Search results

The New York Red Box group currently runs two long-standing West Marches D&D games; Eric's uses the titular Red Box Basic from 1981, while mine is using the OD&D 1974 rules. We talk about lessons from these campaigns in the forums on that site, and also on the Mule Abides blog in my sig. Ditto...

I used commune and divination every chance I got as a player in the Age of Worms campaign. I loved the access to information, but did run into the problem of talking too much time figuring out the questions (when I didn't prep them in-between sessions). A sphinx that answers questions at 100 gp...

In a sandbox where the challenges that the PCs face as they travel are not adjusted to their level (either because they're determined by what's on the map or what the dice generate from a random table), I like to use information as a way to scale the encounter to be appropriate for the PCs &...

Yeah, as I was saying in my series-of-blog-posts-about-other-blogs, once you get past the fact that porn stars are a particularly interesting kind of person who hasn't played a lot of D&D, one of the interesting things about Zak S.'s blog is the exploration of how to get new players into the...

Dasuul: Agreed that the time change is a big factor, but also note that buffs typically offer a substantially worse benefit in AD&D than their 3E counterparts (e.g. bless only works if you're not in melee, which combined with the relative briefness makes it much less of a must-cast). MrMyth...

I'm not at all saying that you couldn't have that thrilling dungeoneering action sequence in 4E (although you might have to houserule the part where you forestall an encounter with a web spell - previous editions have lots of spells that could be useful in combat but we frequently use to avoid...

OD&D is good for fast combat and fast rolling up new characters when the others die, as happens with enjoyable regularity. Not so much for leveling up - depending on which version of the rules you use (original three books = faster, Greyhawk supplement = slower), how much treasure you place, and...

Jeff Long's novel The Descent is full of real-world spelunking mixed with military horror & speculative theology. I didn't like it as much as fiction as some did, but it's definitely good source material. The shortlived low-level Underdark campaign I played in had two memorable sequences: - We...

The Avalon Hill boardgame is played on a map of the Middle East. Source of the Nile might have a hex-by-hex generation system, I hear, but I haven't played it. The Judges Guild Wilderlands stuff is great for this, but out of print. A friend at NY Red Box has been making a procedural wilderness...

If you (or anyone else) do wind up taking Metro-North from NYC, let me know - maybe we can coordinate our trips and get some gaming in on the train!

Back in the day (82 or so) I didn't know where pre-made character sheets came from; probably I saw some that older kids at the library group had, but the idea that you could buy them (e.g. the goldenrod AD&D ones) either never occurred to me or seemed too expensive. So I sat down with a...

According to the Warhorn site, there are still four open seats for the Working for the Jhereg (Heroic Dread) game. You know you want to... I missed some of the posts above, but I'm looking forward to meeting you, Joe, even if my events conflict with yours! And thanks for your hard work putting...

Yeah, I think I'm already booked at the hotel for Thursday. I haven't played Wiz-War in years, that'd be fun!

I'd run the MA adventures at GaryCon II (where, I trust, you'll be again?) except that I'd wither at the thought that at any time Jim Ward might loom over me and sigh in dismay at the poor treatment his game is receiving in my inept hands! (That actually seems pretty unlikely - he was quite...

That sounds like a cool campaign, Ryan! I was just going to suggest John Varley's Eight Worlds stories (e.g. the collection Blue Champagne) as a place to look for how extremely ready access to resurrection (and controlled reincarnation) might transform a society. Steven Brust's Jhereg books are...

I totally signed up for that Dread game! In other news, my son is 7 and I'm thinking that Gary Con in March might be the first convention I bring him to. (Matt Forbeck had his son there last year & it looked like they were having a great time.) How old is your brood, Eridanis?

I'm going to be running some games at this convention in Stamford, and playing in some others (including Time and Temp, by nerdNYC's Eppy, run by our very own Piratecat. Wahoo!) Anyone else planning on making the trip? Details here. Here are the blurbs for my games. Interestingly, the AD&D one...

I wound up posting at The Mule Abides about choice as well, although I was responding to the threads about player advice rather than DM, and looked at it through a filter of experience with old vs. new versions of the game. Using your framework, here are some of the conclusions I came to...

Inspired by the threads about the Essentials articles, I wrote a post at The Mule Abides - Tell Me How to Play 4E and OD&D (So I Can Ignore It) - thinking about what player advice is good for and how that changes across editions. Since it's a long post and I'm not sure which parts folks here...

That's an interesting exercise, and it's commendable that you've taken up the challenge. However, I think it's not a trivial difference that your version takes up 2,628 words, while the similar section you quote from the original is 353 words. I'm not saying that you couldn't boil your advice...