The Lore Game: Intermediate-Level

A few weeks ago, two of my readers were kind enough to provide me with questions on the implementation of a lore game. Owing to preparation for a Dust to Dust event, I couldn’t provide an immediate answer, but I will attempt to do so now. As a disclaimer, I […]


D&D Next: Tiers of Play

Yesterday’s Legends and Lore post deals with what WotC calls tiers of play, or the way the campaign changes over the course of play. This gives me a great opportunity to toss out a link to my previous post on high-level play. Mearls gives a brief breakdown of the history […]


D&D Next: Off the Cuff, Round 6 2

Welcome back for another round of off-the-cuff review of the newest D&D Next public playtest packet. Tonight the review is particularly powered by insomnia derived from coughing, which I do not care for at all. They’ve been talking up this packet for awhile – as advertised, it changes things up […]


Homebrewed D&D Next: The Outlander

When Torchlight II first came out, I meant to pick it up, but I was in the middle of something or other and it slipped my mind. A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned in G+ how much she and her whole family were enjoying the game, so Kainenchen and […]


D&D Next: A Revised Warlock

This is another of those things that I am not entirely sure it’s okay to post, so if someone from Wizards of the Coast comes across this and tells me to take it down, I will do so, with apologies. (That said, I suspect a lot more than this has […]


D&D Next: Perspectives on Healing 1

The last few Legends & Lore posts have touched on issues around healing in D&D Next, as have a number of the blogs I read, so this is me, casting my chapeau in again… jauntily, of course. As one does. The driving conflict here is whether D&D Next will adopt […]


PvP: Boffer LARP Edition 10

A couple of weeks ago, Harbinger Readers JohnKazuo and Ms. J replied to my post on PvP design to specifically address the dynamics of PvP in LARPs, and now I’m returning to the topic. To state a few things up-front: this has a lot to do with pure aesthetics, and I […]


D&D Next Design Idea: Giving Ground 7

Kainenchen and I have been talking about the economy of actions in D&D Next lately, particularly in light of the fact that most characters have no way to spend their reaction in a round unless someone provokes an opportunity attack. Further, D&D Next needs more movement in combat (since we […]


Video Games as Art 5

Video gaming, as a medium, lives now in a constant state of public debate over when it might bridge the gap into being an art form. A conversation sprang up the other day in G+ over this article, and I had enough that I wanted to say that, well, here […]


PvP Design Principles 3

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about some of the high-level principles of PvP design. These principles readily apply to video games and LARPs. I want to be clear from the start: this is not master-class level stuff – for that, you want to talk to Stands-In-Fire. Quite seriously, the […]