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Run an in-person game. That didn't happen in 2021. I purchased some fun-looking settings in 2021 and maybe I'll get a chance to use them. Ptolus (from Monte Cook Games), Harn (from Columbia Games), and Southlands (part of Midgard from Kobold Press) all look really fun and interesting. Highly...

From what I've read of the PDFs the books are better laid out and arranged than the 5e books are.

I also want Designer Notes. Real Designer Notes and not useless marginalia like in the X's Guide to Y we have now.

I want four sections: The Table, The Encounter, The Adventure, The Campaign. The Table deals with effectively managing a table full of people. Different DMing styles, whatever. The Encounter deals with building effective encounters in each of the three pillars. From revamping CR to effective...

My favorite campaign was also the most restrictive. In college we had a great DM and a good stable of players. For a while, the DM would come up with an idea and get buy-in from some people in the group. All the campaigns were fun, but several didn't last very long. They burnt out after a few...

Yes, 5e can feel old-school. Though it does depend on what characteristics you feel are important. I've run several campaigns that used nothing but old 1e AD&D and D&D modules, nothing published after 1989. It required some house rules but nothing too crazy. Only one of the players had actually...

At the FLGS, Boxing Day was 50% off all gaming stuff older than one month (price stickers have a month/year on them so you know). Oh, lordy, did I come home with lots of stuff. Probably 30 packs of minis, some with one figure and some with two. An expansion for 7 Wonders boardgame. Aces &...

My way of skipping the boring stuff and getting to the exciting stuff is to poke and prod the players to take faster turns in combat. Sitting around waiting for a player to decide what to do is the boring stuff. Players who barrel through combat, that's fun!

This is my single favorite piece of advice. It isn't just "do whatever you want" it's "pick a result from the range of relevant choices". And this advice that Yora quotes is the hallmark of my favorite campaigns.

I like some of the alternatives to level drain to make undead scarier. One of my goals when 5e came out was to have threats to the PCs other than outright death. I actually kept level drain in the game, but there were few undead that could drain levels. First time the party encountered one they...

I think the basic game being "leaner" as you mention is a reason BECMI could add Domain Management, War Machine, and Immortality. There weren't so many rules already in place that you couldn't add more at the appropriate time. There is a big difference between rules that matter from level 1 and...

The Kickstarter FAQ says they will use "proof of stake" and when you click on the link it goes to a non-kickstarter website that says the following: "All participating validators receive a reward in the native cryptocurrency, which is generally distributed by the network in proportion to each...

I think running a session where you've told the players beforehand that you want them to critique your DMing would be helpful. That might help your at-table DMing. Generally, I've found lots of prep work makes the game run better. I've read the upcoming parts of the adventure. I have my combat...

I'm trying to think of any long running campaigns (six months or more) I've been in as a player or DM where race or background didn't matter. I can't think of any.

I'm looking forward to the last of my Kickstarters being fulfilled. I've got the following that should arrive some time in 2022: Calidar: Alfdain Ascendant (plus some previous books in the series to replace those I lost) Adventures in Oz both the setting and creatures book Kingdoms of Harn -...

I think the reason that "Earth culture with the serial numbers filed off" works well in a fantasy setting is because, as Oofta mentions, players don't really care about lore all that much. If a place happens to be similar to Earth in weather/architecture/people/food/clothing/etc. it makes it...

So if I understand you correctly, a type of gnome being described as very strong and given an 18 Strength is bad essentialism because it's a possible human trait but if the description gives it a 22 Strength that's fine because no normal human can have a 22 Strength.

OP, I can see why you'd say Harn. It only covers a small section of the world but what you have is incredibly detailed. My friend ran a campaign back in the '90s set there and it was easily the best campaign I've been in. The DM was very imaginative and all the detail enabled him to create a...

Iirc, the people who verify the block chain will be paid in crypto and only people with significant crypto holdings can participate. And that's something I can't support.

I won't be supporting projects on Kickstarter after the latest projects I've backed finally ship. Almost everything I support on Kickstarter is purchasable after the fact via some other avenue.