In which Chatty shares is experiences as a Wizards of the Coast freelancer. The good and the bad. He shares many of the lessons he learned from his experiences should you want to give it a try.
The Architect DM: Structural Dungeon Design
Back in one of my earliest Architect DM posts I said that structure was one of the most overlooked elements of dungeon design. These days most of the published dungeon maps that I see are not bad with regards to structure, but from what I’ve heard this is still something that a lot of people would like to learn about for their personal, hand drawn dungeon designs.
D&D: Advantage vs. Flat Bonuses
There are a lot of people talking about the D&D Next open playtest, and one of the subjects I hear about a lot is the way Advantage/Disadvantage are currently working. The general opinion I’ve heard is that it is overpowered when compared to the +2/-2 bonus we’re used to from previous editions of D&D. My gut reaction to hearing that something is overpowered isn’t to jump into the mob and swing my nerf-bat around, it’s to look at as much data as I can and figure out if I agree or not. So that’s what I’m going to do!
The Architect DM: The Ise Grand Shrine
I’ve sat through more hours of architectural history classes than seems reasonable for a human being, everything from the crude Dolmen tombs of early Europe to weeks of studying the various gothic cathedrals that all look pretty much the same. I never got the chance to take an asian architecture course, but one of the most memorable asian structures that I learned about was the Ise Grand Shrine.
The Swag of Yore
When I was a kid, we could watch a D&D cartoon and buy AD&D toys at most toy stores. Now, our selection of D&D items appears to be mostly limited to games. t-shirts, and leather goods. Read for musings about how things have changed for D&D merch over the last 30 years, and childish hopes for the future. My heart and wallet ache.
The Architect DM: Seven Wonders of Your World
Whenever I get a chance I make a pointed effort to read about or look at a map of other DM’s and GM’s roleplaying game worlds. I find it fascinating to look at them both objectively and subjectively, to see things that I may never have come up with or elements that are similar to things in the worlds I’ve created. Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a handful of elements that pop up in the majority of people’s fantasy game worlds and these elements have been some of the inspiration for earlier world building posts in my Architect DM posts.
Cure Selfish Wounds
Today’s D&D Next post at the Wizards site by Bruce Cordell is titled Time to Heal and discusses the role of the Cleric class and how it relates to healing through the life span of Dungeons & Dragons. There’s a nice little recap of how healing and the Cleric class have both worked in previous editions, and then there is a poll asking how people prefer the mechanics to be handled. Reading about how healing worked in previous editions brought forward some experiences that I am dying to share with you.
Recompiling Digital D&D
A common complaint with 4th Edition has been the online tools that go with it. Now that we have a Next Edition coming, WotC gets another shot at getting their cyberducks in a row. The best part is, this time out they’re asking all of us what we want from D&D. Guess what? I want better online tools! Furthermore, I have a few suggestions. WARNING: Some programmer jargon ahead. Proceed with digital caution.
Dungeons & Dragons of Future Past
The 4th Edition of D&D brought about the only long campaign I’ve ever managed to run, and I attribute a large part of that to the ways the new edition changed the role of being a Dungeon Master and the tools it provided. After D&D Next was announced the online RPG community went crazy, and I saw a number of people sharing lamentations that 4th Edition was now “old” and “going away”. I’ve finally managed to wrangle my thoughts about D&D Next, and they are overwhelming in their hope that whatever D&D Next is it allows me to continue running 4e D&D.
It Slices, It Dices, It Possibly Does The THAC0
I’m sure by now you’ve heard the news. Beyoncé Knowles has given birth to a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, and the Internets are ablaze. The epic ears of the Wizards of the Coast are now listening to user feedback more than ever before, and in their direction everyone’s hopes and dreams for their favorite game have been launched. The system is rumored to be many things, two of the most common of these being “just another money grab” and “modular”. As my experiences with the R&D team over the past couple years have not included any signs of them being were-packrats who hunt shinies when the moon is full, I can only speculate about the game’s modularity. As it happens, that is the thing that gives me the most hope and the most worry about the upcoming changes to D&D.
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