Rule of the Dice

World Wide Wrestling by Nathan D. Paoletta - ndpdesign.com I love professional wrestling (which you probably know).  I love role playing games (which I hope you know, since I'm writing this on an RPG blog).  Fun fact you may not know: I hate writing reviews .  When someone puts professional wrestling and role-playing together though, I do have to talk about it somehow. To be fair, this isn't a true review: the game is currently in "Beta Test," so there will undoubtedly be some changes between now and its final publication.  The rules are available right here , so check it out.  You can also support Nathan's endeavours at Patreon .  But since it's still a work in progress I don't think it's fair to be too critical - not that I can find much wrong with it anyway.  Personally I think this is an awesome game. World Wide Wrestling is a fairly straight-forward yet surprisingly in-depth simulation of the wacky world of professional wrestling. ...

This is not a list of people that probably play D&D and I think would run a good game (Dan Harmon, Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, The Wachowski Bro- er, Siblings, Chris Hardwick, John Williams).  Nor is this a list of famous people I want to meet under the pretense of playing Dungeons & Dragons just so I can hang out with them (that list would have guys like Hugh Laurie, George Lucas, Trent Reznor, Hayao Miyazaki and Rebel Wilson - which, to be fair, might also be an awesome game). No, these are not necessarily people I would like to hang out with in normal day-to-day activity or even necessarily want to meet.  These are people I think would honestly be fascinating and fun to play D&D with, because they bring a strange collection of skills, personalities and backgrounds together that would (I hope) coalesce into a melting pot of awesomeness.  Either that, or everyone would be at each other's throats in under fifteen minutes.  Which could also be fun. (FY...

Map from Fantastic Maps, where the maps are fantastic Street names are a great way to add a bit of depth to any city setting, but aren't really worth detailing in full - unless you're boring, or obsessive, or both. I happen to be lazy, and find that coming up with names on the spot, is kind of annoying. I've been running a city based campaign for a while now, and after using the name Smith Street for the 100th time, I decided to come up with this handy little random table. Now I just detail the main streets, and consult the table for the names of any side streets I might need. So far it's worked pretty good, and I figured maybe some other people might get some use out of it. Here is a Link to the pdf you can download.

Some role-playing games have a lot of rules.  Like, A LOT of rules, and hundreds of source books to add even more rules, and then errata to fix it when the new rules mess up the original rules.  On the other hand some role-playing games are very rules-light, where the only real instruction from the writers and designers is “make it up,” to which I respond: Then why the f*ck am I paying you for this game? Making shit up is your job. No matter what volume of rules is included within those mysterious, ancient covers, there are a few that should be included in every gaming book ever produced.  And no, it isn’t “HAVE FUN.” I will freely admit that this post is very much stolen inspired by 5 Crucial Rules of Every Game (Not Found in the Rulebook) by Chris Bucholz at  Cracked.com , but I’m taking this in a completely different direction.  The illustrious Mr Bucholz primarily focused on sports (you know, those athleticy-kinda things where they hit balls wi...

D&D Player Characters are by definition ridiculous.  They're elves and wizards and halflings and barbarians.  They are the absurd, the preposterous, the illogical and oftentimes the inappropriate.  You can make the coolest, darkest, bravest, most-brooding-est swashbuckling hero with a tortured past you want, but there comes a time when that dude is going to have a fight a slime and he's just going to look like an idiot. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Our characters should be fun, over-the-top and a bit ridiculous.  That's what makes them memorable, and makes them a joy to play and to watch our friends play . I was going to write a list of the craziest characters I've ever had the pleasure to play with, but then I realized that 99% of the characters I've ever run across are crazy and silly (and the other 1% are boring), so trying to rate them all was a waste of time.  Instead, I'll just tell you about the characters in the game I...

We've all met them.  Those socially-inept, obnoxious, possibly smelly people who you just can't believe can operate in normal society. In fact, they probably don't - gaming is likely the only function they regularly leave the house for. As for the worst one, I could go for the easy answer - there was a guy in my playgroup back in high school that rubbed everyone the wrong way. To be fair, he wasn't just annoying in-game: we generally found him a pain to deal with in everyday life. I've often pondered if this guy was as bad as I remember.  I mean, kids are mean, right?  (He was the paladin in example 4 and the bounty hunter in example 3 from this blog post ) Everyone says and does stupid things when they’re young.  But I think I've figured it out. With years of perspective and maturity, I have to admit that it probably wasn't all his fault I found him annoying. I was a big fucking twat myself. In all honesty, I am probably the first really anno...

So last week I stumbled across " On Magical +1 Swords " at the Hack & Slash blog, which was the latest in a series of a excellent posts on old-school magical blades (check out the r est: Different Magic Swords: A Proposal  by JD Jarvis, Evocative +1 Sword Replacements  by Gus L, and Weird Swords and Not Swords  by Arnold K).  The idea behind the series is to create interesting, colourful weapons with compelling stories, abilities and dr awbacks.  They don't necessarily need to be insanely powerful - not every weapon will be Excalibur, Stormbringer or Shieldbreaker - but there should never be such a thing as "just a +1 sword" either. I love me some magical swords. Magical swords are probably the reason I started playing D&D in the first place (greatest magic sword ever? The lightsaber), so I had to throw my two cents in here.  Or two feet.  Of steel, that is. Some of these I've actually used in campaigns and some are brand new that I've ...

I've spoken before about fantasy efed wrestling - where the players write promos, role-plays and matches in-character for their wrestlers. In many ways it's a cross between role-playing games and writing fan fiction - some players can create very elaborate and indepth character backgrounds and stories for the wrestlers, and that's pretty cool. I’ve been thinking lately however, about a different sort of wrestling game experience that was a bit more, well, gamey. Instead of writing roleplays and having someone pick winners base on the subjective "best one," what if you could decide, definitively, who wins based on their tactics and strategies in the ring? There are simulators and software out there that use complex algorithms and chance to generate wrestling matches based on wrestlers’ statistics and attributes, but I wanted something simpler. I wanted something that anyone could pick up and learn quickly, and the better players weren’t better because the...