Magic Users: Federation engineers.

This is why only humans can be high-level Magic Users, and why all Magic Users are Chaotic.
(I think this is now canon for the Desolate North.)

Not all humans are like this. I want a slightly more serious game than that. But despite the fact that they're all squirreled away in towers doing research and pretending to be hermetic and wise, this is how magic works. Which explains why not everyone of a certain IQ can grasp magic - you have to be born with the particular reality-bending "Fuck it, maybe this'll work" twist in your soul - and it explains how so many ill-adjusted magical nerds end up in adventuring parties. You certainly don't see the more well-adjusted and academically-grounded sages bumming across the world with murder-hobos.

Are we popular in France?

Looking through my traffic analysis tools for this blog (because having the biggest possible reader-base is so important to me, as you can tell), it seems we've been getting a not-insubstantial number of hits from French Google (Le Google?) for our post on Queen's Landing. I can only assume this is because the sweeping originality and breadth of my vision resonates deeply with some essential element of the French soul.

I can't say this is too much of a surprise. After all, I've read by Baudelaire, and my Valéry.

Which seems like the genesis of an idea or two, actually...

So, for any French readers in the audience, à bientôt.

Party Themes

Something I've always wanted to try is specific, intentional restrictions on classes and races to end up with themed parties - that is, parties whose composition points to a particular purpose. One of the things I'm enjoying about going through the Temple of Elemental Evil right now is that the players have independently done this to some degree; they're all playing elves (and elf adoptees), so we've decided they're an extended family group out on their vision quest / coming of age adventure / going somewhere, anywhere, away from home so they don't cause trouble for the rest of the elven community.

Here are a few I'd love to see or play sometime:

• Warriors of Light: This is fairly self-explanatory. A party of Clerics and Holy Warriors who go around smiting evil. Methinks this would actually fit pretty well into the Temple of Elemental Evil. ("Why are you going to the Temple of Elemental Evil?" "...uh, it's a Temple of Elemental Evil.")
• Archaelogical Expedition: This would be a party composed of nothing but Wizards and Sages. Obviously they're there to catalog and study the dungeon, picking up magical lore and artifacts along the way naturally. Strong arms (for holding swords as well as carting treasure) would be provided by various henchmen. Bonus points if you're heavily underwritten by the local College, with Agents and Scribes as grad students.
• Rock Star Tour: All bards! The only filler they get are Laborers (techies) and Servants (groupies). Rather than kill the monsters and take their stuff, they're there to case a sweet new joint, then renovate it for their next concert. (Works best if they're in a dungeon under a city or castle.) For that truly hardcore feeling, the drummer can be a Bardbarian.
• An offer you can't refuse: A group consisting solely of Thieves, Assassins, and if you like Ninja. Obviously they're beholden to the Don to get back the family heirloom "or else". This one strikes me as particularly difficult, but quite rewarding if you pull it off.
• What happened last night?: All Innkeepers.

Trolls on acid

Just a very quick one here: Andersonian trolls (and therefore D&D trolls) are vulnerable to fire and acid. Setting aside fire for a moment, what if being vulnerable to acid meant instead that they go berserk and lose their regeneration powers when dosed with an hallucinogen? Or, for a straight-up silly game, they transform?

Yak shaving for fun and profit: Making Procrastination Work for You!

We all get to that point: we want to do more in our crafted little worlds to bring them alive, but something holds us back. I'm not talking about a lack of desire; if that's the case, you're best off doing something else. I'm talking about those days when you're thinking to yourself, "I really do want to work on that new dungeon," or whatever it is, but you just can't find it in you to actually reach for the computer/drafting paper/abacus/tattoo needle.

First, some serious tips:

1. Have a schedule. Stick to it for three or four weeks straight. After that time, keep sticking to it, but it will be much easier now that you've formed the habit. You don't have to do a lot on any given night that you've committed yourself to, but you have to do something - even if it's just doodling or scratching down some ideas you had during the day.
2. Find a different section of the project. Want to map that second floor but just can't find the juice? Work out monster placement elsewhere, or webs of relationships, or treasure troves. (Random Generation can help.)
3. If your world is meant to be more than just a single dungeon, work on another part of it. Maybe you're incapable of statting up the Temple of the Umber Ophidian, but you could make some headway on that Shrine to the Malevolent Malvolio you'd been meaning to save for later. Just because the players won't get to it next session doesn't mean it won't be useful.
4. Try coming at your work from a different angle. If what you need is monster placement, stats, or mapping, try thinking about the history and present-day uses of the dungeon. Layering interesting bits onto the backstory can fire the imagination with ways to make those bits relevant through gameplay.

I've already used all the above myself, so I can attest to their effectiveness.

"Oh, sure," you say, "but you're not the first person to tell me this. Heck, you're not even the best, with your anemic little four-point list! Give me something entertaining!" And you know, you're right, so here's another, potentially less helpful but more interesting list:

1. Play Dwarf Fortress? Combine your hobbies! Build a grand fortress, then lose it in any of the million ways you can in that game, then go back in adventurer mode or history mode to check it out. Lift it directly and plop it down in your world. (Extra points if you somehow theme the dungeon, e.g. everything is made of bronze, or the dungeon contains mechanisms to rearrange itself.)
2. Surf the blogosphere. There's some really cool stuff out there.
3. Ask a five-year-old
4. Perhaps my favorite: run some piece of fiction or fantasy gaming materials through a Dissociated Press algorithm and look for interesting words.

Magic swords

This one's a quick idea:

Magic swords in D&D are different from other magic weapons. In order to simulate this, for enchantments in my game, these rules are in effect:

Any weapon can have Puissance and Accuracy enchantments up to +5, and Penetrating Weapon enchantment up to (2).

Swords, after the first level of Puissance and Accuracy, must put a Bane on all further levels. In addition, they can have up to Penetrating Weapon (4) with the same Bane. All Banes must be for the same category of foes.

Further, only swords can be intelligent (and most magical swords of more than +1 are), and only swords can have more powerful enchantments (such as Dancing Weapon or Flaming Weapon, or others).

Christmas offerings

In the spirit of Christmas, here are a few ideas for situations to inflict on your players:

Goblin Christmas

A tribe of goblins (in or around your local dungeon) has a peculiar ritual: they sneak into adventurers' camps and leave 'gifts': pieces of rotting meat, skulls, filthy rags, and so on. This is a nuisance at least, but can quickly escalate if the goblins leave something foul in the bag with all the rations in it. Alternatively, they've been doing this to the folk of a local village, who want it to stop.

Turns out they're led by an obese, cowardly ogre who got it into his head that giving tribute can convince others to leave him alone, after one meeting with a bunch of delvers who promised not to kill him if he gave away some of his shinies.

Schwartze Peter

In the village of Edgesburg, the peasants have long had a tradition of leaving an offering on their doorsteps on the night of the winter solstice, consisting of a few drops of blood on the lintel from every member of the family. Over the past couple years, the new priest of the Church just founded here (to bring light to the poor pagans) has convinced them to stop this practice as both dangerous and sacreligious. Unfortunately, after this solstice passed (the night before the PCs got there, naturally), every house in the village woke to find their youngest children hung by the rafters, bloated and leaking a bituminous substance, except those few who had secretly kept up the practice.

Perhaps it has something to do with the crypt of Peter the Terrible, rumoured to be somewhere in the forest on the southern edge of the village.

Mother of God

The party's cleric or holy warrior gets a vision: his god's next avatar is to be born soon, but the mother has been abducted by an evil cult of an opposed deity, who plan to offer mother and child as blood sacrifices to their dark goddess. They've repaired to an old warren of crypts for their ritual, which will be completed when the child is born, a month from today. Can the heroes save the child and his mother before they enact their foul plan? For those delvers of a more mercenary mind, there's sure to be treasure to be gained from despoiling the hidden sanctuary, and no doubt the god will be grateful to those who rendered him aid.

The Magi

As a change of pace from digging in old ruins, a caravan has offered to hire on the PCs as guards and guides, so that they can deliver gifts from the local town to the King for his son's birthday. Of course this is in the desert. Can the PCs survive the trek across the Burning Wastes, rumoured hunting grounds of the Great Worm? What about after the unnaturally-strong sandstorm scatters the caravan, kills all the animals and other guards, and causes the gift cargo (rare spices that must be kept cool) to go missing?

For ideas around desert encounters and wildlife, I highly recommend GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 1 - Mirror of the Fire Demon. (It's also good in its own right.)