Over at the Black Gate, a Game Master discusses why he ran an old-school style game for his friends instead of Pathfinder [https://www.blackgate.com/2016/09/08/why-i-went-old-school-or-swords-wizardry-vs-pathfinder/] , a system he’s also very familiar with. > I used this when explaining S&W to one of my new players. Now, in Baldur’s Gate, he would click on the ‘Find Traps’ skill and if a trap was nearby, it would be outlined on screen in a red box if detected. And he is aware that in a modern g…
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Eric Raymond a while back published some observations on strategies to win games, titled A secret of game-fu [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4699]. > I have a rule: when in doubt, play to maximize the breadth of your option tree. Actually, you should often choose option-maximizing moves over moves with a slightly higher immediate payoff, especially early in the game and most especially if the effect of investing in options is cumulative. This rule has many consequences. In pick-up-and-carry games,…
A long time ago, in a suburb far away, a middle schooler went into the local hobby shop. Most of this shop was dedicated to trains, miniatures, modeling, and such, but it also had an aisle with role playing games and classic wargames by companies like TSR, Steve Jackson Games and Avalon Hill. His eyes fell upon a large, 8.5 x 11 hardcover book. The cover had two people with futuristic weapons, in clothes that would easily fit in on the Millennium Falcon, or Serenity. They were leaving their shi…