OSRPGtalk

Design: Exploring

April 5, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

Exploration is a staple of fantasy RPG adventuring. From the earliest rules drafts onward, exploring underground complexes has been present. Later expansion of the system added exploring wilderness to the mix, so PCs could explore the great outdoors, find a musty old dungeon, and then explore the hole in the ground. The basic play loop in the rules has always been that of “Leave Home –> Explore –> Return Home” lather, rinse, repeat. With that in mind, I’d like to look at exploration closely, with an eye on figuring out what’s important to the play experience when exploring to try to capture that in my projects.

First, of course, we’ll have to break exploration into discrete units of activity, as I don’t think dungeon exploration and wilderness exploration share enough similarities to share a unified process. There are some major differences that warrant treating them individually despire shared concerns between them. I’m also leaning into additional exploration fields (dreamscapes, faery, etc.) and expect those to also have some significant differences when compared to sneaking around in dark tunnels.

Dungeon Exploration

Fantasy RPGs began in dungeons, so I think it fitting to begin by examining exploration of dungeons. What is that drives characters to delve in the darkness and hazard the risks of going there? Or, properly, what is it that leads players to want to have characters who adventure there? What are the game experiences that entice players to play in these imaginary spaces?

I think, at a fundamental level, is the draw of a world similar to ours and yet filled with wondrous things that ours isn’t. Many of those wondrous beings, items, or events simply don’t or can’t happen in our mundane existence and provide both relief from mundaneity and the promise and challenge of novelty. Even with the dozenth iteration of a magical fountain, the very idea of a magical fountain remains something new enough to warrant wonder.

So many of these wondrous things also involve a challenge to us as thinking creatures. How will we overcome the struggle before us to achieve our ends? Let us marshall our tools, gather our wits, and figure out an approach to surmount the odds and prevail. Can we bludgeon our way through? Slip surretitiously past it? Undermine it operations so it falls apart? Negotiate a way past? The game situation allows us to stretch our problem-solving abilities beyond the boundaries of our personal capabilities via PC abilities and belongings.

The dungeon offers us myraid ways to engage in the wonders and challenges of a fantasy setting. There are puzzles to be solved to find a hidden vault or open its portal, and clues to be found and pondered to reach a solution. Traps that can be the demise of the unwary, if warning hints are ignored or misread. Tricks to be overcome when they lead us astray and waste our time and resources. Then there are treasures, both obvious and not, that promise riches and reknown and influence, if we should be able to return home with them.

All of this while mucking about in the dark with the possibility of monstrous creatures lurching out of the shadow seeking to devour our bodies and sometimes our souls. All of the nightmares of our primoridal psyche on display in flesh and bone and dripping blood from fang and claw. We get to confront horrors and walk –or limp– away to tell the tale.

The feel of those encounters arises from few things. The PCs –and thus the players, vacariously– are in an unknown environment. Their primary sense, sight, is limited by the pervailing darkness, and other senses can be readily overwhelmed by strange scents, echoing sound, and the strange airs found in the underworld. It’s easy to get turned around and about and to lose grasp of the way back to safety.

The PCs also have limited resources. They can rely only on themselves and what they can carry with them (the best argument for encombrance rules, I say) while struggling against the dark and the horrors it contains. They’re likely to have only the water they carry to maintain hydration and foods they carry to maintain energy. The very extertion of moving around can drain them to where everything becomes more difficult. Maintaining peak performance is a challenge in itself.

It’s my opinion that the constraints of the latter limits emphasize the joys of the former. That is, the shiny wonders shine brighter when contrasted with the strain of the darkness. The challenge of design, I think, lies in balancing the two — how intrusive to make the strain of resource management balanced against the brightness of the challenges.

Wilderness Exploration

Exploring in the wilderness can be an express investigation or happen merely by moving through an area. I’ve still yet to sort the finer points of the two so I can decide if the procedures are exactly the same or if there’s some difference that is worth making apparent in the rules. The broad strokes of each are the same, though.

I find a lot of value in the approach of having Landmarks, Hidden POIs, and Secret POIs in any given hex/area of the lands being moved through. The hidden and the secret, of course, are only found by exploring as part of the move through the area. The hidden are off the natural path of travel –a road, well-worn trail, along a river or stream, or route following the base of hills (instead of trying to climb over them)– and can be found easily by leaving that path. The secret need to be sought out with greater effort, poking about in copses and hollows and all places that are impervious to casual view.

I think there are several instances that can make travel interesting. All of the things that serve to make dungeons interesting can also make wilderness interesting, with the understanding that the wilderness can provide an abundance of events and encounters and places that a dungeon is hard-pressed to match. For each magical fountain in a dungeon, the wilderness can offer up numerous magical pools, springs, ponds, streams, wells, and fountains. For each portal into the mythical underworld found in a dungeon, the wilderness can host multiple openings into the realms of faery, the elder world, alternate times, spiritworlds, and other planes; the mythic wilds are numerous and dangerous.

The wilds are full of homegrown beasties and those of all the other places that can attach to it. For every great cat protecting its territory, there can be an incursion from elsewhere or elsewhen providing a different form of danger. The machinations of faery courts can spill out into the mortal realm. Travellers from other planes with malicious intent can act against the beings that call this world home.

So, it’s possible to have a near-constant appearance of events and encounters to liven up play in the wilds. Wizard weather –powerful storms– can bring entities across the veils between worlds, ancient sites of power can erupt into action according to astral alignments, malignant spirits can inhabit fens and copses and areas around tombs and shrines to dark forces. All of the interesting parts of dungeon exploration are possible in the wilderness.

The same aspects of dungeon exploration that create tension and highlight the satisfaction of encountering the challenges also appear in wilderness play. Expeditions are limited in the supplies they can transport, so decisions about what gear to carry come to play. Gathering supplies from the surroundings is a choice, balanced against the time it takes to do so; that extra time means extra exposure to the elements and the hazards of travel, with an extra day on the trail possibly leading to catastrophe. Spending extra time in a haunted wood with malicious spirits is a recipe for distress, at the least. PCs unable to find rest and recovery are then easier pickings for hostile forces later along the trail.

There is the darkness of night to negotiate, complete with the creatures that prefer darkness. Daylight brings respite from the dark, though with a different roster of dangers and choices possible to keep the characters successful in their travels.

Faery Exploration

Then there are the otherworldly spaces to explore. These can offer different challenges and change up the procedures for maintaining supply. Hunting in Faery can be quite different than hunting in a typical forest. Gathering plants much the same. Players can find that simply maintaining food and water supplies can be more difficult in a different plane/world.

Time can be variable, with a foray in another world resulting in much time elapsing in the PCs’ home world, or spend days wandering in another place only to return an hour later to where they left. The geography of another world can vary as the characters move about. The players may have to figure out how to return to the home world with the opening between worlds closing behind them. Getting drawn into another world when having a deadline into the home world is problematic and increases the challenge for players.

The elements of exploration are generally similar from one environment to the next. The differences are likely enough to warrant procedures for each to help them feel different in play. I think that finding the basic demands of managing resources a bit different in each context will be a way to provide a contrast in flavor, as will the details of the nature of what’s encountered.

Design Theory: Abstractions in Action

April 2, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I’m currently working on combat/action sub-systems, at least for the Dangerous Adventures project. That involves taking a hard look at many of the usual business approaches to aspects of combat systems and deciding if those are fitting with my intentions for a system. It may prove inspirational for others to read how I approach the design process with some examples, so I’ll begin here.

The oldest version of D&D and then AD&D both use one-minute combat/action rounds. Among the early editions, B/X stands out for using a much shorter round, nominally, though the rules really don’t offer any substantial difference in play to support the varied time scales. In each instance, a round of fighting activity is assumed to involve basic fighting movement, feints, dodges, parries, attacks aimed at different targets, sucking down air, and any other individual bits of man-to-man fighting one would care to mention. Throw in movement on the battleground and one has a reasonably complete picture of what’s going on in the abstraction. It’s all in support of the pointy end of the stick, which is finding out if the PC fought effectively enough to do any significant damage to the foe.

That approach stands up under scrutiny, as being reflective of reality in fighting while being useful in playing games. I don’t see any utility in trying to reduce the time to very short instances of action and trying to posit individual strikes in a fight. Far too many attempted strikes would be ineffective to make such a process at all interesting, so the assumption of a round involving at least several such attempts works better for me.

The only part of this that I’ve taken issue with is how long a round is. I’ve found over the years that both one-minute rounds and ten-second rounds grate on my sensibilities, with the one too long and the other too short. The technical length of the round doesn’t have much direct effect on what happens within it, other than a general guage of how much can get done, so it’s never been a major issue. I’m designing with the idea of rounds being 15 to 30 seconds long, likely the best measure to use; anything longer could make differences in movement rates moot and anything shorter would stretch some activities over more rounds. This tightens things up a bit when compared to AD&D rounds.

Among the elements I want to incorporate in my projects, is that of weapon speed. I don’t see this as a literal measure of how quick the weapon is when in use, mostly as a measure of how easy it is to use the weapon and have it in place for striking and parrying and such when wielded. The weapon speeds listed in the early versions of D&D will help guide the assignment of Action Facility ratings (weapon speeds) for use in DA.

I suspect the Facility can be improved based on class and level, too, though I’m not to a point where I can gauge that (the basics of it have to be well-tested, first). At first glance, I can see experienced fighters being able to improve Action Facility with a favorite weapon type.

Movement has to be nailed down, in terms of how far a character can generally move in a single phase of the round. The rates of movement resulting from different approaches –cautious, careful, aggressive, sprinting, etc.– have to be tested for verisimilitude and all that.

I want to include pass-through fire on moving foes, with missile able to attack them at an appropriate place along the line of movement taken during a phase. I want split-move attacks possible, with partial move followed by a quick attack and then ending with further movement. An unengaged character should be able to intercept a moving foe, whether by a simple short shift move or a longer interception move.

I suspect that pulling a lot of the choices that orginated in miniatures play can help make sub-tactical RPG engagements perhaps more fluid and certainly requiring more factors to consider each round.

NPCs: Central Casting

March 30, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I’ve been struggling with crafting a cast of characters for a campaign start area. Then I realized I could approach it in a different fashion and suddenly the NPCs started springing up left and right. I’ve no idea why the change let the creative juices flow where the approach I’ve used for decades suddenly dried everything up. Ah, well, ideas are bubbling up and I figured it worth sharing.

I was thinking about a friend who has been an inspiration for an important NPC. I realized that I wasn’t really trying to put her into the setting, I was using her as an inspiration and it was much more like I was casting her to play that character on the world stage. That brought the epiphany — I’m a director casting people in parts for a play.

I found that this approach works well in two directions. That is, taking an NPC role and figuring out who I’d cast to play that part; and also considering a person I know in some fashion and figuring out what sort of role I’d cast them in. Note that I’m not considering basing the NPC on the person’s actual personality, I’m just considering how I’d cast them in a play based on how I think they’d play the NPC.

I’ve never overtly considered this as an approach to NPCs prior. I’ve rarely even thought of correlating a known person with an NPC in my games. I expect there are people who’ve taken this approach, though I’ve not encountered discussion of it anywhere.

Layout: Tables

March 26, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

One layout feature found in abundance in RPGs, especially in old school systems, is the table. A table can organize information in a fashion that efficiently conveys the ideas involved, providing concise statements of information. The Turning Undead table, for example, lays out the chances for clerics to turn or destroy undead creatures while also providing a gauge for how tough the different undead types are to encounter.

Tables can also help decide among a variety of options via dice rolls, as with encounter tables for wilderness travel or random dungeon encounters. Those are the tables I want to look at here. I’m interested in taking the basic tables long used in rules systems and expanding on them a bit.

I’ve written before about wanting to use some large table types. Reality sat me down for an intervention and showed me that laying out such large tables wasn’t quite practical, even using a two-page spread. The cells on the table shrink to barely usable with such a size. So, I’m here to press more conventional tables into service.

The many systems that have been published over the decades all use tables of some sort, so the usage of tables to provide information in RPG systems isn’t new or unusual. D6 tables, D10, D20, D30, D100 tables abound in the published literature. While they all can prove useful, I’m mostly interested in those found in old school and OSR materials, specifically those using multiple dice in some fashion.

The venerable reaction table, for example, calls for 2D6 rolls. An OSR system favorite is the D66 table. Each of these types can be expanded to increase the range of results in ways that can serve a setting better and provide a bit more flavor to the rules.

The reaction table is a a single-axis table, meaning the roll indicates which row on the table to use to find a result. We can, however, expand the number of rows to add some interesting utility to the table. We can expand both the top and bottom of the table, so the lowest result is less than the lowest dice roll of 2, and the greatest result is greater than the highest dice roll of 12.

What this does is allow for a wider range of results and move the more extreme results — hostility resulting in immedate attack and all-in friendly helpfulness — outside the bounds of a default roll. To garner a result from the expanded rows, the roll has to be modified and that provides a chance for the players to wrangle modifiers in their favor. A look at a potential reaction table:

The five results from the standard table have now expanded to nine results, which allows a bit more nuance in play. It also allows for added interactions to shift results for better or worse, facilitating more interaction before either extreme can occur.

Now let’s look at an encounter table. By expanding the number of rows, we can reflect increased danger in deeper levels of a dungeon or risk increasing the more time is spent in a location. The more dangerous the area or longer the PCs have been in a risky place, the greater the modifier to the roll and the more dangerous the entries on the table become. A 2D6 table that has goblins as the most likely critter encountered now has gnolls as the most likely with a modifier shifting roll results, and the possibility of owlbears as the most powerful.

Now, we can also expand the number of columns available. Using a D66 roll, or adding a D6 alongside a 2D6 roll, allows us to shift things in a different direction. The D66 becomes a possible D68, so to speak, as a modifier of one or two column shifts moves us into options not part of default rolls.

Expanding a table in both directions allows us to color the results in more than one fashion. If we add rows, we can tie modifiers for that to one element, say level of dungeon in a dungeon crawl. Then, we can add columns to the table that reflect the time spent in the current level and how that increases the chances of stirring up more of the inhabitants. Or we can have the expansion in one direction reflect moving into a different area of the level that has more active or dangerous inhabitants. Or an increased chance of cave-ins or geothermal vents spraying steam or whatever.

In this fashion, the regular 36 possible results of a D66 table can be expanded to, say, 64 possible results by allowing for modifiers of +1 or +2 in each direction. I’m looking at using a 2D6x6 table format to take advantage of the bell curve, so that involves 66 possible results of varying likelihood. (The 2D6^2 table format I wanted to use — 121 possible results by default and bunches more with expansion — just doesn’t fit well in a rulebook, alas.)

This is, of course, just a cursory look at expanding tables and how they could be used. The true utility has to be worked out in game materials and used at tables to see how they’re best used. I’ll be hashing out expanded tables in the materials I’m preparing, so concrete examples will be found therein.

The Old School: Hallmarks II

March 19, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

More thoughts on what makes for an old school experience. Some of this is simply expansion on a topic mentioned in Hallmarks I because I think the added commentary adds something to the discussion. As I return to thoughts of playstyles, I expect more details and notions to arise and I’ll toss them up here. Perhaps I’ll get around to pulling all of it together, properly organized, and then post it.

I’ve offered that settings are what define the world in which PCs operate. Any exceptions to normal physics are delineated so that players can interact with a consistent basis of understanding; gravity is going to make a long fall quite detrimental to a PC’s health…although here are the specific ways in which that can be ameliorated. Players are able to predict, in general terms, how things work and thus gauge how risky a course of action will be for the PC.

Settings also tie in with other elements. PCs are expected to be grounded in the setting, with some nominal ties to specific elements. The most basic is likely that of origin; where the PC comes from establishes them as *part of the setting* from the outset. The PCs aren’t foreign to the setting, they’re just another one of many elements that are part of the setting.

That’s important because old school campaigns are about the setting. The system rules didn’t include anything about pre-planned “character arcs” or long, involved background stories because the campaigns were expected to be about what’s going on in the world and how a group of random characters engage with it. With everything involved being part of the setting, it’s the setting that is featured in play. It’s this that makes every PC replaceable in a campaign, with it not unusual that a player could begin a campaign and then change PCs over time without that campaign ending.

A system begins to lose old school flavor when the approach to PCs loses tight definition in an effort to provide a lot of customization. As the ancestral wargames offered up a “fighter is a fighter is a fighter” approach, the old school RPGs proceeded with that idea, I reckon, because it kept the PCs grounded in the setting and helped to make them replaceable. The expectation was that a PC becomes memorable based on how it’s played with the choices the player makes defining the unique nature of the character. Thus, a character is only fully defined through play and that’s where the important differences should arise.

I’ll even offer that this is part of developing player skill, in part — take this standard-issue archetype and make something more of it *in play.* So much of the play experience and character definition happens “off-sheet,” as is often said. Players can’t rely on special combinations of customization options to provide “easy button” solutions to play challenges, a build isn’t a substitute for creative solutions the player cooks up. The character sheet acts as a toolbox for the player, not a source of solutions; interrogating the fiction by asking questions to find elements that can possibly be exploited to help overcome the challenge at hand is far more important than looking to the sheet for an answer.

Old school play is very much in the “play to find out” camp. Even in tournament play, while each round of the tournament provided a continuation of a general plot, the individual installments often didn’t dictate an explicit sequence of encounters and events. G1-3 Against the Giants, for example, moved the overall plot from round to round from G1 with hill giants to G2 with frost giants and then to G3 and fire giants. When playing through G1, however, there was no expected order of encounters as to how it would play out, nor do I recall any instances of “the PCs have to do X then Y” or similar to finish the module.

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, with its order of battle roster, makes this even more apparent. PCs can have denizens appear during a fight with others and then, when arriving at those critters’ regular quarters, there won’t be any critters to be found. The module doesn’t decide if the critters will be encountered during the large melee, in their own quarters, or somewhere in between. That lack of expectation and reliance on the GM to sort the happenstance is representative of an old school approach.

Old school systems also expect exploration as an important component of play. this hearkens back to the importance of setting, because finding out what is in the setting and what’s happening in the setting is core to the experience. Exploration becomes important as a way to find out about the setting, as the setting provides for play. A solid procedure for exploring sites thus seems to be a requirement in old school playstyles.

I hope my thoughts here can spur thought and spark ideas from other people. I can’t say that my idea of the hallmarks of old school styles are necessarily the most accurate or thorough, certainly. I can say that thinking on the subject has helped me deepen my understanding, certainly.

First Look at a Witch Class

March 5, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I’ve roughed out a Witch class for the DA project. The class will be quite similar when it appears as an LJ class.

I’d love to hear ideas on more powers for Witches to be able to develop, as the list I have seems a bit short. I’ll be basing the spell descriptions and lists on those powers.

Feedback on the abilities described also welcome…shoot, feedback on all of it is welcome, at this point. I think I’ve conveyed the gist of the class reasonably well and I’d like to know how it comes off to you.

https://osrpgtalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/DA-Class-Witch.pdf

Oh, yeah, I can put documents up for download….

March 3, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I realized that I might be able to post other media in addition to images. Sure enough, I can put PDFs and other types of file up. Yeah…I’m not quick to check on this sort of thing.

Anyway, I still have no idea how to go about accessing those through the guest interface, so I’ll check to see how difficult that is.

Design: Travel Navigation

January 29, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

I’ve been wrestling with how to make travel the equivalent of dungeon exploration in activity (my bespoke system is entitled “Legendary Journeys,” after all). I think I cracked that nut.

It’s typical to have a navigation check when parties are wandering in the countryside. Their fearless leader checks to see if they’ve wandered off course during the day and are lost. Well, what if we change that up a bit?

Suppose the navigation roll does two different things. First, it slows the party by some amount, measured in time or movement points or whatever your system uses to measure progress when traveling. Assume the party gets it sorted out by discovering the error and getting headed in the correct direction from where they are. This, I think, can offer that “wandering in the wilderness” feeling without the wholesale “getting lost” condition.

What it also does, secondly, is provide an opportunity for the party to find/stumble upon Points of Interest they would otherwise have missed. So, if we make the navigation check a bit more difficult so the party wanders a bit more often, they can find a lot more stuff to eat their faces…er, explore.

Each time the party travels through the hex, the navigation check can result in the party traipsing along a different path and finding something new. If we want to, we can restructure the navigation roll to reflect that each trip through is likely to be a bit different which allows for new discoveries. Indeed, we can structure things so each trip through a hex is just different enough that new discoveries are possible.

That would provide more possible interaction and greater interest in travel situations. The wilderness and travel should just be something to endure before getting to the good stuff at the destination. Traveling should be an adventure of itself. It should be possible to have the journey to a location to be more involved than what happens at the location, which upends the usual circumstances of play.

Update:

I’ve been stewing on this topic for a long time, wanting to end with a sub-system that offers up travel-as-adventure instead of travel-to-reach-adventure. What I wrote above is just a part of that. Yes, offering variation in trips through a given wilderness space increase the chances of discovering new points of interest. That, of itself, doesn’t make a wilderness trek feel like a dungeon foray, though.

What that doesn’t offer is all of the interaction that can be expected in a dungeon setting. The tricks and traps and puzzles we find in dungeons are generally missing in the traditional wilderness travel rules. I think that’s a element we have to introduce to bring wilderness adventure up to the same level as dungeon adventure.

Providing more chances to find POI is just the beginning. Having multiple small dungeons to be found during travel doesn’t provide the same flavor as full-size dungeons. I think we need to have our encounter tables expanded to include more, plus add in pre-planned material for any given trip.

I think of the wilderness in a fantasy game setting as wild, in the sense that the kinds of things and situations found in folk tales/fairy tales are not only possible, they’re not uncommon. Spend much time traipsing about in the wild and you will encounter weirdness of some sort — fairies come through the Hedge, elder beasts from the Greenwood, people from other worlds, weather anomalies, malevolent spirits, enchanted pools, ancient shrines radiating power, and on and on. These are the things that can provide the same flavor in the wilds that a variety of rooms and chambers provide in a dungeon, especially when many of them invite direct interaction with the PCs.

To that end, I think the encounter rules have to provide as many opportunities for something to interact with as a party could expect to have in a dungeon. That’s not to say that every ten-minute turn of travel should include a check or reaching a new “room.” It does mean that there should be fairly regular instances of interesting things to do, whether measured by hour-long turns or opportunities per hex or in some other fashion. A trip should be filled with chances to engage with the unusual and interesting bits of the setting.

As there are many folks who approach dungeon settings as the Mythic Underworld, I think it just as useful to approach at least parts of the wilderness as the Mythic Wilds. Stretches of forest or swamp or plains that feel as if they have an interest in the PCs traveling through and aren’t taking kindly to the intrusion. I’ve already been thinking of the Little Gods, spirits of the place, that can take notice of travelers; this extends that to the entirety of a locale taking notice. An increase in encounters with hostile critters, say, with those critters being the most dangerous in the locale. Those critters trailing the party and causing issues. The party getting slowed repeatedly by fresh obstacles the terrain throws up in the way. Stopping for rest breaks or camping resulting in getting constantly harried by denizens of the forest that make rest impossible.

Even locales that aren’t Mythic Wilds can offer similar experiences. The lands immediately surrounding an ancient barrow that holds a malevolent golem possessed and animated by the spirit of a long-ago tyrant and warlord. Hauntings a-plenty, undead clawing out of the ground and shambling after the PCs, shadows flitting about out of direct sunlight and chilling the PCs to the bone. The PCs can figure out what’s at the area’s heart and try to put an end to it, though that just may result in the golem escaping it’s chambers and roaming the wilds to create yet more havoc.

Encounter tables should provide for much more in the way of flavor and challenge. I can see each area having designation of danger that affects the results on tables, or specific tables for each such area. As I mentioned previously, I also think the regular addition of pre-planned POI can make a major difference. Even if it’s a drop-in selected from a list of possible drop-ins, knowing that on a given stretch of travel something a bit more involved is going to crop up that’s already prepped makes GMing a trip a bit easier, and the players will get regular doses of more substantial and demanding play. Prepping a handful of events/encounters/sites for a given stretch of wilds in advance can go a long way to filling out travel in an interesting fashion.

Planning a trip thus gains quite a bit of flavor. Planning a route now involves deciding what known stretches of dangerous ground it might be better to avoid, though at the expnse of taking more time to reach the destination. PCs can try to find good sources about what to expect along the way and prepare for it. Planning a trip becomes the equivalent of planning a dungeon foray, as does the actual experience of it. An exercise in survival becomes an exercise in adventure.

On Evil Monsters

January 19, 2026 / TAFL / 0 Comments

There are topics that seem to rise again and again in RPG fora like undead horses to be flogged. This comes about because of the regular influx of gamers to discussions, so evergreen discussions are to be expected despite the eyerolls they garner from veterans. One such horse carcass is that of evil monsters, particularly humanoid monsters.

The argument against having such moves along the path of “innately evil humanoids don’t stand to reason because there’s going to be good individuals even in an evil culture and it’s horrible to say they’re all evil” and then to move on to how it’s inherently racist to have evil non-humans.

Stop. Stop right there.

The problem I see is simple: these claims rely on the notion that non-human critters are simply humans in funny suits. That what one can expect from human cultures is what one can expect from non-humans. That non-human thought and feeling and understanding is exactly the same as with humans.

I’ll offer up that non-humans aren’t humans in funny suits, that they are, indeed, non-human and that expecting the human experience to map onto the non-human experience is foolish and leads to bad fantasy. The non-human experience should NOT map directly onto human experience.

Now, for us, as humans, to be able to use non-humans in play, yes, we have to be have enough similarity between the two for us to use — for us to understand so we can portray elves and dwarves and so on — and still be different enough to set them apart as not human. (Yes, RPG play has long suffered from elves and dwarves as simply humans in funny suits.) The Venn diagram humans and non-humans should never be a perfect circle, even if there’s relatively little space separate.

So I’ll observe that we humans can’t comprehend all of the non-human experience, so we’ll never understand why some non-humans are what we find to be irredeemably evil. They’re not poor, downtrodden souls being wrongly persecuted for being in the wrong place, they’re inherently evil creatures creeping into human domains and a threat to all humans.

Even if they’re bipedal and human-like in form, they aren’t human. They’re not stand-ins for oppressed peoples. They’re non-human monsters and a threat to us all.

Non-human creatures that aren’t evil should also be viewed as not being fully understandable by humans, and thus by the players at the table, for much the same reason. They may not be the inherent threat the evil monsters are, yet some of their behavior should certainly be inscrutable to humans to preserve the weirdness of the fantasy.

To pay the Joesky tax, I offer up the Shadow Curs, as yet untested kobold substitutes:

NO. APPEARING: 10-100
ARMOR CLASS: 7
MOVE: 12″ / 9″
HIT DICE: 2-5 hp
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-4 or by weapon
SPCL ATTACKS: none
SPCL DEFENSE: none
MAGIC RESIST: standard
INTELLIGENCE: low
ALIGNMENT: Lawful Evil
SIZE: Small (2 1/2′ – 3′)

The curs have two forms, that of a dog and that of a dog-faced humanoid, similar to a werewolf. When in the dog form, a cur has capabilities as a dog. In the humanoid form, a cur has opposable thumbs and can wield weapons accordingly. Transforming from one form to the other takes but a couple of seconds and doesn’t affect the cur’s ability to move and fight.

In either form, a cur looks like a mongrel dog, with fur and fangs accordingly. Small packs are families led by the sire and dame. Large groups are composed of multiple family packs and typically led by the largest of the pack leaders.

Design: Surprise

November 27, 2025 / TAFL / 0 Comments

Surprise is one of the bits of system that didn’t hold up under scrutiny and is worthy of a post on its own, I think. There’s a whole lot of tinkering going on with how surprise operates, beginning with how it feels and including what purpose it serves in the system.

Let’s begin with a look at how it plays out in RAW. I’ve long wondered why groups get surprised one-third of the time upon encountering another group or monster. Reading through all of the OG materials has offered no reasoning to support that rate, so this appears to be one of the things that has been perpetuated simply because of tradition. I decided that I’m not down with that; one-third of the time is simply more than I can sustain disbelief for–it just doesn’t serve my fantasy to have competent adventurers getting flummoxed by running into beasties that often.

To that end, I’ve moved to lesser chances, closer to 25% of the time. If I recall correctly, the odds are about 27%, using the dice roll I’ve landed on. I’m using the 2D6 roll that I’ve pressed into service for some other purposes.

I’m also all for PCs being able to bump the odds in their favor, whether decreasing the chance of being surprised or increasing the chance of surprising others. How the players play should matter and this is but another way their choices matter mechanically and fictionally.

How long surprise lasts has also not survived its viewing under the microscope. The initial measure being provided by the die roll, with a surprise result of 1 or 2 resulting in a matching number of suprise segments was an elegant way to find out long surprise would last. Two segments of surprise are also referred to as “full surprise,” which illustrates that two segments was the longest surprise would last, originally. Then, with the accretion of further rules, notions such as creatures that could surprise more frequently changed how many segments could be notched in that fashion. Tossing in the use of dice of a larger size — D8 or D10 — for surprise checks in some situations, and figuring out how long surprise lasts becomes muddled.

As I don’t think more than three segments of surprise is reasonable — especially with a one minute round — I’ve capped surprise at that. The number of phases of surprise is also established by the dice roll for surprise.

What surprising combatants are able to do during each segment of surprise also got limited. The notion that each segment of surprise garnering a full series of attacks, without regard to the number of attacks entailed, got dropped, too. Two attacks are certainly possible, depending on circumstance; anything beyond that stretched my sensibilities past breaking. And certainly no launching multiple arrows each segment, so only one readied arrow per phase, with a phase required to ready one. I’m also considering an added bonus to having surprised the opponents when the first full round of action fires up, which returns a bit of the overwhelming advantage provided by surprise in the RAW.

This has also resulted in dropping references to segments in the surprise rules, in favor of referring to phases. This is with the understanding that I’m also dropping the use of the term “segment” entirely, at this point, because of its long association with being one-tenth of a round; rounds will be apportioned in fewer parts when the whole is reassembled (five phases per 20-second round).

The urge to allow for PC actions (player choices) to affect the odds of surprise also extends to how long surprise lasts, measured by how much activity the surprising party can do before the surprised can engage fully and player choices can quicken response when PCs are surprised. As above, the number of melee and missile attacks possible will be limited, what movement is allowed carefully meted out, and what casting or other magical work can get started and/or finished. A surprise situation, under this approach, may not happen as often, yet it provides a major advantage to one side when it does happen.

Ambush

An ambush provides a different experience of surprise. Only the party being ambushed can be surprised due to the ambushing party knowing full well when it will act. How the ambush is set up and executed will affect how much activity the ambushing side will get to do before the victims can respond. A well-planned and -executed ambush can provide a bit more time for salvos, too.

Sneak Attacks

A sneak attack is a form of ambush, just on a smaller scale, so to speak. Sneaking up behind a guard to take them out or firing a crossbow from the darkness into a sentry’s back rely on the at-least-momentary lack of awareness and engagement, as much as springing forth from hidden positions along a road when attacking a caravan does.

A Rough Draft of Surprise Rules

Surprise: Roll For doom

https://osrpgtalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DA-Surprise-v-0.8.pdf