Merry May 18–instead of waiting a week for Mournstones, Part II, you only had to wait a day! Also, this is the first installment of Game Ready Commentary. Hope it helps your game!
Author Archives: cwhite
Mournstones: Properties and Use A mournstone is formed when a warlock or witch imbues dark eldritch energies, varied in nature but singular in the intent of causing creative pain to one’s enemies, into a small stone about the size of a toddler’s fist. Because of the level of effort (read: personal sacrifice) involved in creating…
In this week’s link post, we look at the proven-by-induction unexpected connection between Mormonism and roleplaying games, useful RPG blogs, and the elusive connection between John Parr and Indiana Jones. Why do Mormons Keep Showing Up? OK, I promise to avoid making this a political or religious statement. But when I read the title “Mormons…
This week in our links roundup, we look at posts focusing on the balance of story elements and mechanics, and why D&D Next may or may not be a holy grail. We also congratulate The Id DM on his Stuffer Shack ‘Site of the Year’ award, as we learn from his self-admitted failures and explore…
Bryan and I had the opportunity to lunch together this week. Don’t you just love it when people use “lunch” as a verb? In any case, our conversation inevitably turned to game design, and I continued my “why are games so damn long” rant for the benefit of Bryan, our waitress, and all the fortunate…
Over the last three weeks, Chase has developed a full-fledged setting using Intwischa’s battery of generators. His posts define the output of all the generators, fill in the details of the campaign setting, and define NPCs in detail and provide adventure hooks. As I’ve been reading these, I’ve been interested in the choices offered by…
Shortly after I got back into games as an adult nearly 10 years ago, I recall running an adventure that seemed thrilling at the time. I was running for two players, and they needed to delve into a Dwarven crypt to recover… well, something. 10 years ago, remember? I alluded to massive traps scattered throughout…
First off, what an awesome Kickstarter week! Backers of the Dinocalypse (including a handful of us at Intwischa) received our PDF copies of the first novel (as well as Spirit of the Century and Spirit of the Season). Furthermore, one of my favorite projects titled Full Moon (covered here last week) received funding AND hit…
Yesterday, I had a chance to catch up with game designer Paul Stefko of Pittsburgh. Like many of us, Paul got his start in game design in grade school—but unlike those among us who have kept our designs to spiral-bound notebooks, Paul has found ways to commercialize his talent! His latest endeavor is “Full Moon:…
I imagine that I’m not unusual among gamers in that my first exposure to roleplaying games featured binary conflict. By this, I mean that everything was measured in terms of success or failure–a “win” or “lose” option for each tension point that helped determine how the story moved forward. Certainly, these games included room for…