Fool's Moon Entertainment

Greetings! Let's talk about world building. While the mechanics of an RPG are important ('how the world functions'), the world building -- the setting and all its moving pieces -- need to be just as solid for immersion. There are plenty of 'generic' RPGs out there (Tiny d6, GURPS, Fantasy Age, FATE, Savage Worlds, etc) which can lay out how the world functions through mechanics, but most such games lack when it comes to building the world you're going to be playing in. Then you have games which lay out a world, but it is perhaps the most vanilla world that you'll ever see -- there's nothing fresh and unique about it.  Or it's just shallow, and any differences are superficial. (Of course, Dungeons and Dragons is a huge example). So what makes a setting interesting? Here's a few things to consider: Culture -- what cultures exist? How do they interact? How long have they been there? Religion -- what pantheons exist? How do they interact? How do they...

  Magic and Technology Don't Mix I've heard this many times, and I don't believe it. The conceit is that, since magic exists,  there's no reason for technology to advance. After all, magic does it better, does it easier, does it faster. Sure. Except that's not even remotely true. How much teaching does it take to get even a modicum of skill in magic? How much does it cost to get trained? Where do you need to go for that training? How many years to get good ? What are the restrictions on spell casting? Do you need to register to be a mage and be allowed to cast certain spells? How long to learn the proper spells? Sure. Developing certain technologies may take time, but the thing about technology is that it builds upon itself. And once something's been developed, it's not too hard to learn the foundations. For example? Steam technology existed in ancient Greece. They started doing all sorts of interesting things with steam. Given time and peace, who knows wher...

One of the greatest books (in my opinion) to come out of 3.5 was the Tome of Battle (aka the Book of Nine Swords). In essence, it destroyed the idea that martial classes should be perfectly mundane, and put them solidly in line with the spell casters of similar level. If you were from one of the classes in the ToB, you were giving fighting techniques which allowed you to do more than go 'I hit it with my sword'. Because in most circumstances, regardless of how you describe a fighter, it all boils down to 'I hit it with my sword'. No amount of poetic license is going to give you any real benefits beyond, 'I roll to hit, I do damage'. ToB fixed that. You had stances, which did different things, and you had maneouvres, which augmented your attacks and gave you nifty things to do. This was sort-of brought over into 4e, and while I never played 4e, I could see the DNA of the ToB in it. The thing is, they didn't put it into 5e.  Not really.  And they really should...

Here's a hot take for you. If a game ends with a TPK it doesn't necessarily mean... the game was bad. the encounter was 'too tough'. the GM was a bad GM. the players were bad players. that someone made a mistake. that the GM should have fudged. The nature of gaming has changed significantly in the last fifty-five or so years, and the nature of the games themselves have changed with it. While you have those people who insist that D&D is a 'wargame' because of its roots, you'll see them in the same breath talk about how the story is important, and how GMs should fudge dice rolls or ignore results (or even monster blocks) for a good story. I find it a touch hypocritical, but whatever. It seems the expectation is that a 'good campaign' is one where the characters go through it, grow and evolve, have their dramatic moments, and typically see the story to the end -- they face the bad guy, there's a conclusion, plots wrap up, etc. Me? I see that as ...

Balance Balance might be the #1 thing talked about in gaming when you go into game theory and play. We talk about balanced rules, balanced parties, balanced encounters... Here's the thing. Mechanical balance isn't possible. Not really. Not without harming the game itself. Because for true 'mechanical balance', you need to have the mechanics control the decisions that the players make - right at character creation. It needs to control the choices players can make in an encounter. It needs to control the choices the characters make in the setting. It needs to control the choices the characters make as they level up. What gear they get. What bonuses they get. Who they encounter. What they can get from each encounter. What they can gather out in the world. The characters get pushed into smaller and smaller boxes, with less and less choices, all in the name of 'balance'. And what this does is make the character sheet really bland, and the mechanics really bland. You ...

One of my favourite things about roleplaying games is that as a game master I will never be able to predict where the campaign will go. The players are quite good at surprising me -- they decide where to go, they decide what to do, and because I give them free reign, they can go on tangents I never expect. For example? I had the PCs encounter a young green dragon disguised as a bandit - she charged 'protection' from anyone who goes through her area, and utterly destroys anyone who doesn't pay. So what happens? One of the PCs negotiates. They pay the tithe, but he offers to make her business 'legitimate' with the local city paying her for the safe passage of anyone going through, and the utter destruction of any threats that are coming through. Being an artificer, he's offering to craft her some things to help her, and to keep in touch with her in case she ever needs help. ... not something I'd expected. In a friend's campaign, the group is supposed to be...

Saw a post on FaceBook today, by a GM asking other GMs how to get the PCs to actually engage in combat -- the GM was upset that the players were going for non-combat solutions to their encounters. Personally? Let them have their non-combat solutions. If the PCs are anti-murder hobo, why not let them? Another GM wondered at hearing the players drive the story, and responded with, "what, I should just suck it up? My desires don't matter?" That's a pretty raw take of the situation, so here's my thoughts: 1) The GM's desires matter at the table. However... 2) The players drive the story. And their desires matter to. And what you need is equilibrium. You want combat? Sure, put in combat. There's some people who just don't listen to reason - they're there to have a fight, and trying to talk them out of it pisses them off more. Go for it. But if the players don't want combat? Then hold back on the combat -- let them have their roleplay. This is a role...