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I'm working on a revision of one of my old game designs, and EN World has in the past been pretty great about helping me name character classes. But this one might prove a conundrum: when to comes to naming the archetypical warrior-mage, which term conjures the stronger image of a sword-swinging...

In the new version of the HeroQuest game recently released by Hasbro, "Chaos Warriors" and other similar enemies were renamed "Dread Warriors" and the like, probably to avoid getting entangled with any GW IP. But now I have to ask… let's imagine that one were going to play a full-on RPG set in a...

What it says on the tin. Using whatever criteria you care most about — user-friendliness, aesthetic preference, whatever — how do you prefer your character sheets? The topic presumes the use of a physical character sheet — as in a sheet of paper — that you write on with, like, a pencil. I'm not...

Quick question. (Well, quick to ask, but who knows how lengthy it'll be to resolve.) If you were going to rename the bard class, what would you call it? When I run bards and druids, I like to keep them tied to Celtic culture. But the modern fantasy bard archetype — the happy-go-lucky, charming...

Not long ago, I had to put the kibosh on the campaign I was running, mostly due to a lack of free time on my part. I was running what could best be described in today's old-school vernacular as a mashup of the Original and Classic editions — mostly BECMI as the foundation, but with elements...

Ever since last year, when the Retired Adventurer's Six Cultures of Play essay went viral, a seed of an idea has been growing in my mind. To briefly recap that essay and explain its relevance here, the author described six major "cultures" of RPG play, dubbed Classic (or Old-School)...

It was about an hour ago that I finished running my weekly Sunday-afternoon OD&D campaign, and I'm still riding the endorphin rush. It's not quite the same feeling as runner's high, because I'm not physically exhausted, but it's the same sort of neurochemical euphoria. And the same sort of...

It's a well-known fact that in original white box (or "LBBs-only") D&D, pre-Greyhawk, the ability scores have very little direct mechanical impact on the player characters. Three scores — Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom — are really only there to serve as prime requisites for the game's first...

Inspired by a similar thread asking about 2E house rules—and in dire need of distracting, happy thoughts today—I figured I might take a moment to post about the 1E game that I have the good fortune to be able to start tomorrow. I'll be running a small group through module T1, with the roster of...

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So, way back in 2007 or so, when the OSR was first gaining steam, I tried to inject a little steam-punkery into the proceedings with some little modules and booklets that eventually became a campaign setting, the Engines & Empires Campaign Compendium. In the intervening years, I learned a lot...

Well, hey, I've finally made some decent headway filling in a wiki on Obsidian Portal for the OD&D campaign I'm running at my FLGS. So if you're interested in something kind of old-school (but definitely not "normal" for old-school D&D), take a look. :D Table of Contents The Shade Isle...

I'm looking for players to join a new campaign that I'm starting up at a Friendly Local Game Shop on Sunday afternoons (3–8 PM). I'll PM any interested parties with the specific deets. System is mainly red box (BECMI); the campaign will be an open table sandbox with a strong megadungeon-crawl...

Warning: this post is very long, but it’s fun if you’re as pedantic as I am. ;) I’m posting it because some people might find it entertaining or useful; and because I need an easily searchable document to reference as I run my next game session. I haven’t played any D&D since August...

Coming over to 5e after playing lots of Basic, I find that I really like the feel of a sharp distinction drawn between humans and demi-humans. In Basic D&D, the humans get job-type classes (fighter, magic-user, thief...) and the demi-humans get race-type classes (elf, dwarf, halfling...). That...

What is says on the tin. I can't see anyone's XP comments.

It's funny how long you can go before you notice little influences on dungeon design, like how the size of ordinary 8.5"x11" graph paper can constrain the size of a typical dungeon level. This was certainly the mode of thought I was in when I started working on the large dungeon at the center...

So by now, the D&D Next/5th edition playtest has come out, and we've mostly all gotten a chance to see some of the things that the design team is considering. And over the next few months, we'll see the playtest material evolve; they'll roll out new stuff, cut out the rules people didn't like...

I just finished DMing my first playtest session. And rather than get into details (because I'm a bit tired, and because plenty of other people are already doing a fine job of chronicling their experiences), I'll just throw out my broadest hopes and impressions. 1. It's definitely D&D. The...