For a friend’s birthday this weekend, a request was made for a game to be run, and given a combination of short notice and assessment of the taste of all players involved, I ran Two Guys With Swords. 2GwS has a somewhat fantastic self-selection process. It is run (at least by me) with a certain […]
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Tags and Axes (and Axes)
Ok, so if you’re not going to do damage types (or even more complicated things like weapon versus armor type tables) then how should you go about meaningful weapon differentiation? Well, first off, why would you want to? Isn’t that a pretty finicky idea? Yes, it kind of is. And it’s entirely possible (and reasonable) […]
The Golf Bag Tactician
There’s an interesting question over at Rob Schwalb’s D&D blog about whether weapon damage should be typed. In practice this would mean that weapons might do, say, “slashing” “bludgeoning” and “piercing” damage, and implicitly removing entirely the idea of “untyped” damage from the system. This is, on the surface, a kind of compelling idea (and […]
Archetypes and Planting Flags
We respond instinctively to archetypes, and a lot of shysters take advantage of this. Yes, there’s a lot of interesting, useful stuff about them (Hero With A Thousand Blah Blah Blah) but the reality is that if you come up with a list of, say, 3 or more things, and define it broadly, then it […]
The Five People At My Table
I believe that when you design a game, it helps to have an audience in mind, the more specific the better. Trying to make a game for everyone seems noble, but it’s unlikely to challenge you as a designer, and it’s more likely to produce something that’s fairly weak sauce. Yes, targeting an audience runs […]
A Pitch In The Dark
Fred has opened the door to pitches for a book of Don’t Rest Your Head hacks, which is a fantastic idea. You can find out more details, you can check out his post, and if the idea appeals to you, I strongly encourage you to consider writing a pitch. I’ve had an idea for a […]
About Those Elves, blog
Today, I want to talk about elves. When you sit down to make your own fantasy setting, whether for publication or just for your own game, the simple reality is that you stand under the twin shadows of Tolkien and D&D. They set an expectation for what a fantasy world looks like and, more importantly, […]
Jazz Rules
I made a reference to something in comments on Friday which I realized is not an actual colloquialism, so I want to unpack it a little bit, since I think it’s a powerful, useful idea. I am not a huge jazz fan. There’s some stuff I like, but it’s never been that big a thing […]
Feats and Faces
I’ve always found the idea of feats more compelling than the reality. As I conceive them, I expect them to have a strong signature. That is, I expect them to really be strong differentiators, something that really calls out a clear distinction between characters who might otherwise be fairly similar. In 4e, this is one […]
Counting Noses
Want a quick litmus test for the health of your game? Ask one of your players how many NPCs they can name. If that number can be counted on one hand, that’s a red flag. This may seem counterintuitive at first – after all, games are about the characters, and we all know the dangers […]