I am a game designer with over 15 years worth of game credits and industry experience. My work includes licensed games based on worlds like Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly, classic game worlds like Dungeons & Dragons and Shadowrun and my own creations like Camelot Trigger and Save Game. I play a wide variety of games as part of Theatre of the Mind Players and have been the guest of honor at several conventions. I live with my family in Wisconsin, born near the heart of RPGs (and just a few short years younger than they are).
Vampires and vampire hunters go together like peanut butter and chocolate. What is Dracula without Van Helsing? Blade without Deacon Frost? One of the most warmly remembered books from the early...
Good RPG advice can be hard to find. There are often some nuggets in the GM section of the core book, but those are usually too busy running through the rules for broader topics like theme and...
One of the coolest powers of the vampire is their immortality. Living forever is one of the reasons most people would sign up for unending bloodthirst and elbowing their way into a web of immortal...
It’s hard to believe nearly ten years since the last official Marvel RPG was released. In that time. Marvel has gone from a comic book company to a cultural behemoth. It’s brought home its...
Worldbuilding is generally considered to be the responsibility of the Game Master. Either they’ve labored away at hand crafting a world for the campaign or they’ve done all the research and read...
In screenwriting, the “elevator pitch” boils down an idea to the barest essentials. The practical idea is to focus a story on its strongest concept. It gets its name from the idea that if a...
There’s a lot of darkness in the world today. Endlessly doomscrolling through social media can stomp down any desire to fight back or fix things. There are some bright lights, such as the current...
The next collaboration between the world’s largest role-playing game and the livestreaming behemoth is almost upon us. Dungeons & Dragons Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep offers an adventure...
Avatar Legends made waves in the industry last year by making 9.5 million dollars last year on Kickstarter. The game was originally due out at the end of last year but the supply chain woes...
Crafting is one of those gaming niches that can be difficult to pull off. The players who love it want it to feel like their time and resources are worth the investment. Crafting feels like a good...
There are two nerdy products that I am proud of that came from my region of the US. The first, of course, Dungeons & Dragons. We wouldn’t be here on this website without that game. The other is...
The Lord of the Rings is a story about the journey. Mordor is scary and memorable, but the books and films are more about the adventures and the people along the way. The One Ring also focuses on...
When thinking about using a generic RPG system at my table, I think that simpler is better. Rules sets are easier to adapt to specific genres when there is room to add things. It’s stronger to add...
Dungeons & Dragons has offered players a chance to get their medieval fantasy stories on for years but there’s always been a desire to play in Middle-Earth and let folks show off how much lore...
Stories are rooted in conflict. The main character wants something but can’t get it. They must overcome those obstacles to resolve the story. Role-playing games are no different, but more often...
The lure of the boxed set is fairly clear. Everything you need to play the game all in one tidy package. This idea has evolved over the decades but I would be lying if I didn’t still enjoy...
Licensed RPGs are the shooting stars of tabletop roleplaying games. They burn brightly, hopefully beautifully and then are lost to history once the license ends. Many live on in the library...
Fiasco is one of my go-to choices when a friend that’s never played a role playing game asks me about trying one. It’s a simple, clear setup with easy mechanics that plays in two hours or less. It...
In 1993, The Book of Nod appeared on gaming store shelves around the world. It came just as Vampire: The Masquerade’s hardcover Second Edition was truly exploding into popularity. It shed light on...
It’s been a good year for fans of Weird Westerns. Deadlands came out with a brand new edition updated to the latest Savage Worlds rules set and a new campaign to take players from novice...
We now have a new subforum called Publishing Business & Licensing where you can discuss all aspects of the publishing process, including the OGL and other open gaming issues, as well as logistics, crowdfunding, and more.