A Ninth Year of Blogging
Goodness, it has been another year. This year I started a Patreon, and for a small-time gaming blog, it does incredibly well thanks to the generosity of friends ...
2019-11-17 05:13:37 +0000 UTC View Post
William Brandes Stoddard posts
What Kinds of Content Do You Want?
I'm interested in making your experience of being my patron as interesting and fun as possible. I'm posting content as often as I can, which is less often than I'd like - it would be great to get back up to 3/month, but that's not going to be reli...
2019-11-03 15:33:53 +0000 UTC View PostCompelled Duel Issues
A couple of months ago, cherished reader Jonathan McGee asked me for my thoughts on the 1st-level spell compelled duel. At the time, my answer could be summed up as, “I’m not sure I’ve thought about it at all,” so I...
2019-11-01 21:02:46 +0000 UTC View PostDifficulty in Tabletop Games
In a recent blog post, Sly Flourish talks about 1st level as the high-water mark for danger in 5e. This sparked a conversation about danger and diff...
2019-10-24 16:45:54 +0000 UTC View PostLARP Design: Wandering Monsters and Active Locations
In a boffer LARP campaign, it does a lot of good for the wandering-monster gameplay experience if the players have a steady supply of reasons to move around the game site in small groups. That is, it both improves the experience of being ...
2019-10-07 16:35:05 +0000 UTC View PostD&D 5e: Earth Domain
Of all the domains that have seen official support in 5e, there are a few ongoing, surprising gaps compared to the 3.5 list of domains and, for that matter, 4e builds. In this case – as if the title of the post didn’t give it away! – I’m t...
2019-09-24 17:36:11 +0000 UTC View PostD&D 5e: Four Spells from Fourth Edition
In last year’s 4e megathread, I listed a bunch of awesome spell names and concepts that hadn’t been officially brought into 5e. In this post...
2019-09-10 21:23:34 +0000 UTC View PostLevel Up Your Background, Part Three
This is the conclusion of my series on advancing your background. If you've forgotten what the heck is going on here, go back to Part One.
Five Magic Items of Sorcerer's Blood
I’ve been listening to a lot of the Court of Swords podcast lately, so I assume that its recent blood-transfusion stories have a lot to do with where the ideas for these magic i...
2019-08-10 05:11:07 +0000 UTC View PostLARP Design: Faction Goals
This post is, in short, absolutely not what I should be working on right now, but I have to get it out of my head and onto your screen before I can make myself work on anything else, so here we are. My friends who have been deeply involve...
2019-07-27 05:32:26 +0000 UTC View PostLevel Up Your Background, Part Two
This is a continuation of the last post. I'm working through more of the Player's Handbook Backgrounds and official variants.
...
2019-07-22 04:37:50 +0000 UTC View PostLevel Up Your Background
I’m a bigtime fan of 5e’s introduction of Backgrounds, particularly as a source of skill and tool proficiencies and noncombat features. Even more than (most) classes and subclasses, Backgrounds also suggest a trajectory of your personal story,...
2019-06-28 15:34:48 +0000 UTC View PostWorldbuilding with Charm Person
A few days ago in Twitter, and in a friend’s Discord channel, I posed some questions about how a setting might respond to the existence of charm person and, implicitly, higher-grade mind-control magic. I want to be 100% clear about this...
2019-06-17 03:45:19 +0000 UTC View PostKi Unleashed
I've released a new PDF of monk subclasses for 5e, through Tribality Publishing. It's available to you for free as Patreon backers. If you've already bought it through DTRPG, I hope you don't mind - your money supported not only me, but also Dave ...
2019-06-13 12:47:42 +0000 UTC View PostLARP Design: Effects on Buildings
This is the story of how, a couple of weeks ago, I had an idea eight years too late for the problem it solves. There's a lot of development history to go into this, though, so bear with me and I'll get to it - or you can skip straight to the Contr...
2019-06-02 04:46:34 +0000 UTC View PostNew Invocations for the Pact of the Chain
I don’t know if this is going to be one of my Unpopular Opinions, but I think it’s easy to look at the warlock Pacts (not Patrons, just Pacts) and expect them to deliver more than the designers seem to have intended. Today I want to talk about...
2019-05-25 04:56:24 +0000 UTC View PostFour New Spells for Seafaring
As part of the Seas of Vodari project, I’m creating new spells for nautical adventures. Thinking back to 3.x, I recall a lot of highly-specialized spells that were okay for wizards, but so situational that any Spells Known class can’t justify ...
2019-05-06 20:32:43 +0000 UTC View Post