Light and Dark: an Alternate Alignment System The core alignment system in early versions of D&D and many OSR games focuses on the law/chaos axis. An alternate alignment system is presented here that uses the good/evil axis instead, but also adds a new level of descriptiveness in the form of light and dark. The intent is to provide a better descriptor of a character's moral and personality types than the law/chaos axis does, and one that works a bit better in modern games.  Good vs. Evil The idea of good vs. evil is easy enough to delineate and should be accessible to all of our players. If it's not, well, we worry about you a little. Essentially, "good" implies placing value on other human lives, on honesty, forthright living, and generally understanding the difference between right and wrong. Good characters generally keep their word when they give it, don't break promises, don't kill, avoid violence when possible and usually seek diplomatic solutions ...

Note: This blog is a preview of the forthcoming Night Companion sourcebook for Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars.  Light and Dark: an Alternate Alignment System The core alignment system in Night Shift: VSW focuses on the law/chaos axis found in the earliest games of this type. An alternate alignment system is presented here that uses the good/evil axis instead, but also adds a new level of descriptiveness in the form of light and dark. The intent is to provide a better descriptor of a character's moral and personality types than the law/chaos axis does, and one that works a bit better in modern games.  Good vs. Evil The idea of good vs. evil is easy enough to delineate and should be accessible to all of our players. If it's not, well, we worry about you a little. Essentially, "good" implies placing value on other human lives, on honesty, forthright living, and generally understanding the difference between right and wrong. Good characters generally keep ...

 Here's a fun observation. The spell darkness, in 5e, has absolutely zero mechanical effect in 5th edition D&D. Darkness creates a heavily obscured area .  Creatures within that area effectively suffer from the blinded condition. Blinded characters suffer disadvantage on attacks, and creatures attacking them have advantage. The spell negates darkvision . All characters within the sphere of magical darkness have disadvantage to attack, but advantage to attack other creatures in the darkness. This advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out . All creatures within the space of a darkness spell battle as normal. The spell is, from a mechanical sense, pointless and negated. Certainly this discounts a proper GM who looks past it and says, "no, that's stupid," but yeah, strictly BY THE BOOK it's a pretty gross oversight by the designers of the game from a mechanical standpoint. Also, I pointed this out to the Sage Advice people some time ago and they confirmed ...

  From Troll Lord Games and Elf Lair Games comes a combination of great gaming goodness from the mind of Jason Vey.  Jason is a writer of many talents, having worked with Troll Lord Games on his Amazing Adventures RPG and Castles & Crusades as well as owning his own RPG company, Elf Lair Games. This bundle offers TWO core rulebooks--Amazing Adventures from Troll Lord Games and Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars from Elf Lair Games, the latter co-written with noted designer Timothy S. Brannan. Also included are five adventures which can easily be used with either game, with only minor conversion work needed! Whether you're in it for the high-flying multigenre adventure or the creepy and shadowy worlds of horror and urban fantasy, this bundle has it all, at a whopping 40% off cover price for a limited time! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/342653/Amazing-OGRES-BUNDLE

 From Troll Lord Games and Elf Lair Games comes a combination of great gaming goodness from the mind of Jason Vey.  Jason is a writer of many talents, having worked with Troll Lord Games on his Amazing Adventures RPG and Castles & Crusades as well as owning his own RPG company, Elf Lair Games. This bundle offers TWO core rulebooks--Amazing Adventures from Troll Lord Games and Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars from Elf Lair Games, the latter co-written with noted designer Timothy S. Brannan. Also included are five adventures which can easily be used with either game, with only minor conversion work needed! Whether you're in it for the high-flying multigenre adventure or the creepy and shadowy worlds of horror and urban fantasy, this bundle has it all, at a whopping 40% off cover price for a limited time! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/342653/Amazing-OGRES-BUNDLE

Yeah, I know, this is an old-school gaming blog, but I needed somewhere to put this, and it's a bit of a ramble, so bear with me. If anyone is cutting the cord, this may come in handy for you. Juliette and I upgraded our streaming box today to an NVIDIA Shield TV. I had originally purchased a Xiaomi MiBox S as a test case for cutting the cord. I can now compare the two for anyone interested in going for an Android TV box.  Note that I did NOT go with the $190-$200 SHIELD Pro, which is the high end gaming version of the Shield TV, and comes with double the memory and an extra USB port. I went with the NVIDIA SHIELD TV "base" model, which looks like a cylinder. Xiaomi Mi Box S NVIDIA SHIELD TV Price  The MiBox S EASILY wins in this category, going for between $64 and $66 on Amazon. The Shield TV goes for $149 on Amazon and at Best Buy, where we bought ours.  Looks Again, I have to give the edge to the MiBox, here. It's a very unassuming small, black, square box that sit...