THE GAMING TABLE - CAIRN 2e

A behind the screen look at Cairn, my solo adventure, and the transition to short story

I chose Cairn 2nd Edition (by Yochai Gal) for my first adventure story purely because I had just received the box set in the mail and had immediately dived headfirst into the sumptuous world building tools inside.

Cairn’s “procedures for generating your own settings, maps, factions, dungeons, and forests” are, in my opinion, the best I’ve encountered in decades of reading, running, and playing TTRPGs.

The Warden’s Guide takes you step-by-step through the process of creating an adventure map; which is the ideal tool for running games the way I love to play them.

Some systems use a top-down approach, starting big with pantheons and timelines and so on. By the time you’ve slogged through all that, your reservoir of creativity and enthusiasm might be running dry. Others begin with a single detailed location and let you spiral outward from there as the story unfolds. Whilst I prefer that second method over the first, I feel Cairn strikes a perfect balance between the two. It offers GMs plenty of scope without overwhelming them with lore or leaving them feeling underprepared.