Cuz I Gotta Have Faith

When it comes to matters of religion, I tend to see things a lot like that flaxen-haired fantasy heroine Goldilocks :  There’s too much, not enough, and juuuuust right.  Faith and the divine can be a very powerful and positive force, when approached healthily.  However, it also has an almost proportionate potential to injure and divide.  While…

Dr. Strangegame (or How I Learned to Stop GMing and Abuse my Players with Dice)

Rolling dice is fun, there is no doubt about that. At our gaming table, I’m “that guy” with a dice-bag made of the bottom half of a pair of cutoff jeans from when I was in 5th grade.  It contains over 1 pound of dice, including a thirty- and hundred-sider. I remember with glee both…

Playing your Character: What’s my name again?

My name is Charlie. I’m a mechanoholic. It’s true. My disease compels me to pursue the best mechanical benefit in any situation, regardless of whether my character would actually do the thing or not. I can resist mechanics-driven impulses when playing games like FATE or old-school D&D knockoffs, but when I start playing 4E, all fiddly…