Falling off the RNG

‘Falls off the RNG’ is an expression many designers use to describe designs that cause two characters of comparable power to have large enough differences that they exceed the size of the random number generator (RNG, usually dice in a tabletop RPG).  At this point it is impossible for the …

On Alignments and Energy Types

Bruce Cordell asks at http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/01/18/holy_and_radiant if the ‘radiant’ and ‘holy’ damage types should (poll actually says ‘can’, but conversation at google+ says he really means ‘should’ if it makes more sense) exist in the same game. I didn’t take part in the poll because I think the poll is poorly …

Boom! Head Shot!

A few months ago I posted about a different model for hit points and healing, then followed up a few weeks ago with a post considering some of the implications of making those changes. One of the lingering thoughts I’ve had is that it comes close to modeling desired behavior …

Implications of Changes to the Hit Point Model

A couple of months ago I posted some thoughts about hit points and healing . This is playable model, and the martial artists I discussed it with said that while it’s not exactly realistic, it has the shape of something believable.  That is, the relationship between ‘hard to kill’ (or ‘hard to beat down’, more …

Factions

In a recent conversation on google+, Jason Pitre asked how many non-player factions we thought should be present in an RPG campaign.  There were several different suggestions that included small numbers (say, 4) and larger numbers (0-4 to start, then at least one per dungeon or adventure after that).  My …

Magic Subsystem: Elemental Chakras

This post is inspired (or triggered) by the Lawful Indifferent post of the same title.

N. Wright explores (‘throws out’) the idea of a magic system based on the elements and the seven chakras.  He initially decides that he likely won’t pursue this avenue, but I think it has a lot of potential.  Perhaps not in the way he initially described, but I can see a few ways to make it viable.

Ways to use Elemental Chakras

The described approach is to have each chakra bound to an element (and each element may be bound to more than one).  The number of chakras bound to each element determines the maximum tier of magic of that element that may be used.  The example provided is that someone with two fire chakras and one air chakra you could cast up to ‘second tier fire spells’, ‘first tier air spells’, and ‘third tier fire+air spells’.

I agree that this might not work as desired, if only because it is likely to devolve into a specialization choice (all fire, all air, etc.) or determining which bits you are slightly better at.

There are other ways that might work better.

Continue reading“Magic Subsystem: Elemental Chakras”

West Marches-style Sandbox Campaign

Ben Robbins had what looks like a very good sandbox campaign, and a remarkable way of managing PCs available at any given time. This post describes how I think I’ll go about giving it a try, because it sounds like it’ll work very well for me, given the difficulties I’ve had in maintaining a steady group of players online… and the design requirements for any particular session are relatively small compared to my normal campaign design mechanisms. I’m looking for players and possibly co-GMs.

D&D Meta-Classes

In AD&D 2e you could choose your weapon and nonweapon proficiencies (optional rule), thieves could choose how to distribute their skill points, and (in the Complete Priests Handbook) speciality priests could have different ‘spheres’ that controlled what spells they had access to and influenced the powers they received. D&D 3e started making …

Back to Top