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Bad Guy Bingo II
Hey you! Yeah, you!
You play D&D right? Okay, maybe not D&D, but some other elf-game that’s you call D&D when you’re explaining it to others right?
And I don’t just mean “played D&D” I mean have you played D&D?
Here’s a test. If you got a BINGO on the board below, I’ll believe that you’ve played enough D&D to say that you’ve played D&D.
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2025 in Review
2025 was a massive year for me, my family, my career as a soldier, and my career as a game developer. This timeline is all the major events I went through this year, including some things that were not connected to Ward Against Evil. I wanted to make this timeline to look back on everything that happened this year.
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Socketing Gemstones in RPGs
In the Diablo series there are usually five gemstones: Topaz, Amethyst, Ruby, Diamond, and Emeralds. In Diablo IV they added in Sapphires and Skulls (which count as gems?) bringing the total up to 7, but let’s stick with the classic five for now. They each do different things depending on if they’re socketing into a weapon, a piece of jewelry, or a piece of armor. I think we can apply those same rules to some generic OSR stuff:
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Make Things for Small Games
It’s not all about the big guys! Most of the games out there are made by the little guys and while they may not all be groundbreaking someone put a lot of work into them, and they’re probably proud of them.
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Shield Walls – from Someone with “Riot Control” Training
The reason I put “Riot Control” in parenthesis is because that’s a term the public would be more familiar with. My actual training and experience is with “Civil Disturbance Operations” (CDO) in the US Army National Guard.
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Sky-Blind Spire Review
The story of the module is simple: there’s a wizard tower and you need to go raid it. It’s very straightforward, and there’s some dynamics going on inside the dungeon between some goblins, some giants, and some dire pelicans. AND there’s a cohesive through-line throughout the dungeon that is pretty cool.
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Your First Session is Your Pilot Episode
It needs to take them from the beginning of the proposed gameplay loop all the way through the end and reset in an entire session. This is the promise you are making to the players: if you come back you will do this again, it might take longer to get to the end next time, but this is roughly how it will play out.
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Drama, Tension, and Roleplaying
Drama is difficult decision-making. To quote Mathew Colville it’s “will the heroes…?” Will they defeat the boss monster? Will they escape the dungeon? Will they convince the knight to join them on their quest? Will they survive if they’re armor is about to break? Find out, next time on D&D!!!
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Behind the Screen – First Dungeon (SR02)
Where last we left our heroes, our heroes had just committed double homicide, got caught, escaped, and are hiding out at a local barmaid’s apartment. They have low enough HP that by resting the night all of them return to max HP.
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Bad Guy Bingo
Here’s a test. If you got a BINGO on the board below, I’ll believe that you’ve played enough D&D to say that you’ve played D&D.
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March 2025 Round Up
This month we launched the Crowns 2e Kickstarter. It failed. That’s okay! In the ashes, Crowns 2e will rise again! There’s going to be a full release on itch.io on March 1st with a 50% sale for anyone who owns Crowns 1e. Everyone else gets 10% off.
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What OSR GMs Can Learn From Open World Video Games
I’m specifically talking about three open world games and a different idea from each that can be taken and applied to an OSR open world/West Marches-style campain. They are: Vantage Outposts, in Mad Max (2015), Most Wanted, in Batman Arkham Knight (2015), Collect-a-thons, in Far Cry 5 (2018)
Venture deeper still?Behind the Screen – Arrival in Stormreef (SR01)
This is the start of a new series of campaign diaries were it’s less about about the story of the campaign (although that will be told) and mostly about the lessons learned and GM tricks employed to keep the game moving.
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The Art of the Side Quest
Side quests are not main quests. This is a break in the norm, a break from huge adventure sites, multi-level dungeons, and interconnected hex-crawls. Try to leave out pre-dungeon-run investigations or rumors they need to collect. Keep it short, simple, and to the point.
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The Queen of Dragons: Part II – The Swamp
This is part two in the series where I take the main idea of the 5e campaign Tyranny of Dragons (an international cult attempts to summon Tiamat and control her by using dragon masks and what not) and turn it into a large OSR campaign.
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The Rot King’s Sanctum Review
I can unequivocally say that I not only love this dungeon, but that it’s so compact while hinting at a greater world beyond, that I now include it in nearly all of my D&D worlds somewhere.
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Growing the RPG Tradition
D&D is less of a set-of-rules and of a shared tradition. The point of this article isn’t to prove that (I think others before me have done that), the point is to tell us what we need to do with that information.
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Treat Illusions As You Would Any Other Lie: No Rolls
Image credit, Zin on Patreon 3/7/2025 Illusions are strange things. They are absolutely core to fantasy, almost every fantasy story (and many realistic-fiction ones) have dream sequences, hallucinations, or purposeful illusions, but in many respects they are difficult to get across at the table. Do they operate like secret doors? Does simply searching the room lead one to discover it? What about illusions in combat or in roleplay scenarios. What then? We don’t have time to search, so how are they discovered? Perception checks? In a fight? That might clue off someone that something is off and now the surprise…
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Bloodmoon Crypt Review
The plot of the module is really straight forward and actually very interesting at first glance. You are sent to investigate what is essentially Van Helsing’s Tomb, but if he and his whole family hunted werewolves instead of vampires.
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February 2025 Round Up
This month we launched the Crowns 2e Kickstarter. It failed. That’s okay! In the ashes, Crowns 2e will rise again! There’s going to be a full release on itch.io on March 1st with a 50% sale for anyone who owns Crowns 1e. Everyone else gets 10% off.
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Dark Albion: The Rose War Review
Image credit, Dark Albion: The Rose War by RPG Pundit 2/26/2025 I ran this campaign for about 10 sessions. I’d say I used maybe 8 pages of this book. And that’s stretching it. It is over 275 pages long. It was one of the best campaigns I’ve ever run. But how much of that had to do with the book, Dark Albion: The Rose War, and how much of that had to do with me being a history nerd? Plot: “Who’s this guy again?” Dark Albion: The Rose War by RPG Pundit is a gamification of the real-world War of…
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The Queen of Dragons: Part I – Overview
In current times, there is an evil, conspiratorial group that seek to rediscover these masks and use them to enslave dragons and rule the world (the group goes by many names as to keep its intentions a secret, one of them is the Cult of the Dragon).
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Hyadic Ghat Review
If you’re map gets drenched and you continue to your destination anyway, you will find yourself in the Hyades, a world-between-worlds where it is constantly raining. It remains me of The Gardens of Yinn by Dying Stylishly Games. It’s just a little demi-plane you can plop into your D&D campaign, heck, it’s essentially a random encounter.
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A Tithe of Sheep and Lamb
A common perception of dragons come’s from Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” They are depicted as sleepy, gold-hoarders that reside in mountains. However, this is not the impression of dragons given in the ancient tale of St. George and the Dragon!
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Campaign Diary #1 – Graverobbers at River’s End
“This is the priest we spoke of.”
“I don’t know what’s going on!”
“Where are my swords priest?!”
“I don’t know!”
“How not, aren’t you in charge!”
“No!” (points to the pincushioned woman) “She was! She was the elder! I’m only 30!”
“Oh, well who’s next in line?”
“Well it would be…” (points to the house that’s barricaded and on fire) “Oh well then…” (points to a man being stabbed) “I don’t even know right now.”
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Why Traps Belong on Random Encounter Tables
“Trap” has two meanings in OSR culture: #1 A Big Dangerous Puzzle, #2 A Sudden Punch in the Face
Both the complicated puzzle traps and random-gotcha traps are fun (don’t let anyone tell you otherwise), but they can’t be used in the same way without causing frustration.
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Whispers from the Lighthouse – Vol.1
Whispers and musings echo against the pitted cobbles of this place,
Deeds that must be done, and rewards to be earned…
The call to adventure, music to the ears of the valiant and the mad alike,
We need only have the strength to take up arms and listen…
Venture deeper still?What I Would Change About the Archvillian Games Sci-Fi Miniatures Line
Archvillain Games is a miniature line producer that works with a lot of YouTube personalities to sell monthly STLs for custom D&D adventures and (tangentially) their homemade wargame BATTLERUNE.
If Archvillain Games wants to grow their sci-fi line into the powerhouse that their fantasy line is, they have two obvious solutions:
Venture deeper still?Make the Rules Make a Scene
Here’s the bottom-line-up-front:
“TTRPG rules should curve players into experiencing and acting-out the scenes the designer intends to have them experience and act out without needing to explicitly tell them to do it.”
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2nd Edition Brief
All the pieces are in place. The manuscript is fully written. The itch page is built. The Kickstarter is assembled (although backerkit may be smarter, I’ll have to dig a little deeper into that). All that is left are three things in order:
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Ward Against Evil 