Neitherworld Stories

January 20, 2010

Haiti: How To Help

I know that I’m not the only one who has watched the devastation in Haiti, shellshocked… and not knowing what to do. My current financial situation hasn’t really allowed me to make the donations that I’d like to make. What I can do, however, is encourage others to help. If you are still looking for a way to do something,...

December 22, 2009

Limits on Magic Use

As I may have mentioned, I’ve been working on a FATE-inspired, d20-informed gaming system. I’m designing it with D&D-style fantasy (loosely speaking) in mind. One of the problems that I’m running up against is that spellcasting is open to abuse. In the system I’m designing, spellcasting is a skill. It effectively gives you the the ability to use rituals and...

December 14, 2009

Playing a Cleric: Prayers

I have a tendency to play PCs with religious backgrounds. Playing “the cleric” is a challenge, you are playing against expectations. Other players may expect you to be a healing machine. Your GM may impose expectations from a church – or even a god. If you want to develop a multidimensional character with its own identity, you need to develop...

October 26, 2009

Rules Hacking: Combat, Reach, Facing, and Areas of Control

I’ve been working on my FATE-inspired fantasy rules project, and got to thinking about combat yesterday. The ideas I was having were a bit too crunchy for my current project, but they should work as a tweak to d20-based games, 4e, or other games that use a similar minis set-up. The basic idea is that everyone has an Area of...

October 15, 2009

Using Google Wave for RPGs

I just got my Google Wave invitation today. Is anyone thinking about ways of using it related to gaming? I can think of some possible uses. Using it to run online games is obvious. There is even already a dice-rolly-thing. For people (like me) who prefer to play around a real table, it would still be a great way to...

October 14, 2009

Thoughts about Swords and Sorcery

I’ve never been a huge fan of Conan. It isn’t so much the idea of the setting, but Howard’s writing style. I’m not a fan of the florid prose of that age. I’m not a big Lovecraft fan for much the same reason. That said, I do like a lot of the implicit ideas in the Hyborean/Cthulhu mythos. The idea...

October 8, 2009

Natural or Monstrous?

In your favorite fantasy game, is there a difference between animal and monster? If so, why? One thing that bothered me about some versions of D&D is just that distinction. Druids, for instance, could speak with animals. Could they speak with Owlbears? Displacer Beasts? Stirges? My understanding was that they generally could not… because these were monsters rather than animals....

October 1, 2009

Shadowrunning the Dungeon

I’ve only played Shadowrun a few times. Most of them have been with the same group of people. Our playstyle focused upon extensive recon and planning, and – while that style of game might annoy some people – I enjoyed it quite a bit. Yesterday, I got to thinking about how that playstyle could be merged with a dungeon crawl....

September 27, 2009

After Hiatus

Today was my first gaming session in almost two months. It was good. Angela and I joined a game that an old friend of mine has been running once a month or so. The system is First Edition AD&D, more or less. Definitely not my first choice for a system. Incoherent and random. The game premise: all the PCs are...

September 18, 2009

Alchemists in RPGs

There are few fantasy RPGs that have a really interesting way of playing an alchemist. Most of them require a tremendous amount of forethought and bean-counting as you buy and construct your alchemical creations ahead of time. D&D is among the most egregious of these. I like the idea of playing an alchemist, but that’s not the way I want...