Category Archives: Gaming Systems

Disparate Character Abilities

One of the campaigns in which I’m playing has managed to step into a problem I’ve seen a lot since it was first brought to my attention years ago. A friend of mine was playing a character who couldn’t take … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Campaign Writeup: The Nine Emblems

The Nine Emblems was the first campaign I ran, a million years ago in early 2004. Like most of my early campaigns, it was timed to wrap up by the end of the semester, and it must have been shortly … Continue reading

Posted in Campaigns, Gaming Systems | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Campaign Writeup: The Nine Emblems

A Rant on Dragons

Dragons irritate me. Maybe it’s because they’re popular with designers. After all, they’re in the name of the system, and I can think of five first-party books off the top of my head all about dragons and how players can … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Rant on Racial Prerequisites

I’ve been asked why I don’t like racial prerequisites (or, as I like to call them, racist prerequisites), and I don’t think I have a clear, logical answer, certainly not the kind that will sway everybody to my viewpoint. The … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Doing the Impossible

There’s a point in No More Heroes 2 when the main character walks into a(n American) football stadium and is immediately surrounded by two-dozen identical cheerleaders, all introducing a football star that the main character has been send to fight. … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged , | Comments Off on Doing the Impossible

D&D Stats in Simple Language

I’ve heard a lot of interpretations of ability scores. The most common of these is “Charisma correlates strongly to good looks”, which is incorrect and tends to irritate players of low-Charisma characters, but anytime there’s something the stats don’t cover … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged , , | 76 Comments

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

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems, Laws | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Law #1

Law #3

Only so many rules exist. There’s only room in the market for so many companies, those companies can only release so many books, and those books can only contain so much material. It’s impossible for one system to describe in … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems, Laws | Tagged , , | 1 Comment