Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Image Credit: Tom Fisk It’s been a while, but this is the sixth post in an ongoing series: my plan for a new campaign based around a West Marches open table for Old-School Essentials. So far, I’ve sketched out the home base (Greyhold), the megadungeon (the Drowned Labyrinth), and the hexcrawl (surrounding lands), … Continue reading Building a New Campaign, Part 6: Weather and Encounters
Today, I’m focusing on the town’s immediate environs and how I can turn a loose sense of place—northern frontier with fortified outpost—into a concrete, usable hexcrawl.
Part One Every West Marches campaign needs its own Keep on the Borderlands: a place where sessions begin and end, where plans are made, and where rumours circulate. Above all, it needs to be a safe location with useful, player-facing options. It is not an adventure site in itself; adventures always happen elsewhere. In this … Continue reading Building a New Campaign, Part 2: the Starting Town
In a vast and perilous land, ambitious treasure-hunters chart the wilderness, descend into dark places, and claim whatever riches they can carry.
I have now completed the second part of Tier 2, 8th to 10th level. I hope you like it! Constructive feedback is always welcome. You can download it over on my Patreon (link). I see Tier 2 as the 'fun and games' section of your campaign—'the promise of the premise' where all the 'trailer moments' … Continue reading Update: The Campaign Handbook
I have only ever run one homebrew campaign from 1st to 20th level, and it followed a very loose structure, one session at a time. I would love to write something that helps other DMs achieve the same thing.
Should the world level up with the players? The question gets me thinking about the ecology of my game world. How rare is an ancient red dragon? A storm giant? A bulette? That’s really what this article is about: trying to find a framework for monster rarity.
Last week we explored arctic, coastal, desert, forest, and grassland environments. This week, we've got a few more: hill, mountain, swamp, Underdark, underwater, and urban.
I’ve been reading a lot about worldbuilding and map-making for a while now, so I thought I would put some of my notes in one place.
D&D diverges from our own world in seven major ways. How would our games be different if we moved away from these core assumptions?