and I am no Dragon
The Granddaddy of all Role-Playing Games. I’m a fan.
Bare with me for a moment as I'm working through an idea when it comes to storytelling in my games and the sort of themes that I'm wanting to explore. Which brings me to the title of this post: what do we mean when we talk about the Southern Gothic? At its core we're discussing… Continue reading Exploring the Southern Gothic
So I really like the way that D&D 2e asks for us to determine initiative. Each side (the DM and the players) roll a single d10. The lowest result goes first and that side acts before the other. Now this result can be modified by various situational modifiers (for example being "Slowed" will add 2… Continue reading Combat in ADND 2e, Part 4: Initiative
The combat sequence of Dungeons and Dragons 2e is quite a bit different from that of 3e. In 2e the sequence goes as follows: 1. The DM decides what actions the monsters or NPCs will take, including casting spells (if any).2. The players indicate what their characters will do, including casting spells (if any).3. Initiative… Continue reading Combat in ADnD 2e, Part 3
Pitch In a time of escalating tensions throughout the world one group of men and women stand between the law and chaos; they are the Greyhawk Police Department (GDP) and these are their stories. Each episode would follow a group of detectives for the GDP as they attempt to solve the crimes that haunt the… Continue reading Greyhawk & Order
Recently I started running a game of D&D set in the Forgotten Realms; and as I was describing where the players were in the world it occurred to me at how civilized the Realms (and my beloved Greyhawk for that matter) really are. The world still has wild spaces but there are clearly defined boarders… Continue reading Let’s Go Exploring – If We Can Ever Find Somewhere Unexplored
I know that I've mentioned several times that there are drastic changes between AD&D 2e and D&D 3e but no where is this more apparent than when we're talking about combat. So please forgive me if this sounds a bit over the top: but the AD&D 2e combat round is 1 minute long. Let that… Continue reading The Combat Round in ADnD 2e
When it came to the Combat chapter of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition (AD&D 2e) I found myself struggling to understand the way that THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0) worked. In large part this is because D&D 3e, and the subsequent editions, all worked in a significantly different manner. In D&D 3e the… Continue reading THAC0, or How I Learned to Love Descending AC
The Night Below Alternate Cover by Charles Akins
Image by Moebius, Title Unknown All that we have explored this far in the Learning Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition (AD&D 2e) project has been a preamble for this chapter as it represents one of the most common occurrences within the game: the combat encounter. Before we get into the meat of this chapter… Continue reading Learning AD&D 2e: Chapter 9, Combat, More than Meets the Eye (pgs 118 – 141)
How do you build a dungeon? For Gary Gygax this represented a fundamental question of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in 1975. In the course of play the players might spend their time exploring the world map, or visiting the town where they’ve established a base, but it was in the dungeon where the real adventure… Continue reading The Gygax ‘75 Challenge: How to Build the Gygax 75 Dungeon
Last night I was doing some research for a project I’m working on when I rediscovered an article Gary Gygax wrote for the fanzine EUROPA: HOW TO SET UP YOUR DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CAMPAIGN – AND BE STUCK REFEREEING IT SEVEN DAYS PER WEEK UNTIL THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING! The article illustrates a… Continue reading The Gygax ’75 Challenge: Introduction
A few weeks ago, I ended up finding myself in a conversation with a rather eccentric individual that has bothered me since and I wanted to take a moment to work through my thoughts on this matter here. We were talking about modifying our games. The fellow I was talking with was very measured in… Continue reading You’re the Worst – EVER!
If you play any version of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for any period of time and happen to mention your love of it on social media you’re bound to see the criticism that D&D is nothing more than a hack-and-slash slog played by murderous hobos as they go from location to location killing things and… Continue reading Is D&D Just About Combat?
Greyhawk was forever changed over a millennium ago when the Suloise and Baklunish empires blew each other up. The two empires had been at war for dominance of the continent of Oerik (where nearly all published adventures in the world are set) and their struggles had sent refugees North into the center of the continent… Continue reading The Baklunish and Suloise Empires, Reconsidered.
In the fall of 1979 Gary Gygax gave an interview with White Dwarf magazine before the publication of Greyhawk Boxed set that came out in 1983 in which he described the way the world would be presented: [White Dwarf] . . . We understand that your own game-world of Greyhawk is to be published on… Continue reading Make Greyhawk in Your Own Image. Gary Said So.
