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You are here: Home / Archives for Chris Sims

The D&D Experience

February 4, 2011 by Chris Sims

Lots of conventions, from PAX to Comicpalooza, have D&D games and organized play. None of them are like D&D Experience. This convention is about hardcore D&D gaming and D&D news. It’s all D&D all the time on official channels. Players who come here come to play the game from sunup until the witching hour. When they’re not playing, they’re learning more about D&D from the experts.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: ashardalon, ashes of athas, convention, D&D, D&DXP, despair, Shadowfell

Into the Unknown

January 13, 2011 by Chris Sims

Mysteries must have answers in all roleplaying games. At least, the secrets the players wish for their characters to uncover should have some means of being laid bare. That means the DM, at least, has to know, or have an idea, where a path of exploration leads. In the case of published work, the designers should know such answers and, more important, reveal them.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: D&D, DM advice, game design

On Writing

December 9, 2010 by Chris Sims

More than a few folks have asked me for advice on writing. I don’t know why. I have edited and written, with mixed success at both, for publication and pleasure. Like I said, that doesn’t prove anything. What I can say is that writing isn’t easy. It takes courage and skill and patience, and a good editor always helps.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Editorial, Featured Tagged With: game writing, usage, Writing

One-Hour Game Design

November 18, 2010 by Chris Sims

A year ago, I went to Nanocon and made friends with the illustrious Richard Dansky. On Friday evening, we were a between commitments, and we were amused at the Dakota State University game design program’s promotional literature. We also stumbled on some loose dice and game pieces. We decided to make a game . . .

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Editorial, Featured Tagged With: board game, college, Danksy, fraternity, game design, Humor, jocks, minion, nanocon, princess, zombies

The Littlest Con

November 11, 2010 by Chris Sims

Nanocon’s magic is in its intimacy. It presents a great opportunity to meet players and play games. As a guest, I also had the chance to mingle with all the other guests, as well as the faculty and organizers. That type of interaction with others who love games is hard to overvalue. Perhaps needless to say, I’m glad I went.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Columns, Editorial, Featured, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: convention, game design, gamma world, nanocon

More Mailbag

October 28, 2010 by Chris Sims

This week I’m resting up. I’ll be old and crotchety by Saturday, so I’m taking it easy to build up my strength. (Okay, I’m playing a lot of Mass Effect 2. I like to keep Renegade nearly as high as Paragon, so don’t push me.) I’ve been working up a few ideas. Kyle Ferrin’s fine image for my Mailbag feature needs some showing off, too. It makes sense, with this confluence of events, to post some requests to you. I’ll do these articles without any help, but I figured it makes sense to do something more personal. Check out the possibilities.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: character roles, mailbag, monster design, play

Booty Talk

October 21, 2010 by Chris Sims

One of the problems with the usual take on magic items is that most of them provide simple mechanical benefits without doing anything truly interesting. This isn’t a fault in and of itself, since magical trinkets need to affect the game in some way. The essence of the problem is when the game renders such mechanical bonuses mundane by assuming the characters have them. The developers increase the challenges in the game based on such assumptions, rendering the potentially fantastic merely necessary.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D, magic items, Treasure

Mutate Your Game

October 14, 2010 by Chris Sims

The new D&D Gamma World game is a crash course on reskinning. Character creation, from concept to equipment, is a real-world exercise in putting your imagination’s images over a mechanical chassis in a simple game. Sections in the rules cover the process, from the “Reconciling Contrary Origins” segment to the “What Does it Look Like?” sidebar on equipment.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Columns, Editorial, Newest Critical Hits, Reviews Tagged With: 4e, character concepts, D&D, fallout 3, gamma world, reskin, reskinning, Thundarr

Do the Evolution

October 7, 2010 by Chris Sims

What if we imagine the original D&D game as the evolutionary link between wargaming and modern roleplaying games of all sorts? Every derivative game has some part of the original, signs of its ancestry. Like with organisms, variations from the original are introduced in the process of creating a game. Further, more game “offspring” tend to be produced than the gaming environment can support. Traits that ensure survival in a given environment become more common in descendants.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: 3e, 4e, D&D, evolution, game design, game theory, pathfinder

Loss Builds Character

September 23, 2010 by Chris Sims

Loss shapes us. How one responds and moves on from loss can have a profound effect on the shape of one’s life in the near and far future. In this world, loss is inevitable but often without deep impact. We don’t live in a place where kobolds can eat our babies or a maniac can call up the avatar of the Mad God. Our characters do, though.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Columns, Editorial, Featured, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, background, character advice, D&D, DM advice, loss, narrative

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About the Author

  • Chris Sims

    Chris Sims has played roleplaying games for 35 years, and he has helped produce games for more than a decade. Before he set up his freelance shop in the wilds of Austria, he was an editor, developer, and designer at Wizards of the Coast. There, he worked on Duel Masters, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. Ask him something via email that might receive a response in a post, and follow his tweets.

    Email: chris@critical-hits.com

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