Ask Angry Lightning Round
It’s been a long time since I answered some reader questions. So, let’s see how many of these I can get through without losing my freaking mind.
Your Ability Scores Suck
I should really know that I can’t just drop a comment like “ability scores suck in D&D and I would handle them so much better” without people demanding that I explain myself. Well, here it is. I’m explaining.
Good Ingredients Make Good Adventures
How is an adventure like a cake? Both of them are delicious baked goods that I love to eat, except for the adventure. But they are alike in that they need the right ingredients to be any good. And this adventure is all about cakes, adventures, and ingredients. Except it’s not really about cakes. I wish I had some cake.
Plan Hard, Work Hard, Play Hard
Much as I would love to sit here and describe the various elements of a homebrew adventure, you’re not ready for that crap yet. You don’t even know how to plan, I can’t tell you what to plan.
Being In-Flex-Able
I WAS going to rant about ability scores. But I accidentally ended up giving good advice about being inflexible for the good of the game. Sorry.
Gambling on Action
What if it turned out that everything I ever taught you about action adjudication was wrong? And that there was an entirely different way of looking at actions in role-playing games? Well, don’t worry. Nothing I told you was wrong. But there is another way of looking at actions. And sometimes, everything I told you is wrong. Sometimes, you’re not resolving an action, you’re taking a gamble.
More Accounting for Magical Items
Hacking a complex subsystem into a game requires you to work within the limits of the system. Sometimes, though, the system has some underlying patterns you can spot if you look hard enough. And those patterns help you make room for what you’re doing.
So You Want to Brew an Adventure?
People keep asking me to revisit adventure building. And to make it clear and useful. Maybe spell out a nice, simple process. Fine. Let’s talk about building your own adventures from scratch. Again. Only better.
Accounting for Magical Items
Hacking a complex subsystem into a game requires you to work within the limits of the system. Unfortunately, the system doesn’t always make it easy to find those limits. For example, let’s look at how D&D 5E might constrain my crafting system?
A Trifecta of BS
This month’s BS article focuses on… nothing. It’s an unfocused mess in which I ramble about three completely unrelated issues in modern game that are probably only a problem to me. Enjoy.
Dear Players: There’s a Better Way to Play
This isn’t for you GMs to read; it’s for you to print and hand to your players. That way, they can declare actions and play the game in a way that actually let’s you, you know, run a good game. Just let me talk to them. I’ll be nice.
Barking at Your Players: Advanced Combat Narration
There’s more to narrating combat than just flowery prose. Actually, there’s less. Combat needs less narration, more emotion, and more information.
Theorycrafting an Unsummary
We’re back to talking about crafting. And it’s time for more thinking and pondering and brainstorming. Sorry, kids, that’s what design is. It’s about thinking, pondering, and making things way more complicated for yourself.
Drawing an Unnecessary Map of Nothing At All
The first thing every GM does when they decide to create their own setting is to start drawing a map. And there’s no reason for that. Except one reason. Which is why that’s the first thing I did for my Pathfinder campaign.
I Am a Free Agent!
Here’s your monthly dose of pointless BS. Pontification about the non-problem of GMing agency which not only fails to answer the question, but also fails to even find a question to ask. But it does invite you to comment.
Crafting in the Raw
Accepting the disappointment that we’re going to have to stick with the obvious cliche of smashing ingredients together to make equipment as the basis of a D&D crafting system, now it’s time to figure out what those raw ingredients look like. And keeping it manageable.
GMs Have Secrets Too
There’s an advantage to letting the GM keep some secrets from the players. And a good game designer should help the GM keep stuff hidden.
Crafting Disappointment
It’s time to look at the crafting problem from the GM side of things. And to figure out what a good crafting resource might look like. And to disappoint everyone who was hoping I’d create a good crafting system.
Sitting Through Character Generation with Angry
With a crappy, generic pitch sold to my players, it was time to let them generate their characters. The problem was, they couldn’t do it on their own and I had to be involved. Ugh.
Crafting Away from the Table
It’s time to actually start building a crafting system. And that means figuring out what the system should look like. Abstractly. Conceptually. Without doing any real work.
You Say You Want a Resolution
It’s time to look back at the year what was and figure out what I can do next year to run better games. For starters, I could actually run some games.
Let’s Fix Inspiration AGAIN! … But Not Really
Thanks to a couple of unrelated experiences and some psychobabble, I’m looking at D&D Inspiration again. But that’s just an excuse to tackle a bigger issue. And to write a really upsetting Long, Rambling Introduction.
Three Stories
When one of my articles start a lot of fights, I like to keep the fights going with a follow up. Unfortunately, this time, the follow-up would be too short. Fortunately, I’ve got three different follow-ups.
A Very Special Adventure
One of my least favorite holiday traditions is the one wherein I get bombarded with requests to explain how to write a good a holiday adventure. Or at least outline one. And I can’t fight it anymore.
Acting on the Edge of Your Seat
It’s time for some rambling naval gazing again. This is about dice systems, action resolution, and pacing.
Neither Random Nor Encounter: Redesigning Random Encounters (Part 2)
Figuring out when to fling a random encounter in the path of your hapless is the easy part. The hard part is designing good random encounters. Which are neither random nor encounters. Except they are encounters. Just don’t call them that.
Always Tell me the Odds: Redesigning Random Encounters (Part 1)
Lots of GMs have given up on random encounters. And I can’t blame them. Random encounters suck. But throwing them out completely means throwing out a lot of useful stuff. Maybe we can build a better system instead?
Angry’s Post Gamehole Show
I went to Gamehole Con. Which means I didn’t write an article. So here’s me passing my recap of Gamehole Con off as an article.
More Like Session Negative Ten
What do you do when you’ve got nothing? Figure out how to make nothing sound like something, send it out, and deal with the fallout later. And that’s exactly what I did when my Session Zero for my new campaign fell apart.
Who Plays Vanilla WoW Anymore: Angry Starts a Campaign
For the first time in three years, I – Angry – am running an actual, real-life, regular campaign. And it’ll provide a great example of how to cobble together a campaign you don’t have time to plan or run in a system you haven’t used in years. At least, my Patrons think it will.