When you play role-playing games, it is generally the case that your PC comes from somewhere and has a personality and history. The character isn’t just a collection of numbers, except in the most basic of dungeon crawls. Not everyone is good at creating these personalities and backgrounds. 5th Edition D&D uses “Background” system to give some context to the character and explores a few … Continue reading RPG Supplement Review: 5 Questions
The good people at Wizards of the Coast yesterday revealed the DMs Guild, a place where people like me can share and sell our D&D content. Yes, I’m planning to release an adventure or two. When? No idea. Although I have some almost finished, getting them to the quality I’d like will still take time. I think this is all sorts of awesome, and I’m … Continue reading Quick thoughts on the Dungeon Masters Guild
The early days of AD&D 2nd Edition were a time for a lot of experimentation with how to create characters. The introduction of Non-Weapon Proficiencies into the game with the last few supplements of 1st Edition had been embraced by the designers of 2nd Edition. As a nod to backwards compatibility, they were described as “Optional”, but most of the upcoming character supplements, the “PHBR” … Continue reading Talking about Kits and Unearthed Arcana – Fighters
I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a very long time. Not for as long as some out there, but for most of my life. I’m not entirely sure which year I began, it’s been so long. It’s somewhere in the range of 1982 to 1984, however. Which means I’ve been playing for over 32 years now – three-quarters of my life! And there’s still … Continue reading Old School, New School: Thoughts on Adjusting D&D
I’m delighted to see that the 5th edition version of Primeval Thule is now widely available as a pdf. I backed the original Kickstarter (for the 13th Age version), but I’m currently playing in a 5th edition Primeval Thule campaign, the one D&D 5E game I play in rather than run. (Meanwhile, I’m running Rise of Tiamat on Wednesdays, my homebrew Onnwal/Greyhawk campaign on alternating … Continue reading Primeval Thule 5E
I’m currently writing an adventure. I’ve no idea if I’ll eventually finish it and publish it or if inspiration will fail and I’ll throw it into the pile of incomplete blog entries I’ve written over the years. Anyway, I rather liked this encounter, so I thought I’d share it with you. This is for you, James Introcaso! The passage breaks apart here into a web … Continue reading 5E Encounter: The Stone Spider
Chris Perkins gave a seminar at GameHole 2015 about Wizards’ future plans for D&D adventures and products. The Gaming and BS Podcast recorded the seminar and posted it. I’m very grateful to them! There were a lot of interesting topics covered in the seminar. I’ve written a summary of some of the key points below, although I may have misinterpreted some of what he said. … Continue reading Chris Perkins on upcoming D&D storylines and products
Although hex-based exploration was the dominant form of wilderness exploration in the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, a few adventures used a hybrid approach that drew on dungeon design. That is, they limited the ways that players could move between encounters. Occasionally they would be hard limits – the depiction of the Underdark in Descent into the Depths of the Earth was that way … Continue reading Entering the Wilderness: Tracked Exploration
One of the more common pieces of advice to give new Dungeon Masters (and Game Masters) these days is that they should say “Yes” to their players. This is good advice. It comes from an understanding of the creative process: that you get more interesting results when you don’t shut down the creativity of the players. At one of the sessions I ran at PAX … Continue reading DM Tips: When to Say “No”
One of the stranger things missing so far from the D&D 5E releases from Wizards of the Coast is an “Open Gaming” License directly applicable to D&D 5E. There have been hints of it going back before the release of the game, but – as of this writing – no license has materialised. (I just want to make clear that it’s not really the lack of … Continue reading Thoughts on the missing Open Gaming License
