I love hand-drawing maps. In the past, I hastily sketched maps longhand or spent hours attempting to render them using computer programs, but when I hit my forties I found a new appreciation for sitting down and really drawing a[…]
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Author: Ken Newquist
RPG-a-Day 2021: Scenario
When I think of scenarios, I think of conventions. I think tightly focused, 3-4 hour-long sessions, usually with pre-generated characters and flexible, but straightforward, story arc. I find scenario writing a very different exercise from prepping for my weekly campaign-style[…]
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Trail to Philmont – June 2021
The last month before Philmont. Whoa. Eighteen months of prep comes down to this … the final run-up to Philmont. Whoa. It’s hard to believe – even now – that it’s actually happening. Part of me kept expecting reality to[…]
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The Trail to Philmont, April/May 2021
April and May are a blur. To recap, in January and February, four members of our crew decide not to go to Philmont. In March, we teamed up with another crew in New Jersey, giving us a total of 13[…]
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One Vaccinated Summer
Summer is looming large. It seems like five years since 2020’s Summer of Lockdown, which saw our big trip to Philmont postponed and most normal summer activities (going to the beach, going to an IronPigs baseball game) were canceled. Heck,[…]
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Summer Reading List 2021
Welcome to Nuketown’s 14th annual summer reading list! This year’s list welcomes back Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, returns to Iain Bank’s The Culture books, re-reads Richard Adam’s Watership Down and tries out some new series, including Elizabeth Bear’s White Space books and Martha[…]
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@NuketownSF: Married Spider-People, Sci-Fi Tombs, Geeky Podcasts, The High Republic
A recap of NuketownSF’s tweets for the week of May 16, 2021. RPG | WORLDS WITHOUT A NUMBER – A fantasy version of Stars without Number that bills itself as “gritty, hard-edged adventure in the fathomless future of the Latter Earth,[…]
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Venture into the Lair of Secrets podcast
My friend David Moore (formerly of The Gamemaster’s Show and After Serenity) and I recently launched the Lair of Secrets podcast. It’s a podcast about gaming and being a geek by two forty-something geek dads. So far we have seven episodes out, with new[…]
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Trail to Philmont, March 2021
The Trail to Philmont started moving a lot faster – and got a lot more real – in March 2021. As I mentioned in the February update, during the winter we lost four members of our crew to COVID concerns.[…]
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Radio Active #96: Go Go Gadget!
In this episode, I say goodbye to a canine friend and welcome a new one, explore dungeons, and blast aliens in Nuketown’s Ready Player One Replay. I introduce my new side gig podcast, the Lair of Secrets, the podcast about[…]
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