I’ve talked many times in this blog about the format of my Aurikesh campaign, but today I want to dig into it in detail, both for its strengths and its weaknesses. The fundamental format isn’t in any way unique to Aurikesh; from what I have read, it seems to have […]
A little while back, I posted a collection of magic spears (and a magic helmet), and a reader requested a similar collection for maces. Another reader requested that I cover magic bows, and that’s also on my to-do list. Some of these weapons I treat as specifically needing to be […]
Over the past few weekends, I’ve had the great fortune to play in three D&D sessions and run one. Each of these sessions wound up with a centerpiece battle, and I want to look at the different setups, uses of tension, and some statting issues that arose. These were all […]
For the most part, my series on personality features for each race has stuck to official D&D races, with the exception of homunculi. Today, though, I’m tackling one of the races of my own creation: the veytikka. I’ve talked about them a good bit in the past, and I’ll repost […]
Inigo Montoya: You are using Bonetti’s Defense against me, ah? Man in Black: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain. Inigo Montoya: Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro? Man in Black: Naturally, but I find that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. Don’t you? Inigo Montoya: […]
Note the paltry amount of filthy lucre. The piece is “Dragon Slayers and Proud of It,” by Larry Elmore. Last month, I talked about six different approaches to distributing cool treasure in tabletop games. Today I’m looking at the same question from a different angle. Let’s say you’ve figured out what’s […]
In my Aurikesh campaign, all of the characters belong to the Gallant Shields of Chardecum Mercenary Company. This is not very much like the private security companies of the modern day, and not (currently) all that much like the condottieri of Renaissance Italy that are their more direct inspiration. Instead of […]
I’ve been doing some hard work on magic item design over in Tribality, and I’ve talked a bit about the two 5e campaigns I play in, so in this post I’m looking at different approaches to magic items in roleplaying games. I’ve identified six so far, which is my justification […]
I’m introducing a lot of new players to my 5e Aurikesh campaign all at once, so I had to sit down and write out all of the house rules that have accreted in the three-years-and-change that we’ve been playing. This post, then, is to discuss why they exist; if you’ve […]
Today I have for you a subclass – well, two subclasses, but heavily overlapping – that rely on some setting assumptions about wizards that are definitely not true in all settings. If you’re not already allowing and banning subclasses based on how they fit your campaign’s theme, cosmology, and society, […]
