It’s Alive! My Kickstarter
Announcing my new adventure coming to Kickstarter and doing my best carnival barker impression as I exhort the reader to go back it.
Barkeep on the Borderlands Preview: The Birdcage
How to make an adventure also serve as a modular toolkit for referees, plus a preview from Barkeep on the Borderlands.
Drinking Problems: The Trouble with Booze Rules in Games
I present my own rules for prolonged drinking after first discussing what makes rules for alcohol worthwhile in the first place.
The Secret to Realism in Games
People often ask for realism in their games but have difficulty articulating what it is they really want. If realism is understood as a world that reacts to player-character actions in a logical and consistent way, it enhances the verisimilitude of the fiction and the player agency in the game.
Dicember: Parting Thoughts
For Dyson Logos’ Dicember Challenge, I address the final prompts for the month, but up the challenge by pairing the prompts together.
Dicember Blogstew
For Dyson Logos’ Dicember Challenge, I address the first 21 prompts in a single blogpost.
New Kid on the Blogck: My Path to the OSR
I commemorate the first anniversary of my blog by detailing my path to the OSR (and list my top 10 posts thus far).
The XP Bowl and XP Bubbles
I present a new way to award XP that doesn’t disrupt your game or require bookkeeping.
The Basic Procedure of the OSR
Most OSR and Post-OSR games run on a core, often unspoken procedure of questions and answers. This post interrogates ways this is similar (and dissimilar) from story games and synthesizes the approach.
Do the Monster Mashup
I mashup several classic Halloween monsters to create ten new spooky monsters, and discuss how I would use them in games.
The Keep on the Borderlands is Full of Lies
The Keep on the Borderlands is not what it seems. This reinterpretation of a classic module presents a more vibrant world, ripe for player choice.
Apolitical RPGs Do Not Exist
An brief exploration of why games are political by their very nature.
Rating the Deck of Many Things
I rate all the cards in the original Deck of Many Things, as presented in the Greyhawk supplement. All ratings are final and irrefutable.
When to Hold ‘em, When to Roll ‘em
Dice are for divination, a tool that gives final say to fate. When you roll the dice, respect the result. But when you know what the result should be, don’t roll the dice.
Hostile Negotiations: A Framework for Social Combat
Rules for negotiations that don’t impede roleplay.
Overloading the Damage Die
Into the Odd revolutionized combat by jettisoning the “to hit” roll. This post offers a combat system that maintains single-roll attacks, but imbues that roll with a greater variety of outcomes.
Design Commentary: Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl
I walk through the process for making my first adventure, what it did well, and what it could have done better.
How to NOT Run You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge
No adventure survives contact with the players. And that’s a good thing! I discuss You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge and Canal of Horrors.
A Better Approach to Deadly Games
Don’t let character death slow down your games. If you want to run a deadly game, you do not need to make it easier to die. To run a deadly game, make it easier to live.