Homebrew and Hacking TTRPG Design

The Big Table, it's a big idea for Ireland and The UK as a games manufacturer's association.

It’s not everyday that you’re in a room where someone is selling a vision of a better future and how to transform an industry, but that was the experience I had on Saturday. A vision of the future Talking for over 30 minutes, with barely a pause to look at reference material, industry veteran James Wallis (White Dwarf, Games Workshop, Asmodee) outlined the necessity for, and his vision of, the…

What if you just wanted to customise everything about your world? How would you do that and be compatible with your favourite game? #A5e #5e #dnd #LevelUpAdvanced

I’m clearly not talking about the website, 🙂 instead I refer to my forthcoming release. Crafting Heritages and Cultures and More: World building The goal of this book is to allow you to create fully customised Heritages, Cultures, Feats and Backgrounds, including chains of feats, synergy feats, and transformational feats which will be compatible with the material in Level Up: Advanced Fifth…

How to pitch your first game in the series, a logistical guide to the first time GM. #TTRPG

Hi! Previously we’ve covered the logistics of: When are sessions and how long should they be? Session zero and accommodating players What are the components of a session and how long should each one take? Today, I’m going to drill down a bit into the preamble for the session and what practical measures you might need to think about. Whereas previously my work has been relatively generalist,…

Introduction So, I was poised, poised I tells ya, to dive into analysing each class individually like the berserker but then… In fine tradition, I decided that I probably don’t have all the bits. Since I’m not talking about basic DnD or even Black Flag but my beloved Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition I expect the audience for this to be limited. If it turns out it’s not then I’ll just have to…

A deep delve into the berserker as a class. Now containing a set of suggestions to help you make one that will do what you want, assuming you want to be the centre of attention. :) #dnd #a5e #HomebrewAndHacking

Introduction This essay builds off the definitions found in Classes and Classifications I: Definitions and will look at how the berserker class is supposed to work and which role it fits best. I will then break down the level by level progression drawing out points of interest and at the end I will provide a level by level list of suggestions for “safe” options to take. (It should go without…

You're having a normal one, fighting giant ants, but just attacking is getting samey. Then it hits you! Combat maneuvers! And then you hit the giant ants... with style! #Dnd #A5e #LevelUpA5e

Introduction So, since people keep asking me how to make characters in Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition, I thought I’d take another stab at it. Most people don’t really appreciate the breadth of choice that adding cultures and destinies give you in making a really deep character at level 1, so I’m going to do some “nibbling round the edges” and talk about how to choose combat maneuvers. To talk…

This is an attempt to articulate what I see as the 6 roles that characters take in a D&D party. #HomebrewAndHacking #DnD #5e #A5e

Introduction So I was asked by @arms to write about the party roles and how each class would fit into them. As I am an enjoyer of Advanced Fifth Edition as opposed to other forms, I will be couching my discussion in such language, but I feel confident that you can work out who’s who very easily if your only experience is 5th edition. The class list of “official” classes is here. Originally I…

I write about Strength characters and how thinking about them makes me think I need to put a LOT more loot in games. #TTRPG #5e #DnD

Disclaimer If your game does not feature multiple battles per day then this blog post is probably not addressing you. This blog post is also silent on the subject of “roleplaying vs rollplaying” (aka the Stormwind Fallacy) because I do not subscribe to fallacious beliefs that one cannot have a character optimised for roleplay and with good mechanics. Therefore I am also not talking to you. This…

In my defence, I was left unsupervised... Converting situational cantrips into cool magic items. #TTRPG #A5e #DnD #5e #HomebrewAndHacking

Introduction So, the discerning reader will notice that I’ve been talking and thinking about cantrips. Part I discussed the opportunity costs of taking them. Parts II and III were kindly assisted by Purple Martin Games who gave me permission to reprint Manual of Adventurous Resources and Spells from the Forgotten Vault respectively. Part IV was an investigation into Black Flag to see if Tales…

Introduction As per the previous two posts, I’m looking at cantrips and the design space around them. Extracted from the Black Flag Reference Document by Kobold Press (Black Flag) here are some of the cantrips. I’m going to compare them with some of those that have come out of the Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition by EN Publishing (A5e) design space. Several of these cantrips share the same name…

Introduction This post builds from the cost of cantrips, and MOAR cantrips in which I assigned letter grades to the Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition cantrips based on a set of criteria which I will reproduce below. It is always important to bear in mind that such rankings are opinions are subjective and therefore should not be taken for statements of objective truth. However, by expressing my…