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Deep in the wilderness, an ancient stone ziggurat squats, its vine-covered walls slowly crumbling to time. Many secrets and wonders lie within this monument to a dead civilization, and a new resident patiently plumbs its depths. A lamia named Lystrata has taken up residence inside this complex, which contains everything from ball courts to baths … Continue reading »

About five months ago I signed up for The Treasure Table, a monthly subscription box aimed specifically at Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition DMs. The first box was supposed to arrive in February. No box. I received an email from the guy behind this, explaining that he was having problems with his shipping company. Apparently he’d never used … Continue reading »

Feel free to steal/modify this for your group:   Hi there! I know it can be hard to find time for gaming. But I need to establish a few ground rules. From now on, at the end of each session, we’re going to agree on a date and time for the next session. By that … Continue reading »

You’ve probably heard about 3D printing, and you’ve probably thought about 3D printed miniatures or terrain, but you probably don’t own a 3D printer. What to do? You’ve got roughly four options, which I’ll describe here from the easiest (and most expensive) to the cheapest. If you have no files and nothing to start with, just an … Continue reading »

Check this out: Found it in my big bag of spare dice. I like to think that the dice gods said, “Nope, rolled poorly too many times.”

In the spirit of openness, here are my sales for 2013. I hope this will be useful to others who are interested in selling tabletop games. I sell nearly all my games and products on DriveThruRPG. I take a scattershot approach: I make many different games and books, then sell them and see how they … Continue reading »

When telling a story collaboratively–as in a tabletop role-playing game–how do you know when to move on? Particularly if you’re running the game, how do you know when to push clues towards the players, and when to have two thugs with guns burst through the doors? I’ve been playtesting a new noir game, The Coin’s Hard Edge, recently. While the mechanics work beautifully, it can be hard to know where one is … Continue reading »

Here’s a wargame that you can play yourself with a little paper and pencil and a D6. In Tabletop Conquest, you command a medieval army that’s conquering a foreign land. You begin by apportioning your forces. On every turn, you move to an adjacent territory (its composition determined randomly). Each territory type increases your forces in … Continue reading »

I’m building an “RPG Tour,” a set of RPGs that, if played, will give one a broad appreciation for different approaches to tabletop gaming. The list includes Dread, Fiasco, Old School Hack, and Dungeon World. I ran my second session of Houses of the Blooded last night, and I’m adding it to the list. Houses is a game of high court intrigue. The players are all powerful nobles struggling to get their way in a complex society. In many ways, it’s … Continue reading »

  Indie+, an online RPG convention on Google+, finished today. I was one of the four sponsors who co-ordinated and ran the whole thing: 21 games and  7 panels scheduled for all hours of the week, including integration with YouTube, Google+, and a wiki. A few weeks ago, we put out a call for potential hosts, asking them to add potential games or panels to our wiki. Once the new Event functionality appeared on Google+, we switched … Continue reading »