Tom Van Winkle's Return to Gaming

This post gives a name to a very fast method of using dice that is already found in several games. It points out the similarity of the odds of this method to the even more widespread 2d6+/-modifiers method as well as current iterations of the d20 method. The familiar 2d6 method with a target of 10 Many role-playing games resolve uncertainty with 2d6 rolls and a target number of 10 for success. You add the results of two six-sided dice and add modifiers, positive or negative, and aim for a total of 10 or higher to succeed (or to succeed fully). Typically, the modifiers are equal to, or derived from, one or more character stats. There may be more modifiers, plus or minus, for situations advantageous or disadvantageous. I will call this the 2d6/target10 method. In this system, the default, when you have no modifiers, is a 1-in-6 chance of succeeding, because there’s a 1-in-6 chance of rolling 2d6 to get a total of 10 or higher. With bonuses, the odds of success increase as follows: ...

If you are a parent of a kid who plays D&D or another role-playing game with friends, you may have a new play group to recruit right in front of you: the parents of the other kids. Here's how I got my most regular current in-person gaming group, which has been going for well over a year now. Maybe you can do something similar. This post is about how I made it work. First, I had some auspicious preconditions: Our kids already had a near-weekly game during the school year. The schedule was organized though a shared document to coordinate where and when the kids' game sessions would happen. Because my son was the kids' DM, his school-and-activity schedule was the reverse template for their game schedule over some years already, which meant the families were all used to hearing from us about availability. Most of the families of the gamer kids had volunteered to take turns hosting the kids' D&D game already over several years. This means we knew and trusted each oth...

 There are arguments that D&D should , or should not be, “racially diverse,” because it was, or wasn’t, like that in the world “back then.” Folks, D&D is usually not even attempting to represent a historical society. Even when it seems to be making the attempt, it’s still a fantasy representation based on other representations. It’s not relevant to argue about “what it was like back then” without any more specificity. Even then, the historical examples you happen to know will not cut it. They are not representative of the range of human experience. The societies of fantasy worlds are bound by genre, not history. Genre is about common expectations and shared references, not actual events. Just make the fantasy as you wish within the limits of shareability, or keep it to yourself. Many components of the fantasy genre are premised on incidental premodern or preindustrial representations, in the quest for the feeling of verisimilitude , to make the fantasy seem more real. Hal...

But you aren't composing a novel or reading a script . (Not during an RPG session, anyway.) This is a long blog post about pervasive mistakes and miscommunication in the debate about "storytelling" in RPGs. "D&D is storytelling , so it needs a plot ." You can find plentiful resources on the internet today offering advice for Dungeon Masters on how to prepare a D&D campaign plot so the players will have a good story . Even though they are not the same thing, the words campaign and plot and story seem almost interchangeable in these discussions. The advice suggests that DMs begin by deciding how the campaign will end, typically with a "boss battle." You should devise a story arc before play. The DM is supposed to write a campaign before it happens . The advice can be personal or highly generic : Devise your plot. [...] Plot can roughly be defined as the action that will occur no matter what the player characters do. The models for these DM-de...