In which a reader’s question about making Castle Death easier to run for a parent who’s never been a Game Master and is hesitant to tackle the game with only a blank piece of graph paper and a d6. Read the suggestions!
Archives for March 2012
Chatty on Creativity: Muting the Judge and the What If Exercise.
In which Chatty shares his favourite creativity tricks and manages to create the core of both a campaign arc and setting…. which turns out to be eerily familiar.
The Swag of Yore
When I was a kid, we could watch a D&D cartoon and buy AD&D toys at most toy stores. Now, our selection of D&D items appears to be mostly limited to games. t-shirts, and leather goods. Read for musings about how things have changed for D&D merch over the last 30 years, and childish hopes for the future. My heart and wallet ache.
Critical Bits for the week ending 2012-03-11
RT @SlyFlourish: Built a prototype 4e #dnd damage dice calculator. Give it a try and let me know what you think: http://t.co/lWAVxRKS # RT @ProfBanks: Atlas Games is doing a special limited ed run of the core book for Over The Edge's 20th anniv. http://t.co/ZI2zmh0G #
Castle Death! A Dead Simple RPG for Kids and Parents, Part 3
In which Nico and Chatty conclude their first session of Castle Death, meeting Pit Trap Mac and dealing with an Ogre noble who’s a stickler for etiquette.
Castle Death! A Dead Simple RPG for Kids and Parents, Part 2
In which Chatty and his son Nico start exploring Castle Death and make up new rules as they go along, creating a unique introductory roleplaying experience.
O The Tangled Webs We Weep, When Breathe We Don’t When Go To Sleep
Ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve always had really vivid dreams. On occasion, this translates into really vivid nightmares, which sucks mightily. Usually, though, it just means I’m going to have a good story to tell come the dawn. Well, that is, until I found out I had sleep apnea. Turns out, one of the side effects of stopping to take a break during sleep to not breathe every few minutes is that you never really leave REM sleep — causing incredibly vivid dreams. Getting a machine to help with that provides me with a lot more energy during the day, but I only get a tiny fraction of the WTF I used to reap each night. This week, however, my sinuses have decided to clog up everything, making it really hard for my machine to blow air down my throat to keep me breathing normally. And that meant it was SHOWTIME.
Review: “Marvel Heroic Roleplaying”
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is a narrative game with a superficially simple dice pool mechanic. The gameplay choices brought on by the pools and their interactions can go quite a bit deeper than is immediately obvious. However, It took me a while to get the hang of it. The first few chapters lay out the dice system and all the trappings, but on a first read, you might find yourself bombarded with terminology.
Critical Bits for the week ending 2012-03-04
Dungeons & Trolls: D&D-style magnetic word set, perfect for adventures on your refrigerator: http://t.co/z1sijHsZ # March Fo(u)rth for GM's Day sale begins at @DriveThruRPG, thousands of titles discounted: http://t.co/VUhF5t9u # “@SlyFlourish: Fascinated by this excellent analysis of damage per level and what it SHOULD be: http://t.co/CzRVDks5 #dnd # “@Official_PAX: BEHOLD the PAX East 2012 panel […]
Pain of Publication: Writing to Revise
Even though revisions are a pain in the ass, there’s a feeling of wizardry when you combine two throwaway characters into one quirky minor character or change a few proper nouns around to create foreshadowing. It almost feels like cheating. Knowing that revisions will be made should inform how you write a draft. I have learned to prioritize certain aspects of writing in my first draft and give other considerations lower priority.
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