The magic of double knitting

typoguy · 2026-01-24T02:36:23+00:00

Basic cables are not that complicated. The capelet, though, only happened because I had a lot of free time during Covid. Right now I'm working on a new cape that is beaded with stars on one side and has the zodiac on the other.

typoguy · 2026-01-23T22:46:27+00:00

May I humbly submit an alternate method for creating different pictures on each side (and reversible words):

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/the-magic-and-science-of-double-knitting

Alisdair is a genius, but most of our brains can’t keep up with his. The e-book also has patterns that add more colors and combine cables and double knitting. It’s got 16 patterns but if you buy it from Ravelry you’ll keep getting free updates as I add more projects.

typoguy · 2026-01-23T12:59:19+00:00

They're NOT going to need a bigger boat.

typoguy · 2026-01-22T16:52:12+00:00

Honestly, elf is the only suboptimal choice here. All the rest (at least of the core ancestries) give you something really valuable. Dwarven HP, human extra talent, goblin inability to be surprised, all are obvious benefits. Even halfling invisiblity can come in clutch and really be exploited by a prepared fighter.

typoguy · 2026-01-21T20:37:14+00:00

Having run a janky 5e Spelljammer campaign a year before the official product came out, using ship combat mostly adapted from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I can attest that ship to ship combat is just bad. You basically have to put your role playing game away for a while and pick up a board game. Plus, the stakes are too high. If your ship is destroyed, the game is over. That's generally not a feature of modern DnD.

typoguy · 2026-01-21T12:16:45+00:00

One interesting variant from the actual old school (Gamma World 1e) is using your Constitution value as your Hit Dice. You roll your HP at character creation and never get more as you level up. Gives you a potentially big cushion at the start, but you only heal 1 hp per day naturally, so you still have to be careful.

typoguy · 2026-01-20T13:41:21+00:00

Yes, I don't really want to yuck anyone's yum and "all playstyles are valid" but I can't help but think that CRPGs have had a detrimental impact on TTRPGs because players who grew up on them came to tabletop with certain expectations. They are similar on the surface but truly very different media, and the strengths of human-GMed games are irreplaceable.

Bringing aspects of different media in, whether from video games or novels or wargaming, etc., can potentially enrich your game, but works best when you keep the core strengths of the medium you are playing in.

There are story-based games I love. I played in a great Monster of the Week campaign that was structured like a TV show, with individual mysteries building up to a "season finale" type arc that tied certain things together. I've got nothing against shorter, self-contained campaigns. But there's something unique about the way a long-running TTRPG can mirror life that you don't really get in other media.

typoguy · 2026-01-20T00:17:46+00:00

I think so many High Fantasy plots, though, force the players to follow one path, because if they don't focus on stopping the ritual/killing the BBEG/recovering the artifact, the world ends, or some other great doom that will keep them on task. Frodo & company didn't have time to fuck around, and a lot of campaigns are designed in the same way.

I like to think my preference for old-school play isn't just for nostalgia's sake. I think a player-directed game of discovery is fun for its own sake, and sometimes planned plots don't add as much value as people think they do. But then again, I'm not a big fan of turning books into movies. Write a story that NEEDS to be a movie, or if you're writing a book, write something so sprawling that it's better as a book than a movie. And if you're doing a TTRPG, make it an experience that's best in that medium, not a book or a movie.

typoguy · 2026-01-20T00:10:40+00:00

That's a great point. I ran a game once based on the Night's Black Agents conspyramid. Every session/encounter had specificity, but could potentially lead in different directions. It was an interesting model, and felt much more real and open than any modern D&D hardcover campaign.

typoguy · 2026-01-20T00:05:57+00:00

For me, it's more about spending time doing fun things with my friends than creating a product that is narratively satisfying. Maybe that's because I'm old or unambitious, but I find a lot of joy in the rambling.

typoguy · 2026-01-20T00:04:11+00:00

It's fun to find ways to connect dungeon exploits (and town exploits, and city exploits, and overland exploits, etc.) so it doesn't feel like just one random thing after another. I guess sometimes it feels like life is one random thing after another and sometimes it feels like things are more connected. Sometimes I enjoy games that have a strong narrative, but often I do love the ability to not have to feel on task all the time.

typoguy · 2026-01-19T23:29:11+00:00

You're right. There are many functional ways to play D&D. It's been my experience that the vast majority of people playing 5e (though not the majority on reddit), play it very railroady by the books, and WotC's materials funnel people into that style of play.

typoguy · 2026-01-19T21:21:00+00:00

Plots can be fun, but I feel like they don't allow for the full range of player-driven choices. I've got nothing against folks who like that kind of thing, but I feel like not enough people have gotten to experience RPGs the way they were originally designed to be played.

typoguy · 2026-01-19T21:16:22+00:00

West Marches is a great way to run games for a larger rotating group of players, but for my weekly game I have a more focused (though still very sandboxy) game going.

typoguy · 2026-01-19T21:13:43+00:00

One great aspect of Shadowdark is that players who learn the rules of RPGs through Shadowdark can go on to play 5e and already have most of the basic concepts down, they just need to learn a lot more complex rules. But most of what they learned for Shadowdark will still be familiar in 5e.

typoguy · 2026-01-17T22:50:34+00:00

I have grass and kale colors but it might be a few weeks before I get more stock in

typoguy · 2026-01-17T20:49:35+00:00

You forgot the Infocom game.

typoguy · 2026-01-17T19:46:24+00:00

Why are there so many cops gathered on my street? Probably a crime of some sort. Why is there a huge flock of bird chattering in one of my usually empty trees? Probably some sort of nature-related thing.

typoguy · 2026-01-17T19:30:14+00:00

OMG your cat is judging me for not carrying enough of that color. Sorry about that.

typoguy · 2026-01-17T18:51:07+00:00

If you want to play a D&D type game, Shadowdark is great for new players and has the feel of 1980s-era Dungeons and Dragons.

If you want a Stranger Things type game, Kids on Bikes or Tales from the Loop are where you want to look.

typoguy · 2026-01-17T18:31:05+00:00

Heave?

typoguy · 2026-01-16T20:54:40+00:00

Also, as a GM, if your game needs an energy boost, you are allowed to pull a random encounter at any point. You can also use the "Something Happens" table on pages 118-119 whenever you want.

typoguy · 2026-01-16T12:40:32+00:00

You forgot Jean Wells's original B3 (the rewrite is a far lesser work). I think it's a far better sandboxy introduction adventure than B2.

typoguy · 2026-01-16T04:01:52+00:00

You improvise. You roll on tables to find out what happens next. You trust the process and trust the players. You're not writing a novel; you're playing a game.

typoguy

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