Campaign Phase Shift

On the theme of 'how I prep' - sometimes you hit inflection points or changes to the campaign that require some unusual prep. My home campaign has been running a while, I have talked about 'shifting gears' before but there is an unusual prep condition that crops up when you *shift back* in trying to recapture an old campaign mode. This could also apply where you are trying to spin up a lore-true campaign in a setting with a lot of books; say a Baldurs Gate campaign with players who are Ed Greenwood fans and Forgotten Realms lore fiends - though that would be even worse for a DM. I touched on this in Ducal House Year 6 - DM Challenges - where the player-side solution is 'delegate' and 'domain manage' - but what is the DM to do?

The specific instance for me is that after a 'quest phase' which looks a lot like old school trad style landscape bashing, the party are back at base and once more in their urban familiar terrain of Thenya and its palace.

I was having a little trouble getting the 'urban campaign' gear back, after a whole section of the campaign that had been deliberately broader strokes, coarser grained days with faster time passing and fewer, shallower encounters with NPCs all those needed to be inverted (or consciously adapted where we decide to retain faster time passing in an urban setup).

I had been tracking the 'ongoing activities' - the actions their minions were taking care of and the few major NPCs that they would take the time to scry on a regular basis. It felt a little sparse; the palace, their base of activities, lived but the city did not.

Prep Notes

As the party bounced around the countryside, focused on their main mission, I had been doing a light touch view of actions within the city/realm, mostly the PCs own to-do list.

Each session I was doing a sweep up of
- actions they left on the boil
- factions and their agendas
- timeline evolution / consequences

The results of this can be seen in the 'timeline/consequences' section (box 7) for session 136.

Session 136 itself was an extended fight sequence as the party attempted to escape an ancient temple with while rescuing an ally, retrieving an artifact and holding off a swarm of undead pteradons and a pair of vrock. The session ended with them teleporting back to their home-base so the 'post-session consequences/next session set-up' needed to be focussed on their being back in their home city.

Episode 136 session sheet

Here I pulled forward the elements last left lying around - activities of their minions/hirelings, continuation of the threads set in motion last time they were in town - all this was fine, good information but it left the question of 'what is the rest of the city up to' unclear because the players focus prior to leaving had been on prep for the quest they just did and absolute emergencies. The faction politics and actions of other NPCs they were likely to check in on had fallen out of focus - if they had set off to visit old NPC pals I would have struggled. The gears of the city were no longer spinning in my head.

To overcome that trouble getting that mode back I had a look back 100 sessions to a previous 'full swing urban session set' for inspiration - going a few sessions forward and back to recall how the pacing had worked and what happened session on session.

Looking back to my old urban format and recalling while 'wilderness' adventures use space and distance, urban adventures use time so the days schedule (box 3) becomes important again.

In those couple of sessions there were activities happening at the palace, slower RP-heavy interactions with various NPCs, planning sessions, some palace dungeoneering and various social outings. I had rumours, notes on major NPCs opinions, rosters of who was present at the palace and social occasions for evenings.

Episode 33 session sheet

I decided no harm to re-activate or echo some of those elements that were seen in those sessions; pruning away ones that got resolved and expanding or escalating things that had been left to fester and run wild.

All this got folded into my single session prep format as a very extended 'post session notes / session consequences' work up.
- the long list of ideas
- till back over old soil
- make the NPCs spring back to life

These were collected into the 'consequences' part of the last sessions sheet (box 7) - this could have been done at any point but best if it is done relatively close to time of use so they are as fresh in mind as possible.

I was given the boon of session 137 was taken by the players for R&R, a stand-alone beach episode which bought me the time to do this prep.

Episode 137 session sheet

This set me up well for a 'report in and take stock' session 138 - this included resolving a plotline running since the start of the campaign by executing the last priest of a wicked god using their freshly-retrieved artefact. There was a run to an outlying fortress to stash said dangerous artefact, teleporting out to an outlying monastery to have dinner with a seer, teleporting back and then using the few hours before bed for some impromptu dungeoneering in the basement.

And of course - after all that set up for urban play - the players decide to visit the moon, to see if they could - but at least the base city breathes once more.

Shiny TTRPG links #241

Some more deep-time blog-trawlings while I am away. For more, see the previous list found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Roles, Rules, and Rolls gave us Analog, Digital, Procedural

How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less shared Why D&D Has Lots of Rules for Combat: A General Theory Encompassing All Editions

ChicagoWiz's Games gave us The 3 Essential Elements of the Perfect D&D Village/Town/City

Prismatic Wasteland wrote A Better Approach to Deadly Games

Rise Up Comus asked What are you holding? - The GM's Most Important Question

Hill Cantons shared AD&D's Apocalypse and Domain Game Index

Own Personal Appendix N

In response to the Appendicitis N Blogwagon and Prismatic Wastelands request for "a list of inspirational media (books, movies, comics, video games, what have you) that impact your design, inspired by the original Appendix N at the back of the 1979 Dungeon Master’s Guide for D&D" here is a list of the inspirational material that fed my original AD&D games back in the early 90s.

The first thing to note here, this is a younger persons reading list - I came to the game pretty early ~ 12-13 as I described in "On childrens story gaming and later play style". Second thing to note, there is little to no overlap with the original AD&D Appendix N - what we have below is a mix of kids stuff, original myth and legend and derivative fantasy - second or maybe third wave after the books from the original Appendix N and probably influenced by them. All this strongly steered by what was on the shelves in my local library or at home.

For the first block - kids stuff; animal folk and a mildly gonzo mish-mash of stuff:
* Rupert Bear annuals
* Curly Wee books
* Enid Blyton kids series - Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair, Noddy
* Roald Dahl - particularly BFG, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
* Asterix comics
* Tintin books

Of the second block - "original sources" - the kind of thing that would have been influences on the books of AppendiX N, being written earlier
* Irish Faery tale collections
* Greek myths
* Hobbit (Tolkien)
* The Seafarers non-fiction books
* King Solomons Mines
* Biggles novels
* Three Musketeers
* Last of the Mohicans
* Ivanhoe

The third block - riffing off the established fantasy tropes
* Riftwar (Feist)
* Discworld (Pratchett)
* Belgariad & Malloreon (Eddings)

Within that third block I would include the direct gaming related stuff like:
* Fighting Fantasy books
* Heroquest scenarios
* White Dwarf

The two 'adventure series' that complemented all those were
* Courtneys of Africa series by Wilbur Smith
* Aubrey & Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brien

In parallel to this I read a lot of sci-fi which did not directly inform my AD&D tables but was in mind for other stuff.
* Dan Dare comics
* Tower and the Hive (Anne McCaffrey)
* Dune series (Herbert)
* Culture novels (Banks)
* Asimov short stories - Robot series
* The Damned Series (Alan Dean Foster)

All this to say the 'open system' mix that got shovelled into my early AD&D games was not the same as the classic Appendix N - but for The Hobbit it is an almost perfect donut of sources around those books.

Other media going in there to inform things were early morning cartoons: Transformers, Fraggle Rock, Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Alladin cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian, Galtar and the Golden Lance, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Robotix, Defenders of the Earth, X-men, Flintstones, Captain Planet and the Planeteers and post-school Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Things I note as I compiled this list: the gonzo 'anything can happen' aspect that came from the kids books worked fine at the table. Riftwar is, to the best of my knowledge, inspired by Feists own D&D campaign so that is a direct 'second order' input - delivering the tropes of D&D distilled from their original sources.

After this, things evolved - starting with a Dragon magazine subscription and then with the internet coming available in my area, getting to college and accessing bigger libraries and finally with Amazon and DriveThruRPG coming online and making both RPG books and original Appendix N books much more easily accessible. I sought out influences that were mentioned as part of the origins of D&D, read more D&D supplements themselves, and consuming other media which was influenced by D&D.

By the time I came to many of the original Appendix N, I had seen the tropes washed through D&D so often it sometimes seemed un-original but only because I had seen so many derivative works. I am not necessarily recommending anyone attempt to replicate this as their own Appendix N, more just to record for curiousity how little of an overlap with the 'official' canon of inspirational materials I had when I started.

Review + Actual Play: Winters Daughter

tl:dr; fun old school dungeon with a romance-story core, solid recommend.

Attronarch was selling off some adventures and I seized the opportunity - got a bunch of the OSE classics - completely forgetting I had a copy of Winters Daughter on the way as part of my Dolmenwood order. All to the good, I will probably pass on my extra copy as a raffle prize or the like.

I thought I would run it against my Friday night open tables on the 'off weeks' of my dual mode game. This was an experiment on how old school adventures survive contact with 5e players - in short pretty darn well, would solidly recommend.

So what do you actually get in the book?

Shiny TTRPG links #240

Start September with some shiny links. For more, see the previous list found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Aboleth Overlords gives us Action-Oriented Interaction

To Be Resolved writes Breaking Bad Habits - Turning a Plot into a Situation

Sam Seer's Blog shares [An OSR Pattern] One, Two, or Three Exits

BASTIONLAND gives us The ICI Doctrine: Information, Choice, Impact

I Cast Light! shares DOWNTIME DEMANDS OF SENTIENT WEAPONS: Or The Care & Feeding of Excalibur

Blog of Forlorn Encystment writes Adventurers Are a Threat to the Established Order

A Room Containing 1d6 Goblins gives us Crawling Ever Upwards

Glyph and Grok writes Make Your Quests "Mythic"

AMONG CATS AND BOOKS gives us Running Mythic Bastionland

Busy Wyvern gave us Is Your Game a Prophecy, or a Blank Page?

Mindstorm shares Sicko Worldbuilding

Castle Grief gives us Lordes: Dark Arthurian...ODND?

No Foes, No Traps writes BENEATH! TOWER ELVES! (A RARE HERITAGE IN DUNGEONFLOOR: ACCELERATED!)

Tito's Geekery gives us RPG Worldbuilding: stealing from my 10-year-old self

Paladin of Gravity (GLÅUGUST 2025 #6)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #6 is from a list of their own - "Paladin of an unorthodox Law" - the law here is gravity, these paladins it's wardens.

Paladin of Gravity

A - Ripples in the gravity well
B - Gravitic Nudge
C - Slip the Grasp
D - Time lens

Increment Higgness +1 per template.

Should a Paladin of Gravity find themselves aboard a Spelljammer, any of the below can be applied to the ship if desired.

A Paladin of Gravity, if conscious, no longer takes fall damage if they choose not to. They still leave a crater if they fall far enough.

Ripples in the gravity well - gain awareness of the interplay of the local gravity plane - perceive all as it thrums against the gravity plane. The paladin gains tremorsense and true-sight to a range of Higgness * 30'. They can also take a minute to unerringly know direction relative to the planetary center and the local system gravity center.

Gravitic Nudge - Command local gravity. Summon meteors, slow foes or cause structural damage of d6 * Higgness per day. AC against missiles improves by Higgness.

Slip the Grasp - Gravity releases its most faithful servants. You can move Higgness * 30' per round, along, up or down any surface.

Time lens - Subtly scrunch gravity to warp time just when you need it; reroll any attack, save or ability check. Do this Higgness times per day.

Commission for the ethical sourcing of construct souls (GLÅUGUST 2025 #5)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #5 is from a list by Archon - "Minor social movement" - we discuss below the Comission for the Ethical Sourcing of Construct Souls.

The recent arrival of 'brassbones' - also known as warforged elsewhere in the multiverse - has caused some debate among the artificers and clergy of Krarland and other parts. Before them everything was clear.

Everyone knew that a wizards staff does not have a soul, that a homonculus was just an extension of a wizards self and that familiars were just sparks of the feywild, mirrors to a wizards will.

For the longest time everyone knew that constructs like enchanted broomsticks, talking clocks and dancing chairs and the like were just clever tools, extensions of the wizards hands.

But once the constructs grew more and more versatile, and clearly were be-souled as they could ask and care about questions like 'did they have souls' then the troubling question arose of where were these souls coming from?

Were souls from the great cycle now being incarnated in metal forms - the artificers workbench standing in for the mothers womb? Or were these new souls being drawn from some source attuned to metal, wood and stone? Were these dwarves in different forms?

A quiet sense of unease spread among the temples and workshops, a sense that while the need to know the answer to the question is not yet critically necessary, something of potentially great import was being meddled with blindly. With a feeling that it might become very important to be clear on the answer suddenly and without warning, the commission for the ethical sourcing of construct souls was founded.

The commission can be a vehicle for introducing NPCs with a specialty in information-gathering or any arcanist or clergy. It could also be a vehicle for NPCs to know one another if necessary - or a reason why given NPCs are distracted.

The first 6 of the below can be placed anywhere - such as a dungeon - the Commissioners were either seeking privacy to discuss the matter or gathering information in this out of the way place.

d8 Things Commissioners Might be Encountered Doing
1. Complicated auguries - a group of otherwise perfectly respectable and upstanding clerics acting really suspiciously because they are worried the very existence of brassbones is disrupting some natural cycle with terrible consequences but they do not want to start a panic. Yet.
2. Interrogation of summoned fiends - a masterclass in dread summoning by some morally-grey conjurers supported by every forbidden tome ever confiscated by the major temples. The fiends trying to figure out why they are being asked these questions, how rich could this new vein of souls be. Conjurers trying to find excuses to use and possibly memorize tricks from these books they never get access to. Clerics trying to block both but wring useful answers from the fiends.
3. Attempted necromancy on a smashed brassbones - necromancers with a grim group of death clerics carefully studying what kinds of things raise brassbone corpses and how different they might be.
4. Comparative soul analysis - brassbones and volunteer civilians being brought on a tour of spiritually null, isolated, hallowed and desecrated places to witness and record their relative reactions.
5. Crowd sourcing ancient legends in 'old folk' communities - sages touring dwellings of the long lived - elves, giants, dragons, etc - and asking them about their ancient legends for any similar happening before.
6. A mixed group of arcanists, clerics and other interested parties attempting to collate various notes from all the above efforts into some sort of order - currently it is a mess of chalk scribbles, tacked up notes and lengths of red string with people standing within it pointing and arguing.
(Outside the dungeon)
7. An incredibly over-engineered hospital offer free treatment for any injured brassbones - hugely overstaffed, with far too many high level clerics present for the small handful of damaged brassbones. The place is festooned with divination magics.
8. Incredibly over-engineered temple to craft gods - brassbones being assembled amidst an array of divination devices, meditating acolytes and other things meant to give some indication of where the soul entered the new form from.