Points of Light

I thought this was going to be a tricky one, because a long time ago, while we were still playing 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, there was a period where I bought a bunch of games just to see what was up.

The list included but was not limited to: CthulhuTech, Legends of Anglerre, Call of Cthulhu (6th Edition), Dark Heresy, Black Crusade, The Dying Earth, and I'd even given money to Pelgrane Press for something like-but-not-quite a Kickstarter for 13th Age.

Now I was just going to throw my hands up and say "one of these" and call it good, but then I remembered that before all of that, way back when 4E D&D was announced to simultaneous excitement, curiosity, disinterest, and nerd-rage, I'd purchased Star Wars: Saga Edition (pretty much because I'd heard that some of its rules were used to some degree in 4th Edition, and I wanted to get an idea as to what to expect).

I actually lent it to someone I used to game with. He moved and I honestly forgot about it because I'm just not that interested in Star Wars, but then he got in touch with me five or so years ago and gave it back, and it now sits on my bookshelf gathering dust: it'll probably still be a valid answer the next time this question shows up on RPGaDay.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Right now that would obviously be Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book, because I specifically designed it to do everything I wanted it to do (which is what I assume is the goal of most game designers), but who knows there might be things that crop up in the future that I'll want to add/change/remove.

Otherwise there aren't any RPGs that I just use as-is, because every RPG I've played has one or more flaws that I'll either just put up with or change. This is what eventually caused me to make my own game.

For example, I enjoy playing 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, but I ended up doing the half-HP tweak, making my own skill challenge system because the examples in the book were just terrible, and letting players make their own powers and even "Essentialize" classes to make things simpler.

In Dungeon World, for starters, I scrapped the entire Undertake a Perilous Journey move (since nothing about it makes any sense at all), did a post on how I'd change the bag of books, dunno how I'd change Hack & Slash and Backstab to account for the in-book contradiction (attacking an unaware monster is supposed to be an auto-kill, but Backstab just does more stuff), and Melissa and I have almost made a variant for every core class.

Also need to bump up the dragon's HP, since by the book it should have 20 and not 16.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

As with what games are good for two-hour sessions and for about 10 sessions in total, I think a lot of RPGs work well enough for open-ended campaign play.

Off the top of my head any of the D&Ds (and by association Black Book), Dungeon World, WEG Star Wars (though I think the d20 versions would also be easy enough), and I did a mostly on the fly Rifts campaign years ago.

Really I think it just depends on how difficult it is to come up with shit on the fly. If the game has a lot of fiddly rules and things are super crunchy (like 3rd Edition D&D monsters), that'll make things more difficult.

I know Fate has the entire group sit around and establish the setting and bad things going on before you even start, so probably not that one, and Shadowrun is insanely complicated.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Here's a variant way of earning XP in the Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book that is based on an optional rule from 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, in which classes could earn bonus XP by doing certain things.

Note that unlike in 2nd Edition these are instead of gaining XP for killing/defeating/overcoming/sneaking past monsters. Some classes can still get XP from that but not all, and not all the time. Scroll to the bottom if you want to use these individual awards with normal XP gains.

Also note that in every case you only get XP if a skill check, spell, and so on was used for an actual purpose/the monster was an actual threat.

You can't, say, just stand around casting spells purely to gain XP, and you can't lock a door, pick the lock, lock the door again, pick the lock again, and so on: GMs should feel free to waive XP rewards for asshole players simply trying to grind XP.

Clerics

• 1 XP per Favor spent.
• 1 XP per level of a successfully rebuked adversary (as per the Rebuke Adversary talent).
• Standard XP amount from killing monsters that are also adversaries. (Divide the monster's XP by the number of PCs as normal, and the cleric gains that amount: for example, if a party of four defeats a monster-adversary worth 20 XP, then the cleric gets 5 XP.)

If the cleric rebukes and then defeats the monster, he just gains the rebuke or defeat amount, whichever is higher.

I'd also throw in an XP award for cleansing unholy sites and converting new worshipers. Something like 1-5 XP per cleric level.

Fighters
Standard XP amount from killing monsters: divide the monster's XP by the number of PCs and the fighter gets that much. Basically business as usual.

Rogues

• Standard XP amount from killing a monster using Sneak Attack or similar underhanded means (like sniping or poison), or simply sneaking past. Same division as the cleric and fighter above.
• 1 XP each time they successfully use a skill they're proficient in, plus an additional 1 XP for every point they exceeded the DC by. For example, if they make a DC 15 Thievery check and get a 15, that's 1 XP, but if they rolled a 16 they'd get 2 XP, 3 XP if they rolled a 17, and so on.

I considered giving them 1 XP per sp looted, but they'd level up insanely quickly and really treasure is its own reward. Maybe if you went with a ratio like 1 XP per 100 sp or more.

Wizards

• 1 XP per point of Drain suffered (so they get XP from losing Mana, VP, and WP), as well as 1 XP per Sustain spell they activate: basically the idea is to get XP each time they use a spell.
• 1 XP each time they succeed on an Arcana or "lore" check, plus another 1 XP for every point they exceed the DC by (as per rogues above).

Could also award XP for the creation of alchemical items (wouldn't base it on sp value because that can add up very quickly, maybe 1-3 XP for standard items, +1-3 XP if it's enhanced or superior), and researching spells and creating magic items (thinking 1-5 XP per level depending on what it does).

Giving Everyone XP For Killing Stuff
The reason not everyone gets XP from killing/defeating/overcoming monsters in addition to these other awards, is that except for the fighter everyone would level up much more quickly. But, if that's something you actually want or don't care about, then classes that gain XP from defeating monsters gain twice as much.

For example, clerics would get normal XP for defeating monsters, but twice as much from defeating their adversaries, and fighters just get twice as much from everything.

Note that this doesn't take away from the monster's total XP value: if a party of four kills a monster worth 20 XP they'd each normally get 5. Using this system the fighter would instead get 10 XP, and everyone else would still get 5. If it was a cleric's adversary he'd also get 10, while everyone else gets 5.

If that's too much, you can instead give +1 XP per level of the monster. Yeah, not all monsters of a given level are equal, but it's quick and easy to figure out.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

The Short Answer:
Back when I ran the original A Sundered World campaign, I barely did any planning at all: I mostly made up shit as we went in response to what the players did. The players said it was the best campaign they ever played in, so from then on I ran games doing as little planning as possible.

This meant less work for me, less wasted prep, and it was easier to adapt to random shit the players did (and they knew they could do things without worry about me wasting time or trying to nudge them back on a kind of plot railroad).

The Long Answer:
Some six or so years ago, after a string of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and one-shots, a couple friends and I are sitting around a table thinking on what to play next. This was back when I kept buying lots of role-playing games, because I'd been wanting to make my own game and figured it would be useful to at least read other non-D&D systems and ideally play them.

After running through a variety of options—CtulhuTech, The Dying Earth, Dark Heresy, I think Exalted, and a few more—they just wanted to keep on playing Dungeons & Dragons.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

If we have to go with core games (and not supplements, settings, adventures and the like), then 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons.


A lot of the art from 3rd and 4th Edition (while perhaps usually more...I dunno, technically proficient?) is characters standing around, maybe doing something (like aiming a bow, picking a lock, or attacking a monster), but that doesn't really inspire anything, especially when it's just them standing around in a stock pose like they know they're getting their picture taken.

In the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook, you get scenes of people venturing towards a tower, some guy and his donkey preparing to go through a door (and you can just see a claw and tail poking out), a wizard looming over some tiny woman with a lizard tail, an army of orcs storming a castle, a griffon fountain surrounded by crystals, and a couple of adventurers bashing open a door with a ram (the last time the adventurers had to bash open a door was in a 3rd Edition campaign: I feel like nowadays players would complain that they couldn't pick the lock).

There's also scenes like this one:


What the fuck happened to those guys? Are they dead? Just knocked out? What's with the tree and necklace? Is the box a kind of force field, or glass?

Also this:


What's written on those door-monster-tongues? Who made it? What's inside? Who keeps replacing the torches in the face at the top?

Again, I think a lot of the art from later editions is good, there's just very little if any that makes me think, "What happened/is about to happen/is going on right now?" If supplements are allowed, then I'd give second place to Planescape: it has some interesting scenes, just less than the Player's Handbook and the art (especially in the campaign setting box) is usually pretty sloppy.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

I've found that far too often people for whatever reason (money, popularity, the "status" of being a reviewer that gets free shit, friends of the creator, creator is backing their Patreon, etc) lie, exaggerate (I groan every time I see a game described as amazing/excellent/inspiring), and/or are so biased that they barely mention anything bad about a game/game-related thing, if they mention something bad at all (this trend is what caused me to write my review on Inverse World).

So, because of everything above I don't really go anywhere in particular (I usually try a few places and make sure to look for negative reviews), but there are places and people that I specifically ignore.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

As with yesterday's answer I'd say a lot? Most? It depends on if the question is asking what is a good game to play for about ten sessions because you can only for some reason play it for about ten sessions, or what game kind of loses its novelty after about ten sessions. Assuming the former, it also depends on what you're looking for/to do in a role-playing game.

If you're the kind of player that thinks you need to hit a kind of character cap for the entire play experience to mean anything, such as 20th-level in Dungeons & Dragons (or even 30th in 4th Edition), then obviously that's not gonna work. Well, unless you do some kind of wonky progression like 2-3 levels per session (no matter what happens).

I couldn't even recommend Dungeon World in that case, because despite only having 10 levels unless you play for progressively longer period of time you can't do one level per session. If you're like Melissa and miss a lot well, that will help, but even in the longest campaign we ever played things ended with her weighing in at "only" 7th-level (I was 6th I think, and the other guy was only 5th).

If you're the kind of player that just wants to resolve something (like a plot line or wrap up a dungeon), well that's much easier to do, and you can do that in pretty much every game I've played. You could even feasibly wrap up a few things so long as you roughly plan out about how long each thing is going to take based on what your group can usually do in a normal session.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Over in the Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book community, Darcy (Dettman Junior) posted a Google doc with his notes so far on a kind of Urban Arcana (holy shit that came out in 2003?!) hack that uses the Black Book as a foundation.

It's obviously a work in process (still cool to see someone running with something we did), but he's looking for feedback and suggestions, so if this is something that interests you take a look and let him know what you think!



Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book is out!

It's our own take on a D&Dish/d20 game that features (among other things) simple-yet-flexible classes, unassumed magic and magical healing, a complete lack of pseudo-Vancian magic, and more mythologically accurate monsters.

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Since I've changed kobolds in Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book to be more inline with their mythological counterparts, and I've got a shitload of kobold minis that I still wanna use, I now need to at least rename D&D kobolds to something else, and maybe come up with another backstory.

Like, D&D kobolds could just be kobolds that managed to kill and eat a dragon, and so were physically changed. They'd retain their kobold abilities, which varies between kobold type, so mine kobolds would still be able to phase through stone.

There's also the story of Fafnir, a dwarf who along with his father and brother captured Odin and Hœnir for some reason. Loki was also with them, but they chose him to go out and get a ransom, which ended up being cursed gold and a magic ring.

Fafnir killed his father to keep it all for himself, and eventually ended up turning into a dragon.

So, D&D kobolds could also be normal kobolds that killed a bunch of dwarves and took their gold (which might have been cursed by a dwarf with his dying breath), or it could have been cursed gold that they took from a dragon they slew. In either case you could have absurdly trapped kobold vaults; in the case of mine kobolds they'd be able to simply walk around them.

(If it's a hand-me-down curse it would explain why they don't all fully transform into dragons, though exceptionally greedy and/or old kobolds might gain additional features, such as wings and breath weapons, and could eventually fully transform.)

Another idea is the Greek legend of the dragon's teeth (which I'd heard before but was reminded of while designing The Dragon): you plant the dragon's teeth in the ground, and they grow into fully armed warriors. This is actually an idea I like for A Sundered World's tarchons, though I'd use it for campaigns where I have tarchons but not a worlds-shattering cosmic war.

So kobolds could be grown from the teeth of young dragons, or creatures that are like dragons but not quite, such as wyverns or all those wingless drakes.

Personally if you want to better associate dragons I like this one the most: kobolds grown from the teeth of black dragons would have black scales, breath underwater, and have acidic blood, while kobolds grown from the teeth of green dragons would have green scales, immunity to poison, and venomous bites (or explode into toxic clouds upon death).

I suppose specific physical traits and abilities could also be gained by kobolds that eat a dragon, too.

So, which kobold do you prefer: kobolds that ate a dragon, kobolds suffering from a greed curse, or kobolds grown from dragon (or dragonish/drake) teeth? All of the above (so the GM can choose or tweak one)? In any case I want to rename them to avoid confusion: got any suggestions? Do you have another idea for a kobold origin?

Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book is out!

It's our own take on a D&Dish/d20 game that features (among other things) simple-yet-flexible classes, unassumed magic and magical healing, a complete lack of pseudo-Vancian magic, and more mythologically accurate monsters.

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Melissa and I actually have only really done 2-hour sessions for the past few years, and while it's primarily been Dungeon World or the Black Book (with the occasional playtest session for other games) I think a lot of games would work just fine: just plan out however many rooms/areas/encounters you think your group could reasonably tackle in a couple hours.

When the session is over ask them what they expect to do next time, plan a bit more (better learning what to expect from your group each time), and rinse and repeat.

A game I think wouldn't work is 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons completely by the book, as even small fry encounters can eat up a considerable amount of time. Sure, you can still plan-as-you-go, but the going is going to be really slow.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

In The Spire of Long Shadows, there's a part early on in the adventure where some barbed devils and a quartet of bone devils show up to attack the party; the party has a fragment of the rod of seven parts, which they really want for some reason.

I remembered reading in one of the Planescape monster manuals that bone devils, aka osyluths, were basically devil police for the Nine Hells. 3rd Edition gives them a similar role, so it seemed odd that they were getting bossed around by barbed devils.

But then this was a 3rd Edition adventure: what with all the numbers scaling maybe they were the only devil you could throw at the party without maybe making things too easy or hard (because 3rd Edition used the wonky Challenge Rating system that was rarely accurate).

Really though if the current party didn't have a cambion, and that cambion didn't already have to deal with infernal siblings trying to get their claws on the rod fragment, I probably wouldn't even include them at all, but at least this way it kind of makes sense.

This meant I'd have to convert them, and while converting the bone devil to Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book I decided to check out what it could do across various editions. Here's what I found.

2nd Edition
This was back when bone devils were referred to as osyluths. They were described as the "police officers" of Baator (aka the Nine Hells), and looked like a rail thin husk of a human, tightly covered in skin, with a scorpion-like tail. Aside from pit fiends, they could punish any baatezu by sending them into the Pit of Flame for 101 days.

They'd also get together to help vote on which gelugons (ie, ice devils) to promote to pit fiend status, and after a set period of time every osyluth would get automatically promoted to hamatula (ie, barbed devil) status, though sometimes one gets turned into an amnizu (ie, Styx devil) instead.

Mechanically, osyluths weighed in at 5 Hit Dice (or 22.5 hp on average), AC 3 (effectively 17 in later editions), effectively +5 to hit, and a claw, claw, bite, and stinger routine. The claws only inflicted a meager 1d4 damage each, while the bite was a bit better though still pretty sad at 1d8 damage. The stinger dealt a pretty good 3d4 damage and injected a poison that caused victims to lose 1d4 Strength for 1d10 rounds.

Their unique magical abilities allowed them to fly, turn invisible, and conjure a wall of ice (this was in addition to the generic devil magic such as animate dead, charm person, know alignment, and teleport without error). They could also use improved phantasmal force, though I don't know what it does, and were surrounded by a constant 5-foot aura of fear.

So, lotta stuff to juggle, most of which wouldn't get used anyway.

3rd Edition
Here they're referred to as both bone devils and osyluths. They're considerably beefed up, having 10 Hit Dice, plus an additional 50 due to their whopping Constitution of 21 (which grants +5 hit points per Hit Die), giving them an average hp total of 95.

Their AC gets catapulted to 25, their attacks get either a +14 or +12 to hit, though their damage doesn't see much of an increase: the damage dice remains the same, but they get a bonus from their Strength (which like Constitution also confers a +5 bonus to attack and damage rolls).

The spell list gets mercifully trimmed to greater teleport, dimensional anchor, fly, invisibility, major image, and again wall of ice for some reason.

As in 2nd Edition they're still devil police, but they also act as informers. No mention of being able to send other devils to the Pit of Flame: presumably they need to report to a higher up devil so they can mete out punishment.

3rd Edition has a lot of assumed math, so the ramped up numbers makes sense in that context (though if there wasn't a lot of assumed math the numbers would have to get so insane in the first place). I do like that there are fewer spells, though only a few really make sense for spying on and possibly detaining creatures.

5th Edition
Hit Dice are ramped up yet again (to 15), though their Strength and Constitution scores are reduced by 2-3 points (giving them +4's instead of +5's). They have wings but no magical powers of any sort (not even as an optional thing in a sidebar). Bite attack is gone, but their claws now deal a base 1d8 damage.

Flavor-wise they no longer enforce the laws of hell. Instead they make other devils to do whatever work needs to be done in the Nine Hells.

Overall simpler, but boring: they're basically spiky Large humanoids with flight and a poison attack.

Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book
Personally I like the Tony DiTerlizzi art (which I used above): the 5th Edition bone devil just looks over the top, like they figured piling on more spikes makes it scarier or something. So I'm going with a more classic look.

For its Level (effectively Hit Dice) I just met in the middle at 10. There isn't a lot of scaling numbers in Black Book anyway: we've run playtests where low level characters managed to take out single monsters 5 or so levels higher than they were (albeit with some lucky rolls).

I'm sticking with the Hell police angle, so they'll need good Insight and Perception, and invisibility will make it even easier to monitor and sneak up on offenders. A fear aura plus a high Intimidate modifier makes sense for making creatures back down or confess their crimes.

I didn't want to give them the ability to conjure walls of ice, because it doesn't really make sense, though being able to summon a wall would handy for blocking an exit, or even encasing a creature completely. Since they're called bone devils I let them instead summon a wall of bone (freakier than a wall of ice, though I could also see them summoning cage walls or even just cages to trap creatures).

Since I wanted them to do more weird shit with bones, I also gave them the ability to just touch a creature and break its arms, legs, or even ribs: in any case it's also good for keeping creatures from running or fighting back.

The stinger is still there, but the poison messes with a creature's bones, draining their Constitution (which has the added effect of making them more susceptible to its other abilities and future poison attempts): if your Constitution gets reduced to -5, you're bones are completely dissolved and you just die.

Here's the finished bone devil:

BONE DEVIL
Level 10 Large Demon
XP 400
Speed 40 feet; flying (magical)

ABILITY SCORES
STR +5 DEX +3 WIS +2
CON +4 INT +2 CHA +3

SKILLS
Intimidate +7, Insight +6, Perception +6

DEFENSE
AC 16 DR 3
Fort +4 Ref +3 Will +5
Immune charm (so you can just enchant your way out of trouble), fire, poison
Vulnerable silver and magic weapons ignore the bone devil’s DR, and silver weapons deal +1d6 damage (making silver really useful against them)
Wounds 80 Vitality 30 Total 110

OFFENSE

• Multiattack the bone devil makes two claw attacks and a sting attack.
• Claw +9 to hit; 1d8+9 slashing damage (armor piercing 1)
• Sting +9 to hit; 1d10+0 piercing damage (armor piercing 3); if this inflicts WP damage the target suffers an additional 3d6+8 poison damage and has their Constitution reduced by 1 (DC 18 Fortitude save for half damage and no Constitution reduction) as their very bones start to soften and deteriorate. If a creature's Constitution is reduced to -5, its bones are completely dissolved and it instead dies.

Spell-Like Abilities (Recharge 5+)
When the bone devil uses one of these it cannot use any of them until it recharges (makes more sense for a creature with magical reserves, as opposed to being able to use various abilities x number of times per day).

• Bonesnap Must touch a creature. Suffers 7d6+6 damage (ignores armor) and a limb is broken (-2 to activities that benefit from having both limbs; can break ribs to make the target slowed but can suffer 1d8 damage to move full Speed for a round). DC 16 Fortitude save means half damage and limb is only fractured (-1 until healed).
• Improved Invisibility Turns invisible, and can attack but remains invisible. Lasts 10 rounds.
• Wall of Bone Covers 10 5-foot spaces. Each section has 75 hp (takes +5 damage from blunt weapons). Can also create a ceiling. Bones molder and rot away after 10 minutes.

SPECIAL

• Fear Aura Creatures adjacent to a bone devil are automatically frightened (-2 to all d20 rolls) unless they're 10th-level or higher.
• Invisibility Standard Action. Lasts 10 minutes or until the bone devil attacks or uses an offensive spell.

If you want to be particularly vicious, you could give them basically a save or die ability that causes a creature's skeleton to completely burst forth from its body. I considered giving it an ability that makes bone spurs explode from a creature, or even just tear bones right out of you (like on a critical hit), but figured it has enough going on already: I'll just add them as optional powers that bump up its XP value.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Sounds like the perfect time to playtest something extensively, such as:

• A necropolis urban megadungeon. City was wiped out by a botched necro-nuke, so all the buildings are more or less still there (it's taken awhile for the necrotic radiation to cool down, so some have started fallen apart due to lack of maintenance). City is infested with undead and things that like being around undead (such as ghouls).
• A kind of bronze-age/Cthulhu mashup. I blogged about it over here but basically the world is orbited by Great Old Ones that get scorched by the sun, reducing them to husks, start to regenerate and night and rain down eldritch horrors, and then the next day are reduced to husks again (the smaller horrors just get destroyed, so they try and find shelter during the day).
• Something I'm for now calling Cowboys & Cthulhu.
• Something post-apoc. Not sure if I wanna go a Gamma World, Mad Max, or Dark Sun route.

All of it would be for Dungeons & Delvers of course. Or in the case of the wild west and post-apoc things it would be based on the same d20-flexible-talent system. Actually someone is working on an Urban Arcana-ish hack (he's looking for suggestions and feedback, too), so that's pretty cool.


It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

To keep things a bit simpler, I'm going to limit my options to games I actually own and/or have played. In alphabetical order...

Dungeons & Delvers (both Black Book and the kids' version): you get a handful of various characters confronting a dragon (but it could have also been another monster or even group of monsters).


Black Book was intended to be a kind of homage to the "black box" Easy to Master D&D Game, and while I considered having some guy confronting a dragon, I didn't think that captured at all the feeling of the game. I actually did the kids' game cover first, but at most it subconsciously influenced the d20 game: I just really like the look of red dragons.

For a similar reason I like FantasyCraft's cover:


An actual group of varied adventurers slaughtering a horde of varied monsters, with a heap of treasure before them. The thing is drawn as if you're looking out of an even bigger monster's mouth: maybe it's from the perspective of some poor bastard just about to get swallowed up?

Shadowrun (2nd, 3rd, and 5th Edition) also does a pretty good job: you get a group of runners dealing with some shit. I really liked the 2nd Edition cover (which was also the first edition that I played):


While I'll never play 5th Edition (not for a lack of trying) I think it's cover is pretty fucking rad:


I think it's better than the 2nd Edition version, because a bit more setting stuff is conveyed (namely more overt magic, the corporate buildings and drones, and you get to see an orc, dwarf, and troll). I also think it just looks better overall.

And now for the bad, starting with Dungeons & Dragons. While 4th Edition shows all of two characters, usually you end up seeing just one character confronting a big monster, such as a dragon...


...or another dragon.


Rifts was also bad because it shows a weird tentacle monster surrounded by sexy women and these floating eyeball-glowing-skull things.


Rifts takes place on Earth in the future after a punch of portals to other dimensions vomit a bunch of aliens and monsters onto the planet, and magic, psionics, cybernetics, and robots are also a thing. It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure that the above thing (a splugorth slaver with blind alterian warrior women) isn't even described in the first book, but the Atlantis (and maybe in other books).

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Well that's easy: Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book (which hit Best Copper Seller at some point)!

The earliest post I can find on it is a pirate playtest Melissa ran waaay back in October 2015, which was when it was referred to as 4Ward and/or FrankenFourth (and the image was one of the 4th Edition Essentials books, Rules Cyclopedia, and 5th Edition Player's Handbook stitched together), it still had some 4th Edition vestiges (such as Defenses instead of saves, and all spells had attack rolls but some did half damage on a miss), clerics had a baked in hymn ability, and everyone got a talent at every level.

I'd forgotten all about my cleric of Dagon (even used a mind flayer mini). I can't remember, but I think the Ocean Domain granted automatic waterbreathing and a swimming Speed. Might give it a Favor cost now (and/or let you spend Favor to grant others waterbreathing and/or swimming, maybe charm/summon water creatures or something).

I wanted to run an ongoing campaign so I could see how characters progressed and try out higher level stuff, but didn't want to have to think too much about it (since we were and still are doing a bunch of other stuff), so I figured I'd take yet another shot at running Age of Worms for the billionth time. A few years and a couple of players later I'm fucking shocked to see that it's not only still going, but this Sunday we'll have gotten past the original stopping point!

Of course between that we still ran one-shots, playtests, short campaigns (I took a few stabs at doing some heavily modified Keep on the Shadowfell stuff, got into Thunderspire Labyrinth before that petered out), and Adam even started doing an on-and-off A Sundered World campaign (which gave me a chance to try out a kytheran chronomancer).

As for other games, I did a short 4th Edition campaign that was basically Mario mixed with some Japanese stuff and fungus zombies (I plan on running it again but with Black Book), and a few Dungeon World things here and there.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

• Humal (level 10 wrathful cambion wizard)
• Corzale (level 10 dwarf war cleric)
• Sumia (level 10 elf rogue/ranger)

After Humal animates a few harpy skeletons, the party explores a bit of the tomb's surface. There's a bunch of holes, each a uniform diameter of about five feet across, but all but one looks the same: the edge of the odd-one-out is encrusted with a strange fungus that even Corzale can't identify.

Sumia peers into a few, and notices that they expand into tunnels about 10 feet in diameter a few feet in. Otherwise they all look the same, so she randomly picks on and hops in. She follows the winding tunnel, periodically scanning the area for magic. About a hundred feet in she notices what looks like thin, curved lines of magic energy spinning about towards her.

She shifts back to her normal sight (since Detect Magic only lets you see magical energies) just before a boulder smashes into her. Well, to be more accurate it was a roughly spherical object composed of numerous gnomes mashed together and bound by enchanted chains, which is what she was seeing via Detect Magic.

Cut off from her friends and, since the gnome-boulder takes up most of the tunnel's space, what she assumes is her only escape route, Sumia picks herself up and starts running the other way. Corzale manages to entangle the gnome-boulder, and they blast it a bit before it manages to tear free and retreat into the tunnels.

Unfortunately it retreats towards Sumia, and sensing her movement it begins chasing her. Luckily Sumia manages to get to a four-way intersection, diving out of the way at the last second so that the gnome-boulder rolls past.

Obviously not wanting to follow the gnome-boulder, but also not wanting to go back the way she came because she believes it will definitely catch up to her, Sumia keeps running down the passage she ducked into. Eventually, to the rest of the party's surprise, she makes it back to the surface: they all reasonably assumed she had been crushed.

They try luring the gnome-boulder back with one of Humal's solid illusions, but thanks to Sumia's magic senses realize that it's at least smart enough to realize what they're trying to do, and is waiting for them around a corner and out of sight to venture in further.

Sumia carefully, slowly guides Corzale towards the other entrance and through the tunnels, and when she can sense the gnome-boulder sparks up a torch. This allows Corzale to see it and conjure a wall of wood, giving them about 50-feet of wall and preventing the gnome-boulder from going anywhere else. So now it's basically shooting a boulder made of gnomes in a narrow tunnel, as the party hangs back and blasts the thing with assorted ranged attacks until it just kind of falls apart.

Hoping that there aren't more of the things, the entire party files into the tunnel and proceeds to explore the place. After a few hours they realize that the only place they can't get to is a room that is barred with adamantine bars (they also didn't find more of the fungus, which they take to be a good sign). There isn't an obvious way to open it, so Corzale uses her rusting gauntlet: it doesn't destroy as much as expected, but it's still enough for them to squeeze through.

The room contains a few floating silver lanterns, a primitive shrine, and a floating white marble sarcophagus with a Wind Duke carved into the top. There's a square indentation in its chest, and its hands are carved such that it would appear to be holding whatever is placed there...like the metal seal they obtained from Humal's siblings.

Nothing seems to be in the room, and Humal and Sumia can't sense any magical traps: Humal places the seal in the indentation. It clicks in place, and a seam appears all around the sarcophagus near the top, forming a lid. Corzale expects some sort of undead creature, but pushes the lid off anyway because the rod fragment is probably inside: as anticipated a swirling cloud of bone dust bursts forth and forms into a roughly humanoid shape.

What no one expects is for it to begin speaking to them. It introduces itself as Icosiel, and immediately recognizes Corzale's holy symbol. They talk about Kyuss and the Worm Wars for a bit, and it gives them the rod fragment, as well as a magic ring and a pair of magic swords. As a reward for Corzale's bravery, and knowing that the dwarves fear heights, it grants her permanent flight while within the Plane of Air, as well as protection from falling when she returns home.

Now they just gotta get home; unfortunately Humal's siblings are standing between them and the portal.

That pretty much wraps up A Gathering of Winds. Next up: The Spire of Long Shadows (which is where the original campaign left off, holy shit I get to finally run the damned thing)!

Wasn't sure how the party would handle the gnome-boulder, but two ways I thought of were that they could make noise to trick it, or even get to an intersection and dive out of the way: it takes a bit for it to slow down and pick up speed, so that would have made it easier for them to try and pin it down and hack it apart.

The fungus hole contained pods that would turn you incorporeal for a few rounds if you inhaled the spores (which would also have gotten them through the adamantine bars), but unfortunately the party assumed it was really bad and just ignored it the entire time. Since fungus is almost always bad a safe assumption.

Besides changing the tomb and guardians, I also changed the loot:

• The rod fragment completely restores all lost WP and VP, plus you recover from all lingering injuries, poison, disease, and other things like broken limbs (this is pretty much how the heal spell works in 3rd Edition). Not sure how I want to do the duration. I don't like once-per-day stuff, so but maybe a random amount of hours? This way it would at least be unpredictable.
• One arming sword deals lightning damage (ignores the DR of metal armor) and grants the Lightning Bolt talent. Anyone can use it, but you gotta pay the Drain cost so if you're a fighter that means you're going to be burning through your VP and maybe WP right away.
• The other arming sword is a light weapon (so you can use Dexterity for attack and damage rolls), has the +1 Initiative trait, and grants access to the Fly talent (as with the other sword you gotta pay Drain costs each time).
• The ring grants the wearer access to the Charm Monster and Lightning Bolt talents, with a few changes; the former only works against air critters, and the latter causes the wearer to appear where the lightning bolt ends. In either cases you of course have to pay the Drain cost.

As a kind of boon I had Icosiel grant Corzale unlimited flight in the plane of air, but on the Material Plane she has constant feather fall active, and can spend 1 Favor to fly for 1 round per cleric level.

That's the other big thing I changed: the party gets to speak with Icosiel and learn more about what's going on. This includes the location of the Spire of Long Shadows, so they can figure out where it is themselves (instead of just having Eligos tell them where to go next).

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Exactly what it says on the tin: you can get Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book today at 40% off!

We're still waiting on the second proof to come in, but anyone that buys the PDF before the books are ready will get discount links for every book format we end up doing (which will be color and black and white, in both softcover and hardcover).


It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Something with a lot of Lovecraftian influence but that doesn't take place in the 1920's. Preferably fantasy, but not bronze age because I'm working on something like that. I've also been kicking around something I'm just calling Cowboys & Cthulhu, but dunno when/if I'll ever get around to it.

I own 6th Edition Call of Cthulhu, but due to the system (which I recall being an overly complicated d100 thing) have never played it and probably never will. I don't particularly care for the 1920's, but if they did it with a simpler system I'd at least give it a shot.


It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).

Obviously Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book, but that's because I greatly prefer D&D/d20 stuff and it's the D&D/d20 game I designed to do all the things I wished Dungeons & Dragons did in the first place.


If we're talking a game you didn't make yourself, then it'd be a houseruled 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, and if I couldn't find enough players for that I'd default to Dungeon World.

It look a lot longer than expected, but we finally released The Jinni. As with our other monstrous classes, this one is more faithful to the mythology (so don't go in expecting elemental-themed jinn).

After putting it to a vote, the next couple of classes on the docket are the warden (think 4E D&D warden) and apothecary (gotta go see what they're all about).

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).