Alphastream

The Alphastream Game Design Blog

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

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, part 3: Abstract 4E

We break established design patterns to have a strong story-rich wilderness travel skill challenge feel and two abstract combats – including one with an army unit!

October 10, 2015

Breaking Patterns, Part 2

When a combat is dissatisfyingly easy, we drop in a ferocious custom-built sand drake! Download the monster for your game. Episode 8 of my Dark Sun campaign, Crown of Sorrow.

October 10, 2015

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

Tavern Trouble and Taking Risks

What if we create a Dark Sun bar fight, where every PC can discover special tavern-related “powers” they can use? These kinds of experiments can really help us grow as DMs.

October 9, 2015 · 2 Comments

Integrating PC Backstory

A player-driven campaign really takes off when we encourage the players to collaborate on backstories that tie them to the setting.

October 7, 2015 · 1 Comment

Hexploring the Possibilities

SRM has a cool idea on giving players a hand in overland exploration, turning random encounters into a neat new system of Hexploration. Let’s experiment and apply it to Dark Sun!

October 7, 2015

Dark Sun Campaign Development: Storyboarding and Arcs

One of the ways we can make our campaign feel like a cool movie or TV show is to employ the same storyboarding and story arc techniques.

October 2, 2015

Bone, Wood, Stone, and Obsidian – Fighting in Athas

From the materials used to the differences in construction to paying with clay pieces, Athas has a unique flavor when it comes to weapons.

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

Support This Site

Become a patron at Patreon!

Support this Site

Mastodon

Follow me on

Mastodon logo Mastodon

BlueSky

Follow me on

BlueSky logo BlueSky

Privacy Policy