Flavor text? Is that like scratch and sniff? So do I lick the page or what? If you’re asking those questions, you have a well-developed sense of sarcasm, but this blog post might not be for you. (Note: You might taste something by licking your screen at this time. Such flavors are not the fault of this blog post and [...]

At work I often use the phrase, “Chocolate and peanut butter.” It’s become shorthand for things that people like but that shouldn’t mix: Two great tastes that don’t go great together. If you grew up in the 80s, you know where the idea comes from, but it takes a little disambiguation, as I’ve inverted the meaning. For those of you deprived [...]

Fantasy rarely depicts any characters of color. White people dominate in fantasy art, games, and films. Often, the best you get is the “token black guy” or the Asian who knows martial arts. Sometimes you get a vaguely Middle Eastern person who is invariably a villain, an assassin by trade, or someone who knows the secrets of science, such as [...]

When someone starts talking about canon in relation to your game, you’ve made a mistake. Why? Well, first allow me to digress a bit with an illustration related to the concept. I love Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. It’s a spectacular book well deserving of its place in the pantheon of great children’s literature. In fact, I love [...]

The first thing I thought when I saw Jason’s work was “medusa sculpture garden.” I could certainly imagine some D&D adventure where a medusa that can hide her nature turns people to stone and then sinks them in the sea or a lake so that she can secretly visit her victims—like an obsessive serial killer. Yet there’s something more deeply [...]

Imagination works through synthesis. Even your most unique idea has its foundation in your experiences, be it the things you’ve seen and learned in your life or the feelings you have. Could someone who has been colorblind since birth imagine what the color green looks like? If you could give that person a glimpse of blue and yellow and asked [...]

What’s in a name? A lot. Giving something the right name presents one of the many interesting challenges we face when designing elements for D&D. With a feat, power, monsters, or magic item, it can be difficult to get the right name, but they’re nowhere near as hard as naming paragon paths or epic destinies, and even those pale in [...]