Roll Some Dice

From left to right: Rules Cyclopedia, One D&D Playtest Packet 5 I'm a big fan of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia .  Published in 1991, it compiles the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal boxed sets (aka BECMI) into a single chunky book, complete with Darlene-style hex maps of the "Known World" of Mystara in the back. It may be the best single-book edition of D&D . It may also be the only single-book edition of D&D , but that's neither here nor there. The RC has a lot going for it besides the form factor, like non-weapon proficiencies, something like prestige classes or subclasses, and... weapon mastery. Yes, weapon mastery, the cool new thing in the most-recent One D&D playtest packet that has everyone abuzz! And for good reason; it's a little something extra for the martial classes that doesn't come close to addressing the power discrepancy between casters and non-casters, especially at high levels, but still. (In addition to being

  I'm further along than this, I swear, but transferring material from the notebook to the blog is a thing that takes time. So here's another week's worth of Umomkegeth! 1-8 Guard Room Dwarven guards once stood here to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the Hall of Artifacts (1-9). Bas reliefs of craftsdwarves cover the walls, as does the blood of the dwarves who died here. 1-9 Hall of Artifacts This used to house Umomkegeth's finest artistic achievements on stone pedestals distributed throughout the room. It was a source of pride for the dwarves, and a point of interest for visitors. Now the pedestals are toppled and broken. Behind a tattered tapestry on the west wall is a secret door. 1-10 West Barracks Stone bunk beds for eight dwarves line the walls of this room, surrounding a stone table in the center carved from the living rock itself. There is nothing else of interest here. 1-11 West Drill Hall Rotted remains of wooden swords and axes litter the floor.

  Map created using Dungeonscrawl. Okay, a day later than promised, but let's do this! Actually, wait -- first let me briefly talk about what's on the surface, above the entrance. The dwarves established the colony on a plateau and digging down, as opposed to in the side of a hill or mountain. That entrance was within a simple but solid stone structure, just four walls and a set of double-doors. Beside this, they erected their trading depot, to more easily transact business with merchants from distant lands. (Better that than inviting them in.)  Today, the depot is all but gone. Whatever wasn't obliterated by the undead was worn down by time and the elements. The stone edifice still stands, but the formerly impressive double doors are now just two slabs on the ground, half=buried and overgrown with weeds. Without them, nothing prevents any creature so inclined from just waltzing in and descending the stairs within. Despite this, only adventurers are foolish enough to do so.

  Dungeon23 ! Cool idea. One room a day, one level a month, culminating in a 12-level, 365-room megadungeon.  It's also... a lot. Fortunately for me, only a few days before I saw the posts about Dungeon23, I started playing Dwarf Fortress for the first time. Even more fortunately, I am bad at it . Let me explain why that's good. If you're not familiar with the game, it's an extremely complex world-simulator with no real endgame other than having fun. What that means is up to each individual player. You could train your dwarves to be killing machines, raiding their neighbors and conquering the world. Or maybe they're farmers instead of conquerors. (Full disclosure, I still don't really know how to do either of those.) You can tunnel deep into the earth and establish a home surrounded by subterranean wonders, send your dwarves up into the trees to contend with giant squirrels, cut down a forest of trees to build a floating town on a lake, or whatever else you ca

SPOILER ALERT This post is about an inconsistency in one of the maps in Skullkickers: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque . If you're a player in a group that's currently going through this adventure, for your own sake you should stop reading now. DMs only from here on out. Thanks! An eagle-eyed reader sent us the following: On level 3 of the dungeon, the rotating room in D50 is controlled by the wheel in room D51... but the only way to get into room D51 is to enter through the rotating room in D50. Is there supposed to be another entrance to D51? Is there supposed to be another way to rotate D50? Maybe I'm misreading it, but I can't figure it out.  First of all, thank you for your feedback, kind Kickstarter backer (I assume). It's a good question. And you know what? They're not wrong! But let me give you some reasons why it's probably okay. The areas beyond D50 can still be accessed without messing with it or D51 at all. It's a more circuitous route

  Well, it wouldn't be a real RPG book if it didn't have errata, right? It seems that in Skullkickers: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque (now available on a website near you ), a couple artifacts from the previous relationships subsystem sneaked through into the final product. Fortunately, it's only embarrassing, as opposed to something that causes an actual problem. The passages in question are on pages 45 and 47, but deleting the offending sentences is enough to fix it. Here's the one on page 45, down in the last paragraph on the page. If you can't see that, the two sentences to cut are these: If a character has an NPC roommate, that NPC immediately becomes an Acquaintance, assuming the character spends a little time getting acquainted with them. See Social Studies (page 10) for what that means for the character.  The two on page 47 are more of the same. Again, the sentences to cut are these: Any character who spends a good portion of the evening with an NP