Personally, I love random encounter tables. RPGs are games of mitigated chance. Characters make dice rolls to hit monsters, negotiate deals, and fly spaceships. Why not have the GM make them to see what’s around the corner? The element of randomness gives both the players and GM something to play with, as the unexpected happens.
Continue reading “Better Random Encounters”
Heroes can spend a lot of time out in the wilderness. There is a lot of action outside of town, what with monsters ravaging the countryside, forgotten dungeons, and that pesky environment to contend with. Eventually, the characters are going to come to a settlement, however. Maybe they just want to grab supplies or have a long rest without worrying about pesky Anhkegs for once. Perhaps the city is actually a focus, and you’re planning to run an urban campaign. Whatever the reason, the forests and plains are giving way to wood smoke and buildings. How do you make this community stand out? Continue reading “Giving Your Cities Character”
Most people play dungeons and Dragons to be heroic. They want to save the day while staring gruesome monstrosities and certain death in the face over and over again. Their characters just grit their teeth, look demons in the eye, and spit. Unlike real life where I get startled when there is a knock at the door, nothing scares a D&D character.
Have you made your own campaign world? Let’s give it some holidays to celebrate!
Many people see the dungeon as the corner stone of any good D&D game. It’s right in the name, for Rerox’s sake. Heroes go down into unknowable depths to kill things and get loot. The farther down you go, the more powerful the baddies. It’s a reoccurring trope. It’s also something I moved away from for a long time.
The game has evolved greatly over the years, largely in terms of play styles. D&D became less about about “kick in the door” and more about the story. As a game created by a bunch of war gamers, this was quite the transition. This was not Dungeons and Dragons original vision. There was a column Gary Gygax wrote for Dragon magazine that advised against becoming too much of an actor, as it would take away from the game portion of role playing games. I can’t find it for the life of me, but it was fascinating. If anyone has an issue number, drop me an e-mail.
This is the second in a series of posts about GMless games. Sometimes you don’t have time to do the prep or someone can’t make it to the game. These are great substitutes for your ongoing campaign. Today’s game, Microscope, stands just fine on its own. It’s an RPG where you get to build everything.
Together.
Dungeons and Dragons has this wonderful abstraction of currency that helps to simplify the game and move things along. There are ten copper pieces in a silver piece, ten silver pieces in a gold piece, and 10 gold in a platinum. There is electrum as well, but let’s not talk about that. No one speaks about electrum.
Gold pieces are kind of the base. Everything else is measured off of that. Think of it like the dollar. Coins are percentages of the dollar, while other bills are multiples of it. Continue reading “Gold Pieces are Boring”
