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You are here: Home / Archives for Shawn Merwin

RPGs and Fiction: An Interview with Alana Abbott

March 10, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

D&D and other RPGs owe much of their development to fiction, and they in return have spawned an entire industry of game-related novels and stories. Can you write good fiction that is still true to the game? I talk to someone who has done so to learn the tricks of the trade.

Filed Under: Comics, Editorial, Featured, Interviews, Know Your Roll, Movies, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: fiction writing, world design, writing advice

Brief Encounters…

February 25, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

And lo, a new FLGS opened within easy reach of a lost gamer. And it was good.

Filed Under: Columns, Editorial, Know Your Roll, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: d&d 4e, D&D Encounters, FLGS, wizards of the coast, wotc

Digging Deep (Gnomes)

February 18, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

How does one designer take a creature that once ruined a campaign for him and re-imagine it to be something that could be the major piece of a campaign? With a little help and a lot of imagination.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, monster design

Blind Design, or How to Fail Better

February 11, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

Adventure design, whether for personal use or mass consumption, comes down to having a goal and heading straight toward it. And, of course, there are never pitfalls in the way . . .

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, adventure design, D&DXP, game design, heroes of shadow, published adventures

Lessons Learned at DDXP2011

February 4, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

DDXP 2011 is in the books. I’ll look at what I learned, think about the joys of playing and DMing, and extol the virtues of the World’s Smallest Stripper.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, ashes of athas, D&DXP, ddxp 2011, ddxp2011, heroes of shadow

Why I Love DDXP

January 14, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

DDXP kicks off in less than 2 weeks. And I have some good news, as well as one piece of bad news.

Filed Under: Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&DXP, ddxp 2011

My RPG New Year’s Top 7 Wish List

December 31, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

I got everything I wanted for Christmas, but I also have some hopes and wishes for the New Year. And here they are.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games

The Roleplay’s the Thing (Wherein I’ll Catch the Conscience of the Gamer)

December 10, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

As the days fly by and we get closer to The Most Interesting Roleplayer in the World tournament at DDXP 2011, I have been doing a great deal of thinking about the concept of roleplaying, particularly within the concept of a tabletop RPG. Topics on this aspect of the hobby come up on the various forums and discussion lists more frequently than cable news arguments about which politician or pundit is or is not Hitler.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll Tagged With: edition wars, roleplaying

Interview with Rich Marflak, Winner of the First RPGA Open Tournament in 1981

November 29, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

An interview with Rich Marflak, the winner of the first RPGA Open tournament at GenCon in 1981.

Filed Under: Interviews, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: AD&D, D&D, D&DXP, gencon, rpga

Do As I Say, Not As I Did

November 15, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

They say that there is no better teacher than failure. Let me show you how good a teacher I am.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, encounter design, lfr, rpga

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About the Author

  • Shawn Merwin

    Shawn Merwin is a freelance writer/editor and game designer with delusions of adequacy and a penchant for games and stories. He's worked on several organized play campaigns: Living Greyhawk, Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Kalamar, Living Forgotten Realms, and D&D Adventurer's League to name a few. His design work for Wizards of the Coast includes Dungeon Delve, Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress, and Halls of Undermountain, as well as two seasons of the D&D Encounters Program. His most recent project is co-designing and editing the Fate-powered game Part-Time Gods of Fate for Encoded Designs. You can follow Shawn on Twitter.

    Email: shawn.merwin@critical-hits.com

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