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Mark A. Ziesemer: Respecting the JavaScript global namespace Here's my plea to all JavaScript developers, whether for web pages, Firefox extensions, or otherwise: Please respect the global namespace. …

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RPGNow.com - The leading source for indie RPGs City State of the Invincible Overlord - Revised (JG0062-Z2-ES)by Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owen. A legend in gaming history, the revised booklet covers the many various shops, taverns, inns, temples, and b…

Art Wants to be Ninety-Nine Cents | Scott Sona Snibbe Blog Over the past few days my first three apps became available on the iTunes store: Gravilux, Bubble Harp, and Antograph. I’ve been dreaming of this day for twenty years: a day when, for the first time…

I have a new Dungeons & Dragons blog called Quickly, Quietly, Carefully. Most the D&D related posting which has been occurring on this channel will move over there in the future.

Supplement V: Carcosa (split)

From The Strategic Review (Spring 1975):

Although it has been possible for enthusiasts to play solo games of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by means of “Wilderness Adventures”, there has been no uniform method of dungeon exploring, for the campaign referee has heretofor been required to design dungeon levels. Through the following series of tables (and considerable dice rolling) it is now possible to adventure alone through endless series of dungeon mazes! After a time I am certain that there will be some sameness to this however, and for this reason a system of exchange of sealed envelopes for special rooms and tricks/traps is urged. These envelopes can come from any other player and contain monsters and treasure, a whole complex of rooms (unfolded a bit at a time), ancient artifacts, and so forth. All the envelope should say is for what level the contents are for and for what location, i.e. a chamber, room, 20’' wide corridor, etc. Now break out your copy of D & D, your dice, and plenty of graph paper and have fun I

The Forge :: A Hard Look at Dungeons and Dragons

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Philotomy's OD&D Musings This page is about OD&D, as it is played when I run the game. When I talk about "OD&D," I'm referring to Original Dungeons & Dragons (published in 1974), which included three booklets: M…

donjon; Random Dungeon Generator

Delta explains that the best D&D to-hit algorithm is:

d20 + level + AC + mods ≥ 20

Note that this assumes you are using descending armor class (i.e.—lower AC is better).

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Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / An interview with fantasy artist Erol Otus I like to describe myself as a lifelong fan of the fantastic in the arts, but really, it all started for me in fourth grade.…

Greyhawk Grognard: Castle of the Mad Archmage Final Release Now Available! Yes! I shall print a most fine copy for my own use. More money to come when I have it.Congratulations on producing the best adventure to come out of the entire OSR. …

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Although it's 2 o'clock in the morning and I have consumed several alcoholic beverages, I must tell the world that Oscar Peterson is a jazz god. Perhaps this is not news....

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A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE | CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D. | Christie's A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE Circa 2nd Century A.D. Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces 2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm.) wide …

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So. I had assumed that my friends and I were too old and too busy with our adult lives to ever play Dungeons & Dragons again, but several of us happen to have some free time at the moment. They have convinced me that we should play the new 4^th edition D&D. We all bought the rulebooks, and have been discussing them. (I recorded my initial impressions, if you're interested.)

In the course of this discussion, we disagreed over the differences (or lack thereof) between 1^st edition neutral alignment and 4^th edition unaligned alignment. The contention of my friends was that a first edition neutral character would actively pursue a balance between the other alignments, whereas a fourth edition unaligned character would not hold strong beliefs and not consistently act for either good or evil. Druids where mentioned.

The issue touches on enough interesting topics (realism, simulation, morality, actions versus beliefs, &c) to merit posting here. With some minor revisions, the following is the email I sent to my friends. (Skip to the last paragraph for my conclusion.)

There are two opposing assumptions behind any discussion of alignment. The first assumption is that alignments are categories into which one could sort the wide spectrum of human behaviors and motivations seen in the real world, and that any of those human behaviors and motivations could be seen in the game world. The opposing assumption is that the alignment system doesn't include the wide spectrum of real human behaviors; it only selects for the game world a limited sampling (five or nine) of the kinds of characters found in the real world.

Because of practical necessities, the game world is bound to be a morally simplified simulation, much like the world of the Hollywood western is a morally simplified one. The question for the players and DM is whether their game world has the moral simplification of early westerns, or if their world pretends to the greater moral complexity of the late western. (Granted that the moral world of the late western is artificially—almost luridly—heightened, much like that of Greek tragedy.)

I've always imagined druids aspiring to act in concert with the patters of (and—rarely—in the interest of actively preserving) Nature. Nature is not Good, Evil, Chaotic, or Lawful. (Non-human) animals can't form the moral intention to do Good or Evil. A bear kills, but it can't murder. Of course, druids are not bears (most of the time). I suppose druids might be more interested in maintaining balance on the lawful-chaotic axis rather than the good-evil axis (setting controlled burns in forests, for example), but that distinction doesn't seem like it would guide player character behavior in most practical game situations.

How would one play an actively true neutral character? If they saw a cleric healing the lame, would they maim a few random people just to keep the balance? Or does active neutrality not apply in particular behaviors, only on a grand scale—that in massive wars, the actively neutral flock to the side of the underdog regardless of the issues behind the war?

What of how one behaves versus what one believes? If you polled all Americans about their beliefs, most of them would self-identify with the Good alignments. However, if you observed their behavior, I bet it would fall closer to neutral. I'm not being cynical by saying so. I believe that, on a day-to-day basis, people act in accordance with their own self-interest, although their actions are somewhat restrained by the social contract. People can be moved to act according to their higher principles (mostly good) in certain cases, but the circumstances must be pressing for them to do so against their self-interest.

The fourth edition Player's Handbook clearly intends the above definition for unaligned characters. The text summarizes the attitude of the unaligned as "just let me go about my business." Here's the full description:

If you're unaligned, you don't actively seek to harm others or wish them ill. But you also don't go out of your way to put yourself at risk without some hope for reward. You support law and order when doing so benefits you. You value your own freedom, without worrying too much about protecting the freedom of others.

A few unaligned people, and most unaligned deities, aren't undecided about alignment Rather, they've chosen not to choose, either because they see the benefits of both good and evil or because they see themselves as above the concerns of morality. The Raven Queen and her devotees fall into the latter camp, believing that moral choices are irrelevant to their mission since death comes to all creatures regardless of alignment.

Note that the second included definition defines the ambivalence or indifference of that minority of unaligned people in terms of good and evil. Fourth edition minimizes the importance of the lawful-chaotic axis.

Player characters can—depending upon the realism of your game world—be heroes: heroes willing to operate according to their higher principles (and potentially against their self-interest) far more readily that your average, level 0 villager. The game designers, particularly in fourth edition, encourage heroic play, but leave enough flexibility in the rules to facilitate a more morally complex game world.

The first edition Players Handbook has this description of true neutral alignment:

The "true" neutral looks upon all other alignments as facets of the system of things. Thus, each aspect—evil and good, chaos and law—of things must be retained in balance to maintain the status quo; for things as they are cannot be improved upon except temporarily, and even then but superficially. Nature will prevail and keep things as they were meant to be, provided the "wheel" surrounding the hub of nature does not become unbalanced due to work of unnatural forces—such as human and other intelligent creatures interfering with what is meant to be.

However, it concludes: "there are all variations and shades of tendencies within each alignment. The descriptions are generalizations only."

Truly unaligned player characters present practical problems for a DM, who will need a strong hook to draw a character motivated only by mundane self-interest into an adventure. Adventures are by definition full of risk and uncertainty. The first edition Players Handbook didn't include the concept of mundane self-interest as part of any of its alignment choices. Probably, that was because mundane self-interest isn't of much use as a guide to player character behavior, and NPC's of such temperament, doing their best not to become entangled in adventures, would rarely cross paths with PC's. The fourth edition's inclusion of mundane self-interest as a fundamental alignment may be an uncharacteristic nod to realism. I suspect, however, that the fourth edition designers intended unaligned alignment more as a contrast to highlight the heroism of PC's than as a common alignment for player characters themselves.

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Architecture's Modern Marvels | Culture | Vanity Fair Architect: Frank Gehry Structure: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain Year Completed: 1997 Number of Votes: 28 By Peter Knaup.…