January’s RPG Blog topic is “Tabletop Gaming on a Budget”, hosted by Renaissance Gamer. A lot of folks equated gaming on a budget with gaming on the cheap, which is a perfectly reasonable (and entertaining) approach. For me, the hardest part of gaming on a budget is actually having a budget. Exactly what a budget … Read more
My broken ankle has forced to spend far more time on the sofa than I’d like, canceling one real-world game day and threatening others. Instead rolling dice in the real world, I’ve fallen back on my plethora of mobile devices and pen-and-paper games for my gaming fix. With Dragon Quest IX finished, Fire Emblem Fates – Birthright ( Amazon / Website) … Read more
After 170 hours of game play over 8 years … I finally finished Dragon Quest IX’s main story. I started playing the game because I’d been searching for a good portable RPG for my Nintendo DS. My friend Cory recommended it (a big Dragon Quest fan, he’d already played through much of the Japanese version) and I was intrigued … Read more
For years it was matter of pride that I ran three events at every MEPACon, our regional gaming convention. It gave me a chance to represent some of the non-D&D games that I love — Savage Worlds, Star Wars: Saga Edition, Risk 2210, etc. — and my registration fee was waived, which made the weekend a little more affordable. … Read more
With Nuketown’s re-launch and the return of Radio Active, I’ve been spending time listening to podcasts as a way of getting caught up on the state of the geek community as well as current topics in gaming. As I mentioned previously, my sweet spot for podcasts these days is 15-25 minutes. That corresponds with the length of my commute, … Read more
“It’s In a Book” is the theme for December 2017’s RPG Blog Carnival. Books — and the libraries that hold them — drove the later half of our Obsidian Frontier campaign, leading us to explore the written word in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It began with the players. After 30-odd chapters in the campaign, we’d hit a natural … Read more
While revisiting the past as part of November’s RPG Carnival, I realized that Nuketown’s Game Day column debuted February 2007. I was stunned to realize I’d been writing it for over a decade, and that I’d written 110 entries in the series. That makes it the longest-running and most prolific column in the ol’thermonuclear burg’s history. There … Read more
Tales of a GM is running the 12 Days of Dicember, a project dedicated dice in all their randomized glory. The question for the twelth day of Dicember is “What is your favourite new dice technology?”. For me it’s accessible dice, which are dice crafted for people who are vision-impaired or blind. They include Braille numbering or raised letters … Read more
Tales of a GM is running the 12 Days of Dicember, a project dedicated dice in all their randomized glory. The question for the eleventh day of Dicember is “Which die have you bought most recently?”. My newest set of dice are the steel-blue ones I picked up at MEPACon in 2016. I bought expressly for use with Odothar Bronzearm, … Read more
Odothar Bronzearm is my human battlemaster, my favorite fighter since my first-ever Dungeons & Dragons character “Battle Axe”, and the culmination of a years-long quest for a tactical warrior. Though my favorite class is wizard, I’ve played my share of fighters over the years though most of them were multi-classed (fighter/wizard, fighter/cleric, etc.). Looking back, what I wanted … Read more