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(This is the one I'm personally running!) Game Name: Blackmoor Dungeons (0e) Run By: Tavis Allison Maximum Players: 12 Scenario: "The Dungeon was first established in the Winter and Spring of 1970-71 and it grew from there. Over the years there have been many changes in the layout and...

In 1954 the New Yorker published an account of 240 U.S. GIs herding 900 artillery mules (i.e., they were meant to pull cannons, not they filled the distance-attack role in this encounter) from Burma, where they had been designated expendable during the demobilization following WWII, to China...

I would like the specifically 4E version of the Book of Mules Etcetera to talk about how a 10' pole interacts with a trap. Can you set off a trap just by sticking a pole into it, bypassing a skill check? Does it give you a bonus? How do you decide what kinds of traps interact with poles and how...

I feel like characters in fiction are lucky much more often than PCs in the sense of being rewarded for taking chances that are extremely unlikely to pay off. When watching a genre movie, I often put myself in the protagonist's shoes, as if I were playing that character as a PC, and think "How...

In my White Sandbox campaign, people spend gold on: - carousing, which has the immediate reward of earning XP through a wine, women, and song system. The side benefit is advancing things you want to have happen in the world (anything from establishing a pawn shop to researching a new spell)...

Agreed that it'd take an epic-level Handle Animal check to convince livestock to go into creepy dungeons and do the things players want them to. Susan Orleans' piece on mules in the New Yorker talks about how attempts to deliver supplies by parachuting mules failed because the mules were too...

My seven year old confirms that you don't need deep familiarity with 4E naming conventions to find these hilarious. Some others we came up with: A mule heavily dosed with poison before being fed to a monster: Bellyache Donkeyhorse A mule cut open and climbed into by a halfling as an ice cave...

Game Name: The Pallid Plague (Pathfinder) Run By: Mark Moreland Maximum Players: 6 Scenario: Reports from Andoran's Darkmoon Vale indicate that a new plague is causing the deaths of untold fey. The Pathfinder Society sends you there to aid the nymph queen in stopping the plague and finding...

Well said, sir! Extra points for the portmaneaus for the donkeyhorse that goes ahead of the party to find traps; the donkeyhorse that is fed to monsters to buy time for the party to run away; and the donkeyhorse that is shoved through doors, laden with nothing but open flasks of oil, while the...

It is self-evident that the presence of a mule is what makes something old-school. The release of the 4E Quintessential Mule is all that will be necessary to end the edition wars. (Before that happens, I will take the opportunity to point out that a half-horse, half-donkey is clearly the kind...

Game Name: Temple of the Frog (4e) Run By: George Strayton Maximum Players: 6 Scenario: For centuries, the tangled maze of sluggish watercourses, stagnant ponds, and festering marshes known as the Great Dismal Swamp has defended Blackmoor's southwestern frontier. Recently, both large armies...

The Don't Prep Plots essay talks about a toolkit, and I think that's a great way to look at it. The tools a DM wants to have in there differ from person to person and game to game, but they all do the same thing: create adversity. When the players know what they want to do, your job is to find...

I think it's a group identification thing. When a new edition reflects my tastes and desires, I feel like I'm part of the group. If sales figures for that edition are strong, I feel good because lots of people share my values; if the new edition wins awards, I feel like it's a validation of who...

I can attest that online arguments about why martial powers are "magic" since they use the same limited-use mechanics as spells and prayers definitely inspired the writing of that section on regaining martial exploits.

Have your first-person NPCs set up breaks in the mood. "Pardon me, I must answer the door" or "I see that you need some time to discuss this among yourselves". You need the break to rest your voice and refresh your mojo; your players want a break to talk about what to do next without you saying...

Do you mostly play or DM? Are you more interested in rules or descriptions; rulebooks, settings, or adventures? Do you just want RPG books or are you also interested in novels that are part of D&D history? Some general favorites: - for roleplaying in general, Play Unsafe is about using improv...

I really like the fact that D&D has an inexhaustible history: playing it is like being a DJ with almost forty years' worth of record crates. I do think that the deeper you delve into the crates, the richer your play becomes because you can sample lots of grooves that are both awesome in...

I love the passages from the early days where Gygax, Arneson, Bledsaw, Hargreaves, et al. seem to be speaking from experience: we've been playing for a bunch of years and here's what we've observed taking place. By 1979 when he wrote that, Gygax had been running the Greyhawk campaign (and...

Thanks for the perspective! I'd read many of the original Dungeon Alphabet posts at Society of Torch, Rope, and Pole and really liked them, so the idea of collecting them in a book with some other stuff seemed like pure win - interesting that that other stuff winds up overshadowing the original...

I haven't picked it up yet, but that contradicts the impression I have from the Grognardia review: "The book presents us with 26 entries -- one for each letter of the alphabet -- each of which is ostensibly connected to some topic pertaining to dungeons, such as altars, doors, oozes, or traps...