On Hyperiridium

(reminded myself that I had an Evernote, and popped it open and found my fish-men solo adventure notes, as well as this, written in May 2015. Probably a way to tie Halthrag Keep and Space Dungeon to Black Powder Black Magic by +Eric Hoffman and +Carl Bussler  but I can't recall off the top of my head if it had been released, then)

 

Hyperidium is described in the scientific literature by Dr. Allan Whipplemark-Smythe of Future Earth 124/4b in the year QE2027. The entry from Encyclopaedia Galactica is abstracted, here.

On Aereth it is known in some places as Bale-Iron and Dweomer-Ore, and Green Orichalc by Alchemists. It has the curious and ominous property that it feeds on ambient magical energy and becomes more dense without decreasing in volume - depending upon conditions it adds mass from some other place and time but retains its shape and form.  It is especially common in Thrend, near the site of a meteor-fall that destroyed Halthrag Keep and turned the course of the Wizard Wars long ago (speculatively BE1078 +/- 7)

Any time an offensive spell is cast at a wielder of a Hyperidium weapon, attack and damage rolls (not Deed Dice!) are increased by +1d for the duration of the spell (which may allow, for instance only 1 attack in the case of instantaneous attacks).  The wielder may choose to give up this bonus to convert and dissipate the spell energy, whereupon the weapon gives off a baleful and sickly blue-green glow, and the spell result is decreased by one result category OR the wielder gains a Luck point until the next sunrise/resting period, which may take him or her above the natural maximum. In the case of instantaneous non-spell attacks, one attempted strike by the bearer will be affected.

 

For a wearer of Hyperiridium armor or the bearer of a shield, the effective armor bonus is increased by 1d6 each time an offensive spell is cast at the wearer, which stacks up to the maximum of 6 (so a single spell or multiple spells might drive the AC bonus to the maximum of 6).  In the case of instantaneous non-spell magical attacks, the next defended attack will be affected this way.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to hide or remain hidden as the armor's evil blue-green sheen radiates tell-tale light and marks it as magical.

Large quantities of this refined metal attracts succubi, wights, and Crystalline Arachnoidae who lust after it. It is refined from meteoric ore and the process requires strong acids; the ore from which it comes gives off a sinister blue-green glow. Much suspicion and bad folklore is attached to it in areas where it is found, and these creatures will always attack or target those who possess this metal (or even quantities of the raw ore) first.

see also: Warp Stone; Greenstone shards; Kryptonite (various colours).

Mashups, Closure, Thread Necromancy

(this was started back in the summer, maybe? trying to go back and finish off some lost trains of thought and so this represents some months of doodling and the chronology is weird)

At first, this kid is thinking "DAMMIT"

I been thinking, see, and I have felt a real creative flag in terms of output of interesting gaming content.  I think it's the Roku I bought for 17 bucks at Staples - sapping my will away.  Maybe it's the return of Game of Thrones. (editor's note: this must have sat a while in the draft box)  I think G+ has taken a hard turn into commercialism and sharing of buyable shit that makes my skin crawl.  I'm not a hipster, but it used to be a lot of content was shared freely, and now it seems like it's behind the pay-wall, somehow.  I'm all about clue-ing people in to good stuff, and I like people to be reimbursed for their efforts but the G+ algorithm sends a great deal of kittie pictures, hot redheads, and Kickstarters my way.  Could be the purpose of it, maybe, but we somehow subverted it a little before if you take my meaning.  I'm sure that one book by that one guy is terrific, but I feel sort of like it's got some Hootie and The Blowfish Syndrome.  You play me, or try to sell me, the same goddam song on the radio every 5 minutes and you and me both get diminishing returns.  That being, you don't sell me that book (no matter how good it is), and I turn off the radio, Hootie.  You follow? Can you dig it, hepcat?

About the best thing I can manage of late is a mashup, and there've been no end of mashups for me this past few months.  I will put the peanut butter of DCC with any sort of chocolate, and so I've tried some Scooby-Doo/Space Dungeon mashup (it was good on paper), and this diesel-punk/Grease/Thundarr Mashup from a couple of weeks months ago.  I'm afraid as in matters of the bedroom, I have little staying power in the game room and lose interest quickly after the initial excitement wears off. Sorry if I don't have the creative stamina to keep it up for the long haul... The flipside is, at least I'm often satisfied by explosive bursts of fun/novel/interesting stuff but whether others are is for them to decide. We're all responsible, after all, for our own gaming enjoyment and to communicate to others what we might wish to have happen at the table.  Or else put up with it and be unhappy.

my first encounter with Amy Brightower indelibly affected my thinking, I'm sure.

I'm thinking of some juvenile/troma high/mutant crawl classics thing.  Class of Nuke 'Em High/Return of the Living Dead thing.  There's this old scandalous RPG illustrated by Erol Otus called Alma Mater, I think I wrote about it some time ago on here. Seems dimly amusing but the genre's the thing for me and maybe not the mechanics so much.  I don't anticipate rolling interminable dice around a virtual table to simulate an experience I loathed 23 years ago!!! On the other hand, the archetypes of High School are endlessly appealing, and (there was a cartoon about this when I were a prepubescent lad called Galaxy High) I think it might benefit from some complication and transmogrification.  But the premise is sort of interesting, to me.  A befouled, Death Wish 2/Warriors/80 Blocks From Tiffany's urban metropolis full of Wasted Youths and (of course, it's me we're talking about, here) Deadly Unreliable Robots, Scrofulous Mutants, and Ionizing Radiation.  edit: played this game during the summer, before Our President Elect was much more than a hilarious unlikelihood, and I'd like to return to it but I have no wish to go to the Camps in my middle age.  Also, it seems to me that if I wait long enough, maybe a year or so, we'll either get a new President or Thundarr will come to pass at last...  Wouldn't it be hilarious if all these post-apocalyptic Zombie fantasies we see on the screens really were TRAINING SCENARIOS FOR LIFE IN THE THEOCRATIC PRISON ZONES?

The America of 1986, now with more Grimdark! Coming in 2017!

Also, in terms of mashups, I proposed, and me and Doug K. and Michael S. toyed with a World Wide Wrestling/Space Dungeon mashup where the primary driver for the combination is to free myself and the other players from the constraints of physics, wrestling moves, and human anatomy and physiology.  I think it shows much promise for hilarity, since it takes all the drama and melodrama of professional wrestling and also the wacky tech, dark magic, and sinister corporate shenanigans of my home-grown toy DCC setting (maybe you can join it and read it on G+ but it's in Hypersleep mode for the time being).  WWW seems to me to be a terrific game, and all reports I have heard have been glowing (particularly from The Gauntlet podcast).  I look forward to pile-driving it into submission and I think I will probably do some gimmicks for it (classes) although the built-in ones seem to me to encompass a lot of room to flex... +Nathan Paoletta has a great deal of terrific games: (find them HERE).  I think I got into an early playtest version for WWW and I have thought about it a great deal, although I haven't played it straight, or run it myself, yet. I hadn't got much exposure to DW/PBtA when I stumbled on it, and it didn't make much sense, then. Now, I have more skills but it's a legit stretch to run it for me since it's not my usual genre/conventions/tone (hence my mashup!)

(hypocrisy noted) Also, I've gone through and invested in a couple of things - +Mike Evan's Kickstarter for Hubris delivered a final PDF product, which excites me very much.  Gets my juices flowing.  Since I drafted this post back in the Spring (gadzooks!) I also toyed with Beyond The Wall, which was maybe the most fun I've had gaming in a while - with a good group and some up-front bravery, you can have an amazing setting right from the start and the world-building and relationships go hand-in-hand. Lastly, I got +cecil howe 's very moody and evocative, and existentially chilly, add-on called "Do Not Let Us Die in The Dark Night of This Cold Winter". It's about trying to keep a quaint village from freezing and starving into non-existence, and since I cannot help to imagine what would happen if I combine this and that, I will probably try to build a village with some friends and BtW and THEN destroy it with winter.  On reflection, it bums me out but it could be fun to play with a heater on and some hot chocolate and warm socks. Segue into a weird world beyond the village, and in comes the Hubris thing, we're golden.  Some nefarious force is causing winter (not GoT, I know I know).  I had a good character last year in Pinkie, the synthetic-man Cleric of Santa, but I digress.

Anyways, thanks for watching.  You may have noticed I have not updated the DCC Class List for some time - my G+ associate +Stephen Murrish  is ably keeping better track lately than I am able or inclined to do. If you catch broken links, let me know and I may or may not update them (a problem is the blogger app for iOS is shelved and doesn't work anymore, which partially explains my low frequency of postings...)

DCC Magical Heartbreaker

I have in my mind's eye: a fairly liberal, and rather confusing, kludge/tort/corruption for the magic system of DCC, but rather than write it down sensibly I think the basics might be best described in broad strokes.  Since +Arnold K. released his magical heartbreaker the other day, I find I have thunk a great deal and read a great deal of RQ2 and Ars Magicka (thanks, O beardy ones) and other, less honorable systems.  Much inspired, I suppose by catching Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell on Netflix this past month.  That and lower back injury is keeping me from participating in gaming but much focused on the aethereal realms between my ears.  It seems to me that DCC gives much in the way of the randomness of magic, but less in the way of the Mastery of it, aside from the way a higher-level PC may game it some

1) Vancian Magic, wherein you are limited by your intellect in the number of spell levels you may 'contain' at any time (6 plus your Intelligence bonus at any time, say?). These are lost upon casting, since each version is a different magical concept or critter in your head/soul/whatever
2) you may own and select from any number of spells, contained in your Grimoire(s), which can be stolen from you/lost/destroyed- a disaster and therefore make ye a lab/stronghold and hire thugs and grow guards in your lab, or make deals with things
3) you may develop your own versions of DCC spells after mastery of the original - this increases DCs, obviously (duh!)

4) there's pacts with things; you can bind fay/demons/spirits/elementals/FF style-Mana.  Calling upon these require spellburn of high quantity, or else sacrifice of victims/treasure. As many pacts as Intelligence points, let us propose? And each represents an actual drain on your (choose 1) Intelligence, Luck, Personality? Permanent while in effect, let us propose. That is, the drain affects you as long as you wish to keep the bond in force.  These kinds of loses only heal when the being is released, and some particularly bad ones cause permanent damage

5) alchemical formulae (requiring a lab and spending of loot).

6) Runes a la Runequest from the days of yore - so magicians can be rune-binders, also. You would be advised to check for Death Runes affixed to doors since this was a very common trap in RQ
7) Wizards have access to spells outside of the DCC lists - these work just as described for Crawl! magazine's OSR spells system i.e. the casting roll is 10 plus 2 times the spell's level.  I am inclined to raise the corruption range for these to be equal to the spell's level, also
8) you start with whichever spells you wish, with the restriction being 3+your Int bonus in LEVELS, not spells.  that missing 1 spell is Read Magic, so you can acquire new spells later and often
9) the Spell Duel system needs some tweaking - I think I posted to a version on my blog a couple of years ago
10) affinities a la +Gavin Norman  's excellent Theorems and Thaumaturgy for Labyrinth Lord (can't be bothered to look for link grumble grumble you will do as your heart suggests)
11) Gorgonmilk's +Greg Gorgonmilk excellent Vancian Magic Supplement - alas, it hath Vanished! Perhaps you may supplicate thyself to him for a link to a thing he has on Lulu but be warned for Gorgons have bitter milk and it stiffens the joints
12) All spells must have mercurials - none of this BS 'no result' result. I would allow the Purple Planet mercurials, your own themed mercurials, whatever. Smack a 're-roll' or 'roll on such and such table' right where that  'no mercurial effect' result is
13) I have this 'Dealing with Demons' document compiled from White Dwarves of Long Ago but you can't have it at the moment since I never give magic unless the price is terrible and far outweighs the benefit, and this one is bad news. PM me for a special one-time offer. Include your True Name, and the True Name of your romantic partner, childrens' true names optional
14) Essentially, I want all DCC Wizards to be time bombs of Chaos and awfulness, unless they take a pedestrian and predictable Lawful/Neutral path in which case they are boring and not as much fun.  No such thing as a vanilla wizard.  You ought to aim at specialising/theming between your funnel and your appearance on the scene as a Wiz 1, (note Specialization is Level 2 in DCC!) and so choose your list from available spells on hand in your real world and you are responsible for the rules and we will adjudicate
15) let's assume that OSR spells are on some logarithmic standard so that a AD&D Wish is a level 5 or maybe even 7 for DCC wizards.  This assumes that all OSR authors have done their homework in estimating the level of their spells! heh heh heh)
16) Maze Rats makes for some amazing random spells. Amazeballs.  Find it.
17) Ars Magicka has the thing divided up into effects.  Maybe each effect/rune/circle stacked onto your spell to describe its effects makes a exponential increase in the DC to cast the spell - So Prismatic Spray of Ibn Al Urad (1d4 damage x Destroy x Body = 2x2x2 for a DC of 8).  Something like that would probably suffice.  Don't forget the mercurial!
18) As many Patrons as you like, but be reminded that Patrons exact a heavy toll for help.  That's the point.  I am not often as stringent about this as I should.
19) This magic system assumes strict records of time are kept, since Spellburn will be a serious problem to contend with.
20) every really dangerous spell (to others) ought to have dangers to one's self.  Drawbacks encouraged - Ghastly Affair does this well.
21) I think I have recommended the supplement for LL called uh, Realms of, uh, shit Realms of Crawling Chaos by +Dan Proctor  and +Michael Curtis  almost since the inception of this blog.  Everyone's hands quiver when Detect Magic is cast, not in anticipation but in trepidation.
21) reroll twice, apply results, discard 'No Results' results and roll again.
22) needs MOAR Alchemy

Psionics Supplement Mini-Review plus Yuan Ti for DCC/MCC

So - picked up this thing by +Reid San Filippo (esteemed author of Crawling Under a Broken Moon).

It's called Mind Games. It's a supplement for DCC that shores up one place where I find that DCC doesn't scratch my 1st Ed. AD&D itch better than the original, namely the Psionics. It's funny now that I am older I notice that many, many monsters in the MM1&2 and FF have psionic abilities listed in the stat chunk. I never paid much attention to them, mostly because I think Psionics were frowned upon when I were a lad as an unnecessary, optional option that most people I played with did not opt. When you think about it, Psionics-empowered PCs ought to have been, like Paladins, rare as hen's teeth, given the dwindling, vanishingly unlikely statistics involved necessary to play one if you do (as Crom intends) 3d6 straight down the line. But hey, plenty of folks let their hair loose and upped it some, which I don't think I ever saw.

What Reid has done (and +Claytonian JP hinted at in The Wizardarium) is attached a nicely foreign and exotic system onto the DCC core rules, with very little in the way of changes to the base mechanics, in order to give you that weird flavor of yore back. The thing is chock full of cool stuff, and the art and layout are nicely done. (I hear there was a kerfuffle with print versions but I think it's fixed at the time of this writing). There are 20-something psionic powers of varying dangerousness, a new class, plenty of psionic items (watch for Living Crystal weapons in my campaigns in the near future), and a couple of really terrific monsters.  The Braingineers are like daleks, crossed with spiders, and so they're probably going to fall into my own games, soon.

Mindgames is just what I needed at this point, since I am thinking of siccing some ancient, slithery evil upon some friends at TridentCon, replete with Mind Blasts and Ego Whips and Polymorphing Demon Venom. David "Zeb" Cook is scheduled to attend, and my mind was transported to the Ancient Times when I fussed and fretted about snake cults in a city in the jungles of... I don't recall, was it Chult? Before Chult was a place? I don't know. Suffice it to say that The Dwellers of The Forbidden City charged my young brain with all kinds of images that laid dormant in there until I first view'd a version of King Kong (pretty sure it was Jessica Lange and a young The Dude). I recently had a vision in which I plopped the Forbidden City down with a Lost City erupting up from beneath, and +Kabuki Kaiser 's Kwantoom nearby, across the Pan Lung lake. Can you smell the lemongrass and strange spices? Olchak may give me a hard time about fetishizing the Far East, but it feels like something that hits me (granted I'm a white middle aged guy who was weaned on Saturday Afternoon TV and D&D) right in the tropes-lobe.


Okay, okay, back on track. Yuan-Ti. The demon-worshipping snake-men that everybody loves to hate, and doubly more so because the implicit body horror/snake phobia that gets you right in the amygdala from aeons dark and unremembered. On a glance at the stats below, they are bad ass and ought to send most low level parties fleeing and peeing and quaking and praying (6-9 HD with maybe a 0 armor class, plenty of spells, and psionics, also!) Good thing only 1-4 at a time, and I guess maybe accompanied by some cultists. I note that Deep Ones worry me more, since it's a metaphysical issue, but maybe later for that line of thought. The disciplines listed are B,D (Mind Thrust and Id Insinuation) and F,I,J (Mind Blank, Intellect Fortress, and Tower of Iron Will). With psionic 150 points, that's fairly bad ass, and most of these things will leave psychically undefended adventurers as synapse-shorted, howling idiots before the battle is even begun! Afterward, its disgusting worshippers will trundle you off to a dark cave and poison you into becoming a breeder for a new snake-thing, and (as Dragon #151 points out) if you fail and die during the process, they can neutralize poison you and try again...


So: Yuan-Ti need magic, lots of HD, and PSIONIC POWERS, and so where might we find some of those? Well, in Reid's new thing, that's where!

YUAN TI ABOMINATION: move 15', Init +5; Atk bite +5 (1d10), psionics, spell casting ; Action Die 3d24; AC 18; Hit Dice 8d10; Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +1

Psionic Attack Powers: (roughly analogous to Mind Thrust and Id Insinuation): Kinetic Burst, Affliction, Transmogrify Mind

Psionic Defenses: Hard to say.. Needs development as a power, or maybe not, but boosting the Telepathy Focus Die to 1d10 seems sufficient to me for the moment in order to defend in Duels/Subjugation Battles.

The other forms of Yuan-Ti have lesser Hit Dice and 1 fewer Attack Powers, but they all know 1d4 (suitably reptilian in their manifestation) Wizard or Cleric Spells chosen randomly, in addition to Neutralize Poison and Bind to/Invoke Patron. For PAtrons, use Set/SSeth or that snaky one from AD&BiB or maybe that one from Dragon 150 or the other canonical Yuan-Ti one from your old-fashioned system of choice.

More later - Be Well, Warm-Blooded, Manthings!




Post-Script for reference: These are the original 1e stats from Zeb Cook's Dwellers of the Forbidden City, to my knowledge the first appearance of this classic AD&D monster.

YUAN TI
FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1-4
ARMOR CLASS: 4/0
MOVE: 12” or 9”
HIT DICE: 6-9
% IN LAIR: 70%
TREASURE TYPE: C
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2
DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 20%
INTELLIGENCE: Genius
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: 150
Attack/Defense Modes: B, D/F, I, J
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE:Variable

Living in tropical jungles, the yuan ti are a degenerate and corrupt race of creatures who were once human. All are devout demon worshippers and have a high regard for all kinds of reptiles. Through dark and unknown practices, their blood has become fouled, thus producing monstrosities, There are three types of yuan ti: purebloods, halfbreeds, and abominations.

Purebloods are the weakest of the yuan ti, having only 6 hit dice. They are human in appearance, except for some slight difference - scaly hands, a forked tongue, or a somewhat reptilian look about them. They are able to pass as humans 80% of the time. They normally handle affairs with the outside world, and may travel far and wide doing so.

Halfbreeds are highly distinctive. Some part of their body is that of a snake, while the rest is human. Appearance may be determined by the table below (rolling once or twice), or the DM may select the changes.

1. 1  Snake head
   
2. 2  Torso can bend and move like a snake’s
   
3. 3  No legs, ends in a snake’s tail
   
4. 4  Has snakes instead of arms
   
5. 5  Body is covered by scales
   
6. 6  Snake tail is growing from backside
   

If any combination seems impossible or unworkable, the result should be ignored. The DM may also create other results involving snakes and humans.

In attacks, a snake-headed halfbreed will bite for 1-10 points of damage, snake-headed arms will bite for 1-6 points, and a tail will constrict for 1-4 points. Otherwise the yuan ti will be able to handle weapons as a normal person. All snake parts will have an armor class of 0. Halfbreeds have 7-8 hit dice.

Abominations are the strongest of the yuan ti. All have 9 hit dice. In appearance they are often confused with nagas and other snake creatures. Abominations are either totally snake- Iike or only have some human feature (such as a head or arms). Their bite (unless human-headed) will do 1-10 points of damage.

All yuan ti with human legs may move 12” per turn. Those with snake bodies move 9” per turn and are able to coil around pillars and the like. Human headed yuan ti are able to cast the following spells once per day:

Cause Fear Darkness, 15’ radius
Snake charm
Sticks to snakes
Neutralize poison
Suggestion
Polymorph other

Yuan ti speak their own language. They may also speak with any snake or snake-like monster. Those with human heads also speak Chaotic and Common.

Wish in One Hand, Tirade in the Other

DEAR ADVENTURE WRITING MOFOS:

In your modules/expansions/adventures, what I want is:

In the front matters, of variable length and however long it takes for you to get it out, set the scene, some verbose and stylized flavor text, fluff maybe, that I can read this and say: "Daniel wrote this on a Lovecraft tear and it is hilarious".  Include satire. Ineffable wonder is terrific but not if its not gameable... Or if the concept is so high-concept that the game becomes an abstraction of whatthefucks, then maybe tone it down a couple notches but I am not the boss of you

I personally don't go for books-as-art/collectibles. Cleverness and usability, newness of thought in terms of gaming situations, that's key. I don't want it to be ugly, though. If we ought to emulate Z--'s approach in anything it's that he puts a great deal of effort into the things he does, and I admire him for that.  Or at least, it appears he does. It's his livelihood and nobody ought to try to pull it out from underneath him, and I take ownership of my part.  Don't make it like you generated half with some online website and filled in the rest. I can use a website for that myself and they are generally free. I'm paying FOR YOUR BRAINWAVES or maybe I will if you impress me.

In the entries, terseness. Just enough to oomph me. Clarity: I want to be able to know the theme of the area already. Put standout features in bold, treasure easily sussed, traps evident at a glance (or maybe just TRAP and I can cook it up kaboom). Stonehell by Michael Curtis and Gillespie's Barrowmaze are good examples where just enough is given in the general scheme of things. I should be able to look at the entry and in one fell swoop know what is about to happen

Random monsters that make sense somehow and introduce novelty, hilarity and dread and will interact with keyed static encounters. These should provide impetus against standing still and silly-dallying too long. Else, don't include them if you want the tone of your thing to be relaxed and merely exploratory. Shitty randos that are boring and just attack is a waste of ink. Moldvay reaction roll or something similar called for in situations of total ambiguity, BUT these things are wandering around for a good reason, right?  Motive: these skeletons are lugging parcels for the Oppressive Douchebag Necromancer and would love to break up the monotony of post/biology workday and they resent his managerial style is better than "SKELETONS HIT LUCIENNE WITH SWORD FALL DOWN"

I want original monsters from your brain. Homages are okay.  Radiation infused stirges are good, and they puke radiation into you because they are excited. A stirge is not okay to stat out because that's wasted ink.  I'm pretty sure they are hard to hit, flimsy, and drink blood if they hit and latch on. I got that already.  Staying on the ASE-as-example, the little robot dwarf guys who want to use you as parts, those are terrific.  If it was all goblins, I wouldn't even have read the thing.  I'd almost go without stats entirely since you could essentially let me kludge it into my own system. NO STATS!? A hush falls over the crowd and a looming sense of alienation toward the writer and off you guy, Dearie!

Awesome items for foolish players to let their PCs experiment with (I'm going to include experimentation rules in all my games maybe, I need to work out a system where I describe items more thoroughly instead of FUCK I GUESS ITS A LASER GUN). No more magic swords. I've seen every variation of magic sword ever and I get bored by swords and not engorged by swords if you take my meaning

One thing I love to see lately is permanent or long-lasting changes to PCs from items or interactions with the dungeon. Possibly death (there are more fun outcomes than death); possibly rocket-fired batwings. Something that changes a PC from "Eric the Warrior" to "Eric the CHROME SKYVIKING". I've killed, personally, a great number of Warriors and have no remorse, but a well-marbled pig invested with the semblance of a personality gets me upset when my mutant chomps his head off because the personality makes it taste better, you see. Mike Evans' Hubris has a good deal of this in the funnel so that the survivors are going to be unique and weird right at the start. One reason I dig DCC is that it allows me to purposefully encourage, with a minimum of work up front, a large group of memorable PCs that players get invested in.  They ought to maneuver their shitty uninteresting ones into the line of fire, somehow. Many times these days, I think players get disappointed when their 0-levels bite it and it's natural, but if you do it enough you get less attached to individual PCs and more attached to the development of the survivors. Sometimes, you get invested in the pigs and goat-wives and Wargeese which says something to me.

My own policy is there ought to be chock full of hooks for the next thing in the back, and a number of setups for the thing in the front. Possibilities. Maps to other places. Let's do what the Old Ones did and link our own little Multiverses together by way of mutual reference. It's fantasy, and we all do it anyways, why not drop hints about other folks' works in there?  Like a cult from Paul's book?  Include it in your module and people will (without even knowing its happening) like it also, provided your thing makes a good time.

Don't name NPCs. That sucks. More later. THinking about Keep On the Borderlands, here.

Enough loot to make their eyes light up but not enough to break the economy. Or I don't know, your call.

I was in an "anti-table" mode for a while, but I have reconsidered. If it's thematic and provides some chaotropy, then hurrah (like, the reams of possibility in Kabuki Kaiser's stuff, versus ANOTHER LIST OF DOGS TO GROOM)

We're old enough and wise enough, now, to leave the graph paper in our youth. The world is not laid out, mostly, in uniform grids - sensible though it may be. I think Doug pulls this off nicely since his maps are arty and nicely represent scale and relationship without the tedium of 20 foot squares all the damn time.

Less scribbletits for the sake of scribbletitillation since I am somebody's dad and maybe I want to hand my daughter this book-analogue without my conscience nagging at me.  I want her to be able to read it, comprehend it, and not lose SAN when she's 7 or 8. Call me uptight and I know demihuman and semihuman bodies are beautiful and natural etc etc but maybe 

On that note, design some factions that have other motives besides SENSELESS GORE, and make it possible for pacifist approaches to have a possibility of winning the day. I really believe that games are much More Fun when we are all cracking up laughing because of interactions with the world and each other that are not merely rolls to see "DID I HIT AND KILL IT THIS TIME? IS IT KILLING ME?" And that one guy who has not yet, in 2016, learned to roll his attack and damage and Deed dice with one hand together all at once at the same time together for the sake of expediency and clarity and hold on what's that word I'm looking for let me get it from my bag I here it is what was the monster's armor class again?  We should all respectfully model accurate and useful behaviors to people and hope they pick them up without a lecture, since tirades are good Sunday morning IMHO but not at game time; that's for laughing and laughing and maybe pissing your pants laughing from fear and terror and MAN THIS GAME IS TERRIFIC BUT I WISH JOEY WIULD HURRY IT UP BY GOD'S STONY YARBLES

Your mileage may vary of course but if you don't agree with my opinions, you're wrong and stupid, as this one or two guys I see on the Internet are prone to saying, and I will see to it personally that you reform or are ostracized.  (A little satire for you but if you don't get it then count yourself lucky). This is about games, not maybe about selling games (to me it's a non-issue but for some a primary motivator which I think tangled up your approach) or our identity as a tribe and who the biggest dick swinging is but as I said choose for yourself

ON TO ELEVENSIES AND MORE CAFFEINATION THANKS FOR READING MOFOS