The Bits Box: West Marches

Showing posts with label West Marches. Show all posts

Monday, 19 May 2025

Yet more wandering in the rpg underworld

Here are some more OSR RPG links, for my own record, but interspersed with some cool art from Hitoshi Yoneda.

Blogs

Campaign Conflict @deeper in the game

a comprehensive guide to secret doors @ goblin punch

The hidden goblin @ taleturn

The hazard die in Mothership @save vs. TPK

Negadungeons

Hex Crawls

Why 3-mile hexes make HEXCRAWLS fun by Mystic Arts

making hexmaps

Wednesday, 18 September 2024

Another vein in the mythical underworld

Here's another rich seam of OSR material my mining of the old school blogs has turned up. I suppose I should sort all of these links and ideas into a structured and coherent guide at some point.

Hack & Slash goes into the Quantum Ogre and why Illusionism is bad. The Alexandrian explains what Abused Gamer Syndrome is and how to fix it.

The Blorb principles @idiomdottning.org are for prepping old school adventures.

Then @SpiderQueenGaming, Ed, has some OSR wisdom here:

The assumption of time richness in old school games

Lore vs actionable information

Gygax and the pursuit of reality

The importance of the tentpole dungeon

Authenticity in play

War stories

The risks of plot hooks

And some more practical advice here:

Pacing tips and tricks part one and part two

The dice that will kill you

Finishing off with 8 Lessons from running a successful sandbox.

This is an interesting addition that came up on Reddit. A list of geographic features used in the lord of the rings and their meanings. Very handy for sandbox place naming. The OP says they are doing one for man made features as well.

I also found this interesting blog. This very detailed and analytical review of the The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford adventure is helpful for when designing your own adventures, or just improving published ones.

Sunday, 1 September 2024

Depthcrawls

This is an interesting idea. A procedural generation process for making an RPG adventure. You roll dice for cues and it gets stranger and more dangerous the deeper you get.

Random dungeon generation isn't really new but this version ups the game a bit and originates from Emmy 'Cavegirl' Allen's Gardens of Ynn, Justin Alexander does a good job explaining the concepts here and here.

Justin also reviews Gardens of Ynn, and Cavegirl's other module, the Stygian library, here.

Here are some other similar projects:

The Vast in the dark - the original version is here and the expanded version here and here.

Downcrawl - is available here with more information here and news of a 2E version here.

A Rasp of Sand - an interesting take where multi-generational groups try to return a crown to vengeful sea-god, see here with a QuestingBeast review here.

Monday, 26 August 2024

More Dungeon stuff

Here are some more Sandbox-Dungeon-Wilderness links I have found on my travels in the dark and inimical places of the OSR web.

Advanced Darkness @ Knight at the Opera - nice thoughts on making light important

The Overloaded Encounter Die @ Necropraxis - a classic solution to Dungeon logistics

The Hazard System - an update

There is no light @ Illusory Sensorium - tracking torches is a false idol

The Doom Clock

Name your sessions, afterwards @Tom Van Winkle's Return to Gaming

Movement and action economy @ Traverse Fantasy - why you need a torchbearer

Megadungeon Monday series @ The Angry GM - how to build a megadungeon in many steps

Why I run my dungeons as pointcrawls @ The Pastel Dungeon

The Forest Deep Part 1 - creepy forests that are out to get you

The Forest Deep Part 2

The Forest Deep Part 3

Choices Information and Meaning - choices should be real, meaningful and informed

Hexcrawls are megadungeons - and pointcrawls too

Make your hexcrawls smaller - and more dense

The classic dungeon crawl theory @ All Dead Generations - a great series on dungeon crawls

More OSR Links @ The Links to Wisdom OSR Wiki

Pointcrawls - The path is more important than the ‘direction’ @ vdonnutvalley

Pointcrawls Applied: The Escalating Encounter Die @ the adventuring day

Some more adventure reviews @ Axian Spice - scroll down for the OSR ones.

Axian's Falkrest Abbey is a nice little introductory adventure with great organisation.

Also these two pages, here and here, on using Tomb of the Serpent Kings with OSE

Last, some discussion on Lairs & Dungeons using the OSE SRD

Some good advice from Reddit on running old school adventures.

And an old thread from enworld identifying a key difference between old and new school D&D. Namely, do you want combat as sport or combat as war.

Monster tactics @ The monsters know what they're doing

Path-crawl and point-crawl @ daimon-games

Corelands, Borderlands and the Weird @ Hill Cantons

The Howling Emptiness of the World of Greyhawk

Mythical Wilderness

Wilderness dungeons @ signs in the wilderness

Terrain types

Adventure reviews and more @ tenfootpole.org

Byrce's review standards

Monday, 6 May 2024

Knave 2e and RPG You Tubers

A while ago I backed the Kickstarter for Questing Beast Ben Milton's update to his simplified OSR RPG, Knave, but I've only just got around to reading the PDF through. It is rather good.

Knave 2e is certainly not a simple product, a very great amount of thought seems to have gone into every page. Both design and content. It does however cut away a great deal of the chaff to leave an elegant set of rules and concepts that should give a really enjoyable game with a focus on old school exploration.

To brush up on the my DM tips, and campaign design knowledge, I've also been watching some of the many YouTube D&D channels, especially those related to Sandbox Campaign design and DMing advice.

Here is what I have found so far:

Questing Beast - all the latest from the OSR scene, plus Ben's excellent analysis on game design. Including these on Dungeon Crawling Rules, Nine Dungeon Design Secrets, Building Living Dungeons, and how to Stop Hiding Traps.

Matt Colville - the daddy of YouTube DMing advice, there is something for everyone here. Matt's take on West Marches and Sandboxing brought the concept to a new audience. This one on Dead Empires, the time abyss, and an endless decline is interesting too.

The Alexandrian - an extension of Justin Alexander's excellent blog advice

Master the Dungeon - Lots on traps and game design. The videos on using Metroid and Legend of Zelda for dungeon design were interesting, as well as this one on using resources as keys.

Bob World Builder - Bob's infectiously cheerful approach to world building

Dungeon Masterpiece - another lighthearted and entertaining, but often thought provoking, look at RPG DMing and Campaign building. Here is the Baron's take on the Super Metroid approach and Random Encounter Tables.

Dungeon Craft - Professor DM has lots of great advice, I especially loved his B4 - The Lost City play through video.

Loki's Lair - has lots of game advice including a great video on using a hex flower for weather.

Map Crow - great stuff on designing and drawing maps

Trekiros - a new channel with an interesting video on Random Encounters.

Yinka - discusses world building concepts, including mistakes

Ginny Di - a more new school D&D channel but with lots of good ideas, high production values and a fun presentation style.

Dicebreaker - a more general gaming channel than the others but their OSR and OSE episodes were good explainers for the un-initiated new school players.

On Tools, there is this video from LoreTeller and a link to their resource web page.

Hexcrawls, Hex Maps, & Sandboxes Hexed Press PlayList on YouTube

How to Hexcrawl GFC D&D goes through the process they use.

Another quite new but entertaining channel is Quinns Quest the Mothership review is great.

How I ran my West Marches - quite new school but interesting

DiekuGames - Lots of videos on a wide range of RPG stuff

Bandit's keep - rambling old school D&D wisdom

Sunday, 1 October 2023

Old School RPG Thoughts

When I was young I was heavily into RPGs but, except for a few dabbles, I haven't played for a very long time. I do have friends who still play and periodically I read up on the latest developments, especially on the OSR 'scene'.

So this departure from my usual wargames posts is another nostalgic indulgence, and although it probably won't ever come to any kind of fruition, I wanted to collect together my thoughts on running an OSR style RPG game. Probably only for my own later review.

OSR Gaming

The Old School Revival, or Renaissance, is a an attempt to recreate the style of play from early RPGs, particularly TSR era Dungeons and Dragons.

It's a loosely bound movement that in many ways is searching for a lost past that never existed. Vainglorious fool's errand or not, this 'renaissance' has sparked a massive amount of creativity, much of which I personally like and feel an affinity to. The OSR now runs from early retro-clones like OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord to new divergent products like Into the Odd, Mörk Borg, Knave and Mothership.

The early attempts to explain the OSR philosophy came from Philotomy's Musings on OD&D or Matt Finch's Old School Primer. Probably the most comprehensive statement to date is the Principia Apocrypha, David Perry's excellent assembling of OSR wisdom from Questing Beast Ben Milton and RollPlay: West Marches' Steven Lumpkin. Interestingly, the foremost champions of the OSR now are too young to have 'been there' in the 80s, and this probably accounts for the continued vitality of the movement.

For an in depth discussion of the OSR's philosophy and history see Marcia B's The OSR Should Die.

Rules

To run my hypothetical a game I would probably use my original B/X D&D books, the retro-clone du jour Old School Essentials, or a mix of OSR concepts and modern mechanics like ShadowDark, 5 Torches Deep, or Knave 2e.

West Marches

I would like to run a open world sandbox style of game with heavy emphasis on emergent play and exploration. This concept was so brilliantly explained by Ben Robbins, in his seminal blog posts, that the West Marches name is now the archetypal shorthand for this way of running a campaign.

West Marches (part 1), Introduction

West Marches (part 2), Sharing Info
West Marches (part 3), Recycling
West Marches (part 4), Death & Danger
West Marches: Running Your Own

West Marches: Secrets & Answers
West Marches: Layers of History
West Marches: A Survivor’s Story

West Marches: Finding the Dungeons

The comments below the blog posts contain additional material from Ben.

Matt Colville's video on the concept further revived the ideas by bringing them to a wider and less grognard audience.

Steven Lumpkin's collection of West Marches resource links is here.

The Wilderness, Hex Crawls & Point Crawls

Although the traditional style of play for such old school sandboxes was the venerable Hex Crawl, I prefer an approach using a linked matrix of locations joined by limited but intuitive paths. I think it was Chris Kutalik, on his Hill Cantons blog, that coined the name Point Crawl to describe this type of structure but the concept had been around for ages and is very much how Text Adventure Games or the Fighting Fantasy books worked.

Lots of Links

Here are some blog posts explaining the concepts and providing other handy GM advice for running sandbox or old school games.

Ars Ludi

Besides his iconic West Marches posts, Ben Robbins dispenses lots of great game design and mastery wisdom. Here are just a few useful links.

Situations not plots

Don't Roll, Think

Initiative: the Silent Killer

Bad Trap Syndrome

Bad Trap Syndrome (part 2), Curing the Bad Trap Blues

Treasure Tells A Story - This is a great concept that is especially useful for West Marches exposition and when combined with The Three Clue Rule can point the players to undiscovered areas.

The Alexandrian

Justin Alexander's blog is a mine of great material, far too much to list it all, but here, in appropriately Jennell Jacquays style, are a few entrances.

Gamemastery 101

Game Structures

Jacquay(s)ing the Dungeon - A must read for sandbox adventure design.

The Open Table Manifesto

Justin also has a book out soon, So you want to be a game master, which I have on pre-order and promises to be a nice synthesis of much of his blog advice. His Alexandrian YouTube channel is worth a look too.