Blog posts : "Leonard's Thoughts"
There's Goodly Trade in Unicorns
Outside the Asylum
Once upon a time, the greatest and most advanced super-power in the world built a mighty wall and set up strict laws to keep out uncivilized foreigners who threatened its way of life.
Outside the wall, shut off from becoming part of the super-power's shining dream, the rest of the world busied itse…
Pawn or Protagonist? (Part 2)
Reconciling the Dual Nature of Player Characters
The 1980's was one long journey down the road from pawn toward protagonist for the player characters in RPGs. The novelty of controlling a pawn as he crawled through mazes, battling monsters and collecting loot, was wearing off. Jaded players wante…
Pawn or Protagonist? (Part 1)
Reconciling the Dual Nature of Player Characters
Nameless, faceless, identical -- pawns exist to be sacrificed on the chess board. Growing emotionally attached to your playing pieces, struggling to keep them instead of staying focused on which ones to give up in order to move yourself close…
The Rules of Narrative: Every PC Comes to the Table Armed with Chekhov's Gun
"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." -- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Much ink, both virtual and real, has been spilled on the subject of how important it is for a GM, in his limitless power,…
Further Thoughts On the Resolution Bonus Chart
It was brought to my attention after my last post that the defensive fight maneuver was changed in fifth-edition Pendragon. It now longer allows a normal damage roll on a critical success, so the maneuver has been reduced to use as a delaying tactic. I only checked to make sure that the maneuver sti…
Wilsonshire Pendragon Mods: The Resolution-Bonus Chart
Here’s the first and most important house rule I made to make Pendragon playable with an over-achieving player: the resolution-bonus chart.
The number one thing that makes the game’s rules fragile is the over-20 resolution-roll bonuses. Grab yourself a sword (so that it doesn’t break on a tied…
Teprigoth: Okay, so it's not the city that never sleeps.
But every time it closes it's eyes... it wakes up screaming.
Teprigoth is a sprawling Renaissance metropolis that's grown up organically into a seemingly endless labyrinth of streets and alleys. Going one's whole life without ever catching a glimpse of the world beyond those streets is not on…
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Game
Hello. My name is Leonard, and I'm a power gamer. It feels a curious thing to admit to, given some of my other beliefs about myself, but there you go. And I think it's why I was able to get my mind around D&D 4E and have some fun with it while my friends were dissing it as a lost cause. I've also go…
Ed Greenwood Still Owes Me an Apology
I recently threw out as a one-liner joke on Google+ that, "I blame many things on Ed Greenwood. Some of them might even be justified." After that, another participant in the conversation observed that he didn't "get the anger toward Ed".
I can't speak to any issues other than my own, b…
What's Your Role-Play Alignment?
It's a well known social acxiom that when your goal is to have an amiable chat with someone you don't really know, never allow the topic of conversation to turn to politics or religion. A less well known social acxiom is never discuss whether or not you believe a game master should allow h…
Gotta Start Somewhere
Google has managed what Facebook never could, in that I find myself increasingly becoming a member of the online community. As such, I periodically find myself part of discussions where I have so much to say that it seems gauche to throw it into the middle of an ongoing dialogue. So when those occas…
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Crystal ShepardJune 3, 2013