Perhaps suits of armor on the walls have been posed in fighting styles that hint at a ritual combat dance that needs to be completed for characters to escape.

Sliding the army pieces into the same configuration as a famous victory? Bonus points if you then do a flashback scene where the characters roleplay being on that battlefield, and you portray King Olaf when he was not/less mad.

Maybe I could do a pointcrawl like in Heart, where characters are assumed to be off adventuring somewhere else in the dungeon when not at the table. Then people would only be able to take respites at the table? Or force everyone to take a respite at the end of a session? Or just play Heart.

There really is a dearth of good LARP materials for GMs online (that I’ve seen). Caro Murphy has some great resources+free settings, but I’m not sure they capture what I’m looking for. Maybe I’ll make my own using their Mytharc system.

Yayy….

Parkour Civilization

...absolutely incredible. Here's what Medieval Bologna would have looked like when all its towers were intact. Florence didn't have so many but did have dozens, so the richest part of the city center would have looked much like this. Much to the despair of the city fire brigade! 11/?

I’m curious what you mean by male-coded as opposed to male.

In my Stonehell game, I had a matriarchal orc band that the players often allied with by to get treasure from lower levels.

I know DS aims to get away from the dungeon crawl to focus on a heroic storyline. I’m just wondering if there’s a place for exploration as a game pillar in that paradigm. How do you Jaquays the battlemap?

Notably the focus with battlemaps seems to be on building tactical rooms/areas for combat, rather than interconnected environs with empty/evocative rooms. I’m reminded of a Jacob Geller video about spaces designed for violence (I should rewatch that.) To a certain extent, both styles do.