Sons of Liberty: The Swamp Fox
May 17
One of the more challenging design goals I set for myself when developing the core “good guys” in the Sons of Liberty – a sort of early 18th-Century American Avengers — was to ensure that every character had a relatively familiar counterpart in the meta-myth of the comic book universes players were likely to me familiar with. The characters are deliberate pastiches, or...
Cycling to the Apocalypse
Dec 06
What if the apocalypse didn't happen today? What if it happened when technology was different? What if it were a Victorian, steampunk apocalypse? Or. . . *gasp* what if it happened in World War 2? Then I got all these mental pictures, wonderful and horrific and occasionally cheesy, cobbled together from a host of pulp movies and lots of reading: an American patrol wandering into a town in North Africa that's utterly and mysteriously empty; a Nazi solider fighting back-to-back with a British officer against zombies; a green tentacle lashing out of the impenetrable jungle of Guadalcanal to drag a screaming Marine into the night; a Mad-Max like scenario of cars battling for gas in the desert only the cars are Jeeps, Packards, and Panzers; the lid of the Ark of the Covenant NOT slamming back down with a "thud" after being pried open by the SS, but falling off to the side, with the clouds becoming ever darker and the reddish-gold pilar of fire growing, and growing, and growing.
Gen Con with the Illuminerdy
Jul 13
Gen Con is coming, and a fair portion of the Illuminerdy are going to be there. Do you want to meet (most of) us? Maybe play some games? You may just have that chance. They say it’s the “best four days in gaming.” And you know what? They might be right. But you’ll always wonder what might have been unless you take some time to meet us. #RPGChat Meetup This year,...
An In-Game Reward for Character Backstory?
Jun 26
I think character backstory is important. I think creating even a loose narrative to explain how your character got where she is is an essential element of gameplay for most games. It’s the decision-making cornerstone that sets role playing games apart from video games. It’s difficult, of course, because there’s lots of people who play RPGs as an exclusive avenue for killing...
What Not to Do This Con Season
May 15
Con season is upon us. Gamedays and big conventions like Origins and Gen Con fill the Summer calendar, including one not too far from the secret temple of the Illuminerdy. As I sat down to write this post, I was planning to address how to write and run a top-shelf one shot, a sort of companion piece to the great article last week from our own d20Blonde. But then I remembered that the amazing...
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