Alphastream

The Alphastream Game Design Blog

Ambitious (Dark Sun) Adventure Design

My favorite adventures are bold and innovative. We look at how to take risks, using an Ashes of Athas adventure as an example.

October 22, 2020 · Leave a comment

Critical Role and Bringing Emotional Investment to Campaigns

Critical Role, the acclaimed and influential livestream series, showcases how a campaign can create emotional invested players. Find out how to create emotionally rich play in your campaign.

November 16, 2017 · 1 Comment

Ashes of Athas: The Development Process

The development process can help identify and resolve an adventure’s weakest points.

October 20, 2015

Ashes of Athas: Where to Begin

Find out how Ashes of Athas designed its first adventure, and the start of its campaign, with a bang!
Use these techniques for your campaign!

October 20, 2015 · 2 Comments

Ashes of Athas – Looking Back on the Dark Sun Organized Play Campaign

The secrets of Ashes of Athas, the Dark Sun organized play campaign, are shared with Mike Shea and with the Misdirected Mark podcast. Find out how Chad Brown, Derek Guder, and I lost so much sleep.

October 20, 2015 · 1 Comment

From OD&D to Playtesting New Editions… and Back Again

When I can’t tell my gaming group that I secretly playtested the upcoming version of D&D, I do the next best thing: I run them through the editions, starting with the grandaddy OD&D. The result blows our minds.

October 12, 2015 · 1 Comment

Gen Con Report Part 2: Why I Love Gen Con

Step back in time to the amazing events at Gen Con 2011 and the reasons why I come back every year.

October 11, 2015

Adventure Hacking in Dark Sun

Where we mash-up Aliens and Thunderspire Labyrinth to create a fantastic Dark Sun adventure – or was it only in our minds?

October 11, 2015 · 1 Comment

Breaking Patterns in Encounter Design

We can work really hard at creating great adventures and yet still not escape the patterns of conventional adventure design. Here is how we break the mold.

October 9, 2015 · 1 Comment

Changing Adventure and Encounter Design

Rob Schwalb reexamines the dungeon – a way to redefine dungeons and encounters to create a greater marriage of story, exploration, and combat.

October 2, 2015

Warming up for Dark Sun

This post serves as an index to all of my Dark Sun posts.

October 2, 2015 · 3 Comments

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