Mixed Signals

Straight-forward gaming

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...

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 Tasslehoff's Pouche...

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,...

There's a lot of overlap between D&D and Pathfinder. Pathfinder was, originally, the D&D 3rd edition rule set copied and pasted, with a few nominal adjustments, into a book labeled "Pathfinder". This was legally permitted by the Open Game License. With D&D on its 5th edition (and heading toward it...

The Pathfinder Companion book series are short books of in-depth lore about a single subject. I recently read the Gnomes of Golarion, and now I know everything about gnomes, or at least the gnomes as they appear in the default setting of the Pathfinder roleplaying game.

In the Golarion setting...

As is often the case, the 5th Edition books for the Dragonlance setting leaves out a lot of detail. In the page it provides for the Kender race, it doesn't mention the culture's fondness for the topknot hairstyle, the use of the hoopak, pouches and pockets, or maps. One of the defining traits of the...

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 3 contains a "supporting cast" of non-player characters. As a frequent GM, I appreciate this enormously, and...

Sometimes, a story just begs for a double-cross. Somebody hires the player characters to complete a job, everything goes fine, until right at the very end the PCs discover their employer was the baddie all along! Now their employer wants them dead, or refuses to pay, or intends to conquer the world...

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 2 contains new starships. From the perspective of a sci fi geek who loves to look at starship designs, a bun...

Now that D&D is on its 5th edition (and heading quickly toward its next incarnation), and Pathfinder has released a 2nd edition of its own, the two gaming systems borne of literally the same rule set have diverged substantially. They both still implement essentially the same game, though, so I decid...

Paizo's Book of the Dead is a source book about both the dead and the undead, describing the ecology, life cycle, ethics, advantages, and dangers of time spent after all your time is spent. I picked up a copy at my game store, and I'm going to review it chapter by chapter. This post covers chapter...