One of the best feelings I have when reading new material is when I see an innovation which makes me think, “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?” I got that feeling when initially perusing 3E on two matters. The first was Armour Class scaling upwards and being the target number. So obvious – so brilliant. And the other was the 3E Wizard being able to … Continue reading D&D Next: The Wizard and Spell-casting
I have mostly kept out of the online debates on the future of D&D. The basic problem is not that I don’t care, but rather that many of the debates are completely and utterly pointless, there simply as an exercise in breeding ill-will. The other problem with engaging in the debates is that, quite simply, I don’t know enough about the final form of D&D … Continue reading Thoughts on D&D Next
I write a lot about D&D, but that game is actually a fairly late love in my life; I didn't get bitten by the bug until 1982. Well, obviously – given that I was born in 1972 – that's still pretty early on. However, there's one thing that I've been following for even longer. That thing is Doctor Who. As far as I can gather, … Continue reading Review of The First Doctor Sourcebook (Cubicle 7)
I find that as I get older, I get a lot less tolerant of having large rulebooks with lots of rules. This isn't to say that I'm against all rules, but I much prefer, as a DM, to need to remember as few rules as possible. It's one of the reasons I've enjoyed 4E so much: it's actually a very light system at heart, with … Continue reading Rules and my current roleplaying games
A little while ago I wrote about the problems facing the Golden Geek awards in the RPG category, and I’m reminded of them now that we’ve hit the voting for the ENnie awards. In a nutshell, those problems are: Too many products which not enough people have seen. Role-playing games are time-intensive to play. The most popular games play in campaign styles, where you could … Continue reading RPG Award Problems – again
At the end of our Kingmaker campaign, the 17th level party came up against a foe with an AC of 51. They had attack bonuses of 30 or so, which meant that the Big Bad was unhittable except on natural 20s. The solution? Cast greater dispel magic, which gave the cleric about a 40% chance of dispelling each important spell and reducing the foe’s AC by … Continue reading The Big Bad Evil Guy in RPGs
One of the delightful things about playing lots and lots of boardgames is that I get to see lots and lots of different game mechanics. It’s something I don’t get to see so much with RPGs because RPGs tend to reward longer-term play where you play one RPG a lot and let the others sit idle. I’ve been fascinated by the interplay between player skill … Continue reading Randomness and Action Selection
I am currently waiting eagerly for the arrival of the latest James Bond film, Skyfall at my local cinema. Unfortunately this is still a month away, thanks to the staggered distribution of these films worldwide. However, it does give me the opportunity to reflect on my history with James Bond. It’s strange, but one of my clearest memories of my childhood is not knowing who … Continue reading Thoughts on James Bond: Novels, Movies and RPG
After running two sessions of the included adventure in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, Breakout, our newly formed team was ready to challenge the first full event (adventure) published for the game: Civil War. I’m not sure if it actually exists in hardcopy yet, but Martin has the pdf and was eager to run it, despite having not read the comics before dealing with it. … Continue reading Our introduction to the Marvel Civil War (spoilers)
When I was at university – a very long time ago now – a rather interesting role-playing game came out: the Amber Diceless RPG. Based on the works of Roger Zelazny, it allowed the players to play Machievellian demi-god-like characters, who would spend a fair amount of time scheming against each other as well as dealing with the latest threat to whatever they held dear. … Continue reading The Amber RPG and Me
