Neitherworld Stories

October 23, 2008

Crunch Fetish

Sometimes, I have to indulge my twisted love of overcomplicated rules. I blame 1e AD&D for this. The thing is, I don’t think I’d want to play a game with such rules – I just enjoy coming up with them. Anyway, here is a sketchy draft of an add-on to 3.x to complement my last post (it doesn’t do nearly...

October 21, 2008

The Tyranny of the Turn

In the beginning (i.e., the 1970s and early ’80s), turns in combat were very abstract things, representing a series of exchanges of blows. (I’m avoiding technical usage of turn vs. round here – just assume I’m talking about both of them.) The assumption was that only a small percentage of attacks were effective. As time progressed, the abstraction diminished. People...

October 20, 2008

d20 Patch: 4e-style monsters

It has been pointed out that players prefer 3.5 and GMs prefer 4e. Whether this is true or not, it has enough of an element of truth to gain some traction. Why? GMs really like the ease of preparation in 4e. In 3.5, statting up a monster for a combat that might last a couple of rounds was a headache....

October 17, 2008

Useful GM tool?

I’ve mentioned mindmapping and brainwriting as techniques for GMs before. Apparently, you can currently get the ~$200 ConceptDraw v5 mindmapping software for free (they are currently on v6). I will probably download this tonight and check it out. I’ve yet to find one of these things that is configurable to a degree that it will work well for me. Maybe...

October 16, 2008

Creepy little statues

Angela and I went to Allerton Park over the weekend, mostly because we needed to just spend some time in the woods. Allerton is pretty cool – it has both formal gardens and nature trails. There are some old, ruined structures in the woods, as well as some random sculptures (notably a large, bronze of a dying centaur). I think...

October 15, 2008

Disjoining language and culture

A quick tip to help you quickly generate flavorful cultures: Language and culture are deeply embedded in each other, so much so that when we appropriate one for a new race or people in an RPG, we almost automatically grab them both. Take, for example, White Wolf’s original Werewolf game – the nature-mysticism that the werewolves adhered to seemed to...

October 14, 2008

d20 Patch: Caps

One of the big complaints about 3.x was how unbalanced the game could become given the ability and propensity of some players to create mechanically optimized builds. It is pretty clear that this was a major consideration in the creation of 4e. What, though, if you want to play a 3.x game and are still concerned about this? One solution...

October 13, 2008

4e: What do classes represent?

When 4e first came out, I remember someone asking a question that has strangely stuck with me. The question? “What if I want to play a fighter who specializes in a bow?” The answer? “Play a ranger.” The exchange is profoundly unsatisfying because the question and answer don’t really respond to each other. What is a fighter? In 3.x, it...

October 13, 2008

Consequences

As a GM, I don’t particularly like killing players. As a player, I don’t like the idea that my PC could die in a random or meaningless way. When news about 4e was coming out, I found the rumored removal of save or die effects to be heartening. I know this upset many people, but I didn’t really understand why...

October 10, 2008

RPG Carnival: Superhero Tropes for Non-Superhero Gaming

Superhero comics have a ton of useful tropes that could easily be adapted to other genres. Naming conventions Want your players to know when an NPC is important? Give that NPC an alliterative name. Bonus: It will be easier for everyone (including you) to remember it. As far as PC names go, Superhero code-names are usually nicknames or titles of...