Making Dark Sun Defiling a bit more…..brutal.
So, I’m digging the Dark Sun setting for 4E. I never got to play 2E, but I did get to hear the brutal tales of it from an old roommate and good friend. But there is one part that bothers me….the “Defili[...]Read on >>
Review: Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Part 2: More Player Options
September 1, 2010 from My Girlfriend Is A DM
Filed under: 4e, 4e DD, Campaign, D&D4e, Game Design, RPG Hub, Review
In the first installment of my look at the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, I dug into the new builds provided by the book for existing classes and the two new races introduced. They’re all pretty cool, but one of the [...] Filed under: 4e, 4e DD, Campaign, D&D4e, Game Design, RPG Hub, Review
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[Wanderer] Career – Mystics
Classic Traveller's Book 2 was entitled simply Starships. This part of the core rules pervaded the rest of the setting and was instrumental in contributing to the "feel". When the Wanderer books were faked up, the a[...]Read on >>
Expand This Idea
A little over five generations ago, followers of the twin gods of virtue disappeared. In some cases, entire villages were abandoned. Cryptic messages were found in the religion's main temple detailing a mass exodus to 'c[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 128 – Gates of Legend
Back in the Neanderthal manifold, Kevin had a theory. The Neanderthals had gone extinct in Core while they were still tribal. They’d never known what the natural laws of Core were like, and their basic assump[...]Read on >>
The Psyclone: A King of the Monsters Contest Reject!
“Ars prima regni posse te invidiam pati.” ~ Seneca (The Madness of Hercules, d. 65 AD) Translation: “The first art to be learned by a ruler is to endure envy.” This week, the list of the ten finalists for Kobold [...]Read on >>
First Thoughts: Dark Sun
Number of View: 254I know I’m late to the party, as most everyone has Dark Sun by this point, but my copy finally arrived in the mail. Wow. I’ve skimmed the book, and am now reading through it thoroughly from[...]Read on >>
The Start of Trouble in Nibenay
Qajari relief in Tang-e Savashi: Photo contributed to Wikipedia by Zereshk.Maybe it was Chris Sims's game at Gen Con. Or perhaps the fact the campaign setting has the right mix of lore to mystery for me. Then again it co[...]Read on >>
Review: Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Part 1: New Races & Builds
August 27, 2010 from My Girlfriend Is A DM
Filed under: 4e, 4e DD, Campaign, D&D4e, Fluff/Inspiration, RPG Hub, Review
Call me a disgusting fanboy, but I’m continuously impressed by the improved quality between every succeeding release in the 4th Edition product line. Each new supplement improves upon its predecessor, and it kind o[...] Filed under: 4e, 4e DD, Campaign, D&D4e, Fluff/Inspiration, RPG Hub, Review
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Ze planes boss, ze planes!
Here’s the thing with world building that vexes me; if you play a 30 level campaign, you spend huge swathes of it not in the world you’ve designed. Let me explain. It seems to me that the default campaign wil[...]Read on >>
Review: Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide
It’s now been a couple of weeks or so since the Advanced Player’s Guide came out, and I’ve been browsing it, reading stuff, and converting some old NPCs from 3.0 and 3.5 eras I had hanging around on my [...]Read on >>
Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 98: The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 3
Episode 98 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast is here, adventure fans, to present you with “The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Part 3,” played and recorded on August 14, 2010! Please listen now or subscribe via [...]Read on >>
The Weird … an Aberrant Internet
When I got to thinking about building a campaign world a couple of years ago, when I was in Japan as a student and had lots of time on my hands to watch anime and play D&D, I was really interested in incorporating a [...]Read on >>
Review of Dark Sun Campaign Setting by Wizards of the Coast
When the original Dark Sun was released back in 1991, I recall that I was not terribly interested in a new campaign setting. My Players and I were still trying to get a handle on how 2nd Edition was going to mess with [...]Read on >>
Three Encounter-Changing Effects
It’s hard to come up with a unique encounter week after week. We DMs have to constantly seek new ways to make each battle different from all of the others. Creatures can help to a point but their mechanics quickly [...]Read on >>
D&D Basic Set part 14
Before I go on, I feel the need to point out that Holmes Basic is the first D&D rule set to have a monster’s stats grouped together with its description. God bless functional design!Gnome: In OD&D, gnomes coul[...]Read on >>
News In Review for Aug 16 to Aug 22 2010
While the GenCon frenzy has died down a bit, it has still been a busy week for Dark Sun and D&D Essentials articles and blogs, with several new reviews and previews posted. There was also some great new content arti[...]Read on >>
DM Tip Twitter Archive: July 2010
Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for July 2010. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: use MM3 solos as a model for older ones. What do they do differently when[...]Read on >>
More Than Reskinning the Horse
by John Payne Sometimes I want the players to feel like they are in a place that is different. I don’t mean different in a disturbing way, but in a way that can make them say to themselves that they are not in your[...]Read on >>
Deepest, Darkest Fears
Sarah Darkmagic just got back from Gen Con with a crate of swag. When your DM gets new material, it is an occasion of concern for any player. This event combined dangerously with a simple innocuous email she sent out m[...]Read on >>
Race, Class, Role, Build, Background and Theme
One of the biggest innovations (or perhaps that should be re-innovations, as some of these elements were also present in previous editions) in Fourth Edition D&D has been the broadening of character generation. Your [...]Read on >>
Dark Sun for the new DM
So you’re a newbie DM, and you’re trying to decide whether or not you are going to run a little bit of Dark Sun for your group. Here are a few things you’ll need to keep in mind if you do, as the stan[...]Read on >>
Dark Sun Campaign Setting Review
My distant recollection of Dark Sun has always been thri-kreen, psionics, and lot of sand. I wouldn't exactly say I'm a fan of it like I'm a fan of Eberron or even Planescape, but I am a huge fan of the concept[...]Read on >>
Raaksasha-Grashishnu the Dreamhunter
In the foothills, a city stands on the bluffs above a river that snakes onwards through the plains. Above it the forested hills supply wood, spices, dyes, and other products of the wilds. Of course, without the oppo[...]Read on >>
Dreamspawn and Dreamhunters
In their own realms, most Dreamspawn are lesser creatures. For them, the material universe is a place of refuge from greater, and more dangerous, entities. To anchor themselves within that sanctuary, they bond with [...]Read on >>
News in Review for Aug 9 to Aug 15 2010
Well it is no surprise that the week following the “Best Four Days of Gaming” is full of great news items, reviews, and reports from GenCon 2010! This year’s GenCon was a phenomenal success, as you can[...]Read on >>
Dave’s Gen Con 2010 Wrap-up
So you may have seen all the Gen Con schedules posted last week that told you where various Critical Hits staff members were going to be, I am going to buck the trend and tell you where I WAS at Gen Con... or at least th[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 126b – The Champions of Faith and Family
Meanwhile, Gelman was off to consult one of the more actively researching Rabbis. Much as he’d like to consult a Rabbi from Battling Business World, he suspected that only a Core Rabbi would have the kind of backg[...]Read on >>
Psionic Power Review
Growing up my family was fairly poor so for the longest time I had to make due running D&D games with only a Player's Handbook, some pages from that one Monster Manual thing that was in a three-ring binder,[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 126a – The Champions of Numbers and Normalacy
Back in Battling Business World, Jenkins was making preparations for a trip – and looked back on the situation that had led up to it. It had started off in her apartment, after she’d just hacked a couple of [...]Read on >>
Tome GenCon Special – Adventure Building
The Adventure Building seminar by WotC at GenCon 2010 was probably my favorite at the time. It was lead by Rodney Thompson and combined the efforts of Bruce Cordell and Chris Perkins where they, with audience participati[...]Read on >>
First pass at cloning Eldritch Wizardry psionics done
When I started this project I felt like I wanted to get a grasp on how playing a psychic in the early days of the hobby would have been. Now I can say that it must have been a pain in the arse! I don't know if it was la[...]Read on >>
4E House Rules
Granted, there isn't as much fun in 4E as there is in other editions, but with some work, it can be fixed up. Here are a few of the house rules my students use:All house rules are subject to change in the interest of fun[...]Read on >>
Ability damage, through psionics
Guess what? I'm getting more and more interested in doing my own take on psionics, whole cloth. One thing I'm really sold on is ability damage. If somebody slaps you around with an Ego Whip, shouldn't your ego suffer? D[...]Read on >>
How to make OD&D psionics more sensible
If you haven't had the opportunity to read the psionics rules in Eldritch Wizardry I can tell you they are very labour intensive. There are quite a few tables to roll on, and tables with modifiers for this and that. One [...]Read on >>
Reporting In from GenCon 2010 (Part 3)
My final day at GenCon 2010 this year was Saturday, which I would deem my “Seminar Day”, spending almost 6 full hours over in the Indiana Ballroom G at the Marriott Hotel, where all the major Wizards of the Coast pan[...]Read on >>
News in Review for Aug 2 to Aug 8 2010
Coming back after an absolutely awesome GenCon 2010 experience, it is a bit hard to get back into the swing of things. The “Best Four Days of Gaming” is a ton of fun, but it can also be a bit exhausting from lack o[...]Read on >>
What’s the “feel” of psionics in fantasy gaming?
Being submerged in different versions of psionics rules lately have reminded me of my initial reaction when I read the Psionics book for D&D3.0 back in the day. In that book they have a sidebar, or something like it[...]Read on >>
Some oddities in Eldritch Wizardry
I have, like I have mentioned both here and elsewhere, started to take a serious stab at write some psionics rules inspired (or cloned) from Eldritch Wizardry. I already know that my favourite way to do it is not the wa[...]Read on >>
Post-apocalyptic Pathfinder Coming In December
Adamant Entertainment has announced the upcoming release of a new post-apocalyptic setting for the Pathfinder RPG system. Warlords of the Apocalypse will be released in December 2010. Here's the official announcement and[...]Read on >>
Anyone good with the minutiae of the OGL?
I have the last few days been working somewhat on a clone of the psionics rules from Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry, to OD&D. Part of me have wondered why this have not been cloned before. I took a peek at the psi[...]Read on >>
RPG Design – SciFi Settings and Rules
Like it or not, science fiction involves science. It doesn’t have to involve much of any science to get into the science fiction” category at the bookstore or library of course. A sizeable part of a[...]Read on >>
Gen Con 2010: D&D New Products Seminar
Gen Con is one of two places to get all the big news in D&D for the next year (their own D&D XP convention being the other.) Like last year, we live-tweeted the announcements as they came in, but here's a basic w[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 125 – The Green Green Hills Of Aerth
Inversion, Berlin, The Chief Persecutors Office: Kevin sighed and carefully stowed away the transformed Chief Persecutor and his aides. They could change them back when they were someplace safer… There di[...]Read on >>
Microlite20
Looks like I've got to stop editorializing and start doing some actual research before making blog posts....before I really start embarrassing myself. Especially now that I'm actually developing a readership.As I start t[...]Read on >>
Old School Jump: Inception Redux
http://oldschooljump.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/inception-psionics/"Can something be put together to allow psionic combat in a ‘dreamspace’ which is like regular combat but with Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma [...]Read on >>
D&D Camp and the Tomb of Horrors
During the final week of D&D camp I had a group of great kids. They knew the game well and I had DMed for all of them the week before. They were all friends from school who had been playing together for a number of y[...]Read on >>
I can kill you with my brain
Psionics. I have hated them since I first allowed them into my games. Back when I was running 2nd edition, I let a few players bring in some psionic characters, and promptly nailed them with theI don't rememb[...]Read on >>
Dark Sun Campaign Setting – First Impressions
As many of you know, Stupid Ranger and I are participating in D&D Encounters which is currently taking place in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting of Athas. Many of those participating in our encounters group remarked t[...]Read on >>
News in Review for July 26 to Aug 1 2010
With GenCon 2010 looming on the horizon, this week’s news has understandably been very convention oriented, from both Wizards of the Coast staff and D&D 4E Bloggers alike. If you’re planning on attending the “B[...]Read on >>
