Search Results for: cooperative design

#RPGaDAY 2016 Day 18

What innovation could RPG groups gain the most benefit from? A lot of groups are already doing things like cooperative world-building, treating the DM as a fellow player instead of an antagonist and vice versa, and other things I talk … Continue reading

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On Pathfinder

I told you that story to tell you this one: I’m starting to wonder if I’m done with Pathfinder. The more I read about Pathfinder and the more I understand the designers’ intentions and the way players use it, the … Continue reading

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Long-Term Campaigns and Player Interest

As I work through the second Zelda campaign (as opposed to the Second Zelda campaign, where the party has to figure out which princess is a robot), I’m finding some of my storytelling challenges are different from my normal campaigns. … Continue reading

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Running a Video Game (or, an Apology My Players Don’t Want)

By my own standards I’ve been a terrible DM lately. When my latest campaign began, I didn’t give my players the normal pre-campaign survey. I haven’t been asking players to build levels for me. I haven’t been designing all encounters … Continue reading

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In Defense of the Indefensible

World Engineer has a post about the impending 5th Edition, and I find it hard to disagree with most of what he says. Fighting over editions is bad, there’s no need to convert people, and so on and so forth. … Continue reading

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Masks/Eureka

This blog is pretty unapologetically about D&D (which, for the purposes of this article, is synonymous with Pathfinder). There’s a reason it’s called “DMing with Charisma” and not “GMing with Rapport” or “Storytelling with Manipulation”. That’s not necessarily because it’s … Continue reading

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“Rules as Written” (or, Hate the Playa, not the Game)

I was loitering at my friendly local gaming store (patronize it with money!) lately, and a conversation sprouted about play styles. Specifically, we discussed a particular style of play formed around building powerful characters and having them do powerful things. … Continue reading

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4th Edition Themes (the Mechanic That Should Have Always Been)

Recently, I said this: The items are also neat, though I’m starting to be bothered by 4th Edition’s insistence on adding more and more item slots. First it was tattoos, then divine gifts, and now primordial shards and elemental gifts. … Continue reading

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Heroes of the Elemental Chaos

I like Heroes of the Elemental Chaos. When I got Heroes of Shadow, I found that it was mostly just an expansion to the staggeringly limited Encounters line, in that it wasn’t good but it was the best there was. … Continue reading

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Law #1

This one was requested, so I accept no blame for it. D&D is a cooperative game, as has been discussed, but it’s not really an even cooperation. The players in the party may all be equal, but the DM by … Continue reading

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