Author Archives: MssngrDeath

Achievement Unlocked

Posted on 29 March, 2015 by MssngrDeath

I may be a good DM, but I’m not the greatest player.

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Long-Term Campaigns and Player Interest

Posted on 18 March, 2015 by MssngrDeath

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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Cooperative Content Design

Posted on 18 February, 2015 by MssngrDeath

The players in my 4E campaign are currently at L10 and a short side-quest away from L11, which means they’re eying paragon paths. We’ve been flipping through a few books to put together some decent candidates, some obvious (the archer … Continue reading →

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Playing D&D 5E

Posted on 3 February, 2015 by MssngrDeath

I’ve been holding off on writing too much about D&D ZEXAL until I got a chance to play it. Rummaging through the books looking for theory is all well and good, but a gaming system is a system for gaming … Continue reading →

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

Posted on 24 January, 2015 by MssngrDeath

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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Hazards of 5E Character Sheet Design

Posted on 10 December, 2014 by MssngrDeath

In preparation for playing in my first 5E campaign I’ve come across something of a quandary concerning my character sheet. I’ve been using my own character sheets for years, designed in Excel (or OpenOffice). It lets me present the information … Continue reading →

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Removing Ability Scores

Posted on 4 December, 2014 by MssngrDeath

I got an interesting comment on my recent post In Defense of D&D Stats in Simple Language: What Measure is an 18?, and I think it merits discussion before we change topics: Out of curiosity, I wonder what your opinion … Continue reading →

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In Defense of D&D Stats in Simple Language: The Definition of Charisma

Posted on 30 November, 2014 by MssngrDeath

Last post I responded to some of the comments on D&D Stats in Simple Language with “we’re both right”. Things don’t translate perfectly from one edition to another, and the stats simply won’t work if they’re applied to earlier or … Continue reading →

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In Defense of D&D Stats in Simple Language: What Measure is an 18?

Posted on 26 November, 2014 by MssngrDeath

One of the neat bits about having a blog is that I post things that generate discussion. It’s one thing to say something in a group of similarly-minded DMs and have a talk before a session starts, but it’s quite … Continue reading →

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The Life of a Prop (or, Confessions of a Dire Pack Rat)

Posted on 6 October, 2014 by MssngrDeath

I moved a bunch when I was younger. I didn’t pack up my life every six months and shuffle around the country, but I had a lot of opportunity to clean out my desk drawers. As annoying as it was, … Continue reading →

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