There has always been a debate in D&D: The party faces a band of goblins. Does the DM get super tactical, using all his cunning and knowledge of the system against the players? Or does he just have the goblins charge the closest PCs because goblins are dumb and that’s what they would do?
I’ve been [...]
4E DMs: Tactical, Sly and Ruthless
“The Tyranny of Fun”
So I’ve been reading, mostly at the RPGPundit’s blog and “fan” forum, about how 4e sucks because one of the game’s design philosophies is that everyone playing it should be having fun at all times.
(If you’ve never heard of the RPGPundit, it’s probably for the best. He’s a study in contrasts. He despises the Forge [...]
A Non-Home-Rulesy Way to Make Skill Challenges Work, Or My Girlfriend is a Genius Game Designer
So, earlier tonight I was talking on the phone with Emily Care Boss (name dropped!) about the problems with the skill challenge system as it currently stands. During this conversation we covered a number of topics from statistics to design goals to player psychology and tolerance for rolling to Otherkind dice and ways to force [...]
