Articles by Danny Rupp
Danny works professionally as an architect and serves as managing editor here at CH, which means he shares many of the duties of being an editor but without the fame and recognition. He also writes about RPGs, videogames, movies, and TV. He is married to Sucilaria, and has a personal blog at Incorrect Blitz Input. (Email Danny or follow him on Twitter).
The Architect DM: Function & Playability
Welcome to the second installment of my series about applying real world design concepts to your own personal D&D or tabletop RPG world. Last week’s post was a relatively broad overview of the basic aspects to consider while designing a location. Today I would like to look at a different approach to designing locations, which involves thinking more about how the game will actually play out and how your players (and you as the DM/GM) will use and interact with the environment you’re creating.
Typically when I design a space for use in an RPG, I will go back and forth between these two styles of design at regular intervals. When I begin I might be thinking about the fantasy setting that has led to the creation of a building, then I will go through and design that building as I think about the players and monsters interacting with the locations, and then I will go back through it again and apply an additional layer of setting and history to it. This is an ongoing and interactive process, between you and the design, that should result in a balanced product that is both functional and rich in inspiration.
How are the players going to see this?
There is a very harsh reality that you have to face: if your players don’t experience the environment of your game, then it doesn’t matter how much effort you put into it. Another way of wording this would be that even if you put a month worth of effort into designing an encounter location, if you fail in the presentation of that encounter everything can fall flat and go to waste. A battlemat or dry erase board is one of the easiest ways to convey a setting to your players, but if you’re not using one of those then your best friend has got to be picture references. [Read the rest of this article]
The Architect DM: Building Foundations
A couple of weeks ago I did a guest segment on the Dungeon Master Guys podcast with Quinn (from At-Will) and Dave about the topic of improvising as a DM. While discussing this with Dave and Quinn I suddenly realized that I have become rather adept at coming up with dungeons, locations, and hand drawn battle maps on a whim when they are needed in my D&D campaign. Both of them quickly suggested that this might be a result of my day job as an Architect and designer.
This is the first post in a series I’m calling “The Architect DM” where I will be talking about how the ideas, concepts, and philosophies of designing real life locations can be applied to your D&D game. This series will not be a “how to make your D&D game exactly like real life” kind of guide, but I will try to provide suggestions for what can be done to make the game feel like real life, and what can be done to make the game have an even greater sense of fantasy to it!
What are the origins of your environment?
As the title of this post suggests, I’m going to start with some of the groundwork that goes behind the idea of designing a dungeon or any kind of location you use while running a tabletop RPG. The deepest and most important part of a location’s foundation is who created it, and perhaps the most fundamental question is: is it a constructed environment or is it natural? The answer to this question can be either response, or both!
Suppose your players have stumbled upon old ruins that have been overtaken by nature, you should create a location that has the feel of both a purposeful building and the untamed chaos that nature brings to things. You can approach a location like this in many different ways, but one of the more involved methods would be to roughly plan out what the location was like before it was claimed by nature. Once this is complete you can begin to tear it down in interesting and fun ways!
Don’t spend too much time on that rough plan, however, because the players will only ever see a portion of it so you don’t need to flesh it out entirely. The easiest way to accomplish this is to reuse a location you’ve already created, either for the same campaign (and have the party return to it after a long time absent) or feel free to take a location from a previous campaign or any published module you can find. One of my late heroic adventures in my current D&D campaign involved the party returning to the Keep on the Shadowfell hundreds of years after the module took place, entire sections of the dungeon had collapsed and other new areas had opened up, but the basic feel of the dungeon was still quite present in the adventure. [Read the rest of this article]
Review: New Dice from Q-Workshop!
At this point, if you haven’t heard of Q-Workshop, then you’re missing out on some of the best dice that are being produced today! We are lucky enough to have gotten a chance to look at, roll around, and generally admire three of their sets of dice – Celtic Dice (pictured right), Forest Dice, and Elven Dice.
All three of these sets of dice are the same high standard of quality that we’ve come to expect from Q-Workshop, the Celtic and Forest dice are intricately detailed and incredibly fun to play with while the Elven dice are more elegant and simplified in their design. The only issue that we have with the Celtic and Forest dice is that because they are so detailed, some of them can be hard to read which interferes with the basic function of dice. This issue, however, seems to be something that the company is improving on as they continue to produce dice, creating a balance between intricacy and readability that will result in some truly original and highly functional dice.
The Forest dice (below left) seem to be the first step in the direction of higher readability while still retaining much of the detail of sets like the Celtic dice. Very similar to the Dwarven dice set that I reviewed back in December, the Forest dice set is a well themed and beautifully crafted product that can be a great element to bring a bit more of your character or your personality to the table. Simply rolling the Dwarven dice makes me want to play a classic D&D dwarf again, and I can easily see the Forest dice being something fun for someone playing a Druid or any nature based character to have at the table. The same can be said for the Elven dice set (below right), which differs from the other two in that they are semi-opaque dice with red numbers in a very subtle elven script. These dice have the obvious benefit of being as easy to read as any other dice, but still provide a more unique and personalized feel to them. [Read the rest of this article]
Dark Sun Heats Up
We are fortunate enough to have received copies of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting and the Dark Sun Creature Catalog today, and as usual we’d love to share anything and everything that we can with you guys!
My initial impression of the Campaign Setting book is that it provides a great introduction to the world and setting of Dark Sun for new players but also a very nostalgic and interesting read for those returning to the world of Athas. The Thri-kreen race is something that I’ve always planned to use in my own games even outside of the Dark Sun setting, and this holds even more true now that I’ve seen the racial write up. After just a cursory look through the Creature Catalog I am now completely psyched to start playing in a Dark Sun game and face every single one of the fiendish beasts that resides within it!
Earlier today I offered to answer questions via twitter (@Bartoneus) and here are some of the questions I was asked and the answers I provided (names were removed for privacy and simplicity): [Read the rest of this article]
Movie Review: “Inception”
Inception is a wildly entertaining summer blockbuster wrapped in the packaging of a sleeper hit science fiction thriller/heist film. The film excels due to the stunning combination of well executed directing, inspired writing, spot on acting, and seamless production. Though primarily billed as a Leonardo DiCaprio movie there was a large majority of the movie that the ensemble cast took the reins, including a great performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who didn’t threaten to outshine DiCaprio’s but provided an excellent balance to the movie. Inception is one of the first high concept sci-fi thrillers that should be accessible to a wider audience without relying on the appeal of spectacular gun fights and martial arts. If you want to see a technological and intellectual movie that pulls you along for one hell of a spectacular ride then Inception should be at the top of your “must see” list!
I decided to see a midnight showing because I am a big fan of supporting original, non-gimmicky (read: 3D) properties and I sincerely hope that this kind of movie gains popularity in Hollywood. Inception was not only directed by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Memento) but it was also written by him and is not directly based on any specific book, comic, video game, or any one previous movie. The movie is being compared to films such as Blade Runner and The Matrix, but I believe these comparisons are less direct and more based on similar themes, matching tones, and the shared moods that can be elicited by the films. For example, the style of storytelling that is used in Inception is very reminiscent of Blade Runner and it very clearly leaves a lot of room for interpretation by the viewer. [Read the rest of this article]
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