Dear Wizards of the Coast,
After forty years, I have come to realise I am no longer a Dungeons & Dragons fan.
I am done supporting D&D with my money, and I am done promoting your property with my work. I will stop publishing games under the OGL. My DnDbeyond account is slated for deletion. I will not see the movie or the TV show, or buy that Warduke action figure if it ever comes out (and that one really, really stings). Oh, and I will stop saying “Dungeons & Dragons” to get new people to play a fantasy game with me.
Why did I come to such a heartbreaking decision? Well, let me tell you a story. At the top of the wizards’ tower, there were once people who cared for the game. The good wizards had saved Dungeons & Dragons from the abyss, and for over twenty years they rebuilt its reputation. They cared so much that they wanted to protect D&D from the future. Did they know the reign of the wizards would end? Did they foresee that some day, a band of greedy mind flayers would take over? It doesn’t matter. The Illithids of Monetisation are here now and with their tentacles they will squeeze every copper from everyone who still thinks playing D&D is cool.
And this is what saddens me the most. Wizards of the Coast had achieved the impossible: they had made Dungeons & Dragons cool. Let that sink in for a round or two.
D&D certainly wasn’t cool when I started playing. In 1983, I got the Moldvay & Cook basic box and was hooked within hours of cracking it open. I played AD&D 1st and 2nd editions for so, so many hundreds of hours in college, making lifelong friends in the process. I learned more around game tables than I did in class, and got a job at a games publishing company. When 3rd Edition came out, we had no idea how successful OGL products would end up being, but we jumped at the chance of making our own campaign world for Dungeons & Dragons. 20 odd years later, I keep getting asked if there will be an updated edition.
Until very recently, my answer was always: “Why not, if we can get some of the original writers?” 5E is a great incarnation of D&D and I’ve played a lot of it. I met my girlfriend at a 5E table. Our characters were married before we got together. To be honest, I was more of a D&D fan a month ago than I was when I was eleven. But the other day, when someone asked me about a new version of our 3rd Edition campaign world, I said: “Over my dead body!”
I am done with Hasbro D&D. And it’s not just me: countless hardcore players are leaving the squidship they thought was the good wizards’ tower. They’re on their way to explore the infinite realms of roleplaying games, never to return.
So, go ahead inventing the Online Tabletop Roleplaying Game — I guess that’s what we’ll end up calling your ‘recurrent microspending’, fully monetised D&D. We’ll be outside your walled garden, actually talking to each other. Because you may own the ampersand, but you don’t own the dragons or the dungeons. These are ours. The creativity, the wonder, the laughter, the junk food and the nat 20s.
Our D&D isn’t the Ampersand Brand. It’s all the amazing games nerds like me have been making since 1971. No amount of PR mind blasting will ever change that.
Creatures & Commoners, Barely/Explained
edit 11-2-23: This game is now a complete, laid out, and properly illustrated little boo called CRACK!. Grab it for free along with a ton of mini-supplements over at the Merry Mushmen’s website.
This game is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike licence (CC BY 2.0) The rules are incomplete by design (and also it’s almost 1am). Make up whatever you need, possibly looking at old editions of the Ampersand Brand and the games they inspired. 
Delve into dungeons, run from dragons
In this game, you play a character adventuring in a world prepared and portrayed by the Referendary (ref). They set up a situation and you act on it as if you were there. The ref tells you what happens based on their prep, their knowledge of the world, and possibly a roll of the dice.
You are a commoner
Whether you were born dirt poor or lost it all, you are now what people generously call an adventurer: someone desperate enough to look for treasure in deadly, creature infested places. First roll three regular dice (we call them d6s) and add them to determine your scores in:
- STRonkness: your raw muscular power
- braINTellect: your education and mental ability
- WISE-itude: your intuition and force of will
- DEXtrousability: your speed, agility, and manual precision
- CONstamina: your physical endurance and resistance
- CHAttyness: your presence and leadership
These scores should give you an initial idea of what your character is good at, and help you decide if you want to be a:
- CLERK of the Gods: good at calligraphy and fighting, able to cast evil out and perform miracles
- DWARF: a sturdy bearded dude from fantasy and myth
- ELF: pointy eared and good at magic as well as fighting
- FIGHTING-PERSON: weapons and armour and lack of regard for your physical wellbeing
- Ħ𝕠βⓑ𝕚ţ: sort of like a gnome farmer, jolly and of solid appetite, surprisingly sneaky
- MAGICKER: casting spells in robes and a pointy hat
- THIEVERY CONSULTANT, locksmith, burglar, etc. Decent at illicit activities, bad at everything else
HP (health peak): a score that represents your lifeblood, luck, and general ability to survive. Being wounded reduces your HP (we call that taking damage) and a zero HP you’re dead. You roll a die for your HP depending on your job (d8 for dwarfs and fighting-persons; d6 for clerks, elfs, and sʇᴉqqoɥ; d4 for magickers and thievery consultants)
So, rules
SPELLS: Magickers start with one spell. Make up a name that sounds cool. It is inscribed on your spellbook. Find more spells to expand your spellbook. You can only cast as many spells per day as you have levels, and if you have more in your spellbooks, you must decide which ones you memorise every morning. It’s a whole mess; if I were you I’d try and get the ref to use a simpler rule.
MIRACLES: Clerks of the gods can ask for a miracle a number of times per day equal to their level minus one. So zero times at first level. Tough. If the miracle seems reasonable enough, it happens.
DOING SHIT: When the ref doesn’t know what happens next, they will ask you to roll a die. You can use twenty-sided dice (d20s) because they’re fun to roll. A good way to know if an action is succesful is to try and roll under one of your six scores.
KILLING SHIT: This can be as detailed as you and your friends decide. We recommend you just roll under STR for melee attacks and DEX for ranged attacks. Succesful rolls mean your opponent loses d6 HP, while failures mean you’re probably the one getting damaged.
OPTIONAL KILLING RULES: You can also use an Arbitrary Calculation (AC) number to represent how hard characters and creatures are to hit. AC would be based on armour worn (say 12 for leather to 16 for full plate) with modifiers for very high or very low DEX. Restrict who can wear the heaviest armour tho. If you need to decide who acts first, have both sides roll a d6 or something. Different weapons can also have different damage dice. A pocket knife is d4 and an oversized sword is d10, you get the idea.
EXPLORING DANGEROUS PLACES should entail some rolls to avoid getting lost, determine if you run into wandering critters, if someone is suprised, and what everybody’s disposition is when you bump into each other. Having an idea of how much ground you cover while exploring and how fast you can run away is also a good idea. Maybe tie that to how much shit your carry? You should also keep track of your basic consumables such as torches and food. No one likes to go hungry or have to grope their way out of a haunted tomb once their last torch is used up.
CREATURES is what we call everything and everyone you are bound to encounter in your explorations. They also have HP, weapons, and special abilities. If the ref doesn’t know how a creature would react to meeting you, they will roll 2d6 - hope for a high result. All creatures can see perfectly in the dark. Don’t ask.
FLUNKIES are very useful if you can afford them. From a link kid to carry your lantern to a whole unit of mercenary crossbowmen, they may save your life. Just make sure you treat them fairly and pay on time or they’ll go work for the orcs.
GETTING BETTER AT IT requires you accumulate Expiatory Pasta (XP), mostly by recovering treasure from the unknown and putting it to a good use. With a sufficient number of XP, your reach the next level and Get Better At It. Notably, you get to roll your HP die again and add the result to your health peak.
January Rooms
edit 11-2-23: I’ve stopped using the Rocketbook following a minor spill incident and switched to a real paper notebook. I’ll post scans or photos of January soon.
I’ll update this post as I go, eventually with transcribed notes. Current rooms list:
- The Thermidor
- Abandoned guard post
- Lantern gate
- Beaching tunnel
desc1
January Map
edit 11-2-23: I’ve stopped using the Rocketbook following a minor spill incident and switched to a real paper notebook. I’ll post scans or photos of January soon.
I’ll update this post as I go. So far, the January dungeon doesn’t have a name. It’s an island in a sword and sorcery setting, à la *Black Sword Hack. #dungeon23
island
Let’s do this, #dungeon23!
My plan was to not plan anything. I wanted to wait until this morning to just draw a square room and improvise its contents. But I still have the flu and got some ideas in the last couple days. I only committed the map outline to paper like an hour to the new year so let’s call this close enough.
The next few days will test my low friction procedures for low energy brains, at least!
Attaching the scans of my first pages in their original state. As you can see, the Frixion felt pens are comfy to write with but they’re not really compatible with Rocketbook. I’ll repost as I redo them. Speaking of, I won’t post every day with my progress or lack thereof. I’ll have the room descriptions, the map and key, and the factions/NPCs in their own single posts that I’ll edit regularly (and postdate if it gets too messy).
edit 11-2-23: Removing the barely legible scans from below. I’ve stopped using the Rocketbook following a minor spill incident and switched to a real paper notebook. I’ll post scans or photos of January soon.
#dungeon23 Should be a Metacampaign
I wasn’t there in the 70s, but from what I read, original D&D was a game of dungeons. Big dungeons. What we now call megadungeons. At the time, no one was really thinking about settings or game worlds. People would bring their character who’d been exploring someone’s dungeon to another DM’s table when the opportunity presented itself. Not everyone was ready for the huge effort designing and constantly updated a dungeon represented.
Fast forward to 2013 or so, on Google Plus, some OSR afficionados deciced to take advantage of the critical mass of creators present, along with the ease of document sharing, videoconferencing, and other tools the Google ecosystem offered to launch a permanent convention - I’d call it a metacampaign - called FLAILSNAILS (I’ll refer your tothis post by Jeff Rients if you want to know the details and what the acronym stands for).
People would play for a couple of hours, their characters jumping from world to world with little focus on believability. Rules differences were handwaved, and people just played. That’s another thing I missed but I did experiment with the format circa 2016 - I even did a series of actual play videos with some other designers to help bring the OSR word to French gamers. And I still have a folder of FLAISNAILS ready characters in my gDrive who would love nothing more than dungeon delving again.
As I’m struggling with a bad case of the flu and thinking about the huge impact Sean’s #dungeon23 idea is making, it’s just hitting me. Why don’t we run our dungeons, hexcrawls, space stations, and cities online, whenever there’s enough players to do so? This might just be fever-induced, enthusiastic dreams, but I’m putting it out there.
The word is getting out, far and wide, and I’m expecting things to get organised with websites and ressource lists. So let’s talk about it once we all have a few rooms to explore?
edit 11-2-23: the first game of this ilk I’m aware of is happening this Monday. We’re using the hashtag #meta23 on Mastodon.
A Multiversal #dungeon23
I really admire the people who’ve known exactly what they want to do for #dungeon23 for weeks, and have already made battle plans. I only have the vaguest of idea of what I’m going to do at this stage, but I’ll share it anyway. If nothing else, it’ll give me some space to think it all over.
Adventure of the Month / The Meta Dungeon
I do not trust myself to keep working on the same dungeon, setting, and atmosphere all year long. My brain’s much too fickle for that. I think I can keep it interested for a month though, so the plan is to make twelve connected dungeons, each one for a game/setting/genre.
They will of course be usable separately, and I’ll definitely run them like this. I’d like it to be possible to run a multiversal campaign with characters plucked from alternate dimensions, or as some weird-ass evolving dungeon. I’m thinking that a lot of us are itching to run these games we’ve read and put back on their shelf. One-shots aren’t always easy to sell to players, but what if you started with a game they liked and gave them a choice of settings to explore without having to make new characters and getting infodumped on?
Big List of Dungeon Ideas
In no particular order, here are some possible games/universes and ideas for each of them. I might incorporate seasonal themes or use some of the spark words lists out there.
- CY_borg: corp execs apocalypse bunker, abandoned offshore resort, nanocult slum
- Death in Space: abandoned research station, forgotten asteroid gem mine
- OD&D Blackmoor-like: sunk spaceship, haunted military camp around a wizard’s abode
- GOZR: sorcerer’s tower which is also a tactical missile, Angry Sun cult ziggurat
- Secret ‘Perpendicular Dungeon’ project: underworld prison/mine, take back the dwarf fortress!
- Dungeon, Inc: (aka Donjon & Cie) test level gone wrong, admin section taken over by residents, hostage situation
- Under the Lost City: temple of Zargon in Cynidicea, the whole underground city, module B4 after Zargon’s demise
- Folklore Bestiary Land: (using only monsters from AFB) a valley crawl in Pyrenean folklore, caves of the laminak, castle of the immortal Cathars
- Mörk Borg: (possibly somewhat parodic) cemetary or catacomb, twisted two-headed archangel cult, Bläck Mëtäl Cïtÿ
- Black Sword Hack/Storm Kingdoms: haunted fortress-ship, Dominion of Might palace, sea elemental iceberg or shell palace, pirate town under siege
- Mousquetaires X: (Golden Century with superpowers) ballroom crawl, battlefield at La Rochelle
- 1920s Occult Paris: opium den or absinthe distillery run by devil worshippers fighting off Something Worse, fallen angels run anarchist hideout
- Into the Odd: underground slum quasi-dungeon, impossible building made of mirrors, mockery factory
- Feng Shui 1: The Prof’s Netherworld hideout, 1850 temple/training camp, 69 AD ghost forest
- Rêve de Dragon (oneiric fantasy): nightmare vineyard village, volcano of the human milk cheese-making sheeple, dream-logic classic dungeon
- Dreamlands: Ghoultown, Kadath something something, or I could steal from Ben L ;)
- Dungeonville: rework my die-drop-and-trace template for a more easy to use format (keep for a low energy month ;)
- Goblinburg: make an encounter or place from some of the 70-odd illustrations Didier Balicevic kindly drew for me in 2020 and I could never use
- Under the Palace of the Vampire Queen for some. What if there were a seventh level under the queen’s tomb? Twould be a fun way to experiment with randomly stocked rooms.
And who knows what game or adventure released next year will inspire me? Some of these are oviously easier to imagine, while others would need research and extra work which I probably won’t be able to do. Feel free to be inspired by any of these ideas!
As I did for Dungeonville, I’m hoping I’ll be able to reuse/rework/update some of my old dungeon design templates and procedures ideas. I might write about these next.
Afterthought: I will of course allow myself to keep working on projects from previous months if I it needs more detail. Or skip ahead to something else. The idea is to make it easier for my foggy brain with options and creative contraints, not to create more hassle.
Downtime gigs for CY_borg
I’ve made these instead of prepping the next missions. The gigs are heavily inspired (and sometimes stolen from) Augmented Reality Plus. This free supplement has way more details though. And buy the original Augmented Reality book, it’s an invaluable ressource for any cyberpunk game.
CY_BORG downtime procedure
I use the old timey rule that says that campaign and real world time flow at the same speed. The ref can also roll two or more d6s for the time spent between missions. Your character must pay a survival expenses upkeep of 10¤ per day of downtime - junk food, someone to watch the van they sleep in, drugs to numb the cold and silence the voices. You recover 1 HP a day in these ‘normal’ conditions. To recover the regular d6 per night, you need a safe place to stay, which is 1d4 x 100¤ per night.
- To pay for your daily expenses and negate the upkeep, take a gig from one of the zillion EZ-w¤rk sites and apps. You can either play it safe(ish) and roll 2d10 or be willing to do illegal/harmful/profitable shit by rolling 1d20.
- If you don’t want to do the job, You can get ONE other offer, rolling 1d12. If you don’t like that one either, you’re on your own and your options are:
- Sell your shit for 25% of its listed or purchase price.
- Beg for a roof. It is not unconceivable that people you worked for in exchange of little or no pay let you stay with them for a while - if they have the space. Make sure they don’t become friends though. A roof over your head isn’t worth the trouble friends will always drag you into.
- Go sleepless and hungry. Your HP is halved and your rolls are done at +2 DR for the session. (This also happens if your pay is docked or your gig contract voided.) Note that if a gig results in no pay, you must use one of the options above. Also note that the referee may make your life interesting by having your gig end a day or two into the mission.
Gigs table (2d10 or 1d20)
- Lab Contractor - roll 1d4
- Organ Donation Partner: Lose 1 Strength or Toughness (double the loss for every organ you’re already missing) - compensation 1d6 x 100¤ and some boosting of your socialnets profile.
- Organ Rental Associate: They only need it for a few days. As above, but only for this session. Medical fees deducted from pay - you’re left with 2d6 x 10¤.
- Organ Surrogate: Get a fresh cloned organ, hooked to a major artery - 3d6 x 10¤ after medical expenses. 10% chance of infection resulting in no pay and blacklisting.
- CyberImplant QA Team: Alpha test for some non-combat cyberware. Roll PRE or major psychological event: no pay and lose 1 PRE for the session.
- Gangwar Muscle: Very legal, and ammo is reimbursed upon presentation of receipts and killcam pics - make 2d6 x 100¤. On a double, lose that amount of HP at beginning of session.
- Physical Penetration Tester: Break in a small business or housing unit to test security measures - lose 1d6 HP (result x 100 ¤ in insurance shutup money).
- Riot Rentacop: Stand by to help overworked SecOps. Most of the shift spent in cramped armoured vehicle. Riot gear and zapbaton provided - lose 1d4 HP, make 1d6 x 100¤.
- Drone Repo: Recover lost delivery drones. Roll Knowledge to recover some payload, resulting in 1d4 x 100 ¤ bonus pay.
- Gig Groomer: Find a number of rubes to sign up for a gig-app. $ELL-IT Personality Software provided (effect lingers for 1d4 days).
- Hygiene Dispenser: spray public areas with disinfectant mist in trendy branded paper coverall. Provide handwashing liquid on demand while delivering a catchy slogan. 10% chance of being publicly flagged as contagious.
- Holo-Ads WalkNode: carry a bulky adplayer backpack around. You have 1d3-1 days left when session starts. Get fined 100 ¤ if you stay in one place more than 7 cumulative hours a day.
- Ambulatory CCTV: allow a backdoor into your RCD, sign an NDA. 1d20 hours left when session starts.
- AI Supervision Operator: Boring, underpaid, WFH friendly. Roll d8:
- Social Media Scraper: delete banned and disturbing content.
- Box Office Streamer: watch several shows simultaneously. Post about them on socialnets.
- Flash Influencer: go to places, post hashtags, get into online arguments.
- Hashtag Spam Coordinator: manage uncooperative botnet AIs.
- Facial Recognition Debugger: comb through images for low grade persons of interest.
- Map Update Verification Operator: walk around highways while checking maps.
- Algorithm Data Processor: crunch numbers. So many numbers.
- Live SocialFeeds Sub-Editor: make infliuencer idiots look less dumb.
- Substrate Fairy: Pick up recyclable trash with mechanical grippers, throw it in the mobile 3D-printer that follows you everywhere.
- Brand Street Ambassador: spam people about client brand, products, and/or ideology. Data chip with sales scripts provided (you can even keep it).
- Backend Efficiency Operator: act as a fake AI pretending to be a person. Do-anything concierge, shopping assistant, schedule meetings, etc. 1-hour contract for 1d100 continuous hours. NDA not especially enforced.
- AR Efficiency Techie. Not really legal in many SecOps jurisdictions. Roll d6 - 10% chance of being flagged by local SecOps and the agency vanishing (no pay).
- DDOS Zombie Horde Relay Carrier - all Net-related rolls around you are at +2 DR.
- Cookies Inoculation Prober - stay in busy areas for the next d12 hours.
- Adbomb Planting Specialist - 20% chance of being flagged by SecOps.
- #WAKEUPSHEEPLE. Help hack RCDs for a political or conspiracy group.
- Weather Data Collection - stay outside for the next d12 hours.
- Wild Net Events Gathering - 5% chance of discovering a new sentient AI who takes a keen interest in you.
- Legacy Dataterm Genius: remove gum and graffiti, bodily fluids and biohazards from public net access terminals. Do basic repair (replace screen/keyboard or reboot). Roll Tougness or lose 1 in a random stat for the session because of disease.
- VR/AR Habit Controller: Spy on people’s buying habits and advertisement exposure with heavily encrypted back door key. 10% chance of ad-virus infection (+2 DC on Net-related rolls until cleansed).
- Meds Angel: Bring and administer treatment to patients. Expensive consequences in case of any mishap. 20% chance of incident or difficult customer (roll Presence or no pay).
- GuineaChip: Test a neural chip loaded with a very niche skill. Log all mood fluctuations online. Roll Presence or lose 1 in a random attribute for the session.
- Meastpace Troll: A target political entity or person must be verbally attacked at regular intervals. Unavoidable violence costs you 1d3 HP.
- Crisis Extra: Pretend to be injured, traumatised, or killed on politically motivated livefeed fake news - during the session, 25% chance of being recognised by someone hostile. 3d6 x 100¤ bonus at end of session if no leak had occured.
CY_borg second-hand gear/cyberware
Why would you pay for your shit upfront when there are so many shades of grey market options?
- 1-2. Nope, sold out everywhere.
- 3-4. Maybe soon, roll again in 1d20 hours.
- 5-6. In bad shape. Pay 50%, take 1d4 damage (or by weapon) on a fumble.
- Free! Take 1d8 damage (or by weapon) on a fumble.
- Hacked and tracked. 75% off. On a fumble, pay a 50% update fee or it powers down and calls a repo team (2 hungry gig workers).
- Hacked and tracked. 75% off. On a fumble, pay a 50% update fee or it powers down and calls a repo team (2 hungry gig workers).
- Rental. Pay 10% of the price before each use. 50% deposit required.
- Shop warranty. 50% off, breaks on a fumble. Roll again for a replacement.
- Strings attached. Pay 50% and owe a favour to your creditor.
- Lightly used, 50% off retail. Looks like crap but fully refurbished.
dungeon23 tools
Let’s talk about how I’m going to work on this #dungeon23 project.
I was very tempted to use that Hobonichi Weeks Sean recommends. I have been using a Hobonichi Techo planner from them for a couple of years now and I love the feel of their products.
That said, I think something that I can import to digital easier would make it easier and ultimately more successful.
So, I’ve been thinking about the Rocket book notebooks — they’re made of reusable paper that you can scan and upload wherever you like with an app. I’ve used them for years (I actually backed the first ever Rocketbook Kickstarter). I use two different sized notebooks, and also their very handy index cards. All of these live in the Hobonichi drawer pouches I carry around.
And I recently found out that you can easily scan any piece of paper with the Rocketbook app. So I think that’s what I’m going to do.
That, and possibly type or even dictate rooms directly into Obsidian and onto theisblog. Gotta make this as frictionless (meaning, lazy) as I can.
That’s definitely what I’m going to do with the maps. It’s easy to erase and redraw in a Rocketbook notebook, and then you can scan them again! So definitely a less messy solution.
Only thing is, I won’t have a beautiful object as a memento of 2023. Sadface, but I do think it’s the price I have to pay for a decent chance of making something useful next year.