Hello again! Hope you're doing well. I'll begin with a personal update or two. Back on Easter weekend, I drove down to Bethesda MD to participate in ScrumCon, a local convention with both RPGs and miniatures games. I ran a session of my Primeval Thule campaign (that’ll be a topic of a blog later in …
50 Years of D&D: The Sorcerer
Hello again! Continuing on my "reading more of the classics" swing, I moved on from Jack Vance to Michael Moorcock, diving into the latest of the new Elric novels to come out: The Citadel of Forgotten Myths. I’m only about halfway through, and I admit I’m just lukewarm on this one. I’ve read the “original …
50 Years of D&D: Player’s Option
Hello there! I’m back with a new installment of my blog series focusing on my particular contributions to D&D over the years. Not much new to report in my day job or my fiction writing, so let me tell you what I’ve been reading lately: The Blue World, by Jack Vance. In recent years, I’ve …
50 Years of D&D: Birthright
Hello! Yes, I’ve been delinquent in keeping up with my blogging. I spent most of 2023 juggling my day job with finishing a novel in my off-time. I’m still working for Zenimax Online Studios as a writer on the Elder Scrolls Online game. I did a lot of work for the main story of ESO’s …
Design Rule: Deliberate Asymmetry
Welcome back! Still not much new to report on my personal projects, other than I’m now 50,000 words into my next book instead of 25,000. I feel like it should be going faster, but that darned day job has to take priority! Anyway, this post’s design rule is an odd one: Every game should have …
The OGL and Sasquatch, Current Interests
Hello! No writing news to report, other than I’m picking up a historical fiction/science horror project I set aside after 25,000 words and seeing if I can get that going again. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to bang out a first draft of something new regardless of what happens with the manuscripts I’ve …
A Roomful of Ogres
Hello there, and season’s greetings! I find myself sort of “between books” at the moment. I’m waiting for Ulisses North America to begin publishing the TORG novels I wrote for them. My agent is shopping around a new alt-history novel for me, but I’ve got no news to report yet. And I’ve got two or …
Design Rule: Complexity Budget
Hi there! This week I’m returning to game design principles I picked up over the course of my career. The topic of the day is complexity budget. I first heard this principle clearly stated by Wizards of the Coast veteran Skaff Elias. He was part of a gang of Magic designers who played the heck …
Fixing the Perception Skill
Hello! Spring is well on its way here in southern PA, the baseball lockout is over, and it looks like the Phillies are putting together a lineup that might just be the best in baseball. And, yeah, there’s lots going on in the world, but I’m returning to game design thoughts today. I think we …
Ukraine: What Comes Next?
Five days into Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and things still seem to be in doubt. Russia dominates the “balance sheet” when you count missiles, tanks, aircraft, and ships. They may yet succeed in smashing through Ukrainian resistance with superior firepower. Or maybe President Zelensky’s luck runs out, and a Russian airstrike (or special …
Richard Baker 