Experimental posts, things that will most likely be recategorized when I’m done, but want some serious examination and discussion.
I had some Second Thoughts about Random Encounter Tables. Erik Tenkar likes using three dice for his random encounter tables because he likes the curve, and planned to have deliberate, potentially large gaps in the table so he could combine the random encounter check (determine whether there is one) and …
On reconsideration, Dungeons of Carcassonne could be almost playable (if not very good) pretty soon. Some thoughts from today: Danger of a room is equal to the number of tiles in the room plus the number of dead meeples (dead meeples means the room is clearly more dangerous than its …
A conversation on Google+ has made me think, more and more, about adapting Carcassonne as a tile-based dungeon crawl. I don’t have the details in mind yet, but here are some ideas to start ‘Roads’ are now ‘passages’, complete with branches and loops. ‘Cities’ are now ‘rooms’ (or caverns, whatever). …
I have no idea what prompted this, but what if ability score modifiers in D&D were handled in four-point bands instead of two-point bands? That is, instead of Score Modifier 1 -5 2..3 -4 4..5 -3 6..7 -2 8..9 -1 10..11 +0 12..13 +1 14..15 +2 16..17 +3 18..19 +4 …
I have always liked the idea of specialist wizards, but have never really been fond of the implementation. A couple barred schools of magic (only one if specializing in Divination, because it sucks), in exchange for an extra spell slot per spell level and a +2 bonus to Spellcraft checks …
Range increments in D&D 3.x have always struck me as a little strange. First and foremost, they are basically meaningless most of the time. Almost all combats I’ve seen in the D&D 3.x era (and most of those before that) almost everything happens within one range increment. Most battle mats …
I was thinking recently about magic items and their design, and specifically about complaints I have seen about them. D&D 3.x evolved to the point where certain magic items were expected. This led to some distinct complaints. Complaints Magic items are boring. I have to agree. The customary set of …
Genius-level monsters (and other opponents) have always been a problem for me. Talysman at The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms suggests a mechanism for handling it. The original post “I Meant to Do That” was originally posted almost a year ago (sigh I still mean to go back and read this site …
If the rules endow demi-humans with extremely long life-spans without level limits it seems logical that powerful, high-level demi-human NPCs would come to dominate the game world. I am not entirely certain this is true. I mean, I know this is not true in my campaign because I said so… …
I thought I would expand on an almost incidental idea in Falling off the RNG. I think D&D 3.x has too many armor class values. I believe this is mostly to model certain types of play and to encourage player characters (and other monsters) to act in specific ways. I …