The ship is facing off against an entire House’s army. The gate to the unknown is behind them, but no one has ever come back. With her standard confidence, the pirate queen takes her lover’s hand, smiles at him, and says “We will come back. We will be the first.” A crack pilot, she flips the ship...
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Just when you thought that the idea of a session zero wasn’t nerdy enough, along I come to show you how I recently upped the nerd-ante, hopefully to my benefit, the benefit of my players, and the game as a whole. If you are not familiar with the concept of session zero, it is basically a session...
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The D&D Adventurer’s League is in the midst of some important changes. While I have no inside information about what drove those changes, why they happened, or what changes might yet happen, I have some thoughts about what might have precipitated them, and why they’re REALLY important for the...
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I wanted to share my experience running micro-sessions — all under and hour — for my two teen sons. I’m using the d20 Modern system, or at least a bare bones version of it. Everyone at the table has mastered this rules set, which is something to keep in mind if you wish to mimic the experience....
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As you emerge from the Pineward Forest you see the mountains known as the Airy Peaks. They loom in the north, grey, black, and unnaturally bare of snow. The Red Runner River guides your approach to the mountains and the town known as Foot. The river narrows as you come up to a stone bridge arching...
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What is the ideal number of players to have at your table for any given game? Is it three? Four? Five? EIGHT?!? Ask a dozen GMs and you’ll probably get a dozen slightly different answers. Recently, I was checking my events for an upcoming con and noticed the player limit was five. I panicked...
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Recently I was playtesting a new game with the designers and some friends. The game is a cyberpunk dystopia (my jam) and we were playing teenagers. I had just been dissed (people still say that, right?), and I told the GM, “I am going on future Twitter to rant about this.” Everyone at the table...
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Podcaster, game designer, and professional GM Daniel Kwan breaks down how to become a GM-for-hire in his latest editorial.
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Tactical RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, Savage Worlds, and the AGE family of games (Blue Rose, Dragon Age, and the upcoming The Expanse RPG) offer an experience completely unlike more story-based games. While they can certainly contain any amount of intrigue, tense character moments, and plots as...
Read More There are a lot of areas that are a part of the Airy Peaks, twenty-three last time I counted but I might have lost some and added some along the way that I’m forgetting about. These aren’t twenty-three rooms — they are twenty-four adventure locations. It’s intended to be a massive place and I...
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