Academia in the Dark (Alpha)

I love Blades in the Dark. Desperate scoundrels claw their way up through a criminal underworld, doing anything they can to get ahead. A narrative focus that facilitates a conversation about the world rather than getting lost in mechanics. Sharing responsibility for the storytelling, while still keeping things grounded.

I've been on a bit of a magic school kick recently. Originally, I was designing one to use in my setting for Shadowbreaker, but the more I worked on it, the more I realized that a more combat-focused game didn't make a lot of sense. I didn't want to do what Strength of Thousands or Strixhaven did, which was to filter traditional combat-focused adventures through an academic lens - I wanted to capture what school felt like. The overwhelming stress, the drama, heightened emotions. I wanted learning magic and navigating relationships to take center stage - there can (and probably should) be more focused plots and plans going on, but I wanted to be able to just let the story unfold through all those tensions.

Eventually, I realized that Forged in the Dark games were a perfect fit for what I wanted. Stress and Trauma (renamed to Burnout) work perfectly, the narrative focus and built in consequences on rolls works great for letting a story develop over time, and the entanglements are a great way to interject some excitement to mix things up and provide long term consequences.

May I present Academia in the Dark! (working title)

• The Rules
• Character Playbooks
• Reference Sheets

Resolution Systems

I've been thinking a lot recently about resolution systems. How can we make a system that is:

• Fast to resolve
• Consistent across different types of roll/areas of play
• Nuanced in the outcomes it can produce
• Feels good to players

I've been struggling with this a bit in my own game, Shadowbreaker, and recently went through several different resolution methods (more on that below) faster than I was able to really playtest them, to the point where it kinda just feels like I'm spinning my wheels. I decided that I'm not letting myself tinker any more until I have a chance to test out the most recent version sufficiently.

In the meantime, I've been thinking a lot about the core system of Blades in the Dark - I remember about 5 years ago, it was a common sentiment online that a lot of folks wanted the narrative of BitD but the Tactics of game like D&D. There have been many attempts at finding ways to replicate the virtues of BitD with other resolution systems, but now I'm wondering if I can't go the opposite way.

What would it look like to create a tactical combat system in a Forged in the Dark game?

Shadowbreaker RPG (Beta): Grounded, Narrative, Tactical Fantasy

Hey folks!

Those of you following my PF2 design posts might have noticed a dip in that type of post over the last few months. In particular, I'd gestured towards fleshing out a lot of different PF2 scenario structures, and have not done so beyond Dungeons. There are two main reasons for this. The first is boring and kinda sad, which is that I've had very low capacity for doing things that involve screens due to a pretty bad concussion that I've been struggling with for the past couple of months. The second, however, is much more exciting.

For the last several years, I've been tinkering with my own homebrew system, called Shadowbreaker, and it is finally in a form that I feel comfortable sharing. In the spirit of Prismatic Wasteland's 2025 challenge, this is still very much a beta - there's a lot missing, especially monsters, treasure (and other rewards), and scenario structures. I have playtested it in one-shots and with 2 PCs, but am only just now starting my first full-group playtest - I'm sure things will change, but I'm also really happy with where it's at.

If all you want is the straight dope, as Matt Colville says, here is a link to the most up to date playtest document! As well as the Character Sheet front and back. If you want more on my thought process, as well as an explanation of what sets this game apart from others, read on!

Before Rusthenge: The Endless Storm

Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth
– J. M. W. Turner

Hey folks!

Something a little different today - I wrote a module! It is intended as a precursor to Rusthenge, giving the PCs a chance to get to know their home town a little bit and grow connected to it before being sent away from it. It is designed for 4 apprentices (level 0 characters with the "apprentice option"), though I ran it for 2 level 1 characters instead and it went fine. It's fairly short - I ran it for my partner (controlling both PCs), and it took about 3 hours.

Here is the full document!

The rest of this post is a bit of explaining my thought process, a bit of advice for running it - let's jump in!

RHoD Addendum: The Helm of Iomedae's Sight

Hey folks!

To anyone following along my series on Scenario Structure, sorry for the delay! I'm almost done with Part 5, and have a couple partial drafts of new Scenario Structures, but unfortunately one of my games had a bit of an interpersonal blow up that led to a player leaving (ultimately for the best I think, but a bummer the way it went down). Dealing with this ate up a bunch of my time for side-projects, and that paired with all three of my campaigns entering new arcs (SoT is just about to start the final chapter; I finished SF with my partner and we are moving onto Rusthenge/7 Dooms; RHoD is about to head to the Hammerfist Holds) means that I am mostly focusing on content for my immediate games, at least for the time being.

Along those lines, today, we'll be writing up some visions! Specifically, I am planning on probably running a converted/edited Alexandrian Remix of Descent Into Avernus after the Red Hand of Doom, and want to seed as many elements from Elturel in Brindol as possible to help keep up the feeling of continuity. One of the coolest parts of the remix are the memory dives, including the Vision from Torm. My players never made it to Cinder Hill, and therefore haven't seen Azarr Kul, nor do they directly know that Tiamat is involved. Today, I'll be pulling all these threads together and creating a vision that the Helm of Iomedae's Sight might give to a member of the party as they enter the final stages of the war.

Let's jump in!

PF2 Structure Part 5.1 - Dungeon Structure

Go to Part 1

Hey folks!

From Shadowdark RPG

This is a weird one, because it's part 5a of a series for which I have not yet published part 1 - the overall series is about what I see as a need for more thoroughly fleshed out Scenario Structures in Pathfinder 2e. I have part 1 about 90% done, and the other parts are well under way as well, but I decided to go ahead and publish this one first because I think folks might find it useful! (Note: I have now finished it! See link above.)

Today, we'll be outlining a core dungeon procedure for PF2 that aims to fit as neatly into PF2 as possible without changing any rules. Ideally, it should work even if you implement it in an existing AP without doing a whole bunch of extra work. I'll also include some extra credit for if you do want to put in the work, or you want to change more about how you run dungeons.

Let's jump in!

Homebrew Musings: Minion Numbers & Defenses

Original Minion rules

Short post today!

I've been running Book 3 Chapter 2 of Stolen Fate - full post on book 3 coming soon! - and in part to test Mooks and in part because I wanted more enemies, I converted Svarýr Soldiers into Svarýr Soldier Minions! It's been getting me thinking a bit more about Mook design, and in particular how they might need to scale as we get higher in levels.

Homebrew: 4e Minions in PF2

Hey folks!

Several years ago, before the Troop rules existed in PF2, I ported the rules for minions from 4e into PF2. It didn't feel perfect, and when Troops came out I figured that I should try the official version and see what all the hype was about. 

While there's a lot to like about Troops, however, I also had a lot of complaints! Chief among these:

• Troops feels more like fighting a normal enemy with weird resistances and abilities, rather than like fighting a large number of foes.
• Troops targeting reflex rather than AC feels odd, and leads to a situation where Rogues were better at leading their allies into battle than Champions, which feels ever worse!
• AoE damage isn't better enough against Troops when compared to single-target attacks. While that gets better when there are 3-4 Troops, it doesn't feel significantly difference than targeting 3-4 normal creatures.
• Troops are hard to physically maneuver on the table! In person, it's a ton of minis to manage, and if you have  multiple identical troops you need them to be different enough that you can tell the different units apart. Tracking is easier on VTTs, but it's almost impossible to get the level of movement flexibility that Troop Movement is supposed to allow. Same deal with using movement trays for IRL minis.
• Troop Defenses are hard to track! I don't know that I've ever remembered to check if a Troop was passing through 2 HP thresholds, and the stuff about single-target vs. area effects are consistently hard for us to remember.

These are all ultimately problems of fantasy - the rules for Troops work, but not in ways that feel right to me at the table. If you like the overall fantasy of fighting a Squadron rather than its individual members, however, feel free to take a look at "Fixing Troops" at the end of this article!

I'd previously used Minions quite a lot in 5e, and I know that I love the way that they feel when used correctly. Plus, in the interim, MCDM came up with incredible innovations that I couldn't wait to try out in PF2. So, over the past few years, I spent a long time crunching math and trying things out, and I am pretty happy with where we ended up.

Here's the full document. Let's jump in!

Expanding Duels in PF2

Hey folks!

While the Pathfinder 2e dueling rules work well for some situations, they really don't capture the highly regimented rulesets of a lot of real-life Dueling traditions. This idea has been kicking around in my head for a while, so today I am pulling the trigger (pun intended)!

Note: the text below is a bit of a rough draft - I created a more polished version here!

RHoD Sidequest - The Mad Mage's Manor

RHoD Masterpost

There's a throwaway line on page 52 that says "The razorfiend has done quite well for itself, having plundered a ruined wizard's manor not far off." That's a fine justification, but what's up with that manor? That sounds interesting! The first time I ran RHoD, this line inspired me to create a mini-dungeon, fleshing out that line, and since my players are about to head into the Blackfens I figured I would type it up and streamline it!

This is the first full homebrew mini-adventure I'll be posting on this blog, though not the first I've published - I hope y'all like it!

New Class: The Necromancer

Hey folks!

Cover of Harrow IX

I'm so excited to announce my first complete Pathfinder 2e class: the Necromancer! You can find the full document here. And oh boy, did I pick a tough one!

A year ago, Paizo released the Kineticist, and in many ways it revolutionized PF2 class design. It presented a version of spellcasters without attrition, with action-flexibility, and with fewer, reliable abilities rather than an exhaustive spell list. While I certainly don't think every spellcaster must follow this format, there was a big conversation on reddit about creating more thematic spellcasters that are tailored to a specific fantasy, rather than generalists. I started work on this class within the week!

Play a Necromancer if you want to bend hordes of undead to your will, unleash devastating theorems to wither your foes, or become the master of death itself!

Is Pathfinder Too Complicated?

Hey folks!

I love Pathfinder 2e - it is cohesively designed, tactically deep, and rich with options. It basically fixed everything that frustrated me about 5e: lack of GM support, overpowered character options, unbalanced stacking bonuses, incomplete rules*, goofy restrictions, lack of specialization/customization, weird action economy, and so much more.

*To be clear, rule-lite games can be rad! But 5e is not that. There's nothing wrong with the core of the game being "the GM and players have a conversation about the world and determine the best option to fit that specific scenario," but it is a problem when some things (esp. spells) are as (or more) complicated as PF2, and others basically don't have rules, because the GM still has to check whether there *are* rules before giving their own ruling. Plus, some of the existing rules are just bad!

However, I know a lot of my players have more trouble with PF2! Part of this is that a lot of them have played 5e, and that transition requires a lot of unlearning bad habits. Players who are newer to RPGs in general always have an easier time, but even they can struggle with some aspects, and I have seen many stories of folks online who struggle even more than my own players.

So, in this post, I'm going to explore some ways that I think that GMs can approach PF2 to help make this transition easier, as well as a few possible house-rules if you want to go further. Let's dive in!