Let me begin by explaining something.  I’m what’s called “old skool”.  By that I mean I’m old.  Mid 50’s old.  Keep that in mind as you read this post. I’ve been playing RPG’s since the early 80’s, starting with AD&D 1st Edition.  The games I grew up with were often mechanically awkward (THACO, anybody?), crunchy,… Continue reading Ubiquity ++

The original version of Gamma World, along with a few of its spiritual successors, had a basic premise that player character adventurers weren’t familiar with most of the artifacts they would find in and amongst the Great Ruins of the Ancients.  Something as simple as a toaster oven could lead to hours of speculation, button… Continue reading Artifacts for The Mutant Epoch

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when the d20 craze first struck the role playing game community, I was very turned off by it.  It seemed to me at the time that it was destroying everything different, everything that wasn’t d20.  All the game store shelves seemed to be getting buried under d20 material… Continue reading Fooled Again, Blast It!

Recently, I watched a video by Matthew Colville on YouTube where he brought up a point about Hit Points in Dungeons and Dragons that gave me a whole new paradigm, a whole new way of thinking about Hit Points that I had never before considered.  Instead of using them as markers of purely physical damage… Continue reading A Different Kind of Hit Point

I, like all of the people I know that play Dungeons and Dragons, hate 4th Edition. Except that I don’t.  Not anymore. Thanks to Matthew Colville on YouTube, I decided to give 4th Edition a good hard look and find out what it is that was so maligned about this version.  You see, I never… Continue reading Perspective

Everyone! I've made something!  I've created a bundle of completely ready to play characters for Outland Art's The Mutant Epoch post apocalyptic role playing game! 44 complete characters (49 if you include The Bug Squad, a quartet of human/insect hybrids, one of which is also a CYBORG!) It's Pay What You Want, so pick it… Continue reading MEGA Character Bundle for The Mutant Epoch!

It's not a simple thing, to design a role playing game, especially if you're introducing a brand new system or game mechanic. Depending on the genre, there can be an intimidating number of aspects that you have to address, such as character generation, skill use, combat, health and healing, magic or psionics, overland horse travel… Continue reading Artificial Limits and Game Balance

Recently, a visitor to this blog made a comment on my “3 vs 4 vs 5” post about a role playing game I'd never heard of before: Talislanta. He said that the 4th Edition of Talislanta was very popular, and it was free to download at talislanta.com. I was immediately intrigued, not because it was… Continue reading Where’d this come from: The Sequel – Talislanta

What is it about a fifth edition? 3rd (or 3.5) edition of Dungeons and Dragons is considered by many to be the best, last word in D&D... at least those who aren't tempted by the dark side of Pathfinder. The edition that was released after 3.5, that which shall not be named, is generally considered… Continue reading 3 versus 4 versus 5

Whenever I start to read the rulebook of a role-playing game, whether it's one I've read before or it's something new I just discovered, I sometimes find that the first couple dozen pages are full of fiction used to set the stage of the setting. This fiction is usually told through the eyes of a… Continue reading Inexplicable Fiction