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What part does creativity play in game design? Novice game designers often have a confused idea that game design is all about creativity, which is very far from the truth. Creativity is important, but a small component of game design. Most of the work involved in designing the game is fairly...

We take having many playable species in fantasy role-playing games for granted. For example, 30-some years ago I wrote an article "My Life as a Werebear" (in White Dwarf #17) that provided rules for player character monster species such as blink dog packs and giants. Picture courtesy of...

I was attending a college game club for the first time, convening at the odd time of 7:19. I was quite early, having come from another college game club, so I sat down and spread out a couple of games I was seeking to playtest. Not far away a group of guys were talking, and I finally heard...

Some people think that every character class must be equally balanced with every other class, but why is that necessary? Are they competing with the other players in a co-operative game? Picture courtesy of Pixabay The Destination or the Journey? When approaching a discussion of class balance...

I've been talking about good ways to devise RPG monsters for tabletop games (See "Just Say No to Boss Monsters"). In the previous installment we covered the unknown, unusual characteristics, monsters that cooperate, and critters with combined characteristics. But there are many other ways to...

Many people try to design really tough monsters for RPGs, but that’s often a consequence of the boss monster mentality, suitable for computers, not tabletop. I like to focus on surprising the players, and here’s how. Picture courtesy of Pixabay Something that's near and dear to my heart...

At a recent “GMs meeting” someone posed this question: What do you do if you’ve allowed a player to acquire something that way overbalances the campaign? Picture courtesy of Pixabay. First I have to say, I have not done this (or if I did I’ve repressed something that happened long ago, and it...

The Mighty Jingles (on YouTube) described what he really disliked about Far Cry 5 New Dawn (video game). The game took away player control at vital junctures. I wonder how often this happens in RPGs, and offer some reasons why it does. With a poll! Picture courtesy of Pixabay. I watch a few...

Despite the fatuous "get off my lawn" comment and the equally-useless "how does this get used on this site" waste of time (typically meaning "I disagree vehemently", oh well), this has been a really interesting set of comments. It would be a good place to start for anyone wanted to write a...

In my articles from the early 1980s I often characterized the typical D&Der as a hoodlum (hood). You may know them by many other names: ruffian, bully boy, bully, bandit, mugger, gangster, terrorist, gunman, murderer, killer, hitman, assassin, hooligan, vandal, and more. Has anything changed...