EldritchRusk

Adam is fully immersed      What is Immersive Sims? First, some clarifications! What is immersive sims? Immersive simulations is a term used about a certain category of video games. Games like Deus Ex, Dishonoured, Prey, System Shock and Thief all fall under this category. This Game Maker's Toolkit video gives an excellent overview of the genre, and its connection to rpgs. Immersive sims and roleplaying games have a lot in common. Most immersive sims are based on the same principles found in rpgs: Give the player(s) options and tools to explore and solve problems. Don’t force them down a single path, but give them a wide array of options and see what happens. This is a pretty common way of DMing (at least for the DM’s I know). However, what I really want to focus on in this post is the level design of immersive sims, because I think that DM's can learn a lot from them. Why are immersive sim level design so interesting? Well, mainly because it has to facilitate a lot of d...

A checklist for creating dungeons in exciting locations This post was inspired this blogpost. I wanted to create a more generalized and high-level guide. So this is it. Here we go! What and where First, take some notes about what and where : Where is it placed? In a mountain, under water, under a castle, in an old forest What was it before? A temple, a tomb, a wizard's workshop, a prison Who lives here now? The main inhabitants. Goblins, wolves, bandits, a witch, nobody How many rooms are there? Around 5 is a good start. Are there more floors? Why should anyone travel there? Treasure? Knowledge? The entrance to something larger? Revenge? Does somebody there need help? Drawing Now is a good time to start sketching the dungeon map. I recommend you find a notepad. Flip to an clear double page. Draw the map on the left page, and write notes on the right page. That way you have everything in view when running the game. To the left you see some sample icons to illustrate different ...