Somewhere, somewhen, out there in the back rooms of a gaming store, in the basement of some gamer’s house, lurks the most interesting gamer in the world. It is my mission to find that gamer.
Gamma Wild: “Gamma World” Game Day Report
I had a really good time, and became convinced that I needed to buy this Gamma World game immediately and inflict it on all my family and friends, assuming I have any family or friends. There is a kind of brash funness about it, an in-your-face good time, sort of like a game of Strip Twister, only with dice and hit points and without the awkward apologies afterwards. The loopy joy is built right into the rules of the game, which I can describe it with one simple word I just made up: randomosity.
Magic Item Wishlists and You
I spend most of the week working out the story elements and building an exciting and dangerous, yet balanced, encounter or two. By the time I get to treasure allocation, I’ve spent my creative energy and it’s usually less than an hour to game time. What the heck do I give them? Enter wish lists.
Booty Talk
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.
Essentials, Choices, and Jams
At a certain level, probably high Heroic and certainly in Paragon and Epic tiers players might have twenty four possible choices on their turn including at-wills, encounter powers, daily powers, utilities, and items. This high number of choices mixed in with the already tactical nature of combat in 4e often leads to analysis paralysis. Players simply can’t figure out what the right move might be.
The D&D Essentials DM Kit: An Editorial Review
In which Phil writes a review that veers into murky editorial waters when he realizes that the D&D Essentials Dungeon Master’s kit is not exactly what he expected. Follow is arguments and his interesting conspiracy theories… is Chatty due for a medication adjustment? Have a look!
Mutate Your Game
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.
Do the Evolution
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.
Don’t Do As I Do
As it turns out, I’m a pretty terrible DM, and you can become dramatically better by simply avoiding everything I do, including telling stories and pursuing reality.
Loss Builds Character
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.
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