Are you thinking about playing D&D or some other roleplaying game (RPG) like Pathfinder, Starfinder, Call of Cthulhu, or similar? You might be confused by all the trappings of such a game. For instance, there's a special important-sounding title for one of the players, like "Game Master" or "Dungeon...
At the time of this writing, Wizards of the Coast is continuing their attempt to revoke the Open Gaming License. It doesn't much matter, at this point, whether they succeed. They've made their intent clear. They've made it impossible to trust them as caretakers of the legacy of the world's first rol...
I picked up Fizban's Treasury of Dragon and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. In this post, I discuss Chapter 3: Dragons in play.
This chapter is all about what part Dragons might play in your campaign. In my opinion, the first 2 chapters hav...
In a recent leaked document, Wizards of the Coast has apparently threatened to revoke the Open Gaming License version 1.0a by stating that it will become "unauthorized." From what some lawyers are saying on the Internet, because the OGL 1.0a license does not use the magic word "irrevocable," this is...
I picked up Fizban's Treasury of Dragon and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. In this post, I discuss Chapter 2: Dragon Magic.
There are just 7 spells in this chapter, which takes up about a third of this 9-page chapter. The rest of the pages...
Shadowrun's character build process is explained in the 5th Edition Core Rulebook, but there are a lot of possibilities. This post describes a linear build process for a Shadowrun technomancer, and is designed to help new players.
Note that this post is for Shadowrun 5th Edition, even though...
When I first got into miniature wargaming and painting, I thought all miniatures were created equal. The only difference, to me, was that some miniatures were for fantasy, others for sci fi, and still others for historical settings. But I've come to realise that miniatures vary greatly in not just c...
Pathfinder is the D&D 3rd edition rule set copied and pasted (legally permitted by the Open Game License), with a few nominal adjustments, into a book labeled "Pathfinder". Now that D&D is on its 5th edition (and heading toward its next incarnation), and Pathfinder has released a 2nd edition of it...
The Rogues in Remballo module, published by Frog God Games, is an investigative adventure for characters from level 4-6. I've run it a few times, and this post represents my thoughts about the module and what it's like to run.
First of all, setting expectations is important. Rogues in Remballo...
The Tomb of Horrors by Gary Gygax is probably the most famous dungeon in all of D&D. Part of the appeal of D&D for many gamers is the shared experience of playing common adventures, and because The Tomb of Horrors has been around for such a long time and has gained such a reputation for being a...
I've written about the RPG metagame debate before, and one contributing factor to what I'll call "metagame anxiety" is familiarity with an adventure. For the record, I don't usually mind the metagame. I believe it can be a fun and valuable part of the game. But some people get concerned that a pla...
I picked up Fizban's Treasury of Dragon and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. In this post, I discuss Chapter 1: Character Creation.
There are three ancestries in Chapter 1, each one an alternative to the Dragonborn ancestry listed in the Pl...
I picked up Fizban's Treasury of Dragon and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter.
In true Dragonlance tradition, the first section of this book is a poem. The poem is called Elegy for the first world, and it's the vehicle the book uses to push...
I've been reading through the Starfinder source book, Pact Worlds. It's a small book, but fits a lot of information into it, so I'm going to post about sections as I finish them.
Chapter 4, the final chapter of the Pact Worlds book, contains player options. This includes character archetypes,...
Shadowrun's character build process is explained in the 5th Edition Core Rulebook, but there's a lot to filter out because there are so many possibilities. This post describes a linear build process for a Shadowrun adept, and is designed to help new players.
Note that this post is for Shadow...
The 5th Edition book for the Dragonlance setting has turned out to be less a setting book and more an adventure with some setting data. In an attempt to make up the difference, I recently purchased two Dragonlance books written by fans from DMs Guild. In this post, I'm reviewing Dragonlance Compani...