Ghri Ziffe

Attacking the Whole of the Character SheetDecember 9, 2025
Designing an Adventure Site (part 2)Designing an Adventure Site (part 2)December 5, 2025
Designing an Adventure Site (part 1)Designing an Adventure Site (part 1)November 1, 2025
Adventure TypesAugust 14, 2025
[MEGAPOST] Underwater Adventures[MEGAPOST] Underwater AdventuresAugust 13, 2025
What does the platonic AD&D campaign look like?What does the platonic AD&D campaign look like?September 25, 2025
Ghri Ziffe - The World's Finest RPG Blog (+ Orcs)Ghri Ziffe – The World's Finest RPG Blog (+ Orcs)August 7, 2025

adventure site adventure types campaigns comments custom monsters dm notes dungeon-design encounter-design encounter design fun megaposts monsters new monsters orcs plants tricks underwater

Attacking the Whole of the Character Sheet

This blog post is mainly about the effects of tricks – the place were you can really get creative when designing adventures. Of course, traps, monster attacks, environmental effects and the like can do the same, but to a more limited extent. Tricks can cause anything to happen, although they have their tropes. Animate statues, magic pools, teleporters etc… But the one thing tricks do best is hitting players in places they aren’t defending. Here is a, by no means comprehensive, list of game constructs that tricks can target with examples in italics: All of this creates interesting decisions for…

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Designing an Adventure Site (part 2)

I think I should win first place… maybe second place as well. And third. The second in a series of posts about designing an adventure site for the ASC3, run at the end of every year by the fantastic Coldlight Press. In this part I outline adding meat to the site. On detailing the rooms I don’t have too much to say about the detailing of the various buildings of my site, a faux-Roman camp. But at least I have an italicised intro now: In the borderland between the rural farm communities that cluster around any city and the wild…

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Designing an Adventure Site (part 1)

The first in a series of post about designing an adventure site for the ASC3, run at the end of every year by the fantastic Coldlight Press. In this part I outline the areas of the site. On Coming Up With an Idea There’s not much to say about this part. I was thinking of making an adventure set in a garden of some kind, perhaps against some evil druids. I also wrote up an adventure in a manor house a couple of months ago, although it is almost double the length of the ASC3 maximums. I might publish it…

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[DM NOTES] An Overview of the World

Near lands: The Kingdom of Raglan. Based on Germany. The capital is the City of Raglan. The home territory of my campaign. They worship Greek gods, with a single deity operating as a ‘patron’ for cities and towns. Zeus is renamed to Mitra and Set replaces Hades. Cults of Northern gods exist in small numbers. Arm themselves with lances, axes, pikes, picks and swords. The Kingdom of Karsk. A region that worships Melnibonean deities as well as Western and Eastern religion. The capital is Arras in the East. Based on France. Armed with bows, javelins, glaives, guisarmes and longswords. The…

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What does the platonic AD&D campaign look like?

What does the perfect campaign look like? Well the campaign must be a long term one to be truly successful. And truly long term, not just a CAG long-term (CAG, and even the OSR has not been around long enough). A life-long pursuit of 40+ years. Rules as written AD&D, with occasional minor diversions when necessary. The players are all deeply invested in both the emerging game narrative as well as the social dynamic of the table. Players are motivated both by the motivation of enjoyment and the technical motivation of the system (gp, levelling up, gaining non-numerical advantages such…

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Adventures in Maziran’s Garden

On the Use of Plants Plants and plant-based scenarios (e.g: the grounds of a castle, the tiered gardens of a ziggurat, the greenhouse of a mad wizard) are rife with possibility. In the Appendix A of the DMG, there are several different stock room types that make up the whole of a dungeon: the empty room, the monster, the monster with treasure, the trick, the trap, the special, the treasure. A plant can be empty: a nice-to- look-at flower, a snaking vine, a squat shrub. Completely un-interesting and banal. Of course there’s a plant in a garden. Plants exist in…

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Orcs IV: Custom Monsters

Work on the Ziggurat is going well. So far i’ve drafted up the actual ziggurat, but not the dungeon level underneath. Play-testing in a few months. Art by Gene Weigel. On The Introduction of New Monsters As I mentioned in a previous post… …you should consider including monsters of your own design into your dungeons. Someone I admire who does this well is Gene Weigel. Numerous foes litter their blog posts. Strange horses. New types of Trolls. The weird and wacky, as well as the sensical. All of it has the feeling of grandeur, as if it is a testament…

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How do I stock a dungeon?

Taking a break from reviewing Necropolis. I’m about a third of the way through. Just a simple post this time. On My Method for Stocking a Dungeon [] is for things I sometimes do, mainly if I want a more cohesive environment. That’s all for today folks.

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[MEGAPOST] Men on Mercury

If I released a compilation of my best posts, it would contain all of them. And you know I hate the NZP… My assistance robot hands me another banana, berry and peanut butter smoothie. I wipe the blood from my lip and pull a stolen Mars Bar from my pocket. It’s slightly melted. Nevermind. Time for a new blog post! Note: this is the domain of high level players! The extreme heat and cold require the use of spells and magic items. This is why only high level monsters and monster tables are used. Levels 10 and over! On Adventures…

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[MEGAPOST] African Adventures

I feel like I am blazing through post after post. Time to slow things down a touch. After this one, no more posts for a month. I’m working on a module: GZ1: Temple of Pazuzu. On African Adventures D&D is prone to only touching upon Europe. How boring! Dragons, Orcs, Goblins… all day long? No way! Time to mix things up. In my mega-dungeon, a portal exists, in the lair of some mighty Giants: to far off Africa (although I must admit it was only to Egypt initially – but now I have put my pyramid-land closer to the players).…

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[FUN] AD&D… in the late 21st Century?

I don’t know. On What I am Talking About Gary Gygax is famous for his strange and inventive megadungeon sub-levels. PCs might be strolling down a dungeon corridor, pick up a cursed scroll and be whisked off to a level of the Starship Warden, Boot Hill, Gamma World or a land of Oriental Adventures. But what about modern times? We certainly don’t have any Dragons, Aliens, Cowboys or Ninjas to fight! We do however have trains, fast cars, machine guns, explosives and nuclear weapons. The average citizen (of America) doesn’t have a +2 Sword, but they might have a +2…

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Adventure Types

If the OSR was a religion, then I would be God. That is all, thank you. On the different types of adventures Something a bit lighter on the palate today. Here is a list of adventure types that one might encounter in an AD&D campaign (note that many examples do not force a specific mode of play, but are simply most popularly played in the way I describe): Dungeon adventures Outdoor adventures Social adventures Okay thats it I can sleep now.

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[MEGAPOST] Underwater Adventures

A flip of a lever. The slamming of buttons. I look to consult anew the nav-system of my Beta-class submersible, bright green and black on my computer screen. We skim across the ocean floor, the metallic body of the craft silent and lightning-quick. Again, I check my map. I turn on manual steering and activate my shields and twin machine guns. The computer informs me I am 500 meters away. The entrance of an ancient, underwater cave. I glide to a stop. Equipping my breathing mask and Vorpal Sword, I stride from the craft. That Blog Roll will be mine,…

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[FUN] Orcs III: A 20th level Orc lair

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhgggggggggggg Hahahahahahahahahaha imagine being THE BEST BLOG ABOUT RPGS OUT AT THE MOMENT and not even getting any COMMENTS ON MY POSTS SUBRSCRIBE TO ME YOU IMBICILES I WORK HARD ON THESE AND THEY DIDNT EVEN PUT ME ON THE BLOG ROLL!!!!!!!!! Anyway I’ll probably get onto that goshdarned Roll with my next Tome of Wisdom, about underwater adventuring. I put alot of time into that one because it’s a topic that isn’t covered often BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TOO STUPID TO EVEN KNOW YOU CAN HAVE A DUNGEON THAT ISN’T SOME STUPID 1d6+6 GOBLINS IN A HOLE WITH A PIT…

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Orcs II

And… send. Words of immense wisdom shoot across the internet. In less than a second every man, woman and child across the galaxy, from the fens of Qua to the bleached delta-space of Æ Alpha Omega Beta Alpha IV. Silence. My egg shaped assistance robot trundles past, a tray of virgin Pina Coladas attached to his rotund body. Whiiiiiiiiirrrrrr… In the distance: a single trumpet sounds. And then a mighty roar from all corners of the CAGosphere! Revelling in the streets! Fireworks! Prince buys a better camera and shuts up for once about how “sublime” and “quixotic” the newest trash…

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Ghri Ziffe – The World’s Finest RPG Blog (+ Orcs)

The last 10th edition Dungeons and Dragons player, the ignoble Z’istopher Jerkins, lies before me. I let out a roar, my Rod of Smiting dealing (d8+3) x 3 damage and splitting his head open. “You were right all along! AD&D is the best system for publishing Dungeons and Dragons adventures!” Ejaculated Jerkins, tears of liquified trillion dollar notes gushing from his insectoid eyes. “I will not profane the world any longer!” He takes up a copy of the classic module ‘Quaint Tea-time in Marshmallow Forest’ and severs his throat with the razor blades concealed in it’s bright-pink jacket. “Long live…

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