Hellfire: From Bad to Worse

It’s the year 2950 and we’re going to need a bigger army. And that bigger army is going to need some bigger tanks. The city of Damascus has been taken, after some vicious fighting, by our neighbor to the southeast, the Tillian Republic.  We know they mean to take...

Solo Patron Play and Domain Management Megagames

The OG AD&D DMG contains a wealth of rules and guidance on domain management for dummies.  In his inimitable manner, Gary presents a scattershot approach to kitchen sink gaming, but while the bones are there, Gary leaves it to the players to figure out the connective tissue.  Or not,...

Empire Ain’t Easy

After years, my little Decapolis has lost two cities to encroaching barbarians and suffered the indignity of a successful raid on a third. When it hits, “Hellfire and the Fall of Empire” doesn’t pull its punches. In the Year of Our Lord (a nice touch) 2948 the Weallian Supremacy...

The Center Must Hold

The Hellfire Campaign is dead, long live the Hellfire 2.0 Campaign. For reasons too boring to go into here, I have put the Hyde’s Reach campaign to bed.  But the Jim Webster itch has not been fully scratched, so we turn our attention to “Hellfire and the Fall of...

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...