Came across this map posted by @BlvdSubway on twitter earlier. The first thing it made me think of was a Metroidvania map - I've always been a fan of that side-view of mapping of the mythic underground, despite being iffy on the genre (I like Castlevania much more than Metroid.)
I've been giving a lot of thought to dungeon and adventure design - maybe session design is a more accurate term - since the wind down of my 2023 totally-not-a-west-marches campaign, The 5th World. Maybe I'll do a blog post about that at some point, since I have a thoughts/feelings/regrets. But the biggest one is about being flexible enough to unshackle myself from a specific system. My years long dalliance with 5th edition has soured quite a bit. I'm currently in a cautious flirtation with Pathfinder 2e - we're still feeling each other out. I like it as a player but I'm not sure I would have a good time actually running it.
All that has left me to wade around in a mess of OSR systems - I've mostly gravitated towards Whitebox FMAG, but still have to go back and forth with the voice in my head that says "Just run The Black Hack 1E, yall were made for each other."
Anyway. Session Design.
