CHAINMAIL: 10.20.2023

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!

Towards a Taxonomy of 'Trick' Monsters - Dungeon of Signs

A great blog post offering up some interesting "trick" abilities to add to creatures to make them more interesting. Stuff like backstabbing, lingering effects, delayed damage, etc. Combat can get so boring if all you do is offer up a bag of hit points to your players. This is one way to keep that part of the game exciting.

Stop Hiding Traps - Questing Beast

"Roll a perception check..."
"I got a 3."
"Alright, seems like there's nothing out of the ordinary..."
"Great..." *snap*
"As you trigger the tripwire..."

This is dumb. Your players don't enjoy this and it's a waste of everybody's time. Traps should be engaging. Traps should be tense. Traps should have the players on the edge of their seats. Ben explains this WAY better than I would, so just watch the video and stop creating boring traps in your dungeons.

Motive, Means, and Opportunity - The Retired Adventurer

This technique is all you need to create effective NPCs in your game. Sure, you can sprinkle some juicy flavor on top, but THIS is the bulk of what your NPC design should be focusing on. When you've established your NPCs means, motive, and opportunity; they are ready to wreak havoc in your campaign.

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!