CHAINMAIL: 03.02.2024

LESSONS FROM HELL: John Romero's Level Design Rules for DOOM - I Cast Light!

This is a really great conversion of Justin Romero's level design rules from Doom into advice for our D&D dungeons. Honestly, most of them don't even need reframing. They are super practical and focus on making the dungeon exciting. I feel like it's easy to fall into the trap of "realism" when at the end of the day, your dungeons should be FUN. These rules help bring that back to the forefront.

Early DnD was a open-world tabletop MMORPG - Questing Beast

This video provides an interesting look at an early style of play in the hobby, describing a more "west marches" style of play before the term "west marches" existed. This is something I will be exploring very soon in my own home campaign and should be a lot of fun.

How Do Stories Emerge from Game Play? - Grumpy Wizard

I talk a lot about "emergent story" and how important and special it is, but I've never highlighted an article that explains where it comes from and how to achieve it. For me, it's the reason we can achieve emergent narratives so easily in D&D that makes it such a special medium. No other medium allows you to "play to find out" like D&D.

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!