The new year is upon us and many game conventions are into their cycle of planning and scheduling. This is the first in a series of posts about running games at conventions. I've run and played games at many conventions over the last decade or so and have some lessons I've learned from old hands …
You Must Create Tension
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 …
Continue reading What I Learned from Secrets of Blackmoor: Part II
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 …
Grumpy Wizard 
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