Over on Against the Wicked City, Joseph Manola posted about colorful versions of classic D&D monsters — from the AD&D 1e Monster Manual (paid link). Quick, picture an ogre. What color is it? Now check out its description from the MM: The hide of ogres varies from dull blackish-brown to dead yellow. Rare specimens are a […]
The case of the colorful ogre Read More »
Jason Pitre‘s RPG design worksheet is a nifty tool. It’s available as a free, form-fillable PDF. Each section gives you a number of points to assign to elements of your design, forcing you to 1) prioritize, 2) acknowledge design goals that are present/absent, and 3) think about game design more broadly. Here’s Jason on the
Jason Pitre’s RPG design worksheet Read More »
My copy of the Planescape Campaign Setting (paid link) arrived this past weekend, and I had a chance to spend some time looking through it. My first impression is that Planescape packs a punch. What’s inside? The guts are classic 1990s TSR: four saddle-stitched books, four poster maps/thingies, and — somewhat unusually — a GM’s
Planescape makes a hell of a first impression Read More »
I’ve been noodling some more about running Planescape as a sandbox, and since my copy of the boxed set isn’t here yet I decided to pull stuff off my shelves that seemed like it might be a good fit. Important safety tip, Egon This is dangerous! This is how ideas collapse under their own weight!
Raiding the larder for Planescape sandbox ingredients Read More »
Planescape (paid link) was one of the AD&D 2nd Edition campaign settings that passed me by while it was still in print, but I’ve been curious about it for years. I was thinking about it yesterday when an idea hit me: What would Planescape be like as an old-school, gold-for-XP sandbox? Since I don’t own
Planescape as a sandbox Read More »
I was poking through Dave Arneson‘s The First Fantasy Campaign[1] the other day and happened across a section I’d never looked at before: Gypsy Sayings & Chance Cards. The sayings don’t mesh well with my GMing style (they remind me of Ravenloft’s Tarrokka Deck (paid link), a 2e product revived for 5e), but the Chance Cards
Chance Cards in Blackmoor Read More »
I wanted to use the wilderness travel rules from the B/X D&D Expert Set (paid link) in my DCC RPG (paid link) hexcrawl, but character’s movement speeds don’t translate 1:1 across the two games. I compared species (races) in both editions, crunched the numbers, and turned the results into a one-page PDF reference for DCC
DCC RPG wilderness travel speeds Read More »
My copy of Delving Deeper just came in the mail, and after a thorough skim I quite like it. I was after a retroclone that hews as closely as possible to OD&D[1] (paid link), and at first blush DD seems to fit the bill. But when I got to the section on dungeon stocking, it
Dungeon stocking in OD&D vs. Delving Deeper, plus The Strategic Review Read More »
I love hit points. They’re a brilliant abstraction, though often misunderstood, and they work beautifully in play. I double-super-love that in OD&D (paid link), how you roll them for your character is completely open to interpretation. I don’t think that’s been true since the late 1970s, as each edition since has spelled things out much more
Rerolling hit points, OD&D, and Empire of the Petal Throne Read More »
It’s 1977. D&D is wild and wonderful and everyone’s doing their own thing. So much so, in fact, that in that same year two people published alternate versions of one of the core mechanics of old-school D&D: earning XP for treasure. In 1977, Dave Arneson, co-creator of D&D, and Jon Pickens, who later became an
Debauchery & Dragons: Carousing for XP, 1977 to 2015 Read More »
