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 …
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 …
My Favorite Kind of Combat
Today we had my favorite kind of session. The party had a fight with a big time baddy today. He was a high level druid with some supporting fighters. He was the most dangerous enemy they've faced in the campaign and they needed to bring him back alive. Mostly dead was fine. And the fight …
Another Data Point
I hold the position that role-playing games are games that people can tell stories about after the fact and games that use stories and story-like elements to create an immersive gaming experience. RPG's are not stories unto themselves. Question: How many novels have been published based on someones actual homemade gaming campaign? Not many. The …
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 …
Embedded Story Through Magic Items
You can tell the story of your campaign milieu through the embedded stories of the magic items your characters encounter. One of the magic items in my campaign is known as The Sword of Osmund. At first, the players only knew about its most basic mechanical benefits in combat. It is a +3 sword. It …
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 …
Grumpy Wizard 
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