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Howling Tower: The Case for Random Encounters

Once upon a time, random encounters were standard fare in roleplaying games. Somewhere along the way, they fell out of fashion. Players, DMs, and game designers decided that random encounters embodied the worst of lazy DMing. They were indiscriminate party killers. Most of all, they were dumped because they were irrelevant to the ongoing story. …

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Your Whispering Homunculus, Now In The Kobold Store

Curse that Whispering Homunculus! Yesterday he took over Kobold World Headquarters and wreaked all sorts of havoc online. We finally got control back, only to find out today that while the Homunculus was in charge, he used the Kobold presses to publish his own book. Yes, you can now buy Your Whispering Homunculus in the …

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Howling Tower: The Road from Dullsville to Thrilltown

Journeys are part of the myths we try to capture in RPGs. From the Odyssey and Anabasis of the Greeks, to Huck and Jim’s trip down the Mississippi, to films such as The Hidden Fortress and Saving Private Ryan, journeys serve as both vehicles for adventure and as metaphors for the heroes’ movement toward self-discovery. …

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Howling Tower: Respect the Lowly Dungeon

It’s taken as gospel by many fantasy roleplayers that in the bad old days, all campaigns were about dungeons. Characters left the dungeon and returned to town only for healing and to replenish supplies. They might have a few random encounters between the town and the dungeon, but those were nothing more than distractions from …

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Howling Tower: Complexity and Option Fatigue

By now, everyone has had time to settle into the idea that D&D is getting another revision. I’m using this week to look at some D&D history, what revisions mean, and their effects. Today’s episode concerns complexity and option fatigue. Every revision of D&D has made the game more complex somehow. Complexity comes in different …

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Howling Tower: Racial Discrimination

No, not that type of discrimination. Fantasy roleplayers love their nonhuman races. What started in AD&D with elves, dwarves, halflings, half-elves, and half-orcs has mushroomed into dozens of player-character races in RPGs. Players seem to have an inexhaustible appetite for more races to dabble with. The choices have expanded from humans through the so-called demihumans …

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Howling Tower: Magic is Changing My World

Last week, we looked at three groups of spells that cause headaches for DMs. The first contains spells that let characters get from here to there without dealing with what’s in between. The second lets players see what’s over there, know what’s going on, or glimpse what lies ahead when that knowledge would otherwise be …

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Spell Options: Planar Binding for the Beginner

The young man appeared calm, his lank blond hair falling over his eyes as he gesticulated and spoke the words of power. His trembling hands gave him away, however. A ruddy light glowed within the circle of power, and then a bang reverberated around the room. The young jumped involuntarily, but his invocation never faltered. …

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Tar Fiend

The hulking black creature, ever so vaguely humanoid in shape, rises from the tar pit. Its small eyes glow red, its body covered with all manner of items—tree limbs, leaves, carcasses of small animals, and even a few weapons. The incorrectly named tar fiend—for it is an elemental, not a fiend—lives in tar pits. It …

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