Author Archives: MssngrDeath

Loose Session Design

One of the most daunting tasks for new DMs is figure out how much freedom to give the players. Campaigns operate roughly on a scale from “railroad”, where the DM confines the players to rails and sends them through a … Continue reading

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Session Design Styles

I’ve been pretty head-down these last couple of weeks working on the last dungeon for the Zelda campaign. Final dungeons tend to be pretty serious, but I’m also trying to keep it from reading like a normal dungeon to keep … Continue reading

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Law A – Campaign Songs

I’ve talked about how I use music to help me flesh out story and character dies, but I haven’t shared what those ideas are. I think even my players don’t know a lot of the songs behind the campaigns unless … Continue reading

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Railroading (the Good Kind)

In the process of putting together the world map for the Eight Arms campaign setting, I’ve also learned about some of the things that make a world go. It’s forced me to learn more about geography and politics than I … Continue reading

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Houdini and Doyle (the Show, Not the People [Well, Kind of the People])

After all the gushing I did about Lucifer I thought it would be fun to compare it to the show that moved into its time slot, Houdini and Doyle. As it turns out, that’s the only fun thing about the … Continue reading

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Eight Arms Setting Map

I haven’t done absolutely nothing over the last month while the A to Z Challenge was going. I’ve gotten started on some articles that will post at various times, including a few about the Zelda campaign that will post when … Continue reading

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A to Z Challenge Postmortem

The Blogging from A to Z Challenge was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. Going over all of my campaigns to pull out characters was a neat historical exercise, and figuring out which ones were interesting … Continue reading

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Z is for Zee, Extraplanar Bereaucrat

Name: Zee Campaign: Unnamed Monster Campaign We started the month with a character who started off looking one-note but became awesome accidentally through play. Let’s bookend it by talking about a character who started off one-note and intentionally stayed exactly … Continue reading

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Y is for Kalodal Ybarra, Halfling Bruce Wayne

Name: Kalodal Ybarra a.k.a. The Whisperthief Campaign: The Umbrageous Sodality and the Ghost Opera Normally I refer to a character by their first name, but that gives my spellcheck fits. Ybarra was also a vigilante, and also the stealthy kind. … Continue reading

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X is for Xavier Beauchene, Elven Clark Kent

Name: Xavier Beauchene a.k.a. the Voice Campaign: The Umbrageous Sodality and the Ghost Opera Full disclosure: I started putting together the list of characters for these posts months ago to make sure it was actually possible. It turned out I … Continue reading

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