December is shaping up to be quite busy, so I suspect I won't have an opportunity to use these, but you might! Here are two Troika! adventure hooks for Yuletide: Dead LetterCenturies ago, a delivery meant for Santa's workshop arrived at Whalgravaak's warehouse instead, and Santa's elves only just tracked it down. Can you retrieve the parcel from its resting place? I haven't decided where to put Santa's misplaced package, but Rooms 12, 13, 14, or 15 all seem like potentially good resting places. Kidnap the Sandy ClawsCan you help? Rudolph approaches the player characters, having wriggled free f ..read more

I've talked before about what I think makes for effective games that keep players wanting more (namely listening to the players and establishing real stakes as described in this blog post), but I recently encountered a Reddit thread wherein the original poster was asking about advice for trying to limit the 5e version of the simulacrum spell. The rule for 5e simulacrum is that a given caster can only cast one instance of simulacrum at any given time, but those simulacra could use their one cast of simulacrum on the caster, creating an infinite army of wizards given enough time and powdered rub ..read more

Back in the spring of 2020, I was involved in an abortive project to present an Exquisite Corpse dungeon. As often happens in the world of table-top role-playing games, the organizer disappeared from the internet, a bunch of people left Facebook, and that appears to be the end of that. Since I assume that project will never see the light of day, here's the room I contributed. (I present it as originally written, resisting the urge to edit the thing for length and clarity.) Stats are vaguely B/X-ish — if you're converting to another system, the most important thing to know is that a turn is ten ..read more

Although typically found in fantasy space, there is no reason why one couldn't find terrestrial Chickens of Duplication. There are those who revere the divine entity called the Chicken of Creation, a deific chicken who birthed the world and all within it. (Some believe there are many such chickens, although whether or not there are many Chickens of Creation or merely one is probably not useful for most people.) Among its many progeny is the Chicken of Duplication, a semi-divine chicken of monstrous size. (As with the Chicken of Creation, it is unclear whether there is one Chicken of Duplicatio ..read more

"Sir, a second state-run space research organization has released a tabletop RPG." It was inevitable. We have seen idiosyncratic weirdos and megacorporations releasing RPGs for decades now, so it was only a matter of time before nation-states became involved in the role-playing game hobby. A couple of bits of role-playing game-related effluvia have come to my attention over the past few days, both of which were released by national organizations focused on space research: Releasing earlier this week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released The Lost Universe, an adv ..read more

Evansville Press, Indiana, February 5, 1912 The leap yeap is considered native to the plains of the lush world of Varasla, although scholars have documented the creatures on other worlds. A leap yeap appears as a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, albeit the end result is as large as a Clydesdale. Although the creatures roam wild across the plains, they have also been domesticated as mounts and pack animals and so may be found in settlements outside their native range. (For example, although they are not native to the mountains, travelers have found them to make good, sure-footed ..read more

Mike Mearls started a Patreon, which of course reminded me of the majesty that is Fight Battle. My friends and I have been laughing about Fight Battle for over fifteen years, and now so can you ..read more

Over at the Unknown Armies Fan Club Discord, mellonbread organized a 2023 Halloween Game Jam for Unknown Armies and asked me to review the results on this blog. (Where stats appear, the entries assume the theoretical audience is using the third edition of the rules.) Whether or not that was a good idea is an exercise best left for the reader. Three disclaimers before we get started: If you find yourself seriously using reviews to discern whether or not you will enjoy a work, you will achieve best results if you find someone whose writing you enjoy and whose values more-or-less appear to align ..read more

This past weekend (November 3 and 4, 2023) saw Doxacon X in Arlington, VA. Despite the fact that Nicole and I are still preferentially avoiding large groups in the midst of the ongoing plague, Kenneth Hite posted this three months ago and found it impossible to resist the siren's allure: So off we went. But first, a word about personal bias: Assuming you clicked on the above link to learn that Doxacon is sponsored by the Protection of the Holy Mother of God Orthodox Church, and assuming you have read my previous blog posts like this one, you might surmise that Nicole and I are not quite the ..read more

It was inevitable. Long-time readers of the ol' hobby blog will no doubt recall previous write-ups of basketball wizards, both for BECMI/OSR-type systems and for D&D 5e. Fast-forward to four years later: one of my players from Of Kith and Kin is running his first game, and I'm playing a basketball wizard. So of course, he includes a basketball encounter featuring a battle map from Neutral Party and Gab's basketball rules. We didn't care for Gab's rules. In this era of ubiquitous internet, I assume it must be a rite of passage to excitedly grab someone's custom ruleset from a blog or other ..read more