CHAINMAIL: 07.07.2023

Chainmail is a weekly newsletter dedicated to sharing the abundance of excellent content available in the TTRPG space. You'll find YouTube videos, blog posts, quotes from books, and many other forms of media related to improving your skills as game masters and world builders. Enjoy!

The Twenty-One Forms of the Five Room Dungeon - Gnome Stew

This is the type of article I bookmark and stash away for a rainy design day. Matt Neagley presents a very concise breakdown of the 21 variations of a 5-room dungeon. Take out a d20, drop your least favorite, roll up a dungeon shape, and get designing!

When a Screenwriter Collabs with a Dungeon Master: Worldbuilding, Lore & More - LocalScriptMan

This is a long one, but a good one. Distinguishing the difference between worldbuilding, lore, and all the goodness in between. Out the gate, this video gets into the super useful tool of "why-chaining" and continues providing gem after gem. Thank you, Hadnerfaln, for recommending this video. Excited to check out the rest of their stuff.

#5: Raph Koster - The Art of Game Design

Somehow when I first got passionate about game design, I stumbled upon the work of Raph Koster. Raph is responsible for the legend that is Ultima Online aka the birthplace of modern MMOs. This podcast allows Raph to talk about how he got to where he is now, how D&D opened his mind to the possibilities of game design, and expand on some fantastic nuggets of wisdom. Raph Koster is a pioneer of virtual worlds and a digital mentor of mine. I hope you find his insights as useful as I do.

I hope these resources inspire you! If you haven't already, the best way to stay up to date with everything hothead related is to join the discord. See you next week!