Lately I’ve started a bunch of series related to gaming, in particular my love of D&D and similar TTRPGs (tabletop roleplaying game
D&D and Me
My personal story about how I came to love the game and my formative experiences with it.
- Part 1: The Time Beforetimes
- Part 2: Mapping Out the Territory
- Part 3: Playing the Roles
- Part 4: If I Could Talk to the Animals
- Part 5: Multiple Personalities
- Part 6: The Contemplative Life ... of Punching the Crap of out People
- Part 7: The Next Generation
- Part 8: Resurgence of the Game
- Part 9: All in the Family
GM Philosophy
These are posts which outline my personal tenets as a GM (game master). This is mainly to have a formal place to point players to if they want to know what to expect in my games.
Multiclassing
One D&D topic that’s near and dear to my heart is multiclassing: the ability for one character to advance in more than class. I started a series exploring how this was handled in various editions of D&D, hopefully to culminate in some ideas about what the perfect multiclassing system might be.
- History of the Multiclasses (2nd edition)
- History of the Multiclasses (3rd edition)
- History of the Multiclasses (4th edition)
- History of the Multiclasses (5th edition)
General D&D 5e Musings
Occasionally I write something more general about fifth edition D&D in particular. There’s not a lot of throughline for these. It is, by its nature, an open-ended series.
- The Starting Level Dilemma
- Meet Arkan Kupriveryx (Concept)
- Meet Arkan Kupriveryx (Execution)
- Minor Magic Items
- Rotating Through the Gaming
- 5e vs Pathfinder: A Dance of D&Ds
- Perception, Investigation: a Perpetual Imbroglio
- We All Need a Little Guidance Sometimes
General Pathfinder Musings
Before D&D’s fifth edition (affectionately known as 5e) came out, I was pretty big into Pathfinder. I have some musings on that too:
- The Path to Pathfinder (part 1 of 2)
- Destination: Pathfinder (part 2 of 2)
- Looking Forward to Pathfinder’s Next Iteration
General Heroscape Musings
Outside of TTRPGs, my other big gaming love is Heroscape. Here are some thoughts about that game:
- Why Heroscape Is Cool
- Heroscape Forever
- Assault on the Ice Tower (posted on Heroscapers.com as “Xotli”)
- Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me a Map (short)
General Fantasy Musings
Sometimes I just like to talk about fantasy gaming in general, storytelling through TTRPGs, etc. Like these:
Gaming with my Family
Of course I sometimes game with my family, and I sometimes write about it. Here are some samples: (Note: Most of these are about D&D, but some are about Heroscape.)
- Roleplaying After the Fall
- A Game for a Younger Man
- War for Father’s Day
- Genethlian Cartography (quickie)
- Why I Play D&D
- Quiet week, just a few demons to deal with ... (short)
- Another proud father moment (quickie)
- No Time Like the First Time
- Kicking off the Family Campaign
- D&D Story #1: The Demon Doll
Heroscape tournament reports
Most years, I attend an annual Heroscaper tournament with a group of folks called the SoCal League. Typically I take at least a human child or two along for the ride, so here’s a family subcategory consisting of those posts:
- Tourney the First (NHSD 2012)
- National Heroscape Day 2013 (short)
- Tourney prep (short)
- National Heroscape Day 2014 (short)
- National Heroscape Day 2015 (short)
- National Heroscape Day 2016
- NHSD 2017: Quick Results (short)
- SoCal ‘Scapers Summer Gameday, 2019 (short)