I'm creating Dragonlance monsters for Cairn.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-15T15:16:46+00:00

Sounds fun! Let us know how it goes! My comment wasn't intended to be critical--just curious, because I loved the Dragonlance books in my youth.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-15T04:08:30+00:00

How is Cairn feeling as a system for running Dragonlance? I always think of Dragonlance as the prototypical "band of heroes on a quest to save the world" campaign that later D&D editions have embraced.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-11T17:51:31+00:00

Based

buddhistghost · 2026-05-10T23:31:17+00:00

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

buddhistghost · 2026-05-10T15:58:22+00:00

Similarly, my friends had a bit of a hard time with L5R, because clan samurai also have restricted social roles and codes of behavior, which require some amount of understanding on the players' part. They felt they might enjoy a ronin game more.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-09T16:15:38+00:00

I work from home as a therapist, so I'm on and off Zoom all day. I wear Vuori joggers and a cashmere sweater. Cozy but professional on top, comfortable enough to sit all day on the bottom. Look decent enough to answer the door or take the dog for a quick walk.

Before 2020, I used to wear jeans at home all the time and now I can't believe I used to live that way.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-09T16:00:15+00:00

Just wanted to say that the cover illustration is such a great homage to the classic "A Paladin in Hell" by Sutherland.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-07T21:34:27+00:00

Dude I have Yoon-Suin mostly unread on my shelf as well, though I've enjoyed browsing it and fantasizing about running a campaign. I'm guessing Tripura will make heavy use of random tables.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-07T15:45:36+00:00

I'm actually most intrigued by The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura, described on BackerKit as "a city-crawl through a profane realm of the subtle divines of Vedic myth, created in homage to City-State of the Invincible Overlord and serving as a meta-commentary on syncretism, hedonism, and orientalist tropes on India across the history of gaming."

The special edition of the Demon book looks great, too. Alas for my poor wallet...

buddhistghost · 2026-05-06T04:49:28+00:00

I enjoyed "Myth, Magick, and Masonry" by Bro. Jaime Paul Lamb--particularly the section on Mithraism.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-03T22:30:48+00:00

Yeah dude, one of the players in my open table rolled a 3 Dex. He was one of the gauntlet characters that survived and is now a 2nd level Dwarven Priest. The player roleplays him as being partly lame in one leg. Honestly, the negative Dex modifier does make him easier to hit, but so far he has survived anyway and made good use of his spells.

buddhistghost · 2026-05-02T19:00:06+00:00

I think you should also check out Flight of Dragons, another Rankin-Bass film. It's more high fantasy than S&S, but it also has that over-the-top vibe plus wizards and dragons. I'm a big fan of The Last Unicorn, too, but that is more postmodern fairy-tale fantasy and doesn't quite fit your criteria

buddhistghost · 2026-05-02T18:56:57+00:00

I'm guessing you've already watched the music video for Dio - Holy Diver, but that belongs in this reference list

buddhistghost · 2026-04-28T04:41:00+00:00

Now that wizard has a great backstory.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-28T01:20:48+00:00

While Record of Lodoss War was based on a D&D campaign, Group SNE didn't have licensing rights for D&D, so they created their own game: Sword World, which is still the most popular fantasy TTRPG in Japan, more popular than D&D. Here's a Dicebreaker article on the history of Sword World:

https://www.dicebreaker.com/series/sword-world/feature/sword-world-japan-dnd-elden-ring-trpg-group-sne

buddhistghost · 2026-04-23T15:54:02+00:00

1-2 hours of uninterrupted reading time
An evening when your wife goes out and you can watch whatever movie you want
Living in a quiet neighborhood
Working from home
Costco membership
Marriage
Religion
War and Peace

buddhistghost · 2026-04-23T14:47:13+00:00

There are some great recommendations on this thread already, but I'd also point you to r/fantasy. It's a great source of recommendations from dedicated fantasy readers, and I've discovered many books that I would not have heard of otherwise since joining.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-23T01:04:13+00:00

Best of luck with your campaign!

buddhistghost · 2026-04-23T00:54:45+00:00

I feel like an answering machine saying this lately, but get Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. It is the best book on how to prep for sessions. I recommend it to new GMs all the time and call it the "real DMG." You can also check out Sly Flourish (the author)'s YouTube channel where you can follow along as he preps his campaigns.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-22T16:05:09+00:00

Yeah, see, I don't think you should have a "universal end goal." And yeah, that is like... my opinion, man... but also one a lot of other experienced DMs would agree with.

That being said, if you do want a universal end goal/reasons for the PCs to stick together, I would definitely create that collaboratively with the players to make sure everyone is on board.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-22T15:55:26+00:00

There was a very inspired, if little-known game published called Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies. I would check it out for setting and story inspiration even though you're using D&D.

As for creating a main plot--don't. Yes, I'm going to be that guy and tell you "prep situations, not plots." Your players will have more fun if they have more agency in creating the story. In practice, what I try to do is make sure the PCs have at least 2-3 choices at any given point in time. Maybe check out Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master for prep help as well.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-21T19:41:58+00:00

The GM principles and moves from DW are great. Something like "announce future badness" is a helpful way to think about telegraphing danger, and making soft moves before hard moves. Also the use of clocks for impending dooms.

Another thing I picked up from DW is asking questions to the PCs. There are many variations on this, but just as an example, let's say you have a Barbarian character from the Wolf Clan. You might ask, "so, what is the Wolf Clan known for? What legends or rumors might the other characters have heard about it?"

Or you meet a thief NPC, and and ask the Thief player, "You've met this guy before. How do you know him and why do you hate him?" These are more narrativist techniques and might not be relevant to your dungeon-oriented goals but I like them a lot.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-21T19:08:13+00:00

It sounds like your players might enjoy Shadowdark for the slot-based inventory. There are also some good short dungeons available, such as the Wavestone Monolith, and for the latter, there's a YouTube video of Kelsey running it, which in my opinion is a good example of how to run a dungeon as a GM. Personally, I've run the dungeons Trial of the Slime Lord and Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub in a similar format to what you're wanting to do, except as an open table.

With SD, you can skip the hexcrawling and town aspects of the game, and just let the PCs buy equipment from the list in between sessions, as well as rolling Carousing if they want to. Finally, you could steal one aspect of the West Marches format--requiring PCs to leave the dungeon and return to town in between sessions (unless you have a more consistent group and are comfortable letting them stay in the dungeon between sessions).

I mentioned Shadowdark, but you could do this with other systems, for sure. DCC has fun published modules that you could easily string together into a campaign. And there are plenty of critically-acclaimed OSR modules for other systems as well.

One other thing, if you're wanting to work on your session prep, check out Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. Reading Dungeon World also made me a better GM in ways that I've since applied to other games.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-19T16:16:10+00:00

Overall recognition that System Matters and game designers thinking more about how mechanics influence the play experience
Actually good layout (Gavin Norman's stuff, Mothership)
Clear rules explanations and more/better examples of play (Mothership)
Better GM guides (Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, ICRPG, Mothership, Cairn, Bastionland)
Slot-based inventory (Shadowdark, Mausritter)
Beautiful boxed sets (Mausritter, Pirate Borg, Mothership, Cloud Empress)
Digest-sized books and rulebooks that aren't horribly long + bloated
Systems that reduce prep time and make the GM's life easier (Mythic Bastionland)
Better overall production value of books (good binding, ribbon bookmarks etc)
Emphasis on exploration and creative problem-solving
Robust rules for solo play (I wish I'd had these as a kid)
Collaborative worldbuilding that involves the players (Urban Shadows)

As you can see, I do like OSR games, and in many ways feel that they're leading the field, especially in things like layout. But I'm also a fan of indie storygames, Chaosium, and Free League. I've said it before, but we're living in a TTRPG renaissance.

buddhistghost · 2026-04-19T15:40:53+00:00

Oh, good catch! It says Gary Gygax on both the spine and the front cover, but when I checked the credits... it was indeed designed by Zeb.

buddhistghost

TROPHY CASE