The most important tool of the game master is tension. Tension is created primarily by uncertain outcomes. If you are good at creating tension, your players will feel it in their guts. You'll know you've turned up the tension when they look worried and lean in to see the result of the die roll. The …
A Thought About How the Open System Developed
Many people who played with Dave Arneson said he had a lot of the "rules" for Blackmoor in his head. It wasn't written down. The lore of D&D's early creation was that Dave sent Gary eighteen pages of hand written notes which represented the "rules" of Dave's Blackmoor game. By today's standards, OD&D has a …
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What I Learned from Secrets of Blackmoor: Part II
In this post, I'm going to lay out some concepts I picked up, in part, from the documentary . These lessons align with an important observation made by Rob Kunst. That observation is this; Role playing games are a combination of open and closed systems. Role-playing games are games in which players can do things that …
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The Primary Reason I Use Dice
Cavegirl wrote a post about using dice which I agree with, mostly. Her thesis is, "Rolling dice is a tool for when it's hard for the GM to adjudicate the results." (emphasis hers) I can't agree that this is the only or perhaps even the primary use of dice in an RPG. As noted by Brendan …
We Actually Prefer Older Editions.
"The majority of people playing AD&D/OD&D/Basic D&D are playing those editions for the nostalgia." There are numerous blog posts, social media posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos and interpretive dances declaring that we do in fact, prefer older editions of the "worlds greatest roleplaying game." The falsehood that its only nostalgia persists. I've heard it for …
The DM’s Guild is Sharecropping
If you publish using DM's Guild you are are the tenant in a digital sharecropping scheme. By publishing on their platform with it's attendant licensing agreement, you are living on their land. You pay for that tenancy with your creative work. You make content and can only sell it on their platform if it uses …
Games That Don’t Have Rules For Everything You Can Do
Games have rules. They set the boundaries of what can and can not be done. In games like chess, Magic the Gathering and Ticket to Ride; if it isn't in the rules, you can't do it. Dave Arneson and the group of players in the Twin Cities discovered a type of game where you can …
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Grumpy Wizard 
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