When I started my current D&D campaign I spent a good amount of time worrying exactly about what makes a good campaign. It is easy enough to set up a series of combat sessions that the players enjoy, but I feel that this does not contribute to the overall campaign. I’ve always believed Role Playing [...]
Last time I showcased a few questions from DRAGON Magazine regarding cooperative world development (refer to World Development 101 with KarasDjun). The only responses (two) from the magazine survey insisted that “High Fantasy” was definitely something that players wanted to see. I have little to no experience at running a High Fantasy world. All I know [...]
Just released in the last few weeks is the American printing of Ticket to Ride: Märklin, which is now the second stand-alone sequel to the 2004 Spiel-des-Jahr zillion-selling Ticket to Ride. I will say a couple of words about the TTR series in general, and then move into a bit of a discussion about the [...]
I plan to discuss over the next few months various aspects of gaming with miniatures. This first article will hopefully cover the basics of my obsession with them and where I am at. I feel this background will help you understand why I devote so much money and time to the hobby or at least that I am an obsessed fan on par with many groupees for a band. As I go forward with these articles I plan to cover how to grow a club, web support, and tournament competition as I both run and compete in various ones throughout my state.
I play in two relatively newly-started D&D 3.5 campaigns, and the topic of character generation methods is fresh in my mind.
I’ve never much cared all that much for the usual methods from the 3.0 and 3.5 DMGs. They’re just so underwhelming for an occasion as momentous as the birth of a new hero! So this [...]
By way of an unscheduled update, a few words about my poker prowess. Now, one of the first rules of poker discussion is that no one likes to hear about your bad beat stories besides possibly the guy who took you down. So, I will try to spare you the details on those.
Last night I [...]
When Wizards of the Coast (WotC) bought TSR I was actually hopeful. I thought of all the improvements that could be made in the Magic:The Gathering game (M:tg). I especially was hoping for the Faerun and Dragonlance expansions to M:tg, featuring the awesome artwork of Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, and Jeff Easley. What I didn’t [...]
About a year ago my friends wanted to play D&D online. This was a necessity since we were spread out a bit on the east coast - two on Long Island, two in Westchester NY, and another in Charlotte NC. The DM was the furthest away in North Carolina, and he would be the first of [...]
[Consider this part 1 of an occasional “advanced character workshop”]
Let’s suppose, for a moment, that your GM is starting up a new D&D game with the following parameters: PCs should be 5th level or equivalent, with 28 points to use buying attributes, and 9,000 gp worth of equipment — no one item can be worth [...]
We’ve seen from my fellow contributors an article on “What makes for a good game?” by SMitE, and MetalJim tackled the tougher issue of what really constitutes a game versus say an activity. Today I want to discuss with you the effect your gaming group has on your perception of a game.
“What makes for a good game?” - always a slippery question to ask. Games are both art and craft. Some parts we can analyze. Other parts remain frustratingly, defiantly inscrutible. We fall into the trap of making emotional attachments and indefensible value statements. Still, there’s fun in the trying!
Today I’m thinking about cause and effect. [...]
When it comes to trying out new games I am a junkie. There has never been a game that I would not at least play once. No matter how bad it is I’m up for it. Sometimes I’d even play a bad game more than once just to make sure that it was truly bad and [...]
Recently I decided to work on a new D&D campaign world. There’s nothing wrong with Greyhawk, in fact I’ve been running a weekly game based in this original campaign world since 1993. Before that I used to run adventures loosely based in this campaign setting. During college, however, I drifted away from Greyhawk to develop [...]
My brethren, know first and foremost that you are GAMERS. This means that you play games. You are not merely engaging in non-productive activities for the sake of killing time.
A game, then, requires a competitive environment where the player does not control all of the variables, but the player does get to make frequent decisions [...]
Rhelik takes on his first review with a spin-off of the well known game Carcassonne.
This past weekend I got to play two out the three games that my friends picked up at UBCon. The first was Trias, an interesting little number that I’ll talk about some other day. The third was a Rail game whose name I can’t even recall, but I’m sure we’ll play it all too soon!
No, [...]
So, on Saturday I played my second game of Funkenschlag, the German original of the game known in the U.S. as Power Grid. Both games were developed by freaky German designer Friedmann Friese, who has a strange penchant for the letter “F”. Both games share a similar premise — you are trying to run a [...]