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    D&D General Player-generated fiction in D&D

    The 4e D&D rulebooks have quite a bit of advocacy for the players making decisions about the shared fiction: backstory, the focus of the action, what is possible here-and-now in terms of action declaration. Some examples around the focus of the action: PHB p 258: "You can also, with your DM’s...
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    Beyond the Crystal Cave - adapting to Torchbearer 2e

    A conversation a couple of weeks ago prompted me to have a close read of my copy of Dungeon Module UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave. It's an interesting scenario, but I've really got no idea how it is supposed to be run in its official system, AD&D. It involves mostly social and puzzle-based...
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    D&D (2024) DMG adventure design advice - a bit contradictory?

    I was looking at the preview page from the DMG on adventure design, on this website - The new D&D core books feature nearly 400 spells and over 500 monsters, but disappointingly few new ideas - and to me it seemed a bit contradictory. Here's what I mean: Follow these steps to create an...
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    What's great about RPGing?

    Here's Ron Edwards's answer, in the last minute or so of this video: The enjoyment of the medium for the properties that it offers, that no other medium I know does. It really is a valuable human thing to do. Intimacy. Enjoyment. Creativity. Unpredictability. Varying levels of success as you...
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    "Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

    I recently watched the Return of the King film with my family, and the (second-last) ending, where the "last ship" sails from the Grey Havens, prompted the thought that has led to this post. JRRT is probably the most famous conceiver of a fantasy setting, and that setting - Middle Earth - is...
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    Recurring comment about Marvel Heroic RP that seems wrong to me

    I often read posts asserting that Marvel Heroic RP (ie the Cortex+-based supers game) doesn't allow for PC creation. To me this seems just wrong. I mean, the rulebook has a section on creating characters. And I've personally created plenty of characters for the game, both superhero PCs, and...
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    Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

    A recurring thing I see said is that, in Apocalypse World, players can't declare actions that are not covered by a move. This is just silly. The rules are clear: if a player's declared action for their PC is a move, then the rules of the move are invoked ("If you do it, you do it"). Otherwise...
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    Played Burning Wheel today

    My friend and I continued our two GM, two player Burning Wheel today. I wrote up our second session here, and we played another session between that one and today's. That session ended rather surprisingly: Alicia and Aedhros escaped the guards, but Alicia then returned to fight them so that...
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    RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

    A lot of games invite players to imagine things while playing them. But not all. Chess doesn't. Nor does bridge. The card game Crew, which is a cooperative variant on bridge, has flavour text that bridge lacks. But the invitation to players to imagine things is pretty tenuous: the card play...
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    Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs

    Vincent Baker posted this blog nearly 14 years ago, but I don't think I've seen much discussion of it on ENworld: anyway: Things on Character Sheets (2) The core ideas are this: *A character sheet will set out different aspects of a character - position (who am I? who am I related to? what is...
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    Dice of Chaos for Torchbearer 2e (and now . . . the Deck of Many Things!)

    All the ongoing discussion of the Deck of Many Things prompted me to revisit the Dice of Chaos (from Rolemaster's Creatures and Treasures book) and write them up for Torchbearer 2e: I'm not sure I actually want to use these, of course - like all these sorts of items they are a little bit...
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    GMs' themes

    Another recent thread raised the issue of what the GM contributes to the game. This prompted me to think about some of the themes and associated tropes I've consistently drawn on in my FRPGing, especially as a GM. In this OP I'll set out two. The relationship of mortals to cosmic/divine law My...
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    *The setting* as the focus of "simulationist" play

    Various threads - eg the "why rules?" thread, and the agency threads - have prompted some conversations with RPGing friends. At least from my perspective, a recurring theme or element in discussion has been a contrast, between: *Play where the players establish dramatic needs for their PCs...
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    Traveller actual play - an ambiguous success

    Around the same time as this session, I ran a brief session of Traveller for my other daughter. This weekend (so after a gap of almost 3 years), we played a little bit more of it. From three years ago, I had three bits of paper. One was a PC sheet: Bob Airrunner B29497, a 30-year old, 3 term...
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    Advice for new "story now" GMs

    A conversation with a couple of friends about "tips for new GMs" blogs/Q+As led to someone suggesting a thread along these lines. So here it is. At the heart of "story now" RPGing is the players bring the protagonism. The players decide what it is that their PCs care about, what their...
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    "I will lend you horses."

    In the LotR (The Two Towers, Book 3), Aragorn, Gimil and Legolas meet Eomer and his Riders of Rohan. The encounter begins as a hostile one, but after Aragorn announces himself ("Elendil!") the tone of the encounter changes, and Eomer agrees to let the three companions continue on their hunt for...
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    Why do RPGs have rules?

    One of my kids likes to play imagination games - she and her friends all pretend to be other people (often superheroes) and do exciting and interesting things. These clearly have a lot in common with RPGing. But they don't have rules - disagreements about what happens next are just resolved by...
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    "The Disillusionist" as a NPC

    This post is prompted by listening to one song - Black Wings, on Tom Waits's Bone Machine - and being reminded of another - the Disillusionist, on The Church's Priest=Aura. Although the protagonist of each song is a bit different, there are similarities - a sinister but charismatic persona...
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    RPG characters compared to characters in stories

    I've been thinking about posting this thread for a while. I've been prompted to do so by @The-Magic-Sword's interesting thread about neo-trad RPGing: Thinking About the Purpose of Mechanics from a Neo-Trad Perspective Back in 1981, Lewis Pulsipher gave the following advice about designing...
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    An example where granular resolution based on setting => situation didn't work

    This thread is a sequel to these two: Approaches to prep in RPGing - GMs, players, and what play is about and Space and time in RPG setting and situation. The example scenario is one I was remembering a couple of days ago, although it was one that I actually GMed around 30 years ago. The system...
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