Category: Challenges

So far I have looked entirely at character ability, and not at external sources of ability. A common external source of ability is an item of power. In a fantasy setting this is most often a magic item of some sort. In D&D, magic items often come in several forms. …

Or perhaps ‘higher level expectations’. I have long held the opinion that D&D-based game have several modes of play. In old school D&D, the low to middle levels, from first to just-before-name-level, were a sort of ‘personal heroism’ level, before ‘making a name for themselves’ and becoming significant powers themselves. …

A couple days ago I wrote about the effort mechanic from Kevin Crawford’s game, Godbound. There is some great material in here, let’s see if there’s anything else I might want to use. Bundle of Holding If you find this post piques your interest in Godbound — and I hope …

Feats were one of my favorite additions in D&D 3e. To some degree they replaced the weapon and non-weapon proficiencies. More importantly, they gave a means of customizing characters that wasn’t class-based. Mostly; there were exceptions. It seems many other designers liked feats, even became enamored of them if the …

Games almost always limit how many times actions can be done. Some actions can be used at will without limit (attacking with a weapon). Others can be used a limited number of times per day (often 1/day or 3/day, or number-plus-modifier; ’rounds per day’ is a similar limit). I think …

Basic paths are just that: very generic paths, probably one per significant option (something like D&D 4e’s power sources: arcane, divine, martial, primal, psionic, and shadow). They will likely be somewhat similar to d20 Modern’s basic classes, granting some common abilities and allow selection of talents. This is contrary to …

It has become obvious to me that this series is not going quite the way I’d planned. Instead of distilling game rules down to their basics and building back up, it appears I’m mostly going through and deciding which elements, or what approaches to those elements, I plan to use. …

A few days ago I decided how I was going to handle character advancement (use levels) and classes (a path model like that of Shadow of the Demon Lord). I didn’t go into detail, and it just became relevant. In the table below, ‘B’ indicates a level in which a …

Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Al Qadim, Maztica, Rokugan, Golarion, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, Birthright, Known World, Dark Sun, Planescape, Kara Tur… of all the D&D settings over the decades, my favorite has been Birthright. Others have their place in my heart, but Birthright has always been my favorite. Partly because of the demesne …

Almost all games have a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. In adventuring role playing games, a character death is seen as at least a setback, if not a loss. How do you tell if a character is dead, though? How ‘dead’ do we really want that to mean? Damage and Death …