Where Chatty makes his triumphant return by being all cryptic about what he did these last few weeks. At least, you’ll get a cool adventure plan for your reading troubles.
26 Years of Gaming Lessons
My wife’s birthday is coming up, which made me think of my birthday, which made me think of my age, and thus, the length of time I’ve been a gamer. I’ve been a gamer for 26 years, and in that time: I’ve lost an arm and a leg in the same fight; witnessed the best […]
The Creme Filling Of The DM Soul
In which I ignore good advice, accept better advice, accidentally stumble into great adventure, and achieve my heart’s desire. If you’re a cinnamon roll aficionado and this is making you hungry, then this post is probably going to disappoint. Only I can eat my words. Shame they don’t taste like cinnamon rolls.
Can 4e Be Old-School D&D?
My most recent design project for Wizards of the Coast has left me thinking a lot about old-school D&D. I have been reminiscing about my early days of playing, when my Jr. High school friends and I could play first-edition AD&D for 72 hours straight without having to worry about jobs or families or responsibilities […]
Pain of Campaigning: Rotating GMs
Dave and I always joked about our gaming white whale: The Supers Game. It’s not that running a superhero game was impossible, it was just that, for us, it had never gelled. Enter Gencon 2010 and my purchase of DC Adventures. I had a system, and I had player interest (though just barely); I even had a weeknight that would work, but I had one problem:
I wanted to play the damn game, not just run it.
The Architect DM: Give Your Cities Some Character
As with nearly every topic I cover in this series, I’ve touched on the idea of adding character to settlements and cities before but now I’d like to put it in the spotlight. Let’s face it, your players will only remember select portions of the adventures you run even on the best of days. The elements that players seem to remember the most are specifically striking elements of a few NPCs, villains, encounters, and social interactions. Generally speaking, they will not remember a location very much unless a specific element of that location ties directly to one of those elements. They may not remember a location featuring a really sweet bridge if you describe it to them, but set a dramatic encounter on that bridge and they’re much more likely to remember the details of that location.
Funny Pants of Omnipotence: The Metaphor Overstays Its Welcome
After last week’s existential crisis, I take a look at some of the difficulties I face in coming up with the right plot framework for my campaign, and realize for the 74,343rd time that I have difficulties being serious.
Critical Hits Podcast #27: The Out
Mike Shea and Dave Chalker talk about the combat “Out,” a method for shortening combats by defining alternative ways that the battle can end instead of one side of the other being wiped out.
Syn-Duh-Con: A Review, A Takeaway, A Lengthy Blather
I wasn’t supposed to go to SynDCon this year, as I had already attended my annual gaming convention, TempleCon, had a great pile of fun, and didn’t want to push my luck or spend piles of money I didn’t technically have. However, two weeks before it started, a DM I know from Meetup.com sent out a global alert/invite/threat saying he’d be going and would love to see everyone in his address book there. I thought about it for approximately 11 seconds and then fired off a text message to my best friend Dave in Rhode Island and said, “Gaming? Convention? Rockville? Maryland? Yes?” He was supposed to say, “Don’t be an idiot,” and then list hundreds of reasons why it’s a terrible idea. Instead, he agreed to be an idiot with me, and even bring along his son Mason, and suddenly the three of us were signed up for SynDCon.
Review: Heroes of Shadow
The book Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow is the first real print product we have seen for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons since the Essentials line and also marks what I hope is the end in what I perceived as a lag in print products for the game. Heroes of Shadow was delayed from March until April so that it could be printed as a hard cover book instead of a smaller format paperback, and I am very pleased with having a larger sized hardcover in my hands with 4E content in it after months without one. What this book contains is exactly what you would expect from a book focusing on player characters that tap into the shadow power source and draw their inspiration from the darker corners of your D&D universes. Its contents range from entirely new classes to new builds for existing classes to new races and more than a handful of new options for characters of all types that want to have a bit darker tilt to their abilities.
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