CHAINMAIL: 10.06.2023

Design Toward Rather Than Away - RPG Design Theories

Monte Cook, one of the designers from 3rd Edition D&D as well as many other great games and resources, corrects a common pitfall we can have as DMs and designers. It's so much better to design towards the style of game you want to play instead of designing away from the style you don't want. He gives some examples of this from his own career and really breaks down the nuance of this topic. This is one of those concepts that should really revolutionize your play.

Worldbuilding | Fix Your Factions - Map Crow

I LOVE FACTIONS. It's at the heart of my style of sandbox campaign design. The way they interact with one another and the players creates all kinds of amazing conflict. This video explores that type of design.

(TL;DR - The pursuit of "more power" is a stupid motivation. Come on, you're better than that.)

Focus on the World: Rules and Laws - DREAMING DRAGONSLAYER

If you can't tell from the fact that this newsletter exists, I spend a lot of time hunting down the best TTRPG articles that resonate with me. A lot of blogs tend to write about the same thing or describe the same solution to the same problem. Sometimes, though, I find a diamond in the rough. Those are the articles that end up in this newsletter.

This is my first time reading anything on Dreaming Dragonslayer and I loved their perspective outlined in this post. The premise is that we should give more focus to designing the laws of our world as opposed to the rules of our game. The laws of a world (like the laws of physics) influence the core of your game at such a deeper and more evocative level than the numbers and stats. And when you break a law in your world, the implications are so much grander. Give this one a read, it's really worth your time.

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!