Category: D&D

Did you feel that? The game just changed.  And unlike most revolutionary changes, this is one you will recognize at the time. Fifteen of the best minds of our generation come together in this one incredible package. For the first time ever, experts in the field of tabletop gaming...

Once you fully adopt the classic adventure game model you have some serious and subtle obstacles to overcome.  Overnight the campaign makes a quantum leap from ‘us against the GM’ to ‘everybody against everybody’, and that means an exponential increase in the threats that you – as a player...

When every player is actively engaged with every other player, this opens up the possibility for role-playing well beyond the conventional model of play. In conventional play, meaningful role-play is limited to player-GM interactions.  Sure, you can role-play conversations within the party, and those in-character negotiations can influence the...

Looking back on 2021, it occurred to me that the most important event in tabletop gaming in decades might have been the PvP death of Bob Dobs (run by Kestutis Kalvitis), who was eaten by cave bears on the command of Chief Fudd of Fug.  Cirsova, the man behind...

As this post goes live, the IP holders for D&D are doing their darndest to rip conventional play away from the hobby approach of “anything is possible at the table (as long as you adhere to story-arc driven narrative games)” and into a consumerist approach of “gatcha driven subscription...

Thanks in large part to the bros actively re-inventing and reshaping RPGs through experimentation, session reports, analysis, and (sometimes heated) discussion, the hobby has cycled back to the age old question of, “Who invented role playing games?” Other lesser factors contribute, of course. The upper midwest Boomer Crew is...

This post feels a little, as the kids say, sus. There’s a whole lot of journalism going on right now that is nothing but trawling social media and scraping comments from the bottom feeders in order to engage in information laundering. Here’s the process: Identify a narrative that runs...

This video on the origins of tabletop RPGs made the rounds last week because Jason Tondro, in the white beard, took a few minutes to beat his breast and put on a hair shirt and self-flagellate that the hobby grew out of a normal guy scene in the late...

In AD&D wolves are a pretty scary thing to encounter.  They are 2+ HD creatures and run in packs.  They are not for 1st level encounters, which should have served as an indication that running around the Wolflands is not for new characters, nor for n00b players. And when...