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Still nonsense War crimes are defined by modern treaties, not by any particular moral standard. I assure you, for most of human history what we're talking about was not a war crime (IF anything was). Aren't you imposing your personal standard and supposing it has always been the way people...

Nonsense. It's OK to slaughter who-knows-how-many creatures, but you become evil if you charm one and use it for advancing your side's purposes? How stupid is that? This is war, not sport.

The trouble with choosing ancient historical figures is that what you make up likely will have little or nothing to do with history. Boudicca wasn't a fighter, she was a symbol of her people's disgust with the Romans. How much she was the political leader isn't known, as we know next to nothing...

Although I design board and card games as a business, if I want to play a game for pleasure I play tabletop RPGs. They are naturally co-operative games but with human opposition, more or less unique, because computer RPG “GMs” cannot begin to provide the flexibility and freedom of action that a...

I will elaborate about the DMs who prefer DMing to playing, in another column. Note I mean prefer this, not that they're forced to - many people are forced to DM rather than play, because no one else will do it.

RPG campaigns are social as well as gaming events. Sometimes the GM’s social desires interfere with setting up a campaign. But at the other extreme, people can meet their future spouses via RPGs. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. This column stems from a conversation I had with a couple college...

Mearls' discussion might be posed even more simply. 3e encouraged the one-man-army, and power creep, and discouraged cooperation. 5e has returned to co-operation rather than individual "showing off", to adventure rather than power creep. Bravo.

Morale is vitally important in real battles. Units didn’t become hors de combat because most of the unit was dead or wounded, instead their morale broke when there was still a majority able to fight, and they fled. Morale has fallen out of use in RPGs – why? Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash...

The video game focus on “boss” monsters doesn’t make sense for tabletop RPGs. Video gamers are disappointed if the climactic monster doesn’t kill them several times; in RPGs, once you die, you (usually) don’t respawn. First a little history. Jeffro Johnson asked me if I'd used the monsters I...

That's a good point, that coincidence is often involved in the start of an adventure. Interesting discussion.

Bear with me a while, as the following becomes a lesson for writing stories in RPGs. My wife and I have been watching the HBO Game of Thrones series on DVD. We’re now into the fifth season. Not long ago she started to read the Song of Ice and Fire books (I read them long ago, and only remember...

“Presentism” is the imposition of contemporary morality on historical figures of centuries ago, usually resulting in criticism of those people. It’s nonsense, because circumstances were quite different, and morality was different, “back then”. Example: people think the Romans were evil for...

Oddly enough, I've seen quite a few people over the years say they thought that was one of the best articles Dragon Magazine articles ever. To each his own.

Some of you have seen Peter's "Evil Overlord List" from 1996-97. It's "The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord" such as "Shooting is not too good for my enemies." If you've not read it before, it may help you make your opponents-for-adventurers more effective. It seems...

Rex Martin's doctoral dissertation (according to Rex, formerly AH General editor IIRC) discussed how board wargaming is/was a Baby Boomer hobby. Out of touch? What puts one in touch? What puts YOU in touch? I've attended a variety of game clubs/session in two states in the past year, plus...

The boardgame renaissance is not wargaming, it's non-wargaming. Wargaming (via board games) is a Baby Boomer hobby, and wargamers are few and far between. There are lots of video games involving war, but mostly so unrealistic that they're not wargames (often, they're resource management games)...

I saw no significant difference in practice. But I was playing at a convention, not in a long-running campaign. I've not read all of the rules.

I discussed the plight of the small, new RPG publisher last time. Today I’ll talk about some design choices in Shattered Dawn (SD). I’ve thought about ways to drastically simplify RPGs for a basic RPG intended to be included in a board game. The Shattered Dawn guys have greater ambitions...

Before dice, people split sticks or bones lengthwise so that they had a curved side and a flat side, and tossed several to achieve various combinations. (They didn't understand the probability very well, though!) I understand that opposite faces of Viking dice didn't match the modern arrangement.

It's certainly common that people believe what they want to believe, rather than find the truth. "Fake News" is only one of the results. But is it my task to watch out for those who want to ignore the truth? No. Why would I lie? Is it my task to worry about some people's feelings than about...