Recent content by empireofchaos

I've been blogging about the Lukomorye - a Russian-themed fantasy setting that uses a variant of 5e D&D rules. If that kind of thing rocks your boat, give a look. http://bardichesandbathhouses.blogspot.com/

Guilds and factions and powerful wizards are fine. But the Lankhmar setting is a bit stripped down for my taste. What basic social hierarchies exist? What's the relation to run-of-the-mill producers? I don't remember discussion of these things in Lieber (though it's certainly possible that I've...

Proponents of any style have to recognize their limitations. Setting-oriented DMs shouldn't do information - there are far more effective ways to engage players by dribbling out setting details gradually, so players have time and inclination to process them. Similarly, hack'n'slashers shouldn't...

Players should always have a choice, but I disagree that the situation is entirely player-driven. If PCs run in a world where there is nothing outside the dungeon and other locales where they kill things, then killing things is what they're going to do. If NPCs have no character except as...

Jesus. And I'm the one who's wordy? Sorry, no time for trolls. See ya.

In my next post, I discuss the social class of adventurers. The word "adventure" was redefined in the 14th century. It used to mean "chance occurrence" or "miracle", but now it would mean "an exciting, risk-taking venture". A new social type - the adventurer - one who made his (usually) living...

We do what we can. Some table pathologies can be allayed by better GMing and better setting design. And sometimes, we just need to find better players.

My post was intended (in part) as a response to some other bloggers, who write about OSR. Their take is that both strands of American fantasy fiction, including Swords & Sorcery and Weird Fiction were more influential on fantasy gaming (in the original Gygaxian period), and rightly so, because...

I’ll reply, since you are now raising substantive issues about what I wrote. But in general, your mode of public discourse doesn’t work for me. You are much too sloppy a writer to offer writing advice, especially to someone you don’t know. And you are much too inattentive a reader to call...

My condolences.

That's true. But it means that if a DM wants to have a world that PCs can respect, they need to develop the NPCs with care, also. It also means that PC actions to finish off all enemies, or to torture captives for information, will not be forgotten.

To a known extent, the imperative to keep the focus squarely on the PCs, and the imperative to embed them within a larger social environment which is replete with particular institutions, hierarchical orders, histories, and symbolic systems point in contradictory directions. Allowing for a...

Some musings about how adventurers fit into the world around them (Part 1 of an extended post). http://bardichesandbathhouses.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-sociology-of-murderhobo.html

Merkel the Formerly Mighty. Funding demagogues who claimed to be able to destroy all dungeons, and then trying to deal with the inevitable fallout by trying to resettle surviving dungeon denizens in her native city kind of made everyone turn against her...