Best of My Boardgame Linkroll

A few months ago, I posted a greatest hits from my roleplaying game linkroll, a collection of links that I maintain to interesting writings about RPGs on the web. You can see the last few items in the footer of any page on this blog (do you like the new theme, by the way?).

Now, I want to share with you some of my favourite links form the history of my Boardgame linkroll (also visible in the footer). If you like these, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed for the linkroll.

[D&D4] Skill DCs Rebuilt From the Ground Up

As I said in my last post, I am less than impressed with the skill check system in D&D 4th edition. Most of these problems are rooted in the idea of resolving checks using d20 roll + skill modifier. The high variability and flat probability curve are a nightmare to work with. Actually fixing the problems would require starting from zero, and pitching the d20 heritage, though.

Instead, I just want to hack the skill system a bit, to get it working well enough to be fun. There will likely be several stages to this, but the first starts at the foundation. The baseline DCs in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and in the first batches of errata released for it just do not match the game’s mathematical structure. They need to be replaced.

Thirty-eight Highlights and Lowlights of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition

A proper review of Dungeons & Dragons’ latest edition would require several thousand words and a lot more play than I’ve put in so far. For now, I’ll settle for indicating what I think is most important and most interesting by way of brief comments, for good (prefaced with a +) and for ill (prefaced with a −).