Occasionally, I will see a critique of a particular character class in 5E that puzzles me. It will say something like, "Such and such is broken/underpowered/boring because they don't compare favourably to the other classes, during combat.” I never read a complaint that the person playing the barbarian character is bored when the thief is …
Category: musings
Game Objects vs. Game Mechanisms
I think the most significant difference between "old school" and "new school" D&D is what players primarily attend to and how they interact with the obstacles placed in front of them in the game. Old School: Players primarily interact with game objects which I define as the NPC's, monsters, sentient magical constructs/devices, the PC's physical …
Emotion Peddlers
I seek out interviews, books and essays by artists of various media in an attempt to understand their thinking about their work. A very common thing among the very best is the foundational belief that what they are doing is selling emotion. They are making a thing that causes them to feel a certain way …
Game Masters are Illusionists
Human cognition is bedeviled with bias and selective blindness. Stage magicians use these biases and the peculiar way reflexes and gaps in our sense sight to produce "magic." We all know stage magic isn't really magic; the lady in the box isn't actually being sawn in half. It's a trick. We sign up for and …
If That Old Game is So Good, Why is Everyone Playing the New One?
A frequent critique I see is that old games must suck because more people are playing a recently published game. The argument goes, "If that old game is so good then why isn't it as popular as the new game?" There are reasons people play newer releases of games that have nothing to do with …
Continue reading If That Old Game is So Good, Why is Everyone Playing the New One?
New School? Old School?
Who cares. There's constant blah blah blah about is this game, this adventure, this thing Old School or is it New School? I can't decide if I care or not. Because a lot of those conversations really come down to asking which club you're in. As I've gotten older, and grumpier, I am resistant to joining these clubs because there's …
What a Role-Playing Game is Not
Role-playing games are not stories. This is a position with which many game masters and game designers disagree. This misunderstanding by designers and game masters is why most published adventures suck. It is why most published campaigns, adventures and supplement books fail at being game supplements. Games have elements which are similar to stories. Both …
Grumpy Wizard 
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