Gaming Stories: Dancing Half-Fiends and the Glory of Infinite Choices

Originally published on Sicdekickcast.com November 17, 2015

Easily my favorite part of tabletop RPGs is the fact that they have so much latitude and room for player agency. No matter how robust a computer game is, there are always a finite number of choices. Because tabletop RPGs rely on human adjudication, the possibilities are limitless…like that time the PCs in one of my games inspired a pair of half-fiends to become vaudeville stars.

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The Bride-to-Be

A longer time ago than it seems, I got married. Sometime around the date of my wedding, I created the following template for Pathfinder first edition. I swear the timing is coincidental and in no way reflects upon my own lovely wife Sarah, who was nothing but composed and gracious all through the planning for our wedding, who is the most gorgeous and intelligent woman I know, and who would be even more attractive if she stopped threatening me with a fire axe as I type this.

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On Character Death

Character death is a touchy subject in RPGs. Some people think the PCs should always be at risk, and that an adventure is an outright failure if at least one character doesn’t get killed off during the action. Others never have PCs bite the dust, using house rules that cause a hero to go unconscious but not die when the rules as written would have them pushing up daisies. And, as with any divisive topic with extreme opposite stances, the majority of players fall somewhere in the middle of that scale.

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Gaming Stories: Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal!

Night Below: An Underdark Campaign is a classic AD&D adventure that I purchased when it came out in the 1990s but which I never got to run all the way through until the 2010s. Beginning with D&D 3rd edition and eventually converting to Pathfinder, my final version of the campaign saw some changes, including revising the Rockseer elves and adding a secret villain behind the aboleth conspiracy: the Red Mage.

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Pathfinder Fantasy Adventures Revisited

One year after my original Pathfinder Fantasy Adventures course, I took a class on how learners use their brains. This allowed me to overhaul my lesson plan to give a better and more educational experience should I ever get to teach the course again. While I have not yet had an opportunity to run this course, here’s what would have been, along with an outline for an adventure roughly based on Paizo’s Crypt of the Everflame module.

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