Author: Walt Ciechanowski

Back in the days when I was still coloring in my dice numbers, we primarily used group initiative to determine combat order. There were no modifiers; a player and the GM each rolled a die. If the player scored the highest result, the PCs acted first. If the GM scored the highest result, then the enemies acted first. This was determined every round, so it was possible for either side to get two complete sets of attacks in before the other side acted. While this…

For (American) football fans in Philadelphia, this is an exciting time. The head coach of 14 years was fired after a dismal season and new coach Chip Kelly was hired. While listening to reports about his arrival, I rolled my eyes when the new coach inevitably made the “Santa being pelted by snowballs” comment. This incident, in which fans pelted a man in a Santa suit during halftime, is notorious throughout football. It’s also a little over 44 years old. The fact that it’s still…

Over the holidays I struggled with what kind of article I wanted to start 2013 with. For me, the winter holidays are always a time of renewal and reflection and I wanted to begin with something that was broadly applicable. For a while, I was coming up empty, but sometimes the answer falls right into your lap. I was banging away at a project in my office when the Gnome Hot Line rang. The call was from a fellow GM and friend I’ve known for…

Admit it, we all have them. As Game Masters there is usually something that, no matter how innocuous, just gets under our skin. They aren’t major issues and certainly nothing worth sweating over, but they niggle just the same. They are pet peeves, and recently I was reminded of two of mine as they appeared at my table. The first is the Puppet Master. This is the player that “encourages” other players to use particular things on their character sheets, even if the Puppet Master’s…

There’s an old adage amongst my gaming circles: “There are roleplaying games, and there is D&D.” This is not meant as a knock against Dungeons and Dragons of any edition or its derivatives for not being a true ‘roleplaying game,’ but rather an acknowledgement that playing D&D often requires a different mindset and assumptions than other games. I’ve often met players and GMs that find it difficult to transition from D&D-style play to other RPGs and vice versa. Some go so far as to “only…

Wow this is absurdly late! Sorry about that. It’s been about 3.5 months since the last update, and I’m happy to report that I finally accomplished mine. As I said in the last installment one of my gaming group was prepping a The One Ring event for Gen Con and I got to be a player in it. While it was only for a single evening, I felt that I got a good player experience. I knew nothing about the game going in, as is…

It’s remarkable the number of times I’ve delved into a dungeon and discovered that the magical weapons and armor found in a lost tomb hundreds of years old look a lot like the stuff our party is carrying. There seems to be technological stagnation in many fantasy worlds, where ancient wars and warriors haven’t changed much over time. This is a shame really, because differentiating the ancient artifacts littered in your game world can really add layers of mysteries and complications to your campaigns, rather…