Author Archives: Jan

About Jan

Jan is a passionate gm. His current favorites are D&D 4 and D&D3/Pathfinder. He muses about gamestyles, adventure design and rpg theory. He is always on the hunt for ideas and advice to get better at gaming. His German blog is "De Malspoeler" ("the insane gamer" or "the insanity pretender"), where he is haunted by a gull that is interfering with his writings. In real life he is a computer scientist from south-western Germany and likes playing volleyball.

Next! The D&D Playtest

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Jan

Do you still know how it was in May? When the first playtest pack­age was announced? All the excite­ment what the new edi­tion will be like. That time has long passed now. Today I feel more like I’m design­ing half … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Jan | 2 Comments

D&D Next Playtest: Round 2, Fight!

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Jan

After sev­eral hours of grind­ing through evil cultists, we finally con­cluded our sec­ond playtest ses­sion of D&D Next. Here is a short list of what we liked and dis­liked, along with some ideas for hacks of the sys­tem. Some of … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Jan, Reviews | Tagged | 2 Comments

D&D Next Playtest: Mixed Emotions

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Jan

Last week­end we did a quick­start and played a ses­sion of D&D Next. I even made the unlikely choice to play the elven wiz­ard, which was maybe the third time in my over 10 years of rp gam­ing that I … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Enter the Lost Temple of Moradin

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Jan

Once stout dwar­ven hands carved this tem­ple into the stone, but the runes have been destroyed and des­e­crated. The coal fire on the now demol­ished altar has died and no longer lights the forges in the sur­round­ing cav­erns. Drow have … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Gaming Materials, Jan | 6 Comments

Individual Group XP

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Jan

Yes­ter­day we had our reg­u­lar D&D 3 ses­sion. Our dm had a really good idea regard­ing the award­ing of indi­vid­ual xp, e.g. for good role play­ing. I usu­ally find it hard to award those because you may eas­ily award them … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Jan, Metagaming | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Baldur’s Gate secret uncovered

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Jan

Today the count­down on baldursgate.com ran out. Due to a heavy server load I was unable until now to read the news, but I finally got it. There will an enhanced edi­tion of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. The … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Places You Always Wanted to Visit

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Jan

Inkwell ideas has started a great con­test, in which I just took part. You can send in up to eight short descrip­tions of hex crawl loca­tions. Those will be used to add some more fluff to the hexes of hex­o­g­ra­pher … Con­tinue read­ing →

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The Golden Rule

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Jan

The ever-famous Golden Rule was sub­ject to a heated dis­cus­sion amongst Ger­man blogs lately. Espe­cially since Hen­ning from Teilzei­thelden wrote about the “gm that is is always right”, those that dis­miss the rule spoke up. I am among them; I … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Jan, Metagaming | Leave a comment

The Internet Judges D&D Kids — Wrap-Up

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Jan

Some time ago I pub­lished an inter­view with D&D Kids author Uri Kurlianchik on this blog to find out more about what hap­pened when his arti­cles got removed from the home­page of WotC. In the mean­time I tried to get … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The Carnival is entering Germany

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Jan

For a multi-author blog a guest arti­cle may seem a bit strange, but today we have a post of Michael, who will not be post­ing reg­u­larly here. He will just have this one arti­cle. So enjoy our first guest arti­cle … Con­tinue read­ing →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment