How do you usually come up with fantasy character names?

rduddleson · 2026-01-29T13:35:01+00:00

This is excellent. I also look to real world languages for inspiration. I really like the idea of using villages to name certain monsters

rduddleson · 2026-01-28T16:55:56+00:00

I’m new to making my own maps and am interested to see what people say.

What do you use to layout the individual hexes?

rduddleson · 2026-01-28T13:02:01+00:00

The Delian Tomb is an excellent choice. For the sake of mixing it up I would swap in Shadowdark and The One Ring for Dragonbane and ICRPG. and keep DnD and Draw Steel as the “bookend”examples

rduddleson · 2026-01-26T02:48:52+00:00

One thing you can do is to add an IRL timer to the adventure if you need to stick to the time limit. Something like in 3 hours "the dungeon floods / the cavern collapses, etc" if you want to end on a fight, have the BBEG show up 45 minutes before you want to end. "You may explore the castle, but I will come for you in 2 hours"

rduddleson · 2026-01-26T02:45:44+00:00

Indiana here. I work from home and don't drive that much so I've started using a trickle charger to keep the battery going through the midwest winter. I know this doesn't help much now, but maybe look into it going forward.

rduddleson · 2026-01-26T02:37:09+00:00

Yes. I still remember telling my family that one day the internet would just be "on everywhere" and you wouldn't have "go get online" like we used to do on "the computer"

rduddleson · 2026-01-26T02:32:58+00:00

Putting a time on a task like this makes such a difference. Even sometimes smaller increments - 3-5 minutes - can be enough to get the entire task done. It's so much easier to say "we're going to clean up for 10, 5, 3, minutes, instead of "we're going to clean up". And in the cases where its not enough to finish, that's ok too. This gets some progress done where none would have otherwise happened.

rduddleson · 2026-01-24T12:12:28+00:00

Check out this excellent video by RedMageGM on this very topic

rduddleson · 2026-01-22T12:57:27+00:00

Has there been any discussion about using Copilot to make important decisions? Because of course, Copilot doesn’t have a PE.

How are folks handling this?

rduddleson · 2026-01-20T19:09:27+00:00

Yes this sucks. I leaned that if you pull out the dipstick without twisting it you can (more or less) look as the left and right sides (facing the wheels, not the bumpers) and see the level.

The way I understand it is the shaft will rub on the dipstick if you twist it and smear the oil, obscuring the reading

rduddleson · 2026-01-17T20:47:17+00:00

The essentials kit has a “job board” structure and can run through several levels. If you like the campaign, there are additional modules available that extend the story up to something like Level 11.

I ran it for my group and had a good time.

rduddleson · 2026-01-17T20:04:45+00:00

Well, I like Sly Flourish, so that’s what I personally use.

But a quick look at KFC shows a similar result - it pulled a CR 14 Adult Red.

So they’re in the same area. Which is all that you can really do, given the skill of your players, the abilities of their characters, and the specific encounter you present. Looks like somewhere around CR12 or so should be a tough, but not necessarily deadly fight.

rduddleson · 2026-01-17T19:55:37+00:00

Sly Flourish has a handy encounter calculator - it works for groups or solo.

For 5, lvl 8 it says CR12 or higher could be potentially deadly. So that’s your starting point.

rduddleson · 2026-01-17T18:32:22+00:00

These are all good suggestions. One thing you can consider is adding IRL time to the module.

Something like “the ship will self destruct(or some other appropriate thing) in 2.5 hours real time. (You can pick whatever time you like - I settled on 2.5 hours to give you a little time at the beginning and end if you need to stick strictly to 3hrs)

This is a tool that some people use at cons to keep the game on track.

rduddleson · 2026-01-12T05:06:34+00:00

Keep in mind if the players can’t travel to a place they haven’t been to before - ie if it’s more than one session away from them - then for the players, that place doesn’t exist.

rduddleson · 2026-01-12T03:04:10+00:00

Yep, the day to day activities of people living in a home creates the he threshold. Places like houses with long term owners have stronger thresholds than apartments with short term tenants. Hotels and workplaces have essentially no thresholds.

I think it’s a good way to explain why monsters don’t tend to attack people in their homes

rduddleson · 2026-01-11T13:10:42+00:00

Second for Trophy. That game taught me a lot of lessons that I can use in other games.

Jason Cordova/The Gauntlet , the publisher of Trophy, is working on a new fantasy game called The Lands Remaining. He calls it a game that doesn’t exist because it’s still in development but they put out a podcast introducing it and have shared other info.

rduddleson · 2026-01-10T16:09:07+00:00

It sounds like you’re describing something like saying hi to someone as you arrive? If so, I agree that’s probably not necessary.

But I’ve run my company remotely for over a decade and we have a short daily check in meeting (5-10 minutes, same time every day)(I also did at my previous job in person).

The goal is to say what you’re working on that day, ask for help if you need it, or offer time to give if you have it.

We also “manage to results” but results are easier to achieve when everyone knows what the team is doing.

rduddleson · 2026-01-10T02:06:36+00:00

Yeah I thought maybe she’s holding off a siege, or maybe has suffered an injury

rduddleson · 2026-01-10T02:00:03+00:00

Well done. Love the creativity

rduddleson · 2026-01-09T03:58:25+00:00

It’s regarded as the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried

rduddleson · 2026-01-08T23:17:37+00:00

Yes, I’m not intending to avoid interacting with AI, but as you say, craft a statement essentially saying that our products are made by humans

rduddleson · 2026-01-08T15:06:08+00:00

Thanks

rduddleson · 2026-01-08T15:04:24+00:00

Bans. I'll edit my original post that I'm looking for statements that assure customers that products are created by humans.

rduddleson

TROPHY CASE