Author Archives: rob

Death by Red Herring……

By rob | Published March 10, 2009

Amongst the many aspects of role playing games, taking and losing life is a big part of most. Whether you are running or participating in games you can almost always predict that at some point, somebody or something is going to die (and invariably it will be extraordinarily messy). Lets face it, the manner of [...]

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Last Orders Gentlefolk Please!

By rob | Published February 12, 2009

I came to D&D Third Edition quite late. It is strange but however much you enjoy something, on occasion you don’t get around to it and D&D became a bit like that for me. Bringing up my step-daughter and keeping my former wife in the manner she was accustomed to meant I ended up limiting [...]

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Plot Lines and Politics

By rob | Published February 5, 2009

I recently posted my tips for getting the most out of playing monsters in an article called fantasy creatures without commenting on my favorite theme – politics. Monsters Have Lives Too! When you think about it, monsters will have their own trials and tribulations before the arrival of a blundering group of characters makes life [...]

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Optional Rules for Fantasy Magic Failure

By rob | Published January 21, 2009

I voiced my wish to see some chance of spell failure in D&D in my recent post about Fantasy Magic. Having been called out by Bonemaster I have put together my suggestions as to how to use spell failure. My plan is not to make it a frequent or lethal event, just a way of [...]

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4 Tips for getting the most from Fantasy Creatures

By rob | Published December 17, 2008

As a GM, the fantasy creatures you add to your gaming sessions are your characters and for this reason probably the most important aspect of the game as well as the one that can give you the most pleasure. In practice and as a player, I’ve seen even the best GM’s floundering with their creations [...]

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Three Historical Roleplaying Name Generators

By rob | Published December 13, 2008

I recently put up a post about roleplaying names and talked about online name generators without going into depth. I thought I’d share with you some links I use and some I’ve found that are all based around historical cultures or their meaning. Name Generators with History and Meaning Behind the Name does not have [...]

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Five Resources for Fantasy Themed Roleplaying Names

By rob | Published December 10, 2008

Here are some more name generators in the context of my recent article about roleplaying names. This time I have collected together those with a fantasy theme. The Bards Tales appears to be very popular and therefore should feature in my list. I however am not a huge fan. Whilst this generator does provide a [...]

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Roleplaying Names

By rob | Published December 8, 2008

Coming up with plausible names for characters, NPCs and even the villages, towns and cities in a scenario or campaign can be a bit of a bind. I love to think I have a creative mind but I often go blank when faced with this challenge. When you think about it, the roleplaying names used [...]

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Wizards and schools of magic

By rob | Published December 6, 2008

Some further points concerning wizards cropped up this weekend in an interesting thread on the RPGNet forums started by Count_Rugen. I posted my thoughts on wizards a few weeks ago including how I voluntarily limited myself to the unfashionable Necromancy School for my character Corvell. The thread on RPGNet asked for readers views on ranking [...]

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Origins of Magic in a Fantasy Roleplaying World

By rob | Published December 4, 2008

In my recent article about fantasy magic I complained about the lack of any explanation for the phenomenon of magic in D&D. Now to be fair to Wizards of The Coast, the more recent editions of the game have a greater emphasis on the system itself and progressively less on ideas and content if you [...]

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