Originally, I had this Long, Rambling Introduction™ about how I made a little extra cash in high school by reading Tarot and constructing astrological charts for people. Which is true. And I highly recommend every GM learn to read the Tarot. Yeah. Seriously. That is actual, honest-to-f$&%ing-goodness legitimate GMing advice. Learn to read the Tarot.…

Now that I’ve posted the Final, Definitive version of the Tension Pool rules, I never have to talk about it again. So, let’s talk about it again by responding to feedback! Whee!

Here it is. At long last. The definitive, comprehensive, actual, final Tension Pool rules. Well, final until I change them again.

This one’s what I call a shower article. Mainly because people complain when I call articles like this, “articles I s$&% out while I’m s$&%ing.” The idea’s the same though. The article’s the result of an idea that came to me while I was dealing with some biological need or another. I wasn’t specifically working…

Let’s not talk about role-playing games today. Let’s talk about other games and how they might help us design role-playing game downtime systems. And why that’s a terrible thing to talk about.

Before I can show you how I present towns, I have to talk about what players can do in towns. And before I can talk about what players can do in towns, I have to talk ABOUT what players can do in towns. That’ll make sense when you read the article. But the article’s about downtime activities.

Once upon a time, D&D allowed players to lead fellowships, attract merry men, and even just hire some temps from the Henchman’s Local #246. I miss those days and I’ve brought them back.

Once upon a time, D&D allowed players to lead fellowships, attract merry men, and even just hire some temps from the Henchman’s Local #246. I miss those days and I’m bringing them back.

Systems and rules are nice, but tools are better. So here’s a simple tool that you can use to do whatever you need to do. Really.

Weeks ago, I showed you how to f$&% CR and build monsters with my way better and way more awesome system. And then I promised I’d also show you how to put those monsters together into encounters. Well, I’m finally back to make good on that promise.

Weeks ago, I told you to f$&% CR and build monsters and encounters the better way. And I confused a lot of people and even made a few people angry. So, here’s a quick and dirty example of how to build a simple monster – two different ways – that should dispel the confusion. But it won’t make the angry people less angry. Not that I care. F$&% ’em.

How much stuff should an adventure have? How many encounters? How many goals? How long should an adventure take to play? Is there a simple template you can build an adventure around? Yes. Yes there is. Because I wrote one.

You know what? I’m sick of dealing with all the overly complicated, overly precise mathematics of encounter and custom monster design in D&D 5E. So I’m going to design an easier way to handle all of this. Unfortunately, I have to rewrite the whole Monster Manual to do it.

You know what? I’m sick of dealing with all the overly complicated, overly precise mathematics of encounter and custom monster design in D&D 5E. So I’m going to design an easier way to handle all of this. I just hope I don’t have to rewrite the whole Monster Manual to do it.

The Tension Pool was such a nice, simple mechanic. Why’d you GMs have to make it so complicated? Is it because I didn’t explain how to use it? Or where to build the complexity? Hint: you put the complexity in the Complications!

Once upon a time, D&D featured complex morale rules. Then the designers realized the problem and simplified and streamlined them. Nah, I’m just kidding. They just said, “screw it” and threw everything. Because fixing things is harder than deleting them.

I’ve been tinkering, off and on, with this Time/Tension Pool thing because my readers were smart enough to recognize a good thing even when I didn’t. And I’ve finally figured out a way to incorporate it into wilderness travel adventures.

Every time I talk about experience points, people want to pick a fight about it. Well, this is my last word on XP: how to properly award XP in D&D 5E, regardless of what the rules say, and regardless of what other players and GMs say.

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.

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.

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?

Character arcs are really awesome things that movies just don’t believe in anymore. But I sure as hell do. And you should to. And you should want them in your D&D game. Let me tell you how to get them.

Remember how I made an awful armor table three weeks ago? Well, let’s turn that AWFUL into AWESOME with two simple words: elegance and extensibility.

Some GMs just don’t know when to stop. And, lucky for you, I’m one of them. What started as a simple effort to reskin some armor for my upcoming campaign turned into a massive overhaul of the D&D equipment system. And here’s where that overhaul began.

It’s all well and good to think through a whole bunch of conceptual bulls$&% when you’re designing a new rules system. But there comes a time when you have to sit down and actual write the rules themselves. So lets give that some thought.

Creating new rules isn’t as simple as coming up with a fun idea for a system and then making it. There’s a whole thing in the middle where you actually spend a bunch of time working out how not to accidentally make a turd. Too bad WotC didn’t know about that step when it came to their crafting rules.

Surprise! Here’s a preview of an upcoming article. It’s a set of rules I built for crafting nonmagical herbal items in D&D 5E using the herbalism kit (and proficiency therewith). Feel free to check out the rules and then come back soon to find out how and why they were created.

Have you ever wondered why players let their characters die? And why every fight must be a fight to the death? Its because hit points are stupid and people don’t die at 0 HP anymore. But don’t worry. I fixed it.

Why is a short rest one hour long? Can you change that? Can you change the resting rules to change the structure of the game? What other stupid questions can I can answer about resting mechanics in D&D.

You know what’s only a problem if you’re a completely obsessive nitpicker who’s overly critical of the way RPGs handle every tiny detail? Race in D&D and Pathfinder. That’s what. Fortunately, Pathfinder gave us a great tool to correct this utter and complete non-issue as long as we’re willing to spend way more time than it’s worth. Lets spend five thousand words discussing it.