And In My Last Hour I'm a Slave to the Power of Death - Apropos of nothing, here are eight ideas for megadungeons, each inspired by the title and lyrical themes of the Iron Maiden album *Powerslave* (1984): *...

Frankenstein Movies – Episode 291 – 5/30/2026 - Shane Plays Geek Talk Episode #291 – 5/30/2026 Fellow movie buffs Chris Holmes and Stephen Clements join for an electrifying ambulation through the gothi...

Immersion is not what you think, player - *Here we go, another post on the Substack. I think I can claim that I'm back at it. There are already two new essays lined up, and I'm aiming at one a we...

How to Run a Campaign That Actually Finishes - *An all-too-familiar story...* *It's Saturday night near the end of April, but you haven't had a session of your Curse of Strahd game since December -- but...

The Unwritten/Unspoken Rules of OD&D part two - Taking a closer look at: 5. Never confront characters with threats they cannot either defeat or avoid. - 5b. Never confront characters with threats that ...

Mapping the pre D&D Dungeon Adventure From May 25 1972, Part 1 - Earlier (Here) we looked at the oldest dungeon dive preserved in Arneson's write up as found in *Blackmoor Foundations*. Turning now to the second dunge...

RPG Design: How a Roleplaying Game like D&D Could Make Rounds Play Better - Since D&D dropped the declaration phase in favor of cyclic initiative, it has let one round blur into the next without any phases that trigger between roun...

jimbo update -

Le Regole della Casa del Grognardo: AD&D e il Dual Class - Se c’è una cosa che ha sempre provocato in AD&D una sensazione simile a quella delle unghie che grattano la lavagna sono le regole per i Dual Class. La b...

Ten Friggin Hill Cantons Wizards - 10 Wizards of the Hill Cantons # Name Description 1 Magister Dobromil the Cauterizer Specializes in magical “cleaning” of reality leaks. Wears fou...

Lexicon of Klarkash-Ton, Hierophant of Atlantis: Lupanar - This time, we follow the good High Priest to the far future, to the final continent of Earth, Zothique, for a a tale of ennui and love: Morthylla. Witho...

STILL ALIVE BITCHES - Well. Here we are again. It's been a while of sickness, needing a wheelchair, and being mostly bed-ridden. SO I do have time for games when I'm not too ...

Last move - to self-hosting! - As my vote regarding Substack in the “marketplace of ideas”, I’m moving to self-hosting. I’m now at (and hopefully staying for a long time at) Blog: ht...

It's been a decade, now... - This is a tough time of year for me. So, with your indulgence, here's this link to a post I did a decade ago... EDIT: I have no idea why it didn't take. S...

This Blog is now on Indefinite Hiatus - Greetings, I haven’t been able to post except sporadically for a while. I just found out I will need to find a new place to live within the next few months...

RIP Christopher Tolkien - LONDON (AP) – Christopher Tolkien, who played a major role protecting the legacy of his father’s The Lord of the Rings series, has died. He was 95. The Tol...

Sacrifice in the Perilous Realms - Characters sacrifice consumable goods to gods and demons. Characters specify a particular recipient of sacrifice. Characters must find a suitable altar ...

Lake Geneva Original RPG Campaign: New EN World Column: #1 - Lake Geneva Original RPG Campaign: New EN World Column: #1: I am now an author for EN World with a monthly column. Six lead columns have been submitted to...

Blackmoor Week 2019 (9/24/19) - Blackmoor Week and Dave Arneson Game Day running from September 24th through October 1st. This year 2019 is the 45th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and ...

Dave Arneson Blackmoor Week and Game Day 2019 - Blackmoor Week begins today Sept 24, 2019. What are you doing this week to celebrate Dave Arneson's Birthday and his foundational game setting Blackmoor ak...

Blackmoor Week Day I 2019 - *Blackmoor Week* kicks off today and concludes on October 1st with *Dave Arneson Game Day*. [image: Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor - B-Ware - Sphärenmeisters Spi...

Character Concepts: Planescape pt 3 - Part 1 Part 2 Continuing my series on oddball Planescape Faction Personalities... Harmonium Sidby the Stick (LG/halfling/fighter) - Sidby's a good enough b...

Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map - I mentioned in my last post how I was tweaking and reworking parts of my Ravensburg setting. Today I streamlined the city map. The old map had lots of redu...

Save Versus All Wands Contest: What is the Value of the Coin Hoard? - Treasure Type H Announcing the third annual (well, not quite) Save Versus All Wands contest! You can read about and see the results of the first two - *...

NIGHTMARES AND SUBURBS: CHARACTER SOCIAL CLASS TABLE - * CHARACTER SOCIAL CLASS * *BACKGROUND TABLE* *I am a big fan of the “Social Origin Roll” for all my player characters in all my g...

RPGs, Avatar vs Chess Piece Playing - I've gone from DMing AD&D 1E games for friends to my kids to paying clients as a team building tool. I've seen the approaches of playing a character as an...