Lawful Evil isn’t stupid. I’ve run a lot of villains who were smart, but I’ve also let “lawful evil” drift into cartoon territory. Iron-fisted tyrant. Obsessed cult leader. Someone the party can just stab and walk away from. But the truth is, a real lawful evil force plays the long game. It doesn’t waste resources. It bends the rules without breaking them. It thrives because people let it.
| Colorized? |
I saw this and thought about how often this spell gets ignored. Most players use it to see in the dark. Boring. I want it to feel dangerous. I want it to make someone pay.
They do not fight to the death. Most things should not.
You roll morale after the first losses. Not at the end. Not when it is obvious. Early. That timing matters. One creature drops. Maybe two. Now you check.
So AD&D was never built around the idea that every fight should be balanced, fair and "level appropriate". This is one of the biggest, I guess shocks for modern players when they come to the table to play AD&D 1e. You could enter a dungeon, turn a corner, run into a monster that is more powerful then you and get your ass handed to you as you finally realize running was a better choice rather then rushing in like a superhero. The correct answer is in most cases is learn how to run and come back later with a better plan.
How mean are White Dragons? That's what this episode is about. We're looking at the dragon itself, what makes it nasty, and how you can use one in your campaign without treating it like a big white lizard with wings.
One month ago I said goodbye to the channel. Since then, I received emails, messages, and a lot of support asking me to come back.
So I heard you.
Last week, I visited the comic book store to pick up my regular comics. While chatting with the staff member behind the counter, he recommended that I take a look at the new Justice League Unlimited series, saying how it was just like the old cartoon of the same name. Interested in it at that point so I decided to give it a shot.
Rumble channel you say?
Why yes I have one! Its located here:
The Evil Dungeon Master on Rumble
As you may or may not know, I recently found out why my YouTube channel was not being shown around or to folks, even those with the bell icon turned on. YouTube told me that a flood of people marked my channel as spam, and it's been that way for a long time. It’s hurt the algorithm for me, and YouTube support said they can remove the flag, but it would be like as if I was a channel with little to no subscribers before the algorithm saw me as a viable channel. The age of the channel is another factor; I opened it in 2013ish and did a few videos, let it sit dormant until 2017, did a few videos, and let it sit.
In 2018, I started doing videos full time after work, and I grew the channel. Then the flood of people came into play, and it killed the channel. So I ditched it and made it into a podcast channel for my podcast, the Black Notebook & Roll High or Die's actual plays.
But then I remembered I had a Rumble channel that I was updating all along... so why not continue videos over there? Rumble doesn't give a crap if a bunch of people flag the channel; they are all about free speech as long as it's not inciting violence, which I don't do. So expect to see me over there!
Over time, I released some new classes and ideas on my Patreon and through Drivethrurpg.
Today, I released a zine I hope to produce monthly, which will give GMs some ideas for their campaigns. It’s a small zine that was created by me with no AI. No AI art at all as well. I used icons from Games-Icons.net only. The simple front cover was designed in Photoshop and then in Canva. I have no real funds to hire an artist, and when I used AI, people complained. I could easily add AI art to help, but it’s probably just going to annoy people. So until I can afford to pay artists, it’s just going to be a simple zine to fit the simple old-school RPG I created.
My Patreon is filled with ideas and giveaways from anything to AD&D, M&P, to Palladium fantasy.
Links:
Well, I'm back.
I started here on Blogger many, many years ago, and it feels funny to say because I've spent so much time trying to get away from Blogger because of what it kept changing into. And Blogger does have its advantages and has a lot of disadvantages, but overall, I think I enjoy the ease of the environment of Blogger.