My copy of the Planescape Campaign Setting (paid link) arrived this past weekend, and I had a chance to spend some time looking through it. My first impression is that Planescape packs a punch. What’s inside? The guts are classic 1990s TSR: four saddle-stitched books, four poster maps/thingies, and — somewhat unusually — a GM’s […]
Planescape makes a hell of a first impression Read More »
I’ve been noodling some more about running Planescape as a sandbox, and since my copy of the boxed set isn’t here yet I decided to pull stuff off my shelves that seemed like it might be a good fit. Important safety tip, Egon This is dangerous! This is how ideas collapse under their own weight!
Raiding the larder for Planescape sandbox ingredients Read More »
Planescape (paid link) was one of the AD&D 2nd Edition campaign settings that passed me by while it was still in print, but I’ve been curious about it for years. I was thinking about it yesterday when an idea hit me: What would Planescape be like as an old-school, gold-for-XP sandbox? Since I don’t own
Planescape as a sandbox Read More »
When I opened and sorted the pound of Gamescience dice I ordered from their website (here’s the listing), I didn’t notice that there were some odd dice “masquerading” as ordinary dice. At least for me, it’s hard to tell what’s on a Gamescience die until I’ve inked it — I see a decahedron, I assume
The pound of Gamescience dice was odder than I thought Read More »
I ordered a pound of dice from Gamescience the hot minute they came back in stock, and I figured I’d break it down here so folks could see what’s in the current assortment. Das basics At $55, it’s not cheap — but neither are Gamescience dice in general, and you get a lot of dice
What do you get in a pound of Gamescience dice? Read More »
A recent family outing to Uwajimaya snowballed into a trip to Kinokuniya Bookstore, and that place is trouble — particularly because their manga selection is insane. I wound up picking up the first Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (paid link) omnibus and the first volume of One-Punch Man (paid link), and quickly followed those up with the
Over on Monsters and Manuals, David McGrogan (author of the excellent Yoon-Suin, one of the starred recommendations on my big list of RPG stuff on Lulu) wrote a neat post about a rule of thumb for sandbox games: Two Problems for Every Solution. David shares an example from his campaign that explains it well: For
One choice, two consequences Read More »
I’m a sucker for highly portable games. Hive Pocket (paid link) is one of my all-time favorite games, period — and it just happens to be pocket-sized.[1] I also dig Love Letter (paid link), which supports four players and, at least in the US, was more or less solely responsible for making microgames a thing. So
Pack O Game: one pouch, 8 games the size of packs of gum Read More »
I was poking through Dave Arneson‘s The First Fantasy Campaign[1] the other day and happened across a section I’d never looked at before: Gypsy Sayings & Chance Cards. The sayings don’t mesh well with my GMing style (they remind me of Ravenloft’s Tarrokka Deck (paid link), a 2e product revived for 5e), but the Chance Cards
Chance Cards in Blackmoor Read More »
Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem, by De Scriptorice, has been making the rounds in my circles on G+, and I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to say about it. Not because I’m of any importance, but because what that post describes is awful, and speaking up matters. Yesterday, I
You can validate others’ experiences without invalidating your own Read More »
