The site’s changed name. Welcome to the Source of Entropy! 🎉 There’s still few images and no logo, but I’d rather get content right first. It’s good for a couple of reasons:

1. Entropy is used for getting good random numbers in computers
2. Random numbers are good for playing games like RPGs
3. Doesn’t show up on Google already (other search engines available)
4. I’m a source of entropy as I don’t tidy up to my wife’s standards

I wanted something a better more memorable than a nickname I only use on half the social networks around.

One of the rumours about Quake level design is that id Software required all levels to be impossible to write in Doom. Leverage your USP, right? That Unique Selling Point was the game being properly 3D and allowing multiple things to exist in the third dimension. Doom was basically 2D with a height map.

Vertical space isn’t something I think about at all for dungeon design, I’d literally do “a level” or “a room” at a time! So, how can I learn from Quake and make more interesting levels?

Worth noting, a lot of this isn’t unique to Quake, before someone says “platforms existed before Quake”.

Vertical space in Quake

I can’t remember how to reach the Quad Damage in Gloom Keep any more

• Pretty architecture - Gloom Keep is a lovely castle you see on arrival
• Falls - no guardrail is a bit of a hazard
• Height differences can be barriers
  • Chasms you need to cross
  • Platforms that are narrow/move
• Scrags hiding above you in EVERY DAMN NEW ROOM ARCANE DIMENSIONS 😡
• Stairs
• Elevators
• Slipgates

OK the last two are more set-piece/flavour things.

I want to make rooms more memorable in SGCP as at the moment I’m describing “YoU Are iN a pREttY/UGly roOM” and I want to do better. One thing is to add more stuff than just hostiles. There’s already rules in the game for generating those.

I thought about the hazards I’ve encountered in Quake, both in a few hours of playing it here in good old 1985 2020, and also my memories of playing it in the 90s. Turns out it didn’t take very long at all.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing Artefact, by Mousehole Press. I wrote some words about it already. In case I didn’t mention before, it’s pretty. Admire how pretty it is, again.

Technically, one should play it in one or two sessions and think solemn thoughts as you meditate on being left behind. I didn’t do that. The game has setup (which I did wrong) and three acts, and I did those all on separate days.

Some useful feedback from OSR Pit later, and I want to remember what I want to put in an AAR. I might not write that much for each bullet-point, but I think it’s worth covering it all. The last point about the lesson is my reason for writing these, but if I don’t include the context, then I can’t be sure it’s the right lesson. What did I play? How long for?

Updated: October 2022.

This is a post I’m going to write and re-write. It will never be finished, as, if nothing else, when it gets too long, no player will want to answer all the questions and then it’ll be useless.

It’s also aimed at myself, and is not intended to replace any other sources, such as:

• RPG Safety Toolkit
• Monte Cook’s Consent in Gaming

©️ John Stavropoulos

Fundamentally, most of the “How do I resolve this problem in my group?” questions from GMs on /r/rpg come down to (IMO):

My player(s) want to play a game like X and I want to play a game like Y

Finally, FINALLY, ran Tomb of the Serpent Kings. It is rightly held up as a great intro dungeon, for teaching lessons (in a good way) about some OSR concepts to beginner players. We’re talking here about combat-as-war rather than combat-as-sport, and the general idea of “don’t assume your GM is keeping you alive”.

The players I ran this for wanted to play in Fifth Edition, and as I’d chosen the RPG for our last game, I used a free conversion pamphlet.

Spoilers below.

Obviously Slipgate Chokepoint has me thinking about Quake quite a lot. I’ve ripped the NIN soundtrack off my original Quake 1 CD that I bought for the Amiga 1200 that I owned. Fun fact, it could run Quake at about 9-20fps depending on the mod I loaded. I’ve installed a bunch of different Quake engines, and hi-res texture packs, then thrown them all out again, for something updated but unmodified.

And I’ve been having a load of fun. These are my musings on how and why I was having fun.

So a recap, if you take an enemy in Slipgate Chokepoint to a high enough -HP when you kill it, you have performed a Gib. Like in the FPSes it is based upon, you get a benefit if you gib an enemy, here that benefit is to immediately perform a second attack with Advantage.

The rules mandate that the GM describes the gib as exquisitely as possible. NO PRESSURE THERE THEN 😬.

Tried the example ‘Frayed Domain’ adventure again with the same two friends.

Changes:

• Halved the number of enemies per encounter
• Theatre-of-the-mind combat
• No roll20
• Quake soundtrack playing through Groovy 🤘