We’ve been playing D&D 3e again recently, and here’s a tiny tip I don’t think I’ve mentioned before. Instead of a single perception roll, D&D 3e had separate Spot and Listen checks, along with separate Move Silently and Hide skills. Which was kind of rubbish, because often it was really both happening at once. And […]

One of these guys has already taken 7 hit points of damage. Now if I can just remember which one… I’ve run lots and lots of games where I’ve tracked the individual hit points of every orc on the battle map. Every GM comes up with their own clever methods of remembering which figure took […]

A horde of kobolds hurl spears at a ranger. Masses of brainwashed soldiers open fire on your friendly neighborhood superhero. Rolling for mobs of weak attackers can eat up game time. It’s doubly bad since a weak attacker probably has a low chance to harm the target, so you are making lots of rolls for […]

Using point buy to assign ability scores is more balanced than rolling, so you avoid having some players get lucky and while others are penalized. It also gives the players more control to create exactly the character they want. The problem is that the players focus too much on the scores that are important to […]