Mixed Signals

Straight-forward gaming

There's a lot of overlap between D&D and Pathfinder. Originally, of course, Pathfinder was 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...

With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out the second AD&D Spelljammer module Skulls & Crossbows. I'm looking at it particularly with quick conversion in mind, but also for story and general usefulness. The seventh adventure in the book is called "Violent death."

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With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out the second AD&D Spelljammer module Skulls & Crossbows. I'm looking at it particularly with quick conversion in mind, but also for story and general usefulness. The sixth adventure in the book is called "Fire and ice."

Fi

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There's always been a fascinating link between wargames and RPGs. Pragmatically, though, there's a significant intersection. While RPGs normally feature small skirmishes between 6 to maybe 12 creatures, sometimes the combats get significantly larger. Strangely, the world's first RPG was created spec...

Spelljammer has been around for a while, and it's amassed a bunch of Olias-of-Sunhillow style ships over the years. The 5e edition of Spelljammer adapted or converted 15 or so, but that leaves over 30 ships lost in the shuffle. Luckily, a resourceful fan called ffwydriadd has converted a bunch of sh...

With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out the second AD&D Spelljammer module Skulls & Crossbows. I'm looking at it particularly with quick conversion in mind, but also for story and general usefulness. The fifth adventure in the book is called "Bloody vikings..."

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With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out the second AD&D Spelljammer module Skulls & Crossbows. I'm looking at it particularly with quick conversion in mind, but also for story and general usefulness. The fourth adventure in the book is called "Pirate-wyrm."

Pi

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As players level up in an RPG, they expect increased challenge. They want bigger monsters that are harder to kill and that threaten to kill them first, faster.

The formula seems like it would be simple: As player characters level-up and gain hit points, you make the monsters deal more damage. In o...

With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out the second AD&D Spelljammer module Skulls & Crossbows. I'm looking at it particularly with quick conversion in mind, but also for story and general usefulness. The third adventure in the book is called "Small package trade...

As a hobbyist game designer, I have the distinct advantages of making lots of mistakes. Mistakes are great, because you learn from them, but as a bonus you learn to see the mistakes you made in other people's designs.

Lately, the mistake I've been hyper-focused on is the lack of tags in games....

With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out an old Spelljammer book for some adventuring material. The second Spelljammer adventure book to be released was Skulls & Crossbows. I'm reading through it as prep for an upcoming Spelljammer campaign, so I figured I'd give...

With the release of Spelljammer for D&D 5th Edition, I decided to break out an old Spelljammer book for some adventuring material. The second Spelljammer adventure book to be released was Skulls & Crossbows, a collection of adventures that, in the style of Infinite Staircase or Ghosts of Saltma...

I mentioned in my first look at Spelljammer that ship combat appears to largely be missing from the Astral Adventurer's Guide. I've fixed that with some custom rules, adapted from my well-worn Starfinder ship combat ruleset.

I didn't have high hopes for ship combat rules, honestly, because I'v...

I picked up a copy of Spelljammer, the latest release from Wizards of the Coast, and I've spent the past couple of days reading over the three books in the boxed set. This is a quick cursory review of the new setting.

When Spelljammer was first announced, I was excited about it. I've already pla...

I believe I've reached a definitive conclusion about the organisational structure of most 5e books. I don't know what it is about the way 5e books are put together, but I have yet to find even one that entirely makes sense to me. This isn't a complaint I make lightly, because I see how much informat...

I mostly play Pathfinder and 5e D&D, but if asked, I do also consider myself an AD&D 2nd edition player. In fact, emotionally I consider 2nd edition "my edition" because it for that edition I rolled my first characters (which I then never played, because my parents forbade it), and I read Dragonlanc...