Google Reader is telling me that all the hot, hip kids of the RPG blogosphere are currently engaged in a tag team match to determine who can present a complete adventure in the absolute minimal amount of space possible: Customized monster icons, textless adventures, player handouts that that double as adventure outlines, revised old school module maps with “everything” you need annotated onto the page… It’s all amazing stuff.

I’ve decided to join in the fun by devising an alphanumeric coding system: You don’t need a map or any pictorial reference at all. The alphanumeric code in the first row tells you the size of the room, the exits and entrances, and where those exits/entrances lead. The second row codes the contents of the associated room. (A null value indicates an empty chamber.)

ANGK19MW925MMM24101LHLA
00F00AB00000LM8620090000Z

As you can see, this is one heck of rip-roaring dungeon.

(This may sound weird coming from a guy who just released Legends & Labyrinths, but: Minimalism for the sake of minimalism is simply self-defeating at a certain point.)

I just had one of those moments when you realize that not everyone has noticed the same thing you have.

Tip for speeding up combat resolution in 3rd Edition: Once you’ve identified the AC you’re trying to hit, figure out what number you need to roll on the d20 in order to hit it. Now you don’t need to do math every time you roll: You just look at the die and instantly know whether you hit or not.

The more casual version of that is “lowest threshold”: Did you hit last time? Did you roll equal to or higher than that roll? Then you hit again. Did you roll lower? Then do the math (and, if you hit after doing the math, you’ve set a new lowest threshold).

This obviously doesn’t work if your attack bonuses or the target’s AC are shifting a lot. But 9 times out of 10, those numbers are consistent and the method works just fine.

Also: Roll your damage dice at the same time. If you hit, the damage is right there. If you didn’t, then you just ignore them.

(click for legible size)

I still can’t decide if it bugs me or not that alignment takes up something like 1/5th of the chapter on character creation (simply due to the bulk of information being conveyed). It was originally meant to be relegated to a sidebar, but it actually proved too large for that and ended up getting all of page 11 to itself.

Of course, that’s partly because the information on alignment needs to be entirely contained in Chapter 1, whereas the rest of Chapter 1 references players out to the more detailed descriptions of ability scores, classes, races, and the like found elsewhere in the rulebook.

A couple of other options I entertained:

(1) Removing alignment entirely. I would have left “good” and “evil” descriptors in for spells and extraplanar creatures, but the basic concept of PCs having an “alignment” would have been gone. Ultimately, I decided this was too radical a departure.

(2) Just describing the two axes of alignment — good vs. evil; law vs. chaos — in general terms and not discussing each combination in detail. (This might have included an old school, x-y axis chart of alignments.) A remnant of this remains in the sidebar on page 11, but what I discovered was that new players weren’t grokking the system. They were asking a lot of clarifying questions, and that’s usually an indication that the rulebook isn’t doing its job.

What do you think?

Check out this page purporting to be a list of Words That Don’t Exist in the English Language. It’s been making the rounds for awhile, so you may have seen it. And at least portions of it have possibly been debunked. But here are a couple of examples:

Waldeinsamkeit (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods.

Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Gheegle (Filipino): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.

What concepts would be so unique to a fantasy world that they might give rise to words which are, more-or-less, untranslatable to English?

Here’s a few thoughts:

The feeling of slight nausea and dizziness that happens when you teleport somewhere.

A color that can only be created by magic.

The soul-searing, howling noise created by adamantine when it’s shattered.

The sick giddiness left in the wake of a charm or domination effect.

What would be some good words for that? What other concepts would be evocative?

You may have heard that if you cut an earthworm in half, both halves will grow back into a full worm. That’s an urban legend. (They have amazing regenerative powers, but a severed back end will never be able to grow a new head.) But if you’re wondering how you could bring this into an RPG session, the answer is self-evident: Toss in a couple trolls.

More intriguing is the case of the bulldog ant:

“But the bulldog-ant of Australia affords us the most extraordinary example of its kind; for if it is cut in two, a battle begins between the head and the tail. The head seizes the tail in its teeth, and the tail defends itself bravely by stinging the head: The battle may last for half an hour, until they die or are dragged away by other ants. This contest takes place every time the experiment is tried.” (Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

I think the behavior after severing would be easy enough to model as a confusion effect on both halves of the creature. But the real question would be determining when and how the creature would get severed in the first place. A few thoughts:

(1) Some sort of modification on the mechanic used for severing a hydra’s head. The question, however, is how you can motivate a PC to actually make the sunder attempt. (This problem also exists with hydras.)

(2) Treat all weapons as effectively vorpal against the creature. When somebody confirms a crit off of a natural 20, the creature is effectively severed.

(3) Treat it as an effect of bloodying the creature (reducing it to half hit points).

(4) Treat it as an effect of killing the base creature (which is effectively transformed into two new creatures). Maybe there’s only a percentage chance that this happens.

(5) Set a “Break Threshold” for creature: If somebody deals more damage than the break threshold in a single attack, the creature is severed.