How much character development, particularly of the pre-first-level backstory variety, is typical for your gaming group?
My gang is a bit of a mixed bag – some are willing and capable of creating personal histories that would fill a small book, before they ever set out on their first adventure. There’s some good reasons for this [...]
Last weekend Random tagged me (offline) as having drunk the 4E Kool-Aid. Ouch! As a reflexive (but recovering) cynic, the gist of his words hit me hard, and it’s taken a few days to consider my response. Here it is:
First, I really do like game systems, the mechanics and the relations thereof. While Wizards’ motives [...]
Typical conversation, one week after the D&D 4E launch:
Other person: “Well, from what I’ve heard, it sucks.”
Me: “Oh? What have you heard?”
Other person: “That it sucks.”
All right, then! I’ve been working my way through the PHB, and have gotten to the end of Feats, so at least I now know how the new multiclassing works. [...]
Secrets, mysteries, deceits, deceptions, red herrings, misdirections, hidden motives, outright lies – these are great drivers of plot and narrative, as most of us know. But we seem to have trouble getting such elements into our D&D gameplay and have it turn out as fun as we’d hoped for. We’re adventurers, gosh darn it, not [...]
We seem to be on a roll with this “what bad things can you do with very high and very low non-physical abilities (Int, Wis, Cha)” thing, which we all recognize as a timeless piece of flame bait and thus speaks to very reasons why we just love playing this crazy D&D game in the [...]
Try as we might, Random and I just can’t seem to work ourselves up to a frothy flame-war on most gaming subjects; let’s just say this is due to an abundance of mutual respect rather than a lack of talent for such artifice. Yea verify, too many years of face-to-face banter with all our gamer [...]
Well, it’s the end of May, and the D&D 4th Edition release draws ever nearer. Sixteen days or so as of this writing. I’ve been on the case since April 1st, and am eagerly awaiting for my lovely pre-ordered package of goodness to arrive from Amazon on that fateful day. Then comes a lot of [...]
We’ve got a Wii. And, my dearly beloved has never seen a single Star Wars movie in her life, not even one. But she’s seen our friends’ two little boys having a great time playing Lego Star Wars on their Xbox. So we got LSW: The Complete Saga for the Wii.
It’s a great, fun, game, [...]
Microsoft’s XNA framework, which is enabling game developers to target the PC and the Xbox 360 together, will soon allow the Zune to be targeted as well. What does this mean? Why do we care?
In theory, the XNA initiative is supposed to open the doors of game development (and really more importantly – distribution) to [...]
As some of us give consideration to campaign world design, it’s a good time to look for ideas and inspirations. I personally tend to err on the side of too much realism, and must look to find ways to get more fanciful in my outlook while still feeling at least a little grounded. One route [...]
As much as D&D news is ever capable of “exploding” – given its limited fan base and similarly truncated social standing – it’s been exploding this week. That’s because last Thursday (2008–04–17), Wizards announced their D&D 4th Edition Game System License, or GSL. While generous to the third-party content community in terms of being cost-free [...]
In his post last week, MetalJim began a discussion of Avoterra, a new continent-setting he is designing specifically to support the upcoming 4E “points of light” style of default setting. This is smart, very smart. Rather than try to shoehorn in an ungainly setting or something from the past, he’s taking stock of what’s being offered in [...]
In last week’s post, KarasDjun and itsman really hit closest to the target with their comments on D&D 4E early adoption travails, namely: the history of bug-ridden texts in the prior early printings in 3 and 3.5. So over the weekend, I talked awhile with my gaming gang about 4E, including my fellow d21–er and [...]
You can all go ahead thank me for not making up some wacky April Fool’s post. No, Days of Wonder has not gone out of business…
It’s getting close, isn’t it? The time when 4th Edition D&D was just this fuzzy cloud of rumor and speculation has long passed, along with the ongoing stream of hints and [...]
MetalJim started off what’s fast becoming the season of springtime ranting with his post about the difference between a game and a hobby, in defense of his seriousness and dedication in such manners. Since I have the power (bwah ha ha!) to write a whole new post rather than just tack on a reply to his, [...]
Chalk my household up as one of the latest additions to the Wii Nation. The very first game you get to play is the one where you try to locate a unit for sale and actually buy it. It’s not too hard if you’re persistent: you choose a close retailer like Wal-Mart and call them [...]
Somehow I’ve managed to read three Robert A Heinlein books in the last year, for a new grand total of, um, three. Credit Random for being my personal library.
Sadly, it’s been a downward trend: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (1966) is a classic that’s truly earned that credit: it’s a brave narrative supporting strongly reasoned ideas [...]
DMs, do you want to give your players a day of mental pain? Involve them in a contract. Extreme pain, is that what I hear you asking for? Fine – have the players write the contract! It doesn’t matter if the party is lawful, chaotic, neutral, or assorted – since those are mere character traits. [...]
Adventuring is about voyage, discovery, heroic deeds, turning the tide in a great battle, undertaking a diplomatic mission, and so on: either bearing witness to – or, even better, being a part of – the making of history.
In one of the campaigns I play in, we’ve been tooling around a relatively unknown part of the [...]
Once upon a time I subscribed to a magazine called Computer Games (it actually started with a free subscription bundled with Europa Universalis II!), and as its name implied, it was all about gaming on the PC. Content was sterling, but readership wasn’t. They stooped so low as to start filling the back pages with [...]