By request from a reader, I’m talking today about Circle Tests in LARPs. These are far from universal in live-action games or any other kind of game, and I am far from an authority on all of the best practices around them. To my knowledge, the term comes from Shattered […]
This month’s Unearthed Arcana is another brief one, but to be fair, Mearls has less time around the holidays just like the rest of us. “Kits of Old” looks back to 2e’s kit system to find the gold among the dross. The short version of the result is that I […]
Today I have for you a subclass – well, two subclasses, but heavily overlapping – that rely on some setting assumptions about wizards that are definitely not true in all settings. If you’re not already allowing and banning subclasses based on how they fit your campaign’s theme, cosmology, and society, […]
In the LARP that I work on, one of the races available to players is the Homunculus. It’s less like D&D homunculi and more like Frankenstein’s Monster; as with Shelley’s original, they are fully sentient. Within the setting, they are widely abused and mistreated by their wizardly creators, though some […]
I create a lot of subclasses in this blog, because subclasses are fun and interesting to design. In this case, as with the Lantern-bearer Ranger Archetype, I’m looking for thematically appealing ways to address some of the ranger’s shortcomings on the damage-output side. I’d also like for high-level rangers to […]
Far over the Misty Mountains cold To dungeons deep and caverns old We must away ere break of day, To seek the pale enchanted gold. —The Hobbit On one hand, talking about the Ranger class in this blog has had me reading the Exploration rules. On the other, I’ve been […]
This month’s Unearthed Arcana is on the small side, but it punches well above its weight in the Rule of Cool. Technically, all that is here is a new subrace and five new spells. On the other hand, it’s breaking tieflings down into subraces – a welcome change – and […]
A friend of mine suggested the other day that he would really like to see a class similar to 4e’s shaman, with a strong focus on interacting with spirits in one way or another. You can make just about any caster class feel like a shaman with a very thin coat […]
I’ve been doing a thing for awhile now with personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for each race, and this time around I’m taking on the half-orc. It’s a race I’ve never had any great amount of interest in, but I think a lot of that is the result of […]
As anyone playing Dust to Dust or Fallen Earth knows, I think it’s cool for characters to perform research to unlock new content, such as spells or crafting formulas. Games have a lot of ways for combat or social power to leave a mark on a setting; research is a […]
