Travis Miller's Blog About Sword & Sorcery Fiction and Classic Fantasy Adventure Gaming
I don't like elves, dwarves, and halflings in Dungeons & Dragons. We all know the way they look and feel in D&D was lifted out of Lord of the Rings. The inclusion of elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, ents, and balrogs (don't get me started on balrogs) into Dungeons & Dragons was a design mistake in …
Continue reading Tolkien’s Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits Don’t Belong in Dungeons & Dragons
How much backstory and history do I make for my sandbox campaigns?
There are some basic elements of story that are helpful for a game master to know. This post is about those elements and why games and stories share them.
In last week's post I wrote about how random generation tables have some uses but they also have some drawbacks. The biggest drawback I find is that the tables created by other GMs or designers often have assumptions and contexts that don't fit whatever campaign setting I'm running. The major drawback of random generation tables. …
Continue reading How Do I Create Random Generation Tables for a Sandbox Campaign?
One of the common tools used by referees who run classic fantasy adventure games is random generation tables. These are useful tools that have many applications but they also have tradeoffs that I find undesirable at times. The Benefits One of the major and perhaps primary uses of random generators is they can be great …
Continue reading The Benefits and Tradeoffs of Random Generation Tables
Is Sandbox Vs. Railroad a useful comparison? I don't think it is. Here's why.
2024 is the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. I've spent a lot of time thinking about why D&D has lasted so long, been so successful, and continued to gather new fans throughout that time. The answer I've come up with is that it is not just one thing. The reason D&D is such a …
Grumpy Wizard 
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