D&D General This week on HOW-I-RUN-IT.com: Dragon Mag Monday #106 (inc. a look at "A Plethora of Paladins")

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
Hey all, as I mentioned in my "Troglodyte Tuesday" thread and in the thread about my HOW I RUN IT zine series, I have started a new site for my D&D content. It has a couple of different features already and I will be adding more in the next few weeks into the new year.


These features include:
  • #DragonMagMonday, in which I dive into an issue of Dragon from my own collection, what can be found there, a bit of cultural analysis and/or gaming history, and mostly how it influenced (or didn't) my own approach to the game to this day. Today's post is a look at Best of Dragon vol. IV, but a couple of weeks ago I wrote about Dragon #200 (from Dec. 1993)
  • #TroglodyteTuesday, which is named after the monster I have developed the most, but is where I share my versions of various monsters for 5E. So far I've posted four types of trogs, but tomorrow my version of the Harpy goes live.
  • #Dweomer Day, in which I play at converting an old spells from previous editions that appeared in non-core material like Dragon, Dungeon, or a module to 5E. I also convert some of my and my past collaborators' previous homebrew spells. These are not meant to be definitive, but rather "this is something how I'd do it/or currently do it, but am open to other ideas."
There are also links to my campaign wikis, posts with session recaps, and a landing page to download edited PDFs of all four books of my "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour from back in the day.

Forthcoming I have:
  • #DungeonDelve, in which I post my notes for running/expanding/adapting adventures from past issues of Dungeon. I am currently working on "Song of the Fens" from Dungeon #40.
  • #RevenantsofSaltmarsh (named for one of my current campaigns), in which I provided notes and advice for running Ghosts of Saltmarsh based on my own changes and experiences doing so as someone who ran the 1E versions in three previous editions and is in the process of the 5E version for two different groups.
  • #OneShots, one-off essays examining some aspect of running or playing D&D and/or a critical/cultural analysis of game material as it deals with race, class, and gender (putting some of my doctoral study of American popular culture and literature to work in looking at D&D). I have an essay on 90s Dragon article presenting "fantasy" Native Americans and another on degrees of player character identification in the works.

Anyway, I hope some of you all will enjoy the site. Comments are vetted, but are welcome. Once a person comments at least once without being a jerk, they get access to comment without prior approval. I also have a HOW I RUN IT twitter acct (for however long that lasts),
@HOW_I_RUN_IT and a new Mastodon acct on the server Morrus set up, @HIRI@chirp.enworld.org.

Oh and I still plan to print my "quick n dirty" zines about once or twice a year. There is a link on the site for ordering the ones that are still available.
 
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el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
My version of the Harpy is now live


EDIT: For some reason the version of this that went live was an older one that had not been edited/proofread. It is now corrected/up-to-date.
 
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el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
This coming week on HOW-I-RUN-IT.com:

  • DragonMagMonday: Covering issue #94 (Feb 1985)
  • Troglodyte Tuesday: The Cave Troll
  • Dweomer Day: Agon's Hammer (a converted homebrew spell)
  • Story Time Thursday: A recap of Session #6 of my Ghosts of Saltmarsh+ campaign
 





el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
Today is #TroglodyteTuesday on HOW-I-RUN-IT.com and the latest installment was inspired by looking at the 5E Owlbear stat block for the first time and realizing how boring and static it is (as are too many monsters) and how they stripped it of the one special ability it traditionally had at the same time that WotC released their latest "Draft" of their "OGL" which claimed to be generous by putting "mechanics" in creative commons but limits the real D&Dish stuff to their shady licensing deal. As such, it struck me as ironic that they were announcing limits on who can make Owlbears at the same time I was discovering that they can't seem to make a good one themselves!

As such, and since my content falls under the Fan agreement, i decided to make my own version: THE BEAROWL (pronunced "beh-rowl")

 

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
Last week was pretty busy for me, so this week is a little light on content for the site, though I worked on this one for quite a while.


I converted the Knockdown rules adapted from 2E's Combat & Tactics (that my group used in both our late 2E and throughout 3E games) to 5E.
 

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
Today on HOW-I-RUN-IT.com:

Covering my coverless copy of Dragon Magazine #102 for #DragonMagMonday



I am also close to completing an article on 10 House Rules for Dynamic/Engaging Combat, which should be up either this Thursday or next.
 

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
I started a thread just for this, but figured I'd share it here too


Next week, look for another installment of Dweomer Day presenting the Wand of Hammer Blows. . . I am also working on a Troglodyte Tuesday post presenting the Gibbering Troll. In the long term, I am working on the first in a series giving suggestions for running stuff out of Ghosts of Saltmarsh based on how I ran it.
 

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
Today is Dweomer Day!

I converted the Wand of Hammer Blows from Dragon #102 (October 1985) from Ed Greenwood's 'Nine Wands of Wonder" (none of which are, you know, wands of wonder) to a 5E version with the new method of dealing with charges (which I dislike) and an optional version that handles charges more traditionally.

 



el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
It's #DragonMagMonday on HOW-I-RUN-IT.com!

Today I cover another coverless issue of Dragon in my collection, #103. An issue notable for its inclusion of errata for the notoriously error-ridded 1E Unearthed Arcana and for the soon to be ousted from TSR, Gary Gygax, giving his opinion on what the second edition of AD&D might look like.

Here is a brief excerpt:
. . .the thing that stands out most to me about Gygax’s discussion of a new edition is that there is no mention of playtesting, player surveys, or design philosophy. The whole piece gives the sense that AD&D does not need much more than a “cleaning up,” with Uncle Gary smoothing over a few of the contradictions that emerged between and among the countless subsystems used to run the game at that time. We all know that it takes many people, not just one man, to create something like a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but at this time Gygax banked on his name being synonymous with the game, something he worked to establish as part of his strategy to write Dave Arneson out of the game’s origins. But it would not be enough to keep the game’s fate tied to his.

Personally, I think in terms of both the game and the folk culture, Gygax’s exile was for the better.



Opinions and comments welcome here or there. . .
 

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