Meta tags:
description=A collection of thoughts on RPGs, design, writing, and just about anything else I can conjure up.;

Headings (most frequently used words):

shimmernight, session, worldbuilding, the, three, on, of, my, favorite, map, quick, stakes, for, tense, situations, energy, coin, adventure, design, settlement, oriented, sandboxes, two, one, pocket, sized, powder, kegs, sicko, biblically, inaccurate, religions, baseline, gambling, gatorbarge, art, bartering, somata, engraver, person, shaped, hole, collaborative, glimpses, kentaro, miura, skill, new, year, resolution, systems, 2023, mindstorm, retrospective, demon, notes, rootring,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (136), and (73), for (26), you (24), more (21), read (20), this (20), that (17), with (15), worldbuilding (15), rpgs (15), them (14), game (11), one (11), about (11), from (11), out (11), all (10), 2024 (10), when (10), there (10), #adventure (10), your (9), gming (9), they (8), have (8), just (8), but (8), new (8), shimmernight (8), world (7), who (7), into (7), their (7), adventures (7), post (7), has (7), #design (7), 2026 (7), how (6), are (6), games (6), can (6), will (6), his (6), here (6), want (6), what (6), was (6), like (6), baseline (6), lot (6), every (5), even (5), going (5), around (5), not (5), way (5), than (5), different (5), right (5), let (5), coin (5), day (5), based (5), energy (5), random (4), use (4), dungeon (4), each (4), through (4), run (4), those (4), songs (4), try (4), january (4), needs (4), mechanics (4), kentaro (4), players (4), characters (4), find (4), kit (4), places (4), single (4), found (4), play (4), got (4), work (4), location (4), elements (4), mindstorm (3), procedure (3), doesn (3), setting (3), fight (3), using (3), enter (3), dungeons (3), friend (3), hits (3), deep (3), earth (3), never (3), little (3), december (3), means (3), mostly (3), need (3), good (3), been (3), don (3), prismatic (3), wasteland (3), miura (3), panels (3), art (3), first (3), across (3), get (3), where (3), march (3), running (3), some (3), person (3), time (3), flesh (3), inside (3), something (3), small (3), tool (3), city (3), merchants (3), narrative (3), comes (3), stories (3), grew (3), someone (3), group (3), 2025 (3), mall (3), ship (3), session (3), two (3), map (3), next (2), ring (2), prev (2), rootring (2), blogroll (2), table (2), creation (2), done (2), hit (2), dice (2), make (2), impact (2), answer (2), build (2), magic (2), greatest (2), within (2), demon (2), laughing (2), music (2), would (2), great (2), taken (2), night (2), monsters (2), 2023 (2), three (2), notes (2), another (2), year (2), books (2), thing (2), retrospective (2), learning (2), fact (2), most (2), idea (2), blog (2), challenge (2), resolution (2), cannot (2), these (2), drawing (2), came (2), part (2), almost (2), rather (2), having (2), before (2), may (2), shaped (2), hole (2), starting (2), between (2), created (2), consider (2), man (2), once (2), skin (2), bone (2), under (2), shine (2), sun (2), secret (2), eager (2), hands (2), any (2), exists (2), somata (2), engraving (2), word (2), felt (2), strange (2), land (2), wandering (2), bit (2), pick (2), place (2), heart (2), breaking (2), mccroo (2), full (2), shrine (2), november (2), parts (2), instead (2), over (2), talk (2), experience (2), things (2), theatre (2), people (2), were (2), theory (2), interested (2), fantasy (2), home (2), other (2), modern (2), evening (2), multiple (2), mike (2), dad (2), truck (2), park (2), back (2), our (2), enough (2), could (2), movie (2), explore (2), course (2), josh (2), atomic (2), room (2), less (2), dynamic (2), pocket (2), sized (2), powder (2), kegs (2), won (2), crew (2), well (2), february (2), advice (2), hexmap (2), dig (2), complex (2), tense (2), situation (2), situations (2), april (2), memory, hexflowers, ladder, tables, interactive, dcs, set, d20, communal, fly, adding, congruency, anti, canon, split, order, follow, information, choice, doctrine, nested, monster, scrabble, tiles, riddles, contraptions, spell, beneath, slumbers, growing, stronger, note, passes, joyful, lips, children, village, singing, harmony, organist, temple, plays, rival, masters, dour, fisherman, smiles, nothing, hums, cheerful, tune, had, ear, wake, perfect, pitch, harmonies, sinking, resonating, souls, instruments, mastered, flutes, lutes, harps, town, gathers, sings, true, smiling, dance, embrace, alright, files, memories, recap, self, indulgent, rough, edges, posted, posterity, sake, meta, ones, probably, already, plan, absolute, detritus, blogger, trash, designer, treasure, know, throwaway, might, thus, come, mechanic, ttrpg, give, name, resist, such, issued, systems, practice, becoming, master, core, seem, musings, knowledge, warfare, sword, fighting, struck, immediately, thoughts, regards, others, asking, him, become, think, six, 200, chapters, guts, teaching, isidro, reading, berserk, creativity, skill, highlights, inviting, collaboratively, past, resulted, few, hiccups, attempt, solve, carte, blanche, add, structure, keep, ideas, topic, moving, written, still, believe, foundational, tackle, angle, anchors, collaborative, glimpses, present, hypothetical, player, connected, creates, amount, drama, tension, connective, tissue, iron, clad, bond, trouble, coming, solution, fear, theoretical, starter, share, strongest, electrifying, ways, connect, june, artwork, norn, noszka, body, freshly, perished, arms, curled, lost, child, head, bowed, reverence, refusing, death, cut, scarred, smooth, turned, twisting, network, gouged, chasms, light, midsummer, hallowed, grounds, dead, scars, faded, color, itself, torn, grasp, reveals, markings, five, chisels, varying, size, hummingbird, beak, grizzly, claw, await, sharp, spurned, lover, stiletto, graze, blade, clumsy, draw, blood, stumbles, upon, luck, chance, research, mouth, chooses, box, carved, cherry, wood, bleached, silver, clasps, ornate, hinges, stiffened, cradles, snuggly, rightful, july, engraver, encountering, merchant, navigating, swamp, locked, dream, prison, visiting, cloud, fortress, should, dealing, regular, peddlers, potions, arrows, special, depths, freaky, odd, concept, forever, especially, mega, ground, check, major, piece, inspiration, heading, joshy, itch, page, grabbing, weird, method, discovering, genius, hexculture, fortitude, bartering, darkest, bunch, bloggers, designers, decided, santa, socks, cheap, household, appliances, followed, explorers, rate, write, franco, alvarado, designs, root, devil, gift, guide, discord, server, reviews, gambling, gatorbarge, cognitive, load, define, comfortable, wide, variety, sources, cultural, background, life, absorbed, say, mean, media, movies, television, anime, spoken, poetry, telling, wacky, antics, etc, everyone, collects, lives, also, inform, rural, middle, nowhere, canada, surprise, incredibly, tokyo, cyber, security, professional, position, cyberpunk, works, warehouse, forgive, must, tend, oscillate, rapidly, projects, kind, misfiring, neuron, rpg, soaked, braincell, now, working, science, megadungeon, ruined, swinging, direction, shifting, plans, hodgepodge, except, tripping, prepping, biblically, inaccurate, religions, walked, dragon, fire, warming, face, after, hauling, ourselves, escalators, arrived, weekend, return, king, peaking, above, horizon, piled, made, forty, minute, pilgrimage, didn, pulling, twenty, entrances, led, letting, sure, fully, stopped, enjoy, without, kids, hustled, prepared, allowance, cash, pass, blue, shift, gaming, meal, lunch, see, weren, butts, uncomfortable, computer, chairs, boot, latest, fastest, pcs, until, too, hungry, continue, remember, saying, forget, last, huge, fan, missing, reluctantly, agreed, august, sicko, highly, recommend, finished, editing, castle, automatic, guy, knows, stuff, title, fool, either, wisdom, aspects, warren, designing, naturally, quite, scale, its, own, zero, hand, easily, encounters, exception, else, started, planning, knew, wanted, avoid, pitfalls, dangers, elusive, start, vessel, sail, far, distant, lands, dwiz, highlighting, typical, snags, reiterate, blogging, current, called, nautical, pirate, open, ended, seabox, sea, scoundrels, board, introductions, glublins, attack, demanding, cannons, ensues, among, osr, blogosphere, sandbox, whole, involve, populating, creating, focus, usually, direct, sandboxing, gms, create, points, interest, wilderness, trek, settlement, oriented, sandboxes, arrives, fort, deauvilly, meet, half, giant, seer, take, jobs, ratboy, communes, mysterious, entity, told, states, heard, friends, enemies, writing, mines, testing, brain, feel, supplements, mental, model, mapping, static, separate, sides, same, kinetic, potential, vary, heavily, applied, locations, factions, many, versatile, question, element, below, lightweight, themselves, threats, vectors, threaten, handle, weather, story, mini, system, remove, handling, minutiae, action, focusing, risks, everything, shakes, moment, simpler, variation, sheet, quick, stakes, again, put, call, blogwagon, hot, air, balloon, deadline, appreciation, gold, standard, detailed, maps, favorite, rss, search, twitter, mailing, list, archives,

Text of the page (random words):
mindstorm archives mailing list twitter search greatest hits rss my favorite map april 26 2026 rpgs worldbuilding prismatic wasteland has once again put out the call for a blogwagon this time about maps and i ve got to land this hot air balloon before the deadline hits this is a small appreciation post for what i consider the gold standard of a detailed fantasy world map let s dig right in read more quick stakes for tense situations april 15 2026 gming mechanics rpgs below is a small lightweight procedure to use when your players have found themselves in a complex and tense situation multiple threats and vectors threaten the group and they need to handle them or try and weather the story using this mini system we remove handling the minutiae of the action instead focusing on the risks and how everything shakes out if you d rather play out every single moment of a situation this won t work well or at all this is simpler variation on my complex situations sheet that i use in almost every game i run read more energy coin adventure design march 31 2026 rpgs adventures what if i told you that you could map every single element in your adventure to one of two states you heard it here first friends and enemies i m back in the writing mines testing the brain feel of a new tool for adventure design this of course supplements pocket sized powder kegs and question based adventure design the energy coin is a mental model for mapping out dynamic and static elements in an adventure using the tool we separate the parts of an adventure into two sides of the same coin kinetic energy and potential energy the elements of the adventure can vary heavily based on your design and needs but the energy coin can be applied to people places things locations factions and many other elements it s versatile let s dig in to find out what this all means read more shimmernight session three march 18 2026 shimmernight gming rpgs the crew arrives in fort deauvilly they meet a half giant seer and take on jobs ratboy communes with a mysterious entity read more settlement oriented sandboxes february 26 2026 gming worldbuilding shimmernight among the osr blogosphere there s a lot of advice about how to make a sandbox a whole lot of them involve breaking out a hexmap and populating it creating a world for players to explore even advice that doesn t focus on a hexmap will usually direct would be sandboxing gms to create a lot of points of interest in the wilderness for the characters to trek out to this way is different read more shimmernight session two february 16 2026 shimmernight gming rpgs the scoundrels board their new ship introductions to their crew go over well a group of glublins attack the ship demanding their cannons and a fight ensues read more shimmernight session one january 12 2026 shimmernight gming rpgs i m going to be blogging about the current game i m running called the shimmernight sea it is a nautical pirate open ended seabox when i started planning this game i knew that i wanted to try and avoid the pitfalls and dangers of the elusive ship game where the characters start with a vessel that can sail them to far and distant lands dwiz has done the work of highlighting the typical snags in his blog post so i won t reiterate all of them here read more pocket sized powder kegs november 17 2025 rpgs adventures location based adventures have a lot going for them they re naturally quite atomic in scale in that each room exists mostly on its own and the gm running the game can zero in on the location a good adventure will have what the gm needs at hand easily enough to run the room some elements are less atomic like random encounters and wandering monsters but those are the exception for the most part a location based adventure is just a bit less dynamic than something else i m not here to talk about location based adventures if you re interested in those i highly recommend the designing dungeons course by josh mccroo and warren d i ve just finished editing the castle automatic for josh and this guy knows his stuff and don t let dungeon in the title fool you either there s a lot of wisdom here for adventure design in all aspects read more sicko worldbuilding august 26 2025 rpgs worldbuilding the weekend return of the king came out the sun was just peaking above the horizon when my friend mike and i piled into my dad s truck and made the forty minute pilgrimage into the city dad didn t even park the truck pulling up to one of the twenty entrances that led into the mall and letting us out i m not even sure he fully stopped eager to get back home and enjoy a day without any kids around we hustled inside and prepared for our day with just enough allowance cash that we could get the all day pass at blue shift gaming a meal at lunch and see the movie in the evening we weren t there to explore the mall we were there to park our butts in uncomfortable computer chairs boot up the latest games on the fastest pcs and play until we got too hungry to continue i remember mike saying to forget about the movie but it was the last one and i was a huge fan so there was no way i was missing it reluctantly he agreed that evening after hauling ourselves across the mall and up multiple escalators we arrived at the theatre and as we walked in i felt the dragon fire warming my face read more biblically inaccurate religions may 7 2025 rpgs worldbuilding gming modern day i tend to oscillate rapidly between projects i m interested in like some kind of misfiring neuron in an rpg soaked braincell right now i m working on a science fantasy megadungeon ruined city for my home group but swinging in the other direction means shifting to my modern day setting i ve got a lot of plans to run a hodgepodge of games in that setting except something has been tripping me up about prepping for it i don t want it to be earth i want it to be earth like read more baseline worldbuilding december 30 2024 theory gming adventures worldbuilding forgive me but i must post theory i want to talk about worldbuilding cognitive load and the narrative baseline let s first work to define what the narrative baseline is and go from there every person has a baseline that they are comfortable with and this baseline comes from a wide variety of sources mostly it comes from your cultural background your life experience and the stories you ve absorbed when i say stories i mean things of all media movies books television anime games theatre spoken word poetry your friend telling you about their wacky antics etc everyone collects stories as they go about their lives the place you grew up and the people you were around also inform your narrative baseline as someone who grew up in rural middle of nowhere canada it s no surprise that my experience is incredibly different from someone who grew up in the heart of tokyo if you work as a cyber security professional you re going to have a different starting position when it comes to a cyberpunk game than someone who works in a warehouse read more gambling on the gatorbarge december 14 2024 reviews deep in the darkest parts of the prismatic wasteland discord server a bunch of us bloggers and designers decided to do a little secret santa instead of socks and cheap household appliances we followed the gift guide over at explorers design find games and rate them play them write about them or design for them for my pick i got franco alvarado who designs under root devil read more the art of bartering november 29 2024 rpgs mechanics gming there s a special place in the depths of my heart for those freaky little merchants you find in odd places the concept of dungeon merchants has been around forever especially in mega dungeons and i m not breaking new ground here in fact you can go and check out a major piece of inspiration for this post by heading to joshy mccroo s itch page and grabbing at the shrine of fortitude it s full of weird merchants and the method of discovering them at the shrine is a full on genius idea by hexculture encountering a strange merchant in a strange land like navigating a dungeon wandering a swamp locked in a dream prison or visiting a cloud fortress should play out a bit different than dealing with the regular city peddlers you pick up potions and arrows from read more the somata engraver july 9 2024 rpgs worldbuilding magic there exists within the world a single somata engraving kit it is not something one stumbles upon by luck or chance and it cannot be found through research coin or word of mouth when the kit chooses to be found it is found the small box is carved from cherry wood and bleached bone with silver clasps and ornate hinges inside stiffened felt cradles each engraving tool snuggly in their rightful places when you find the kit it will be on the body of a man freshly perished his arms curled around it like a lost child head bowed in reverence refusing to let go even in death his flesh is cut and scarred once smooth skin turned into a twisting network of gouged chasms all the way to the bone in places in the right light at the right time like under the shine of the midsummer sun or in the hallowed grounds of the dead the scars shine with faded color the kit itself when torn from his grasp reveals the secret of the man s flesh markings inside five chisels varying in size from a hummingbird s beak to a grizzly s claw await eager new hands each one as sharp as a spurned lover s stiletto any single graze across skin from the blade by clumsy hands will draw blood from flesh the artwork on this post was created by norn noszka read more a person shaped hole june 4 2024 rpgs worldbuilding hypothetical time you re starting a new game and want to have all the player characters connected in a way that creates just the right amount of drama tension and connective tissue there needs to be an iron clad bond between them but you re having trouble coming up with the solution have no fear theoretical game starter i just created i m going to share what i consider one of the strongest electrifying ways to connect the characters i present the person shaped hole read more collaborative worldbuilding glimpses may 21 2024 rpgs gming adventures worldbuilding mechanics when i m running a game one of the highlights for me is inviting players to collaboratively build the world with me in the past this has resulted in a few hiccups enter this post where i will attempt to solve them all rather than the players having carte blanche on worldbuilding i want to add some structure to keep the ideas on topic and the game moving i ve written about this before and i still believe world anchors are foundational to my games but i want to try and tackle this from a different angle read more kentaro miura on skill march 11 2024 creativity learning art i m reading berserk there s a part almost 200 chapters in where guts is teaching isidro how to fight here s the panels the core of these panels seem to be drawing on kentaro miura s musings on the creation of art more than they re drawing on his knowledge of warfare and sword fighting when i first came across them they struck me immediately as kentaro s thoughts in regards to others asking him how do i become you and i think with just these six panels we get the answer you cannot practice your way into becoming a master you are not and never will be kentaro miura read more new year s resolution systems january 4 2024 rpgs mechanics prismatic wasteland has issued a challenge and who am i to resist such a thing my challenge is thus in january 2024 come up with a new resolution mechanic for a ttrpg and give it a name it doesn t need to be good in fact most the good ones have probably already been taken it just needs to be new you don t need to plan to use it in your games it can be absolute detritus for you but one blogger s trash is another designer s treasure you never know how great an impact one throwaway idea on a blog might have read more 2023 mindstorm retrospective january 1 2024 meta learning retrospective alright another year in the books means that we re going to go through files notes and memories and try to recap this thing this is a mostly self indulgent post rough around the edges and posted for posterity s sake read more a demon of three notes december 27 2023 rpgs adventures worldbuilding monsters the children run through the village laughing and singing in harmony the organist in the temple plays music that would rival even the great masters of the world the dour fisherman who smiles for nothing and no one hums a cheerful tune those who never had the ear for music wake up with perfect pitch the harmonies sinking into them resonating with the songs in their souls instruments are taken up and mastered flutes and lutes and little harps the town gathers at night and sings the deep songs the true songs the night songs smiling and laughing as they dance and embrace beneath it all deep within the earth the demon slumbers growing stronger with each note that passes through joyful lips read more greatest hits spell friend and enter using scrabble tiles to answer riddles enter dungeons and build magic contraptions nested monster hit dice split up hit dice in order to make every fight follow the information choice impact doctrine adding congruency to anti canon worldbuilding communal world creation done on the fly at the table how to set a dc in a d20 dungeon game an interactive procedure for setting dcs ladder tables a procedure for a random table with a memory that doesn t use hexflowers blogroll mindstorm blogroll rootring prev random ring next rootring prev random ring next