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Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Cities don’t just happen, though it may look that way to those who live in one. As a GM/world-builder you can “do it that way” (they just happen), but I prefer a believable world, which means that cities must have reasons for being there. For this article, a city...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. “Don’t read any science fiction/fantasy from before [or after] 1980” is a phrase characterizing a notable split in sci-fi and fantasy fandom. There's a split for sure, but they're not nearly as incompatible as that quote might imply. Vicarious vs. Role For the...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. I confess that I am a big fan of naval history (the topic of my long ago doctoral dissertation is “Aircraft and the Royal Navy 1908 to 1919”), so I have some bias. Certainly if you work at it, you can deliberately make up science-fiction settings where ground...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. A Change of Space When I write a Worlds of Design column about worldbuilding I usually think in terms of fantasy rather than science fiction. Today I have a sci-fi topic, how “space navies” are likely to work. In this discussion I assume a sci-fi setting is the...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Humans are generally positioned as the baseline to which other species are compared, no doubt because humans are playing the game. Dungeons & Dragons famously centered humans as the “main” species lest the game turn into less fantasy medieval and more abstract...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Crowns in Crisis As you GM more and more adventures, it may become harder to find an unusual reason for player characters to go adventuring. There’s a lot of potential in "succession dramas" for adventure hooks, even if the adventurers are not amongst the possible...

The answer is likely predicated on if you came to Tolkien before you came to FRPGs. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. I read the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) when I was in my late teens, about seven years before original Dungeons & Dragons was released. (The Hobbit came later for me.) This is long...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Simplify, Don’t Add When I'm referencing "simple games" I'm specifically discussing games that are simple, but have some depth to them. I prefer to design simple games - games that are fundamentally simple in rules, though not in strategies. That said, simple...

Now that we’ve established the basics of simplifying a game, let’s work through how to make a game simple. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. The Simplification Checklist Simplicity in games consists of several tenets, which we’ll discuss in order. Remove trivial decisions: Trivial doesn’t mean...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Does anyone stick with a game anymore? As games have proliferated and entertainment options have become more numerous, it’s increasingly hard to get an audience to truly dedicate their time and effort to the game. This is important, because games rely on people...

Mercenary units were common in the pre-gunpowder era, and we hear their stories in some modern science fiction. Wouldn’t they show up in RPGs? Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Meet Your Merc Mercenary companies usually originated with troops from a specific region, but recruiting was typically a...

The longer the campaign, the more likely PCs become military strategists. Here’s the basics. Picture by RGodforest - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, File:Fire and movement.svg - Wikimedia Commons Welcome to the Big Leagues As an RPG campaign gets longer and longer, characters tend to become important...

Are there too many magic items in your campaign? Picture courtesy of Pixabay. “…and a +5 Sword” The nature of fantasy adventure gaming, as set out by the original Dungeons & Dragons, is that the collection of treasure meant acquiring magic items. In earlier versions of D&D, magic items were...

There are lots of books about playing tabletop role-playing games, but what makes a great book about designing one? Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing Nonfiction books aren’t what they used to be. My generation saw books as a treasure-trove of information, organized...

Fantasy worlds tend to remind us of medieval Europe in culture, rulership, even geography. Why? Map courtesy of Lew Pulsipher A Long Tradition Tabletop role-playing games have a long traditional of European medieval fantasy, starting with Dungeons & Dragons. While there were occasional nods to...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Maps Are Not Destiny Maps are important to games, and sometimes important to novels, although there are novelists like Glenn Cook who feel that maps restrict their freedom of action too much. I’m a big fan of maps, with a bookshelf full of (mostly historical)...

People play games to be entertained, and most people don’t like to work for their entertainment. But one person’s work can be another person’s pleasure. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Checkmate When I was 15, I decided to “retire” (as I like to say) from playing chess. Not that I was an...

As a continuing and ultimately patient activity, spying isn’t a good fit for typical fantasy or sci-fi RPGs. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Tinker, Tailor, Caster, Spy Spies are an often long-term, frequently large-scale, speculative, form of reconnaissance. Spying is a different form of...

Modern archery is more complex than archery in the days of melee battles, with many kinds of bows and shooting aids, but still, in the end, it’s pretty straightforward. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. My wife, a senior citizen as you might expect, recently took up archery as a hobby! This got...

Countries were originally characterized as progressing through several states to “civilized.” This is not in favor today. Picture courtesy of Pixabay. Though not common today, in the 19th century and earlier, scholars and philosophers sometimes proposed stages that every country “naturally”...