Over the last few weeks the Legends and Lore posts have shifted more and more towards fine details, but I feel like there are still some huge issues that we don’t know about D&D Next as a whole. These maybe (hopefully) are things that the design team has already figured out but just...
Putting the Vance in Advanced
posted by Sage LaTorra
Magic systems are a dime a dozen these days. In this week’s Legends and Lore Monte talks about Vancian magic in D&D and, thankfully, some other ways to do it. Monte already covered the first two thoughts that I had on the topic: the close relationship between early D&D and pop culture sources, plus some different approaches to magic in games. There are still a few other options when dealing with magic beyond what Monte mentions, so let’s take a whirlwind tour. First stop: Mortal Coil. This approach is so far gone from D&D that it probably isn’t a great choice for that game, but it’s also maybe the most...
All Star Western
posted by Sage LaTorra
All Star Western is an oddity: a fairly straight-up western from a major publisher. Sure, it does feature Jonah Hex and Dr. Arkham (founder of Arkham Asylum) and the latest story line has taken them in the Bat Cave (long before Bruce every discovered it) but there’s not much in the way...
Within The DevilR...
posted by Sage LaTorra
You know that awesome game of fantasy adventuring that Adam and I are making? Well Josh Mannon is kickstarting a series of adventures for it. It’s called Within The Devil’s Reach and you can help make it a reality. I’ve been able to take a peek at Josh’s work and, well,...
The Challenge of High Level Play
posted by Sage LaTorra
We’re back to levels this week in Legends and Lore as Monte looks at high level play. There are shades of BECMI all over this post. First off a bit of history, since BECMI is a term I only learned in the past few years. BECMI is short for Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal: the series of box sets released from 1983 to 1986 breaking down Dungeons & Dragons (as opposed to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) into level bands of play. Basic featured levels 1-3, Expert was 4-14, Companion had 15-25, Master was 26-36, and Immortal was “beyond levels.” Each one of these games had not only different levels of play but...
