In September 2006, Christian Gamers Guild member Scott Bennie posted several drafts of this article to the guild group mailing list. It appears not to have made it to the web site, an oversight which is being addressed presently. Christianity and Role-Playing Games: Toward Reconciliation The price of living in grace is that we must … [Read more…]
No, this article isn’t about dungeons or caves. It’s about a design lesson that I only learned as an adult. As a kid, I skimmed through the Dungeon Masters Guide and the Monster Manuals countless times, planning adventures or just perusing all of the intriguing stuff within. Though this wasn’t playing, it was still magic. … [Read more…]
Many years ago, when we were just learning to play D&D Third Edition, our weekly gaming group spent over a year exploring the Temple of Elemental Evil. What started out as a brief tutorial in a new game system never ended, and a year later several players grew bored and frustrated. Though I joined the … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #35: Seekers, for October 2020. The “magic” in our role playing games is “make believe.” It’s not real, and no one could by reading any of the Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks or source books learn how to do any “real magic,” if such a thing exists. Indeed, you can’t learn … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #34: Invisible Coins, for September 2020. This was originally published as Game Ideas Unlimited: Invisible Coins on July 27, 2001. It is only slightly edited for republication here. You’ve probably heard the line about our strange and beautiful relationship—in which I’m beautiful, and you’re… well, I’ll assume you’ve heard it. My relationship … [Read more…]
For the first time, I left the evening of D&D feeling accomplished. This time, things seemed to click. The DM drew us further into our character development, and I felt more connected to the character I had essentially created as a joke, as well as a game that was still extremely foreign to me. My … [Read more…]
In part 1 of this series on single-session adventures, Michael gave the broad strokes of adventure design, from the desired playstyle to decisions on system and settings. Now we move into more specific adventure construction advice. If you missed the previous article, find it here: Designing the Adventure part 1 Consider Multiple Environments George Lucas … [Read more…]
Part one of a four-article series on designing and running a one-shot, single-session adventure. See the end of the article for links to the rest of the series. Unfortunately, I’ve never been to a gaming convention, but for years I have been intrigued by the early tournament adventures of the late 1970s and early 1980s. … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #32: Zealots, for July 2020. Some years back in one of my games an important local military official was murdered, and under the authority of their cavalier the party took over investigating the crime. They had out-of-character reason to believe that a certain local cleric and his two acolytes were … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #30: Conflict, for May 2020. A few years back my band Collision left its equipment set up in a church in which we had been practicing. The drummer had gotten our logo made as a drum head cover, so there was this picture of the earth crashing into a giant … [Read more…]