Worlds of Design

Recent & Upcoming Releases

April 16 2024

Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Bonus prequel adventure for Eve of Ruin.
Replies (161)
May 31 2024

Vecna: Eve of Ruin

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Adventure for levels 10-20.
Replies (499)
June 3 2024

Vecna: Eve of Ruin Platinum Edition

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Boxed deluxe set from Beadle & Grimm.
Replies (23)
June 4 2024

Voidrunner’s Codex

(Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition)
Take your A5E games to space!
Replies (19)
June 18 2024

The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977

(Dungeons & Dragons)
History of D&D.
Replies (118)
July 16 2024

Quests From The Infinite Staircase

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Adventure anthology for character levels 1 to 13.
Replies (127)
September 17 2024

D&D Player’s Handbook (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2024 Player's Handbook.
Replies (155)
October 1 2024

Monstrous Menagerie II

(Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition)
The sequel to the acclaimed monster book!
Replies (43)
November 12 2024

D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.
Replies (118)
February 18 2025

D&D Monster Manual (2025)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2025 Monster Manual.
Replies (89)

I’ve written about plague in world-building, now it’s time to discuss droughts. Extended drought, and consequent famine, is a common major reason for the failure of empires and civilizations.

Aug 2, 2022 2

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: The Plight of the New RPG—Quality of Writing

Some small publisher/self-published RPG rule sets suffer from poor grammar and syntax. Some RPG creators need someone to edit their writing for quality of communication as well, especially for clarity—rules are no good if the reader cannot understand them.

Jul 8, 2022 54

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Quality vs. Quantity of RPG Play

I tend to evaluate games beginning with the assumption that most published games are played only one to three times before gamers move on to the next game. This is a consequence of the thousands of new tabletop games published every year - among other things.

Jul 1, 2022 26

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Making an Adventure “Believable”

How believable is your world? Or to put it another way, how much must players suspend their disbelief to enjoy the game?

Jun 17, 2022 36

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Improvising the Adventure

When it comes to gamemastering, are you focused on improvising the world or making it believable? Let’s discuss the first.

Jun 10, 2022 10

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Playtest Your Games

It’s one thing to write for RPGs and another to write RPG rules. And one of those differences is playtesting.

May 13, 2022 18

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Peaceful Solutions to Violent Problems

How can we provide non-violent means of resolving conflicts with monsters and NPCs in RPGs?

May 6, 2022 45

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: The Destination, Not the Journey?

Leveling is an integral part of fantasy role-playing games in all its forms RPGs, but it wasn't always that way. How did we get here?

Apr 29, 2022 30

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Plot Twists vs. Deux Ex Machina

Plot twists in a story can surprise the reader, but they need to be believable, to derive from what came before. Deux Ex Machina, on the other hand, is poison, breaking immersion and possible annoying the players.

Apr 22, 2022

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Stages of Your Hero's Journey

In RPG campaigns the characters often move through several stages of life as they increase their capabilities (and responsibilities). We don’t see this in one-shot adventures, yet distinct stages generally improve game designs.

Apr 15, 2022 2

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Heroes … Made or Born?

Where do heroes come? Some are destined from birth to be heroes, while others rise to the occasion. Your RPG system of choice likely determines which you get to play.

Apr 8, 2022 6

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: To Design or Publish?

Tabletop game publishing is a big step to take, but the reality is it's very difficult for an unknown designer to get a game accepted by an established publisher. So what’s a designer to do?

Apr 1, 2022 8

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: 5 More Military Strategy Tips for Your PCs

This is a continuation of a discussion from last time. Remember, strategy is what you do long before a battle takes place, and tactics is what you do in and during a battle. But I'm not going to differentiate between those two as we talk about the various gameplay tips because it's not necessary in this context.

Mar 11, 2022 4

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Tough Times at the Top

I’ve always thought that combat-oriented Dungeons & Dragons-style tabletop role-playing games become less fun to play as characters reach double-figure levels of power. Here’s why, and how to fix it.

Aug 20, 2021 39

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Same Humanoids, Different Forehead

Fantasy role-playing games, like the Star Trek television series, can sometimes suffer from a lack of differentiation between humanoid species with only slight tweaks to their appearance.

Aug 13, 2021 186

Worlds of Design

Worlds of Design: Human vs. Superhuman

The second season of The Mandalorian helped me realize that functional versus emotional modeling applies to both Star Wars and tabletop role-playing games.