Anatomy Of A Save
During play this Saturday past, I had reason to dissect a Save. The entire process took only a few seconds at the time, thoughts following one on another so quickly that there was barely enough time to...
View ArticleSkin, Sinew, and Bone: (re-)Imagining Fantastic Creatures
Of late, I’ve had to create fantastic creatures for several of my campaigns, and despite the clear and obvious differences between the game systems employed, I found myself struck by a number of...
View ArticleA Matter Of Trust: 14 ways to prevent inter-party conflict
Rite Of Passage There’s one experience that used to be common to almost every GM out there – the party being betrayed by one of its members and the GM expected to make sense out of the situation before...
View ArticleTrap-tastic
I’ve always had problems with traps in D&D. Some of these problems have their origins all the way back in AD&D, others are more recent in origin. Rules changes with the different editions have...
View ArticleA Sharp Lookout: How Much Can You Adventure?
Have you ever heard of the “Strange Face In The Mirror” illusion? Or the Troxler effect? All right, I see the person at the back of the hall with their hands raised, and you up in the gallery. Anyone...
View ArticleJan 2020 Blog Carnival: Some Thoughts On Random Encounters
Maximilian Hart puts out a daily newsletter with a short thought and some links to resources that may be of value to D&D GMs called Dungeon Master Daily (subscribe and read some more about this...
View ArticleSparkle and Clink: Objective-Oriented Loot Placement
Some History It used to be so simple, back when I first started GMing AD&D. Each monster had a treasure type, and each treasure type had a table (or sequence of tables) that you rolled on, and a...
View ArticleIntroducing The Sixes System: A Minimalist Universal RPG
0. Preface I’ve been thinking about writing this article – and the rest of this series – for a while now. You may be wondering, what is The Sixes System? It’s a slight refinement of the sophisticated...
View ArticleThe Sixes System Pt 1: Fundamentals
0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, and has just come to a successful conclusion. — Characters are constructed using a...
View ArticleThe Sixes System Pt 2: Education, Abilities, and Tools
0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, and has just come to a successful conclusion. — Characters are constructed using a...
View ArticleThe Sixes System Pt 3: Doing Things 1
0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, and has just come to a successful conclusion. — Characters are constructed using a...
View ArticleThe Sixes System Pt 4: Doing Things 2
0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, and has just come to a successful conclusion. — Characters are constructed using a...
View ArticleThe Sixes System Pt 5: Campaign Infrastructure
0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System is a minimalist game system suitable for any and all genres. — It has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, which has just...
View ArticleThe Sixes System Pt 6: Doing More Things
0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System is a minimalist game system suitable for any and all genres. — It has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, which has just...
View ArticleSimulated Unreality: Game Physics Tribulations
RPGs have a lot of genre elements that do not exist in the real world. Magic, Divine visitations, strange creatures, non-human races with exotic capabilities, exotic potions and arcane enchantments of...
View ArticleNorsing Around With Jordenheim
It has always been my opinion that of all the pantheons, the Norse are the most suited to application within a superhero campaign. The Greek deities are too whimsical, the Romans too arrogant; the...
View ArticleCreating a Campaign Physics
“Game Physics*” have been on my mind lately, no doubt because of my recently published article on the underpinning theory of how Magic works in my superhero campaign. This article is primarily aimed at...
View ArticleHow Good Is That Rust-bucket In The Showroom Window?
Something of a bare-bones post this time around, necessitated by the fact that I’m away from home and all its resources. I haven’t been idle while away; I had prepared more than enough RPG work in...
View ArticleFlying The Fantastic Skies: Skycrawl Reviewed
If I mention sailing ships designed to travel from one world to another, the game system that comes to mind for most readers will be the Spelljammer game setting for D&D, introduced late in 1989,...
View ArticleTypo Inzpiration and other mini-posts
Some article ideas are simply not big enough to sustain an entire post on their own. From time to time, I gather these mini-posts together to form one more substantial post. The last time I did this...
View Article