Planet Thirteen Games.
Welcome to Planet Thirteen Games, the home of the games of Tony Dowler.
How to Host a Dungeon
For the Love of Dungeons
Principia: Secret Wars of the Renaissance RPG(under development)
Sea of Stars(past projects)
Attacks of Opportunity Blog
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Sexy Deadly is now Available
Last month Joe MacDonald recruited me to do art for a
game design challenge on Story Games. Sexy Deadly is the result. The game
is now available for purchase at the amazing price of just one buck!
Sexy Deadly is about devastatingly powerful women. Women whose power threatens to destroy them at the same time that it offers to bring them close together. It was born out of a love for movies in which these assassins would walk a tightrope between being human and being something else. Some of the source material did a much better job of this than others, assuredly, but the question seemed to surface repeatedly: how powerful can a person get while remaining a person?Labels: sexy deadly
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Simulationist Play and Hosting a Dungeon
I've never been a theory hound. In Forge Terminology 101, I always get a C+. But lately I've been investigating what's called simulationist play, and I ran across this great quotation in
Ron Edwards' essay on simulation:
Another derivation of the Purist for System approach brings the Setting creation process directly into play itself. The System-driven elements of the Setting are as "active" as any particular character might be, during play as well as during preparation. Basically, the setting is played, even created, as a part of regular play.
Boink! I just realized that the original Traveller, or at least one way to play it, represents an example of this approach. Star system and planet creation are written right into the process of play, such that adventures and missions become not only a means of enjoying and improving characters, but also a means of enjoying and basically mapping the game-space.
That's a wonderful summary of what I was thinking behind How to Host a Dungeon. It's a sorely neglected kind of play, IMHO, at best relegated to a "preparation phase" before the "serious play" starts, at worst ignored.
Labels: how to host a dungeon, theory
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Maps are Palimpsests
In case it wasn't obvious. I'm a huge map geek. This post about
Eastern European electoral politics caught my eye. Apparently Polish voters still fall into regional categories according to borders of the old German Empire. That's pretty wild. It's as though a map of old Europe were still lurking down there under the current one. It bears a similarity to a certain dungeon game I'm fond of.
Labels: how to host a dungeon, maps
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Dungeon Majesty
I just want to say that
this pretty nearly sums up what D&D is to me. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Labels: dungeons and dragons
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Wrack and Ruin and Sundry
It's been a good year for maps.
For the Love of Dungeons has been very well received. It's pretty cool to see people buying and using my maps (and downloading the free sample too).
I don't have time for a longer post (the family is in town for Thanksgiving preparations), but here's a sneak peak of what's next. For the Love of Islands is almost ready to be handed off to Ben for the layout. These maps actually preceded For the Love of Dungeons. The first few were made for a game of
In a Wicked Age, but then I got sidetracked (productively) by a Basic D&D game that inspired the dungeon book. These are also going to be used for a
Reign game I hope to play in on an intermittent basis.
After this I have a few private commissions to work on, plus the ongoing
Principia playtest.
Labels: For the love of islands
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For the Love of Dungeons
For the Love of Dungeons has been published! For the Love of Dungeons is a book of 12 hand-drawn dungeon maps suitable for any dungeon crawl RPG. The maps evocative annotations that can be used to help spark encounters, making this a great book for rapidly improvising a dungeon adventure. Each map has an individual theme. I had a great time making them, and I hope people enjoy playing them.
Labels: for the love of dungeons
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HTHAD on Board Game Geek
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