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You are here: Home / Archives for fluff

It’s Not Easy Being Fluffy

January 30, 2013 by Vanir

In which Vanir revisits his roleplaying roots, loses them, and finds them again. Also, he dresses a Mogwai up like Mr. Rogers for the first time in 30 years.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Crunch, fluff, kids, openness, play styles, pretend, roleplay, theatre of the mind

Risk, Reward and Thunder-Reclamation

January 8, 2013 by Vanir

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things you miss when you run a roleplaying game instead of playing a character in it, and I’ve remembered something that I don’t think I’ve been giving enough of to my players: namely, the thrill of extracting a character you love from a dangerous situation. It’s the gift that keeps on threatening to kill you.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: combat, Crunch, fluff, play balance, Reward, risk

The Lion, The Witch, and the Progressive Enhancement: CRAZY DELICIOUS

October 20, 2010 by Vanir

When I am not being angry at BioWare or working feverishly into the night coming up with Star Wars-themed sexual innuendo, I sometimes show up to my day job as a web developer. One concept that we frequently use at work to make websites usable and friendly to everyone is called progressive enhancement. Put simply, […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre, Video Games Tagged With: Crunch, fluff, lumbar support, progressive enhancement, Rule of Fun, web development, WoW

Let’s Talk About Fluff

July 2, 2008 by Bartoneus

I was reading through a discussion on Paizo’s message boards that grew out of a post linking to our coverage of the panel with Mike Mearls at Origins, and one discussion in particular caught my eye.  Several people began to discuss the amount of content provided in the 4E core books vs. the amount provided […]

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4th Edition, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, fluff, mike mearls, origins, roleplaying, roleplaying games

Mini-Fluff: More on-the-fly world building

February 27, 2008 by The Chatty DM

Mini-posts are approx. 500 words posts on one of my pet subjects. I usually do them when I have a busy evening, like Adventure Preping or doing things like, you know, exercise! I’m deep in adventure prep, deeper than I have been for a long time. I don’t know if it’s the same for you […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology Tagged With: fluff, mini-post, world building

Pathfinder #4 preview: Wolfgang Baur must really hate me

February 4, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This is a continuing series of short posts on Paizo’s Pathfinder adventure path magazine. The image is Copyright 2007 Paizo Publishings. Yeah I haven’t done one of those in quite some time (Dec 7 to be more precise) for a very good reason, I never got my #4 issue of Pathfinder (written by none other […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: fluff, pathfinder, Rant

Mining Tropes for RPG Goodness: You, Bastard!

January 28, 2008 by The Chatty DM

As promised, after having covered the Overlord trope in all (well at least some of) its RPG glory, I now want to tackle another of my favorite character tropes: The Magnificent Bastard (I’m making no reference whatever to any good friend of mine, honest!) Love him or hate him, there’s a certain type of character […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Tropes Tagged With: DMing, fluff, Tropes

Character Genesis: New characters for Pathfinder #1.

January 22, 2008 by The Chatty DM

A few months ago, I prepared a demo D&D game for PM, his friend Vince, and Franky’s brother Mike, all newbies to RPGs or D&D 3.5 in general. Franky had joined to even out the group and act as the expert on the players side. Our game session, based on Paizo’s excellent Pathfinder #1 adventure, […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: fluff, pathfinder

Mini-Fluff'N'Crunch: Requiem for my Bronze Friend

January 15, 2008 by The Chatty DM

That perfidious and oh so diabolical Yax has been reading all those “WotC presents” books and, through his Red Dragon comic-relief Minion Expy, has announced that our cherished Wizards on the Coast are revamping the dragons. One thing that broke my heart a bit (the cynics will say that WotC has ripped out theirs long […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Uncategorized Tagged With: Crunch, fluff, mini-post, Tropes

Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets: Ice Ice Baby!

December 17, 2007 by The Chatty DM

This morning, I posted about my Winter adventures on the forums here. That’s my car if you were wondering… after I dug it out! Shortly after, Omnius, who’s allergic to snow I’m told, wrote a good weather-themed post. Well all that snow and ice also inspired me to go dig in the TV tropes site […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Tropes Tagged With: DMing, fluff, mini-post, Tropes

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About the Author

  • Vanir

    Vanir is the sort of man who has openly wondered aloud about his own armor class in front of his own grandmother. Despite this, he has still managed to somehow become both married and a father. By day, he develops web applications. By night, web applications develop him.

    Email: vanir@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//category/dire-flailings/

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