A minor kafuffle went on in the RPG blogging community recently over the concept of the 7.5 hit point orcish standard. I don’t think that’s what anyone else called it. That just seems like a good name to me. The original premise is this: If you’re an orc, or some other common low level fodder...
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As is often the case, inspiration for my articles comes from things that happen in real life. The latest event in my life was a cross country move from Oxford, Mississippi to Columbus, Ohio. It was stressful, compacted into a few days, and throughout the whole thing I kept imagining myself in...
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Back in the days when I was still coloring in my dice numbers, we primarily used group initiative to determine combat order. There were no modifiers; a player and the GM each rolled a die. If the player scored the highest result, the PCs acted first. If the GM scored the highest result, then the...
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For my Bleakstone hex crawl, I decided I wanted a random encounter system that met the following criteria: Simple Conforms roughly to the baseline 1/6 chance of an encounter/day in Basic D&D Can be weighted by terrain, region, PC activity, etc. Not entirely predictable by my players I...
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I recently created a calendar for my fantasy hexcrawl, Bleakstone, and since it was a fun process and I’m pleased with how it turned out I thought I’d share it here. I wanted a calendar that was largely similar to the one we’re used to (the Gregorian calendar) without being...
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In preparation for the release of the upcoming DCC RPG from Goodman Games, I recently acquired a set of GameScience dice. If you’re not familiar with GameScience, Col. Lou Zocchi, or why these dice are different from the dice you’re probably used to, these two GenCon 2008 video sales...
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Ever since Troy’s article about running red box D&D for his kids at the end of January, I’ve been immersing myself in the OSR (Old School Renaissance). It’s been a ton of fun, and one aspect in particular has been some of the most fun I’ve had as a GM in years. Even...
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As a GM, wandering monsters and other random encounters can be difficult to utilize without being a burden on the game. The best illustration of this point I’ve so far seen is in Rich Burlew’s excellent comic, Order of the Stick. But is it true that the wandering monster is nothing but a boring...
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Get your bull’s-eye lantern, a 10 ft pole, and some spikes, because we are taking a journey into the dungeons of yesteryear. For those of you who did not battle the Slavers, wander the Borderlands, defeat the Giants, and stood in the Demonweb Pits, you are in luck. Goodman Games provides...
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Back before GenCon, I asked you guys what game you would like me to review, and you chose HackMaster Basic. I picked up the book at GenCon and started reading it right away. I kept you up to date with my progress on Twitter with the tag #hmbreview . Now, weeks later, summer breezes have turned...
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Hey you. Yeah, you. Do you know about Gnomecast 21? Why isn’t it in the archives? What are they hiding? If you value your safety… don’t go searching for Gnomecast 21…
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