Role-Playing Games

I got into role-playing games (RPGs) when I was 10 years old. In the years since, they’ve served me both as a hobby and a part-time profession. No other form of entertainment has the same capacity for joy, camaraderie, and creativity. Moreover, the history of the industry itself is a very fascinating thing to examine.

This section features rants, reminisces, and some rules material for various RPGs. Most of the material is focused around Dungeons & Dragons and its offshoot Pathfinder, as those are my two favorite games. That doesn’t mean that other RPGs get completely ignored, as I love most of what the industry has to offer.

• Gaming Stories: In which I recount some of the more unusual events in my games.
  • Escape from Zanzer’s Dungeon
  • The Evil Tree Spirit
  • Hubris and the Deck of Many Things
  • The Ignominious Death of Machiavelli
  • I Put the Dragon in a Sack
  • Plastic Explosives in the Mattress
  • Pick a Card
• The Pathfinder Playtest: Some thoughts on the Pathfinder RPG‘s first edition change.
  • Character Creation
  • Where Did These Changes Come From?
  • Changes to Come
• AD&D’s Freedom and the Curse of the Media Tie-In: If you run the adventure Freedom, your players will experience anything but.
• Delving into the Book of Erotic Fantasy: Wear Protection: A look at one of the weirdest d20 products ever created.
• In Defense of Good-Aligned Drow: Seriously, they can be pretty cool characters.
• The Most Head-Scratching Demon Lords in D&D: Some demon lords ooze evil. Others are just evil ooze.
• Super Mario Pathfinder: In which I re-skin the Pathfinder RPG for adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom.
• Weird Magic Items I Wish I’d Used: From the crab mecha to the mayonnaise jar, a look at some of the weird magical oddities in D&D.

 

Image: Jeff Easley