Inaugurating the blog: My journey in role-playing and the arrival of His Majesty the Worm

 

  Hello everyone, to inaugurate this blog about RPGs and other interests, I want to share a bit about my personal experience. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I started playing tabletop RPGs more than 15 years ago. My first experiences were with AD&D 2nd Edition and Paranoia, but they were short-lived. Later, I joined a virtual table for a zombie game in a system I can't recall, but it ended up going nowhere—though it left me wanting more.

  With the release of D&D 5th Edition, my interest was reignited, so I took the initiative to start GMing for some friends with whom I played MTG. I began with standard adventures like the Giant storyline and Phandelver, but I didn't like how linear they were. So, I decided to create my own setting and adventures while painting miniatures and tons of terrain for each encounter. It was a great experience but exhausting, and it ultimately didn't fulfill my goals. Since I wanted to 3D print and paint final bosses, I ended up railroading the entire campaign. My players loved it, but I wasn't satisfied.

  Next, I ran Curse of Strahd, a sandbox that I thought might meet my expectations. The first part was fantastic, but after level five, the campaign lost its horror tone. Strahd and his world should have instilled fear, but I felt the system lacked the mechanics to support that kind of tension and dread—especially at this stage, when the players had become incredibly powerful.

  By this time, I had graduated as an industrial designer and was deeply into board games. My studies, which focused on user experience and problem-solving through design, made me more demanding when it came to games and the experiences they offered. It became clear that 5th Edition couldn't support the kind of experiences I wanted for my players. I needed a system where characters weren’t superheroes but ordinary people surviving in a hostile environment. I also needed a system where mundane objects mattered, and preparation before a journey was crucial.

  After some research, I read a lot of OSR rulebooks, but they seemed too hardcore compared to 5th Edition. So, I decided to try Forbidden Lands. It had excellent mechanics for travel and resource management. Instead of hit points, damage was taken to attributes, combined with a wound system, and characters acquired talents as they progressed.

  For this experiment, I gathered nine players, forming an exploration group sent by the town council in a caravan. The players would rotate session by session and leave reports for the next group about what had happened. This worked wonderfully as it encouraged note-taking and deep involvement in the story. The exploration mechanics were fantastic, and they mapped out the areas they traveled. This time, I avoided railroading, and it felt like a truly free experience that met my expectations. However, as always, I wasn’t entirely satisfied. Two issues stood out: by the end of the campaign, players had accumulated so much experience that certain talents made them nearly immortal, removing the tension from early encounters. At first, fighting three skeletons was a life-or-death struggle, but by session twelve, they were slaying dragons effortlessly. The second issue was the way official campaign books presented information. The text was unclear, packed with excessive fluff, making it time-consuming to summarize and translate into playable content.

  Since one of my players was moving to Australia, we wrapped up with a grand finale and an epic epilogue that provided a satisfying conclusion.

  After this experience and a personal hiatus, it was time to return to the roots and play a retro-clone. At that moment, Dolmenwood’s Kickstarter launched, and it instantly grabbed my attention—high lethality, inventory management, and an incredible map for exploration. I immediately started studying the material, placing official dungeons throughout the map along with several of my own. I also really like the layout of how the information is presented, especially for the adventures. Everything is very clear, you don’t have to flip through pages endlessly, and after a quick read-through, you can easily run the game. It’s clear that a lot of attention has been given to the GM’s user experience

  This campaign worked exceptionally well. The players took on roles, mapped out locations, and took notes. After 12 sessions, every combat remained a life-or-death situation. They freely explored the Dolmenwood forest, and the campaign’s main goal emerged naturally. At one point, they tricked a fungus-addicted baroness to gain her favor. When she realized what had happened, she executed their beloved NPCs in town and placed a hefty bounty on their heads. Now, as political exiles, they seek to return a ring to the Goblin King in exchange for his help in their revenge—beautiful.

  Everything was going great, but certain mechanics in the system felt clunky, especially the skill checks with d6, listen, search, survival. Also, I don't quite like the saving throws either.. As an industrial designer, I couldn’t ignore them, so I began searching for another system. That’s how I found His Majesty the Worm. Instead of dice, it uses tarot cards—something I loved as an MTG player. It features intriguing combat mini-games, elegant inventory management, and various mechanics that encourage roleplaying and character relationships in a tangible way.

  I had only attempted to run a megadungeon once before—virtually, during the pandemic—but it hadn’t worked out. So, this would be my second attempt at the challenge. I designed a dream-infused megadungeon ruled by a godlike Worm that lures adventurers in and feeds on their dreams. We’ve only played two sessions so far, but everything is going smoothly.

  In the next entry, I’ll detail what happened in those sessions and share part of the dungeon creation process, which might be useful to some of you. For now, I think this is enough—I’ve gone on for quite a bit!

See you next time!