I had no idea SJG had done a licensed sourcebook for Andre Norton‘s excellent Witch World series. It feels awesome to crack open a book from 1989 — my salad years as a gamer — that I’d never heard of until recently, based on a universe I enjoy, for a game system I enjoy. I’ve […]
I like using X-in-6 rolls to resolve things on fly when I’m GMing, particularly stuff for which there is no rule and for yes/no questions. I also love using oracle dice — in my case Rory’s Story Cubes — and tarot card pulls to answer questions and give myself inspiration on the fly. These sorts
Tales of Argosa oracle dice Read More »
I can trace a lot of my hobbies along crooked paths back to a fuzzy origin, a ball of time and memory that might be as narrow as a year or as wide as a range of years. But it’s rare that I can look at specific interests in the present and say, “That, right
The rare clear, bright point of origin Read More »
I mentioned last July that I wasn’t far enough into my group’s Traveller campaign to write a full blog post about it, but here in January after 9 sessions I feel better equipped to talk about how things are going. The crew of the Volitant-class Far Trader Neutrino Phoenix has been exploring the Cidrogal Subsector
How I’m running my zero-prep Traveller sandbox Read More »
One of the joys of having no posting schedule and, let’s be honest, a very small audience, is that I don’t feel any pressure to post. Usually when Yore is quiet I’m up to a bunch of stuff and just don’t have anything to say. How about a quick round-up of the Yore-adjacent stuff? Reading
Quietly reading and playing Read More »
I’ve been logging RPG sessions on RPGGeek since 2008, and last night’s Basement Game session — AD&D 1st Edition, running the module “Citadel by the Sea” from Dragon #78, in my Godsbarrow setting — was my 1,000th logged session. We ended on a cliffhanger, with the party having attacked a group of large spiders and
My 1,000th logged RPG session Read More »
Last night during character creation for our RuneQuest campaign, my group employed a tool we use before almost every new game: CATS. Created by P.R. O’Leary, CATS stands for Concept, Aim, Tone, Subject Matter, and it’s a social contract-adjacent pregame discussion to get everyone on the same page, set expectations, and avoid potential issues. It
Turning CATS into CATSOS (“catsauce”) for RPGs Read More »
Back in August my Seattle group started a new campaign we’ve dubbed the Basement Game, and its kickoff AD&D 1st Edition adventure is set in Godsbarrow — making it the third Godsbarrow campaign. The idea here is that this is a freewheeling, no-worries, 1970s/1980s, eating Cheetos in the basement style of game, so we’re planning
Godsbarrow: the Basement Game, Myzes, and Tuage orcs Read More »
Back in January I posted about my 2024 RPG collecting goal: acquiring the complete game lines for Ars Magica, Delta Green, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. Things are coming along pretty well! Here’s where I’m at with each game, starting on the top shelf and then going left to right
2024 game line collection update Read More »
I was thinking about why I don’t post more on RPGnet (I concluded that while I like it there, I’ve never felt like I fit in; that’s not unusual for me), and looking back through some of the relatively few posts I’ve made, when I stumbled across one that fits right into the “this should
Three tips for zero-prep GMing Read More »
