Yesterday’s resolution of a never-ending argument seemed to go down well, you know, barring a few outliers who seem to want to keep discussing the topic as if there isn’t one perfect answer right there… Anyway, here’s another never-ending argument resolved! Roll-under Or Roll-over Some people like to roll their dice and add their bonuses […]
Roleplaying is fifty years old this year. There are some arguments/discussions/debates/jihads which have been ongoing for most of that time. Today I will resolve one of them once and for all! AC or DR? D&D, and many other games have armour make characters harder to hit. It is often said, “This is ridiculous, armour doesn’t […]
Fairly often when playing RPGs the whole group decides to do something together. A lot of systems have rules for these situations but they are often not great, so I thought I would share how I handle them. Oh, I’m specifically thinking of single tasks which pass or fail on one roll, not long term […]
I love dice, I own a ridiculous number. Sometimes I wonder if I love dice because I roleplay, or if I roleplay because I love dice… Anyway, let me tell you about my favourite, the humble weather dice. When GMing I always keep a weather dice handy. Unsurprisingly, I use it to roll up random […]
Most of my GMing in 2023 was at the weekly RPG night in Ancient Robot Games, the new FLGS which opened here in Leith back in May. I wanted to do my bit to help grow the community but I’ve always been more of a campaign GM than someone who runs one-shots. I didn’t think […]
I spent most of last year writing blogs to post here but not finishing them. I had thoughts I wanted to share, but somewhere between word 100 and word 600 I would either talk myself out of whatever revelation it was or I would lose interest in making those thoughts presentable. My wife would tell […]
The rules of an RPG are pre-defined facts about your fiction. ‘If this, then that,’ abstractions to model the things which we know are going to happen. This can be good, it means we don’t have to worry about what is possible within our fictions, the rules will tell us… but it also limits the things we can explore.
As characters progress and level up, a core process in the D&D play experience, the predefined nature of the mechanical upgrades can often be at odds with the player’s image of the adventurer they thought was their creation.
I am trying to find ways to keep players engaged at other scales. How do we maintain player agency when the game is about wars. gods or interstellar politics?
What is the purpose of rules in an RPG? Like individually, what do they do? On one level they define the reality of the fiction, if you know what I mean. For players to make decisions, formulate plans, and help imaginary communities (or whatever your story is about) the fiction needs to be consistent. Rules […]
Ominosity 