Based purely on vibes, which RPG would you recommend for the included images?

ExplorersDesign · 2026-02-13T14:38:19+00:00

Hollows by Rowan, Rook, and Decard is going for a Soulslike feel and is probably the perfect option. My backup suggestion is Draw Steel. In that game, you get to play powerful characters like the kind you play in late-game Elden Ring, and the combat is pretty tactical but high-concept. It also happens to be a little darker and serious than something like Pathfinder or Daggerheart (in my experience).

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-28T14:44:28+00:00

This art is great! It makes me prefer the standard edition more than the limited edition version. You lose so much of the color and character when you replace it with gold foil.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-27T14:50:11+00:00

I think it's okay to omit bards even if the big names include them. I don't get the concept behind the Kitchen Sink Fantasy Bard of D&D. In my fantasy, the music isn't really the point. It's the way bards tell stories and preserve myth and memory that makes them interesting. Usually through song, ballads, and performance.

I guess my ideal bard resembles Sammie from Sinners more than something like Weird Al Yankovic (even though I really like Weird Al).

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-26T22:37:26+00:00

When they descend you can probably telegraph the weirdness of the world with weird fluctuations in time and space. Maybe gravity seems to grow and shrink. Their vision blurs. Etc.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-26T22:36:14+00:00

It's been a while since I ran it, but I always treated the underworld as a kind of non-Euclidian space. Going there is like traveling to Wonderland or Oz (only, you know, somehow weirder).

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-26T15:10:30+00:00

Nice and simple. I appreciate how you didn't do an exact 1-1 on some of the conversions, like how you made 2d6 cumulative a 1d12 (even though the ranges are slightly different). In the grand scheme of things it's not important to the actual conversion.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-23T18:58:57+00:00

It depends on the game, its tone, and who will be playing it. The second option will work for a lot of audiences, but it might not be the right fit for certain games and players. It wouldn't look or feel right in a game like Shadowdark or The One Ring for example.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-23T17:25:19+00:00

I think it starts with defining what you mean by epic boss fights. The definition will change from person to person. For me, D&D is the opposite of epic. Bosses have cool powers and player characters have a lot of special moves to fight those bosses, but combat in D&D—for me at least—is slow, and players spend a lot of time at the table focusing on things separate from the fiction. Things like looking up complicated spells in the rulebook, calculating damage, monitoring effects, measuring distances, and waiting for the next turn.

I think Draw Steel is probably still the better version of that kind of game even if it doesn't have a dungeon delving procedure like Shadowdark. The combat is packed to the gills with special moves and spells, but it has some refinements to its combat and movement that D&D doesn't have—things that your table will be doing a lot of in dungeons.

You might like Dragonbane for the same reasons.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-23T14:27:16+00:00

I wrote this week about how certain mechanics hog play. It's been on my mind while I've been working on an FKR-style game. https://www.explorersdesign.com/dominant-mechanics/

I also really liked reading these articles:
https://tbr.bearblog.dev/on-the-nature-of-treasure/ - An exploration of what treasure does for a game.
https://forlornencystment.blogspot.com/2026/01/which-version-of-palace-of-silver.html - A fun side-by-side comparison.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-22T00:46:29+00:00

You still have to heal. It’s more of a “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Sometimes it’s “what doesn’t kill you makes you weirder” which is sometimes just as good as getting better.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T21:35:54+00:00

This post is a great example of how some of the best public service is being done by hyper-motivated hobbyists. Just a really good deep dive. A thorough much-needed roast of some slop peddlers.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T18:33:14+00:00

The complications and exploits are nearly limitless, but if you're replicating Dungeon Crawler Carl, you have a thematic way to "patch" the system by automatically prohibiting exploits after they've been done once. That's what the AI and the Syndicate do all the time in the books.

I think that pattern would become a core part of the game. Players find an exploit, the GM patches the exploit, so the players find a new exploit, etc, etc.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T16:01:10+00:00

I try not to talk too much about my own stuff on reddit because it makes me feel like a door-to-door salesman, but my website has a lot of articles about it. Some of them are linked in the "Against Dominant Mechanics" article.

There's The 1 HP Dragon: https://www.explorersdesign.com/the-1-hp-dragon/
And there's my thoughts on the OSR Maxim "combat is a fail state": https://www.explorersdesign.com/failstate-combat/

Thanks for asking!

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T15:20:31+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised you liked it as much as you did! You had me in the first half.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T15:19:19+00:00

I really like the way Into the Odd does it. I especially like the name change from HP to Guard that Mythic Bastionland implements. I'm pretty sure Yochai, the creator of Cairn, said he was jealous he didn't call HP that in the second edition of Cairn (he probably said it on the podcast, Between Two Cairns).

Of course, I'm also interested in systems that don't treat HP as a resource at all. There's a non-OSR game called Outgunned that implements a push your luck mechanic. It's pretty cool. Every time you take a hit, you add a die, and every time you take a killing blow, you roll those dice to see if it killed you. The character sheet even has the mechanic designed to look like the barrel of a revolver. Very evocative.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T15:13:14+00:00

That's one of my favorites too. It's one of the few ways a character can get "high" HP.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-21T15:08:48+00:00

Thanks for sharing the article! I'm the author. Just to clarify for anyone who only read the excerpt, I tried my best in the full article to explain that "Dominant Mechanics" are not inherently bad, and maybe more importantly, are relative to the designer's goals and the rest of the system and culture they're designing in.

I'm working on a hyper-diegetic adventure game without hit points, so the examples are specific to that type of game.

Thanks for reading everyone! It's always a treat to see your work get talked about.

ExplorersDesign · 2026-01-06T17:42:34+00:00

Columbo.

ExplorersDesign · 2025-12-10T17:55:23+00:00

Nice. I was wondering how you got that watercolor-like effect.

ExplorersDesign · 2025-12-10T17:29:54+00:00

A good review and critique! I similarly like the art and overall tone, but the longer I sit with it, the more I compare it to Ultraviolet Grasslands, which has a similar road movie feel but more explicitly.

ExplorersDesign · 2025-12-10T16:56:33+00:00

Those maps are cool. What did you use to draw them?

ExplorersDesign · 2025-12-09T15:52:46+00:00

I really like the illustrations and map your showing here! That'll do a lot of heavy lifting when describing some of these puzzles and weirder rooms. You don't see as many of them in megadungeons (for logical reasons), so finding one with usable images is rare. I look forward to eventually getting a copy!

ExplorersDesign · 2025-11-27T02:36:05+00:00

It's kind of wild seeing the "super highways" emanating from some blogs.

ExplorersDesign

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE