Category: Role-Playing Games

Dark Sun Freedom

AD&D’s Freedom and the Curse of the Media Tie-In

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Released in 1991, the Dark Sun setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was a revelation. More than any other setting up to that point, it showcased the way D&D could encompass many different kinds of fantasy while still remaining true to the game. It introduced a metal-poor desert world where survival was as much as a challenge as fighting orcs. It provided a new twist on standard D&D races, including tribalistic halflings and desert-running elves. Drawing more from the Dune series than The Lord of the Rings, it showed how broad D&D’s horizons could go.

If you want a great example of the creative energy that infused AD&D 2nd edition, check out the original Dark Sun boxed set. And then, if you want an example of how bad its adventures could get, check out the setting’s first module, Freedom.

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Drizzt Do'Urden

In Defense of Good-Aligned Drow

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing Games1 Comment

I admit it – my favorite PC by far is a good-aligned drow.

This makes me a horrible gamer by some Internet standards. If you look around at various D&D and Pathfinder forums, you’re sure to find at least one or two threads lamenting the existence of good-aligned drow. There are even quotes from Gary Gygax talking about how he dislikes the idea (although, to be fair, there are also quotes from Gary Gygax talking about how if you change even one single rule in your game, you aren’t playing D&D).

The existence of good-aligned drow became popular thanks to the success of R.A. Salvatore’s novels featuring Drizzt Do’Urden. Because of that very success, a lot of fantasy RPG purists out there tend to see any non-evil dark elf as nothing more than a Drizzt clone.

I would like to speak in defense of the good-aligned drow in RPGs.

Continue reading “In Defense of Good-Aligned Drow” →

Book of Erotic Fantasy

Delving into the Book of Erotic Fantasy: Wear Protection

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Originally posted on Sidekickcast.com

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition introduced the Open Gaming License, which made huge chunks of the D&D rules open to third parties. It created thriving adventure lines, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics and even allowed the creation of competing games, such as Pathfinder. But by far one of the most simultaneously awesome and horrible products that emerged as a result of this license is the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

Continue reading “Delving into the Book of Erotic Fantasy: Wear Protection” →

Demogorgon

The Most Head-Scratching Demon Lords in D&D

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing Games1 Comment

Originally published on Sidekickcast.com

Demon lords in Dungeons & Dragons are the ultimate embodiments of evil in the multiverse. They each rule at least one layer of the Abyss, which is where the evilest of evil spirits go after they pass on. These include monsters like Baphomet, the prince of beasts, Dagon, the ruler of monsters of the deep, and Graz’zt, the patron of tyrants and despots. Then…there are these guys.

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Pathfinder Playtest

The Pathfinder Playtest: Where Did These Changes Come From?

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing Games, The Pathfinder Playtest1 Comment

Parts of the Pathfinder Playtest seem like a jarring change to the system to me. That’s mostly because I spent 10 years running a game that used very few rules beyond the Core Rulebook or the Beginner Box. The major change to the action economy and the removal of old multiclassing, for example, feels weird.

That said, I did stay on top of new rules releases as part of my whole freelance writing thing, so I can see that many of these major changes still have Pathfinder DNA. If you’re wondering where all these changes came from, it mostly boils down to a decade of optional rules expansions.

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Cyberpunk 2020

Gaming Stories: Plastic Explosives in the Mattress

On By Charlie BrooksIn Gaming Stories, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

I used to really like games that had long, in-depth character creation systems. My theory was that if you were going to spend an hour or more making your PC, you were really going to treasure that character.

Then I went and killed one of those PCs in less than half an hour.

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Pathfinder Playtest

The Pathfinder Playtest: Character Creation

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing Games, The Pathfinder Playtest1 Comment

Paizo Publishing released their first look at the next edition of Pathfinder last week, offering a free playtest rulebook that people can use to put the new system through its paces. Character customization remains a large part of Pathfinder’s appeal, but the process by which you create your hero has changed.

Has it changed for the better? That depends on what you want out of the Pathfinder RPG.

Continue reading “The Pathfinder Playtest: Character Creation” →

Escape from Zanzer's Dungeon

Gaming Stories: Escape from Zanzer’s Dungeon

On By Charlie BrooksIn Gaming Stories, Role-Playing Games2 Comments

In  1992, after months of poring over my mom’s old character sheets and marveling at her hand-drawn maps, I saved up a whopping $20 and bought my first D&D boxed set, billed as “The New, Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons Game.” In the depths of Zanzer Tem’s dungeon, my foray into the world of RPGs began.

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White Dragon

Gaming Stories: I Put the Dragon in a Sack

On By Charlie BrooksIn Gaming Stories, Role-Playing Games2 Comments

Anybody who got into Dungeons & Dragons through the 1991 beginner’s set probably remembers Kamro the white dragon. While not the first villain introduced in that boxed set, he was the first dragon, hiding in the central room of Stonefast. For many new gamers, he was essentially Baby’s First Dragon Fight.

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Deck of Many Things

Gaming Stories: Hubris and the Deck of Many Things

On By Charlie BrooksIn Gaming Stories, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

One of my main GMing strategies when I run a D&D or Pathfinder campaign goes something like this:

  1. Give the PCs the deck of many things.
  2. Wait for them to draw from it.
  3. Have fun with the results.

If I ever doubt this strategy in the future, I just need to think back to a Pathfinder game in 2017 which cemented this as a terrific strategy.

The Setup: The PCs, a group of high-level mythic characters, ventured into the Abyss to rescue an entire city that got sucked through a hole in reality. Continue reading “Gaming Stories: Hubris and the Deck of Many Things” →