CHAINMAIL: 05.05.2023
Including - Puzzle Do's and Dont's, Build Your World like GYGAX | The 1975 Method, and Steal Like an Artist Audio Trilogy.
Puzzle Do's and Dont's - Goblin Punch
A great little article focusing on designing puzzles in our TTRPGs. Specifically why we should steer away from video game-style puzzle design and look more toward escape rooms for our inspiration. This is an article I can't wait to write some notes out on and implement in my own games.
I'm surprised it's taken me so long to link Bob World Builder in Chainmail. His videos are so well produced and informative, I highly recommend checking out his stuff. This is a fun video looking at an article by Gary Gygax from 1975 talking about worldbuilding. Learn from the man who started it all!
Steal Like an Artist Audio Trilogy - Austin Kleon
“The artist is a collector… Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.”
As DMs, we may not consider ourselves "artists" in the traditional sense. Regardless, we still need to flex our sticky fingers and steal from wherever we can. The Steal Like an Artist trilogy is a fantastic series of books and you can get the audiobooks free on Audible. That's my preferred way of tackling this series as the books are written with short chapters that are easy to tackle one at a time when I'm commuting.
I hope these resources inspire you! See you next week.