Not a lot of stories use the second person singular perspective. Fewer use the second person plural. But this is the primary perspective of dungeon-delving modules, Chtulhian investigations, and space-faring adventures.

Few adventures within Dungeon Magazine’s comes with boxtext, and most of this boxtext comes at the start in a block of a dozen paragraphs, spread across multiple pages. Here’s one such introduction:

As you enter through the large doors, you are suddenly confronted by a massive, 8’-tall humanoid with long yellow fangs protruding from his upper jaw. He stares down at you with great black eyes and empty white pupils. After an empty silence, during which thoughts of or drawing your sword have crossed your mind a dozen times or more, he suddenly breaks into a wide grin and begins to chuckle deeply.

• Dungeon Magazine, Issue 4, Page 44

This presents some ‘facts’ about the ‘you’.

• You have a sword.
• You think about drawing it for violence when someone looks inhuman.
• You do not respond to a strange-looking person with ‘hello’, but silence.

Perhaps this boxtext oversteps its duties by telling people how they feel about someone with tusks. Perhaps it helps situate the players in the world’s mindset, reminding them that prejudice exists, and they cannot help their thoughts. The fact that it focusses on what they think so much, rather than their reactions to their own prejudices might excuse it as a necessary violation of the standard limits of boxtext.

The next also comes at the start of a module:

Your band of weary adventurers has stopped at Vynald, a small town to the south of a long stretch of mountains. The town’s only inn - Nevvar’s Inn and Tavern - is small but cheery. You are sampling an afternoon dinner brandy when Nevvar, the mayor of the town as well as the proprietor of the inn, sits down at your table. He is a middle-aged elf dressed in green and silver. Earlier in the day, he looked cheerful and merry - but, as he speaks to you, his face reflects a strange mixture of embarrassment and fear.

• Dungeon Magazine, Issue 5, Page 39

This continues for 5 more paragraphs, about the same size. It’s a big speech! And it says a lot about you.

• You care about what this elf thinks.
• You decided to buy dinner (you will not use existing rations).
• You drink brandy.

These dungeon introductions seemed ridiculously long until I noticed they only came at the beginning. Perhaps they got people into the mind-set. I have a feint memory of actually tackling these things, of actually reading the full thing at the start in a timid, stuttering voice, cross-legged on the floor, with masses of ragged binders that look like they were stolen from a skip.

Keeping teenager’s attention isn’t easily, especially when you are also a teenager. If you can get through the introduction without interruption, it certainly sets the expectation for attention, and what’s required of the party.

Our next boxtext comes mid-adventure.

As you approach the top of the pyramid, you can see through the nest’s intertwined branches. Once creature, with the shaggy head of a lion and the gold body of a dragon, likes sleeping on a large pile of silver and gold coins.

• Dungeon Magazine, Issue 7, Page 22

This one is much shorter. It has nothing but perspective, much like the passage in any book. But unlike a book, the perspective isn’t hidden. It doesn’t sound like a fact which actually comes from looking. It points that perspective clearly at someone.

Back to introduction boxtext, we have an absolute belter here, introducing a module where each player has a character from one of the ‘evil races’ - an orc, ogre, goblin, and were-rat.

Each of you is a servant of Gronk, the local orc chieftain. Having fallen into his disfavour for various acts of mayhem or incompetence, you were summoned before the great Gronk and given a map to the old temple, with the command to search it out and return with a gold and ivory drinking horn known to be somewhere within its confines.

None of you were too happy to leave the security of the camp, especially after learning of your intended destination. Local rumour has it that the temple is haunted, and a high level ranger is known to live in the area. And so, once once you were out of sight of the camp, you briefly debated lying low for a few days then returning with a good story, as Gronk frequently forgets about orders issued when he’s angry. Unfortunately, the few times Gronk’s memory has been sharp have spelled disastrous consequences for those who failed to accomplish their assigned tasks. Reluctantly, you embarked on your great journey.

• Dungeon Magazine, Issue 10, Page 24

This time the boxtext insists upon being second person plural, as it mentions the various crimes the group has committed in the most general sense.

Takeaway Notes

You can’t help but notice that this language occurs throughout every game, and about how fundamental second-person language is to RPGs, on all levels. You feel a deep connection to this bizarre mode of storytelling, but at the same time feel a gnawing irritation with the cunt telling you who you are, and how you feel. ‘Who does this idiot think he is?’, you say, almost out-loud, with knotted eyebrows. ‘Stop pretending you know me’, you conclude as you close the article.

People like basic rules, so BIND should have basic rules (I thought). It didn’t quite work out that way. ‘Basic isn’t easy to define’, and not worth the time arguing about. But the game has developed a better split: necessary, and requested rules.

The little booklets has five sections: actions, combat, travel, weight, and magic. Every game will have those elements, because Fenestra’s magic, and things are heavy, and the players will have to go somewhere because the fantasy genre means travel.

A couple more rules come at the start of each adventure module, but only what’s necessary. The Goblin Hole introduces rules for marching underground, hypoxia and eating really weird mushrooms, because when the players find their characters trapped, the Judge will have to know those things.

This set of rules remains small, but the Core Rules don’t have to remain small, because they serve as the answers to questions.

What exactly does this Speed Attribute cover?

Do you craft rope with Crafts, or Seafaring?

What if you have the higher ground in a fight? Can you pick up a goblin and throw it?

Can we write the note in code, so the courier won’t read it?

The rule-bloated trio of BIND-books can now sit quietly, waiting to help clarify without becoming a terrifying barrier to anyone’s game.

Chaotician Writer of Mastodon asked, if zany encounter tables are boring, what makes a good encounter table? ‘Return to White Plume Mountain’ makes a good encounter table, because:

• It’s fast,
• grounded,
• repeatable, and
• it develops.

White Plume Wandering Monster Table

The first set is rolled Outside the mountain. The second column shows encounters Inside. The last shows the mountain’s Nucleus.

I’m going roll for encounters, just to see what comes up.

Day 1 (4): The party think they hear something roaming in the dark. In the morning, they find little gnomish foot-prints as they continue towards the Ringland settlemenet.

It’s Fast

Seeing ‘1-6’ in this table, you might think ‘that’s a D6 roll’, but no. It’s a D20 (rolled every 4 hours, i.e. 6 times a day). If you don’t hit a result on the table, there is no encounter. This saves you rolling once (to check if an encounter occurs) and again to check which encounter occurs. It’s twice as fast, and that’s not nothing when you’re neck-deep in shenanigans.

Day 2 (no encounters): The PCs hire a mercenary in Ringland, and journey to the mountain.

Day 3 (no encounters): Making a deal with the wizard Keraptis, they agree to search for the magical trident. But first, they sleep.

But Could be Faster

Rolling six times per day is a faff. I’d prefer to roll 2D20 three times per day. That leaves the possibility of getting two encounters at once.

It’s Grounded

‘1D4+2 gnomes’ out of context is pointless, but these aren’t any ‘1D4+2 gnomes’, they’re the gnomes from the great mountain, who serve Keraptis. We know what they’re doing, because the module explains that Keraptis wants to find his magical trident.

Day 4 (6): Four ogres - servants of Keraptis - make noise all night as they put on their armour and discuss plans, then depart to go North.

This works in both directions. When you encounter ‘Meenlocks’, it introduces the little insectoid creature, foreshadowing their lair at Castle Mukos. And after Castle Mukos, the players understand Meenlocks in terms of the broader context of the plains around White Plume Mountain.

The grand context of the mountain changes everything.

It’s Repeatable

Keraptis has ogre servants, so we know what they’re doing too - searching for that trident.

Day 4 (4): As they exit the mountain, to search Castle Mukos, six gnomes greet them, then enter the mountain.

Day 4 (6): They cross the stinking river by evening. Just before dusk, and find a single ogre - the last survivor from the earlier mission. He looks badly wounded, but only knows enough Common to say ‘old woman’.

No need to wonder what those gnomes are up to: if the PCs have made an alliance with Keraptis, they’ll be on good terms. The encounter isn’t ‘an encounter’, it just serves to remind the PCs of who calls the shots around here.

And when the ogre encounter repeats (but with fewer ogres), it immediately suggest that these are the same ogres who went to hunt for that trident, and now return bruised and battered after an encounter with the ‘Witch of the Fens’.

It Develops

Development demands repetition.

Day 5 (1): The troupe return, and sleep in the rebel base (where they learn that this is not the real Keraptis). Before they can wake, five of the false Keraptis’ gnome followers attack.

Alliances

If the gnomes spot the PCs, they will know that the PCs have sided with the rebels. From then on, encounters with the gnomes will become hostile. This development requires repeated encounters, so the small table really helps.

Connections through the Descent

As the PCs enter the mountain, three encounters leave, and three more possibilities join. It’s similar enough to still feel like a related area, but provides novelty.

The Elevated Ghoul Heralds Expansion

This creature is unique. Once killed, the GM replaces it with gnomes. These might be gnomes from the Rebels, or from the one Keraptis who still has standard gnomes in his retinue. Depending on how the adventure has gone so far, a false Keraptis expands into the lower reaches, or the Rebels descend.

I’ve been thinking about different structures for encounter tables.

Highest & Lowest

Roll 2D6 and check the highest and lowest scores:

• Deer are encountered when the highest number is 1. This makes them rare, and they only have one reaction: run!
• Traders are uncommon out here, but twice as common than deer. They may flee, or be friendly.
• Elves may be friendly, skittish, or simply stalk the PCs for a while, observing them.
• Military units have en equal chance to do anything.

Each creature can gain any reaction on its own number or lower, so the chart assigns certain reactions to certain creatures.

Sample Results

• (1,6): A military unit’s scouts assume the PCs are part of a larger force, then return with an exaggerated report, and all forty soldiers flee.
• (5,6): Another unit of forty arrives from a new direction. The PCs can ask them questions, but they don’t take much interest.
• (1,5): A fellow adventurer (and sole survivor after a tomb-raiding) spots the PCs and immediately hides in case they’re violent.
• (2,3): Six elves greet the PCs, and ask why there are so many military units around.

Introduction & Reveal

If an encounter might hold mystery, and develop over time, but also repeat, then the ‘reveal’ has to change some of the time.

This area has plenty of cursed magical beans which grow tall, so farmers sell them cheaply. This only happens every couple of months, so con-men try to sell fake beans, relying on the various stories to stoke interest and credibility.

Monty Haul Doors

Entering the castle’s window, the long, dim, hallway has many doors. Which do you check?

Rather than stocking an entire castle, it seems easier to list some rooms and roll for random contents. But we can’t repeat the rooms; instead, we can mark them off and use the next number.

• 1: King, bathing (shrieks for guards).
• 2: Man in library, shouting at his son that he must read better. He ignores everyone else.
• 3: Two maids work quietly, deep inside linen closet. They will want to ask the characters their identity, and won’t leave them alone until they can badger someone else.
• 4: Jester in the privy, taking a pipe-break.
• 5: ‘Light pantry’ (with candles, oils, and lanterns).
• 6: The librarian, laying in bed.

Rolling 2, 4, 4, the PCs open rooms 2, 4, 5 (because room 4 was already open).

If the encounter had just said ‘roll until you get a “6”’ then they could easily have made 10 rolls and found half a dozen jesters in half a dozen privies.

PCs might also listen at doors, but will have to be fast about it! Every 1D6 rounds a door opens (roll 1D6 to find out which room, including repeats).

Rolling 2, 5: ‘in 2 rounds, a butler comes to take candles from the light pantry’.

Rolling 1, 2: ‘in 1 round, the father storms out of the library, leaving his son to read alone’.

Groundskeepers & the Garden

The dryads are getting pissed off with people stealing from their garden. Maybe just one more apple?

This enchanted garden has all manner of magical fruit. But the more people take, the less there is to take, and the more local dryads arrive to shoe the characters away.

It begins all nice:

1, 4: you find regenerative apples, and in the distance spy mage-oak, capable of making a powerful magical staff.

But each roll becomes more dangerous:

3, 1: you find a well-spring, and it smells fresh. But storm clouds are gathering above, fast.

On the first encounter roll, place the magical plant on the map (each one remains there). Eventually, the map might have six magical plants. But by that time, vicious dryads encircle the area.

Gatekeepers & the Necropolis

The opposite of the above could be used, where the PCs find undead in every tomb in the necropolis, guarding hordes of jewels and gold. But with enough time, they can uncover the tomb’s treasures, and flee, perhaps taking one stash, perhaps ‘clearing’ the lot and finding all the treasure after re-deading all the undead.

Rolling in the Open

Why do GMs roll for random weather behind a screen? Is the possibility of ‘light rain’ a secret?

I’ve started adding rolls for animals. Most are benign, but every so often, a dog will steal food, or a cat will just scratch someone. The reaction rolls sit right under the statblocks, so players can roll for their own animals. They don’t know exactly how the animal will behave, but they soon figure out how it might behave.

Factions & Regeneration

Random encounter tables tend to be static, but we can make them more interactive in long-term campaigns by removing an encounter once it dies, and replacing it from items in a hidden list. The tables might begin like this:

1. Combine next two encounters
2. Big spider
3. Basilisk
4. Stirges
5. Dryad of the Bountiful Garden
6. 5 of Devon’s Boys

The session has encounters 5, 5, 2, and the party end up on bad terms with a dryad and kill her. The next encounter is empty (she’s dead), and the third is a ‘big spider’ (which also dies).

Before the next session, the GM regenerates the entries:

1. Wandering Monsters
   1. Big spider
   2. Basilisk
   3. Stirge swarm
2. Fae of the Bountiful Garden
   1. Dryad
   2. Elven Enchanter
   3. Gnomish Illusionist
3. Adventurers from Vagabond Keep (2D6)
   1. Devon’s Boys
   2. The Cartography Cult
   3. The Urchin Squad

• 3, 3
• 3, 1

The new list looks like this:

1. Combine next two encounters
2. 8 members of the Urchin Squad
3. Basilisk
4. Stirges
5. 9 of Devon’s Boys
6. 5 of Devon’s Boys

If the PCs make an alliance with one faction, the chart will retain them, but lose others. Number 1 can never be removed, but it will change over time.

PS: I just found the I Cast Light blog has the same idea, with a different procedure:

Random Encounter Tables as Adventure RAM

If I had to make a spell-system for Oglaf, it would be this:

• You can only cast spells with a level equal or higher than the last spell you cast.
• Once you cast a spell, you cannot cast it again for a number of rounds equal to its level.

You want to cast Fireball? Let’s warm up with a cantrip first. Yea, Burning Hands works!

Acid Arrow? Yea, that’s some proper magic!

Fireball already? Really? It’ll be your last spell! What about another second-level spell: Enlarge?

You only have those two second-level spells so you can’t cast another; let’s see that Fireball!

Using action points instead of initiative has been great. It works like this:

Just Go!

We just start, then whoever said they hit the bartender spends an Action Point. Most characters have 3. Once everyone’s spent their Action Points, a new round begins.

The table doesn’t have that feeling of ‘combat!, wait, no, roll initiative, record it, wait for it, who’s first? okay-go-roll-go’.

Every Initiative System Fixed

The table sometime uses ‘round the clock’ initiative (left-of-the-GM starts, then round the table). Once someone runs out of Action Points, they stop taking actions, but you still go round the table until nobody can act.

At other times, we default to something like ‘just go whenever you want’. In this case, the Action Points resolve disagreements about who’s going first (most Action Points wins) and provides arbitration about how many actions are ‘too many actions’ for a round.

Or we can use players-then-monsters initiative, or…

You get the idea. Action Points provide a limit. The table can go with the flow, even changing how they want to handle ‘initiative’ mid-way through a combat round.

System Pit-Falls

Air-Time

You don’t want someone hogging the spot-light, going ‘um’ for five times as long as everyone else. BIND uses various fixes.

• Make combat fast! Because people feel more forgiving of someone getting the spotlight for thirty seconds, when they got 5 if the entire fight takes 60 seconds.
• Have things to do! Moving, shouting, and guarding a player all cost an Action Point, so players with 2 Action Points will move with care, and those with 6 will zip around the fight, carelessly shouting suggestions.
• Make actions costly! A halberd can destroy a basilisk in one hit, but costs 3 Action Points to use. So characters with 5 Action Points will often move, attack, defend, then stop.

Hit-and-Runs

The system must avoid someone running up to an opponent, bopping them on the head, and running away before the opponent can do anything. If the PCs use this tactic, it feels cheap. If the NPCs use it, the players will feel cheated, and start talking about ‘realism’ (and rightfully so).

Other systems have tried to patch this problem with the extra rule: ‘attacks of opportunity’. As usual, I recommend avoiding rules whenever possible. BIND doesn’t have this problem, as all attacks are resisted actions. That means, when you run up to an opponent and roll to bop them on the head, a failed roll means they bop your head instead.

Reviewing RPGs seems unreasonable work. Far too many have tried their hand at the seemingly-easy task of writing one, and even worse: sometimes writing really is that easy. Vampire: The Masquerade’s first ‘edition’ looks like a series of short stories, but it had plenty of fresh ideas in there. Gamers, GMs, and writers want reviews, but not many want to review. The few times someone’s sent me something included half-baked nothing scrawls, and a few others with excellent ideas, but horrifying layout. So what’s to be done? I have two offers.

Firstly, there are more games played than reviews written. Even the smallest of little booklets on itch probably has a few people download and mess with it. The lack of block isn’t a problem - people can stick their reviews directly on itch.io. Perhaps it’s just seen as abnormal? Perhaps nobody wants to be a harsh critic in public.

If this is you, email a picture of the ‘table’ (whether it’s a solo-rpg with notes, or a sprawling mess of character sheets and juice cartons) and a paragraph or more. I’m happy to stick anything up on this little site from anonymous authors.

The second offer starts with a request: what would a reviewer want?

I made a game for playing, not reviewing. Reading the whopping-great rulebook just for a single night’s game sounds crazy. I’ve made smaller introductions since then, but just for people who want to try a oneshot. What would a reviewer want?

I’d like to hear from people who’ve reviewed a game before. Ideally, reviewers might put requirements on their blog post:

Send me:

• One pdf that I can print.
• One page for the world, two for the module.
• Five pre-generated characters.

Send me:

• One physical book to this address, under 5000 words.
• Blank character sheets.
• One module, under 10 pages.

• VTT stuff.
• [ whatever online people use ]

Random tables of D100 zany-silly things that might happen in your adventure need to cease, because they’ve stepped out of bounds.

I get the motivation:

• emergent stories are great, it’s what the game’s all about.
• dice are great at ‘emerging’ those elements which become the story - the random challenge, the unexpected situation.

The theory’s still sound, the practice remains fun, but so many of the OSR books I see on youtube show-cases and itch.io download step into the wrong arena, and try to pass off underdeveloped ideas by making them into lists and adding a die-roll.

OMG: New Twist!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if…?

1. The mayor is actually three kobolds in a coat!
2. One of the NPCs is a saboteur in disguise!
3. The PC finds a book with a dark prophecy written in it!
4. …and other wacky things!

Roll a D8 and find out what crazy shit happens! It’s so random!

“Yea, mad”, I think for half a moment, while hurriedly pressing the space-bar, as I leaf through another pdf. But when I slow down, double-back, and think through actually using any of this, it’s unworkable.

Why does this book assume that my setup has:

• a mayor, who
• lives in a civilization which recognizes the position of being ‘a mayor’, and
• is relevant, and also
• may plausibly have been three kobolds in a coat all along.

This kind of reveal needs foreshadowing, or it feels cheap. The ‘random saboteur’ NPC simply does not work with every NPC.

Players should throw the GM a curve-ball, not the book. But if I’m rolling to find out there’s a ‘dark prophecy’, then need to make up what that is, then ensure that it becomes relevant later, and figure out who would write that kind of thing (because clearly, the players will ask) then the list of random encounters has done more harm than good.

These random tables have something in common: they don’t suffer repetition well, which is exactly what a random table needs to do. A random encounter table might go like this:

You can roll 2D6 on this table a hundred times, because it specifies very little. This puts some heavy expectations on the GM to come up with something quick, as the manticore encountered may be hostile or chilled, it may have a plan or just feel so hungry it attacks the PCs on sight. The barren table demands a lot, but the demands are honest: ‘you must create an encounter with a manticore on the spot, which makes sense for the scene’. The weather, like the random antagonists, bear repeating. A hundred encounters can occur with ‘light rain’.

But so many of the modern tables say a little more, but still not enough:

1. An antagonistic woman (really a wight in disguise)
2. 2D6 kobolds jump out from a nearby river, riding giant frogs.
3. 5D6 giant bats (the swarm has 1 HP per bat, and +2 to hit).
4. A vampire from a nearby village, with a fetish for old men.
5. A powerful mage, hunting for a magical item.
6. A band of 1D6 paladins on a noble quest.

It scans well enough, until you consider rolling a real die. It’s tempting to think of ‘random numbers’ as even spreads, which let you roll ‘1, 4, 5, 2, 6, 1’ (‘so random’). But in reality, random numbers (and real dice) will roll ‘2, 2, 5, 2, 5, 5’ (just to spite you). The first group of random kobolds feels ‘random’. The second already feels like repetition. The third breaks the spell: all travel involves a (random) river, which has kobolds, all of which travel on frogs.

On first reading, it seems like the table helps create something, while the standard random encounters leave the GM to fend for themselves. But in reality, the zany-wacky-fun-tables stipulate enough to restrict the encounter, but not enough to run it without heavy improvisation. Every time ‘paladins on a quest’ come up, the GM has to think of a quest, and if three ‘paladins on a quest’ come up, the players will (rightfully) conclude that something fishy is happening, and start to ask questions which the table provides no answer for.

The tables provide a middle-ground for a short adventure module, and an encounter table, but do badly at both exercises.

• The most important things you should do to improve your GMing skills depend on you: they are unique or rare.
• Generic ‘how to GM’ articles and books will not help with anything unique to you.
• So generic ‘how to GM’ writing do not contain the most important advice.

If I could go back in time and give my younger self only one piece of GMing advice, it would be ‘control your stutter’. It takes some effort, but it’s possible for me to remove most of my natural stutter. I won’t read about stutters in any on-line advice; a stutter works differently for lots of people, and many people with a stutter will find it becomes worse when they try to kill the habit.

But now I’m going too far. This advice isn’t useless, it’s just ‘not actually advice’. It was part of my growth, and other people’s journeys can be useful. If we had more articles on how people’s GM habits changed over the years, people will find something useful in there.

I have no evidence, but I’m certain.

So if you have a blog, consider this an invitation to think about what you’ve tried to change, and how well you succeeded. Here’s my list:

• Cut the pronouns. Introduce the NPC with their full name or description repeatedly, because replying to five minutes of player-chat with ‘okay, so he says he agrees, and goes out’ feels hollow. “Warden Costel says he agrees, and goes out the manor door, and towards the goblin-hills.”
• SPEAK UP! I still struggle with this, but I’m louder now than I was. I found the biggest help was to focus on pronouncing the ‘s’ sound sharply.
• Stop imagining players will read the rules.
• I used to think I did GMing after everyone sat down, but that’s wrong. Now I am a pre-game seat-dictator. “YOU CAN’T SIT THERE, YOU HAVE NO ROOM FOR YOUR CHARACTER SHEET. CAN YOU GET OUT EASILY? IS YOUR ASS COMFORTABLE?”

And here’s what I’m working on improving now:

• No more printing the day before. I’m aiming to print a week ahead of time, wherever possible.
• Trying to make prep more like a very fast run-through of what the characters do, like a rapper shouting an adventure module at someone, rather than studying for a medical exam.