Though I’ve started to find my voice in recent months as a Dungeon Master, there is still a lot of undiscovered ground for me to cover. How to come up with named on the fly that don’t end in “eeberbeeb”. How to keep one lonely alligator tear from rolling down my cheek as my best laid plans are turned to slag. And, of course, how to kill the entire party. That’s right. I’m a TPK virgin.
Interview: Mike Mearls on the Playtesting Process of D&D Next
On June 15th, we conducted an interview over Skype with Mike Mearls, head of Research & Design of D&D at Wizards of the Coast. Also during that day, Mike was participating in an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit, so some of the answers make reference to that. This interview has been transcribed, paraphrased, and edited by us from the call. We chose to mainly focus on the process of playtesting and design for D&D Next for this interview.
Review: God-King
God-King revolves around a land once ruled by the eponymous God-King. After a natural disaster splits the land in two, and the easterners and westerners begin to quarrel for the God-King’s favor, he vanishes, and with him his divine blessings. The player characters are a group of foreign people, with their own conflicts and culture, who set out to find the mystical land of Otugari, against the orders of their war-torn Empire. The game supports three to five players and each has one role, from five provided roles. Rather than dice, the game uses a deck of standard playing cards.
Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #2: Know your DMing Style
In which Chatty maintains momentum in his new series aimed at new/returning GMs and explores what motivates Dungeon Masters to run RPGs and how uncannily familiar these motivators will be for some.
First Impressions Preview: “13th Age”
Describing itself as a “love letter to D&D”, 13th Age has quite the pedigree behind it. 13th Age is designed by two accomplished and notable game designers, Jonathan Tweet (Everway, multiple editions of D&D, much more) and Rob Heinsoo (Feng Shui, D&D 4e, much more), and is published by Pelgrane Press, whose design on their GUMSHOE and other lines show that their production values are top notch and often eclipse products put out by bigger companies.
The Circle Of Laugh
A perfect night of D&D for me is one where either a lot of plot and adventure happened, or none happened and lots of roleplaying happened instead. Either way, there is usually some component of us laughing our entire butts off at least once during the session. Like, they have to be reattached. I’m usually the class clown at the table when I play. How odd, then, that I’m not behind the screen…..
Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #1: What’s in it for me?
In Chatty’s first posts of his new series, he tackles what you can expect to gain from being a DM and, as importantly, what you need to stop expecting if you want to have the best possible start in your DMing career.
New Series for Beginner Game Masters.
As a result of Chatty’s new Sabbatical (from working as a Consultant, not writing), a new series about going back to the basics of the fine art of Game Mastering is proposed! Let us know if it tickles your curiosity!
Free RPG Day 2012: The Price of Free-dom
Coming soon to a game store near you is Free RPG Day—on June 16th, you can find a wealth of RPG material free for the taking. Free RPG Day has been occurring annually since 2007, and has included material from some of the largest and most prestigious RPG companies in the industry today, including Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, Fantasy Flight Games, White Wolf, and Paizo Publishing.
Origins 2012 Report
I almost didn’t attend Origins this year, despite having attended for many years prior. The date change meant that a number of people I knew would not be attending this time around, cutting down reasons for attending. Likewise, I was already making other plans for that time off. Then Get Bit! was nominated for an award, and that pretty much settled that. Despite the changes, I still had a good time. Here are some of the highlights for me.
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