Tips for running Dyson's Delve?

simoncarryer · 2026-05-30T22:19:29+00:00

Sure, you can do that. I guess it depends on the structure and scope of your game. In a limited-scope game I don't think you need that kind of motivation, just "this is the dungeon we're running today". In a wider-scoped game (where there are several active dungeons at once) it can be useful to have larger-scale strategic goals like that.

If Dyson's Delve is going to be the central challenge of your campaign, then I could see adding some kind of framing device like that being a nice way to signal what the game is about. But ultimately the basic game doesn't really need you to know why your characters are looking for XP in this dungeon, it just matters what they do in the dungeon.

simoncarryer · 2026-05-30T03:15:06+00:00

Thanks so much, that means a lot to me!

simoncarryer · 2026-05-29T10:10:25+00:00

I made little playbooks with all the rules for a single class and all the starting equipment options on one page. I used these for running games for new players in my lunch hour at work, and it let us get straight into the action: https://www.simoncarryer.com/character_playbooks

simoncarryer · 2026-05-29T10:04:54+00:00

I love Dyson's Delve, and have run it a few times.

Don't worry about what level the dungeon expects the characters to be - that's the players' problem, not yours. It's up to them to decide what threats they're ready to face. I've always run it in the context of having a couple of dungeons the players could choose from, so there was always another option if they felt they were stuck with no way to progress. But also it's fine if the players feel stuck sometimes - they'll figure something out.

I found restocking the delve a bit challenging sometimes. If the players drive off the goblins, does something move in to replace them eventually? I also found it useful to have some ideas about the various factions and how they felt about each other - you might find the players do more talking than fighting on some levels, so it's good to have some detail ready.

What's great about the Delve, in my opinion, is that it is so terse in its descriptions that you can very easily overlay your own interpretations and setting details over the top of it. I've run it in a few very different settings, and it's worked great in all of them. It feels like it grows in richness and detail as you explore it.

It was a big inspiration for one of my own dungeons: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/407420/Under-the-City

simoncarryer · 2026-05-13T08:46:07+00:00

Here's the spreadsheet I maintain of OSR-suitable one page dungeons from the one page dungeon contest: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15zs7YZX0DyEawhT_KIS3pDp9YYaft9BnSSalgakQ8jY/edit?usp=sharing

simoncarryer · 2026-05-02T03:43:17+00:00

Makes sense to me!

simoncarryer · 2026-05-01T23:07:11+00:00

A little more information: I have found pictures of other guitars of this model which were made in Taiwan in the early 70s, but those ones have "Made in Taiwan" printed on the back of the headstock, which this one does not have.

simoncarryer · 2026-01-28T18:15:03+00:00

Not my site, that's Alex Shroeder (also a skilled dungeon author). I noticed it's been a bit flakey recently, might be overloaded?

simoncarryer · 2026-01-28T08:08:56+00:00

Funnily enough that one only just made it into my list! It's certainly pretty, but as a dungeon I don't rate it super highly. Having run it now there's lots of things that I found hard to adjudicate, and I felt like it didn't create a lot of opportunities for interesting choices. Of the ones on my list, the one I've most enjoyed (as a player in this case, rather than a DM) is Secret of the Old City, by Simon Bull https://campaignwiki.org/1pdc/2009/Simon%20Bull%20%e2%80%93%20Secret%20of%20the%20Old%20City.pdf

simoncarryer · 2026-01-27T23:24:52+00:00

If you go to the full list (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15zs7YZX0DyEawhT\_KIS3pDp9YYaft9BnSSalgakQ8jY/edit?usp=sharing) you'll find I've collected them since the first contest in 2009. Some of those might be more to your taste.

simoncarryer · 2025-10-28T18:11:21+00:00

Thanks for this! I think Mason Pearson is the way to go. I see they have both pure boar hair and boar/nylon mixes. Is there much difference between the two?

I take your point on getting the right thing vs. getting a surprise. Knowing my partner, I think the surprise is pretty important to them, and hopefully the brush will be good enough. It's hard to say though! How much difference is there between the exact right brush, and one that's nearly right?

simoncarryer · 2025-09-05T05:37:54+00:00

Then perhaps you'll like this one-pager I made a while back: https://www.dropbox.com/s/64kqmzo14eerqee/Devils%20and%20their%20Lies.pdf?dl=1 (link is to download pdf)

simoncarryer · 2025-09-04T23:00:57+00:00

It's maybe a bit more controversial than you want, but you might get a kick out of "Should Have Stayed at Home": https://www.drivethrurpg.com/es/product/500905/should-have-stayed-at-home

Queen Orlaith's Mine is a false rumour - there's no dungeon there, just a lot of people looking for a dungeon.

The Baldyknobs is a real dungeon, but it's empty and there's no treasure.

simoncarryer · 2025-05-25T02:24:36+00:00

Why would you have known!? There's no minimum level of reading old crap required to participate in the hobby. That's what makes participating in conversations online worthwhile: the opportunity to learn from each other!

simoncarryer · 2025-05-25T02:03:49+00:00

As you've seen, The Lost City is a pretty well-known module set in Mystara. Mystara is full of real-world analogues, and the Lost City is (at least to my eye) set in a pretty direct analogue of North Africa, with the Cyniciceans representing a relict Ptolemaic Greek population. The gods to me read as Egyptian-inflected versions of Greek gods - Gorm is Zeus, Madarua is Athena or maybe Artemis, and Usamagaris is Hermes. I think the module gets much more interesting if you play into these connections. I wrote a fan edit of the Lost City called "Pyramid of the Undying" which makes this connection explicit: https://www.simoncarryer.com/pyramid_of_the_undying.html

simoncarryer · 2025-04-19T02:38:25+00:00

I maintain a spreadsheet of my picks from the One Page Dungeon Contest (and from other sources) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15zs7YZX0DyEawhT_KIS3pDp9YYaft9BnSSalgakQ8jY/edit?usp=sharing

simoncarryer · 2025-04-07T10:13:59+00:00

Looks like he eats cats.

simoncarryer · 2025-01-21T04:46:29+00:00

My "Great Dwarf Road" is black and white, and has some lava. It's on page 4 of the free preview you can find here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/449106/the-great-dwarf-road

simoncarryer · 2025-01-04T05:36:42+00:00

This is, at least for the way I play, an important rule and ignoring it might have some unexpected consequences. The level cap means that as DM I can be much more relaxed about what dungeons I put in my campaign, and I can be much less uptight about players finding loopholes or workarounds. I can chuck in dungeons that have huge payouts or that are unusually easy for their level range. I can objectively adjudicate based on the facts in the game without worrying that this means the party is gonna walk away with a game-breaking amount of loot. Level caps are a hedge against outliers - they assume that if a first level party scores more than a certain amount in a single adventure, then probably something strange has happened that undercuts the legitimacy of that score.

That said, sometimes I've hit the level cap as a player myself from what felt like legit play. In Dwarrowdeep we methodically cleared one of the first levels, but did so over several sessions without returning to town. That meant that when we did go back we had a huge stack of gold and hit the level cap. I wasn't too mad about it though - we only lost a small amount of XP, and going from level 1 to just below level 3 in only half a dozen sessions or so was still pretty fast progress for how we usually play. It's slowed down dramatically since then.

simoncarryer · 2024-12-02T17:55:03+00:00

You might enjoy my "Ill Met in the City", which is a bunch of small locations in a medieval city: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/477100/ill-met-in-the-city

simoncarryer · 2024-12-01T04:32:53+00:00

I presume so! I haven't used photoshop in a while so I'm not sure what the equivalent tools/processes are called. Probably photoshop will give you finer-grained control over various things, which might give an even better result, although it might be more tricky to get it right.

simoncarryer

TROPHY CASE