Preparing an adventure represents about 80% of my game prep process. This includes stating the Bad Guys, setting the difficulty of the various Non-Combat challenges and creating loot that the players will appreciate. Aside: One of my last D&D 3.5 purchases was the Magic Item Compedium. This book is phenomenal and a preview of what […]
Adventure Prep, Session 2
I’m still shocked that people other than my close friends actually read this and even more shocked to have been mentioned by other DM bloggers. (I’m not going to Ego it up by linking to their post, but these guys have gotten added to my DM Blogroll). Oh and this is not a Meta-Blogging post […]
Exploring Evil in RPGs
As promised, Vanir over at StupidRanger posted is 1st part of a series on defining Evil in NPC. His definitions of evil and the motivations that may lead a non-evil being to cross the line are spot on. A lot can be said on Evil and we actually have quite a few gaming books written […]
The Rule of Cool
Image Source: The TV Tropes Wiki. I just found out about possibly the coolest site for failed writers (raises hand), Meta-plot analyst (raises hand… again) and just plain Story-driven entertainment junkies (Me me me!!!). It’s called the TV tropes Wiki and it may very well Ruin your life. (God! I must be the billionth blogger […]
From Screen to Board: Translating Properties into Boardgames
Here’s a pretty solid rule of game design: any game you design in your dreams is likely to be crap. (That’s not to say you can’t get inspiration from dreams, but you’re unlikely to get a good game out of one you made up in a dream.) A friend of mine brought this up recently […]
The Campaign Elevator Pitch: Selling your game to your players
A few months ago, I stumbled upon Martin Ralya’s GM Wiki (well, it’s a collaborative effort, but he hosts it) and one concept in it really inspired me, the RPG Elevator Pitch. A short, concise description of a RPG system, like if you were trying to sell someone over a new game within the time […]
Online Tools, Take 2
Last month I posted about software tools I planned on using in our current game. It turns out it worked a lot better than planned. All players joined the Google Group we created (see here for explanations on how it works) and I’m truly impressed by participation. Google Groups are basically a discussion group tool. […]
Maybe it's time for D&D 4e after all…
Boy am I seeing a lot of hate and anger being spewed at the D&D 4e announcements (just try any forum: Enworld, Okay…Your Turn and RPGnet for a sample). I must confess that I also have been part of that strong resistance to change/Lashing-out-at-Hasbro’s- blatant-money -grab. But, but but… as I go through the motions […]
The case against Spell Resistance
This is a very D&D specific post. Yan, one of my long-time players has started playing his 1st D&D arcane spellcaster ever. One of his feedbacks from last Friday’s debacle was that Spell Resistance really stank from a player’s perspective. You wait for your turn, you fire your spell, you roll a number and if […]
Where has the post-game funk gone?
I don’t feel down at all about the bad game we had last Friday, I’m actually surprised at that. While bad sessions are a lot rarer than they were (switching from Gurps to D&D 3.0 was hard!), I often felt that it was finally time to hang my RPG skates after such a session. Even […]
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