Thursday, May 28, 2020

What You've Missed

Here is a list of posts that I wrote for The Higher Path during the month of May 2020, that you have not seen for want of a $3 donation, either to my sidebar or to my Patreon.

Finding D&D in the Dark:  the announcement of an allegorical, fictional book embracing the philosophy of D&D through the eyes of players over several sessions, on three levels.  The book presents the players in light of their day-to-day lives, the choices they make while gaming and the fictional player characters they create.  A 6,000 word preview is included.

Mentoring:  a proposal to approach worldbuilding through the blog as a structured, step-by-step process and examination, with an eye to supplying all the knowledge a DM needs to structure the function and behaviour of their game world.  A discussion follows on what the game setting is meant to accomplish.

Foil: an examination of the setting As the adventure, rather than merely a background.  I discuss freeing the game structure from the idea that things "end," while grasping the world being run as something "familiar," like your home, and related to the adventuring spirit you had in your childhood.

Being Bad: discussing the emotional temptation of breaking the usual moral rules of society as a good thing in D&D, and how it exists as a means to motivate the party to action.

And There Was ...: discussing the twin proposals of building a world from the top down or building it from the top up, suggesting that neither is very satisfactory and proposing a better, more practical solution.

Getting Started: a philosophical and practical discussion of a proposed setting's "weirdness" and "specificity," and the dangers presented by each.  Followed by the necessity of the world's structure being one that is designed for usefulness rather than novelty, as this will serve the players better.

Worldbuilding Aspects I: the beginning of a series that outlines the many aspects of the game setting, from the perspective of a DM being aware of how knowledge can produce adventuring opportunities while deepening and expanding the setting's scope.   This post discusses philosophy, religion and history.

Worldbuilding Aspects II: this post discusses geography, linguistics, literature, the arts and sociology.

Worldbuilding Aspects III: this post discusses economics and politics.

Worldbuilding Aspects IV: this post discusses education, communications and general science.

The next post in the series will be published on June 1st.

These, and many more posts, are available for a simple $3 donation.  The price of a cup of coffee.

3 comments:


  1. And well worth the $3.
    : )

    ReplyDelete
  2. Many of the posts are singly worth $3 for what they've helped me bring to my game. Certainly they are a lot more valuable than any of the "splat books" some of my buddies and I shelled out for in the day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I concur, some of those are worth the 3$, but honestly, even if you are stringy you'll have your money worth ... And there's more, because he's written many posts before that !

    ReplyDelete

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