Matthew D. Ryan's Blog, page 2

Three of My Fantasy Books Discounted on Smashwords

Just an FYI – the following three fantasy books of mine are on discount only on the Smashwords site, until Friday, May 17th. The needed coupons are listed on the corresponding book pages.

Drasmyr: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/131156  (Free)

The Children of Lubrochius: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/415779 ($0.99) 

Prism: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/693400 (Free)

Enjoy the read!

Transitioning from 2nd Edition D&D to 5th Edition (Part I)

Introduction

I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons for around forty years or so. I remember back in the  early 80’s playing with my friends. I remember the first set of “dragon dice” I ever saw, being fascinated by the green 8-sided die. Back then, there was Dungeons and Dragons consisting entirely of three boxed sets: Basic, something set in the wilderness, and, of course, the Expert Set and Master Set. I didn’t play the original version of D&D much, but kind of skipped along to Advanced Du...

What To Replace Fiends With?

Regardless of what you are worldbuilding, whether it’s for a novel or an RPG game, you often need an end-stage villain like a Fiend (demons, devils, or what-have-you). But as I’ve mentioned in prior posts, you might want to shy away from using “real-life” Fiends. You might want to avoid using “entities” that can be traced back to real world religions like Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, or whatever.

Why?

Why Should You Replace Fiends?

There is a slew of reasons involved with, for lack ...

Silver Weapons

Anyone who’s watched a werewolf movie has probably heard of silver bullets. According to werewolf lore, werewolves can only be killed with a silver bullet.

D & D, and many other fantasy games, novels and worlds, expand on that concept. It is commonly held that werewolves can be harmed by silver weapons as well as, perhaps, magical and supernatural effects – spells, other special creatures, etc… Of course, the first step D & D takes is the expansion of the concept of a were-creature.

Let’s ...

GM Tips: Dealing with the Unexpected from Your Players

Anyone who has been GMing for any length of time understands how difficult it can be to predict the actions of your players.

This is a problem in campaigns that take place in vast complicated worlds where the options before the PCs is nearly limitless. Of course, “problem” might not be the right word. It is, rather, a feature that must be accounted for. Typically, players don’t like games where they are compelled by the GM on a particular course of action regardless of how they feel.

That’...

2 GM Tips for Wilderness Encounters

Here’s a couple quick tips for GMs when running adventures in the wilderness.

I’ll start with my own experience. Back in the day, when I was first learning how to play RPGs and GM for them as well, I had a little difficulty getting the hang of wilderness adventures. Why? Primarily, because the first types of adventures I went on were all simple dungeon adventures.

Plus, I tend to have a very structured, inflexible mind/perspective. This made it difficult to “go with the flow.”

Wildernes...

8 Important Traits of Vampires

Vampires are one of my favorite creatures of myth and legend. I’m not sure exactly why.

 I, by far, prefer the traditional sinister quasi-demonic type of vampire over the more modern “romantic” vampires of Twilight or even the brooding vampires of Anne Rice’s works. Regardless, the vampire as a powerful evil undead is a far better fit for fantasy RPG’s like D & D and such.

I wrote a book about a vampire called “Drasmyr” with a fantasy setting. But that’s just a shameless plug. Let’s get in...

Using Fiends as Monsters in Fantasy RPGs

I mentioned in a previous post that back in the 1990’s Tipper Gore got all bent out of shape because  D&D used demons and devils as types of monsters. At the time, I dismissed her concerns. Nowadays, some 25ish years later, I think she may have had a legitimate concern.

In the intervening years, D & D has developed a significant body of information about the demons and devils it uses. Devils have talismans, and demons have amulets. Players that get a hold of such things, bathe them in blood, ...

2 Real World Elements Needed In Fantasy Worldbuilding: Influences from Earth, and Morality

Ugh. When was the last time I posted here? What? Like two years ago almost now. Well, let’s at least wrap up my series of posts on general topics and ideas for fantasy worldbuilding in novels and RPG games.

Today, I’m going to discuss the relationship between fantasy worlds and the “real” world. In other words, how much is a fantasy world like the real world and vice versa. These days, I like to tell myself that we don’t live in a “D & D world.”

Let me explain.

Influences from Earth...

3 Essential Elements for Fantasy Worldbuilding: Institutions, Nations, and Monsters

It’s time for another post on fantasy worldbuilding in both novels and pen and paper RPG games. Nothing too earth-shattering just me rambling as I always do.

In my last post, we discussed several topics and ideas most often incorporated in the fantasy worldbuilding of novels and pen and paper RPG games. As noted in that post, many of the ideas involved are shared, but many also differ in subtle, nuanced ways.

As before we will discuss three general topics subdividing each one into separate...