Musings on table-top role-playing games today after spending a quarter century away from them.
I saw a query recently about modifications to the simple Maze Rats rules by Ben Milton. I used these rules for a long-running fantasy campaign (30+ sessions). I also used The Monster Overhaul (2023) as my bestiary throughout, when I didn't invent my own monsters. I thought I'd just share this recipe. The conversion from the Monster Overhaul to Maze Rats so easy that there is no reason not to use…
This post gives a name to a very fast method of using dice that is already found in several games. It points out the similarity of the odds of this method to the even more widespread 2d6+/-modifiers method as well as current iterations of the d20 method. The familiar 2d6 method with a target of 10 Many role-playing games resolve uncertainty with 2d6 rolls and a target number of 10 for success. You…
If you are a parent of a kid who plays D&D or another role-playing game with friends, you may have a new play group to recruit right in front of you: the parents of the other kids. Here's how I got my most regular current in-person gaming group, which has been going for well over a year now. Maybe you can do something similar. This post is about how I made it work. First, I had some auspicious…
There are arguments that D&D should , or should not be, “racially diverse,” because it was, or wasn’t, like that in the world “back then.” Folks, D&D is usually not even attempting to represent a historical society. Even when it seems to be making the attempt, it’s still a fantasy representation based on other representations. It’s not relevant to argue about “what it was like back then” without…
But you aren't composing a novel or reading a script . (Not during an RPG session, anyway.) This is a long blog post about pervasive mistakes and miscommunication in the debate about "storytelling" in RPGs. "D&D is storytelling , so it needs a plot ." You can find plentiful resources on the internet today offering advice for Dungeon Masters on how to prepare a D&D campaign plot so the players will…
Fifty years ago this month, the first 1000 copies of the original Dungeons & Dragons were printed and then boxed up at Gary Gygax's house. It's supposed to have been late in January of 1974 , but we don't have a specific date. January 1974 is good enough for me. And what counts as the specific origin date, anyway? The final draft? The actual printing? The availability for sale? We're close enough.…
Millions of people have had a chuckle at the short YouTube video about the guy outraged on the internet that other people like the thing he doesn't like. Probably all gamers will identify with this in one way or another, either because they have felt those feelings or they've been targeted by the rage of those who feel those feelings. "Your games are bad! My games are good!" This is not a new…
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA People enjoy being impressed by multilingualism. “Wow, Mary speaks seven languages !” One hears this kind of thing. It sounds amazing. Speaking a lot of languages seems to mean you are especially intelligent. (As I will explain, this is not really so.) If you tested Mary and her seven languages, you would find she is not equally capable in all of them.…
D&D and Indie RPG YouTubers! Yes, you. We know you read a lot of gamer blogs. You should be referring by name to the blogs from which you derive information and content, or even just inspiration. It's a simple courtesy to tip your hat toward the bloggers whose efforts are behind your own. It's not about views. It's about honesty, fairness, kindness, and good manners. It also contributes to a sense…
Sometimes, GMs, you could trust the dice more to work for your game's fiction. Let me explain what I mean. Gamers like to come up with more and more rules to specify outcomes of complex fantasy situations that emerge as we narrate events in the game. It's been a basic impulse since D&D began to make house rules adding complexity to take account of the things players want to know. Where did your…
Sometimes players of adventure games stop and ask, "Wait, why am I risking my life in this dangerous adventure?" They balk at entering the dungeon, braving the Weird Woods, or seeking the dragon's hoard. "Why would I ever do that?" somebody asks. Referees, you should beat them to the punch. You ask them this question. I have been known to go around the table and ask each player at the beginning of…
I picked up on a conversation about whether you (the GM) should tell your players the title of the adventure they are entering. Some adventure titles include spoilers. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is an adventure title you can tell your players. It's even enticing. They will want to discover what the secret is. Shadows over Bögenhafen is another that does no harm if they players hear it…
My last post (yesterday) stated that the earliest known "rumor table" in a role-playing game module was the one in Mike Carr's B1 In Search of the Unknown , which featured the dungeon known as The Caverns of Quasqueton. Read that other post first to understand this one. Paleologos left a comment there pointing out that Judges Guild 102 The Caverns of Thracia had a rumor table, too. I have read…
Role-playing game modules that emulate a putative "old school" often include tables of rumors that the referee can give out to the players. Rumors are a fun way to convey setting information and hints that motivate players to explore and form goals. Where did the rumor table begin? It wasn't part of original D&D. It was never a part of the rules themselves. Rumor tables came with modules . The…
Hex maps for boardgames apparently began with Agon , London 1842. Hexagonal chess was invented in Poland in 1936. The board wargame was invented in 1953, published in 1954 as Tactics by Avalon Hill. Now you did not need large numbers of figurines and terrain to simulate wars on your tabletop. You just had to buy a kit made of cardboard pieces, a complete game delivering a specific experience…
Two and a half years ago, when I was still getting reoriented to what was going on with table-top role-playing games, I wrote a post on the history of the concepts of "sandboxes" and "railroads" in RPGs. My conclusions were that (1) gamers have been talking about these ideas for a very long time, but (2) the specific term "sandbox," for a world open to player characters to explore without a…
The hard-working Hit Point remains one of those aspects of D&D that its players continually debate. It's not just what hit points represent. It's also how they increase per level. This post is about the latter factor. In D&D, the older a character is, and (in most cases) the more injured the character has been through trials, traps, and monster attacks, the more resistant to further attacks the…
When new D&D characters are created, you know how the players can be stuck for a long time shopping for starting gear. Yes, that is a drag, especially for new players who often have little idea what each new piece of equipment is for. What are iron spikes for? The delay to the beginning of play can be boring for players expecting to dive right into adventure. The Prismatic Wasteland blog has an…
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA Commodification Signifies Value My son recently introduced me to some card games that he learned from friends this summer. He taught me the rules orally on the spot, and then we played; he had learned the rules orally from friends; his friends who taught him had learned the rules orally. There was no game book to study, no examples of play to read. It…
In April 2021, a fruitful essay appeared called " Six Cultures of Play ," by blogger Retired Adventurer, receiving a lot of deserved attention. It seems to have established some terms for further and ongoing discussion since then. In this entry I address the distinction construed there between the earliest two "cultures of play" and how they differ from what is known as the OSR (Old-School…
There was a period of years early in the hobby’s history when there were no adventure modules at all. In those days, everybody made their own adventures by hand—without computers . You can, too. Lately I’ve returned to the quiet pleasure of developing hand-crafted adventures and setting materials on my own. I have no intention of sharing my materials with anybody but the players of my games. I…
Do you enjoy acting out your character’s words, even adopting a different voice for your character? Do you hate it when people do that? When I got back into gaming a few years ago, I noticed that “amateur thespianism” has become one of the things in role-playing games that a certain sort of player now complains about. Thespianism means acting. We are told that acting has no place in “old-school”…
Should you be acting out a part , telling a story , or playing a game ? My answer is Yes . Players of RPGs do all of these things and more all at once, of course, in varying degrees. They always have. It's simply a matter of which aspects individuals enjoy more or emphasize that differentiates cliques and factions in the never-ending battle in quest of the Holy Grail: the Best Game Ever. It's…
Every D&D adventurer is a coin collector. Every old variety of D&D and similar games posit one game-mechanical goal for characters: collecting coins (and other treasure evaluated in coins). Coins are a symbol in these games for the characters' trying experiences that explain their personal improvement. We all know that gathering gold does not make one a more skillful fighter or wizard or thief.…
I have come across a number of discussions among those who seek to discover and recapture an original, "natural," unbounded, or otherwise pristine form of role-playing game. Some of them find the roots of this mode of play in the person of Dave Arneson, one of the two original authors of Dungeons & Dragons . These fascinating discussions have two things at stake. One is the quest to find a style…