Races in Fantasy Gaming: Elves

The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare; Caoilte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving our […]


Downtime Actions in Tabletop Gaming

It’s been a month and more since Mearls posted When Adventurers Aren’t Adventuring, in which he explains that D&D Next will offer rules for things that happen while the heroes are at home or otherwise off-duty from heroics and/or treasure-hunting. I think it’s fair to say that this has been […]


Divination in Gaming, Part Two: LARP Edition

About a week ago, I wrote a few words about the function of divination in tabletop gaming. As is common in this blog, I’m coming back to discuss how the same idea works in live-action gaming. Just like every other time I’ve posted about LARPing, I’m really talking about the […]


Divination in Gaming, Part One

Last week’s Legends & Lore post touched briefly on divination magic, sparking an ongoing conversation in the D&D Next community about the application of divination magic in games. This is the kind of conversation that applies across gaming of every kind – tabletop, LARP, video games, occasionally even board games. […]


D&D Next: A Revised Sorcerer

One of the early public playtest packets included the sorcerer class. On its face, it is an arcane class that uses a spell-point system rather than Vancian casting – nothing to get excited about. The packet presented only one sorcerous bloodline for use, though, and that revealed a great deal […]


D&D Next: Additional At-Will Weapon Attack

So I have been thinking about how I would rebuild the long-neglected sorcerer for the current D&D Next environment. Though this is not currently well-supported in D&D Next, one of the best design lessons of 4e is that characters should have two clear at-will options that are constantly available. (Actually, […]


D&D Next: Off the Cuff, Round 7

The new D&D Next playtest packet came out just as I was leaving town for the weekend, but better late than never, right? Three major areas have changed in this packet, along with a few smaller changes that (for whatever reason) they declined to document in the Read This First […]


Monsters of Aurikesh: Thralls of Mask and Orb

It’s been rather a while since I’ve posted any Aurikesh content. Admittedly, they’re of interest to a narrower group than some of my other subjects, but much like I said the last time I wrote a Monsters of Aurikesh post, I want to get better at creature design. Also I […]


The Influence of Jack Vance

As almost everyone reading this already knows, Jack Vance passed away on the 26th of May. Given how little of his work I’ve actually read (The Green Pearl and most of The Dying Earth), it may be presumptuous to maintain – as I do – that his work has greatly affected […]


LARP Design: Story Arc Transitions

The Eclipse campaign has successfully concluded its first story arc. Their six-year mission: to boldly go where no LARP of its lineage has gone before. This is far from the end for the campaign, however, as they have announced that the second story arc begins in September. Arc structure, especially in the […]