A Sense of Doubt blog post #4131 - SoD Reprint of 1073 from 2018 - The Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons

A Sense of Doubt blog post #4131 - SoD Reprint of 1073 from 2018 - The Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons

Seemed like a timely reprint as tonight is Dungeons and Dragons night!

Thanks for tuning in.

LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.

BLOG VACATION #1 - 2026 - Taking a blog vacation for a couple of weeks, until at least June 26th, 2026. Mostly reprints. A few simple shares (not that simple shares are out of the norm) and THAT ONE THING. Need time for other things.

The link to the original post I am reprinting below:

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1073 - Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons

Of all the Dungeons & Dragons quests out there, finding a copy of "Palace of the Silver Princess" may be the hardest.

 

GETTY IMAGES

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1073 - Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons

Hi Mom,

Working to catch up on the blog, which seems to be a constant theme.

I want to get caught up and get ahead and start putting time into entries with more original content.

But goals are not always met.

In other news, I have considered ending the daily production of the Hey Mom feature at three years total, on July 6th 2018, which will get me to about entry 1095. It seems a shame to stop short of 1100, but then, I am considering retiring Hey Mom from daily production but not stopping daily production. Also, I am considering featuring Hey Mom at least once a week (Throwback Thursday) possibly twice a week.

I haven't made any decisions yet.

Meanwhile, this article caught my eye, and since my posts about Dungeons and Dragons tend to get more views, here you go. :-)


https://www.wired.com/story/racy-dandd-module-oral-history/

• IM MCLAUCHLIN
• CULTURE
• 06.12.18
• 04:17 PM

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE RACY MODULE THAT ALMOST RUINED D&D

By Jim MCLAUCHLIN

AN EPIC DUNGEONS & Dragons campaign, any player will tell you, can take many hours. It’s not just a few rolls of the dice. Yet there is one D&D quest that’s more difficult than even the most fiendish homebrew game run by the most sadistic dungeon master: Finding an original copy of the module known as "Palace of the Silver Princess."

"Palace" wasn’t your typical pre-packed, ready-to-play D&D module. It had dragons, sure, but it also featured an illustration of a woman tied up by her own hair—not too family-friendly, especially considering that the vaguely erotic image came at a time when parent company TSR was trying to get the role-playing game out of hobby shops and into big toy stores. The module was yanked almost immediately, doomed to become a piece of fabled D&D lore.

"Palace of the Silver Princess" began its life in 1980. Back then, the RPG was on the ascent, becoming the new hip thing on college campuses. It was also starting to attract the attention of religious groups and worried moms who painted D&D as a literal tool of the devil. So even as the game was on the rise, life at TSR headquarters in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin was plagued with fears that moral outrage could end the good times at any moment.

And so, to ensure Dungeon Module B3 never became the spark that started that blaze, it was scrapped. Now that D&D is once again cool, we asked some TSR veterans to recount the story of what really happened with "Palace of the Silver Princess." Like all good adventures, the story involves sex, blood, and thievery. And a backhoe.

The Beginning

What became the “Palace of the Silver Princess” started as a project created by writer Jean Wells in 1980.

Kevin Hendryx, TSR game developer and designer, 1980-81:In essence, the philosophy of management [at that time] was that it was better to have anything to sell today than something of higher quality later, because the market was so hot and the demand so great that TSR was losing money by any delays. So crank out that product and damn the torpedoes.

That sort of outlook in TSR’s flush days was the poison that caused problems like a B3 module, and got up the nose of the product development people.

Lawrence Schick, TSR game developer and designer, 1979-81: Upper management regarded employees as second- or third-class citizens. They were obnoxious to work for. They were in another building uptown; we were downtown. Off by ourselves, it was a fun place to work. But management was high-handed, and not much interested in feedback that contradicted what they had in mind.

Kevin Hendryx: We had a very us-against-them attitude. As much as we were hot-headed little snots and not always the most professional, management was not the most professional either. Most of them were new to being in positions like that. They tended to treat it like a game, like we were just non-player characters being moved around the board.

They were warned. But management did not take these things seriously until the ["Palace of the Silver Princess"] module had been printed and somebody at the other office actually looked at it and flew into a fury.

Why the warnings and strong reaction? The original B3 module featured "The Illusion of the Decapus," a S&M-styled illustration showing a woman bound by her own hair and tortured by nine demonic-looking characters. And in a time when the "Satanic Panic" was gaining momentum, claiming that D&D was a gateway to devil worship, the image posed a very real threat to the company's bottom line.

The illustration that caused all the fuss: "The Illusion of the Decapus."

 

TSR

Kevin Hendryx: They didn’t want anything that could be seen as or interpreted as in bad taste. They didn’t want anything that could be held up on a TV screen with someone saying, "Parents of America! Look at what your children are reading and playing!" An illustration like that was not going to fly.

The second problem? The original "Palace of the Silver Princess" had a full-page illustration the higher-ups couldn’t figure out at all. Management knew they were likenesses, and they thought they were being made fun of, but they weren’t sure.

Lawrence Schick: They were caricatures of people in development, not management. There were a lot of in-jokes in there. And if you aren’t "in" on the in-jokes, it can be easily misinterpreted. So it's perilous to do that sort of thing. If you didn't know who the caricatures were of, you might guess, and you might guess wrong.

Kevin Hendryx: The illustration alluded to recent terminations and employee unrest. Upper management was very sensitive about mutiny in the ranks at the time and took all these perceived slurs or snoot-cockings as an insult and a challenge.

The third problem? The module was navel-gazing pseudo-porn.

Bill Willingham, TSR artist, 1980-81: I was first to read the damn thing, and I was just shocked at how ridiculous it was. It was clearly the private fantasies of the author [Jean Wells, who died in 2012]. The Silver Princess character was also her persona in the Society of Creative Anachronism—a hauntingly lovely woman who destroyed hearts. I called it to the art director's attention, and we went upstairs to editorial and Lawrence Schick. And at some point Lawrence, being the head of creative, called over to the business side and said, "Are you sure we want to do this?" And someone from the business side essentially said, "Hey, my wife plays mahjong with her, and she’ll give me shit if we don’t let her do her module. Just publish it. Don’t give us any more crap about this."

Kevin Hendryx: Some of the people thought it was too suggestive. There was a lot of subliminal, Freudian-level erotica in there.

Bill Willingham: I used to call it "Phallus of the Silver Princess." It was unprintable. It was badly written.

Stephen Sullivan, TSR editor and artist, 1980-84: Jean kind of straddled two camps. She was a good friend of mine, and very friendly with most of the designers. But she was also kind of part of management, and she was a good friend of [D&D co-creator] Gary Gygax’s. So when Jean sent this through, it came through with the same edict as Gary’s modules, which was, "Don't touch this language."

So when this thing came through, and the development people wanted to edit it, Jean went to Gary and said—and I know I’m going to make this sound more harsh than it actually was—"They’re changing my stuff, tell them not to do it." And Gary reminded us all that we were not to change the designers’ word or intent in the work. We were just to proof it, do the production line, get it done. The artists didn’t want to work on it; it was so bad.

Kevin Hendryx: Most of us asked for our names to be taken off of it. That’s why you don’t see my name in the credits.

Bill Willingham: I quit TSR halfway through it. Someone else finished my illustrations.

Rolling the Dice

Ultimately, B3 was printed. It was given an orange cover and copies were distributed to the staff. Then chaos set in.

Lawrence Schick: There were some text passages that were deemed problematic. There was a tone to many of the illustrations, [staff artist] Erol Otus' in particular, that were darkly humorous in a way that management didn’t like. But they would have overlooked that if it wasn’t for that one illustration with bondage overtones. D&D was under attack by religious conservatives at the time, and TSR thought that releasing the original B3 would be just throwing red meat to the mad dogs.

Kevin Hendryx: My vague memory is that the module came out late in the week, management caught wind of it over the weekend, and by Monday, they were recalling it. They were seizing the warehouse copies and grabbing the undistributed stock. It happened very, very fast. One day they were handing out our office copies, and one day we were told that supervisors were collecting copies, telling people to turn theirs in. Most of us, having got a whiff of what was going on, were busy squirreling ours away.

The land rush was on. D&D was aboil in the zeitgeist, and everyone knew the "banned" module would be a collectors’ item. Editorial staff members hid their single copies, and rumors persist to this day that management liberated cases at a time. The print run was ordered destroyed.

Stephen Sullivan: I don’t know how many were printed. My guess is between 5,000 and 10,000. I do know someone—who I’m not going to name now—that had direct knowledge of what was going on. The person I talked to said, and I quote, "The modules were buried at the Lake Geneva landfill along with all the rest of Lake Geneva's trash. This I know for sure." And I know that they made sure that someone was standing there, watching them get buried, and that person was [late TSR handyman] Dan Matheson. Now whether they had to hire another backhoe other than the usual one that would have been there at the landfill, I don’t know. That’s been a persistent rumor for a long time.

Kevin Hendryx: I find it funny that management was so concerned about anyone filching copies of B3 that they had employees like Dan—who was a big, imposing bear of a fellow, burly and bearded—riding shotgun on the garbage dump. But I don’t think there was a sacrificial pit with glyphs of warding put over it. It was more mundane than that.

The Great Quest

The module was totally rewritten, and four offending pieces of art were replaced. A new version of "Palace of the Silver Princess" was printed, this time with a green cover, in 1981.

By 1984, copies of the original, orange-covered version started sneaking out, selling at auction for as much as $300. By the 2000s, copies were trading for $1,000-$3,000. A YouTube video references a Jean Wells-signed copy that sold for $5,860. Soon fans were starting quests to find more of the modules.

Stephen Sullivan: The rumor was that they buried them behind the [management] building out on Sheridan Springs Road. And this person who I’ve spoken to, who has more direct knowledge of their fate, says that they were definitely buried in the landfill along with all the other garbage.

Mark Finn, author of Chance of a Lifetime: I was a hardcore Dungeons & Dragons player back in the 1980s. When Bill [Willingham] was in Austin, we started a weekly meetup group for fiction writers. One day, when telling TSR stories, Bill said, "I'll tell you about the worst module we ever had to deal with," and … I didn’t even remember "Palace of the Silver Princess." But he launched into this whole thing, a backhoe, burying pallets of the module. The story bounced around in my head like a pachinko ball. For a brief moment, I thought, "We should go there! Dig ’em up! We should totally do this!" Ultimately, I chickened out. But I wrote the book.

You know, those are shrink-wrapped. I’ll bet they’re still there!

Stephen Sullivan: I suppose you could excavate the Lake Geneva landfill, like an archaeological dig. I suppose you could try.

TSR has largely made peace with its "Palace" past. The official D&D website even briefly had a full version of the original module you could download. And time provides perspective.

Lawrence Schick: I think that the reaction to the module is more interesting than the module itself. The actual content of it is only mildly eccentric by current standards. It’s more a matter of what a light it shines on the management reaction at the time, and the "Satanic Panic." It’s like Bigfoot, except the first edition of this module actually exists. It can be seen.

Kevin Hendryx: Too much of this gaming history is liable to be lost if journalists weren't recording at least a little of it. Thanks.

Mark Finn: It’s very inside baseball. You have to know what this is to go looking for it. That said, I’ve had more than one person give me some iteration of this story: "Hey, I heard about this crazy module they had to destroy. You know anything about that?" I love this piece of gaming history. Nice that you're giving it a folklorist's treatment.

Bill Willingham: I call shenanigans. You call this an oral history. But you’re writing this down. This is an oral history in the sense that foothills are made of feet, or that a tiger shark is part tiger, part shark. Come to think of it, that could be a cool D&D creature.

Upper management at TSR couldn't figure out if they
were being made fun by this illustration.

 

TSR

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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
- Days ago = 1075 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1806.13 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2606.09 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3995 days ago & DAD = 649 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3747 - Dungeons and Dragons - Greyhawk Back in Play and Scheduling Rules Hack

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3747 - Dungeons and Dragons - Greyhawk Back in Play and Scheduling Rules Hack

I originally discovered Greyhawk in the 1979 supplement to the original white box, three-volume set of D&D rules.

Seeing this article as I researched whether to buy the 2024 D&D books of expanded 5e rules, I was happy to see Greyhawk back in the mix.

I also bought the map and campaign setting release.

But then there were a lot of years that I did not play regularly enough or at all, and when I did play, I was playing a campaign with a friend based on 2e rules and no need for too many extras.

I love all the books and supplements because I love things. He does not.

Anyway, I decided I wanted to share this article her on the blog when I was researching, and then I saw Kieron Gillen's scheduling rules hack and decided to do a double feature.

Also, playing D&D online with friends tonight, so this post is timely.

Thanks for tuning in.

GREYHAWK

https://www.cbr.com/dnd-5e-dmg-greyhawk-world-setting/

By 

John Curtin

Published Mar 11, 2025

D&D 5e's 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is the perfect stop for a game master preparing for everything from their next game to a big new next campaign. Loaded with charts, tables, and advice for everyone from the greenest newbie to the most grizzled grognard, the 2024 DMG has tools, tips, and tricks for DMs regardless of their skill level. After a section on making homebrew campaigns, the 2024 edition details the Greyhawk setting, one of the original settings created by Gary Gygax in the infancy of D&D.

Greyhawk is a storied world setting, home to some of the most famous names in the world's most popular roleplaying game. It has also featured as the location for many D&D's most popular adventures over the years, like Tomb of Horrors and Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Using the campaign in the DMG as inspiration or setting for home games lets DMs draw from some of the most established lore in the game, ensuring they will always have plenty of opportunity for adventure around their own tables.

Greyhawk's History Within D&D Makes It Nostalgic, But What Is It?

Greyhawk Is A City, A Castle, And The Generic Setting Name

The Free City Of Greyhawk is a central trade city in the Flanaess, a tumultuous land of fallen empires and rival kingdoms plagued by bandits, monsters, and villains. The city of Greyhawk is a political powerhouse in the area; its high concentration of adventurers and learned individuals make the bustling city a nexus for knowledge and power. The nearby Castle Greyhawk was once the seat of power during the reign of the Mad Archmage, but has since become a ruined maze of danger and opportunity.

As if the two Greyhawks weren't enough, the overall region near Greyhawk is often just abbreviated to Greyhawk when talking about the game setting published by TSR and then Wizards of the Coast. Castle Greyhawk was the first dungeon Gary Gygax made to test the rules and gameplay of Dungeons and Dragons, but the campagin soon expanded to him detailing the Free City of Greyhawk. Eventually, the politics and the history of the region were detailed in the 1980s World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting. Today, dozens of different D&D adventures, books, and articles across the different editions of Dungeons and Dragons have added to or updated the world of Greyhawk.

What The Dungeon Master's Guide Has To Say About Greyhawk

This Robust Setting Is A Thoroughly-Populated World For Players To Explore

The Dungeon Master's Guide gives both a high-level overview of the world of Greyhawk and a close-up detailed view of the city of Greyhawk. The book defines some of the important geographic terms and establishes the tone of Greyhawk, a land of dangerous threats and powerful secrets. It then immediately begins detailing the biggest threats in the region: evil dragons influenced by the evil dragon god Tiamat; the evil demons, planar lords and elder gods who make up the multifarious villains of the Elemental Evil; and the demigod Iuz the Evil who covets powerful artifacts after escaping from captivity beneath Castle Greyhawk. Each of these threats gets a description of their overarching villainous goals and a sketch of a story arc, including adventures already set in Greyhawk or that can be easily translated to the setting.

After Greyhawk's conflicts, the Dungeon Master's Guide details the cultures and world that players can find on the planet Oerth. The calendar is detailed with fictional names for the months and the days of the week, plus festival events for players to experience. This level of verisimilitude lets DMs really dial up the immersion for their players. One of the most interesting sections for players and DMs alike is the section on Factions and Organizations that call Greyhawk and the surrounding countries home. Groups like the Knights of the Watch, the Order of the Hart, and the Scarlet Order provide potential allies and enemies for any campaign and deliver plenty of adventure hooks for a session sidequest or a longer campaign chapter. Sections further describe the cultural effect of magic in the Greyhawk area, the gods of Greyhawk's pantheon, and mysteries that define the region of Eastern Oerik where Greyhawk is located.

The City Of Greyhawk Is A Perfect Campaign Base

Its Central Location Geographically And Politically Makes It An Intriguing Setting

The Free City Of Greyhawk makes for a perfect setting for any average DnD campaign. Its blend of fantastic magic and tense politics lends it to multiple styles of gameplay. Adventurers can follow rumors and legends out to ruins in the near distance, while schemers can rub elbows with the varied factions and influential NPCs that populate this lush setting. An established history of warfare, monsters, and cults means that there's a battle around every corner. The city is additionally the local hub of information and commerce, meaning that many of the adventuring parties and power brokers of the region pass through the city for intelligence, supplies, and equipment.

Greyhawk's role as a hub city means that it will make sense at some point for a campaign to visit and likely settle there. The party may find themselves looking for powerful magicians to consult with, drawn into the morass of urban politics, or in the market for a bastion to call their own. Greyhawk was designed to be a one-stop shop for player needs and an urban playground for DMs to explore during player downtime.

Greyhawk's Details Are Made To Inspire Stories

A Variety Of Detailed Locations Await DMs

The most valuable part of the Greyhawk setting found in the DMG is the detailed gazetteer describing the neighborhoods and prominent locations of the city of Greyhawk. The location descriptions are full of flavorful NPCs, background hooks to draw players into the fabric of the city, and concrete reasons to visit each location. By giving DMs fleshed-out locations to draw from, they can seamlessly stitch their own labrynthine plots and stories into the existing history and politics of Greyhawk, creating the illusion of a living, breathing world for their players.

Whether players are seeking divine intervention from one of Greyhawk's temples, researching in the Great Library, or find themselves with pressing business in the Grand Citadel's dungeons, DMs can flip to a description and have some idea of who might be there and what might be going on, saving them time and creative energy for other parts of their game. As players move further from the city center, GMs get less and less descriptive and rules support for the surrounding locales. The Dungeon Master's Guide provides area maps to guide players to new and interesting locations for dozens of miles around the city, with mapped nearby locations getting a quick description to inspire the creation of relevant adventures.

The final section details the furthest corners of the continent, giving a brief political history before giving broad regional guides. Each of the five regions includes a table of lightly-sketched locations, details on events and culture that permeate the region, and a number of adventure ideas that are suitable for the given region. Many of the adventure ideas even come with references to pre-published adventures that are or could be set in the location, giving DMs with little prep time a great resource to find adventures closely tied to D&D's official lore and canon.

Greyhawk Easily Fits Into Any Game

Greyhawk's Flexible Setting Is the Default D&D Setting

While certainly not the only Dungeons and Dragons setting, the fabled mines and mountains of Greyhawk are home to many of the published adventures that have released over the last five decades. Nearly all the sample adventures in Chapter 4 of the DMG can be set in the Greyhawk region, and Quests from the Infinite Staircase and Tales From The Yawning Portal both have adventures set in Greyhawk. Thanks to Wizards of the Coast's expansive and colliding multiverse, adventurers don't need to start on the same plane of existence as Greyhawk - they can still find their way there through magic portals or through the machinations of one of DnD's powerful plane-hopping magic users.

Depending on the story a DM wants to tell with their players, they can freely start a campaign in Greyhawk proper, or use one of the DMG's adventure examples to start the players in the surrounding countryside. Then, when players come to the Free City Of Greyhawk to sell their treasure and follow up on leads, the city maps from the Dungeon Master's Guides and the descriptions in City Locations can turn a shopping trip into a whole session's worth of exploring the details and the dangers of the city.

Later, when players are high level and traveling to far-flung locations befitting their legendary status, Greyhawk can become both a home base and a resource. The high-powered spellcasters of the Circle Of Eight, the archmages of the Great Library, and the archpriest of The Temple Of The Radiant Dawn all provide high-powered magic casters to consult and learn from. Greyhawk is also well-suited to player bastions, having ample real estate and resources for fledgling adventurers to begin creating a home base.

As players leave the familiar fields around Greyhawk behind, the Greyhawk guide serves as inspiration and suggestion for further adventure. Using the broad strokes presented in brief location or adventure descriptions, DMs can design adventures and characters tailored to each region's overarching tropes and make the world feel differentiated and alive. Drawing from Greyhawk's ample documented history and speaking authoritatively about the mad archmage Zagig or the customs of Old Keoland will help players feel like they're exploring an ancient land of wonder.

Greyhawk Is Perfect For Players Who Want To Explore D&D's History

The Setting Lets Players Rub Elbows With Some Of D&D's Original Characters

When Gary Gygax began testing rules in a ruined castle named Greyhawk, he had no idea of the looming success of Dungeons and Dragons. The setting contains multiple references to the original campaign that explored Castle Greyhawk and the City of Greyhawk; powerful wizard Mordenkainen is named after one of Gygax's player characters, and his companions in the Circle of Eight are named after assorted characters from the original home game who became legends in the game world. Even the wizard Zagig, who built Castle Greyhawk, is a respelling of Xagyg - Gygax's name backwards.

Much of the history of Greyhawk is based on the original exploits of the first players, and many of its dungeons and adventures were first published in older editions. Now, with books like Quests From The Infinite Staircase and Tales From The Yawning Portal updating some of DnD's earliest adventures, players can experience the early game world as fans did at the game's creation in the 1970's.

Playing in the world of Greyhawk is Dungeons and Dragons as it was originally envisioned - mighty heroes changing the fate of a strange and wondrous fantasy world through feats of power and acts of will. The iconic DnD setting continues to thrive in its latest iteration and promises to entertain players for many years to come with its rich lore and expansive world.

Dungeons and Dragons

A fantasy roleplaying tabletop game designed for adventure-seekers, the original incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons was created by Gary Gygax in 1974.

Franchise

Dungeons & Dragons

Original Release Date

January 26, 1974

Publisher

Wizards of the Coast, TSR Inc.

Designer

E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson

Player Count

4-8 Players Recommended

Age Recommendation

12+

scheduling

https://oldmenrunningtheworld.com/where-i-solve-the-scheduling-problem-in-dungeons-dragons/

Where I Solve The Scheduling Problem In Dungeons & Dragons

Written by

Kieron Gillen

in

advice

I was recently in a pub, talking to a friend about their collapsed game of Dungeons & Dragons. I was somewhat frustrated by their tale of woe – perhaps the most common tale of woe. I imagined all these decades of people wasting time, just waiting for that one player to be free on Friday.

I decided to solve their problem by writing a patch for the 2024 edition of the D&D Players handbook.

Here’s a PDF to download.

Print it out and slide it in after Page 8.

This is probably overkill, but it breaks my heart, and made me laugh. You can’t resist yourself sometimes. It is actively strange that RPG folks write rules about everything, but have avoided giving actual advice on basic play culture ideas. Generations after generations of players, falling into this particular trap. No more, I say.

Go! Print out! Stick it in manuals worldwide. This can be a better world, or at least one where people go down dungeons and fight kobolds more often.

It may work on other RPGs too.

I wanted to include it on the page, but I ran out of space, but a recent episode of Fear of a Black Dragon discussed this topic at length. If you want further inspiration, you can listen here. The segment starts 19 minutes in.

Thanks to this homebrew toolset which made the homage easy. It’s genuinely astounding work. Also, thanks to Stephanie Hans for letting me use her art from DIE RPG.

Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen lives in Bath, for a certain value of the word “lives”.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2505.22 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3612 days ago & DAD = 267 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.