There are lessons I learned during my very first game of D&D that have stuck with me for a long time. First off, your first game is a bleeding, bloody confusion. There are moments of clarity there: terms you understand, and the fact that it is narrative—you are part of a story. But the procedures [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Gaming Past category.
Context
Gygaxian naturalism is an exercise in context. Remember that Gygax was an insurance underwriter, and in that work he dealt with percentages risk. And that was how he simulated the risk of the supposed reality he created. The problem is RPGs don’t really simulate reality, they simulate narrative. People put up with the humdrum of reality because [...]
Wanderers
It’s true. It’s hard to create old-school dungeon crawling with the 4e rules. Hey, but we like a challenge, right? Rob Schwalb suggested moving aspects of resource recharge away from the short rest, and places them in quest goals that lived within connecting sector. The base idea is pretty brilliant. It is trying to get [...]