Browsing Archive: February, 2019

Elbow Room

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Thursday, February 28, 2019, In : RPGWriterTips 
Here's a short piece of advice that's good to keep in mind: monsters need room to move. Even novice adventure writers know that you can't fit 12 orcs into a 10 foot-by-10 foot room. But with a dizzying array of monsters, most of which are presented with only a single standalone image in a bestiary or monster manual, it's easy to overlook how BIG many monsters are. A purple worm may seem like a good underground threat, but it's so big it can't fit in many tight subterranean tunnels and really ...
Continue reading ...
 

How Long is Your Adventure?

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, In : RPGWriterTips 
My brother wrote a book. It's here, and it's really good. But this blog post isn't about shilling my brother's book; it's about being intentional about adventure length. When Robert was writing his book, he started with the seed of his story, but then he took a hard look at how long he wanted to take to tell the story. Final page count was something he had his eye on early in his process, and that struck me as similar to RPG adventure writing.

That's not to say you should focus on page count s...
Continue reading ...
 

Strange Weather We're Having

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Monday, February 25, 2019, In : RPGWriterTips 
You might have heard that we in the Pacific Northwest have been buried under a surprising amount of snow. That got me thinking about how most RPG adventures assume good weather (or at least no weather of note), but the reality is we sometimes experience downright bad weather. That's something to keep in mind during your adventures, whether you're running them or writing them. From a narrative perspective, weather can often help set the mood.

Now, most games have some weather-related rules in t...
Continue reading ...
 

Horseshoe Calamity Reviewed!

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, February 22, 2019, In : Work with Other Publishers 
My adventure for Legendary Games, The Horseshoe Calamity, just received a four-star review from epic reviewer Endzeitgeist. Check it out right here.
Continue reading ...
 

Words to Kill

Posted by Ron Lundeen on Friday, February 1, 2019, In : RPGWriterTips 
Let's talk about words to avoid in your game writing (and, as a bonus near the end, what not to kill). These words and phrases generally produce weaker writing, so doing a find-and-replace for them prior to turning in a project makes the whole thing stronger. It also cuts a surprising number of words, if you find yourself over wordcount.

Will. This is the big one! RPGs should be written in the present tense, not the future tense. You don't say "The ogre will smash the first PC to walk into her...

Continue reading ...
 
« Back to posts
 

About Me


I'm Ron Lundeen, game designer for Wizards of the Coast. Before that, I worked as a development manager for Paizo, Inc. and as an RPG freelancer. I've recently had products in print for Paizo, Wizards of the Coast, Petersen Games, and Ulisses Spiele. My opinions here are my own and do not reflect those of Wizards of the Coast.

Blog Archive



 

Make a free website with Yola