Ken Newquist 
It’s Gonna Be Easier Than Ever To Play Dungeons & Dragons: IGN looks at the new Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Starter Set, which includes a 64-page rulebook for creating characters from levels 1-5 (bard, cleric fighter, rogue, wizard) and a new introductory adventure, “Dragon of Icespire Peak”. From what they describe, I think this has the potential … Read more
Meet Recon, my family’s newest Seeing Eye pup. He’s a male black Labrador retriever and the fourth puppy we’ve raised for the Seeing Eye. The Seeing Eye is a non-profit organization that breeds, raises, and trains puppies to serve as guide dogs for the blind and visually impaired. We got him on July 1 and I spent … Read more
In my “One Awesome Summer” post, I talked about my goals for the summer. It’s a big list, and I’ll likely not do everything on it … but I can try. The point of this post is to take a look at those goals and see where I am. As I mentioned back in January, reflection … Read more
Summer is here. And it’s hella busy. Huge projects are in progress at work, divided up by family vacations that bring relaxation and their own special kind of stress. Oh, and we’ve got scout camp through in for good measure … and college visits and … well, a summer’s worth of activities. All that said, … Read more
Who Are Your Mercenary Companies?: Taking 10 looks at incorporating mercenary companies into your role-playing game as a way of building depth and background for both the world and your player characters. The View-Master Slides of Our Youth Were Beautiful Works of Art: As a child of the 1980s, I have conflicted feelings about the old View-master … Read more
Game Days can be a fickle thing. Almost everyone in our group is middle-aged (or getting close), most of us have kids, and those kids are old enough to have Game Day-smashing activities of their own. As a result, our weekly Sunday game can go from looking like a lock to no one being able … Read more
Crash Course Astronomy: I’m sometimes surprised how little people know about the astronomy in general and the night sky in particular. After all, half of every day is taken up by night; who could you not learn about the stars? Of course, the answer is easy enough – people aren’t interested, or at least, not interested enough … Read more
I’m as close to current with my comic book pull list as I’m likely to get in the modern era, having just finished X-men Blue and getting ready for the Age of X-Men alternative universe titles. Truth be told, I’d be caught up if it weren’t for the happy distraction of Marvel Unlimited. The digital repository paid for itself 10 … Read more
Memorial Day Weekend is almost upon us, so it’s time to pop open a summer shandy, power up the Kindle, and launch into Nuketown’s summer reading list. The 12th Annual Summer Reading List contains 19 books and 7 graphic novels. It’s my biggest summer reading list ever, combining reading for work with reading for pleasure. It’s … Read more
My weekly gaming group took a break from our regular Dungeons & Dragons campaigns to play Fiasco … in space! Fiasco (Amazon/Indie Press Revolution ) by Bully Pulpit Games is a role-playing game of ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. It’s a role-playing game for 3-5 players and no game master inspired by movies such as Fargo, A Simple Plan, and The Way … Read more