Thursday, August 13, 2009 by Dan Hughes
Dungeons and Dragons has survived for as long as it has because of one simple rule: DM’s prerogative. What this means is no matter what action a player decides he or she would like to take, the DM has the final say on all rules. The DM can make judgments on what is and is not allowed, but, most importantly, translates the nigh-unlimited number of options a player can take into the game mechanic. Having a human in charge of the rules at any given moment, along with the rules stating that the human is in charge and can override any rule, makes the game infinitely and immediately adaptable to practically any and every situation.
The open-endedness of it can be quite daunting. While it is possible to relate most actions under the human domain to one of the six core D&D attributes, it is not always as simple as a skill check. The very nature of the game allows for the players to roleplay as they see fit. But nothing irks beginning DMs more than a story not going according to plan.
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by Dominic Hamon
If there’s a single sentence that can act as a simple summary for what role-playing games are, it is surely “telling a story from the characters’ points of view”. Any modern table-top role-playing game has this at its core; that the players, with the game-master, are developing a world and a story together as they play.
However, other aspects of the role-playing genre, notably computer role-playing games, have struggled with this aspect. The first game to truly crack this nut will attract the attention of role-playing fans, but would it also capture the attention of gamers in general? Why haven’t computer role-playing games been able to tell stories in the same way that table-top gamers do every week? What will be lost from the genre if they do? (Continued)
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 by Dominic Hamon
I have previously dealt with the notion of the cliché on this blog, and closely related to that is the notion of the archetype. An archetype is an ideal example of a type, to give the dictionary definition. Carl Jung also made use of the term to define an inherited unconscious idea. Plato’s ideas can also be seen as the original archetypes and in fact the word itself comes from the greek word αρχετυπον. But how do archetypes play into writing and how can they be used to enhance the experience of a player in a game? Are there any dangers to using archetypes that a writer or GM must be wary of?
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Friday, May 15, 2009 by Dan Hughes
The most obvious encounter is the combat encounter. The other articles in this series were aimed at adding other types of encounters instead of combat to keep things interesting and varied in a campaign, and promoting player character balance by increasing the value of non-battle skills to a player.
In this part, we instead look at the combat encounter itself. It is important that combat, usually taking up a large percentage of a campaign’s time, be just as varied and interesting as the rest of your campaign. We are speaking much more than switching up the monsters, however.
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Tuesday, May 5, 2009 by Dominic Hamon
A while ago there was an episode of the DnD podcast from Wizards of the Coast that had a tip for DMs to start every session with the players rolling initiative. This usually indicates that combat, or at least some action sequence, is about to play out and initiative determines the order that the characters act in. The idea is that by having your players start the session in medias res, literally “into the midst of affairs”, they will be more engaged in the session as a whole.
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