Visiting the Archives: Travelling…
This Behind the Screen piece was posted in a much simpler time before Stupid Ranger and I were cast across the country for my day job. We are in the process of unloading boxes at the moment, so please feel free to sup a[...]Read on >>
Blogging is Hard
... as I get back into the swing of blogging, I'd appreciate if you'd let know if there's something you'd like me to ramble about. :) [...]Read on >>
DC Gameday in Review
I'm going to spew out some thoughts on the DC Gameday very quickly while I wait for my night time cold medicine to kick in and teleport me to sweet sleepy time. :) It was spectacular fun. Good friends and good games -[...]Read on >>
Gaming Systems
Shamus Young asked some questions a couple days ago that I just saw. I'm going to answer them in the interest of1) Letting my readers know what my gaming background/experience is2) Having something to blog about tonight [...]Read on >>
No-Game Supplement
We're in a bit of a drought. Our normally enormous 4e group was unable to meet at all yesterday and my favorite M&M game has been on hold for what seems like EONS...[...]Read on >>
Putting Together a Game in a Hurry
The adventure will include Nazis, vampires, Nazi Vampires, and snowmobiles with machine guns... but I could use some help putting the pieces together on the quick.[...]Read on >>
Diceless Road Trip Gaming Mechanic
During a couple of long car trips, he and I did a lot of RP and quasi-gaming "on the road" and the mechanic we used for conflict resolution was kind of cool. [...]Read on >>
4e: An Unbalanced Party
Our Wednesday 4e group is currently suffering from real-life-induced low attendance...[...]Read on >>
d20Blonde Does Dread: Writing Awesome Questionnaires
September 29, 2008 from d20 Blonde
Filed under: At the table, Dread, Featured!, RPG Hub, behind the screen
At GenCon 2008, I ran a game set on the 1920s rail circus. At the end of each session, the players passed around their answers and, while everyone had some comment on the creativity of the person answering the questions,[...] Filed under: At the table, Dread, Featured!, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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D&D: Riddle Me That!
Digging for riddles? I made a previous post with a bunch of D&D monster-based riddles (which no one even tried to answer. Here are some more riddles though, some of them easier, some of them harder. Some of them much[...]Read on >>
Is Silence Cheating?
... The first couple of rounds I thought that maybe I just wasn't posing a threat, but a critical or two later, I was still sitting at full hit points and dishing out a heaping helping of ass whoopery...[...]Read on >>
d20Blonde Does Dread: Part I
Dread is my favorite game to run. It draws on my love of performing and storytelling in a way that traditional RPGs cannot. The game's inherent tension-building mechanic (the tower) is completely brilliant and the simple[...]Read on >>
My Little Plot Hook and Me
But, the whole time, I kept thinking to myself, "Wouldn't this be the perfect moment for some low-class super villain to swoop in and jack that flipping awesome plane-o-copter?!"[...]Read on >>
Use This Tavern!
Don't have time to create a tavern? Use mine!The Silver Harp TavernThe Silver Harp Tavern is often a way station for travelers, probably due to the fact that not only is it run by a pair of adventurers, but it also bears[...]Read on >>
Natural 20s and Nostalgia
... for a few years now, I haven't considered D&D "my game." Instead, Mutants and Masterminds has bee the default system at our table. Somewhere between the release of 3.5 and level 17 of our last major D&D ca[...]Read on >>
D&D: Riddle Me This!
Ever need a good riddle? Something not too hard, but still challenging? I was prepping a riddle-heavy session for a group that had heard every pre-made riddle under the sun. So, I decided to test their Dungeons and Drago[...]Read on >>
QuickSilver
I'm going to take a break from porting spidery monsters to 4e for a day. Ravyn at Exchange of Realities just posted about fleshing out familiars. It reminded me of the most memorable familiar that ever turned up in one o[...]Read on >>
Full-party Initiative
September 5, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: 4e, DM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
Through most of the Iron Heroes campaign I was playing in earlier this year, and throughout both of the 4th edition campaigns I've been running since late June, we've been using a loose house ruled system for initiative.[...] Filed under: 4e, DM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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Phat Lewt
I'm not so sure about the treasure "generation" system in 4e. It feels far too easy to either give out solely what your PCs want ("I sure wish my warlock had a Rod of Corruption to amp up his curse.... oh look! A Rod of [...]Read on >>
Behind the Screen: Problems with planes and psionics…
I was reflecting on some old college D&D games, and I remembered a certain guy in our group that always wanted to play a psionic. Eventually, we did have a game where our DM allowed psionics and I remember it being a[...]Read on >>
When Good Encounter Planning Goes Bad
August 27, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
The other day I came across this post and a paragraph in the middle of it caught my eye.When planning encounters, DMs need to make sure that everyone has something to do. If the Big Bad Demon has super-high spell resista[...] Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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Behind the Screen: Loving the one you’re with…
August 27, 2008 from StupidRanger.com
Filed under: Advice/Tools, Other Systems, RPG Hub, behind the screen
While at GenCon this year, I got into several conversations about the breadth and concentration of new gaming options on the sales floor this year. As in past years, offerings ran the gamut from new pencil and paper RPG[...] Filed under: Advice/Tools, Other Systems, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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Director’s Vision, Part 4 (The Inspired Improvisation)
August 21, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
Part 1Part 2Part 3In this installment of my series on the director's vision, I'll look at the inspired improvisation - when your players take off and do your job for you. This post actually comes more out of the movie Je[...] Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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Director’s Vision, Part 3 (The Wow Scene)
August 20, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
Part 1Part 2In this installment of my series on the director's vision, I'll look at the wow scene - the kind of thing that gets talked about weeks or years later.In my experience, the harder you work on a "wow" scene, th[...] Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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More Laser Clerics!
I should probably be working instead of blogging, but I dig this and I wanna play too. Plus I have a laser cleric of the Raven Queen in one campaign who'll probably want to use Chatty's flavor, so I'd better at least do [...]Read on >>
Director’s Vision, Part 2 (The Pivotal Scene)
August 18, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
Part 1In this installment of my little series on the director's vision, I'll look at the pivotal scene - a startling revelation that sets off the rest of the adventure/campaign.An important consideration for the pivotal [...] Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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World Building Through Interrogation
August 17, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: 4e, RPG Hub, behind the screen, campaign log
I tried an interesting experiment earlier this evening. It didn't accomplish everything I had hoped, but it showed promise.Early last week I tried to get some player input into building my mini-campaign story arc by thro[...] Filed under: 4e, RPG Hub, behind the screen, campaign log
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Director’s Vision, Part 1 (Introduction)
August 16, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
Last week I helped my wife shoot a music video starring our 6-foot plush bigfoot, Claude. I might be biased, but I think it turned out pretty well. I also think one of the reasons it turned out well is that from the star[...] Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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How to Draw Stairs
August 15, 2008 from The Art of the Near TPK
Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
Longer ago than I care to consider, I was an engineering undergrad at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the time (and maybe still for all I know), every student in the engineering school had to take General[...] Filed under: DM Advice, GM Advice, RPG Hub, behind the screen
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Wandering Monsters
I was going to keep quiet tonight even though I've been writing, to stock up on backlog. I need something to carry the blog through while I'm out of town for the next couple of days. But it looks like the mighty Mike Mea[...]Read on >>
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