"The molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets...so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion"- page 32

Consider a lever, and a trap! 

You want the trap to trigger, so badly, because it opens into a pit that contains Macguffin that allows the game to progress in a way you have decided is dramatic.  

There is a lever nearby. The lever is your force. It allows the Dungeon Master to portray the illusion of free will. No matter what they do, the trap will trigger.

• If they pull the lever, it will trigger the trap

• If they ignore the lever, it was the way to disarm the trap

• Explaining the consequences of action
• Letting the players know about the effects of their choices
• Reminding the player of what they might have forgotten, so that their expectations are rational
• Not shutting them down by saying no, but instead letting them know what to do to achieve their intention
• Giving them warning of dangers ahead of time

A farm boy is actually the son of the galactic emperors second in command and he ends up not only destroying their impenetrable fortress by shooting it with his eyes closed, but also learns to fight with lazer swords and is responsible for convincing his father to slay the emperor who can shoot lightning from his fingers. He's a member of a secret group of psychic ninjas.

Ok, so the world is actually a computer simulation and in the real world people fly around in squid-like ships and avoid evil robots while in the computer a messiah can fly around and fight like superman against evil programming code. Also, for some reason, humans are batteries and have to produce more energy then they consume.

I think the reason some people hate it is the silly elements, which are not overbearing or constant. Giff, the hippo men, are hilarious but have you ever seen an angry hippo? They are terrifying. 

by Jennell Jaquays

1. Assault/Raid
1. Fortress
2. Town
3. Ship
4. Ambush
5. Skirmish
2. Extraction (Voluntary/Involuntary)
1. Jail
2. Prison camp
3. Private prison
4. Prisoner of war
5. From empolyment (corporation/crown)
6. Natural Disaster
7. From hostile forces
1. Tower
2. Dungeon
3. Jail
4. Camp
5. Building
3. Theft
1. Caravan
2. Individual
3. Building
4. Hijacking
5. Kidnapping
6. Piracy (Tranfer of goods between vehicles)
7. Salvage
4. Bounty
1. Monster
2. Individual
3. Posse
4. Pest-Control
5. Hunting (Safari-style)
6. Hunting (Commerial gain)
1. Any of the above may be Dead or Alive
5. Escort
1. Caravan
1. Commercial
2. Pilgrimage
2. Animal (Cattle)
3. Object/Transport
4. Message/Parcel
5. Personnel
6. Smuggling
1. Goods
2. Weapons
3. People/Items
6. Coup d'etat
7. Duel/Contest
1. Sport
2. Weapons
3. One vs. One
4. Team vs. Team
5. Tournament+
6. Brawl
8. Assassination
9. Sabotage
1. Arson
2. Destruction
3. Planting evidence
1. Forgery
10. Exploration
1. Area
1. Mapping
2. Trailblazing
2. Spying
1. Armies
2. Governments
3. Populations
11. Mysteries
1. Murder
2. Disappearance
3. Riddle/Puzzle
12. Skill (Cooking/Leatherworking, etc.)
1. Labor (Farmhand, General Labor)
2. White Collar (Appraiser, Scribe)
3. Black Market (Forger, Lockpicker)
4. Service (Armor Tester, Waiter, Usher, Etc.)

• Subterranean - Digs through soft rock, sometimes called dirt.
• Saber-toothed
• Rather wild - slightly left of wild, right of haggard
• Invisible -  but only when no one is looking
• Sylvan
• Jungle
• Miniature
• Armor-plated
• Yellow Musk
• Ethereal - also, translucent skin!
• Carnivorous flying
• Two-headed lernaean bombardier
• Tow-faced lagan
• Fire-breathing, phaseing, doppleganging
• Great horned 
• Abominable
• Tyrannohamsterus rex
• and the Space Hamster of Ill-omen.

• They are the remnants of childhood imaginary friends long forgotten

• Deep in the deepest depths of deep deep space is the sorcerous space station of Peng. There, the sorcerous sorcerer of Peng has performed many countless uncounted innumerable experiments for years uncounting, seeking to perfect the perfect titanic battle creature with which he can wreak his revenge against the universe. A universe that cast him as a lunatic, a madman!
• He is, without doubt, a gifted master of the mastery of genetic splicing. However, he suffers from a scarcity of subjects save for his pet hamsters. With their many offspring (and siblings), he works feverishly to perfect his creatures.
• He is also, without doubt, a hapless idiot when it comes to security. And so, many of his creations escape from Peng and somehow end up scattered across the universe. 
• The goal of the program was to develop a breed of Giant Space Hamster that could infiltrate enemy positions and operate individually behind the lines. The program was headed by an overly obsessed G-gnome operative. 
• The program was a complete failure, until, in a horrible accident, the G-gnome heading the program was transformed in a horrible accident into a Giant Space Hamster herself. During her operative period, she took the code name "Nebula". While she herself was a very successful hamster agent, her refusal to mate with "natural" giant space hamsters meant the program ended with her. 

• They are the imaginary friends of an infant godling!
• Every time a rules lawyer makes a GM cry, a different space hamster is born!
• The evil summoner Farfegnu was attempting to summon the horrible Hgythracolabartphamat from the depths of a demon hell dimension when he was interrupted by the escape of his young daughter from her succubus nurse. Instead of summoning Hgythracolabartphamat, Farfegnu reached into the pink bedroom of Alexandra Tuppin who had just dressed Twinkles, her pet hamster,  in a tiny pink princess hat with a flowing diaphanous ribbon. 
• Twinkles was ripped from Earth and appeared in Farfegnu's Seclusion where to everyone's droll surprise mammals from Earth are 25 times the size of local mammals. While Farfegnu was horrified by the cute giant, his daughter was not and the girl and giant hamster lived in happiness for many years. Until a party of adventures invaded the seclusion slaughtering everything in its path except Twinkles, who, having drunk a concoction of broken potions was able to fly off into space in search of his home world dressed in a dainty pink hat.
• A space wizard did it
• It started as a harmless business venture, custom pets, that got a little out of hand.
• Ok. A lot out of hand
• The rare Intelligent Giant Space Hamster Breed, an ancient race of religious star-faring traders wait for the day that Cuddles, the Chosen Hamster of blood will lead them to the land of endless pellets

• Crystal spheres are actually hamster balls. Notorious escape artists, some hamsters escape them, then drift in the void looking to eat, mate, and poop. Their poop, by the way, provides a fantastic hull for a cigar-shaped inter-stellar vessel.
• Space Hamsters are the degenerate remnants of the oldest, most important interstellar race. Having constructed the transportation hamster tunnels we know as the wormhole network, they traveled to many worlds to spread the squeaking joy of their own religion. After a catastrophic religious war (clockwise hamster wheel rotation vs. counterclockwise), only the mightiest (or most overlooked) hamster heroes were left, made nearly immortal by their fluffy sciences. Their mental faculties proved not quite so resilient, so after many millennia, all that was left was the animalistic Giant Space Hamsters of today.
• Normally, stellar radiation has unpredictable and dangerous effects on living tissue. For unknown reasons, it always has the same effects on hamsters: rapid growth, increased intelligence, and eventual development of psionic ability

"Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!!!" -Minsc to his Miniature Giant Space Hamster Boo.

• A world made of a translucent golden substance with the remnants of an entire insect civilization inside
• A planet identical to Oreth, down to the political situation and rulers, shopkeepers and prominent figures, except the dominate race is thri-kreen. Bigby the Archbug
• Rildar, A world with an undead pseudo-babylonian empire seeks to eliminate the last vestiges of life and greenery found in a hidden mountain valley defended by pagan barbarians. Their skeletal armies and gargantuan demon-gods chained to rolling ziggurats are commanded by the spiderlace priestesses

• A sphere containing a lone deity, the sole victor of a god war. It sits alone, pensively and internally debating the idea of recreating life on the currently bare planet
• Palais, vice planet.  It's single round continent is covered in vivid red visitation contrasts with its planet wide green ocean, giving it the appearance of a cocktail olive from space. The ocean is the source of the powerful soporifics and spirits that are distilled on Palais. Paloma Blanca, the capital, is home to an unending debauched festival for the benefit of dissipated hedonists, scheming diabolists and decadent fae creatures. Palais's gleaming spires, thriving hospitality industry and interstellar narcotics trafficking is supported by the white fist, it's army of alabaster constructs, each a uncannily positive face on a flawless, sculpted, humanoid physique. 

• A sphere filled with crystal sphere eggs, dominated by Nuhurrinu the Crystal Dragon, a force older than the universe. She slumbers nearly endlessly, which is why it is possible to escape with your life. All creatures tend the sphere eggs until it is time to take them out in the gossamer jammers and sow them afar. . .
• The sphere is thick with tumbling asteroids, what terrible cause created such a place? What wealth is to be found on the endless asteroids?
• A gas giant is filled with gentle gliding winged creatures that generate energy not by eating, but from differential currents created by their hundred foot wings. 

• A sphere or planet filled with turning, whirling, wheels, springs, cogs, widgets, sprockets, pistons, and mechanisms, filled with inhabitants that are the information stream the machine processes. The players intrusion and the data anomalies it represents may destroy thousands of the sentient entities living in the slow-time mechanical simulation of reality that is the sphere.
• A sphere where all entrances lead to the interior of a world eating giant, filled with refugees lead by a tinker gnome, salvaging resources from remnants of worlds, intent on creating a giant crabjammer to burst through the chest of the giant in a celestial orgy of creative destruction
• A planet spins, for all the world resembling a colossal apple. Perhaps an equally colossal worm lurks under the surface
• A perfect polygonal world, an early attempt by the gods at worldbuilding. Each face different and it is difficult and nauseating to cross from face to face, each side being starkly different to all nearby sides. The inhabitants of each side are all recognizable, but each appears unfinished in some subtle but conspicuous way.

• A ball of molten rock, sporting a ring of pure water. The surface is uninhabitable, but the creatures who live in the ring fear nothing but space whales and geysers of lava from the molten planet. A trading city by dwavens of some measure (mechanical, or perhaps Azer) has been constructed on a large cooled free floating chunk of lava
• A world where all begins anew every 300 days. A human lives for 3, emerging fully grown from their eggs and learning at an incredible rate. But the god-earth inhales in just under a year, and all creation is ended. When he breathes out, all begins anew again. 
• The Gemball is a teal and purple monstrosity of alexandrite that orbits a red giant. It is a voidworld and is covered in craters and rugged canyons. Denizens of the plane of earth find the stone intoxicating and often consume it to their deaths, and poisonous life clings to the lower sheltered walls beneath the surface. The planet is also the base of a gang of harpy pirates, located near the shattered arches

• The tiny moon known as the Dust Sphere was once the center of Agriculture for a forgotton Gith Empire. Their rush to exploit it triggered an ecological nightmare. The topsoil was blown into black clouds that crackled and shed blue lightning. Everyone died and the clouds grew to three times the size of the moon. Recently certain profane necromantic cults have build pearl pyramids amid the upper reaches, disturbing the vengeful djinn within the clouds.
• The Jungle world of Goro is toxic and deadly to all normal life, but it is orbited by the thousand bronze pleasure palaces of Suulo the Efreet. Some are thousand room affairs, and others are little more than a platform with a gazebo and fire garden. 
• A planet that is a honeycomb made of stone, filled with giant space bees. The whole sphere it resides in is self aware and the honeycomb and bees are its brain
• The most vicious criminal empire in the sphere is a group of creatures of elemental fire. Long ago imprisoned in a water prison planet, they escaped by extracting the core of the planet, banishing the water down under a torrent of magma and fire. Now they reshape their paradise of dryness to their pleasure, excepting the rare storms that cause them to take shelter. Their bounty hunters and agents are terrifying elemental stone hybrid monsters that hunt the space ways.

• The crystal shell was cracked and abandoned long ago, and the void leaks in. Voidcasters gather necromantic energy from the emptiness between the crystals. Their slaves endlessly work to seal the sphere, often becoming sucked and trapped against its surface, covered in a miles-long runs of blended slave meat, animated by congress with the void. Those slaves that have escaped rebel, and have a plan to strip the death-meat and use it against their former masters
• Crystal men nurture crystal gardens, farms, and orchards, the vibrational power healing all meat-creatures laced with energy. The independent pacifist sphere remains so by allowing warlords to heal their armies here, by launching a crystal spire against the shell. The secret being that the vibrations heal emotional as well as physical wounds, and once violent warlords now defend the sphere with their life, against an evil, invading, insectile force.

• The sphere of the Mirromancers has been found, their greatest magic allowing entire fleets and worlds to move via the reflections inside spheres. They were destroyed by the gods themselves, but now their world has been found and the interstellar race to decipher their work has begun. Why would the gods oppose such a magic? Does it threaten them? Are we thinking too small?
• The only artificial sphere known is said to be a myth. It can travel along ley lines, along both time and space; the entire sphere is a mechanism with a city in the center. It used to sell timeships, and whoever figured out how the sphere constructed them could do so again. Someone used all the ships ever produced and filled the sphere with creatures of violence and malice of all types, all at once. Now it is a ghost sphere travelling randomly, and it was just seen nearby.
• The planet has a golden insect with gossamer wings. When dried, they are the perfect material for a spellbook page and currently the rage of fashion. This has become so intense that travel to the planet has been blocked as a conference rages over who will manage and who can harvest and profit from the situation. The standard rogues gallery has been attracted by the combination of money and risk, causing a great deal of tension as they all orbit the planet

• The empire's name is lost to time, but the memory of their ability to destroy crystal spheres is not. 18 were vanquished before they were stopped. Now someone claiming to be their last son has arisen and crushed one sphere.
• The paradise sphere was colonized, but turned out too good to be true. It was a garden alright, and the void giants who owned it were quite unhappy to awaken and find it filled with pests. They have now begun their campaign to extinguish the humans, much as humans exterminate mice, using surprise, poison, machines, whatever - so long as they leave.
• The planet is painted black, with a miniature sun burning at its heart. The lowest areas are filled with the most light, homes are lit from beneath. Above is all darkness. 

• Long forgotten to the inhabitants, the planet is a weapons cache. If the peaceful innocent grey skinned people are exposed to the void, they undergo a monstrous transformation. A few can wipe otu a whole fleet, they can crack crystal spheres with their strength, they could become a plague and corrupt the ether. They have no memory of this, but there are those that do. . .
• A disgraced emperor escaped judgement with his empire's wealth. He bought immortality and a sphere and filled it with art. Haunted and paranoid, he filled it with constructs and locked it as best he could. All his time is spent in the pleasure palace and the bored constructs eventually forgot him, forming a society based on the wondrous art they see. They are all controlled via the throne he had exquisitely sculpted for that purpose, when the king of the constructs discovered this and that the throne still exists, he knew the emperor must be slain and the throne destroyed if they were ever to be safe and free. 
• Another construct has a different idea. Perhaps the throne could be used by a construct, to control meat for a change. Moved and installed into a new sphere, it could raise a devastating invasion force. 
• In a time before time, two gods warred, and one lost his head struck from his shoulders, drifting now through infinity. It has gathered dirt and muck, and life has begun upon it. But the head is not so buried that it's shape is not obvious to those who study the geography of it.

• Modify results on any brawling/wrestling table a number of spaces equal to your level
• Receive +2 to hit and damage on any unarmed attack
• Use an improvised weapon to do 1d10 subdual damage or 1d6 physical damage 
• Increase the size of your hit die for the purposes of overbearing attacks.

"Agency is an experiential pleasure. As such, it can fade in and out; it can fail altogether. Agency is not automatic, and so simulated environments should be cleverly constructed to help users/players get there." - Steven Dow (2009)

INFORMATION

"This process of accumulating goals, understanding the world, making a plan and then acting on it, is a powerful means to get the player invested and involved." - Doug Church, Formal Abstract Design Tools 1999

CONFLICT

"[I]n [computer] role-playing games often the best uses of consequence come when they are attached to intentional actions. . .when these tools work together, players are left feeling in control and responsible for whatever happens." -Doug Church, Formal Abstract Design Tools 1999

ILLUSION

ACTIVITY

LIMITATION

Threshold: Issue 1

Check out those Hot and Sexy Demographics on her

Integration

Conclusion

• They lair in small narrow dark places
• They drink blood
• They are about the size of a housecat
• They have leathery bat like wings, a short tail and barbed legs

• They steal genetic material 
• Stirges build bee-like hives, where they store their blood. After time passes, it coagulates into Dark Honey
• They collect diseases, which live in pockets along their proboscis
• They are quite intelligent, often setting up near exits or not bothering heavily equipped and prepared parties, instead seeking out the wounded

  Brian "Glad" Thomas

• They attack with a distinctive buzzing sound that travels quite far. Considering they only take some of their prey's blood, the noise often draws those wishing to scavenge on their leavings
• They aren't parasites, but symbiotic creatures that live on and with underdark horrors like Hook Horrors and Umber Hulks. The sign of a stirge is an indicator of one of these great beasts
• The stirge is not a grown creature, it is in larval form. It collects blood for the coming change, and enters a pupae stage for less than a week. It emerges from its old shell as a combination of the creature and insect like features of the stirge 
• A character can also attempt to dislodge a strige by tensing their muscles. Each round they must succeed on a constitution check. On the third round, the stirge bursts from the blood they have taken in. It is a common game among barbarians
• Goblins are quite fond of adding stirge to stew, the more bloody the better
• They are also popular with the blood drinking undead
• They are often kept as pets or allies, intentionally or unintentionally, by other creatures, attacking a minute or two after the creatures they are allied with do. They often are able to feed and flee this way before any attention is paid to them

• They are the spawn of an insane vampire who desired living servants
• Stirges were once humans who were transformed into these as punishment
• They are viewed as harbringers of war and strife
• Blood drank from a stirge sac can heal the injured. What is less commonly known is that it is also highly addictive
• They can sense mutations and diseases and will avoid those with tainted blood
• Certain types of blood are extremely attractive to stirges and they will favor those targets over all others
• Stirges are lulled to sleep by mournful polyphonic dirges
• They were originally crafted by vampiric wizards to throw hunters of the undead off track
• They were the minions of evil wizards who bred them by the millions and released them against enemy armies arrayed against them. 
• The stirge uses blood to fuel a bizarre alchemical process in its bloated para-abdomen. This process is how the gas it uses to fly is produced
• Stirges are a cross between a leech and a bat and have no relation to insects or mosquitoes
• The stirge is actually completely an insect, what appears to be hair are actually just sensing fibers
• The stirge is a larval form of a Stirgeon, a highly intelligent creature, specializing in the science of blood, hematology. Many underdark denizens consider it superior surgeon to even the Xixchil

• Chirugeons use stirge cages to drain excess humors from patients. Varieties of stirge such as blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm are known
• Blood stirges are the only ones who can fly and are fond of liver
• Phlegm stirges swim, and try to drain the lungs and brains of their victims through the nose
• Yellow Bile stirges propel themselves with jets of burning gasses, and are very quick. They eat as fast as they move, devouring a spleen in 1-5 rounds. This can be fatal
• Black Bile stirges are wormlike and live in earth, soil, and rock, looking to enter bodies through the anus or urethra, then eating the gall bladder. Victims become despondent, sleepless and irritable, but they live
• Stirge eggs are laid in carcasses. They are laid when the stirge feeds
• When a stirge attacks, they attempt to squeeze between the armor and the skin
• Stirges are annoyance made manifest. They will take whatever form of vermin is most suitably annoying
• They are just subterranean hummingbirds and completely harmless. Their abilities and appearance has been exaggerated because they spook adventurers very eaisly when they dart into torchlight, and no one is going to admit once they get back home that they were scared by a tiny harmless bird

• Stirges are technically tiny pterodactyls
• Stirges will continue to feed, even after satiation. They can hold more blood than a man. Much more than that, and their membrane ruptures, leading to sacks of pigs blood as a common tactic against stirges
• Stirges are the key ingredient in Instant Blutwurst, a beloved winter dish of the Dzhungaznian Dwarves of Dheoghnunn
• Stirge eggs pickled in brine are known as stony mountain caviar
• Stirges have three wings and an organic flywheel to assist them in flying, hence their excellent maneuverability
• Stirges are collectivist creatures that serve law, and preferentially target chaotic and individualistic creatures
• Telling people that stirges eat your blood is simply adventurers whitewashing the truth for the townsfolk. They actually have a razor-sharp maw and specialize in eating your face off

• Stirges are sentient assemblages of stringy worms, cooperating for the greater good. They attempt to get ingested to take control of their victims, turning them into reckless adventurers who will get eaten by a dragon. It is in the dragon's duodenum that a stirge matures, laying eggs that hatch into dragon-dung-worms
• Stirges stir subconscious sexist sentiments, seducing silly sirens, sylvans & semi-humans scavenging stony septs.
• Stirges are bio-engineered syringes, given small wings to be at had for the enterprising surgeon. Their progenitors have long since died off, and they have adapted to take the blood of anyone nearby in an attempt to discern their health. Sadly, without the help of an authorized medical representative, all the tests are inconclusive and must be repeated
• Every time a mortal dies from an supremely selfish act, a swarm of stirges is born. Kings of greed spawn dire stirge queens, who brood thousands more
• Jungle goblins use stirge bones in the fruit gruel they feed their children, for crunch and marrow; this is simliar to the method plains goblins feed their children tigre nails in a bowl of rotten goat crud
• Stirges do not drain blood. They don't drain anything. The needle mouth is actually an ovipositor.

• Stirges are magical creatures used to obtain the essence of creatures for use in sympathetic magic. Bat-like stirges exist and seek out hair; this is the source of the old urban legend]
• Stirges are the physical form of malaria-spirit, they infect their targets with a magical disease and then feed on that
• Stir-inges are magical syringes made from stirge ovipositors
• The belief that stirges deposit eggs with their proboscis is wrong, they actually deposit mutagenic sperm, which impregnates the host tissue. This created a 'stirgiform grub' which absorbs genetic information from its host before erupting from the body
• Stirge guano is red and grainy. When dry it hardens into a clay like substance that is flammable and useful as fertilizer
• Corpses drained of all blood are also very flammable. The stirge secretes a substance to maintain the blood pressure in the vascular system to allow it to easily drink. This substance plus the desiccation of the body make fully drained corpses very flammable.  
• When the first demon army came to make war in the marshes, the mosquitoes fed, and were changed.
• Kabraxis, the Demon of Lust, has a thousand detachable members that swap fluids with whole crowds of worshiping cultists during a ceremony. Some of them can't fit back on the demon, as more are constantly growing. Any site with stirge is a site where cultists had congress with their dark master.
• They are aberrant bats that lair in the thousands underground. Their digestive system is extremely efficient, causing them under normal circumstances to only need to feed a small sip. 
• The Psychic Wizards of Marnbayzie got so proficient playing darts they needed to make the game interesting. They created darts that could fly of their own accord, with enough mind to give mentalists another venue for winning. Lazy and stylish, the foppish wizards eventually adapted the darts to fetch them drinks, drawing from the bar and squirting into cups.
• When STDs, madness, mutation, and furious former lovers finished with the order, enough of the stirge survived to spread and become a real problem. Still, a wizard wearing a yellow and silver robe may find that stirge still have enough racial memory to want to fill their cups for them. Better hope wine is handy.

• The first stirge were created when a profoundly powerful wizard used a Power Word originally designed to turn dragon teeth into warriors. Crippled and desperate, the wizard cast it on a still-living dragon, whose needle-sharp teeth tore loose with wads of gum tissue and bone, desperate and insane with agony, stabbing and drinking to assuage the pain they still felt through the sundered nerves.
• The Chupacabra is a ground based large relative of the stirge
• The dragon was immortal, and captured, and its teeth suffer and feed still. If the dragon dies, perhaps all the stirge die too. If the stirge ever proliferate to a certain point, perhaps the dragon will become strong enough to escape and reunite with them.
• A min-maxing wizard character was not content to only throw 3 darts a round, or to be stuck without armor. After decades of casting animating magic on the same darts, eventually they were imbued with the magic. The final step was when the wizard fell into the pool that animated inanimate objects, and the darts came alive.
• "It's not armor," the player protested, strapping cages to chest, back, arms, legs. The cages filled with the now-living darts, who returned to their master. Until the DM had enough and an ogre mage charmed the lot of them and drained the enterprising munchkin dry. Now they are feral.

• Stirge are the carrier pigeons of the Stygian Suburb. Their wings are uniquely suited to carry demonic script, and they are instinctively eager to please demons. Swarms gather in the palaces where the demons hold massive social events like gala balls, feasts, and hunts.
• The strix is a vampiric bird, a cousin of the stirge
• The stirge is the only form a shapeshifting witch can take
• It is the height of fashion for demons and tieflings to have "blood buttons" with a few drops of a friend or enemy's blood in the center; the stirge pecks the button the demon chooses, then homes to that demon with the message.
• They attack sleeping victims without them noticing, for a stirge bite is painless. 
• Kyvash War College is famed for its Biomunitions Chair, funded by the Zephrox Mercenary Guild. One of their more popular sub-projects was sponsored by the neogi, who wanted a way to weaken eggredex beasts (who were immune to poison and mind control) to make them easier to capture and sell to wealthy nobles. The stirge nest was portable, and the blood the stirge took weakened the strange circulatory system of the eggredex beast (who operated on hydraulic principles) so they could be folded and taken quietly. When the eggredex beasts went extinct, the stirge were re-purposed for "scorched earth" campaigns to deter resettling in the dimension wars.

• Stirges are frequently mistaken for vampires based on their method of feeding
• Garlic and holy water infuriate stirges, causing them to fly into a rage and attack until death
• Stirge are actually the attack helicopters of a particularly repugnant brand of sprite. Their fuel is blood. Don't believe it? Twist off the head, and in the chamber between the eyes there is an extraordinarily furious blue person half the size of your pinkie finger. These sprites are on a religious quest to kill nosy people, and they are an off-shoot of the species that manages will-o-wisps remotely with psychic powers. Their rivalry is legendary.
• They do not attack. They simply track prey, waiting. Once a fight begins, they attack everyone, feeding on those that are damaged. As soon as the fight is over, they retreat again, up into the trees, following and waiting again.
• Stirges hunt people by softly calling out their name. This rhythmic chant entrances the victim, putting them into a stupor and making them unaware of their environment. The stirge then has free reign to do what they wish to the victim.
• When the Zerg first came to this world, bats were caught in the creep. Most died. A few survived, but the fast and loose mutagenic properties of the creep tied them to the hive mind and warped them into monsters.
• Sites that have heavy stirge infestations often keep small mammals in cages at the top of poles around town to deter them feeding on humans and to provide target practice to the locals
• The greatest of the vampire necromancers weaponized his blood, so that every drop shed would twirl free, spinning out wings and starvation, and attack on his behalf. He was eventually slain, but his creations thrived and grew large. They are able to breed true; they share the same blood, after all.
• Stirges have rubies for eyes

Stungeon

• The dire strige is the size of an elder pot-bellied pig, has six wings and a blood draining proboscis at either end
• In the warrens of Moloko, they murmur of the hydra stirge created by the mad mage Mulana of Mulenbach
• "I have invented a biomechanical creature based on the stirge, which is attracted to naphta or rock-oil, the raw ingredient required for the activation of the phlogiston in the internal explosion engine. I believe this oil-irge will lead to a time of great plenty and good for all dwarven-kind, freeing us from toil and bringing us a period of peace, plenty and oneness with nature." - Ishtvan Shentdizely of the Blackrock Dwarve Corporation
• They were designed by alchemists at autonomous blood sample collectors, but have since escaped and bred true. The ancient scent lore of the alchemists can still be used to tame and direct the stirges, if they could be discovered and deciphered
• Stirges can't withdraw their proboscises from padded armor and will bloat up like honeypot ants
• Rothe blood is toxic to stirges and they avoid anyone with the musk of the rothe. That is unfortunately true in general
• Stirges originally were fruit eaters, but they were trapped in a cave after an earthquake, opening a path to the underworld. They were forced to adapt to drinking blood to survive. Sadly this trait bred true and almost all the harmless fruit eaters are dead
• Stirges quickly succumb to bad air, like canaries
• Fire-roasted strige is best when served fully bloated, otherwise it's dry and chewy
• Stirges always travel in flocks which are multiples of 8. This is because they are the tips of the tentacles of an ethereal octopus creature, which partially extrudes itself onto our plane to feed. This is why stirges have an out-sized thirst
• Stirges actually prefer red wine over blood.
• Tying stirges together is a favorite goblin pastime.
• A healing stirge is an enchanted bound stirge that injects the stored blood into your body. You have to pierce your skin and squeeze the blood sac to get the blood to inject. This bursts delicate membranes in the stirges head, but heals you 2-16 points of damage
• Bound together stirges are used to play a goblin children's game called Sip-sip. The players run in circles easily avoiding the stirges, but usually crashing into one another and making an easier target for the "Sip-sip"
• Stirge-owls serve the underworld goddess and her minions. Everyone from her gatekeepers to her vampire throne bearers use stirge-owls as messengers and shock troops. Underworld stirges can both be larger than normal and hit creatures only hit with magical weapons.
• Stirge beaks make excellent quill tips for scribing scrolls.
• Stirge eyeballs are heavy and shiny and make good sling bullets.
• Stirges are used by Drawangari doctors to purge bad humours from sick people. A wild stirge bite has a 25% chance of having a Cure disease effect on the victim.
• Stirge enzymes convert blood into a thin, ichor-like fluid and can be used to kill vampires, as they rapidly convert the blood a vampire has ingested into stirgeon juice.
• Some less scrupulous Drawangari doctors reuse stirges rather than dispose of them as per custom. These "recycled stirges" have a 25% (low end) chance of Cure disease and 25% (high end) chance of Cause disease.
• In enlightened Drawangari city states, city authorities have taken to providing single-use neutered, short-lived may-stirges pre-filled with troll blood to Tee addicts.
• Halflings of the Upper Blue Dowager clans of Peenkemoende have taken to using trained carrier stirges to harvest troll blood, which is used by humanoid and elven addicts to get a high and temporary regeneration ( though as the saying goes, "shoot tee and you bee fick ass troll" ).
• Black-and-blue market dealers often mix troll blood with chicken blood to increase their margins, though this generally destroys the regenerative properties. On the market this product is often called chee-tee (cheaty).
• Boiling a stirge that is well fed makes a delicious blood pudding

 "Different people have different tastes and different groups of people respond in different ways, there are good general rules of thumb that work universally."

"He's examining and evaluating something I like! Because I have poor esteem and boundries I think that must mean he's evaluating the core of who I am as a person! I had better go to war to defend myself to let everyone know that what I like is immune to categorization and then I can continue to go around and be in denial that in one hundred years after my death no one will ever remember who I am." - The Internet

Playing to Win?

Role Playing Game Balance?

"I am wondering something about traps and tricks, following the Thursday Trick posts I really liked from your blog.

The posts, usually if not always, featured how to describe the traps' effect area as something visible the GM could describe as part of more and less cursory inspections.

But this begs the following from me: if the trap was good enough, it would leave corpses. If it wasn't there is a chance the corpses are found further inside or otherwise the place was cleaned already.

So I'm wondering: assuming such traps, is the appropriate conclusion that among the loot within are corpses of previous adventurers, if there is still loot to find?"

Design via Play

Modularity

Setting via tables and mechanics

Game Activities

Game Experiences

Categories

The other thing of crucial note, is that these aren't labels. They are categories. Each player has differing desires at different times for each type of category. Each player is a combined ranking of the goals. They are the rewards that players get from your game.

The Objective Design is to use each of the concrete activities to address specific needs. This ties right in with the Demon of Design Series. You are choosing what to present. Don't just include a bunch of stuff that wastes the players time. You can include things to waste the character's time to accomplish a goal (wandering monster checks increase risk: Logistics->Achievement), but not just to waste time.

Other Research

This is far from the first post on Player types. Wizards of the Coast even performed a quantitative analysis! It's interesting for a couple of reasons, first is that it was likely used to drive the development of 4th edition, which was not a commercial success for Wizards of the Coast. In general it seems that games based of a strong quantitative or theoretical background don't do particularly well in the market.

I am of the opinion that just because some popular things are crap does not mean that a thing cannot be both popular and good. Generally I find that longevity is a good metric of the strength of an idea.

They characterize the "four types of players" into thinkers/power gamers/character actors/and storytellers by placing them on a dual axis graph with a story-combat axis, and a strategic-tactical axis. Though these loosely correlate to the activities of play, I find any poll of players which finds that there is a numerically equal distribution across all types suspect. 

• Creation requires picking from huge lists instead of rolling and going
• It effectively is design by denial; it takes things everyone should be able to do and puts them behind walls. "No Bob, I can't let you do that, because that will invalidate spending a feat on that."
• They show up in splatbooks in great numbers. The quantity causes a lot of them to be stupid.
• The fact that feats are chained (you need x to get y) mean that you have to plan and build your characters out.

• No chains. Possibly prerequisites, such as "Must be level 4" might be allowed, but only in ways that segment whole groups of feats, not little dinky separate and unique prerequisites for each and every feat. "Anything off this page at the start. When you reach level 4, you can pick from both pages".
• The feats must not be something anyone could attempt. This is actually setting design. Is there a roll based chance to discover what a potion is? Or is it something that can only be done with training? It can provide a large bonus on something everyone can do.
• If feats are available at character creation, there should be very few (7) options, or there should be the option to select the feat later (after the first adventure).
• The total number of feats, along with their mechanical descriptions should be very few. Think about narrowing your design space. Will this feat fold into another one? Can you just re-fluff another feat to serve this purpose? Does this feat work better as something a class can just do? Is this a feat that everyone will take? Is there another feat that is superior in all or most ways to this one? If so, eliminate it.
• No feat should be designed to provide something background or character oriented. You can say "I'm a sailor" and you don't need some special "sailor" feat to make it true. That customization should come about from skills (if you use them), ad hoc bonuses, and re-skinning the flavor of feats.
• The benefit must be substantial, which is likely a side effect of flattening the list. +3 hit points and +1 to AC vs. one opponent are right out. You will only get 3-10 of the things anyway.
• Flavor is superior to power
• Feats are useful for providing customization to fighting and thief classes that wizards normally gain through spell selection, so their feat selection options should be greater and more frequent, while wizards should be less.

• Only one may be selected until reaching name level, at which point a second may be learned. 
• Every even rank (or 10% points) you receive a new ability. 
• Every odd rank (or values of the skill that end in 5%) you gain something specific via the skill. 
• There are three tiers of ability. Tier one abilities can be picked till rank 6 (0-30%). Tier 2 from rank 7-12 (31-60%), and tier 3 from rank 13 or higher (61%+). 
• Abilities replace your actions for the round unless noted otherwise. 
• In systems without skill ranks (like ACKS) take the style as a proficiency and consider twice your level as your rank.
• In a system like Skills: the Middle road (i.e. basic/expert/master) Consider having the skill at basic, giving you ranks equal to your level, expert giving you ranks equal to 3/2 your level, and master giving you ranks equal to twice your level. (i.e. a fifth level expert would have eight ranks, an eighth level expert would have 12). 

Karate Style

• Circle Kick: If you hit with this kick, you do double damage. If you miss, you lose your next single attack. (e.g. if you have 2/1, and you circle kick in a round instead of making two attacks, then next round you will only make a single attack)
• Iron Fist: Your hand strikes do an additional 2 points of damage. 
• Crushing Blow: You may strike objects and ignore their hardness. 
• Feint: Use a single melee attack to feint. Your next strike will be at +2 to hit
• Meditation: 1 hour of meditation is equal to 2 hours of sleep. While meditating, you do not suffer from heat, cold, hunger or thirst. You remain aware of your surroundings and do not suffer penalties on surprise or initiative. 

Kenjutsu Style

• Weapon Proficiency: You are treated as having weapon proficiency in the sword. This grants you multiple attacks as a fighter of your level. This does not stack with normal specialization and does not need to be selected if you already have proficiency with the sword and/or you are a fighter.
• Jaguar Stance: While in this stance, gain a +2 bonus to your armor class, and to saves made to dodge or avoid spells. Only one stance may be used at a time.
• Turtle Stance: While in this stance , gain a +2 bonus to your armor class. and reduce all damage you take by 1.
• Wind Strike: As a full round action, you may attack any opponent within 6".
• Spirit Blade: Any sword you wield counts as magic for damaging creatures.

• Folded Step: Dimension door (transport to any location in sight) instantly 1/day. This can be done instantly, i.e. between attacks.
• Multiplicity of Forms: Mirror Image 1/day.
• Movement Strike: On a strike you miss, move up to your movement.
• Preemptive Strike: 1/day, strike an opponent before they attack you.
• Defense Strike: While using the total defense action, you may strike any opponent that makes an attack against you.
• T'ien-lung Stance: You gain a +2 bonus to hit, and levitate 1" off the ground. Your movement does not interfere with your ability to make attacks.

• Desert Wind: Move up to double your full movement. You may strike each target you are adjacent to one time.
• Ki Shout: Improve your attack, damage and armor class by 1/2 your level for 1 turn once a day.
• Ghost Blade: You ignore armor and attack all opponents with touch attacks when using your sword.
• Leaping Revenge: If attacked at range, you move adjacent to the target and strike if you are within 20". This can trigger once per attack you get per round, and does not count against your attacks per round. (i.e. if you have 3/1 attacks, and you get attacked by three different ranged attackers, you may move next to each and strike them. When your turn arrives you may take it as normal)

Savage Healing

• Healing Burst: once a day, a savage healer can heal all allies within 6" with as many healing dice as she wishes to use.
• Healing Shield: If the save healer concentrates taking no other action, and is within 4" of an ally, they can use their healing dice to nullify damage the ally takes. On a hit, they may expend as many dice as they wish to negate damage. The dice are rolled, and the damage is reduced by the total on the healing dice.
• Fast Healing: The Savage Healer is so in tune with nature that she gains the ability to regenerate 1 point of damage per round. This requires the healer to be conscious.
• Savage Purity: Become immune to all disease and poison. You may not become undead. All natural animals treat the Savage Priest as friendly. They begin to age more slowly.