RPG Rants

Tools of the imagination, the refuge of geeks everywhere, and fuel for endless Internet flamewars, role-playing games have existed as a marginalized part of popular culture since the 1970s. They also happen to be a major obsession of mine.

This section is devoted to my ramblings and thoughts regarding RPGs and the industry around them. It is also the last refuge on the site for Dungeons & Dragons related material – while I no longer play that specific RPG, it is still the 800-pound gorilla of the industry, not to mention the game that I grew up playing. Despite the D&D-specific nature of some of these rants, though, they should mostly have relevance to the industry at large.

• Gaming Stories: Some reminisces from two decades plus of gaming.
  • Escape from Zanzer’s Dungeon
  • I Put the Dragon in a Sack
  • The Evil Tree Spirit
• The Worst Adventure Ever:Presenting the Avatar Trilogy, the worst published adventure in the RPG industry.
  • Shadowdale, chapter one
  • Shadowdale, chapter two
  • Shadowdale, chapter three
  • Shadowdale, chapter four
  • Shadowdale, chapter five
  • Shadowdale, chapter six
  • Tantras, chapter one
  • Tantras, chapter two
  • Tantras, chapter three
  • Tantras, chapter four
  • Tantras, chapter five
  • Tantras, chapter six
  • Waterdeep, chapter one
  • Waterdeep, chapter two
  • Waterdeep, chapter three
  • Waterdeep, chapter four
  • Waterdeep, chapter five
  • Waterdeep, chapter six
  • Epilogue: Making it Work
• The Art of a Good Ending: Mass Effect 3 gets me pondering about what is necessary for a good ending in an RPG.
• Big Bad Evil Guys: What makes a campaign’s villain interesting?
• The Editions of Dungeons & Dragons: Can’t tell one edition from another without a scorecard.
• D&D: The “What, again?!” Edition: Dear WotC: please don’t let D&D die in the dungeon.
• Gaming Snobs: Edition wars are futile.
• The History of Dungeons & Dragons: What goes around comes around.
• Hit Points and Armor Class: A detailed look at the abstract parts of the combat system in d20-based games.
• On Character Death: Is the threat of character death really all it’s cracked up to be?
• Pathfinder and Periodicals: How the makers of Dungeons & Dragons tried to fix something that wasn’t broken and instead created their greatest competition.
• Rise of the Red Mage: A look at the best villain I’ve ever had in a role-playing game and the lessons he’s taught me about RPG villains in general.