Improving Backgrounds in D&D 2024 5

I’ve got a number of issues with the way the 2024 rules change Backgrounds from their 2014 form. In this post I want to dig into those issues and see if we can improve upon them. If I stumble upon something worth having, this could become a DM’s Guild release, […]


LARP Design: Traversal Challenges

We’re in the run-up to the first full weekend event of Citadel LARP. The Citadel in the name is a dungeon for as much of that old-school dungeon-crawling feel as we can manage in a LARP, and one of the ways we do that is to lean into something that […]


A Fourteenth Year of Blogging 3

The actual anniversary of my blog was a few days ago, and I was just so buried in other tasks that I’m only now getting around to writing this. Every year I like to talk about what I’m playing, what I’m running, and otherwise what I’m enjoying. Games I’m Running […]


Titles and Honors to Award Your PCs

I’ve been a huge fan of Robin Pierson’s History of Byzantium podcast since… whenever I finished listening to Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome (I also talked about Byzantine history here), and the part where Robin explains court titles and the importance of honors to the power dynamics of Eastern […]


LARP Design: Character Creation Goal-Setting

If you’re the kind of person who reads my LARP design posts, you probably already know about Citadel LARP (but I’ll link it just in case). This post isn’t solely about Citadel, though, as I’ve also started playing two other games recently, Alliance Atlanta and Resurgence LARP, and those games […]


Five New Fey Magic Items

It’s been an incredibly busy month, and next month won’t be easing up, so I’m sneaking in under the wire to get a second post up in September. On the plus side, I think it’s all work that is making me a better writer. Because it matters in one or […]


Ten NPC Adventuring Parties

I’ve done a few posts now that are collections of NPCs you can drop into your campaign. I usually do sets of twenty at a time, but since these are going to have more description for each item, and both Patreon and WordPress do awful violence to tables, I’m doing […]


Alternative Keen Mind and Observant Feats 3

Over in Tribality, I’ve posted some initial thoughts on the 2024 Player’s Handbook revised rules. If you haven’t already seen that article, here’s the short version: I like a lot of things, but dislike a substantial number of changes too. Today I’m talking in more detail about the Keen Mind […]


NPC Stat Block: Holy Zealot 2

In my Aurikesh campaign, my PCs are in rebellion against the prince of the domain they live in. I’ve given them the names and brief descriptions of a bunch of the Prince’s inner circle of advisors and military commanders. As much as possible, I wanted these characters to feel like the […]


Six New Magic Items for July 2

It’s been an incredibly busy month here, with several writing commitments and the fundraiser event for Citadel LARP. I look forward to telling you more about those writing projects – an adventure! boss monsters! and more! – but this isn’t that post. Today I’m doing new magic items, half from […]