Author Archives: Law

On the Story of 5th Edition

Two articles appeared on Wizard’s website this week, both part of ongoing series: This week’s Legends & Lore by Mike Mearls, and this week’s The Dungeon Master Experience by Chris Perkins. They offer very different sides of D&D, as Mearls … Continue reading

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Pre-Campaign Survey

I mentioned a campaign survey once that I used for my campaigns, but I never actually published it. You can find it here. The idea is that players fill out the survey by indicating where they want the campaign to … Continue reading

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Underpowered: Bullywug (4E)

D&D has lots of options, and it’s fairly obvious that they’re not all equally powerful. I’ve ranted about this, but over time I’ve also been doing something about it. Rarely, it’s a house rule to limit to power of a … Continue reading

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Live GameScreen

I have to give props to Live GameScreen, and not just because I invented it. It’s the tool I’ve been using at the table for almost three years now, and along with MapTool (for online gaming) it’s the only software … Continue reading

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System Depth and Published Material

When a player is building a character, I generally go through the same steps with them every time, or suggest that they go through the steps on their own if they’re sufficiently well-versed in the system: Decide what character they … Continue reading

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Marathon Sessions (or, Sleep Is for the Boring)

Note: One of the problems with having a post backlog that I go through is that sometimes I talk about issues that aren’t as topical by the time the post goes live. Trust me, three weeks ago House of Cards … Continue reading

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Schrödinger’s Gun in Games (or, That Robot Ducky is a Doombot!)

When I was younger and thus poorer, I liked to make gifts for people rather than purchase them. One year I came home from college for a weekend that coincided with my cousin’s first or second birthday party, and I … Continue reading

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Law A

The Laws started as kind of a tongue-in-cheek breakdown of my DMing style, which is how they got wording like “players can screw themselves over” that would get me laughed out of Wikipedia. Originally the list was longer and included … Continue reading

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Poll: Post Length

In general, do ya’ll prefer shorter, more frequent articles that split up a topic, or longer, less frequent articles that cover more of an issue at once? I tend to lean toward the latter, but I noticed that my most-commented … Continue reading

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Set Pieces in D&D

I’ve said before that I like designing campaigns toward some sort of set piece, and I think there’s an opportunity to explain. Here, a set piece is a significant encounter that doesn’t follow the normal flow of D&D. It’s usually … Continue reading

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