My third BIND campaign ended in glorious disaster and nonsense which forced me to reforge magic. Lax Theory I had a magic system with a bit of metamagic 'bend', where people could do basic spells (fwoosh, fire!) then add a little metamagic to boost literally any spell (fwshhHHH FIREBALL!). No more 'control person', …

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I recommend these RPG RSS feeds. If you don't use RSS, check my setup overview . Blue Mountain has a post on saving Ravenloft modules (which is brave, and laudable). Cthnonic Studios has a thoughtful section on RPG design theory, and another on reviews . DriveThruRPG has a feed so full of new RPGs that nobody can …

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My RPG games follow a format which avoids railroading, without any need for elaborate settings or difficult NPC relations. I call it 'story weaving', because it lets me stretch the metaphor. Railroads are Inevitable For all the complaints about railroading, computer games suffer from railroads far more than RPG …

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Here is a silver piece, old woman. Now tell me my fortune! What will I see on the road? An ogre awaits you on the road. Keep your eyes open, and your bow strung! No need! We planned to take the South road to town, but we can switch to the West instead, and avoid the ogre entirely. Foolish man! The ogre lies in your …

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A friend was thinking about running a Call of Cthulhu campaign, where demonic hair-extensions burrow into people's brains to control them. I've never run Call of Cthulhu, but I had a few ideas for things which might happen in the background, and some friends added a few ideas. So here are the bullet-points I sent him: …

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The RPG scene has suffered for too long under its assumption that every positive feature in a system (realism, choices, fancy-looking hats) must imply more work to understand the system, and more time to resolve every action. (easy but nonsensical) (realistic but Maths) …

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It's hard to read a full adventure module - you keep having to go back and check you've remembered all the important points. And no matter how much you read, you always need the module open at the table, so that you can check it again. Even when you haven't forgotten anything, you still repeatedly check the book in …

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A,D&D gave monsters random treasures like this: Type Gold Silver Copper Scroll Potion Magical Item S 100-600 1-10 - - - - P 100-800 100-400 - 20% 15% - The system goes like this: The players randomly encountered an Owlbear. It has 'Treasure type P'. The DM then rolls 1D8 x 100, and determined that it has 200 cp in its …

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People who want to work with others on an RPG naturally tend towards Google docs. It seems so easy. They send the link out, people make edit suggestions, and you click 'approve' or 'deny'. Everyone's generating spells, and spelling corrections at 100 kph, and it all looks great. Git, meanwhile, looks like a …

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A good RPG session works a little like a dinner party, and the best of both have food. So why don't rule-books come with recipes? This module pairs well with doritos and twiglets, and a side of Monster energy drink. Of course, the RPG community, that socially malformed mass of cretins who couldn't wipe their own snot …

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