GM Advice
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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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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,…
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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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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)
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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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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…
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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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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:
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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.”
Ward Against Evil 