Najahiri's Hole in the Ground

I often wonder how in a TTRPG one could transpose some of the mechanics usually associated to dungeon exploration to social investigation. After all, navigating a dungeon, avoiding traps and fighting monsters might be reimagined as investigating a case, figuring out who is lying and extracting information in a conversation. Following this line of thought, it can be interesting to rethink random encounters in a social framework. Ultimately random encounters are a way to spice the exploration, and the more connected to the story/world the scene is set in, the better. As a starting point, I thought I would produce a list of 20 possible Random Social Disruptions  to give an idea of what I mean. This can serve as a starting point for a Referee to build their own list or use it as is. How to make it work : if a conversation seems to go long (according to Referee's judgement), roll a d6. On a 6, roll on the table below and interpret and use the disruption into the ongoing conversation. Re...

I like to look at numbers and (despite my colorblindness) at colorful graphs. As an excuse for doing that, I decided to look at how leveling up worked in Dungeons and Dragons in older editions. My secondary goal is to simplify class conversion between older editions of DnD, but to achieve this, I first need to understand their core mechanics. Join me as we explore this process! Introduction When the necessity of telling stories of heroes who would become more powerful with time emerged, DnD's designers (like many others before and after them) decided to encode this growth through a level system . As your character perform actions, they gain a metacurrency called experience , and accumulating more of it increases their level. The higher the level, the stronger the character. While the rate of experience gain per level could be constant, if stories focus on characters becoming increasingly powerful over time, it's natural for the experience required between levels to grow progr...