There seems to be a lot of talk these days about character death in D&D and other roleplaying games. It seems that there's an audience that doesn't want their player character to die. Ever.
Which, admittedly, is the point of the game mechanic. If players don't care about death, then there's no poi...
In a previous post, I wrote about how tracking encumbrance made loot more "valuable" by enforcing a weight-based economy. However, tracking encumbrance can be hard. In theory, it's exclusively the responsibility of each player, but if the game master (GM) doesn't announce the weight of each item t...
Everybody has their own tolerance levels for how much paperwork in an RPG they feel is fun. For some people, updating their character sheet is a milestone system for their character. It's as much a part of the game as NPC interactions, decisions, strategy, solving puzzles, and so on. For others, a c...
I track the passage of time in my RPGs, and so should you, and it's actually easy. This blog post tells you how.
What you need
A deck of cards. If possible, use Pathfinder or Starfinder cards, or something similar. You'll see why.
How to do it
Set your deck of cards on the table. When an...
I think a lot of us gamers think that tabletop roleplaying games are exhilarating at the beginning, but that they tend to taper off toward the end. Commonly, this is expressed as "the problem with high level play." I sense that it's seen as more of a problem in class-based systems that emphasize the...
I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Litanies of the Lost is a book containing four adventures that can be run independently or as a continuous campaign. The framework requires the IMPERIUM keyword, and the first adventure is for T...
I picked up Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. The final chapter is a bestiary with an assortment of new monsters for Ravenloft. D&D monsters are a pretty easy target. Dungeon Masters always need new monsters...
I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Null hypothesis is an adventure for Tier 3 or 4 characters. The framework isn't specified, but the quest giver is a rogue trader, while the subject of the rescue quest is Imperium, so there's an...
I picked up Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Casually hidden away at the end of chapter 4, there's a Ravenloft adventure called The house of lament. The back of the book says nothing about this, so I was...
I picked up Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 4 contains Dungeon Master advice, and several new mechanics including a whole new type of playable character. That's a lot of content, but that's not all...
I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Affliction Ascendant is the fourth and final book in a quartet of adventures, preceded by Bloody Gates, On the wings of Valkyries, and Lord of the Spire. The books aren't quite sequential,...
I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. The final chapter, called Corruptions and haunts contains some mechanical effects for the particularly evil GM and the particularly...
I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 2 is called Strange far places and it's about seven different regions on Golarion that are prone to some type of horror, so...
I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 2 is called Strange far places and it's about seven different regions on Golarion that are prone to some type of horror, so...
I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 2 is called Strange far places and it's about seven different regions on Golarion that are prone to some type of horror, so...
I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Lord of the spire is the third book in a quartet of adventures, including Bloody Gates, On the wings of Valkyries, and Affliction Ascendant. The books aren't exactly sequential, and instea...