Home

History

Upcoming D&D

2021

_{Available Now}
_{Fizban's Treasury of Dragons}

_{Available Now}
_{Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos}
_{Setting/Adventure}

₂₀₂₂

_{January 2022
Rules Expansion Gift Set
(includes Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Universe)}

_{March 2022
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep
Adventure}

_{2 Classic Settings}

_{2022 or Beyond}

_{2 Brand New Settings}

_{Another Classic Setting}

₂₀₂₄

_{Revised Core Rulebooks
(D&D 50th anniversary)}

Enjoy This Advert

News Digest for the Week of November 26

Nov 26

Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! More previews for Strixhaven, new releases for Legend of the Five Rings, a new edition of Paranoia coming soon, cyberpunk Vikings coming...

News Digest for the Week of October 8

Oct 08

Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Delays in D&D books, Level Up: Advanced 5e live on Kickstarter, Twitch hacked, controversy in the BattleTech community, and more! Don’t...

Gaming With Gary Gygax

Jun 04

I met Gary Gygax at a book store. He told me he had a game where I could play Conan and fight Set. Just like that I was hooked. I went over to his house and rolled up a wizard character in D&D...

Jim Ward: Interplanetary War (TSR)

May 22

You won't be surprised to know that the highly creative people at TSR often did amazing things in their game playing. I can distinctly remember having a fun lunch with Gary Gygax and he told me...

Alignment in D&D

May 01

Alignment is, on some level, the beating heart of Dungeons & Dragons. On the other hand, it’s sort of a stupid rule. It’s like the hit point rules in that it makes for a good game experience...

Dave Arneson's Origins 1977 Tournament

Apr 24

Jon Peterson has shared some images of Dave Arneson's Origins 1977 D&D tournament, in the form of twelve pre-generated characters (which include a werewolf!), the tournament's event description...

At TSR: Walking Around The Building

Apr 03

Let me give you a little background. I became the Director of Creative Services at TSR. Upper management wanted me to have that title so when I tried to manage the editors and designers my words...

Multiclassing in D&D 3rd Edition

Mar 19

My best friend Rob Heinsoo was the lead designer on 4th Ed, and one of his jobs was to fix things that 3rd Ed hadn’t fixed. Multiclassing was on that list of systems that needed work. At one point when playing 3rd Ed, Rob was running a 3rd level barbarian-fighter-ranger. Given the way multiclassing worked, why not?

The Naming of Names: Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill, & Gangbusters

Mar 10

First, let me correct a mistake I made when I wrote that Zeb Cook thought up the 'Baatezu' & 'Tanar'ri' demon and devil new names. My friend Jim LaFountain quite rightly pointed out that he was...

Jonathan Tweet: Third Edition and Per-Day Spells

Feb 24

On the Third Edition design team, we were tasked with rationalizing the game system, but there were some big elements of the system that we didn’t question. We inherited a system in which...

Gary Gygax Things

Feb 14

Let me start by saying that I believe Gary Gygax was a gaming genius. That genius included a lot of skills in crafting D&D designs. I have experienced literally hundreds of DM styles. Gary's style...

BURMANIA! Part 2: "Keep on Going!"

Feb 11

As the neutral DM I was positioned to see how the opposition to Bob Burman had manifested, especially among two primary players in my campaigns and games, James Goodfellow and Eric Shook. Where does this animus derive from?

D&D 3E Design: The Unbalanced Cleric

Jan 27

What do you call a D&D cleric who can’t heal? A 1st-level 1970s cleric. The original first-level cleric could turn undead but had no spells. Skip Williams says that the original conception of the...

Theon's Underwear Experience

Jan 21

First, let me say, that every word of this is fact and I am not exaggerating one word of it.

From the Freelancing Frontline: Struggling For Experience

Jan 14

In 1997, I attended the TSR RPG Writer’s Workshop, in Seattle, WA. In 2000, I applied for job at Wizards of the Coast, and was hired to be part of the RPG R&D team, working on Licensed Products...

Ed Greenwood Sold The Forgotten Realms For $5,000

Jan 10

This week in Ben Riggs' podcast, he interviews Ed Greenwood, father of the Forgotten Realms, about his 1987 agreement with TSR wherein he sold the rights to the Realms for $5,000. "We also discuss...

BURMANIA! Part 1: Check Your Sanity at the Door

Jan 02

Every game club or group has one. A person who stands out from the rest mostly due to some recurring oddity, a facet of their unchanging personality if you will, and their sublime belief in their...

In Forgotten Lawsuit, TSR Sued Wizards of the Coast

Dec 20

In 1996, TSR, the company that birthed Dungeons & Dragons, was in trouble. TSR was millions of dollars in debt to Random House. Budgets were so tight that employees were being told that they had...

April 4th, 1984: TSR's 3rd Purge

Dec 20

Life at TSR was very good and very bad. It started out in 1983. TSR had 386 employees and nepotism had raised its ugly head. You couldn’t throw a rock anywhere in the TSR offices without hitting a...

From the Freelancing Frontline – Meeting Giants

Dec 16

Like so many TTRPG writers, I got where I am now by standing on the backs of giants. But it’s easier to stand on a giant’s back after you meet them, and I am a depressive socially-awkward...