Death by Dying In most D&D games, the default attitude towards death is that it’s not really much of an impediment after 6th or 7th level. And even prior to that threshold, it’s often possible to be resurrected via a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Highly Motivated Sometimes you design a character knowing exactly how you want them to evolve as an individual over the course of the campaign. Perhaps you’re telling a redemption arc where they grow from being a reaver, criminal, or mercenary […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Life Is Cheap This situation came up in a Living Greyhawk module back in the day. The noblewoman was in peril and we failed. She died. But we had a free “raise dead” through favours and boons, and simply brought her […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Another Mark on the Wall When I run the game, my friend Bryan is the death magnet. But when I play, I attract player character deaths like a brutalised adventurer attracts flies. In the high level mini-campaign we’re currently playing, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
300 This is my 300th webcomic here at 5 Minute Workday. Yay! Party time. So I said to myself, “hey self, why not a colour strip?” Yeah… it was a lot of work. So I’ll be sticking in black-and-white for […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Playing By The Rules The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game has this to say about death: Dead: The character’s hit points are reduced to a negative amount equal to his Constitution score, his Constitution drops to 0, or he is killed outright by a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Convenient Timing In D&D and other roleplaying worlds, there is an unspoken law of conservation of experience. Player characters kill monsters and gain their experience in some sort of weird exchange, like a quickening from Highlander. The amount of experience in […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
A Ticking Clock Negative hit points that slowly tick down as your character bleeds to death in the middle of the battlefield probably seemed like a good idea when 3rd Edition D&D was being designed. It added a countdown to […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Against All Odds I love the chaotic randomness of the Deck of Many Things. I don’t think I’ve used it much over the years, but when it does make an appearance things get really interesting at the table really fast. Over […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Inherently Valuable Five-thousand gold pieces is a lot of money to spend on “ice”. With the silver piece being the standard currency, the baseline for the cost of labour, a single gold coin has the purchasing power of $500. To […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Expendable Resources I’m a fan of the idea that not every fight should be fair. A good GM shouldn’t set out to regularly create fights that the PCs cannot win. That’s a dick move. However, success should also not always be […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Trash Talking is a Free Action Each round takes six seconds. This does not mean every turn takes six seconds, but really that all turns share the same six seconds. So at a table of four facing two enemies everyone […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
