Recent content by mearls

It's interesting to see how conventions have grown so much since lockdowns ended. UK Game Expo, Gary Con, and Gamehole Con have all enjoyed explosive growth. Gen Con keeps trying to find more space to jam in gamers. I think in-person events would've been a big hit, and plenty of games (like...

Funny you should quote that. I was talking to a friend last night and we tried to figure out what D&D would look like today if they had stuck with the annual stories and events tied to them. The real benefit comes from building paths between expressions of D&D. I vividly remember scooping up...

I’m friends with him on Goodreads and noticed that he has been rating books over there as of a few days ago, so perhaps he is taking time away from the online forums.

Funny, I was just thinking that I hadn’t seen any posts from him in a while. His profile shows he was last here on August 1. Hope he’s enjoying a long vacation.

That's what I think is so clever about this product - giving the deluxe treatment to classic modules means I can use stuff like maps and handouts even if I don't run the adventures in the box. They work with BECMI just as well.

That looks great!

Rich is an incredibly underrated adventure designer. Forge of Fury is one of the best D&D adventures ever, and Phandelver probably has the #1 position in any list.

Regarding the general health of TTRPGs, some rough numbers. I don't have the exact numbers on this PC, so take this as directional. Gen Con is super interesting! Total attendance isn't up a ton, mainly because Gen Con has hit its limit on how many gamers can cram in Indy's convention center...

It depends on how this goes sales-wise and what Chaosium wants to do with CoC, but I'm definitely open to expanding on this.

Thanks! I was planning on using a mechanic like this in Odyssey, so that project gave me a chance to surface some concepts and get feedback before finishing up work on Torchlight.

It's a polymorph effect that you gain at 3rd level. You can still cast warlock pact spells while in the form. At higher levels, you can do classic cat stuff like distract people by being adorable or vex them by... just being a cat, really. I write that as someone who lives with four of them...

I intentionally avoided looking at it. My understanding is that Sandy has the copyright to it, so I wanted to make sure we didn't inadvertently cross streams.

Skill challenges have two main pieces: There's the basics of a list of possible skills and DCs, with room for player improv. Each player gets the chance to make one check or assist another check. After everyone takes a turn, the skill challenge includes a twist. The situation changes, either...

In terms of digital only, when I joined Chaosium I had pitched a CoC/D&D crossover book. The biggest risk was that it would be confusing to BRP players, since they might think it was a fantasy supplement to CoC. From my understanding, when CoC d20 released all those years ago retailers and...

I hope so! Otherwise, someone went to a LOT of effort to prank me...