CrystalBall is the best damn D&D RPG tool on the Mac. The fact that it’s also one of the only D&D RPG tools for the Mac is beside the point. Available as a shareware trial download (Internet Archive), the program is comprised of a dozen or so different utilities for your game that can be … Read more
The latest editions of Dungeons & Dragons went to great lengths to abstract the combat system, eliminating weapon speeds, dropping call shots, and creating area-of-effect templates. All of this abstraction comes at a price though. Some of the exceptional aspects of the game — liking being able to put an arrow through an enemy’s eye … Read more
In the last issue of the Libertarian Gamer, I laid the ground work for a libertarian campaign set in the classic post-apocalyptic setting known as Gamma World, laying down some campaign guidelines and destroying the world. Now it’s time to rebuild it. Into the Vaults Every Gamma World (Amazon) game worth its salt has vaults — … Read more
When Eberron, Dungeons & Dragons’ latest campaign setting, was announced, I was less than excited. Descriptions of it — with its “lightening road” trains, airships, and various “modern” convinces powered by magic, struck me as being too much like “magepunk”, and too little like fantasy D&D. And there was the spectre of the Forgotten Realms, … Read more
My gaming group is contemplating our first new Greyhawk campaign in about two and a half years. It’s going to be a first-level campaign, set in our homegrown city of Obsidian Bay, and I’m going to be the primary DM. The game is still in its planning stages, but I’ve already identified a few themes. … Read more
The stirge. It is a monster whose name echoes down the halls of dungeon crawling history, evoking terror and scorn as it does so (terror for low-level characters trapped in a cavern with them, scorn for high-level adventurers all but immune to their blood-sucking attacks). This monster, whose roots date back to the dawn of … Read more
In Part 1 of this column, I gave an overview of Monte Cook’s Diamond Throne (Amazon) campaign setting for Arcana Unearthed (Amazon) and talked about the sort of adventures I’d like to run there. In Part 2, I talk about the races and classes I’d use to achieve the goals set out in the first column. One … Read more
Monte Cooke’s Arcana Unearthed (Amazon) is an alternative Players Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons that ditches the game’s time-honored fantasy classes in favor of wholly new classes that contain echoes of their predecessors, but represent something entirely different. It does an excellent job of breaking the fantasy molds, and it’s surprisingly well-suited for a libertarian campaign. … Read more
I’m in the process of putting together a new music-themed feature article for Nuketown. My intention is to do something similar to the Mac RPG feature, with links to Web sites focusing on music in role-playing games, links to RPG musicians, commentary from gamers. I also plan on writing some original articles about using music … Read more
In WISH #96, Ginger asked (Internet Archive): Describe one or more occasions when a game went click for you and things fell together. Why do you think this happened? What factors made it possible? What were the consequences? It just happened this past Saturday. It was in the Scarred Lands campaign where I’m a player, … Read more