MULTIPLE CHARACTERS FOR A SINGLE PLAYER This section is an idea that for many modern games is anathema--the very idea that a player could or should split his effort between two or more characters is almost scandal-worthy and players that seek to do so are sometimes accused of being power gamers, munchkins, or seeking to draw attention from other players. This was not always the way of things. Hell, back in high school when I played AD&D second edition and various Palladium games, we often ran two or more characters at once. Our groups were small--generally three to four players at most, including the DM/GM, and running multiple characters was a way to fill the gaps that would normally be provided by extra players. Certainly we had primary characters that gained more focus, but even our secondary characters were played as separate individuals and fleshed out much more than would be your average henchman or hireling. Indeed, the book takes this very assumption: "In campaigns

HANDLING TROUBLESOME PLAYERS Ah, that issue that has cropped up at every single gaming table since the beginning of time. The issue that has every single DM rip his hair out at some point in time. You know, the first issue I have with this section is the fact that there's no "Handling troublesome DMs" section in the PHB to correspond, because man, I've had my share of those, too. This section offers some good advice. Unfortunately, it's just not advice that's all that simple to follow for most people. That advice is basically, kick them out of the game. That's rough, especially if the problem player in question is a friend. We'd all like to think that people can hear, "look, you're presenting problems for us and maybe this isn't the right game for you," and quietly go with no hard feelings, but let's be realistic: many times if you say something like that, the problem player is going to get pissed and rage, and friendships h

Hey, if you're interested in my normal day-to-day goings-on and in my writing projects outside of the old school community (fiction, other gaming writing, etc.) check out my personal blog at The Whole Wide World: http://grey-elf.blogspot.com/ I tend to split posting between here and there, so following both will give you more frequent postings from me. Plus, I'd like to have more than 29 followers over there.