A Syllabus of Swords
It used to be that a writer or game-master who wanted to shore up his or her creativity with some research would have to visit a library. Libraries are still awesome, of course. They...
Ludus Ludorum Blog
The Sins of Game Mastering # 4 – The Sin of Sloth
“We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty” – Quintilian At first I thought I’d be clever and not write anything for this article, seeing as it would fit the sin in both...
Horsecasting, Player Misreadings, and How to Inoculate Your Game Against Crazy
It can be fun to exploit a loophole. It can even be fun to permit such exploits. But if you’re the DM, you want to watch for exploits that rely on misreadings of the...
Serving a Divine Court, Instead of a Solo God
Past editions of D&D have permitted clerics to serve an entire pantheon, rather than a single god. The 5th edition Player’s Handbook is silent about this matter, but the new Dungeon Master’s Guide (p. 11-13) seems fairly...
House Rules for Speed
The faster your combats are, generally, the better your game sessions will be: You can get in more fights and more role-playing while simultaneously ramping up the thrill factor and immersiveness of your game....
Old-School Magic from Illustrator Joseph Garcia
One of my favorite iconic books from D&D’s early days is the AD&D Rogues Gallery, and I don’t seem to be the only one nostalgic for it. Its long tables of essentially random character stats didn’t...
Gazetteer for the Duchy of the Sept
This is the first of a series of Gazetteer entries for regions of the Basin Kingdoms in the World of the Vault. The duchy of the Sept comprises seven settled hexads (hence, “Sept”) and...
Kaboomination Fuel: For the 5e Party, Everyone Gets to Bring Some Pain
The Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition group on Facebook recently enjoyed a long discussion about the damage output of rogues. In response to some concerns that the rogue might be unbalanced, Travis Marcum contributed...
A Death Domain Variant for Neutral Clerics
Note: The text of this article, including the Death domain presented here, is designated as Open Game Content. (Click here for the license.) I f you’re using a Death domain for clerics in your...
Mitra, Daughter of Masks
When I first proposed the idea of a cleric whose divine powers came from being a demigod — a half-deity — one of my good friends, also a long-time gamer, took exception with the...
