ObsidianCrane

Author's details

Name: John Pope
Date registered: July 10, 2010

Biography

School teacher by day, gamer by night. I've been playing and running DnD and other RPGS since the early 80's, with occasional forrays into war games and card games. My focus games at the moment are DnD 4E, L5R (CCG), and Song of Fire and Ice RPG (heavily homebrewed). Published Work: KQ Web Articles (Gray Warrior, Mountain Priest), Spycraft: Agents Sourcebook (example PC Rose)

Latest posts

  1. WotC Products & Your Setting — May 13, 2012
  2. A World of Culture — April 12, 2012
  3. Trouble Choosing a Game — March 18, 2012
  4. Lady Kristryl Brightsilver — March 12, 2012
  5. Art: Epic Inspiration — March 11, 2012

Most commented posts

  1. Artful Art — 15 comments
  2. Thoughts on Skill Challenges — 12 comments
  3. How Do I Write a Skill Challenge? — 12 comments
  4. Roleplaying, it’s your issue. — 10 comments
  5. Where is the new classic? — 10 comments

Author's posts listings

WotC Products & Your Setting

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Map of the campaign meta-region, much of which is only sparsely detailed still.

If you have been playing RPGs, especially DnD, for a while (or maybe you just started) there is a good chance you have at least considered creating your own setting. I started work on my personal setting back when 2E was the DnD of the day, and through the years it has undergone some permutations …

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A World of Culture

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075

Culture is a strange thing. For example it is particularly hard to identify the things that make your culture what it is without having another culture with which to compare it. In DnD campaigns this manifests in cultures becoming homogenous, it is simply easier to have one pervasive culture than to create many unique cultures. …

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2 comments

Trouble Choosing a Game

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dnd-logo

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about system complexity and player agency during a game as I have struggled to find a game I think both my daughters and I can enjoy fully as a game as well as an experience together. Player Agency When people talk about pre-4E fighters one of the things that …

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Lady Kristryl Brightsilver

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spellscarred dwarf

Lady Kristryl is the second child of the Brightsilver family, and in her parents view a feckless and fey youth given to wandering aimlessly. She is undeniably a beautiful dwarven lass, a rare treasure in that regard, but at the same time she has been marked by Kord and is infused with sorcerous powers, especially …

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Art: Epic Inspiration

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Battle at the Cliff by Rodolfo Guerreiro

Continuing with my discussion of art in DnD, this week I am taking a look at art for monsters and not just any old enemies but rather the sorts of epic threats that have been handled so poorly by DnD in the past (4E included). Epic Threats Epic threats need to be just that, epic. …

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3 comments

Art: Environment

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Floating Rocks by Marta Nael

Last week when I posted about art that I liked Rich Green asked about landscapes and it is a fair question that deserves a longer response. In visual media such as computer games and movies the environment is a critical element. For fantasy computer games and movies the environment needs to be designed from the …

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5 comments

Goons: One Line Monsters

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troll-clipart-6

4E is a game full of complexity. It is often complexity of the good sort, it makes the game more dynamic, challenging and exciting all of which are desirable. However sometimes things are a little too complex and something similar is desired. Looking at the 4E rules for PCs the answer is clearly found in …

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5 comments

More on Art

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Angelic Arbiter by Steve Argyle

I recently ventured into the DnDNext area of the WotC community and there found a thread advocating essentially for more art by Wayne A Reynolds. Now I’m not an artist, but the truth is I don’t particularly like Mr Reynolds’ art style, the “dungeon punk” thing just doesn’t float my boat, and then there are …

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8 comments

Ability Scores & Setting

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Dwarf and Elf

Ability Scores and Crunch Ability scores are a rather arbitrary way of establishing a range of bonus and penalty around a median set of values. Essentially they are a way of using 3d6 to establish a bell curve of ability from a certain negative value to a corresponding positive value. That derived value has been …

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8 comments

The Pearl of Trethari

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Pearl of Trethari

Long ago where the great Durnwood Forest rises into the Crystal Mountains there lived an elven wizard. Some legends say that he was an eladrin and dwelled in the feywild and his doom brought him to the mortal world. Regardless all the legends agree that his name was Estarias and that he was a mage …

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