Writing the GM's guide for Into the Unknown  has definitely been the biggest challenge of the project, forcing me to examine hard my own assumptions and understanding of what is good game mastering. But at this stage, I think we're close enough that playtest is only a few weeks away. All sections are laid out, page count is finalised - It just needs some text added to a handful of sections. Blending 5e and B/X has been an excellent study in the differences between the two and trying to understand the implications of some of the changes. Reaction rolls and Morale for example, are among the more beloved parts of B/X that were abandoned in 3e and haven't been seen since. I've spent a fair bit of time examining both sides of the fence and figuring out which way to go. Here's a sidebar I ended up adding to the section on social interaction that sums up how I feel social interaction should work in D&D: “Social Combat” The reaction roll is not a structured...

After Forgotten Realms, we move further back in time to take a look at the setting it knocked off its perch as the de facto setting at TSR - Gary Gygax's very own World of Greyhawk (I will, at times, be comparing the two settings for the very same reason). Quick intro to the setting (See also my  review of the map of greyhawk  - Incidentally, the most visited entry on my blog) The world of Greyhawk is a Sword & Sorcery setting built on a proper medieval chassis with just a light sprinkling of Tolkien influences.  It is built around a dichotomy of the lands of Men being relatively mundane, with the history and cultures of these having a suitably 'realistic' feel and the wilderness being home to the Weird - The place where adventurers go to experience the fantastical. Here, Greyhawk has a strong 'anything goes' approach where spaceships, timetravel, contact with other worlds, from the silly to the serious, are all within the tone of the setting....

Following on  from my  Setting Map review series  and my more recent thoughts on  4e's Nentir Vale  and  Dragonlance as a coming-of-age sandbox , I've decided to start a review series of published settings overall. Mostly D&D, but we'll be delving into some 3rd party settings, Warhammer and a few others. These reviews will be personal and mostly aimed at giving the reader an impression of the flavor, style and gameability of the setting. I am starting with the setting that has probably the greatest exposure of all. The forgotten realms! Everyone knows it, or knows of it, at least. Quick intro to the setting ( See also my review of the map of the forgotten realms ) Let's start by showing the realms from its most flattering side. Quote Ed Greenwood, from the old 'gray box': "Most of the area under discussion here has until recently been covered by wild forests and unsettled grasslands. Civilization is still a novelty in much of this world...

Dragonlance has a bad rep in some old school circles . For me, it has always been one of my favourite settings. It certainly has its flaws, but it had a brand of fantasy that mixed coming-of-age stories,  faerie tales,  romantic sagas and plain D&D in a way that spoke very viscerally to my sense of wonder and... well, fantasy. The novels helped create a sense of immersion and of an intertwined and living world with its own mysteries and concerns. Not the Chronicles/Legends (or their spinoff railroads) mind, though I read and enjoyed them (they now figure prominently on my 'not sure I want to ruin childhood/teen memories by re-reading in my 30s' list). That story was too big really to be about anything other than the heroes it featured. It was never really what Dragonlance as a world was about for me. It was all the other ones, the small tales, that grabbed me and pulled me deeper into the setting. And of course Tales of the Lance,  the boxed set: Some people h...

Quick intro: "Into the Unknown" is my hack of 5e to make it run more like B/X - Old school meets modern. Many simplified mechanics; Race-As-Class; reaction and morale rolls are back; spend-gold-for-xp combined with downtime activities; simple but central hexcrawl framework; terse and short writing - And fully compatible with 5e. Click the tags below for more. The player booklets are basically finished. Works has stalled a bit as I am working hard on the GM booklets. This is turning out to be a lot harder than the player booklets, but I want it to be good - And this is really demanding the best of GM wisdom from me! We're still a couple a months away from completion, but I have the structure of the booklet and just about every chapter and section lined up, so things should be proceeding more smoothly from here. There are other good news though. The player booklets look quite good, even just printing it with a regular printer. And I've been researching the cost of ...

Game Balance is a totally different kind of fun compared to old school fun. It's more a fun-nel really, that basically seeks to minimize the parts of the game that old schoolers find fun. Gamers, generally speaking, roll dice because the element of randomness brings a level of excitement to the table. And they applaud creative thinking or player skill being able to make a crucial difference in a tight spot. Because it is fun. Because they are variables making the game more open-ended. Game Balance is the opposite: It is the premise that so long as the party manages its resources properly, they will be guided through a scenario of progressively more difficult encounters, each of which they should be able to defeat in turn and still come out with positive hit points, for a total combat experience that should be neither too easy nor too hard. If the GM knowingly presented encounters too strong for the party, that is seen to be GMing in bad faith. If they are too easy, the GM is e...

4th edition really turned me off D&D, at least as far as keeping up with its current state goes. At the time, I was already souring on 3.5's existential crisis with wanting to be GURPS in a class and level based system with abstracted combat. GURPS I felt simply did that better and I was coming to realise older versions of the game did the D&D parts with class, levels and abstracted combat, better. When 4e then came out, I read all the reviews and play examples to get a feel for the game and see if I wanted to tag along. Nothing new under the sun from me there - I was instantly turned off by the extremely gamist nature of it - A roleplaying game so standardised by rules, it had abandoned all pretence of players playing out the scene and using rules as an aid - Players were playing out the rules with the scene as a background prop. Combats taking forever. 9 page character sheets. Characters defined primarily by boardgamey tactical roles. The hours spent on the mini-game o...