In a recent post over at Temporary Hit Points, SarahDarkmagic, sort of in passing mentions the conflict between Storytellers and Optimizers in character design. This gets me thinking. Why is there such a difference between storytelling and character optimization? The First Problem: The Argument Let’s start by defining the conflict. Optimizers want to get the […]
A Mini Conundrum for WotC
So we were chatting on Twitter this morning about miniatures from Wizards of the Coast. Once again the conversation of “Why can’t WotC produce awesome theme packs of monsters, rather than random boosters?” came up. The reason is simple: they’d roll snake eyes on that gamble. The fact is, Wizards isn’t really making enough money […]
The Die of Fate, or, Character and Campaign Defining Items
I wasn’t the best DM when I first started in the 4e world. Part of it was our setup, 5 friends in Syracuse, NY with a laptop hooked to someone’s big screen TV, me in Pittsburgh, PA in my computer room, Gametable or MapTools providing the game table and a Teamspeak server providing voice. I […]
10 Non-Fiction Books To Inspire Role Playing
Most fans of our hobby love reading, and it the odds are good that you’ve read lots of fantasy novels. I’ve just finished a year long journey of re-reading the Robert Jordan epic, and along the way it’s given me lots of great ideas for my games. It’s pretty straightforward to use the characters, places, […]