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@TerraDave : Thanks! :) @ExploderWizard : Well said. I like your point about players discussing what their characters can do with new abilities as opposed to what the characters are doing in the campaign. I've seen that happen (in a bad way) all too many times. However, I'm not completely...

@Fetfreak : The idea about handouts is awesome! I've loved using them in a few adventures, and the players think they're absolutely great, too. Writing down which parts of the adventure were too hard and too easy would be a great learning tool. Thanks so much for mentioning it! I've had a few...

I used to think that the less comprehensive the rules were to a game system, the better it was. I figured if you could write a good role-playing game in 10 pages instead of a thousand then you had a winner on your hands. To my mind, rules just cluttered up the game system and got in the way of...

Cool. I used the random generator on the link and got 'Saegolfin' which sounds remarkably like "Say golfing?" I really like groups of about 20 or so names like these on a piece of scrap paper. In the middle of an adventure they can be a lifesaver when you need a name in a pinch and don't want to...

What role do adventures have when designing a game? Upon creating a good game design, it’s only natural that you’ll want to follow it up with something. I’ve always thought it was a good idea to include all the essential rules in the opening books so that people don’t have to arbitrarily buy...

@Mark Chance : I agree. However, BAB also gives you the opportunity to go 'off the die'. For example, you could have +20 to attack or a creature with AC 35. I'm not saying that's bad, but it's something interesting I never noticed before. @Fetfreak : Well said. I think that's a fine way to...

Some of my players just let me know that the part about the deer musk was a little overboard in the original article. I cleaned it up a little bit. Sorry for any confusion. ;)

Edited: for being too 'gross'. June 30/06/2013

One of the things which always used to bug me about the older RPGs was the hugely convoluted way you had to figure out your attack rolls. So if the opponent had an armor class of 7 you needed to roll a 12 or something like that to hit him. Of course, if you ever managed to get past 3rd level...

@Fetfreak : That's awesome. It never occurred to me to go both classless and leveless but I think that would be fantastic! Kudos on such a cool game. I bet the role-playing and character development are pretty epic. @Fletchyr : I agree. Ha ha, I like the social challenges equaling sword...

Well, first off, I’d like to point out that this story has nothing whatsoever to do with game design. I was simply too lazy to change the title of my column. Everyone who plays RPGs for a certain length of time seems to have a favorite ‘war story’. This one is mine. If anyone else has a...

@Jhaelen : That's the way to do it. :) I love to hear those kinds of stories. @Fetfreak : Well said. I like how Pathfinder made their approach. Not too crazy, but fixing things along the way, tool.

One of the things I really enjoy doing is finding the flaws in professional game designs. I do this only out of spite. It has no actual value. Seriously, though, any game designer worthy of the title has some problems with the games out there. If you didn’t, why bother writing your own games in...

I read somewhere that Tolkein created his books as a 'setting' for his 'language' of Elvish. He also apparently helped write the dictionary at the time and admitted that they 'just made up' the meanings of certain words. Star Wars is also pretty darn cool. :P --David

One of the best things you can do to sharpen your game design skills is to remake old game designs. I’m not saying to plagiarize other designers’ works and then try to sell them, I’m saying to copy successful systems in your own way to privately learn new techniques. They say that copying...

That's very cool, @Radiating Gnome . Thank you for the link and cool info. @Derren : Well said, I certainly love wealth whenever I'm a player. Being able to get loads of money and buy cool things is always a plus. I guess from a GM and game designing standpoint I always like to take wealth...

One of the last things we think about when designing a game is the economy of the fictional world. It might be important to know how much wealth a starting character will receive, but the impact of wealth itself on a game is rarely given much thought. Wealth is a mechanical and background...

Great article! I really love writing, so I guess you could say my mission statement for being a DM would be, "Creating a great story and entertaining the players." RPGs are stories and games at the same time, but great stories seem to live on in the imagination forever. They grow again and...

Thanks, Radiating Gnome. You're so right about that! And, it doesn't just apply to game design either. With any writing project, I find that to be one of the trickiest parts, as well. Sometimes it's even easy to get the honest critical feedback, but then making it past my own prejudices becomes...

Most game designs start with an idea and a concept. An idea is the spark of creativity that launches you into the game design process. It’s the fleeting image which spurs you to undertake the great endeavor of game design. The concept quickly follows. A concept is like an outline for a game...