Cedar Rapids Comic Con

I'll be giving a presentation about Crowdfunding your own Boardgame at Cedar Rapids Comic Con this Saturday at noon! Come on down to CRCC if you love costumes, comics, sci-fi, and discussions about accrual-based funding dynamics. Shazam!

World Building on DGS Podcast #37

In Dead Games Society Podcast #37, DGS Chad and I talk about what Out-of-Print RPGs and miniature wargames we're running at this upcoming GaryCon (Battletech and Starship Troopers! w00t!), and then move into discussing World Building (especially building your own world within an established setting) with the historical details that help you more confidentially improvise and react to player actions while running your RPGs!

Delving through Undermountain on DGS #36!

Welcome one and all to the Yawning Portal! Grab your iron rations, silver mirrors, and tinderboxes because it’s time to descend into the dreaded Undermountain! 

We’re talking convention-gaming Undermountain, that is. On episode of the DGS Podcast I take the DGS mic on a solo adventure down into the cold dark to explore the depths to which one can go when creating conventions based around old-school Megadungeons. I interview Brando of the annual megadungeon-themed convention Brandonomicon, and we discuss hyper-deadly Undermountain, Ropers, Twitch-style technical setups for multi-room gaming, making mystic treasure props and cards for the players, side-betting on adventurer deaths, dungeon-themed geocaching, and for some reason, pizza roll eating contests! (Plus a special return edition of the Vorpal Chainsword Quizblast!)

Cyberpunk 2013 RPG on DGS#34

Lo-Teks, prepare to download!

This week on the Dead Games Society Podcast we discuss the old-school RPG Cyberpunk 2013 (yes, the hyper-deadly edition that came before Cyberpunk 2020). I interview Digital Dungeon Master Chad Parish (who runs Cyberpunk 2013 regularly at Cons) about the game and what its like to take mirrorshaded players into a world set in the distant dystopian future of Two-Thousand and Thirteen! We also discuss Chad's fantastic answer to the ever-problematic Cyberpunk RPG question of (be it Shadowrun, Cyberpunk20XX, or other): "What do you do with all the meatspace mercenary characters while the one hacker player just wants to keep surfing the matrix?"

Of course his solution is based on Neuromancer. Of course!

TMNT and Other Strangeness RPG - DGS#33

Recently had a discussion with the rpg necromancers Chad Parish and David Bauter over at the Dead Games Society about the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG that was done by Palladium back in the ancient days of nineteen-eighty-sev-oh-my-god-I'm-so-old!

GameholeCon recap - Dead Games Society Podcast #32

Recently joined forces with the nefarious necromancer Chad Parish of the DGS to talk gamin'! Come on over to the lair of the Dead Game Society to hear a couple of world-weary but wizened DMs dissect how last weekend's Gamehole Con went in DGS Podcast #32!

Escape from Fireball Island! at GameholeCon

Okay, I know I haven't updated in a month, but we were shipping Ravingspire around the world and things were re-donkulously busy! Still, that's no excuse. You want to have a blog? Then update the blog. Them's the facts jack. So now I'm back! And last weekend was glorious Gamehole Con! I completely re-wrote and ran Escape from Fireball Island for the Con for two different groups of players, and it was an absolute blast both times.

The adventure is a 1930's pulp AD&D game I wrote loosely based on the Fireball Island boardgame from 1983.

Amelia Earhart is flying a group of famous figures from Miami to London, but as she crosses the Bermuda Triangle, she is forced to crash land on a mysterious volcanic island. Much dino-battling, lizardman-negotiating, trap-dodging, atlantean puzzle-solving, and jewel-gathering ensues!