Monday Morning Prime Time thoughts (How do you make a character?)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another article on one of our favorite topics in the multiverse, Role-Playing Games. This is always an interesting topic that sparks debates, arguments, hate mail, death threats, and the occasional civil discourse. Today’s aspect is an essential one for the hobby, and it’s as individual a process as anything else in the universe. How do you create your characters for your next RPG? I asked this question last week on twitter and i got a ton of answers (don’t worry, I’ll be linking this article to that question so you can pop back and check out the answers from the rest of the twitter-verse).


Today i’m going to sort of walk you through my process for creating characters for most role-playing games. Now some games have an entire process of their own that lets you start at point A, follow the dots and bing bang boom you have a character that’s ready to play. Those are their own sort of animal, and they have a very strong internal consistency for their character creation process. (We’ll talk about one of those later on once we’ve gotten through this process).

Post Modern (Super Powers)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with some more work on our Superhero setting, PostModern. Today we’re going to take a quick look at what life is like for people with superpowers, and how they typically present themselves. This should be a familiar sounding story for most folks, but we’ll tell it again.

Thursday Discussions (Complexity can be the Enemy of Fun)

Hey Game Fans, It’s ostensibly Thursday and that means it’s probably an opportunity to talk about Game Theory and systems design and how that works for Players, Game Masters, and Designers. One of the continual discussions (some would say arguments, but i like to think we’re a mostly civil bunch in the game hobby) is how complex is the right level of complexity for a game. This should come as no surprise to any of you who follow my blog on a regular basis, but my answer is “It depends on a couple of key factors.” What are those factors? Well, let’s hop into the Discussion Machine 40,000 and see if we can’t understand each other a little bit better.

Wednesday Wisdom: Tinkering with Backgrounds (and how you can borrow from the best)

Hey game fans, i know we talk a lot about a lot of stuff for games and today is probably not going to be a surprise for any of you. Today, we’re going to take a look at how to borrow elements of your favorite thing (TV show, book series, movie, music) and mash it up into something that you can use to make a character for an RPG. This project is the backstory for the Cleric i play once in a while, and he has some non-standard rules (don’t panic, they’re not helpful to him), and i’ll cover those at the end.

Wednesday Wits (Reincarnation in Lakeport)

Hey guys, this is a bit of a different article for us. Today we’re going to take a look at one of the underlying themes of the Lakeport setting and examine how it interacts with the gods of the setting. There are also a few cultures and species that follow different beliefs (or have a different reaction to this process) and we’ll take a brief look at each of those. We’re going to deep dive into some fairly deep topics (and these are only how the apply to this setting), so grab your oxygen tanks, we’re going deep.

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Super-Powered Individuals and the Law

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Technology in Post Modern

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

(Continuing from Yesterday's hijinks, we're going to take a closer look at the aliens who are responsible for triggering the appearance of superpowers in humans in our Post Modern setting) 

Critical Role Campaign Season 2 (First Thoughts)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with a brief look at one of the larger phenomena in our hobby, Critical Role. It’s a smashing success watching a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors sitting around a table playing a game with their friends and has drawn a lot of attention to the game and the hobby in general. With a table featuring Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Tallesin Jaffe, Sam Riegel and last but certainly not least, Liam O’Brien, Critical Role brings together storytelling, adventure and reminds a lot of us what kind of fun you can have with your friends playing D & D.

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Hey Game Fans, this is the first part of a write up for the Mutants and Masterminds SuperHero RPG that i ran for friends in college.  I personally love this world and i work on new characters and ideas for it all the time.  It has been a constant addition to the RPG work that i do and i think it’s a reasonable time to share.  If i ever planned to publish it as a comic book (not likely at all) the title of the book and its Universe is Post Modern.  I chose that because it represents a change from the traditional view of the world as i saw and took a hard look at what happens when society gets jumbled up by super powers and the amazingly awesome people that have them.

Monday Morning Thoughts (Game Mastering stuff)

Good Morning Game Fans, it’s a bright, shiny morning around the office and we’re settling in for a nice long week of winter (We just had our first patch of ice). Today’s thoughts from the Interweb revolve around something near and dear to my heart, Game Mastering. There are a TON of articles, videos, streams and other consumable forms of media that go into great detail about the nuts and bolts of Game Mastering and we’re not going to necessarily dive into any of those specifically, we’re going to talk about the underlying framework of what a Game Master does for the game, and the role they play in the group dynamic. Buckle in Game Fans, it’s going to be mild ride.

Plot Traps (Madness and You)

I’m changing some things up with the blog and looking at a variety of new and old ideas in gaming. I’d like to spend part of today talking about some recurring tropes and ideas that crop up in fantasy storytelling and how they can be used (and abused) in an RPG to some sort of effect. Today’s volume is going to feature Madness as a phenomenon. There are a variety of ways this idea can be used to great effect in a fantasy rpg. Madness is a wonderful plot element that allows a GM to turn characters great and small against their normal nature and you can use it to open up options that don’t normally offer themselves, like an antagonistic angel or a friendly monster.

Now this is a discussion of madness as a plot device and an element to enhance your games. It IS NOT a discussion of mental health issues in gaming or in the real world and if you are struggling with those, i strongly encourage you to seek out help. There are people in this world who care about you and want to see you succeed. Get help, it’s the best advice i can give you. Now, onto the discussion at hand.