I’ve never been a fan of when players just say they want to use X skill, such as, “I want to use Perception to check for traps”, or “I want to make a Diplomacy check with the town guard to find out what’s going on with the prisoner.” Technically there’s...
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Life is funny. Last month I was hacking up a John Wick game, and today I am here to tell you about work I am doing for Things from the Flood. As it turns out, my player who was going to be out for his new baby, was ready to come back sooner than we expected. So the next thing I knew, I was...
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Want to write better adventures? Want to prep more efficiently? Sick of players skipping all of your best content? Prep Smarter, Not Harder, with Encounter Theory Encounter Theory: The Adventure Design Workbook is a fresh way to look at adventure design by Ben Riggs, the voice of the...
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With this being Friday the 13th, I figured I’d roll with a post about curses. There are a multitude of reasons (some with more legitimacy than others) on why we’re so afraid of Friday the 13th. The historical event that I think makes the most sense is the capture and eventual downfall...
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In the fifth edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game, the concept of “downtime activities” has been fairly well codified. Of course, there are “interludes” in Green Ronin’s AGE and in Savage Worlds. GURPS has had downtime activities for decades. So...
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Whether you use a plethora of painstakingly painted figurines or the classical theater of the mind for your games, you’ll often find yourself with more space than you know what to do with. Part of fleshing out the game world is filling up the scene with details that make the world come...
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I am in between campaigns, having just wrapped an amazing arc of Masks, and with a bit of downtime before my Things From the Flood campaign starts (We are taking time off while one of the players in the group has their second child). As we kicked around ideas of what to play, the suggestion was...
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Learn how Daniel Kwan fosters positive, collaborative relationships with the members of his gaming table with two resources that you might not find at your local game store.
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There was a tendency, when I was running years ago, to run into players that would use the following logic, “you can do anything in an RPG, so let’s do [insert thing not well supported by the game or setting].” Because I have been running a lot more roleplaying games that have a...
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While I was at Queen City Conquest two weeks ago, I ran a handful of games during the weekend as well as got to play a few games. During the weekend, I was very happy to see how quickly people at the table would start making table tents for their characters. I have been doing this for a while at...
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