A Task in Need of a Tool Back in March, I was in a position I didn’t expect to be in. I was doing a lot of pre-work to have actual play and live streams of my new version of Iron Edda live for when the Kickstarter launched in July. (It’s live now, go check it out!) I’d run online...
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Stealth GMing Over the past few years my game mastering to playing ratio has significantly shifted towards running games. I love both roles, but now that I understand more about GMing role playing games I am certain I have become a very different (read: better) participant overall. Sometimes when...
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At its core, the art of writing convention game descriptions for the preregistration website or booklet is all about setting expectations. They say brevity is the soul of wit, but it is also a necessity when it comes to writing convention descriptions where the word (or even character) count is...
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This article is a companion piece to the earlier article 100 Dungeon Descriptors Table. Just like that article, it’s a d100 list you can roll on for random descriptors. This time it’s for overland areas. Roll a few and see if it inspires you, or roll a few for an overall area and more...
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I grew up in the 1980’s when D&D came in two flavors: Basic and Advanced. Back then, we just played the game and didn’t worry about table safety and how people felt. That was in a large part for two reasons: First, we lacked the experience and lexicon to describe the concept of table safety....
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Recycling isn’t just for paper & plastics anymore. Turns out you can recycle anything, even art. A popular exercise in many internet music circles is the Mashup, two or more distinct tracks chopped & screwed together to make one new piece of art, that would not have been possible without...
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Nothing fancy today, just a list of dungeon descriptors, helpfully listed in d100 format. Oftentimes I find myself wanting to make a new dungeon or area and am short on ideas. This list is useful for inspiration, kickstarting design with an idea or two about which ideas can be formed. Alternately,...
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I’m a big fan of dice, especially unusual dice, so back when it was open I backed PolyHero’s wizard dice Kickstarter (Thanks Patreon supporters!). If you’d like to grab your own set, they’re available for purchase at PolyHero’s web site. These are amazing looking...
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For starters, take these tips with a grain of salt. First, different approaches to productivity work for different people. Second, I have to be the world’s worst person at parking my butt and getting prep done. These are all things I have tried with varying degrees of success, but I am...
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Welcome to the Gnomecast, the Gnome Stew’s tabletop gaming advice podcast. Here we talk with the other gnomes about gaming things to avoid becoming part of the stew. So I guess we’d better be good. This episode we have Senda, Chris, & Ang talking about continuity in games....
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