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I've had the playtest docs since Thursday, and I've read them enough now to start forming my initial opinions.  I've jotted them all down in a post to my blog over at the Cubicle of Solitude.

When I was a younger gamer, still green behind the ears and starry-eyed with the wonder and magic found in dungeons printed in blue ink on a faded blue grid, my favorite class was the Paladin.  They fired all of my early tales and stories about Knights in Shining Armor, Virtue overcoming Villainy, and realms of High Chivalry.  

Of course any old Fighter could armor herself in shining Plate Mail, and ride a Heavy Warhorse into battle streaming pinions bearing the crest of her Liege.  I owned several old supplements with "alternative classes" most of which included some variation of the Knight (Indeed, most simply called the class "Knight").  But Paladins.  They were special, rare, and difficult to play.  The stat requirements alone were almost prohibitive, and...

Starting a campaign can be tricky.  Even with a long standing group of players, the first actual game can bog down with the disarming question, "Why is this group going to trust each other with their lives on a dangerous quest?"

If that question is not answered sufficiently, and soon, the early campaign can become a struggle as different characters try to pursue different and often incompatable agendas.  Compromise is an obvious solution, but there are times when compromise is difficult, if not impossible.  Some of us have lived through the cliche' of "the Paladin plays stupid while the Thief breaks the Law" many times in our gaming carreers.  That stereotype does illustrate the need to bring all the characters in a campaign towards a common goal from the very beginning....

Our little home had a small informal D&D Summit meeting yesterday.  It made me think that a more formal such meeting would be fun in the future.  But I'm talking about Saturday.  In among the war stories and the nostalgia of games gone by we really discussed a lot of potential house rules.  And now a mere 24 hours later, the ideas seeded there have grown into the blog post here.

Interesting Idea #1 - Has the die roll for ability scores become obsolete?

This came to me during a long discussion on how to refine the generation of ability scores.  As of third and later editions, the ability score modifier has become much more central and fundamental to the competance of player characters.  The vast majority of dice-based challenges have an ability score modifier ...

I'm speculating about D&D magic today.  As 3rd edition (3.5 and Pathfinder) stands, spellcasters are required to rest for 8 hours then prepare spells for another hour or so before becoming ready to cast spells.  This has led to the phenomenon popularly termed the "15 Minute Workday".  Where, especially among low-level adventuring parties, the entire expedition comes to a halt for 8 hours after each significant encounter.

Originally, the "spells per day" mechanic was a means by which to balance the potential overwhelming power of the spellcasting classes to the non-spellcasters.  In early editions, non-spellcasting classes were in the action spotlight at low levels, and were slowly eclipsed by the spellcasters at high levels.  As the game has evolved, so has the assumption...

First off, the term "Mature" campaign does not indicate R rated material.  Get your minds out of the gutter!  I've been in the gutter a long time and it's getting crowded here.

>ahem<

There has been a bit of talk about the high end of D&D recently.  Having played my share of high-end characters and campaigns, it's got me thinking.  High level campaigns are really the continuing extention of an established game in which the characters have progressed to this stage of game play.

I don't particularly subscribe to the concept of a "Level Cap" at high level games.  It has been my experience that each gaming group discovers their own level of complexity where the mechanics themselves make further progression prohibitive.  Some of these games reach this point in the ...

At this point the map is almost complete.  I've drawn everything that needs be drawn, labeled all the Terrain Features, and the major Countries, and have placed and named all the major communities.  At this scale I only place those communities that are cities with big populations.




I went ahead and hid the border graphics at this stage because they were really making the whole map difficult to read, and they really become unnecessary.  As a DM what I want are undefined borders so I can engineer conflicts between nations. Those early drawn borders are really just a crutch so I have a better idea of where to place cities and to whom each city belongs.

Now I'm ready to leave the graphic part of the campaign behind for a while and start concentrating on the text that will go with...

I just returned from the DunDraCon gaming convention this past weekend.  I had a delightful time (thanks for asking). Afterwards I had a thought or two that has blossomed into this blog for today.  Specifically some advice for those of you who in the future might plan to run a game at a convention.

Rule Number Zero of DMing a convention game:  Be Prepared!

It might sound like a no-brainer, but I've seen many, many convention games go down in flames because the DM simply wasn't prepared to run.  

Have pre-generated characters ready to play even if you are allowing players to bring their own characters to the game.  Ideally, the DM should have at the table enough pregenerated PCs to run the whole game with.  Time is a huge factor at a convention game.  Eight...

Most movies and television series use what is called the "three act structure" in their scripts and plots.  It's an old trick that has been around in D&D and role playing for years as well.  And, it works.  Well, almost.  Relying too heavily on any formula or structure in stotytelling can work aganst you just as often as it works for you.  But I'll set the controversy aside for now.  This blog is directed towards more novice DMs (and as a conversation piece for us more veteran DMs).  I'll be defining the Three Act Adventure in gaming terms.

The plot of the adventure is divided into three Acts, each designed to bring the story along towards the end and give the Player Characters opportunities to develop along the way.  Or to put it another way, the ...