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I have a huge collection of Dwarven Forge scenery -- it looks amazing and gives such a clear picture of the combat environment. But it takes time to set up, and you can't save a layout between gaming sessions. A projector would be really neat -- I'd love to try that. Maybe use Dwarven Forge for...

One useful way of thinking about the essence of D&D is, what character behaviors are explicitly rewarded in the RAW? --killing monsters (you get xp) --getting loot (you gain buying power in the virtual economy) --obtaining magic items (you become more powerful) You certainly can play D&D...

The way I did this in Northern Crown was to have Animal Ancestry feats for bear, wolf, and turtle. Each feat had three levels (basic, advanced, and heroic), which provided you with abilities appropriate to each animal -- at the heroic level, you could shapechange 1/day into your totem animal...

Hi, I'd like to humbly suggest that in Northern Crown i did a lot of the work for you. Four native cultures (Mohawk, Cherokee, Shawnee, and Ojibwa) are described in detail. i created a new core class, called the raider, to represent a wilderness fighter with some elements of ranger, some of...

I love Amber Diceless -- it astonished me when it came out, as a revolutionary moment in RPG history, and is still a mind-blowingly provocative solution to RPG design, one that still stirs a love-it-or-hate-it response. My sympathies to Erick and his friends and family, and thanks for providing...

May I suggest Second Life? It's free, it has integral voice, you can build the environment, minis, and props yourself, you can have a chat-based die roller. Best of all, your avatars can come dressed as their characters and stand in the scenery where their PCs would be. There are several D&D or...

Armor for wizards is a really puzzling development. It really muddies the iconic nature of the wizard class as a non-martial hero who uses arcane rather than physical means of defense. Why can't 4e just use class-based AC bonuses that increase with level? Now that saving throws are going to be...

The Compleat Strategist, 201 Massachusetts Avenue (near Symphony Hall) always seems to have plenty of books in stock, minis, paints, board games, and CCGs. My dad bought me the Petal Throne boxed set there for Xmas 1977! Across the river, you've got Pandemonium Books and Games, in Central...

Sorry, but I'm not on this bandwagon. I like HP as an abstraction of a PC's luck/survivability/heroic stature, thank you very much. I was hoping for less bookkeeping in 4e, not more. This is the first element of 4e I've seen that has given me cold feet.

Started playing in 1977. While playing in the 77-79 era, we listened to: Star Wars soundtrack Bakshi's LOTR soundtrack Led Zeppelin Wishbone Ash Yes But I also associate 1e D&D with pop radio and album-oriented FM radio tunes, most of which have nothing thematically to do with fantasy. Artists...

You know what I like about 1st edition art? It looks like it was drawn by people who played D&D and liked to draw pictures while waiting for their turn. The love of the game and the sense of adventure came through, even though some of the work was crude technically. Looking back over the entire...

My wish list: 1. Greatly reduced skill list, with simplified distribution of skill points. I dunno about you, but when I was writing Northern Crown, it could take an hour to figure out a high level NPC's skill points. 2. Ao0's go away or are limited to PCs who have an ability called "Parting...

Atlas Games never intended to issue more Northern Crown products -- that's why they gave the support license to Adamant. Two hardcovers wasn't enough for you? ;) I put out two issues of the Franklyn's Almanack zine with Adamant, and they didn't move many copies. The decision not to publish any...

In my experience with 1e, maybe 1 out of 3 characters would make it to 2nd level, maybe half of those who made it to 2nd level would make it to 3rd level. But around 3rd level it stabilized. You had enough hp to survive the odd hit, and the party could probably scrape together the cash to...

D&D is an evocation of a fantasy medieval world with strong elements of orientalist romance. The two descriptors that most properly describe what D&D's creators were attempting to invoke are "medievalist" and "orientalist". In the 19th century, artists, writers, and academics became enamored of...

Thanks, I've been filming it in my head all morning! :) Scott, call me, baby, we'll do lunch. My people will talk to your people. Seriously, send me a PM.

Then I guess you didn't start with the Eric Holmes set that was subtitled "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Role Playing Adventure Game Campaigns." ;) As a seventies kid, i can tell you that visual sources for fantasy illustration were sparse back then. 1e illos were produced in a relatively...

Pixar Studios presents Lords of the Basement Animated, 100 minutes Director: Bryan Singer (X-Men, X2) Writers: Stephen Colbert (Strangers with Candy) and Steve Carrell (The 40-year-old Virgin) with additional story by Brad Bird and Dougmander (hey it's my fantasy) Producer: Brad Bird (proven...

Here's one DM's story of getting a homebrew into publishable shape: I started putting PDFs of what would eventually become Northern Crown on the web for free as early as 1998 or so. Writing up my homebrew to share it with other DMs forced me to maintain a certain standard of clarity and...

Every party of PCs I've DM'd for seems to evolve its own set of tactics. What works for them currently: 1. Cleric applies buffs to party members. 2. Sorcerer with invisibility and fly scouts out the enemy, then switches to air support mode once the enemy is engaged by the fighter/tank and the...