A figure clad in heavy full plate overlooks a cliff. Below, the plague of orcs swarms toward yet another defenseless city. The figure’s companion, a thin young man sporting a bow on his back, walks up to the knight. “We should probably find a secluded way down. Don’t want the whole army to see us.” The figure remains fixed on the army. “You’re wrong. That’s [Read the article]
In Misty’s last post, she talked about making all-star player characters. I’m going to talk about being an all-star player. I know, a lot of bloggers have posted their opinions on this topic many times over, but I’m not talking about simply being a better player in the game; I’m talking about bringing your A-Game – I’m talking about being that one player that everyone [Read the article]
[This template will be included in Universal Exploits, an upcoming supplement for Alpha Blue. Kickstarter happening now] Few Space Dungeon Masters out there are as free-wheeling as myself. I like to have a general idea of what’s going to happen or maybe a few key random tables at my fingertips, but that’s pretty much it. I don’t do much planning – especially for a “space [Read the article]
Are you frustrated with a lack of active games to join? I see a lot of players around the Internet in the same boat. I’ve been there too, and I’ll bet most roleplayers go through the same thing at some point in their lives. But the nice thing about roleplaying is the amount of power we have as a community and the tomes of resources [Read the article]
Let’s talk about the rules of Fight Club. Or rather, since we’re not supposed to talk about Fight Club, let’s talk about grappling rules in RPGs. Every game covers unarmed combat, which is often stated as the base damage you can inflict without adding weapon damage, but how to quantify and adjudicate grappling in games is either glossed over completely or wrapped up in a confusing [Read the article]
You’re GMing when you’re struck with an awesome idea for a new setting or campaign. This is so cool you simply can’t wait for the current campaign to end. Instead, you throw the player characters into this new reality. I call such sudden shifts Everything You Know Is Wrong (EYKIW), wherein everything both players’ and characters’ assumed about the universe and how it functions is [Read the article]
For the second time, I had to run a game last minute and used a Deadlands Reloaded One Sheet from the Pinnacle website. The advantage to these short adventures is that they are free, they work well for a short session (3-4 hours), there are dozens of them for a variety of Pinnacle’s games, they are self-contained and contain pretty much everything you need to [Read the article]
The other night was supposed to be the next chapter in our War of the Dead campaign, but sickness prevented one of our players from making it. He let me know that morning and I spent a while debating whether to go ahead without him or run something different. The next chapter starts out with a bang and I didn’t want him to miss out or have [Read the article]
The Walking Dead is returning to the screen, and my Savage Worlds War of the Dead campaign has returned to the gaming table. War of the Dead is a Savage Worlds campaign by Daring Entertainment that now spans over four Chapters or seasons, each featuring a dozen or so adventures, as well as a follow up plot point campaign called World of the Dead. It’s a [Read the article]
Mansions are a great staple of horror and noir games. When you want to use a mansion for your role-playing game session, you need a good map. When I think of a mansion, I think of a monstrous, sprawling edifice, with dozens of rooms, spread over multiple wings and at least two stories high with a basement. It should be huge and labyrinthine. There’s two [Read the article]