Game Day: Illuminated Character Sheets

Drawings of a magic ring, a blue and purple explosion, and a fire elemental.

I get distracted during game sessions. Like many gamers today, I can find it hard to resist the itch to check my phone, rationalizing it with something like “oh, I’ll just look up this one thing and be done with it”. It’s never one thing, and the itch never goes away. It’s even worse with … Read more

My events at MEPACon, Fall 2017

A stack of role-playing game books. A redheaded vampire appears on the cover of one them.

I’m running three events at MEPACon Fall 2017, which is being held November 10-12, 2017 in Scranton, Pa. The first two are powered by Savage Worlds: SG-13, which is a Stargate adventure and The Curse of the Moaning Mists, which is a Pirates of the Spanish Main adventure. Rounding things out is Light Everlasting, an introductory adventure for Hollow Earth Expedition. SG-13: … Read more

Nuke(m)Con 2017

A close-up of a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet. A doodle of a sword, wreathed in flame, appears to the right.

Another Nuke(m)Con is in the bag. Held September 29-October 1, the latest Nuke(m)Con continued a reinvigorated tradition that began in 2006. Family and work emergencies played havoc with attendance this year as a broken water heater, a sick baby, and a super-sized work project kept three players away from the table. A family birthday and … Read more

Game Day: Prepping for Nuke(m)Con 2017

Covers for the D&D Player's Handbook, Dungeon World, Hollow Earth Expedition, and Tales from the Yawning Portal

Nuke(m)Con 2017 is a week away and I’m scrambling to pull together my events. My gaming group’s homegrown convention is being held September 27-30 at a friends house. We expect 10-12 people to attend over the course of the weekend, but any given slot will likely have 5-6. I’m running three games: Dungeons & Dragons, … Read more

Numenera 2: Time to Give Weird a Second Chance?

Two explorers investigate a mysterious hatch in the middle of a swamp.

The Numenera 2 Kickstarter just launched. It has me thinking about my gaming groups’ own experiences with Numenera, why we stopped playing it, and how Numenera 2 might get us playing again. A few years ago I backed the Numenera kickstarter and, as my core rule book arrived, I was excited to try out this science fantasy game set in a ruined, weird world a … Read more

Game Day: Higher Level Thinking

A view of a D&D character sheet. A red, flame-like eye appears to the left; red and grey dice appear to the right.

My gaming group, the Blackrazor Guild, formed in 1996. Over the last 20 years we’ve created hundreds of Dungeons & Dragons characters and at least a good two dozen of those reached the left heights of “high level” adventuring. These characters spanned multiple editions of the game, but the most iconic started in 2nd Edition and were … Read more

Game Day: Campaign’s End

A close-up picture of racked and broken earth.

Broken Land, my lunchtime D&D 5th edition campaign, is ending. Begin in 2015 and consisting of 25 1-hour episodes, the campaign is about to hit it’s finale. It’s a strange sensation. I’ve run a lot of campaigns over the years, but there aren’t a lot of them that have had a true finale. Gone on … Read more

Game Day: One Shot Death Trap

A god reaches out to coach an adventurer inside the hidden shrine.

The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is an Old School death trap of a dungeon. Originally released as a tournament module at Origins in 1979, the adventure was subsequently published as a module for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In 2017 it was updated to D&D 5th Edition and released as part of the Tales from the … Read more

#RPGaDay2017

Several RPG books fanned out across a table.

RPG-a-Day is an annual event in which bloggers spend a month talking about different aspects of role-playing games. Rather than spread this out over several blog posts, I’ve rolled up my entries into one mega-post. Day 1: What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now? Dungeon World (or one of the other … Read more

The Lost Continents and Ancient Magic of Weird Pulp

A map of the lost continent of Mu, indicating that it is in the Pacific Ocean.

“Occult Mysteries and Magic”, is topic of the May 2017 RPG Blog Carnival. Although my gaming group has been playing Dungeons & Dragons for decades, a game that has magic as one of its corner stones, we rarely delved into mysteries of the arcane. To be sure, there was ancient magic hidden in Greyhawk’s history, … Read more