David Ellis DickersonApr 4, 20204 min readHOW MANY HIT POINTS SHOULD WE HAVE? (Notes Toward a Grand Theory of RPG Design, Part 1)Thanks to quarantine, I've had plenty of time to indulge in a project that has interested me for some time: a grand unified theory of RPG...
David Ellis DickersonJan 16, 20202 min read20 VARIANT SKELETONS AND ZOMBIESD10 VARIANT SKELETONS 1. Skeletons with bombs in their chests, coated with tar: they run and stick themselves to foes, then explode. 2....
David Ellis DickersonJan 15, 20203 min readA GROGNARD'S JAW DROPS (An XP-for-Gold OSR Investigation)I was curious tonight about what constituted a standard amount of treasure across a dungeon/module in the original Old School games, back...
David Ellis DickersonJan 12, 20202 min read20 MORE RHYMING RIDDLES FOR FANTASY RPGSAs a follow-on to this popular post, here are twenty more rhyming riddles that I hope you will profit from reading. As before, the...
David Ellis DickersonJan 6, 20204 min read9 BITS OF POETRY FOR FANTASY RPG PLAYERS TO QUOTEA D&D character I created has the trait, "I like to memorize poetry." And as soon as I chose this, I thought, "Uh-oh. I'd better write...
David Ellis DickersonJan 4, 20204 min readMAGIC ITEM: MIRROR OF SUMMONING POOR JOHN The original "John" (aka John the Cursed, aka Unwilling John, aka John of the Thousand Tasks) must have been a truly terrible person,...
