An interesting question came up in an online discussion of D&D Next, and I very much anticipated seeing how the answers would play out. The question regarded how players and DMs handled flanking in the playtest, since the current iteration of the rules do not mention flanking. I was most interested in not what people […]
Back Catalog D&D PDFs Begin to Resurface on DriveThruRPG
PDF editions for D&D products have begun to reappear on both DriveThruRPG and the new completely branded site D&D Classics.
The Easily Lost Explorer’s Guide to Dungeon Crawling
if we all had perfect spacial thinking and effective communication skills, we wouldn’t need a battle grid in combat. The DM could describe the dimensions and shape of a room in the dungeon, as well as relative positions of inhabitants and features. We could just describe how far we’re going, all adjust our mental pictures appropriately, and voila: the entire time to set up a battle would be the time we need to talk about it. Unfortunately, we don’t all have that. Some of us are terrible at it (me) while others of us are really good at it.
Fudging The Grid
I prefer to keep an open mind about most things, not the least of which is gaming. That, coupled with my willingness to play devil’s advocate, occasionally finds me arguing for a position I don’t completely agree with. Sometimes, you find you’re not arguing about what you thought you were when you started. This time, I found myself in an internal argument with myself contemplating the very nature of running a roleplaying game. It was like, inside the other argument. It was like ARGUMENT INCEPTION.
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.
What I Learned DMing for 10,000 Players
My first blog, in which I reveal how little I know, and probably would tick off E.M. Forster if he wasn’t dead.
D&D Trivia Archive May 2010
On Twitter, I give out little tidbits about D&D history as I know it or experienced it. This means I might not always be right, but at least it’s interesting. You can challenge me on twitter or by email.
Here’s the May 2010 D&D trivia archive.
I Hate Magic Items
Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize: I don’t like magic items period. Sure, they are a staple of fantasy literature. And I have a soft spot for certain classes of magical items, like the strange artifact or consumable item that has to be used at just the right time. +1 Swords? Fiery Platemail? Rings of Jumping? Never a fan.
Two Words to Convince You to Buy Kobold Quarterly #10
Gelantinous Cubes. We don’t have to tell you that Kobold Quarterly is great, or that it’s been nominated for 3 Ennies (though it’s going down in the Best Website category!), or that it includes tons of material for both 3.5 players (with a preview of Pathfinder) and 4e player. We don’t have to tell you […]
Inq. of the Week: Arcane Powered
While thinking about spell-casting, I got to thinking about spells themselves. I flipped through both the 3rd edition spell list and cross checked a few against the 4e list (there’s some that didn’t make the jump) and compiled what I feel is a pretty good set of classic arcane spells. Especially around the lower levels there are more that saw more play just because of the nature of lower-level spells, but I think this is a pretty good list across all levels.
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