I think some people shy away from running games because it’s a lot of work. I’m not going to lie to you – it can be. You hold a whole universe in your head! You may even need to dedicate your whole focus to the session, which can mean no personal distractions (no cell...
Read more →Recently, two things inspired me. One, I read an entry on Erik Jensen’s blog bout how he’s “Not an old school DM” and his “it gets worse” philosophy. Two, a friend of mine asked to pick one thing to absolutely always do as a GM, and one thing to never do as a GM....
Read more →When I say “violence,” I mean cinematic, fantasy violence. Hacking down orcs in a rousing game of D&D or shooting zombies in the head. The fun, sanitized kind of violence wherein we focus on the fact that “Lightning Bolt” does x-number-of-d6 damage and shotguns get the 9-again property. We don’t focus on how godawful...
Read more →That should have the additional subtitle: “What do you mean you’re not satisfied?!” I wanted to avoid a blog article title looking a good bit like that of an academic paper, though. Last time, I wrote about Tisha Swornheart, the signature character in the current D&D comic, and how a well-written character is undermined...
Read more →I’d recently read Jon Schindehette’s discussion on art direction for the nebulous “D&D Next”. Some of my thoughts on the piece are less-than-charitable, but I suppose I can “get” where he’s coming from to an extent. (If you haven’t already read Tracy Hurley’s really excellent reply, you should.) Vivian already discussed many of the issues...
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