My wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to send our daughter to a very unique private school when she was in grade school. The Village School in Royalston Massachusetts is a delightful place where my child not only got a good education as a student but as a person. What made the …
Category: musings
The Primacy of World Building
I have been thinking very hard about how important setting is in TTRPG’s. I used to think that setting was important but as my understanding has developed; it is clear to me that setting is the most important element of an RPG. Rich engaging settings have dedicated audiences. Generic game systems have their fans. But …
What I Want.
I want you to play games. I want you to meet new people, and play games with them. I want you to call up a friend you haven't seen in a while, and play games. I want you to teach how to play a game to family and your friends. I want you be with …
Culture as Class
In the earliest versions of D&D, the playable humanoid races of elf, halfling and dwarf didn't have a race+class categorization. There wasn't an option to play a dwarf cleric or a halfling magic user. You played a dwarf (fighter), an elf (fighter/magic user) or halfling (fighter sort of?). In AD&D the humanoid races had limitations …
Considering Actual Play
The actual play (AP) video and podcasting phenomenon is one that I don't understand. I've listened to a few AP podcasts when they first started to exist five or six years ago. It was OK. It was something to listen to during the mindless parts of my workday. My thoughts about it then are the …
Compromise
Game design is always a set of compromises. There is a space between what you see in your mind and what hits the table. You'd like to have an economic mechanic which models the price inflation that would occur in a city after a large dragon hoard was captured and dispersed among the city's merchants …
What Does it Mean to “Play” D&D
People who haven't played before don't know what it means to "play" Dungeons & Dragons. Here's what I think it means. Many hours every week, we read, we write, we draw, we imagine and dream of new ideas to bring to our meeting of friends. We read history, science non-fiction as well as fiction, geography, …
Grumpy Wizard 
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