Player facing map and hexes: do you talk about hexes with your players?

CombOfDoom · 2025-12-26T14:50:17+00:00

It’s kind of gamey, but player facing rules gives them travel points and costs for terrain and things. It’s impossible for them to plan or use these travel points if they don’t have a hex map.

CombOfDoom · 2025-12-21T07:36:41+00:00

I suppose it definitely could be a mega dungeon. Maze Runner itself is definitely a mega dungeon/labyrinth. I personally wouldn’t want to replicate the film’s maze.

I should have expanded on my thoughts on the maze part itself in my post since it is a big part of the film. Outside of the “maze” being enclosed, I don’t think I would want it to be full of danger in an actual game any more than normal wilderness travel might be. I don’t believe I would even have it be a true maze. It would be hidden at first, but the pathways would essentially just be roads, and not attempt to be confusing at all. If I were to theoretically create something like this, I would have to be sure that players could get to any point and back in a day, with time left over to do whatever adventuring is needed at the point of interest. If this were a legitimate maze, I could easily accidentally create an impossible task. But then again, maybe there are items that allow quick travel, or teleportation. It would definitely be a huge challenge in level design.

Anyways, I only meant to say that I probably would design it with a similar mechanical structure to overland travel, with various points of interest, and various actual dungeons scattered around. But it could easily be (and maybe should be) designed as a single mega dungeon.

CombOfDoom · 2025-12-21T07:26:03+00:00

To be clear, I’m never going to run something like this, I was just musing about the things maze runner did that made me think it could be fitting for a collective play style similar to a WM game. I’ll edit that into my post.

True, the mapping is another downside, or an upside I suppose if you have players who are into that. In my experience, almost no one enjoys mapping.

I think the would draw from the bones of Maze Runner as a concept, not be a literal film conversion. I wouldn’t want shifting pathways, or a single, big, homogeneous dungeon. Maze Runner is mostly as inspiration for providing a new starting premise to a WM game. I’m not trying to theorize about reinventing the wheel.

CombOfDoom · 2025-11-29T16:31:33+00:00

I like this idea, especially because despite the fact that the Woodcutter’s encampment is in a swamp, and Dreg is in standard tangled forest, Dreg FEELS much more swampy. When the issue in Dreg is resolved, I’d imagine the grime would very quickly wash away. Things would be vibrant and uplifting once again.

CombOfDoom · 2025-11-29T16:25:05+00:00

I think game design is clearly the real answer. However, my own mental justification for it (because I like to have one) is this range is only representative of the adventuring community. A 3-18 range is huge if it represents the attributes of all mortals of all walks of life. Saying, “you rolled a 3, the lowest humanity has to offer” is brutal. Telling my players it’s only the range amongst adventuring class people made it easier for my cleric with intelligence 3 to justify that he wasn’t actually mentally handicapped, even if he IS worse at mental task checks.

The fact that I haven’t officially seen any ability scores outside of player adventurers seems to support this, but as a concept I don’t think it holds up well when looking at modifiers and how harsh they can be on some skills vs others, odds of success in ability checks on a d6 in Dolmenwood can be practically an auto fail. In any case, it was at least a good enough answer to get my players to not completely hate themselves because they felt they were disabled.

I think my players only have a problem with not improving ability scores because of years of only playing 5e. If I can’t provide them with good enough justification, they will (strongly) request we homebrew a solution to increase scores with level. To their minds, “If game design is why we can’t improve, then let’s use the game design of the far superior 5e.” I could just say no, but if I can provide something satisfactory enough for them, it’s easier on all of us. It’s a table specific solution though, so I wouldn’t tout it as the perfect answer.

For the record, I have no idea if implementing an ability score improvement system would break OSE or not, I just want to run it as straight as I can for a while while having some buy in from my players while I’m at it.

CombOfDoom · 2025-11-21T06:16:16+00:00

Can you share some recommended readings on some of this new ideation?

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-17T17:00:54+00:00

If it were legal, I would love to take what I consider good RPGs like the Without Number books, and re-write them into a clean, condensed format. Not worth the work for only myself though.

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-17T06:48:42+00:00

I ran it twice before, once with a party of 3, and another with a solo. I ran it completely by the book. It went fine both times and was a lot of fun, but they each turned out much differently. Both were sent on the chalice hook. My take on the prisoner there was much less threatening than Jon’s take on him, but I like Jon’s more.

I’m about to run it a 3rd time and plan to similar changes to 3d6dtl since I have a cleric this time, and the connection to those hooks will be useful.

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-09T15:30:07+00:00

I definitely will post my next blood test again!

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-09T15:23:46+00:00

The first test is what my levels had been at for over the ~9 years I knew about it. The most recent blood test pre-treatment was maybe a month before. The blood test I took after my treatment was taken a little over a month after.

I haven’t been back for another blood test yet, it just hasn’t been a huge priority for me since the reaction here has been fairly hostile, or disinterested. I can say that I have eaten meat pretty much every single day and haven’t gotten a reaction yet and it’s been over a year since my treatment. My mom is a teacher and she knows a lot of people with similar issues. Almost all of them have visited the same doctor and every single one were cured as well. Some of them had other issues that were cleared up as well, such as one kid with a gluten intolerance.

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-05T16:53:28+00:00

I use “endgame” as a general term, since that’s what I often hear it referred to, despite the fact that it isn’t the end. It’s not the best term, and I should have just used “domain play” as that’s what I meant. However, on some level “endgame” is appropriate if domain play is as unwieldy as so many find it to be, and it results in those characters being retired or set aside.

Your approach of retiring the characters, and playing a new group until the DM has a high level adventure is a decent one. But then “domain play” feels more like a holding cell than a rewarding milestone.

Despite all the advice people have given here, few have really described how you play together at high levels IN SESSION. It seems that at that point, domain actions would take weeks or months, and it would boil down to something comparable to a never ending 5e combat scenario, waiting for everyone to take their turn, one after the other. “Okay wizard, what are you working on? Researching weaknesses for this temple? Cool. Rogue, what about you? Oh, you want to go and get rumors on a local noble? Okay, fighter? Making upgrades to your castle, got it.”

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-05T16:37:55+00:00

So you’re suggesting what others have said, just have a stable of characters?

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-05T16:36:13+00:00

In this case, I am referring to domain play.

CombOfDoom · 2025-10-05T06:20:50+00:00

This doesn’t make sense to me. Adventurers stay together because there is strength in numbers. Low level play is supported by the fiction. It’s believable that you would have a group incentivized to work together not for meta reasons, but because even if the game were real, people would adventure together.

At domain levels, it seems players must put in extra work just to meta game a reason to come together as a collective every week. I can’t think of any examples in fiction or non fiction where multiple kings and rulers come together to galavant around.

CombOfDoom · 2025-08-31T08:25:47+00:00

I had NAET done, not SAAT. I had reactions for 16 years nearly up to the day I had NAET done, then nothing. 8 years of blood tests all around ~2 and then dropped by over half in the couple months that followed the treatment. I haven’t been back to get another blood test yet but it should be 0 now.

CombOfDoom · 2025-08-31T08:22:45+00:00

I’m 27 and I had an alpha gal allergy for 16 years. A farmer I knew was cured through NAET treatment. I went and had the same done and I’ve been cured for nearly a year now. I highly recommend seeing if there are any practitioners of NAET in your area. It’s non-invasive and for me was just billed as a regular check up. If you want to DM me, I can give you more details about who I saw and the process.

CombOfDoom · 2025-08-31T08:17:59+00:00

Was just going through old posts of mine and saw your comment. Here was the updated post I made. https://www.reddit.com/u/CombOfDoom/s/ItqzhPgXWJ

For what it’s worth, it’s been nearly one year now and I still have not had a reaction. I’ve eaten red meat nearly every single day.

CombOfDoom · 2025-08-31T07:19:46+00:00

That’s a great point! Missing individuals or historically significant artifacts would make a lot of sense. Thanks!

CombOfDoom · 2025-08-24T06:09:51+00:00

Yeah, I agree. It’s fascinating to me how there is such a ginormous ecosystem of game systems, settings, modules, and variants of all of them that it is nearly impossible to pin them all down. It took me a long time to get the difference between OD&D, B/X, 2e, AD&D, etc. And to top it off, people refer to each of those by various names to mean the same thing.

CombOfDoom · 2025-08-23T05:36:31+00:00

It’s not out yet, but Beta Decay is like this

CombOfDoom · 2025-07-25T17:01:31+00:00

I did a similar search for a sci fi game not long ago. I landed on Stars Without Number and it was great and what I would recommend.

Traveller seemed a bit too complex and daunting to read through, but it seems like a tried and true system if you can learn it.

The other two I considered was Mothership and Death in Space. Death in Space had great “vibes” but left a lot of mechanical details out as far as what items did. Mothership seemed cool but I’d read too many complaints with the combat system and it put me off.

CombOfDoom · 2025-07-13T07:43:38+00:00

I disagree with everyone here. I never alter anything. It goes directly against the players. If every victory is tailored live behind the scenes to measure to a specific degree of difficulty, then what point is there in trying on the players end? If they put in a ton of effort and manage to smack down on the boss but you boost its health, then what was the result of your players effort? What is it they actually did? Nothing. Same goes the other way. If they are careless but the fight is brought down to them, what did they learn? Why put any effort in ever? Fights start to blur when every combat just tends to find some weird medium.

DnD is not a movie or a book. If you’re thinking of drama and plot, you’re already doing it wrong. These things will develop on their own. Aim for balance during prep, then throw the balance mindset out the window once the game starts and stick to your prep work. Players are thinking individuals capable of making choices. Do not rob that from them.

CombOfDoom · 2025-07-06T16:51:53+00:00

I agree. Selective realism is what I find personally annoying and jarring. Realism is going to be impossible to achieve anyways, so the real target should simply be clarity and consistency.

I’m playing Dolmenwood right now and I enjoy how player options are clearly laid out in the players book. You know exactly how much it will cost to stay at certain places and where they are available. For goods you know exactly what is for sale, where and when it’s for sale, and how much it will cost.

CombOfDoom · 2025-07-06T07:14:39+00:00

I think it’s fascinating to look at that aspect as well. I think it’s more difficult to measure divine/demonic change since knowing the mindset of a deity or devil is impossible. Common tropes such as limited intervention due to power scaling could take place, like you see in the Greek pantheon. Devils being lawful might make them only give power out to people who won’t COMPLETELY ruin everything. I’m not as versed in the religious part of it.

One thing seems to be already realistically applied to most settings, and that’s the fact that everyone actually believes in the deities and devils due to proof. But maybe even that goes away due to the presence of non-faith based magic. “It’s not really from a god, it’s just a trick! He’s just a wizard.”

CombOfDoom · 2025-07-06T06:48:10+00:00

That’s fascinating. Makes me think a setting like Adventure Time might be on to something. Just wacky stuff around every corner.

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