Newest Critical Hits

Minions on the Table

Monsters can lose a battle before it begins if they have bad tactical positions. This is even truer with minions. Even if we assume, narratively, that your minions have no way to know they’re little competition for the characters, the creatures have a reason to seize tactical advantages.

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Toronto Fan Expo: The DM Master Class Seminar

One of the highlights of my visit at last weekend’s Toronto Fan Expo was the one hour panel I had the honour to share with RPG legends Ed Greenwood and Robin D. Laws. We ended up speaking to packed room of 100+ people. I was impressed!

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Of Dice And Men

“Of Dice And Men” is a play about a D&D group and what happens to it when one of their members gets deployed to Iraq. It’s about why gaming is important – the friendships and relationships you make. It’s premiering at PAX PRIME on September 3. We think you might find this of interest. And that’s an understatement.

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Not Without My Beholder: A Mother’s Tale

I’ve spent the majority of my blogging career trying to figure out how to roleplay better. To get them emotionally invested in their characters. To make them feel and act as their character might. To dance into the danger zone where the dancer becomes the dance. I believe I have finally discovered the secret to doing so: The Lifetime Movie Network. All the positive karma the Gen Con Ball & Chain fiasco got me cries out for balance.

ALSO: Video of Roleplaying for the Severely Disturbed with StupidRanger.com from Gen Con!

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Beware the Siren Song

As more and more players come to Dungeons & Dragons from a video game background, they bring with them a very specific sensibility. The result is that the teacher becomes the student, and D&D players begin to integrate certain aspects that had previously only lived inside video games. For example, video games tend to deal in something I’d call “sense language,” where a scene is set by describing (or displaying) what you see and what you hear. In the same way, dungeon masters don’t talk about the three kobolds, but rather the “three emaciated lizard creatures with fanged dragon heads, hissing at each other in their horrid tongue, turning jagged blades in their clawed hands.” This is immersive, and that’s unquestionably a good thing. Unfortunately, not all of the adoptions are.

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Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-08-29

Check out today's Penny Arcade on D&D Essentials and edition warring: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/8/23/ # RT @loganbonner: So Cryptic announces a Neverwinter game, but it's not an MMO: http://bit.ly/bxa3lo # RT @JaredvonHindman: Own the D&D the Movie? Want to listen to me make fun of it MST3k-style? Huzzah: http://bit.ly/bWp0gn # From the Archives:: Review: "Forgotten Heroes: Fang, [...]

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Thinking Outside the Boxed Text

Boxed text is often the first interaction between the writer of an adventure and its players. It had better be good, or Brark the Grimlock Barbarian may have something to say about it.

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Friday Chat, Early Edition: The Geeky Road Trip

In about 24 hours, I’ll be leaving for the Toronto Fan Expo with my friend PM. The Expo is Canada’s largest event for Sci-Fi, Horror, Anime and Gaming fans where they get to meet some of their favorite industry personalities and stock up on merch. I have a 5 hour car trip to plan so I thought I’d reach out and share/ask how the travelling part of the trip should be prepared!

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The Architect DM: Function & Playability

Welcome to the second installment of my series about applying real world design concepts to your own personal D&D or tabletop RPG world. Last week’s post was a relatively broad overview of the basic aspects to consider while designing a location. Today I would like to look at a different approach to designing locations, which involves thinking more about how the game will actually play out and how your players (and you as the DM/GM) will use and interact with the environment you’re creating.

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The Lord of Troma

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lloyd Kaufman, President and co-founder of Troma entertainment and creator of the Toxic Avenger. I had a lot of nerves going into this – I’ve been a big Troma fan since I was 13 and used to spend every Friday and Saturday night watching horror movies on USA Up All Night. Read on to discover the true meaning of Troma, what the Lord of Troma thinks about Inception, and Justin Bieber’s role in all this. No, really.

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