I haven’t posted for a while, but rest assured I have been busy on D&D stuff that I think you’ll like.
I’m a lead developer on enworld’s upcoming Level Up RPG, which is a crunchy version of 5e written with the benefit of 7 years with the system, written by a huge cast of talented designers.
and, what’s really been keeping me busy, I’m the lead writer on Level Up’s bestiary, the Monstrous Menagerie.
The core game book and the bestiary are launching next year, and right now I’m knee deep in monsters.
What will the bestiary look like? Imagine a fully-compatible reboot of the Monster Manual with the math fixed a la monster manual on a business card; with added tactical options for monsters; with hundreds of new variant monsters, including a lot more high-level opponents; with an expanded NPC section; and with lots of encounter prompts built into each monster – combat tactics, example monster groups and treasure for parties of different levels, name lists, tables of random behaviors and environments; and new encounter-construction guidelines that are easier to use and provide a more consistent challenge than the official ones. I’m getting my complete wishlist of what I want in a bestiary. And it’ll be released under the SRD, so you’ll be able to play with it and expand it however you want.
A couple of example monsters have been posted over at enworld, including this ancient green dragon.
I’m proud of how it’s coming out and I can’t wait to finish writing it so I can get my hands on a copy and start using it!
With all that monster construction taking up every second of free time, I’m delayed on some new toys that I’ve been meaning to get you. RSN I plan to get you folks the following:
-Within days or weeks: Version 1 of the long-promised Blog of Holding improved treasure tables! (I’m also doing the treasure tables for Level Up, so you can expect equally mathematically rigorous treasure tables in the Level Up core book next year.)
-Within weeks: another distributor of the Dungeon Generator poster! With Inktale gone, I’m looking for another service with high enough print quality to do justice to all those tiny little details.
And finally – I haven’t looked into how to get old flash games working. If someone figures it out, let me know and I’ll post the instructions so we can continue to play Dungeon Robber.
I’ve been looking at Ruffle as a flash substitute. https://ruffle.rs/ The Dungeon Robber works, sort of! The text falls off the end of the page and there’s no easy to scroll, so it’s not functional as is, but it might be a place to start. Love Dungeon Robber, and I LOVE the Dungeon Generator poster hanging on my wall
Also, love what you’ve been posting on 5eU, I’ll be backing on KS for sure!
This looks great! I love how much detail there is. I think the encounter table could be more interesting, though. Imagine: “Ogre searching for its lost pet artificer” is way more evocative than “1 ogre + 1d4 goblins”. The encounters can help inform the nature of the creatures you are dealing with.
Plus one for ruffle.rs, I opened the comments just to post similar findings, i.e. that it’s buggy. The funny thing about finding treasure with Ruffle is that when you find something, e.g. 5 copper pieces, it’s no integer, but rather 5.0000000000001 coins.
One way to make it so people can play Dungeon Robber again is to just make the swf file downloadable and we can download it and play it on a standalone flash player.
Whatever happens I really wish I could play this again. It was a very fun time waster and I just remember it after a couple years and had a big itch to play it again.
Definitely interested in a post-Flash Dungeon Robber port! 😀
Allan.
Can’t wait for the new treasure tables!
Following
I’ll be honest, the anticipation for the treasure tables has me clawing at the walls. “I NEED IT MAN!”
seriously though good work on the monsters, was pleasantly surprised to see you working on level up, been following that one with enthusiasm for a while
Paul—
WRT the flash DungeonRobber game, the old Aliens flash game (a fabulous recreation of the Leading Edge game from the 1980s) can be played using the NewGrounds.com player—perhaps that’s a way to make DR available again?
Allan.
I would love Dungeon Robber as a mobile app. Even if it cost money.