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Rhetorical Questions for Dungeons

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Understand how challenges and rewards interact with room layout. A deathtrap in a chokepoint of the dungeon makes dealing with the trap necessary for progress. Is this a crucial obstacle or a permanent hindrance? Loops allow the party to approach a challenge from a different angle. What might be in the room that needs a new perspective? Branches allow interchangeable exploration of rooms. Should the room contents be interchangeable? Interconnectivity promotes exploration and keeps players hooked. Locks and keys (not necessarily literal) are enticing as they show you rooms, implicitly or explicitly. What might be worth locking up? NPCs may give information about the dungeon - what information might be smart to give? Fragmented items gives hints to another part. What is so dangerous it needed breaking? Secrets are tweaked by their degree of concealment, but hints don't give answers. A gap in a map suggests a hidden room, but only suggests. When should a gap hide a secret? Knowing the...
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Alignment, contextualized.

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 "Before the game begins it is not only necessary to select a role, but it is also necessary to determine what stance the character will take - Law, Neutrality, or Chaos." (Book I)    What stance will your character take? Law, Neutrality, or Chaos? What kind of question is that?   Alignment. Its common uses: player prescription for character morality descriptor of a character's personality Trap mechanics (e.g. Nightwick Abbey) Language choice Its issues too limited of a moral descriptor too abstract/interpretable can be meta-gamed by objecting of what "REALLY" is lawful or something not actually descriptive of anything concrete My proposal Have a setting with clear opposing organizational sides, and only describe alignment in terms of the organizations In Times that Fry Men's Souls , describe the characters as British- or American-aligned or neutral In Nightwick Abbey, make it clear you're working to reclaim the abbey to its original purpose, simply loot...
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12 Hexes

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 This could be a fun holiday tradition, the 12 hexes of Christmas. That would be fun. That's not exactly what I did, but you are free to your own interpretations.   I sat down and wrote 12 hexes with pen and paper. Here they are, all typed up. For use with Troika! or Vaults of Vaarn, or for anything you like. 1-6 are in one column, 7-12 in the next. I might do more. This is incomplete, a game of fill in the blank, and you get to place the blanks where you think they go.   1. A pocket of forest holds the same amount of life as the miles of desert surrounding it. There are signs of past civilization - abandoned homes and fire pits. A large sinkhole contains a giant blind porcupine and a heavy chest. The chest contains an egg-sized lump of priceless metal - recognizable only by a blacksmith or machinist of high skill. 2. The desert slopes down into a canyon of a rushing river. Traveling along the riverbed invites attacks from the local raiders and bandits. Signs of scuffles ...
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Open invitation to my IRC server

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 I have spun up an IRC server, for fun. If you want to try it out, visit  my web interface  for a temporary glance, or download an IRC client of your choice (e.g., hexchat ). You can connect to quajzen.page port 6697 (TLS).  Email me  for concerns logging on (or find me on discord).   If you are unfamiliar with IRC, it's Discord from the 90's, but a protocol (chat room structure) and not a centrally managed app. That means when you log into my server, its entirely run by me and not a company. All server maintenance, server moderation is up to me! That means if the server ends up busy, you may have to wait on me or my appointed moderators to respond. Like a Discord server, I suppose. On the other hand, I do solemnly swear not to scrape your data.  IRC has a remarkably similar structure to discord (huh! funny...). In each server, there are individual text channels (but no voice channels). It's less feature-ful than discord (though the web client handles ...
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Nightwick Abbey, several months in

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 I have been running  Nightwick Abbey  for a few months now. It's been a journey, in out-of-game logistics and in-game exploration. I'm here to spill the beans, beyond  my last post Logistics  I am running this game at my local library.  Beyond that last post, here's how it's gone.  I am traveling a lot this fall for school, and can thus offer fewer sessions. I've had to make adjustments to various aspects of campaign procedure. I waived two months of upkeep since there are a cumulative two months without a session. I have struggled to find players when most of my recruitment is through my grad department and the semester gets busier. I am considering moving the game from the library to a game shop for easier recruitment. The Dungeon  I also feel the weight of procedure in this game now. Map calling needs expediting, combat needs speeding up, and something more exciting than slow attrition would be nice every once in a while. A "big break" would b...
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How I have been week-to-week running a library game

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 I have been running a public library game of Nightwick Abbey, this summer, and it's been a lot of fun. I'm going to tell you how to make your public library game a success! If you want more details about my game in particular, check out the campaign wiki  for it.  The Dungeon First off, choose a megadungeon. I've been using a prewritten one, which is mostly a great help. Check what system it requires, note any conversion that has to be done, and take stock of all the materials included (map, bestiary, lore bits, etc.). I recommend taking room descriptions and  somehow  getting them into an editable format (not pdf). This will ease the restocking process. I have been writing down in a notebook all room restocks, and have risked losing track of room contents several times. This is annoying. Don't do this. Take the time to copy everything out of the pdf.   Megadungeon creators! I would love plaintext versions of all your documents for the above reason. I don'...
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Something to Entertain You, Pt. 3

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 Books: Buddhism Books: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind Everyday Zen: Love and Work Each Moment is the Universe To Meet the True Dragon Beyond Thinking Realizing Genjokoan The rest:   Teatro Grottesco The Hellbound Heart Jung: A Graphic Guide   A minor haiku collection Some Flannery O'Connor stories, scattered TBR: Current Read: Frankenstein     La Morte D'Arthur  Reread some Gene Wolfe (did not finish The Wizard Knight , would love to)   Let me take a minute and gush about Frankenstein. I love it. I think it is beautiful only halfway through. I love the emotional, poignant prose as a man takes retrospect on his sins against nature. I love the joy and stinging profundity of a newborn monster as he discovers himself profoundly human then rejected by anything else that might call itself such. The prose and story is so simple, but so penetrating. Its rich first-person narrative is incredibly moving. Reread this tired high school assignment and question your hu...
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