#RPGaDay2018 – How can GMs make the stakes important?

A close up view of the spines of numerous role-playing game books.

By getting the players and their characters emotionally invested in the world … and then leveraging that investment. Both of my RPG entries for #RPGaDay2018 — “Most memorable NPC” and “Favorite recurring NPC” — used this technique. Damocles Everton worked because the players were already heavily invested in the Blackrazor Guild, having saved it from the … Read more

#RPGaDay2018 – Favorite recurring NPC?

A close up view of the spines of numerous role-playing game books.

Calvin Cloudmore. He started off as an inept bandit who’s gang was wiped out by the adventurers that went on to form the Blackrazor Guild. With the party in need of a cleric (and Cal in need of redemption) he became a cleric of St. Cuthbert (albiet with a wisdom so low he had a … Read more

#RPGaDay2018 – Most memorable NPC?

A close up view of the spines of numerous role-playing game books.

Damocles Everton, the upstart master of the Blackrazor Guild and agent of the Dark Circle tops my list. Hated by the player characters after he stole control of their guild from them, the appearance of Damocles kicked off an epic story arc that culminated with the Fall of Obsidian Bay, the hero’s home city. Everton … Read more

#RPGaDay2018 – What gives an RPG staying power?

A close up view of the spines of numerous role-playing game books.

Imagination + good rules + group buy-in. Those are the elements that fueled our longest running games, even if the campaigns the RPGs were powering jumped from ruleset to ruleset. Our Blackrazor Guild campaign, now in its second decade, has seen numerous prequels, sequels, and spin-offs. It’s been run using Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, … Read more

#RPGaDay2018 – What do you look for in an RPG?

A close up view of the spines of numerous role-playing game books.

My answer today is very different from my answer 20 years ago. There was a time when I loved a good, crunchy RPG, with a ton of splat books and optional rules (in short, Dungeons & Dragons 3.x). Implicit in the crunchiness was a love of customization and the flexibility that came with it. Now … Read more

Blogworthy: Mercenaries, Beholders, Cyclopedia, Chronomancy, Easter Eggs

A view of two dozen role-playing game books.

Blogworthy is a regular column dedicated to blog posts that I’ve read and enjoyed. It’s a direct outcome of my RPG Blogs Reading List on Feedly.  Improved Initiative – Who are your mercenary companies? A good post on adding mercenary companies to your RPG game. After all, “adventurer” isn’t really a career (Improved Initiative has another good post about “Stop Using … Read more

Game Day: Tomb of Horrors

Three Tomb of Horrors-related adventures

Inspired by the novel Ready Player One, I offered to run my friends through the legendary module Tomb of Horrors. Converted to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition as part of Tales from the Yawning Portal (Amazon), the module promises a lethal challenge for players both new and old. My gaming group last took a run … Read more

Of Prequels and Legacies

Two RPG boxed sets and two RPG books, all connected to the World of Greyhak campaign setting.

February’s RPG Blog Carnival topic is “Time Marches On”. Hosted by Daemons & Deathrays, the topic looks at the role of time in role-playing campaigns. Time’s very much at the heart of our two ongoing D&D 5th Edition campaigns. The campaigns were created as bookends for our 10+ year Blackrazor Guild campaign. The campaign took … Read more

The Library of Obsidian Bay

An arcane sphere illuminates stacks of books in a fantasy library.

“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

Game Day: Ten Years Later

Role-playing book covers. Left to right: Numenera, Dragon Age, Set 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Savage Worlds, Day After Ragnarok

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