It’s Up to All of Us
Like many on my side of the political chasm, I’ve enjoyed my share of schadenfreude while watching meltdowns by emotionally unstable losers. Sometimes my conscience twinges at the thought that many of these poor, lost souls could benefit from a strong and healthy dose of compassion. Many of those...
Is This What Weebs Feel?
I think I get it now. Shamelessly stolen from the Arkhaven Blog. This is solid advice for creatives of all stripes. These people are not your audience. They are children and mentally ill terrorists who only have the power you give them. They are death cultists who live only...
The Revolution Will Not Be Railroaded
Did you feel that? The game just changed. And unlike most revolutionary changes, this is one you will recognize at the time. Fifteen of the best minds of our generation come together in this one incredible package. For the first time ever, experts in the field of tabletop gaming...
Solo Wargames
Does anyone else find it significant that solo miniature wargames have become so popular in recent years? Games like that shown here (which you can get a hard copy of through Lulu), Rangers of Shadowdeep, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, and so on. To say nothing of Mike Lambo’s long-running series...
The ‘Mother May I’ DM
An older video with some responses that flew under my radar because I don’t follow boring OSR blogs any more. They are all stuck in the old model of play, and just don’t have enough to contribute to the advancement and evolution of the hobby. They also very rarely...
Film Recommendation: Another Mel Edition
You should go watch The Professor and the Madman. Don’t let the prospect of Sean Penn playing a murderous prisoner (again) scare you off. Uncle Mel doesn’t pick bad scripts, and he picked a winner in this period piece about the assembly of the first Oxford English Dictionary. I watched...
Hyde’s Reach: First Firefight
It finally happened. Steel met steel in a no-holds barred cage match for a sleepy little rail junction somewhere in west Septemtria. You can catch all the terrible action here. The overall battle saw one regiment of near-modern forces holding a rail juntion against a like-number of foes. The...
How Alignment Lubricates PvP Play
Once you fully adopt the classic adventure game model you have some serious and subtle obstacles to overcome. Overnight the campaign makes a quantum leap from ‘us against the GM’ to ‘everybody against everybody’, and that means an exponential increase in the threats that you – as a player...
How PvP Increases Role-Playing
When every player is actively engaged with every other player, this opens up the possibility for role-playing well beyond the conventional model of play. In conventional play, meaningful role-play is limited to player-GM interactions. Sure, you can role-play conversations within the party, and those in-character negotiations can influence the...
The Most Important Event In TableTop (You’ve Probably Never Heard Of)
Looking back on 2021, it occurred to me that the most important event in tabletop gaming in decades might have been the PvP death of Bob Dobs (run by Kestutis Kalvitis), who was eaten by cave bears on the command of Chief Fudd of Fug. Cirsova, the man behind...