I've been anticipating reviewing "Mystara" as perhaps the most difficult of the setting reviews.  Unlike most settings, it never really had a dedicated setting book. As the default setting for the "non-advanced" Classic D&D line, it grew from a couple of pages in the Expert Set published in 1981 up and ended as an AD&D in 1995. It is, perhaps moreso than any other setting, a product of organic development which grew and changed radically over the course of its different release cycles.  Unlike the ham-fisted attempts at development and expansion in other settings (Forgotten Realms with its Time of Troubles, Maztika and Kara-Tur getting tacked on to the edges with cheap glue and then destroyed for 4e altogether stand out), this somehow worked out well for Mystara. Perhaps because it is so non-premeditated and basically a collection of different authors having good ideas they wanted to throw at a setting and a setting that is very receptive to such tre...

This is going to be one of them rants I fear.  It relates to my previous meditation on the heft of levels across various editions  and my recent contemplation on ability checks in B/X , specifically my desire have the unmodified numbers mean something in and of themselves, rather than something purely to derive other numbers from that do  have mechanical relevance. In a way, this posts is like a concluding remark on the heft of levels in TSR vs WotC D&D. To summarise, if the mechanical relevance of ability scores are almost always somewhere on a scale of -3/+5, why do we bother with rolling 3-18 instead of just using the derived numbers to begin with? Why has that never changed? And why do I have a firm impression that there'd be a great outcry if it were ever changed in a future edition? And it occurred to me that ability scores do have a relevance in the unmodified form, one that has remained across all editions - They are the formative narrative components of the c...

I've reviewed the Forgotten Realms as a setting before.  To sum up the issues with the setting: In its present incarnation it's an unmanageable mess, plain simple. The tabletop equivalent of the Marvel universe - Overburdened with an absolute immensity of 'canon' , loads of 'story line' developments that have no relation to gamers, universe-wide 'crossover events', desperate retcons and a handful of mary sue novel characters blazing a trail of shit through the setting that no one cares about.  WotC have done what they can to salvage the wreckage in 5e. An ill defined event to normalize the wreck that was 4e, move the timeline forward to let the passage of time erase as much of the canon baggage as possible, be intentionally vague about what has actually changed and otherwise just leave the setting the fuck alone, so gamers can walk around without tripping over 'setting lore' at every step. It's ok I guess, as a cardboard background f...

It's time for the.... Battle of the 05R games! Into the Unknown squares up against Five Torches Deep and we take a look at how these two games differ and what they have in common. Introductory remarks: As I summarised in the review post on 5TD , If Into the Unknown is a 5e adaptation that seeks to emulate the "non-advanced" B/X style of play, then 5TD is the 5e equivalent of S&W Whitebox, an even lighter retroclone than the famously brief B/X. This difference is evident in word count. Into the Unknown clocks in at 133,000 words (B/X had 113,000). Significantly less than the 'Advanced' version of 5e it compares itself to (the 5e PHB & DMG together clock in at 410,000 words, add in the Monster Manual and it probably comes to around 600,000 words).  Meanwhile 5TD has a mere 18,000 words (whitebox, for comparison, has 33,000). So what do you get for the difference here? The most obvious are number of monsters and spells. 5TD has a on...

I've written about Greyhawk before without ever telling the story of my own relationship with the setting. I came to it rather late, in the late 90s when it had been long discontinued (even the From the Ashes  reboot had been discontinued), at a time where I considered myself savvy in the worlds of Dragonlance (my first D&D world), Forgotten Realms (cool things in there, but why is it that  popular?), Dark Sun and Ravenloft, and the only thing I knew of Greyhawk was as the red-headed stepchild of TSR. My first real encounter with Greyhawk though was through a Danish magazine, SAGA, written back in 1992, that did an "intro to greyhawk" article titled "Greyhawk - The oldest of all worlds" that caught my imagination. Scan of the original article from Saga #14 Click here to read an English translation in pdf This seemed like a setting that had room for all the things I expected from a genuine D&D fantasy setting. More room for medievalism, more k...

In the grognard-sphere,  you can find many examples of grognards decrying the loss of D&D's endgame. As I am working on B/X-ing 5e for  Into the Unknown,   a cursory look at end-game approach is also on the menu (though mostly for a later Companion supplement since the core will only go to 10th level). I've never really played with domain and stronghold rules. I was certainly aware of them and of the fact that the game was supposed to move in that direction. I just didn't understand how non-wargamers would think they are anything but an exceptionally boring endgame. "You have over countless sessions fought everything from orcs to dragons, progressed from saving villages to saving kingdoms. Now, as you move into high-level play, new destinies and high level rules appear. Forget about resource management of rations and arrows. That's for noobs! At high levels, you get to manage the resources of an entire keep! Track the cost of building a new wing of the ...

Oh, Hit points. Is there any other gaming concept as opaque and contentious over the ages? Maybe Armor Class,  but that is for another day. What are  hit points really? With monsters, it is simple enough to equate hit points to physical damage. But less so for people. Originally, number of Hit dice = the number of hits before you go down. Simple and intuitive option. A normal 1 HD man goes down when struck by a sword. A troll, being of larger and more durable stature than a man, has six hit dice (ie, can take six sword hits before going down). But then the iffy part: A 6th level fighter fighter is the equal of six men - Is his body as tough as a troll? What does his extra hit points represent? The exact answer seems to vary over the years and as significantly - There doesn't seem to be a clear consensus in any point in time as to its exact status. "Wounds + [x], from taking a hit" seems to be the the closest definition people can agree on at any given time. ...

Saving throws have always been quirky in D&D - The original categories were.... eccentric to say the least. Why is save vs wand different from save vs staff? Is petrification really widespread enough to get an explicit mention? And what is a death ray anyway? Finger of death? What else? That said, it was charming and that has its own sort of saving grace. It is a lot more menacing when the DM exclaims "save vs DEATH RAY" than "make a fortitude save". 3e did an admirable job of simplifying and clarifying saves. 3 instead of 5, keying it to dexterity, constitution and wisdom gives you an idea of how you are trying to save yourself, making saving throws a lot less disassociated. Good job allround. The only recurring complaint against 3e saves were lacking the charm of older editions. Which, as complaints go, fall somewhere between obstinate and petulant. For me, it is mildly aesthetically displeasing that there are 2 physical saves and only 1 mental save. Bu...