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Making a villain for your roleplaying campaign is always tricky. You want them to be intimidating and fun to fight, so the natural instinct is to spend a lot of time fleshing them out. But what if your players don’t like that villain? Then you’ve … read more »
Have you heard about this new thing called children? They’re a sort of small human, and everyone thinks they’re a big deal. But how do you play RPGs with them? What sort of special considerations does it take, and what kind of challenges are you … read more »
Have you ever been reading or watching a story and enjoyed the setting so much that you wanted to experience it for yourself? Thanks to roleplaying games, you can! Using an established setting for your campaign is a time-honored tradition; it lets the players experience … read more »
Social justice is important in all storytelling mediums, but it can be especially critical in RPGs, where the barrier between player and character is thinnest. Ambushing a player with something harmful can ruin your evening, possibly the whole campaign, and cause real harm to your … read more »
Most roleplaying games on the market these days take a laissez-faire approach to play. The system will provide detailed rules for character creation and probably combat, but once play actually starts, everything is put in the group’s hands. Any structure a system might have is … read more »
I love to review new entries to the roleplaying genre, but sometimes we must look to the old classics as well. This week, I’m compromising. Unknown Armies has been with us since the late 90s,* but its third edition came out in 2016, so there’s … read more »
Have you ever played a tabletop RPG that effectively represented people developing useful relationships with animals (dogs, horses, etc.)? It’s such a huge part of human history but seems strangely ignored in the TTRPG space. As you once pointed out, Animal Handling or equivalents are … read more »
Have you ever wondered why a D&D longsword does 1d8 damage? Or why slings are a simple weapon but repeating crossbows are an exotic weapon? Well, wonder no more, because this week we’re talking about all things related to weapons in roleplaying games. How much … read more »
Character creation is one of the more difficult aspects of roleplaying-game design, and a few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the most common problems with it. Since then, I’ve received a number of questions about what makes character creation rules good, which is … read more »
We love roleplaying, and we make no secret of it. In fact, we shout it from the rooftops whenever possible. But what are our reasons for playing in the first place? That’s what we’re talking about today. We discuss what first drew us to roleplaying, … read more »