Skills in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons are pretty limiting.
You get your allotted number of skills at first level, and they stay pretty static throughout the game; only really getting better when you level up and your proficiency bonus (slowly) increases.
I find this a little odd, given that in the real world a person can get better at a skill, and I don’t think it’s a great leap to think fantasy characters could as well.
Worlds are created as much by taking things away as it is by adding things.
There was a recent discussion on Facebook around GMs restricting choices from the players – specifically around races and classes – in their campaigns.
And a few people felt this was alienating and silly, and reeked of a GM power trip.
In my opinion, this view is misguided.
One thing that makes a lot of the great D&D world, like Forgotten Realms, so good is they a steeped in history.
And this history comes to life to such an extent that it impacts on current events.
This is something I have always liked and something I wanted to add to my new sandbox campaign world.
However, it can be difficult to come up with so much vivid history for your own world. Or you may be too worried about what is happening now to give it much thought.
Continue reading “Using Random Encounter Tables To Add History To Your World”
I love creating new and interesting things for my sandbox campaign world – new nations, tribes, organisations, locations, whatever!
But sometimes my imagination lets me down and I get stuck with what to create next.
When this happen I like to do one of my favourite things to shake me out of the mental/creative block – character generation.
Continue reading “How To Easily Create Cool Stuff For Your Campaign World”
I hate Experience Points (XP).
As a GM I have always hated doing the math after every game and I dislike creating XP for individual encounters.
The time it takes could be spent playing or, if you are like me, sleeping after a late night session.
The last thing I feel like doing after a gaming session is calculating XP.
I was playing a game the other week and experienced railroading in the extreme, which I hadn’t experienced in a long time, and it left me frustrated and deflated with the rest of the game.
(I have since left that campaign due to not liking the rules, but that’s a whole other post.)
The game started great.
Continue reading “Why Railroading Is Damaging Your Game, And Why You Should Never Do It”
