I have been thinking on how to include Christian mythology (used in the sense of "sacred stories", not in the sense of "false stories"). I have an extremely complicated relationship with Christianity, certainly, but I also want to treat people's belief systems with respect. My thoughts very much do not turn in the direction of … Continue reading Christian Mythology in gaming
Note: I originally wrote this post a few years back but never actually hit "Publish". I've polished a tiny bit and put it out there because I really do like the product still today! Castle Gargantua from Kabuki Kaiser bills itself as the "biggest megadungeon" in the history of the OSR. This is a little bit … Continue reading Castle Gargantua
.jpg/640px-Text_DoF_(F32).jpg?crop=1 "Text-based RPG campaign ideas")
I have difficulty finding time to play RPGs lately due to other obligations (family, work, etc.) While I like solo play, that provides a different sort of experience altogether. Roll20 presents an interesting alternative, but most folks want to play with voice chat, and that creates more real-life conflicts because my house is generally noisy except … Continue reading Text-based RPG campaign ideas
The main reason I stopped playing D&D Fifth Edition was that it read too much like a set of software requirements (use cases). 5e writes everything out in expansive detail, rather than in a concise "Strunk & White-esque" manner. This drove me back to simpler rule sets like Swords & Wizardry and even Microlite20 or Searchers … Continue reading Musing on the implications of the D&D 5e SRD
Last night, I played D&D for the first time in months - probably the first time in 2015 - and I did so with my kids. TL;DR: structured make-believe with my kids is the best pastime.
Since posting about various retroclone games, I've re-examined my opinions a bit. Thus, I decided to revisit Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Something about the design kept calling me back. In part, the layout looks gorgeous, even in the free no-art version. Also, largely inspired by LotFP, I watched the 2009 movie Solomon Kane. I wanted to get … Continue reading Revisiting Lamentations of the Flame Princess
In my last play session, we noted that the players probably need to hire torchbearers or similar companions. I took a look at the rules in 5e and some other games before deciding what to do, and ended up merging them into a simple system that I hope will work for us. D&D Fifth Edition … Continue reading Hiring and followers in Fifth Edition
D&D 5e has started to frustrate me. I feel like I spend way too much time looking stuff up when running a game. Some of that comes from poor information organization in the core books. This leads to too much time looking up spells and so forth. Another large chunk results directly from the amount of rules: … Continue reading Losing ruleset weight: evaluating older RPG games
Technoskald's Forge 