungeon World to 5 Hacks. Other Styles of Play Other Settings Other PbtA Games Thanks to the Dungeon World Discord community for the many suggestions over the years. […]
3 dice underwater

Probabilities of 2d6 Compared to d6 Dice Pools

PbtA games (Powered by the Apocalypse) are sometimes summarized as 2d6 games, due to the 2d6+stat dice mechanic popularized by Apocalypse World: a 10+ is an unmitigated success, a 7-9 is a mixed success, and a 6- (6 or less) is a failure. But some PbtA games use other dice mechanics.* I was particularly fascinated by the action rolls of Blades in the Dark, which use dice pools where only the highest die is considered: “They might succeed at their action without any consequences (on a 6), or they might succeed […]
Knabo diras "La realo ne cxiam plenumas niajn revojn."

Addictive Technology to Teach You a Language

Tl;dr: Don’t pay for a Duolingo subscription. Much of the free technology that we interact with strives to build behavioral addiction primarily to show us advertising. The software developers of Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok all concentrate on increasing utilization of their respective apps, often using cognitive science against us (check out this review of Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked for more). So it is nice to use an app whose developers are primarily trying to help us achieve our educational goals (though, […]
5 card hand of poker (Royal Flush, hearts), with poker chips

Double Draw: Rules for a 5-Card Draw Variant

Synopsis: “Double Draw” is a variant of 5-card draw where after the second round of bidding, each remaining player may discard and take up to two additional cards, then bid again. Everyone who wants to play first pays to the pot an agreed-upon ante (typically one or two of the lowest-valued chips). The dealer shuffles and deals each player 5 cards, face down. First betting round – Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, bidding proceeds clockwise. Prior to any bet being placed, initial players can “check”, […]
Dungeons & Dragons Player Handbook cover

The Phonotactics of 5e Character Names

As a conlanger, I’ve been curious about the phonotactics of fantasy names for the player characters in D&D 5e. My assumption is that these names are designed to be vanilla, easy-to-pronounce names, while conveying a bit about character and setting. As someone who overengineers names, I wanted to assess the names I generate against the mainstream standard. The Sample The Player’s Handbook (PHB, shown above) has lists of suggested names for dwarves, elves, halfings, humans, dragonborn, gnomes, half-orcs, and tieflings. For humans, there are lists of names by eight of […]
Hard-Knock World cover

Introducing Hard-Knock World

One of the many things I love about Homebrew World and similar fantasy PbtA games (Powered by the Apocalypse inspired) is their druid’s ability to spend time studying a creature and then subsequently becoming able to shapeshift into the form of that creature. My player who was a druid would go out of her way during adventures to master new animal forms that she would be able to turn into. For instance, one evening in a swamp, while the wizard was studying his spellbook, the druid spent time in quiet […]
2 people wearing gas masks

Links for Designing PbtA TTRPGs

If you are interested in designing a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) tabletop roleplaying game: Happy designing! Originally published 03/21/21. Revised to remove a reference to an older version of Vincent Baker’s series of blog posts and to include a reference to the Dungeon World Patch Kit. Updated 10/22/2022 with links to 2d6 probabilities and Uncommon World. Updated 10/12/2023 with links to new posts here. Photo by Ana Itonishvili on Unsplash.
German armor and chain mail, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

Armor in Literature and Movies

I’m thinking again about armor hacks for RPG rules. Fantasy TTRPGs over-obsess about armor, to my mind. Thinking about all the swords & sorcery and fantasy that I read, the only narratively interesting scenes about armor that spring to mind come from The Lord of the Rings: I asked around for other suggestions: What interesting fictional scenes with armor can you think of? Let me know on Mastodon. Image credit: Richard Mortel, copyright under the Creative Commons Attribution license.