Ain't No Walls

      The last time I talked about balance with regards to character classes, I found myself outspoken on several points. Well buckle up, because we're going back in to talk about balancing encounters. Anyone who is afraid to place a lich in their beginner's dungeon should have a look at Tomb of the Serpent Kings - art by David A. Trampier -     Challenge rating. If you've ever DM'd a 5E campaign you know the struggle of getting the CR for any combat encounter just right. Too low and the party will steamroll the enemies without spending any resources. Too high and you risk a TPK, ruining the beautifully crafted arcs for each PC. 5E's mechanics and inclusion of CR in the monster stat blocks creates this unique conundrum. As for myself, I have freely dealt my players magic items and weapons from Session One, and now I feel like I can throw any CR encounter at them and they will go hard every time, and nobody leaves the table disappointed. The threat of death is very r

     Balance. What all great multiplayer games strive for. Whatever your tastes, odds are there is at least one game in your catalogue that is constantly being patched and updated by the dev team (looking at you Destiny 2 ) in pursuit of a "fair" experience for all players. Funnily enough, there always seems to be a vocal part of such a game's community that gripes about every update. There also seems to be no end to the updates, as they usually continue until the next game in the franchise is released and support ceases for the previous entry. All this in the name of balance, yet balance seems to always be just out of reach. What does this have to do with Dungeons & Dragons you ask? Perfectly balanced. As all things should be. Unless?     The current generation of TTRPGs also has this obsession with balance. WotC's periodical releases of Unearthed Arcana  not only provide new content for 5E, but tweak existing classes and features of the game to be more "bal

     With the publication of  my first article , I was quickly reminded by several readers that skill checks, in fact, do  exist in early editions of D&D. I'll clarify right here that my commentary on the increasing reliance on skill checks throughout subsequent editions refers specifically to the list of universal skill checks present in those games, where all characters have access to the same skills regardless of class or ability scores. That being said, now we're gonna dig into the origins of universal skill checks and whether or not you can throw them in the trash with your copy of Unearthed Arcana . "So, let me get this straight: You want to sneak up behind the guard, silently break his neck without alerting his companions, and drag his corpse into the bushes so you can loot it? *sigh* Roll stealth I guess. Oh but with disadvantage since you're wearing plate mail." - art by Jeff Easley -     Skill checks happened in early D&D when players attempted t

     Thanks to the good people over at reddit, I have a backlog of topics to expound on, including those cursorily mentioned in my first two posts. After much deliberation, I have decided that lethality is the subject of highest importance when discussing the OSR through the lens of 5E. In many discussions on many internet forums, I have seen lethality as the definitive kill switch for enthusiasm when it comes to new players entering from modern editions. It can be discouraging when you play a new game for the first time and die over and over again. How can you expect to have any fun when your character dies before accumulating any loot or experience? It's a fair criticism to make about OSR systems, and the reality is not so straightforward. Hello darkness, my old friend     Let's take a look at some of the main underlying causes of lethality in an OSR game and how players can manage them so everyone has a good time: 1. Slow recovery of hit points  - there are no healing surge

  Mom says it's our turn to roll death saves  - art by  Jussi Alarauhio -     My introduction to the OSR happened at the bookstore. Browsing the TTRPG aisle, a heavy tome caught my eye with its name and artwork alone: Zweihander . Touting itself as both grim and  perilous, the idea of a more dangerous system than D&D thrilled me. I bought it, and spent the next week or so reading it cover to cover. Zweihander is a d100 system, meaning everything is in percentiles, from core stats to the resulting skill checks. It also abandons traditional hit points in favor of Peril; basically the more you fail at fending off threats to your life, the closer you draw to death, in steps, until it is inevitable. What struck me as interesting was how mundane things like a rat bite or a crossbow bolt wound could kill a character. Nobody playing Zweihander is going out in a blaze of glory like Matthew McConaughey in Reign of Fire. It's much more likely they will suffer an ignominious death like

  Back when a beholder was a force to be reckoned with, and not just a damage sink for your party of demigods - art by Todd Lockwood -     I'll be clear right from the start, this post is directed at players of 5th Edition D&D. If you're like me, you may have wondered to yourself at some point, "What was this game like in the beginning? If this is the fifth iteration of Dungeons & Dragons , why don't I ever hear much about the previous four?" Perhaps you have dabbled in more recent editions preceding 5E, like 4E, 3.5, or Pathfinder (which is a hack of 3.5, but we'll circle back to that). Maybe you've come to the conclusion that D&D, much like a videogame franchise, has generally improved over time and going back to previous editions, while fun, would be counterproductive, like playing The Elder Scrolls: Arena  when you could be playing Skyrim . In some ways you would be right. However, the progression of D&D isn't quite as linear as y