Members only Review Review: Classified! by Rage Kage Games The long-promised review of Classified! by Rage Kage Games is now here. I tweeted (X'ed? Posted on Mastodon?) a while ago about how much I was enjoying this game, but had a few other posts in the works that I wanted to finish before writing this review. So,
History Rethinking Alignment: the Great Chain of Being One of the most ignored parts of D&D's core rules is the idea of alignment. I get it, I ignore it too! For those who aren't familiar with it, D&D gives every creature--PC, NPC, monster, beast--an alignment on two axes. One axis
Media Studies Lessons from Percy Jackson in Adapting Myth Something a little bit different today. This blog is all about using history (including historical understandings of things like religion and folklore) and using that to inform and inspire roleplaying. In the past, I've looked at some examples of media as components of larger posts, from George RR
History Varying Religious Culture in TTRPGs and Worldbuilding The focus on bone magic that has dominated the blog for the past three weeks has made me start to think more about how we treat religion in D&D and other TTRPGs. Because of the "real" nature of the gods, who go around and directly intervene
Osteomancy Osteomancy for D&D Part of the Magical Practices Project Part of the Osteomancy series Last week, I walked you through my step-by-step thought process as I designed a homebrew thing (a class? A trait? A third title for a system that has not yet been fully laid out?) for a work-in-progress, still secret
Design with Me Osteomancy: Design With Me Part of the Magical Practices Project Part of the Osteomancy series This is a little bit of a weird post to be writing for a few reasons. First, I don't know what I'm actually writing for this – I don't have a specific end design
History The Power of Bones: History & Myth Part of the Magical Practices Project Part of the Osteomancy series This article is going to kick off a big project and a short series that will be part of that project. Let's start with the big one: exploring real-world 'magical' practices (click here for the
PocketQuest 2024 Special bonus mini blog post today! Something that DriveThruRPG does every year now is to host something called PocketQuest, where short (under 25 pages) RPGs get developed, uploaded, and promoted. It's a super cool project (that I found out about too late to join this year, but definitely
History Jesters & Fools: History & Myth Happy April Fool's Day! To celebrate this holiday, I wanted to write about the history of court jesters, a staple trope in popular imagination about the medieval European royal court, as well as share some resources for this classic image for use in your Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
Review Review: The Marketplace by Phalanx Games Design I spent 2600 words last week trying to explain the basic principles underpinning the medieval feudal system. One big area that I did not really tackle was the existence of trade in the medieval world. The short version: there certainly was trade, but far less than the massive, globalized trade
History Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: History & Myth Something that came up while I was writing last week's post on the Luddites is how hard it is to imagine a world that is based on any system other than capitalism. The motive of individual profit, the majority of individuals living in cities and towns, the ability
History Captain Ludd: History & Myth This post is all about a pretty major social movement in the early 1800s. While that is certainly a bit later than the medieval-ish historical epoch that a lot of fantasy draws from, the larger social point of the Luddites is one that can pretty easily be adapted for a
GM's Day 2024 Today is "International Game Master's Day"! To celebrate, this post is going to be a little different than what I normally write / have written / will continue to write. I'm going to talk about my own experience as a GM--consider this a supplement to the
Design with Me Spider Broodmother: Design with Me CW: Discussion of Spiders, Discussion of Body Horror This post is a part of an ongoing Upgraded Monsters series. Click the link to check out all posts in the series. I'm hoping to expand beyond just showing links to work that I create. For this sort of article,
History Worldbuilding Elements of a Western Readers of the blog may have noticed that both of my newly published homebrew work is centered very much on the Wild West. This is because my current home game is set in a fantasy version of the American West, so it has been dominating my personal homebrewing for the
Supplements Now Live! Quill Quest: Outlaw's Tale My newest product is now available for download on DriveThruRPG. The product is Pay-What-You-Want, but any amount you're willing to pay is hugely appreciated – your purchases support the upkeep of the site and allow me to continue sharing my homebrew publicly. This product expands on the system I
Review Review: Quill, a Letter-Writing RPG by Trollish Delver Games I'm very, very late to the party on this review. Quill: A Letter Writing Roleplaying Game for a Single Player won the title of "Best Free RPG" at the Indie RPG Awards all the way back in 2016. So I'm about 8 years too
Supplements Now Live! Rogue's Gallery: the Tusall Gang This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. My newest product is now available for download on DriveThruRPG. I would really appreciate your support – your purchases support the upkeep of