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    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 21
      FURTHER ACTIONS Congratulations! We're up to page 66 in the DMG...of 240. I...
      August 6, 2012 at 7:02am
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    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      Wow...this kind of sucks.
      So it seems that somehow or another every comment that's been left on any of...
      August 1, 2012 at 10:06am
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      2 / 3
      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      Good, glad to hear it.
      August 1, 2012 9:07 AM PDT
      Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe
      Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe
      I had same problem - a LOOONG and windy comment. I now practice brevity. But restored.
      August 17, 2012 10:44 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 20
      SPELLCASTING DURING MELEE Believe it or not, here (along with "breaking off...
      August 1, 2012 at 7:12am
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    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 19
      ENCOUNTER REACTIONS Here we have the classic reaction system, which really...
      July 27, 2012 at 10:37am
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      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      Sorry for the gap in posts here...life has been a bit crazy of late.
      July 27, 2012 8:39 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 18
      COMBAT Encounters, Combat, and Initiative This fairly well-done section...
      July 19, 2012 at 9:19am
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    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 17
      INFRAVISION AND ULTRAVISION This section has no introductory text; it just...
      July 18, 2012 at 10:57am
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      wrecan
      wrecan
      The best thing about 1t edition ultravision was the Darlene Pekul illustration!
      July 21, 2012 12:47 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf added a comment to crazy_monkey's blog post.

      A History of Dungeons & Dragons, Part 2: 1975
      A History of Dungeons & Dragons Part 2: 1975 1975 was a year of transition...
      July 18, 2012 at 10:53am
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      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      This series dovetails very nicely with the close reading I'm doing of AD&D first edition on my own blogs here. Kudos!
      July 18, 2012 8:53 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf added a comment to his blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 16
      TRAVEL IN THE KNOWN PLANES OF EXISTENCE The real point of this section is to...
      July 17, 2012 at 8:29pm
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      Hedgehobbit
      Hedgehobbit
      Manual of the Planes didn't come out until 1987. By then I was playing mostly Runequest and Champions. I started playing 2e when it came out with just the 3 core books so I didn't have it then either. I only recently got the 1e Manual of the Planes but now I use a use a planar system similar to Runequest or the 3e Ghostwalk book instead of the Great Wheel cosmology.
      July 18, 2012 7:29 AM PDT
      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      I admit, I tend to play fast and loose with my planar cosmology. It's more "the other planes are out there...somewhere," and we rarely define beyond that. The Astral and Ethereal planes overlap the Material, the gods have realms, there's a Hell and an Abyss, and somehow or another you can get to all of them. Never really needed much more than that.
      July 18, 2012 7:38 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 14
      ADVENTURES IN THE AIR Frankly, this is one of my favorite sections of the...
      July 12, 2012 at 8:12am
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      wrecan
      wrecan
      I do remember aerial rules in AD&D being fast and easy. Thanks for the memory jump!
      July 13, 2012 6:42 AM PDT
      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      Indeed, after so many years without giving the DMG a close reading, being colored by so many people remembering it as poorly organized or arcane, it's been a joy to go through it and be reminded just how GOOD it actually is, in fact.
      July 13, 2012 8:17 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 15
      WATERBORNE ADVENTURES As with many sections of the DMG, this one begins with...
      July 13, 2012 at 10:13am
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      Hedgehobbit
      Hedgehobbit
      The OD&D naval combat rules make a great addition to those from the DMG. They include stuff that the DMG glosses over like the number of crew members on the different ship types and command rules. There's surprisingly little overlap.
      July 13, 2012 11:19 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 13
      THE ADVENTURE This rather expansive section gets into a lot of really neat...
      July 11, 2012 at 1:35pm
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      Hedgehobbit
      Hedgehobbit
      What I find interesting about this section is that there is another simpler set of outdoor movement rules on page 108 of the PHB. These rules are almost identical to those used in the Basic D&D games that followed. However, the DMG movement rules are a conversion of the rules from OD&D. So Gygax wrote the rules in OD&D, then wrote a new, simplified set of rules for the PHB and went back to the OD&D rules for the DMG. I've always wondered what he was thinking when he did stuff...

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      July 12, 2012 7:09 AM PDT
      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      Offering options for people who wanted something a bit more robust, is my guess.
      July 12, 2012 7:58 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 12
      CHARACTER SPELLS There is an amazing amount of utility in this section...for...
      July 10, 2012 at 7:35am
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      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      Yeah, I've always presumed that was how minimum spells work, but it's actually not made explicit anywhere, which for a book that covers so much in such minute detail is surprising.
      July 10, 2012 8:56 AM PDT
      Hedgehobbit
      Hedgehobbit
      I should have check first, but minimum spells is explained on page 10 of the PHB. This might be one case where you can say, "it should have been in the DMG". :)
      July 10, 2012 12:51 PM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 11
      TIME This section begins with a statement that a game cannot be properly run...
      July 9, 2012 at 7:20am
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    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 10
      HENCHMEN If Hirelings are your basic employees, henchmen are loyal (to a...
      July 6, 2012 at 7:34am
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      2 / 4
      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      Once again, we disagree. First of all, there's no "technically" about it. You're ignoring the fact that the DMG is listed as a set of RESOURCES for DMs. The "you are required to use every rule in the book" mentality that permeated 3.x and 4e does not exist in first edition. Gygax, for example, never used miniatures in play and said many many times on message boards that he never used weapon type vs. AC or psionics.
      Secondly, the calculations for henchmen loyalty modifiers are on one page...

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      July 7, 2012 7:06 PM PDT
      Hedgehobbit
      Hedgehobbit
      I don't hate AD&D, just the DMG. The Players Handbook is brilliant; clean, clear, with step by step instructions on how things work. The article on adventuring in the back is inspiring even today. The AD&D Monster Manual is the best monster book ever made. Nothing even comes close.
      As I said in my blog, I came into D&D cold and throughout my AD&D years, we were for the most part isolated (baring a few convention/tournament games). I was a 12 year old boy with no way of...

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      July 8, 2012 10:16 AM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf and Benedikt are now friends.

      Benedikt
      July 6, 2012 at 4:29pm
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf added a comment to his blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Part 7
      MONEY Player Character Starting Money: A brief section explaining that PC's...
      July 5, 2012 at 2:23pm
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      Hedgehobbit
      Hedgehobbit
      I never used the upkeep rules because I didn't know they even existed. That's the real downside to the DMG's scattered organization. Another was information overload; I never game out gems to my players because it was too much work.
      July 4, 2012 6:00 PM PDT
      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      See, as I read through the DMG again (and again, and again, each time I re-post one of these blogs) I'm finding it to not be nearly as scattered or disorganized as it has a reputation for being. Certainly there are things in there that nowadays we think of as being PHB material, but the organization, while not nearly what I'd call perfect, I'm finding isn't bad, either. And the incredibly detailed ToC and Index allow me to find whatever I need in a snap.
      July 5, 2012 12:23 PM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 9
      HIRELINGS Okay, this is quite possibly the coolest and single most useful...
      July 5, 2012 at 8:08am
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      the_grey_elf
      the_grey_elf
      I know little about supplemental material released for 4e because I was REALLY not a fan of that edition. But good to know...though the developer blogs for D&D Next seem to indicate that the hireling rules as they appeared in first edition and OD&D had a simplicity and elegance to them that was somehow missing in all subsequent editions. I'm not stating my own opinion on that, mind--just what I've read in D&D Next blogs.
      July 5, 2012 12:18 PM PDT
      wrecan
      wrecan
      The hireling rules were simpler than 4e's because 4e is more concerned about balance that 1e ever was. But I suspect that Next hirelings will appear somewhere in the middle of the two.
      July 5, 2012 1:48 PM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf added a comment to chaosfang's blog post.

      D&D Next Opinions: Rants, Constructive Criticisms and Suggestions
      Several months into the public playtest, and still no sign of any new...
      July 5, 2012 at 9:53am
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      2 / 3
      Kabluey
      Kabluey
      Additionally, to be fair, Mike Mearls is a manager, and so having meetings IS work. Further, he said that many of them were design meetings, so that counts as well. Designing a new system isn't just writing documents; it's thinking about the system, and getting together with the other designers to discuss the game. Honestly, his day sounds pretty similar to my own daily schedule (other than the Diablo III over lunch, I surf the web), and I'm certainly not going to complain that he's not putting...

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      July 5, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
      TyrentDen
      TyrentDen
      Actually I found very little room for improvisation in 4e. Both it and 3/3.5 had way too much # crunching. Which is what specifically has to go more then anything else from a commercial standpoint; I know alot of people who don't play cause of all the math involved.
      July 6, 2012 12:38 PM PDT
    • the_grey_elf

      the_grey_elf posted a new blog post.

      An Exegesis on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Part 8
      ARMOR, ARMOR CLASS & SHIELDS Types of Armor & Encumbrance: This section...
      July 3, 2012 at 10:53am
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      wrecan
      wrecan
      So many fiddly rules I never used. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
      July 3, 2012 11:12 AM PDT
    • jcordes

      jcordes voted in the poll, "XP in Next".

      July 2, 2012 at 9:24am

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    About Me

      About Me: Freelance game designer (credits include Eden Studios, Palladium Books, Troll Lord Games, and others), featured reviewer/occasional columnist, Play Unplugged (http://www.playunplugged.com), old schooler, author and hopefully future librarian (got the degree--all I need is the job). Also amateur R.E. Howard scholar.
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