Blog: The Alexandrian

The Alexandrian is a blog about RPGs in general, with a focus on D&D, no specific edition. The posts tend to be on the long  theoretical side. Many methods I used in practice without thinking much about them, I learned more about from this. Among them

• A core princple of smart prep: don't duplicate improvisation. Don't waste your time to flesh out things you can add-lib on the spot, Don't plot lines how play could develop. All Gygax needed was a map and a one page key of monsters and treasure, from which he also drew random encounters. This is essentially what I mean by description economy. Focus on what will be hard to improvise.  Published adventures, that fill out all the improv in writing add nothing of value, and are harder to run as you have no time to read all that. Take inspiration from film and literature and make it up on the spot. 
• His observations about pacing the game.
• His the Art of the Key series, that explores map keys in depth.
• For running the game, to focus on pacing and to enrich random encounters with context.
• For detective adventure design, the three-clue-rule: anything you want the players to discover, provide multiple ways to learn about it, or they will miss it.
• His Hidden Toolbox article has great advise on using rumor lists.
• For dungeon design, using loops and alternatives, based on the famous post by Melan about adventure structures. (I really learned this from blogs, my own designs were often linear).
• For adventure design, Don't prep plots, prep encounters. This I learned long ago from the excellent Middle-Earth role playing modules, a great example is Phantom of the Northern Marches: no predefined plots, instead locations and inhabitants with their relationships and goals. A lot of rich, exploratory play developed from that sparse material.