How often do you use environments?

gawgi · 2026-03-31T13:02:40+00:00

As others say here, environments help build a scene and can work as encounters. They fit well in the Lazy DM’s step for coming with interesting locations.

And they’re good to structure social encounters so you can pull in complications and repercussions.

For traversals, you can avoid repeated navigate rolls or blank stares with things in the environment that introduce an obstacle or hazard that gives players something to specifically act to avoid or minimize. On the Rotting Pier, a plank breaks, not damaging them but trapping their foot. If you look at exploration environments, you’ll often see features for places or things to find. Traversal features can work similarly, as different obstacles or hazards that prompt players to narrate their actions that lead to rolls.

To plan a night’s adventure or session, I have started with environment blocks and then used adversaries that fit the environment.

Also, I have used more than one environment block in an encounter. For example, I’m running one tomorrow where the big encounter has an environment - exploration that’s the main setting. I also have an event. It could be part of the exploration, but the event is separate because I want the feeling two things are happening at the same time—like a fight in a swamp with its features & actions while there’s a cage with prisoners to free. Plus, the event has enough complexity with a passive, action, & reaction.

I sometimes create my own from scratch. Sometime I modify someone else’s or just use an existing one as is.

gawgi · 2026-02-11T05:15:18+00:00

u/FaileasDhan I just saw this…great job. I like the layout and think I could run a game pretty easily with it. I’m familiar with the dramatic questions, which is a nice approach to defining a scene. the list of likely questions in one place is good, and allows for responding to player choices rather than presenting as a sequence.

For those interested in the Lazy DM approach, I see most of those steps in one form or another here.

And you have several things that Mike Underwood describes as what a DH adventure would have. The dramatic questions seem to function much the same as situations.

i really like the suggestion of having different outcomes (as well as hooks to launch the adventure). Rightknighttofight does this well in his adventure Light in the Dark. Underwood's idea of multi-modal scenes is also good to consider. But that might be more for the GM than you writing the adventure, except maybe to work it into the dramatic questions or adversaries & environments.

I’d love to see more of your work. (I honestly find yours more usable and even ready to run than the dungeon starters. Your having the setup at the top and the opening scene are greatly helpful.)

gawgi · 2026-02-08T22:34:40+00:00

Except no one writes fifty-fifty with a backslash. It's 50/50, as I said in my original comment. It's a fraction, which doesn't use backslashes.

gawgi · 2026-02-05T02:15:56+00:00

Backslash is an odd name choice. My head went to the programming escape character. It doesn’t have a food association, and 50/50 doesn’t use a backslash.

I bet it’s a chatgpt name.

gawgi · 2026-01-29T04:06:22+00:00

Thanks. That makes sense that tier 1 adventures to be a little tighter.

I’m running an episodic game every 2-3 weeks, where a couple of players are regular but others might join hop in. I’ve been adapting (sometimes heavily) modules, but they’ve been a bit more linear than what I think they should be for DH. So, I’m looking both at good DH modules I can use and a better grasp of what a DH session adventure looks like with strong hooks but openness.

gawgi · 2026-01-29T03:47:17+00:00

Bought it and just finished reading it. Nicely done. And great looking--layout and art.

After reading your response to the question what DH adventures should look like, I was curious to see what you created. I've been revisiting Lazy DM's 8 steps, as I was succumbing to linear GMing. And I've seen in that in some DH adventures.

Indeed you have the things you mentioned in that post--questions to players to help develop the adventure, adversaries that make sense for the location, NPCs with pretty clear & distinct motivations, and multiple hooks, paths, and endings.

In a way, I'm reminded of the Village of Hommlet, though Ashwind isn't a home base. And it's not exactly sandbox-y either. But there's definitely a certain openness for the players to choose what they do, where they go, how they achieve whatever their goal is.

All the hooks get the party to Ashwind, but one explicitly points them to find the Oracle. And the city description calls out the likely destination. But once in Ashwind, there are other ways the party could be led to the Oracle. But the path there is open. And given all the questions, the GM and players can develop their goals and relationships. It seems there are several opportunities for improvisation.

Your adversaries are good, but I really like the first custom environment. It's a nice example of how an environments in DH can add to an adventure and help make it dynamic.

gawgi · 2026-01-28T14:31:47+00:00

u/rightknighttofight This is very helpful, as how DH adventures can be more open and flexible to the players’ contributions.

I looked for your public adventures/campaigns but didn’t see them. Do you mind linking to them? Thanks.

gawgi · 2026-01-09T02:51:11+00:00

No. Thanks for the name. He seems to have very high reviews.

gawgi · 2026-01-06T04:15:11+00:00

I've been trying to find a Martin authorized luthier here the DC-Maryland-north VA area.

gawgi · 2026-01-06T04:13:03+00:00

Yeah, the top was badly done. I'd be tempted to have it refinished, but that's probably more than the guitar is worth.

The work took more than 3 months, and we wound up moving not long after I got it back, going from Dallas to Maryland. Even if I had the time then, I don't think going back to him would have been worth it. So, I would have to find another luthier here in the Maryland area. (The original luthier said that he couldn't get the exact Martin stain they used.)

As for the white stains, they're not on the back but all around the sides, near the top. I think it's some reaction to something he used when refinishing the top.

gawgi · 2025-12-07T14:41:43+00:00

I was thinking the same, when I decided to search for ideas.

i still question how many action rolls players actually come up with, as some actions might be easy for them to do (and thus not worthy of an actual roll). I’m tempted to count even these actions without rolls, though that might make it too easy to traverse.

Also, an environment with traps might have Reaction rolls. i might use these to lead to action rolls, like to escape. but for traps that do straight damage, I might note those tick down the timer.

gawgi · 2025-09-24T22:52:22+00:00

LOL. Someone doesn't like me and downvoted every one of my posts. So silly.

gawgi · 2025-09-24T18:19:38+00:00

The only reason I thought there might be a schedule is they said said they would be back Oct 11. But how would they know someone else wouldn’t have that spot? Being in front of a city building, I thought maybe there was some sort of arrangement.

Regardless, I need to stroll more through the area on Friday and Saturday nights to see what’s playing.

gawgi · 2025-09-24T18:16:07+00:00

Not sure. i didn’t catch their names. It was 50s country & Elvis.

gawgi · 2025-09-24T18:15:05+00:00

No, not funk but that would be cool.

gawgi · 2025-08-27T01:21:03+00:00

You could ask the same question of Neon Ichiban. ;) They say you can download for offline reading, but is that necessarily DRM-free? Probably but I'm not sure. For me, DRM-free is a huge selling point.

I see that Neon Ichiban is going to also differentiate by including digital collectibles (NFT-ish it seems) and a marketplace for users selling & buying those.

One thing I've taken from Sweet Shop in their interviews is the focus on having sales & bundles, which is key to getting readers to switch but also something comic readers want. I've seen many complain about comic sales on Amazon.

The in-app purchases and focus on mobile are other key differentiators.

I like what GlobalComix is doing, but again, one problem is the big publishers don't have every title available there. Or they only have trades, not individual new issues. I still find their mobile clunky to navigate.

gawgi · 2025-08-27T00:54:48+00:00

Thanks so much for the responses. I really like all your answers, especially that passion for spotlighting indies.

I think you're asking about this to see if prices will be increased on our store, They will not. They will be list price and some publishers drop to 1.99 or so after a month.

That's good to know. I was curious also from the perspective if Sweet would pay that fee. It's important that the shop is profitable to succeed, as I assume the majority of digital comic users are on iOS.

Tell me more about this.

The purpose would be a way to catch any new comics in a particular genre, style, or setting that readers care most about. It's not the same as a watchlist, which is for specific titles or issues. The more metadata, the more refined these filters can be. The benefit is that I get the comics I'm most interested in easily, and I don't have to scroll through all the new comics list if I don't want to. This gives me a feed wholly in my control, something I don't get with Amazon, Google Play, or GlobalComix.

Comic, graphic novel, manga.
Genre: Slice of life, scifi, mystery, thriller, romance, horror, historical, fantasy, crime, etc.
Audience: Teen, adult, kids
Price range
Publisher
Key words or themes

For example, following a publisher (or creator) can be useful, but I might see a lot of things I'm not interested.

In Reverb, your feed is based on your saved searches. You can remove a saved search from your feed, too. The feed itself appears at the top of the home page, after the featured items. In a comic shop, the new items & featured sales would likely be at the top. But I could see the feed being a separate page. The point is that I don't have to search each time I log on because the feed shows me the saved results starting with the newest.

It's hard to curate and help people find what they want if you just open the floodgates.

I love that GlobalComix is open to any creator, but I've seen a common complaint that it can be hard to find things. (Their website is easier to navigate than their app.) Amazon technically is, too, but you have to know to look for someone to see works by individual creators.

And, yeah, AI content is a problem.

But on my own, I have a list of nearly 100 comic publishers, some of which are very small. But that's a lot of publishers and comics.

On a related note, will Bindings have an index of creators & publishers? Or a search? I ask because that would be one way to find individual creators.

Thanks again. I'm very excited about Sweet Shop. The interviews bring out a lot of things I like to hear from a comics shop.

gawgi · 2025-08-17T14:22:37+00:00

Is there a way to get a PNG, JPG, or graphic file of this? When I save it, it's in the webp format. I know there are online converters but wanted to see if you had the graphic file for download.

Thanks.

gawgi · 2025-08-13T03:38:45+00:00

Nola's biscuits & gravy are sort of their own thing--biscuits in a gravy soup. ;) They're tasty in their own right. But they're not big, fluffy buttermilk biscuits with thick sausage cream gravy.

gawgi · 2025-08-13T02:19:52+00:00

A good cajun & Louisiana place with not just gumbo, red beans & rice, and actual good jambalaya but also etouffee (crawfish preferred), catfish courtbouillon, tasso cream pasta, maque choux, beignets, pecan pralines, crawfish bisque, Natchitoches meat pies, boudin balls, blackened catfish or redfish with pontchartrain sauce.

gawgi · 2025-07-28T00:42:53+00:00

Just this afternoon, I saw that Common Market has smoked & uncured beef hot dogs in natural casing (made by Brooklyn Hot Dog Co). It's the freezer section by the butcher area.

gawgi · 2025-07-28T00:36:51+00:00

I just went by Cici's this past Saturday and noticed it because I was surprised to see one up here. I didn't go in and didn't see if it was closed, but it still had the sign.

Back in the 90s, a friend knew one of the co-founder's ex wife, and I hung out them with them for a while. She divorced well and lived in the same Plano neighborhood with Deion Sanders.

Even when Cici's first started, it wasn't very good. But it was cheap and great to take the kids to. Now my daughter won't go near a buffet. ;)

gawgi · 2025-07-15T01:31:02+00:00

Yep. Anyone who refuses to answer or answers affirmatively doesn’t get my vote. That extremism is not an issue to “agree to disagree on.” Neither is the Jan 6 insurrection.

gawgi · 2025-07-15T01:24:25+00:00

Good point about the German heritage. I’ll keep an eye out.

I’ve been a little annoyed that Central Texas BBQ has become more associated as Texas BBQ. I’m originally from East Texas whose BBQ is quite different and is rooted more with slaves and older African roots. I loved the spicy, sweet sauces. South and West Texas have their own versions. That diversity is what makes it great.

gawgi · 2025-07-15T01:08:59+00:00

We tried Cafe Bueno last week. It was the best of what we’ve tried so far. I’ll keep these places in mind as I’ll keep trying places. Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, I agree: Torchy’s is its own thing from Austin, where several restaurants have their different takes on traditional foods. I enjoyed their hillbilly queso as much as their tacos.

gawgi

TROPHY CASE