Author: Walt Ciechanowski

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to run a superhero game with a “Silver Age” feel. I wanted low-powered heroes in a world where superheroes and supervillains were just emerging. I spent a great deal of energy describing exactly the type of campaign I was looking for and printed handouts for the players. I spent a good part of the first session explaining what I was looking for and everybody agreed to it. We devoted the rest of the session to designing…

From time to time I revisit my Witchcraft universe, which has provided several interrelated campaigns. For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s essentially contemporary urban fantasy set in a world recognizably our own. I’ve also been giving it a superheroic spin of late. Last session we went back to it after a long hiatus. I reintroduced an NPC, an old college friend, that neither the players nor their characters had seen in almost a decade. He’d since become a local congressman and he was meeting…

In the first installment of Gnew Years Resolutions for 2012 some of the Gnomes offered gaming resolutions and readers were invited to join along with us. Here’s how we’ve been progressing for the first quarter: John: My resolution was to be more conscious about prepping for games. I tend to fall back on improv as a Game Master, but I’ve been hitting the prep phase hard for games lately. It has helped. While I still run off the cuff for one out of every three…

A few weeks back my wife’s pregnancy was taking its toll and she had to take a break from gaming until after the baby is born (it should be this week!). Rather than cut out gaming completely (mostly because we’d miss the socialization) I decided to run a game of Hellfrost for the rest of the group. I just had three problems. First and foremost, I’d never played or run Hellfrost before. Secondly, I’ve only had very minimal experience with the underlying Savage Worlds system…

This is a milestone month for me. We are expecting our third child to come any day now and I turn 40 this Saturday. I started gaming with the Moldvay Basic Set of Dungeons & Dragons, making this my 30th year of gaming as well! Given the fact that I need to lighten my load a bit, and the fact that yesterday was April Fool’s Day, I thought I’d celebrate my Neo-Grognardness with a nostalgic look back at my 80s gaming era. So without further…

When it comes to RPG systems, I’ve found that the five senses are usually either lumped together into one score (D&D 4e, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds), or parceled out for sight and hearing (Call of Cthulhu, D&D 3.5). Advantages and disadvantages generally only deal with sight and hearing as well and, even when the other senses are touched, it’s rare for them to actually matter in play. I’m guilty of this at my own table. When it’s time to call for a notice/perception check, I always…

Back in ye olden times when dice were marked with crayon, notebooks were spiral-bound, and the bombs were going to drop any minute now, what a player character purchased in town was often more important than anything else on her character sheet. Various tools and gear were used in creative ways while we pillaged our way through dungeons, from our 10′ poles locating pit traps to our 50′ of rope we needed to get out of said pit traps (I have a sneaking suspicion the…