try an easy rpg: d4 basic

I'm a big fan of easy D&D, which means, for me, two things: "easy for the dm to prep" and "easy to explain to a first-time player". For me, the ideal prep for a game involves brainstorming a few characters and gimmi[...]
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DDN Blog: Paladin Versus Cleric

As I said the last time paladins and clerics were brought up, on the concept level they are both very similar. A previous blog post stated that the paladin feels more martially inclined than the cleric, and that the[...]
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Creighton’s Corner: House Rules

House rules; every campaign has them. Some are minor, representing small tweaks to the game system, while other rework major parts of the rules to better suit the participants’ style and enjoyment. House rules are cool[...]
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Zobeck Gazetteer

This pdf from Open Design is 117 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages editorial/SRD, 1 page ToC and 1 page back cover, leaving 112 pages of content, so let's check this out! [...]
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Classes of NeoExodus: Machinesmith (revised)

This pdf from LPJ Design is 22 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 4 pages of advertisements, leaving 16 pages of content for the new, revised Machinesmith-class, so let's check this one out! [...]
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Metamorphosis Alpha Kickstarter Successful!

The Starship Warden is officially in the launch bay as the Metamorphosis Alpha Kickstarter hits its $10,000 goal! There are still 8 more days to get in on the relaunch of this classic mutants-and-mayhem sci fi classic, s[...]
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Why D&D 4e "Failed" — My Theory

There are many theories as to why the 4th edition of WOTC failed to interest many D&D players and apparently failed to meet the sales goals WOTC set for the game. My theory is simple, 4e's lead designer Rob Heinsoo w[...]
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Star Wars/AGE conversion update

Some time ago I mentioned that I was slowly working on a Dragon Age/Star Wars hack, but I never really posted much more than that.  Since then I’ve received a couple of emails from people interested in the project[...]
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Crimson Skies & L5R: Another Hacking Fit

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: MORE CAMPAIGNS THAN I CAN RUN I’ve done a couple of posts on my upcoming hack of Scion to the FATE system. We’ll be trying that out in a few weeks- my goal is a six session mini-campaign, someth[...]
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Friday Knight News – Gaming Edition: 20-APR-2012

Wow. Another week has zipped on by and Tax Day too! The scary part is that work is actually [gasp] fun! (Yes, we computer-programmer-type-people sometimes have a different grasp on “fun” than other folk. ) Ho[...]
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Keeping All the Characters Linked

One of the valuable lessons from Dead and FUBAR'd was a fundamental success. It's something I was planning to incorporate in greater detail in the player's guide "A Lowlife's Guide to FUBAR", so seeing it work quite well[...]
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Ancient Armory: Subterranean Toxin Delivery Module

Weapon: Subterranean Toxin Delivery Module(AKA "Gopherchoke")Damage: As grenade typeNormal Range: 300 ft.Maximum Range: 600 ft.Speed: 100 ft./round Blast Radius: As grenade typeWeight: 1 lb.Battery: Power cellThe Subterr[...]
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Exceeding the Extraordinary: The Meaning Of Feats

From time to time, I like to look behind the curtain – to see what makes the mechanics of the games that I play tick, and what the implications are. Sometimes this leads down unexpected byways, and at other times i[...]
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Guest Post: The World’s Most Popular Classic Board Games from Jonny Devine

The birth of the computer chip and video games may have put a dampener on the sales of the classic ‘play-with-the-whole-family’ board game, but as that retro-esque feel comes back into prominence the appeal for the o[...]
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Hong Kong Action Theater: Preferred Styles and Other Teahouse Rules

My role-playing group has made its voice heard and HKAT will be this summer role-playing project. Of course, I can't leave well enough alone, and though I like the various Attributes in the game and how they simulate Hon[...]
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What Is Important in a Character?

This could be considered my “Story and Game, part two” or not… it’s going to touch on those things but it’s mostly about character creation. Two things. 1. A friend of mine just started a Sc[...]
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The Journal of Abraham Nermal: Everyone else is a giant mooch

So good, honest, hard working Abraham was taking a thoroughly innocent and unsuspicious morning constitutional through the woods with his shovel and rope when lo and behold..  ungrateful adventurers came b[...]
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#DNDNext Spellcasting. Making everyone happy by bridging editions?

Inspired by a number of D&DNext “I want” threads in reference to spellcasting, I had an idea. Many probably know that I’m protective of spellcasting classes, and a detractor of the old-style Vancia[...]
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Gear, Balance, and Feel

My apologies again for the late post today. Not 100% sure what happened with my yesterday, but it was gone in a flash. Anyhow, gear is one of those sections of RPGs that some games don't really bother with and other game[...]
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Core Mechanics: Character Advancement

In Dungeons & Dragons, and most other role-playing games, player characters earn experience points as the game progresses and then can spend those points to become more powerful. Levels vs À La Carte Advancement H[...]
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Magazine Review: Kobold Quarterly, Spring 2012, Issue 21

There are few magazines these days that I will read every page, cover to cover. Archaeology… Black Gate… And Kobold Quarterly. That’s really it. And KQ follows a similarly short list of gaming mags over[...]
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Crafting at the Tabletop

A lot of computer roleplaying games and especially MMOs often feature crafting. In games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or World of Warcraft players can craft a plethora of items from raw materials. Yesterday I was playi[...]
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Story and Game

So. I decided to write about story and games (note that I am carefully not saying “story games” as this seems to be entirely its own term now with particular associations for some gamers). This came up from a[...]
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new category of magic item: magical map

At the foot of the little rise there was a map of the world, carte du monde, mappamondo, karte der welt, with the countries marked on it in brilliant colors. I knew that if I wanted to go anywhere, from Angola to Paphlag[...]
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Legend of Grimrock

So I purchased "Legend of Grimrock" from GOG.com and it has been well worth my $15.  Starting off with a few people naked in a dungeon,  reacting with awe and wonder at such treasures as "Rock" and "Knife".It h[...]
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Using FATE for Scion: Epic Knacks

A few weeks ago I mentioned I'd started to think about how to use FATE to handle Scion (Using FATE for Scion: Starting Thoughts). I've done some further work on that, figuring out the skill list and how I plan to handle [...]
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Creighton’s Corner: Campaign Primer

Every campaign needs a campaign primer. A campaign primer is a GM’s chance to set the scene for the players and to provide them with basic information about the setting, upcoming adventures and other information of not[...]
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Ancient Scroll’s Secret Room: Maps, Mystery, and A Promise

My friend Bart from the creative collective Lans Macabre spent a lot of time discovering the wonderful world of maps. As you know, maps are a vivid part of many RPG campaigns and adventures. But some of them aren’t[...]
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Where is roleplaying going wrong?

I had a few great conversations last weekend at Sydney's Eye-Con roleplaying convention, some of these were bout the way the roleplaying hobby seems to be going and how we can get it back on track.My thoughts at the time[...]
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Mass Effect 3 and the plight of the Information Age

MASS EFFECT 3 SPOILERS AHEAD This article is only kind of about Mass Effect 3: First of all, I really LIKED Mass Effect 3, including the ending! Second of all, it appears that many people didn't (check out the user ratin[...]
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Savage Menagerie: Schleprock

No. Enc.: 1d2 (1d4)Alignment: NeutralMovement: 90' (30'),Armor Class: 6Hit Dice: 2Attacks: 3 (claw/claw/bite)Damage: 1d4/1d4/1d4Save: F3Morale: 8 Hoard Class: NoneEven in the Mutant Future, having a black cat cross your [...]
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Friday Knight News – Triskaidekaphobic Gaming Edition: 13-APR-2012

Happy Friday the 13th, everybody! That’s right – a haunted day and me without my hockey mask and machete… What does it have to do with gaming? Nothing! As far as I’m concerned, it’s just ano[...]
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Challenge Your RPG Fun!

So why write anything about RPG’s? Maybe this question isn’t very easy to answer. After all everyone has an opinion, everyone had a system they champion and everyone has fun playing at what they are playing. So th[...]
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Issues 10 and 11 of Wisdom From the Wastelands Now Out

Issue 10 and Issue 11 of Wisdom From the Wastelands, the new weekly Mutant Future missive from Skirmisher Publishing, have been released. Here are the themes from the past two weeks' issues:Issue 10 - Monsters That Impro[...]
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SIR: Simple, Intuitive Roleplaying

Number of Views :356I came up with a new RPG today. A bit more complicated than Awesomesauce, but not too much. Here’s the rules: Choose a race. This can be any race that exists in the world you’re playing in[...]
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Andrew’s Angle: Clerics are NOT Healbots

Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons! Lets have the players introduce themselves… ‘Hail! I am the mighty Fighter! Through extensive training I have become the master of all forms of martial combat. My heavy armor abso[...]
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Organizational Thinking (part two)

The comments on my last post about Organizations in RPGs generated a lot of internal dialogue. I’ve been really thinking about how organizations play in to the game experience for a few weeks now. Groups, cliques, [...]
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Drastically slashing GM Prep time to almost nil: The main strength of "Neoclassical Geek Revival"

One of the nice things of OSR games is that it doesn't take very long to "Stat out" opponents , or much space to write up a dungeon compared to newer games.But I never got on the 3e bandwagon and so I always thought even[...]
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The Gassy Gnoll: How I Came to Love/Hate Combat (RPG Blog Carnival, April 2012)

As a Gnoll, there’s a part of me that loves combat. The Gnoll wading into the thick of battle protected by nothing more than the hair on his back and a thin layer of hide armor. The Gnoll slicing through enemies wi[...]
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Tactical combat in WR&M (or any other Wyrm System game)

Earlier today Christopher Brind contacted me today and let me know about a cool ruleset for tactical games he has designed for WR&M. It’s modeled loosely after the system from the classic Games Workshop game Space[...]
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[March Monster Madness] And The 2012 Winner Is…

March Monster Madness 2012 is over. This year I had 10 different monsters to choose from and the contestants did not disappoint. In the end, however, only one could be crowned winner. Though a few critters really got me [...]
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Adventure Review: Party of One: Kalgor Bloodhammer and the Ghouls Through the Breach by Matthew J. Hanson from Open Design

Many moons ago, when I was but a lad, I think I read every single Choose Your Own Adventure book at the public library and my elementary school library. Once I got to junior high, I discovered D&D and I was off to t[...]
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Classes of NeoExodus: Machinesmith

This pdf from LPJ Design is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, 4 pages of advertisements, leaving 12 pages of content for the new Machinesmith-class, so let's check this one out! [...]
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Is a Samurai Just a Fighter in Funny Armor?

This past weekend I posted about how I might approach an "oriental adventures" rules supplement, essentially saying that, where the OA book published by TSR was jargon-heavy and skewed more historical (and was heavily we[...]
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Notorious NPC: YO-0-0, The Cobalt Corsair

Serial Number: YO-0-0(AKA "The Cobalt Corsair") 5th Level Basic AndroidSTR: 14 --- INT: 18DEX: 19 --- WIL: 9CON: 13 --- CHA: 16HPs: 50 --- AC: 2Mutations: accumulated resistance (electrical); mental barrier; know directi[...]
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Familiar but not: GMing someone else’s setting, with them as a player

So I am quite a fan of the ConstantCon that Zak spawned all those months ago, which now sits in the good hands of dozens of GM's.I've had chances to be in many different settings:  from Urutsk, to Wessex, The D[...]
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The Journal of Abraham Nermal: Abraham’s Big Score

The local gravedigger is prone to talk for a free meal and  drink..So, with the end of the world about to doom us all I decided some creature comforts before the inevitable disembowelment and eternal torment would b[...]
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The Journal of Abraham Nermal: Welcome to Nightwick

Heard from a grubby little fellow getting drunk in a Nightwick alley,So let me tell you a thing or two about the mausoleum in the ole abbey. I went with a bunch of charming chaps, a rather rude inquisitor who inquired al[...]
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Creighton’s Corner: Starting a New Campaign

There are two basic ways you can start a campaign. Both are valid and both have a number of pros and cons. As always, the one you pick depends on your personal preferences and those of your players. Method 1: Choose a mo[...]
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Dead and FUBAR’d Mid Con Analysis

Because some people don't believe it happens without photographic evidence...The game has been doing surprisingly well with a variety of play styles.Five sessions down and we've seen a decent range from blatant zombie st[...]
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