Planning a Campaign

Planning a Campaign: Session 0 and Player Backstories

I've been slowly putting out this series about actually prepping a campaign, so you can see how I incorporate all of the history and GM theory stuff I talked about on the blog into an actual campaign. Check out the whole series below: Planning a CampaignA glimpse into

Planning a Campaign

Planning a Campaign: Faction Building

💡This is part of my new series where I walk through how I prepare for a new campaign, to show how I integrate all the historical RPG techniques that I talk about on this blog. Check out the whole series here, and definitely read part 1 before you read today&

Rethinking Fantasy

Your Worldbuilding Needs More Sports

What sports are played for leisure in your world? I say this as someone who is not a big sports fan: it is undeniable that sports are a huge element of culture. From bans on sports being a mode of cultural repression (as in the suppression of traditional Irish sports)

Planning a Campaign

Planning a Campaign: Premise and Setting

Welcome to my new series, Planning a Campaign. My next big campaign--which I'm planning to run for a year or more--is set to start in January. This means that the past few weeks has been spent actually trying to get the basic premise sketched out and set up.

Now Live!

Now Live: The Zombie for Vaesen

This month, we've been exploring the zombie. You can check out the full series here. Last week, we focused on exploring the zombie in Dungeons & Dragons, and found the creature as written to be pretty good for our zombie-as-oppressive-capitalism metaphor. This week, I'm thrilled to

Revising Zombies

Zombies in Dungeons & Dragons

This October, I'm looking at the classic undead monster: the Zombie. Check out the full series using this link! Last week, we focused on different meanings and depictions of zombies across time, and we picked out what defines a zombie for the purposes of this series to make

Revising Zombies

Zombies: History & Myth

Last year, to celebrate Halloween, I dedicated the entire month of October to a series about how to rethink vampires. This year, I'm going to do the same thing but for zombies – the much maligned, no-longer-particularly-scary low-tier undead common to RPGs. (Except I'll be tackling zombies

Review

Review: Cinderedge

Before delving into this year's October series properly, I wanted to kick off the month not with an article on zombies but with a review of a solo game that I got a chance to try recently and which has a physical version going live on Kickstarter tomorrow.

Media Studies

Give Everyone A Spotlight: Lessons from Heroes

In my partner's continuing quest to expose me to all of the TV shows that I completely missed as a child, I've recently been watching the first season of Heroes. For those, like me, who were previously unfamiliar with the show, it is 1) very good,

Rethinking Fantasy

It's Hard to Find Good Help, Part 2

Last week, I wrote about the basic structure that exists in the household staff of the rich during the Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern periods. The rich could not have the glamor that we associate with them without their servant staffs, and the "downstairs" hierarchy is just as

Rethinking Fantasy

It's Hard to Find Good Help, Part 1

Whenever we think about the concept of nobility in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, or later, it is hard to disentangle the life of the upper class from the role of their servants. In an era before washing machines or laundromats, the wealthy– and even many of the upper bourgeoisie, like

Practical Ideas

The Name List

My past several posts have been pretty worldbuilding oriented, so I wanted to do something more immediately practical this week. One of the classic "D&D problems" is when players and the GM have a differing sense of what the tone of the world is. The Dungeons

Media Studies

Lessons from the Gilded Age: Old Money vs New Money

I've been watching HBO's The Gilded Age recently, and it has made me start thinking about the conflict between Old Money and New Money--the major theme and conflict of the show. My primary home world is pre-industrial, which means that we don't have the

Campaign Reflections

Reflections on Wrestling

When I last finished a long-running campaign a little over a year ago (oh god its been so long since I've had a big campaign), I wrote an article reflecting on it. Devoted followers of the blog or my social media will know that I've been

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages Follow-Up: Example Dwarvish Drinks

Back in April, I released a guide on building your own drinks to enhance your worldbuilding on DriveThruRPG. You can pick up that guide for only one dollar! Followers of the blog will also know that I've been running a campaign using the system World Wide Wrestling, but

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Coins and Currencies

Coins and Currency: Adding Flavor to Your Coins

The past two weeks on the blog have been my three-part series on Currency and Coinage. This week is the last part! So far, I've talked about the existing currency system of Dungeons & Dragons, and what the principles and math that underpinned a lot of medieval and

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Coins and Currencies

Coins and Currency: Building a Foundation

Last week, I started my three-part series on Currency and Coinage. I talked about the existing currency system of Dungeons & Dragons, how the common silver standard can fix the price of common goods but doesn't really improve the "realism" of the system, and how larger

Coins and Currencies

Coins and Currency: As It Stands

Everyone knows that D&D's economy is... non-functional, to say the least. It is the subject of a ton of blog posts, reddit posts, forum threads, YouTube videos, and even an entire tome of a supplement that I reviewed. In college, one of my players--an economics major--and

Media Studies

Building Tension: TTRPG Lessons from Pandemic

I absolutely love the board game Pandemic. It was one of the first "serious" board games I played, after Betrayal at the House on the Hill. It is still one of my favorites. It is challenging but winnable. The system is easy to understand, but you can get

Review

Review: World Wide Wrestling by Nathan Paoletta

If you've been following my social media, are in my real-life gaming group, or subscribe to the monthly roundup of the blog, you already know that my newest campaign that I'm running is not D&D or any other high fantasy system. Instead, despite knowing

Media Studies

Running Political Intrigue: TTRPG Lessons from Suzerain

Recently, I have been extremely into the video game Suzerain, by Torpor Games. I've described it to friends as "the most complicated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure ever." In it, you play as the president of a fictional country in a fictionalized version that takes inspiration from Central and Eastern

Rethinking Fantasy

Your Worldbuilding Needs More Cows

Over my Spring Break, I went to Texas, and one of the places that I visited was the Fort Worth cattle Stockyards. It made me start thinking more about the cattle industry--of prime importance to the settlement of the American West, and something that I completely skipped over in my

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 3

Last week, we covered the initial victory of a revolution and subsequent dissolving of the bonds of unity. Subscribers were able to read how I applied the lessons about these phases to a revolution in my own homebrew world. As a reminder: this is not meant to be the only

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 2

Last week, we covered the first stages of the life cycle of a revolution, as the existing regime is destabilized, exposed, and ultimately, revolutionary forces are violently unleashed upon it. Subscribers were able to read how I applied the lessons about these phases to a revolution in my own homebrew

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 1

Back in March, I wrote about how several historical empires of the ancient and medieval worlds followed essentially the same arc in a two part series (you can check out part 1 and part 2). We can use that arc as a way to quickly build a history for a