Bocoloid from Southern Edge

 Whenever I start a new campaign, I usually have a personal goal as a GM—some way to step out of my comfort zone and grow. Maybe I want to try a new system, experiment with homebrew mechanics, or explore a type of setting I haven’t mastered yet. Earlier this year, that led me to His Majesty the Worm , and with it, a challenge I had previously failed: running a satisfying megadungeon. I had tried before during the pandemic, running Barrowmaze for a group of friends over several intense days. It quickly became repetitive, and after a series of unfortunate deaths involving bottomless pits, we all gave up on it. This time, I wanted to make it more engaging. I designed the dungeon as a modular space that rearranges itself whenever the players return to the surface. Thematically, this made sense—the megadungeon was a dreamlike realm shaped by a colossal worm that feeds on the desires and dreams of adventurers. A shifting layout reinforced the dream logic. In His Majesty the Worm , pla...

 It might sound counterintuitive, but the fewer powers, skills, and features your character sheet has, the more freedom you actually have as a player. In crunchier systems like D&D 5e or Pathfinder , when players are faced with a situation, the first thing they do is look at their sheet and "press the buttons" they have available. They look for the magical power that solves the puzzle. They only engage in activities where they have proficiency. And often, the same player ends up doing all the talking just because they have a +8 Charisma. It ends up feeling more like a board game, where each player has their set moves and just repeats them. In contrast, in simpler—and often deadlier—systems, solutions aren't found on the sheet. They're found in player ingenuity and interaction with the environment. You’ll often hear advice in 5e videos about making combat more interesting by encouraging players to interact with the terrain—kick over tables, shove crates, use el...

 Like many others, I started my TTRPG journey with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition . I ran games, I played in games, and I fudged a lot of dice. I pulled punches. I softened outcomes. For nearly two years, I ran a long campaign where no player character ever died. Everyone was happy. It was safe, fun, and predictable. We all kind of knew that death wasn’t really on the table—just failure at best. Then I joined a new table, one run by a veteran DM I knew from Magic: The Gathering . He made one thing clear from the beginning: “All my rolls are in the open. No fudging.” We were playing Lost Mine of Phandelver , a starter module, with a mostly new group. In our second session, everything went to hell. The goblin boss had a great stealth roll and ambushed us. Several goblins dropped our wizard immediately. The hobgoblin leader rolled a natural 20 and downed another party member. We decided to flee. My dwarven cleric used magic to hold off the enemies and bought time for the other...

    I have a lot of friends who play TTRPGs, and many others who were always curious about trying them. After years of GMing, I realized that what I enjoy the most are open, sandbox-style campaigns. Over time, I gradually let go of railroading and over-preparing, which I found often narrows the path players will take. Eventually, I decided to surrender to the will of the dice gods. At the same time, I had been reading a lot of blog posts about West Marches and it felt like the perfect fit for my gaming style. So I started putting together a West Marches-style campaign using my usual group and expanding it to include several friends who were either new to RPGs or came from different systems. For the system, I chose Forbidden Lands , which is ideal for exploration and resource management. I loved how it uses abstract dice to track supplies—rations, water, arrows, torches, etc.—represented by a die (d12 → d10 → d8 → d6). Each day, players roll the relevant die, and if they rol...

A while ago, I started experimenting with faction systems in my game—cult hierarchies, inner circles, secret handshakes, that sort of thing. One of my players had a character who was rising through the ranks of a shady cult, and I had set up rules for access levels and promotion rites. It was going great… until he went insane, betrayed the party, and got executed. I barely had time to test anything. Luckily, another player stepped in with a brilliant pivot. He’s playing a big orc warrior, and after getting sick of paying tolls to the endless stream of bandits in my dungeon, he thought: what if I join them instead? He had already discovered their surface headquarters and decided joining would be cheaper than constant extortion. Thus, a new opportunity opened up: the orc’s slow initiation into the local thieves’ guild. What We Know So Far At that point, the guild wasn’t very fleshed out. All I knew was that they controlled the first underground level of the dungeon. They run the toll ...

 In the last session of my campaign, something curious happened: my players were fascinated. There was betrayal between characters, an unexpected romance, a mystery that left them on edge, and a tactical, exciting combat. In the end, they congratulated me and commented that it was evident how much I had prepared the session. The irony is that I hadn’t prepared anything specific for that session. What I actually do is "planned chaos: laying the groundwork for an organic story." This concept may seem contradictory, but it’s an approach that allows me to offer complete freedom to my players without losing narrative coherence. I don’t design sessions with a rigid script; instead, I build a solid foundation before the campaign begins, ensuring that I can improvise with ease. This method requires a lot of preparation beforehand, but it significantly lightens the load between sessions, making the experience much more enjoyable for the GM. How I Prepare Without Preparing My style as ...