Neitherworld Stories

April 1, 2009

Today’s Lesson:

Believe nothing. As a GM, do you try to trick your players? If so, do you prefer to set up circumstances to deliberately mislead player or to you use NPCs who try to trick the PCs? While I have done the former, I’m definitely in the latter camp. I prefer to be honest and up front with my players (which...

March 25, 2009

The 4e Avenger

Someone brought a copy of the 4e PHBII to game the other night. I immediately turned to check out the Avenger. Why? One of the PCs I’ve most enjoyed playing is Tarbold – a priest of Tritherion in a heavily-houseruled 2nd edition game with very generous multiclassing. In 3.5 terms, he would have been something like a gestalt cleric/rogue. Unfortunately,...

March 25, 2009

Trap of the Vermin King

As promised: Trap of the Vermin King This dungeon is intentionally left system-neutral. There aren’t any stats for monsters, and there isn’t any firm level of treasure. For an example on how to adapt this: The roach swarms that appear could be normal roaches (appropriate for low-level PCs), poisonous roaches, or even mechanical constructs that inject poison into their victims...

March 23, 2009

OPEN GAME TABLE: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs

The RPG Blog Anthology is now available. I’d say it was a long time coming, but Jonathon over at The Core Mechanic put it together in what seems like a surprisingly short time given the work of wrangling so many contributers. Open Game Table is truly a “Best of” the RPG blogging community. An open call went out across many...

March 19, 2009

Reskinning d20 Monk Weapons

I recently started playing a monk in a 3.5 game. The setting is fairly well-defined, and there weren’t any asian-analogue cultures to draw from. Monks didn’t exist in the setting until I wanted to play them. Then they became a martial order within the church of the sun god that had its origins in a clan of Eagle Totem barbarian-types...

March 17, 2009

Lair of the Leprechuan

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

March 17, 2009

The Perils of Dual GMing

Angela and I have been running our Woodstock game together. In some ways, it is very nice to have two GMs, but it can also be tricky. Here are some problems we’ve run into: Lack of flexibility – You know how sometimes, as a GM, you just sort of wing it? With two GMs, that’s tricky. You don’t want to...

March 13, 2009

Undead Arkham Asylum

Over on How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less, Odyssey asked for some inspiration for her megadungeon project. My contribution tickled me, so I thought I’d expand on it a bit. Years ago, the city was overrun by a wave of madness. We are still unsure of its origins. Some say it was an arcane experiment gone...

March 12, 2009

Update

Jenn began her D&D game (3.5) this past week. The setup is a human-centric post-dungeon society. There aren’t adventurers. The world is fairly peaceful under a single human mageocracy. Nonhuman races are marginalized. I’m playing a monk who is associated with the church of Saterus (official state religion). Other PCs include a wizard who is apprenticed to the Magistrate of...

March 6, 2009

Rising Stars

One of the guys I game with was gushing about Rising Stars, the J. Michael Straczynski comic series. He’d just found his trade paperbacks and had re-read them. I remembered hearing about them, so I asked him If I could borrow them. He was more than happy to oblige. When I brought them home, my housemate reacted with mild disgust....