I got everything I wanted for Christmas, but I also have some hopes and wishes for the New Year. And here they are.
The Architect DM: Open Spaces, Plazas, and Holidays
It’s the end of the year and what most of us would call the “Holiday Season”, and I have instead decided to bring up a relevant topic that is quite fitting for this time of year. I’m sure there are several published pieces and posts online about incorporating holidays into your RPG game, but I’d like to discuss them with a specific focus on the location designs you use in your game. I’d also like to focus on one specific holiday trope that you’ve probably considered for your own game – if there’s a holiday/special event, the party is most likely there to experience it.
Depression & Dungeons & Dragons
When it comes to depression, real, actual, honest, sky-is-falling-and-life-is-ending depression, it’s a matter of bits of your brain actually missing. It’s a physical, medical, miserable condition, where life around you stays exactly the same way, but you have lost your ability to perceive it correctly.
Carrot Design, Part 1: A Freelancer’s Challenge, From Needs to Rewards
In which Chatty, on the heels of his last article, explores the challenges of designing new D&D 4e material for gaming magazines and how a writer needs to dodge many pitfalls to deliver a quality, useful article.
The Architect DM: Fantasy Technology & Development
In my last post I talked about how the abandonment of locations and their resettlement can be used to influence the way we design our RPG worlds. The discussion led into the idea of technologies that could be developed and subsequently lost along with a civilization, only to be rediscovered at a later date by different cultures. I know for a fact that many people have a mental disconnect when it comes to thinking of “technology” and their typical Dungeons & Dragons game world. I often think of technology in an RPG along the same lines as psionics, there seem to be a lot of people who love to use them and a lot of people who avoid using them altogether.
The Leg-Lamp of Vecna
Read on as I discover the true meaning of Christmas. Does it involve amputation? Setting aside one’s humanity to gain unlimited power? Spinach? Only Santa knows for sure.
Hope and Fear
Players love this range of emotions, but having every combat follow the same trajectory gets a bit boring. The grind feeling results from recognizing the pattern and the corresponding desire to just fast forward to the end. Who wants to sit through round after round of monster at-will attacks especially when we “know” that the PCs are likely to win?
Actual Plague
The critic has analyzed the particular medium for an extended period of time, understanding elements of its architecture, such as pacing, characterization, construction, and depth. I say all of that to say this: actual play podcasts suck.
Beyond Labels: How Each RPG Serves and Rewards Specific Needs
In which Chatty muses about the relative uselessness of the overused art of labelling RPGs. He then explores the importance of matching one’s needs and motivations as a RPG gamer to the proper game that was designed to cater to them.
First Impressions Review: “Famine in Far-Go”
Famine in Far-Go is the new release for the new version of the Gamma World RPG. It is one part expansion set, providing new rules for both the players and GM to use, and one part large adventure, spanning several levels.
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