3e/4e design idea: Rout 8

So, I was talking to a friend about an issue in my D&D 4th edition campaign that generalizes to most (though not all) game systems. Specifically, it’s incredibly difficult to escape a combat unless the fleeing character(s) have a movement mode not available to the pursuers. Xorn movement (a.k.a. earth […]

Crafting Systems in LARPs: Part One 3

So Kainenchen and I got to talking this morning about crafting in LARPs. I touched on some of this in an earlier post, but I’m going into more detail here. While crafting systems in MMOs are sometimes problematic (too rewarding or not rewarding enough, ruinous to the economy, and so […]

From Here to There

Please excuse me while I blatantly publicize a work in which my own writing appears. The two adventures of mine that are in this book I wrote back when D&D 4th edition was still new, and though I have learned more about adventure design for 4e since then, I think […]

Shadows of Azathoth: Design In Progress 5

So a friend of mine is working on designing a game he’s calling Shadows of Azathoth. There are a lot of neat ideas going on here, but the ones that interest me at the moment are that memory is priceless and memory is unstable. With his permission, this post comments […]

Pendragon: Character Niches 2

This is a bit of a compare-and-contrast post. See, in Pendragon, the default assumption is that everyone will play knights. Some of those knights may come from far-off places (typically in search of interesting ethnic benefits – we’ll gloss over the inherent racism in the fact that Danes, for example, […]

Pendragon: The Great Campaign 4

From December of ’06 to May of ’10 (was it really that long?), a certain famous game designer ran a Pendragon campaign. There were one or two spans of hiatus in the campaign’s run, but on the whole it ran more consistently than most games. I wish I had a […]

Crafting System Design: Weaponsmithing, cont’d 2

The Weaponsmithing design laid out in my previous entry continues here. I’ve mapped out ideas for how a number of different recipes might progress, though I’m still not getting into specifics on the value of the materials or how much of each is required. I’m also adding options for the […]

Crafting Systems in Tabletop Games: Part Two 8

There are a few design parameters I want to clarify before I dig into this.   This is for the E6 variant of D&D 3rd edition. This is important; I don’t know, or care to guess, how well this plan would scale. I will worry about broader level ranges and […]

Crafting Systems in Tabletop Games: Part One 2

Start with the understanding that I love crafting and crafting systems. This love comes first from MMOs, but it also applies to LARPs. I like spending my time and energy to get stuff in a way that I can control. I like feeling that I’ve exerted that degree of control […]

Games I’m Running, Games I’m Playing 7

Let’s see. Games I’m Running D&D 4th edition. This game has run from 4th level to 13th, over 42 sessions so far. If you care to read more, there’s a wiki. This game pretty well exhausts my need to run high-powered games. Over the Edge. I’ve been posting session logs […]