Rule of the Dice

I've learned a lot of things from playing D&D. Tricks about storytelling, lessons about math, useless information about medieval weapons and armor. I've learned a shitload of words I never would have encountered in everyday parlance (like “parlance”). But there is one lesson that rules above them all: HAVE FUN ...is, surprisingly, not that lesson. Many people think “Having fun” is the most important rule of any game. Or life, really. If you're enjoying yourself, then whatever you're doing must be a good thing, right? Screw the rules, don't worry about tomorrow, just have fun. Simple. On the other hand, some people think exercising is fun and they’re obviously wrong. But there's also another, more important lesson and rule that goes hand in hand with “Have Fun” that I think trumps its simpler neighbor in every respect: LOOK AT EVERYONE ELSE. IF THEY'RE NOT HAVING FUN THEN YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. I originally thought of th...

Downstairs on my desk is a little bag full of colourful polyhedral dice.  It sits there quietly, patiently waiting for a need to draw it back into action.  It sits unmolested (except when it gets jostled, a die falls upon the floor and the cat knocks it around) and full of promise, a symbol of another age.  It represents power.  Possibility.  Excitement. I wonder if this is how Bilbo felt with the One Ring sitting on his mantle for 60 years. My original set of dice is still in that bag.  They came with the D&D Box set I got for Christmas in 1992 .  The 20-sider is orange, the 12 is yellow, the 10 is black, 8 is blue, 6 is red and 4 is green.  You always remember your first one. Funny story - My SECOND set of dice was coincidentally the exact same colour scheme.  A couple of the dice have been lost over the years so I'm not 100% certain which ones came from the first set and which from the second, but I still like to say that combi...

Today we have a fun trio of goodies to look at, including a free system for your superhero needs, a magazine of content for OSR gaming, and a poster handout for your next Pathfinder session! HiLo Heroes . Jeff Moore. 36 pages. Free. Ahh, Jeff Moore. If you check his page, he has maybe a half-dozen (maybe more now) mini-systems freely available for download, and most of them are actually worth your time if you're ever looking for a quick, simple system for some beer and pretzel gaming. HiLo Heroes is no exception. In fact, it may very well be the jewel in Jeff Moore's crown of game systems. It's simple, uses the readily available d6, and does almost nothing to limit the variety of superheroes you can create. To create a character you need only specifiy three features: Build, Mentality, and Temperament. Each has two options, high or low, and those two options influence all your other abilities. It all boils down to rolling 2d6 and using either the higher die or th...

Hey all! It's been a while and, unfortunately, I don't have as nice an excuse for my absence as C.D. had (congrats on the little one, C.D.!). Mostly a new job with a revolving schedule that has sucked my gaming time dry. And with my gaming time so goes my writing time. But now, as things begin to settle, I'm going to crack my knuckles and try and get some kind of regular writing habit going again. And even though I haven't been running nearly so many games, I've been unable to convince myself to stop buying gaming goodies. And since I like to spread my thoughts (much like Yellow Mold or Green Slime) about what I buy, I thought it'd be interesting to do a semi-review of some of these roleplaying related products, whether they be full games, expansions, or whatever I decide to spend my hard earned money on. The question is...are all of these products worth it? This week, I look at a group of PDFs, including a Labyrinth Lord adventure, a mini game, and a PDF...

(Sorry I've been gone so long. If you read the following post very closely, you'll understand why.) Last night was an auspicious event. I didn't plan for it to happen, didn't expect it to happen, it was just one of those things that come out of the blue but in hindsight is one of those days that can change the course of your life, like the assassination of a political leader or the day you realize carrots really aren't that bad. Yesterday, I tried for the first time explain to my son this "Dungeons & Dragons" thing. I sat him down next to me in front of Facebook. I have only just discovered this Heroes of Neverwinter game, and while I usually treat Facebook apps with all the disdain usually reserved for murderers, politicians and Sydney Crosby, I'm kinda digging HoN simply because it lets me play a pretty reasonable facsimile of 4th Edition all by lonesome in whatever free moments I can muster. My audience was enraptured as I explained th...

Last week, I talked a little bit about Woodland Warriors , a fun rules-lite adaption of Brian Jacques animal adventure novels. Today, I'm going to look at two of the expansions available for that game. Each expansion is written by Simon Washbourne with art by Darrel Miller. The first is called Greyrock Isle. It's a short, 19 page, book that details a new setting and several new classes. The main meat in this supplement comes in the form of a new island, new map, and new locale: A Robin Hood-esque England where the inhabitants are terrorized by a big bad bandit king. It's a bit weak overall and not that different from the original Alder Vale setting. And there's no sample adventure, which hurts the overall product. No matter how many plot seeds you provide, you can't beat a full-grown adventure to help a GM get a feel for a setting. You also, however, get two new races to play as: hares and otters. Neither provides a wildly new experience, though both are welcome add...

It might seem a little hard to fathom that the creator of Barbarians of Lemuria, one of the most unapologetically sword & sorcery games I can recall, would also craft a game based around the idea of medieval animal adventures, in the same vein as the late Brian Jacques and his Redwall series of novels, but here it is. Woodland Warriors, the 114-page core rulebook by Simon Washbourne, is a game that tries to emulate Jacques light-hearted yet serious setting with a trimmed down D&D ruleset. Or, more specifically, the 0E retroclone Swords & Wizardry . Except it does away with most of the S&W base to create something that seems a lot like D&D, but using only d6s and simplifying virtually everything. Instead of your usual fantasy races you have hedgehogs, squirrels, moles, mice, and badgers. Each has interesting abilities, from a Badger's Rage attack, to the Hedgehog's natural armor. As for classes, well it's pretty much standard D&D with some name change...

As you may have heard (and if you didn't, welcome to the Internet fellow gamer!), the 5th Edition of the World's Most Famous Roleplaying game is definitely in progress. At least according to Wizards website . And everyone has an opinion about it, with a lot feeling that Wizards didn't give enough support to 5E, a lot feeling that this will be just as bungled unless they do this or that. I have thoughts and opinions on it as well, but why add to the mess of sound when it would just be redundant? Instead I had to ask myself, what does this mean for me, a gamer who got into roleplaying well after 4E had come out? I mean, I'm a spring chicken compared to most gamers. I didn't cut my teeth with 1st or 2nd Edition rules. Heck, I only had a passing knowledge of 3rd Edition thanks to the D&D PC games. And though I got into roleplaying at what might be called the height of 4E's popularity I never really took to the 4th edition ruleset. I suppose that's why I'...

One of the greatest things about our hobby is its progressive nature. And I'm not talking about elven politics or any such malarkey. No, I'm talking about how the hobby thrives as more and more options to play are made available. Whether you play face-to-face, or via email or forum , or even through a service like Google+, there are more ways to get your roleplaying fix than ever before. And now you can add play-by-blog to that growing list. For the last couple months, I've been in a play-by-blog game run by the packmaster of the blog A Pack of Gnolls , called The Ruins of Empire and running Microlite74 in 4E's Nentir Vale setting. Playing by blog means setting up a blog specifically dedicated to the game in question; the gamemaster makes the main posts that drives the game forward, then players post their actions in the comments section of the blog, and generally it acts a lot like play-by-forum. It's slow, but since it doesn't require a massive time sink, it...

In case you missed it, it's Teach your Kid to Game week, an idea that I 100% approve of, even if the idea of an entire week to it seems a bit unnecessary. What's next? A week to remind us to breathe? However, on its intended purpose, I can lavish nothing but praise. I've had the opportunity to run games for young kids before and, let me just say, that it was highly rewarding and actually quite fun. Very imaginative children will think of solutions to problems that no rational adult could ever conceive, whether or not said solution is physically possible. There are plenty of tips and advice out there for running games with kids, but let me just reiterate a couple of points I feel need mentioning as often as possible. #1: Don't play for hours. Kids get tired, have shorter attention spans, and basically will burn out faster than you will. Limit the game time to two hours at the max, maybe even cut it short to an hour-and-a-half. You can get in a little adventuring and try ...