I've enjoyed Ravenloft more than any other A,D&D setting, and the 3rd Edition expansion gave it a lot more life. Despite that, a lot of the best themes seem under-used. Beginnings Ravenloft began when A,D&D was busy asking 'what else can we do as an RPG?', and someone said 'horror'. Specifically, 'Hammer …

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Using real-world time in RPGs has worked out great in my last fantasy campaign, so I'm thinking of using it for a Dark Ages: Vampire Campaign. I want to create a game where every single neonate in the city has a player. I want to see a dozen players, all with a chatroom online, called 'Elysium', shooting the shit, …

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Domination In Vampire: the Masquerade, the first level of the Dominate ability lets the vampire issue a one-word command, which the target instantly obeys. It might be 'sit', 'stay', 'fight', 'run', or any other one-word command. It's flexible genius, because it clearly defines what the ability does, but can still …

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RPGs have dungeons...well more often those dungeons are caves...no, actually RPG plots often feature caves, which we call 'dungeons'. Anyway, these caves look rather strange, because people began drawing them on graph paper, and later they made sure to fit the entire map onto a single square at the top of a page. RPG …

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I've rather gone off the notion of 'collectibles'. Collectible RPG books are special because they can't meet the demand. We can't all have a copy of those original D&D books, or whatever swanky thing White Wolf brought out with the expensive full-page art. In this vein, I've been making the campaign book - …

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Why is it always the same old elves, and hobbits, and +1 swords? Can't people come up with anything different? ...I hear this every so often, and I wonder if any of these people actually pick up the myriad gonzo-RPGs with novel races (or at least 'novelty races'). Of course, many have the extra barrier of 40 pages of …

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System Everyone who says Mąrk Bórg is plug-and-play is partly right. It still has a lot of steps, though I don't recall all of them. Successes Roll name? (is it optional?) Select class (or not) Roll your 3 stats (they go from -2 to +2) Do something with omens (what exactly are they?) Weapons table Armour table So we …

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What's great about dice-pools is meaningful results, all the time. You'll struggle to get that with a D20. Listen... Example 1: Good Chances The party ranger wants to navigate through the forest. Forests are dangerous, and he might fail, but his bonuses mean he succeeds on the roll of 3 or more. A 90% chance of success …

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There are a limited number of ways one can write an adventure. Let's start with the famous railroad model: Choo Choo! PCs Get a Quest Part 1 Go to Part 2 Go to Part 3 Go to Part 4 Go to Part 5 Boss fight The tell-tale signs you'll find here are sentences like 'when the PCs reach the village', or 'when the PCs find the …

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A lot of the motivation for writing this book was because A,D&D never seemed to live up to its promises. The newer editions were a clear improvement, but never seemed to release the original game's shackles. An image of burly men, bursting through a door, ready to destroy anything in their path covers the AD&D …

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