Here’s some notes on GMing and helpful rollable tables to help with GMing.
https://www.paperspencils.com/two-week-megadungeon/
Encounter design https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/encounter-checklist
https://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2021/02/sticky-goblins.html?m=1
https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/dungeon/ OR https://dungen.app/dungen/
TODO: Read this again!
https://www.paperspencils.com/structuring-encounter-tables-amended-restated/
Encounter Table
¶Kobold Territory
¶Boneboy Territory
¶Wrinkle for Intelligent Creatures
¶Wrinkle for Animal Creatures
¶https://www.paperspencils.com/no-prep-social-encounters/
http://dungeon.totalpartykill.ca/
¶http://into-the-dark-rpg.blogspot.com/2016/07/bryce-lynchs-adventure-design-tips.html?m=1
The trail of stone and sorrow, tiny sandbox
https://knightowlpublishing.com/2018/07/01/13-adventures-for-your-first-dd-night/
Notes from The Monster Overhaul by Skerples
A game consisting entirely of randomly generated locations, plots, and monsters will feel thin and meaningless. Random generation can supplement a GM’s plans, and provide a source of surprise and wonder, but it cannot entirely replace planning.
The most boring use of a random encounter is resource depletion, ritualistically filling time between planned events. The PCs travel between a safe place and an interesting destination. The GM rolls a few dice, consults a table, introduces 1d6 Wolves. The Wolves attack immediately and fight to the death. The PCs, unless they make some truly appalling mistakes, do not risk death or even serious inconvenience. The only interesting choice is whether to use limited spells or abilities now, or save them for a later encounter. If there is no later encounter, the choice is meaningless. The game, or at least what the players consider the game, is paused for the duration.
Alternatively, the GM rolls an Ancient Red Dragon, who casually vaporizes the party and flies away without any interaction.
Random encounters can introduce time pressure. Don’t tarry on the roads, and don’t spend too long searching this dungeon vault, or the horrible things gathering in the darkness will spring and devour you.
Moving cautiously is slower, but gives the PCs a chance to react to an encounter’s Omen. Moving quickly means fewer encounters, and more chance of both sides being surprised, but less control over what the PCs encounter and how they can react to it.
Random encounters can convey details about a setting that would be instantly forgotten if presented via a GM monologue. What sort of world is this? Who lives here? What do they do?
A random encounter can provide allies or unexpected tools to solve other problems. If the PCs encounter signs of a Medusa, they might return later to bargain for the Medusa’s aid.
Players also like to speculate. “Could that Dragon be the mastermind behind the caravan ambush?” “Possibly,” says the GM, adding a note.
A fair fight is a fight you’ve already lost. Predators don’t fight fair. Even if the prey knows it is being hunted, the killing blow tends to be sudden; a snapped neck, a torn throat, a smashed skull. A long combat gives an opponent a chance to act.
Large herbivores, who can afford missing a few meals and rarely need to sprint, are far more willing to throw their full weight at a comparatively fragile threat.
Most conventional creatures won’t attack humans unless the creature is:
Intraspecies fights to the death are relatively rare in nature. The risk of permanent injury and a Pyrrhic victory is too high. For most species, non-predatory combat escalates as follows:
To a goat, a human stands in a two-legged head- smashing fight posture, ready for a brawl at any moment. Cats and owls wiggle their heads to lock onto prey; stick insects wiggle to imitate a leaf blown by the wind; humans wiggle for joy. Exposed teeth and eye contact can be signs of aggression, confusion, or submission. Intuition may lead to disastrous results.
Visit zoos. Watch unedited wildlife videos. Touch grass. Stare at the side of a fish. Flip over rocks. Dig your fingers into the soil. Get a cheap microscope. Practice describing the texture of the world. Not the cartoon version, not the silhouette, not the narrative constructed by a documentary crew.
A group has a significant advantage over a lone creature. Each round, the lone creature can do one thing; its opponents can do many things and can coordinate their actions. This imbalance in the action economy can lead to brief and unsatisfying combat.
Ways to manipulate the action economy include:
GMs should feel free to tweak how some monsters interact with the action economy.
Mythology was not written for RPG purposes. Creatures have always been created and adapted for specific reasons, but until very recently those reasons did not include, “What happens if some imaginary people in a collective story framework bolted to a random number generator encounter this monster?”
The entries in this book try to balance tradition, interest, utility at the table, and page space. Mechanically similar creatures are lumped together. Complex or contradictory tales are distilled to a clear and immediately accessible set of rules and prompts. Some monsters are gendered by tradition, but this can safely be ignored by a GM.
No bestiary can contain an “authentic” version of a creature because no such version exists. Elephants exist; anything humans have to say about elephants is a pale and distorted reflection of reality, told at a particular time for a particular reason. The version created during an RPG session is as authentic and as meaningful as any other version. Don’t be afraid to change or invert elements. You are participating in an ancient tradition.
Consider making some monsters unique: a Medusa vs. the Medusa. This might be it; the only one, the legendary example, the creature that spawns the original tale. Or consider generating monsters in pairs; the monster the players encounter, and their unseen rival, ally, spouse, or progenitor.
Common creatures should have an influence on the local area, and be influenced by it. They should feel like part of the world. PCs and NPCs should possess practical knowledge, countermeasures and fragments of plausible legends.
When describing creatures, especially unusual or unnatural ones, consider avoiding the use of familiar names. An Ogre or a Goblin, laden with other associations, might be trite or even boring. Describe glimpses, impressions, and visceral details. One well- turned phrase can do more to plant an image in the minds of players than a folio of illustrations. Let their imagination fill in the gaps. Wonder and terror are two sides of the same coin.
Monsters of Warning : Goblins, Lamia, and other night terrors say “Don’t go out at night, child, or you’ll be eaten.” The Minotaur, the Ghoul, and other unnatural creatures say “Don’t break these taboos.” A surprising number of monsters say “Be polite.”
Monsters of Unease : What does this culture fear? What is it ashamed to desire? What defect in the world requires correction?
Monsters of Explanation : What are those strange lights in the bog? Why are trees shredded by the wind? Why do drowned corpses look like that?
Monsters of Translation : Many classic monsters are victims of enthusiastic translation. An obscure word in one text becomes something entirely new in a later collection. Idioms mutate, figurative expressions become literal, and adjacent creatures blur together. In keeping with this tradition, the entries in the Primeval and Strange Water chapters are likely to send paleontologists howling for their pitchforks.
Monsters of Allegory : This temple is protected by a mighty guardian: the head of the wisest creature (a human), the body of the strongest creature (bull), and the wings of the swiftest creature (hawk).
Monsters of Exaggeration : A creature so deadly its venom kills instantly. No, even its breath can kill. No, merely the sight of it kills. No, it is so deadly that the sight of it turns its victims to stone; a superlative form of death.
RPG settings should feel complex and inhabited.
The world is larger than the narrow view of the PCs; their story is just one among many. Not all encounters will be relevant, but chance meetings can alter the course of an entire campaign. The background bustles. Nothing occurs in isolation.
People can provide information about the world in a natural and subtle way. A single vivid detail can summon more imagery than pages of tedious background text read aloud by an indifferent GM to a half-listening group.
Dungeons can be extensions of a mythic underworld where the rules of the surface are distorted and the environment itself conspires against intruders.
Alternatively, dungeons can be practical excavations, built or amended for comprehensible goals and inhabited by creatures who find them natural homes. Who knows what lies buried, forgotten, or imprisoned beneath the earth?
A good dungeon should contain (if feasible):
Social Creatures ¶
Intelligent creatures with human-like minds can be convinced to risk death in service of a higher purpose. While an abstract cause might be enough to assemble a military force, the only two motivations which consistently matter in life-or-death situations are shame and fear; shame of failing fellow combatants or family (often the same people), and fear of what might happen if they are not protected.
Fighting is an excellent way to achieve some goals, but it is not a universal solution.