Dicember 2017, Day 11: Newest Dice

A collection of dice of different size and colors.

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

Game Day: Let Me Tell You About My Battle Master

Blue and grey dice set on a D&D character sheet.

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

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

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

Radio Active #89: Run Geek Run

A straight sidewalk is bordered on the left by a fence and on the right by bamboo and other greenery.

On this episode of Nuketown Radio Active I revisit the button-smashing happiness of Diablo III, soak in the nostalgia of Sonic Mania, and catch up listeners on a few of my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. After that I delve into a topic I never thought I’d talk about: how I became a runner (and the … 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

Game Day: Let Me Tell You About My Dwarven Battle Mage

Black and red dice site on a game manual page. The illustration of a red-headed dwarven warrior with an axe appears to the left.

When D&D 5th Edition came out, my gaming group launched two playtest campaigns. Obsidian Frontier was a sandbox campaign set in the early days of our homegrown city, Obsidian Bay. It was focused on trying out the new rules and running a typical D&D campaign. The second campaign was Heart of Darkness, a story-driven game … Read more

Radio Active #87: The Show Awakens

A photo of a yellow Labrador puppy looking at the camera. A river flows in the background.

After slumbering for four years, Nuketown Radio Active returns to find a world transformed. In this show I’ll get up to speed on what’s changed around the ol’thermonuclear burg, and what you can expect to see in the future. I talk about the role-playing games and video games I’m currently playing, and introduce the audience … Read more