Tabletop Gaming Feeds

Day 19 of RPG a Day 2025, with the prompt of Destiny, led me down another strange rabbit hole. I began thinking about the concept of destiny, the Marvel Character Destiny, with her precognitive abilities, choices in role-playing games, and a short story by one of my favorite authors, Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths. Let’s see if I can make a coherent post out of all of this!

When I recently wrote about my influences and inspiration, I missed a pretty big one: the Choose Your Own Adventure Books. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 46 years, I’d like to share a video from one of my favorite channels that explores the history of Choose Your Own Adventures.

The first of these books, in which you were the protagonists and your decisions changed the story in different ways, was The Third Planet from Altair in Spanish, El Tercer Planeta de Altair. A friend of mine loaned me the book, and I became obsessed with this type of book. I read everyone I could get, including my favorite series, the sci-fi adventures of Be an Interplanetary Spy.

In many ways, these types of books, with their choices that took the story in varied branching directions and to different endings, were a primer for the tabletop role-playing games that would be so formative and influential for the rest of my life. I could read all the different destinies the characters lived. I continued reading them long after I started playing RPGs and moved on to game books like the Lone Wolf series.

 I can’t remember what issue of X-Men I first read about Destiny, but this bling elderly mutant with precognitive powers captured my imagination. I based a few NPCs on her early in my D&D campaigns, but I don’t think my player ever picked up on the fact. Later, when I had her stats for the Marvel Super Heroes RPG, I ran a solo campaign for a player of mine, where this mysterious figure guided Daredevil to save the Black Widow from the Crimson Dynamo in the Soviet Consulate in NYC and embark on a wild series of adventures. The secret benefactor who guided him and whom he never managed to find, Destiny! In case you are curious, you can see the stats for Destiny in the Marvel Super Heroes, aka FASERIP, here.

Much later in college, I first read one of my favorite stories by the writer Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths, or El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan in the original Spanish. I won’t spoil the story for you. You can read it in English here or in Spanish here. Alternatively, you can also watch a video discussion below.

Without going into specifics, one of the short story’s topics is alternate realities, not unlike the many-worlds concept, or the multiverse of DC, and the much-maligned version of the same concept in the MCU. The ideas of multiple realities, that decisions branch into endless possibilities, that I grew up with, from the Choose Your Own Adventure type books, the comics, to Borges, and more, were immensely influential in my Game Mastering style. I embraced the idea of letting players choose their destiny, allowing them to take the story in unexpected and wild ways. Instead of seeing this as them breaking the story I created, I viewed it as them weaving it together.

It also influenced my world-building, and to this day, I still yearn to play that game where multiple characters from different campaigns meet to unravel a secret across the realities of all my campaign worlds.

As a final note, my love stories about destiny, non-linear storytelling, and hypertextual mysteries continue with my love of books such as The Prestige and House of Leaves, the author of this last one being a fan of Borges himself, to movies such as Memento and Inception.

What does Destiny mean to you in the context of your games? Did you know about some of the stories, books, and movies I talked about? I’d love to read your thoughts on the topic; feel free to share them here in the comments or tag me wherever you do. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

Allow me a last thought, I recently reconnected with the player of the Daredevil game I mentioned above after many years. Maybe I should call him and tell him about Destiny.

I really like the Tiny D6 series of rulesets. They are deep enough to run exciting sessions, yet simple enough to grasp easily and quickly. Another game that is great for conventions.

With the Tiny Dungeon MEGA Bundle, for $19.95, you get Tiny Dungeon (love this ruleset), Tiny Wastelands (post-apoc), Tiny Frontiers (sci-fi), Tiny Pirates (as it says on the tin), and Tiny Gunslingers. If you up the price to about $35, you also get Advanced Tiny Dungeon, Tiny Taverns + A La Carte, Mecha & Monsters: Evolved, Tiny Cthulhu (own - pretty cool take on Mythos), Tiny Spies, and Tiny Living Dead.

No affiliate link - just cool stuff.

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  The party has been called into a Inquisition situation by the Warden foundation & involved an expedition to the Kimberley region in Western Australia where ruins have recently been unearthed due to an earthquake. The expedition hasn't been seen or been in contact with the head office of the Warden foundation. This takes adventure takes place around the early part era of Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

A totally legit scientist uses Zener cards to tests for psionic ability.

A kind of crazy in-game explanation for D&D psionics occurred to me. I haven’t seen it before so I figured I’d share it.

The canonical explanation for psionics is that they’re from the Far Realms: weird Lovecraftian planes beyond mortal comprehension, where squidgy creatures use psionics to do squidgy things. I think this doesn’t tell the whole story.

If you look at D&D psionics through the editions, you find a system that’s similar to magic – often overlapping with spells in effect but with a decidedly pseudoscientific bent. No psionic ability name is complete without suffixes like “-kinetic” or “-pathic” or even references to the id or superego. Unsurprisingly considering D&D’s age and influences, it all has a mid-20th-century Earth feel, more than you’d expect from supernatural abilities invented on an Oops All Tentacles dimension.

Traditional D&D magic, on the other hand, was clearly harnessed during a period with technology akin to Earth’s ancient or medieval eras. Magic involves meditation, memorization, alchemy-like formulae and material components, and religious prayer. If ancient or medieval people could train themselves to use supernatural powers, this is probably the lens they would use.

Now imagine an Earth-like world where, for whatever reason, magical power was discovered in the mid-20th century. (In an X-Men-style twist, maybe something was unlocked by the atomic bomb.) Magic wouldn’t be studied by alchemists and mystics but by scientists with electroencephalographs and Latinate jargon. This budding field would look a lot like D&D psionics, with names like “cryokinesis” instead of “cone of cold”.

So what if, in D&D, psionics was invented not in a Far Realm but in a very nearby realm – an alternate Material Plane where magic was discovered later in history? In this case, psionics isn’t a new power source but regular old magic harnessed with different rituals: those of 20th century science. If this 20th-century discipline somehow jumped planes into a D&D fantasy milieu, you’d probably get something that looked like the divide between D&D magic and psionics: a traditional approach threatened by an alternate system with alien trappings and complicated names: a system understood by few, suspiciously bare of ritual, decried as dangerous by the wizards and clerics of the existing magical elite.

But what about all of D&D’s psionic mind flayers, aboleth, and other tentacle wavers? Are they just pro-traditional magic propaganda? Is psionics just a different magic system from a perfectly pleasant alternate Material plane, one that boasts both magic and important scientific advances like penicillin, pulp novels, and penny candy?

Maybe, but maybe the story of this 20th-century magical Earth has a dark end. What if their psychic researches did awaken something bad: something from the dark pitiless depths of space or from a Tentacle World dimension? If mind flayers invaded, 20th century Earth wouldn’t have high-level wizards and clerics to defend it, just some weedy scientists with newly-learned psionic powers. Maybe that alternate Earth world is long gone now, replaced by, you guessed it, lots of tentacles. And that’s why aberrant creatures harness psionics: they learned it when they ate our best scientists’ brains. And now they’re coming to your D&D world, to eat their brains too.

Let me go one step further, and I don’t blame you if you don’t want to follow me here. Let’s say that the earthlike planet was VERY earthlike: maybe it was an alternate Earth that diverged only when scientists discovered real psychic powers in, say, the 1950s. It wasn’t many years after the discovery of psionics that the mind flayers showed up: to be cute, let’s put this armagedden in 1976, the year Eldritch Wizardry first introduced D&D psionics rules. That would mean that slunbering deep in some Elder Brain’s ultra-retentive memory is the history of Earth, as understood by all the Earthling brains it ate. It remembers Leonardo Da Vinci, World War 1 and 2, and maybe even some psionics-infused version of the 1960s space program. And since it ate a lot of scientists’ brains, it probably even knows specifics about all of these. That would kind of make sense, given the high level of tech exhibited by mind flayers and their ilk – nautiloids, grenades, curious contraptions that go boing, and so on – all stolen from Alternate Earth and the other worlds that were the mind flayer feeding grounds.

There’s a kind of gameable outcome of this. Usually the Far Realm is presented as a place so inimical to mortals that you can’t really adventure there. That may be true of the mind flayer home world, but maybe not of their closest planar outpost to the D&D world: the remains of alternate Earth. When adventurers try to plane shift to the invading mind flayers’ home base, they find a dead planet, overrun by squirming bad guys, but a world filled with breathable adventure locations. And this world is filled with eerily silent Earth locations: the Statue of Liberty; labs filled with Zenner cards and experimental weapons; Area 51. Adventurers can find cool treasures and lore: flashlights, bazookas, books of atomic theory, newspapers with headlines about the alien invasion – all timelessly preserved by layers of disgusting alien goo.

By Sestermeron
Self Published
OSRLevel 3

On a rainy morning, the players take shelter in the tavern. Instead of finding a place to rest, they are greeted with an unpretentious invitation…

This nine page adventure uses three pages to describe ten rooms in an ultra-minimalistic caves of ONLY stabbing. Did you think Vampire Queen was too wordy? Have I got the adventure for you!

What the fuck is it lately? The bad stuff is just REALLY bad lately. Like REALLY bad. This garbage is listed as Classic D&D and 5e compatible. Great, that means, in my head, it’s …classic D&D and has some 5e conversions. Of course not. It’s a 5e adventure. There’s not a hint of classic D&D in this, from stats to tone to whatever.

Are there EASL issues? Maybe. “The people from the village celebrates the freedom …” That sounds more like a Bryceism of not giving a shit. “If you accept, I will go your group …” Come on now. That’s not EASL, right? That’s just not giving a shit?  

So, you’re in a bar. The bartender tells you that a nearby village is being terrorized by a monster. Do you want to join the bartender, Emi, in hunting it down? Oh good. Ready for the village? “A village with houses by the river, appearing abandoned, tied boats, and some people fishing nearby. Only women and the elderly remain; no men are present.” That’s the village. Don’t worry, nothing happens in the village. There IS no attack on Fishermans VIllage. Instead, your helpful bartender uses her tracking abilities and leads the way through the woods. There’s a cavern entrance. Somewhere. I don’t think it’s marked on the map. The level one caverns map, that is. 

The first level has nine rooms. There is no description. None. Zero. It’s just a fucking map. You know how I’m sometimes like “it would be nice to have monsters on the map so I know who can react to noise nearby”? Well, someone listened. But, perhaps, also, I need to say “Rooms should have descriptions.” There’s nothing here. I’m not making this up. Some rooms have a centipede icon on them that, I guess, means there’s a centipede in the room. I think there’s a chest in one room? I can’t exactly make it out on the map. But, also, there’s a second level to the dungeon (with one room) and there’s no entrance to the second level?

I have no fucking idea how you can be this lazy. No actual rooms descriptions. No real adventure. Nothing, really. I mean, and to then pad it out to nine pages? I get it, the one page dungeons are a kind of performance art thing, but, also, pushes you to do more with less and hopefully) focus in on what’s important. But this? Nine pages?!

I mean, this has got to be a scam. The final evolution? Can I build a generator to pump one of these out a week for, I don’t know, 5e, Shadowdark, Pathfinder? How much can I make in a month with morons buying it for the popular systems? This is a scam; it has to be, right? I mean, no one, ever, would think this is an actual adventure? No one would, on purpose, write something like this and publish it? 

This is $1 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages. Enjoy that preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/530839/the-attack-on-fishermen-s-village?1892600

Work in progress from Jason
While we're awaiting the technically still awaiting the announcement of the winners of the Appx. N Jam, I've been thinking about what's next for my project. Specifically, I'd like to do an expanded to include things I just could fit into 4 pages.

This will include things like more GM guidance for how to run the factions, particularly once their "balance" has been disrupted by the PCs arrival, and some additional encounters including a chance to visit the accumulator core of the installation and learn the strange fate of Dhu Rojat, former keeper.

Best of all though, it means more art from Jason Sholtis.

This won't be massive expansion. It's still intended to be a minor adventure. A side encounter in a hexcrawl, perhaps. Hopefully, though, this version will improve upon the basic concept. I'm probably bring it to drivethru as a pay what you want.

Hello readers, happy Monday. For day 18, the prompt is Sign. I mentioned on day 9 how Babylon 5 was an inspiration, and this prompt immediately makes a connection for me with an episode of Season 1 of the show, Signs and Portents. If you’ve never watched the show, Season 1 was a superb introduction. Although there were a couple of less-than-stellar episodes, it set up the groundwork for greatness. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t watched it, but the name of the episode is also the name of the season; it is that important.

But I am not here to discuss that specific episode; instead, I want to share one of the many lessons the show taught me: how signs can be a valuable tool in your GM arsenal.

Baylon 5 was great at foreshadowing, at setting things up which paid off one, two, even four seasons later. But this being a TV show, which would face cast changes and production problems, the series creator J. Michael Straczynski made great use of misdirection and creative storytelling to make the crumbs he planted along the way pay off. As he created the show, he had trapdoors he could use to get rid of characters if the actors became unavailable. Check out this post on writing that mentions the idea of trapdoors and poses some helpful ideas for GMs.

Watching Babylon 5, I learned to use signs, parents, visions, and foreshadowing to create expectations and build tension in my games. Let’s call them signs for simplicity’s sake, and to keep to the day’s topic. These signs can be a great tool to show possible outcomes, but if you use them carefully enough, make them mysterious and vague, you can adapt them to the eventual outcome, whatever it may be.

For example, you start a campaign where a soothsayer says, “Your journey will end in fire and ash.” A few adventures later, a plume of smoke can be seen in the distance. Some time later, the characters meet dwarves escaping a volcano that erupted in the mountains they call home. Then there are rumors of a red dragon in the mountains. Are these all related? They could be! Will they all tie together at the campaign? Is the fire and ash a final battle with a great dragon? Will they burn the temple of an evil god? Fight in the elemental plane of fire? All of these are possibilities, and the above signs can all be adapted to your needs.

I keep notes of the signs I use, along with two or three possible ideas on how they can be used. I create flowcharts to illustrate the ideas and adjust them as necessary as the campaign progresses. I have an idea of where we’re headed, but players often change the story in unexpected ways.

Also, this bears repeating from previous days: listen to your player. They will interpret signs, make connections, and develop crazy conspiracy theories, which may guide your interpretation of the signs. You can steal their ideas and make them feel like they’ve uncovered the secrets.

Do you use signs and portents in your games, or are you a fan of foreshadowing? Do you plan them with forethought, or do you throw everything at the wall and see what sticks? Are you a fan of planned storytelling on a grand scale, or do you prefer player-driven emergent storytelling? I’d love to read your thoughts on the topic; feel free to share them here in the comments or tag me wherever you do. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

If you haven’t watched Babylon 5, what are you waiting for? It is available for free on Tubi.

I think I've known Paul Wolf since my first NTRPG Con in 2014. My, how time flies!

In any case, Witch-Lords of Skull Mountain #2: Malkova Wilds is a hexcrawl zine that comes in various OSR flavors: OSE, ShadowDark, DCC,  & OSRIC. With that many choices, finding a system that comes closest to your actual game at your table is a breeze.

Witch-Lords of Skull Mountain #2: Malkova Wilds is $9 in PDF and $14 in Print, plus PDF (shipping for me was $ 3, and yes, you can add issue #1 when checking out).

Witch-Lords of Skull Mountain #2: The Malkova Wilds is a continuing hex-crawl campaign simultaneously published for the Shadowdark RPG, DCC RPG, Old School Essentials / Basic-Expert RPGs, and OSRIC 3 RPG. 

It's a planned 40 to 56-page book packed with adventures, a city crawl system, encounter tables, monsters, magic items and more. It will (hopefully) include a detached color cover that features a beautiful full-color hex map of the Malkova Wilds! 

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Sunday funday! Today’s prompt is Renew, and I’ve been thinking about how to approach the topic. Renew is a verb that means to resume (an activity) after an interruption. I have historically run long, multi-year campaigns, and to keep things fresh, I ran a primary campaign that was usually longer, followed by a shorter campaign or two, to break things up.

For example, during our Pathfinder 1e pirate-themed campaign, we played the first part of the campaign for a year and a half, then took a 23-month break to play our Mutants & Masterminds campaign, and then retook the Pathfinder game for another year and a half.

For our D&D 5e campaign, we played for a little over a year. In 2017, Hurricaine María hit Puerto Rico, we were forced to take a break, then we played Stars Without Number for a year, I took some months off when my son was born, we played Down Darker Trails for a for months, and they we retook the D&D 5e campaign, but switched systems to Castles & Crusades.

Such prolonged hiatuses can be the death sentence of a campaign; how do we manage to renew interest in these different games after such long breaks? Part of it is being hard-headed. I refuse to abandon a campaign and instead return to it to continue.

A large part is player buy-in. Players are interested in their characters and stories, and they engage with the world. To achieve that engagement, I make sure to integrate their backstories and interests into the plots. Ensure that different characters have the opportunity to excel, triumph, and grow their characters, and a chance to achieve their goals.

AS a Game Master, when there is such a long hiatus, I always like to come to the gam with fresh eyes. A shift in tone, new goals, new locations, enemies, or a time-jump to shake the status quo. These are some elements that motivate me as a GM as well.

I keep copious notes and share a lot of information with players. Small handouts, image references to NPCs, online groups, and messaging tools are used to keep shared information and maintain interest in the campaign. Whenever we are renewing a campaign that has been on hiatus for a long time, I put together a primer or update as a handout to start the game anew.

Strangely, in our Current Savage Fading Suns (Fading Suns setting, Savage Worlds rules), we’ve been playing for almost three years without taking a break. I think the main reason is that we’ve had many interruptions due to my work and continued travel, being forced to play online, and there have been many types of adventures, and that variety has kept the campaign feeling fresh.

Those are examples of how we renew our games. What are some of yours? What tools do you use to keep your games new and fresh? Do you play a system that helps with this? I’d love to read your thoughts on the topic; feel free to share them here in the comments or tag me wherever you do. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

 So I decided to add a few OSR supplements to our on going Thirteen Parsecs campaign. The player's PC's came across an on going distress signal and they decided to answer it. The party had been getting low on cash with all of their recent shenanigans against the Mi Go and they were forced to take on a few minor jobs to pay bills. The party needs the cash to do some arcane research on Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Happy Saturday! Third weekend of RPG a Day for 2025. The prompt for today is Overcome. There are many challenges we must overcome, both personally and as a community, and as a hobby. In these times, I am sure you can think of many more. However, for today, I want to talk about overcoming a particular set of challenges, specifically the feeling that we are an unsuitable Game Master.

I have written and posted about this before. I will again, but I think this is a recurring issue, and as a community, we can always support one another.

A simple truth: being a GM is hard. For most games, you’re the rules arbiter, usually the one who masters the rules early on. You are expected to set up a narrative, play different characters, keep the plot straight in your head, and be entertaining while doing all that!

I have been doing this for a while now, and I feel like I handle the stress and feeling of inadequacy that can creep up on you as a GM well. However, I am not immune, regardless of how long I’ve been running games. Allow me to share some advice.

Practice makes perfect.

Like many things in life, you’ll be a better GM the more you do it. Even if you feel like a session wasn’t perfect, if you receive feedback from your group that could be discouraging, getting behind the screen and giving it another try is an opportunity to learn and be better.

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

The game part in role-playing games is essential. An RPG should be fun for everyone, and it is ultimately a game. It is something we do for fun. Ultimately, it is a game! Treat it like such.

Believe in yourself.

Especially in the digital age, it is easy to see amazing GMs running their games, some professionally, and feel like you’ll never be that good. You don’t have to! Everyone’s game mastering style is different. The audience you have to engage with is your players. If they are having fun, you’re doing something right.

Give yourself a break.

If you are overwhelmed, take a step back. Don’t take on more than you can chew. Breathe, regroup, and move on.

You can do it!

When you decide to try your hand at being  GM, you are helping your game group have fun and supporting the game community at large by spreading the hobby. We are here to support each other. Reach out to your friends, in real life or online. Ask for help and advice. If I can personally help anyone out there with their games, please do not hesitate to reach out.

How do you overcome the challenges of being a GM? What other advice can you offer? Can we help you in any way? I’d love to read your thoughts on the topic; feel free to share your thoughts here in the comments or tag me wherever you share them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

I'm a fan of The Witcher. Enjoyed the CRPG, had fun with the Netflix series (especially the first season), love the comic adaptations, and simply enjoy reading the lore. Will I ever play The Witcher RPG? Likely not, as I don't see my regular group going for it, but I'm game to play as a player :)

Humble Bundle currently has The Witcher RPG as a $15 bundle.

Evil is evil—and great games are great games. Pay what you want to explore The Continent like never before. Will you fight with strength and valor like Geralt of Rivia? Or forge your own path as an elf, dwarf, gnome, werebbubb, or vran, and set off on unknown adventures with your party. Get the The Witcher Tabletop RPG core rulebook, the The Witcher: Tome of Chaos campaign, and more for a price you choose. Spare a coin and help support the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals with your purchase.

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I don’t know who is running the WotC social media, but they clearly do not understand D&D or the people who play it. The latest “Life of a Showgirl” post is not just a bad idea. It is another brick in the wall of corporate cluelessness they have been building for years.

Supposedly this was meant to be a clever Taylor Swift nod. Instead, it came off like the kind of “fellow kids” pandering that makes you physically cringe. Over a thousand comments later, the fans have made it clear they are done with this garbage. And honestly, so am I. 

I do not understand why they keep doubling down on this bizarre direction. It does not even resemble D&D anymore. The marketing team seems to think a TTRPG brand should be run like the X account for a chain restaurant. At this point it is just laughable.

The sad thing is, social media could be amazing for this game. Show cool minis. Share art that makes people want to play. Post DM tips from real fans. Highlight adventures and characters that actually feel like D&D. Instead, we get this bizarre parade of brand safe trend chasing. It is hollow, and everyone can see right through it.

Wizards needs to tear this down to the studs and start over with people who actually get D&D. People who know the culture, the history, and the fan base. People who do not have to fake enthusiasm because they already live and breathe the game.

Until that happens, every post will be another reminder that the people in charge of D&D’s voice have no idea what they are doing. The more they talk, the more players stop listening. The dice are in your hands, WotC, and you keep rolling 1s.

Too many people are motivated by money.

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Hack & Slash 

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In the middle of the night, I was thinking about superhero teams, and how to build them with archetypes that fit roles. I started to think about re-framing this; instead of thinking about 'roles' (mentalist, tank, damage dealer, speedster...), I would think about building a team from a storytelling perspective, in terms of origins. I realized that part of the reason the New Teen Titans work so well is because they from things from an origins perspective, and it provides so many more storytelling opportunities. I haven't thought about this too deeply yet, but here are some examples:

• Technology (Cyborg). Bring in stories about technology and the impact of new technologies. 
• Supernatural (Raven). Stories focused on magic, other realms of existence, and supernatural powers.
• Mythology (Donna Troy). Ancient gods and monsters.
• Cosmic (Starfire). Other planets and alien races.
• The Sea (Aqualad). Stories set in underwater environments.
• Villainous Past (Beast Boy... kind of). The former allies now enemies hold a grudge.
• Under the Shadow (Robin). You were a sidekick, and are trying to establish your own identity, but a lot of the villains that your mentor has still hold a grudge against you.  

Having such a wide range of origins gives the GM a variety of hooks that personalize adventures to the characters while giving a grand scope to the game. If all of the characters are teenagers who were transformed in the same lab, you immediately have fewer options for built-in ways to progress the story. Conversely, if each character has a unique origin and also has three pieces of 'unfinished business' in their origin, all the better. For example, my technology character could have a rival inventor whose tech ended up in my cybernetics, a bug in my software that could be exploited (and which I'm trying to have fixed), and a previous participant who 'failed' to adjust to the cybernetics, and who went mad. Instant adventure seeds that are personalized to the characters.

This comes up because I have really wanted to start a solo campaign, and while I feel like it should be focused on Doc, I'm just as intrigued by starting a "New Teen Titans" or "New X-Men" sort of game. I also kind of want to go a little more Doom Patrol with weirdness and a little less prototypical heroes like Doc or a Justice League. I could see New Stalwart Press witnessing the success of the X-Men and Teen Titans in the early 80s and deciding to start a comparable series... something to ponder. I also like the idea of the whole team being 'under the shadow', as this team would replace a team from the previous generation who had disappeared. Rooting the campaign in an unresolved mystery gives an instant hook ("Whatever happened to the Force of Five?") and matches the vibe of both New Teen Titans and New X-Men, since both replaced earlier teams with the same moniker.

My oh MY but it's been a few months... I thought I'd give a personal update, and then hopefully get back into some gaming stuff sooner than later.

I last checked in some time around April... since then, we've learned that the chemotherapy treatments I was receiving (even after they adjusted to a more aggressive chemo treatment) seemed to be having little effect; the tumors on my spine, pelvis, and ribs have continued to grow, with new tumors appearing in the last few months. Treatments may have been slowing it down a little, but not much. My doctors at Roswell suggested I get a second opinion, and after Mary (who has been a super hero) called around, we ended up meeting with a specialist in Pittsburgh, who decided to move from chemo to a newer nuclear medicine called Lutothera. The problem was that it's a more expensive treatment, and our insurance company REALLY didn't want to pay for it. Fortunately, the doctors in Pittsburgh are tenacious, and at the end of June I got approval for the treatment. I received my first treatment on August 1, and tolerated it well enough. Initial scans showed that the nuclear medicine went right to the tumors, and seemed to be getting to work. The idea here is that the nuclear medicine should be able to destroy the tumors, so I am also on a regimen of meds that are supposed to re-grow the bone, because the tumors are going to leave weak points in my bones, leaving me susceptible to fractures. So, I am taking it relatively easy, walking at least 15 minutes a day, and feeling some genuine hope for the first time in months. There is a very real possibility that my prognosis has changed from months to years to live. We'll see. I will receive three more treatments of the Lutathera, once every 60 days. I should receive my final treatment on February 1st. and we'll do a scan shortly thereafter to see how effective this has been. I'm hoping for 'very'.

Unfortunately, at the same time Mary's mom had a recurrence of her own cancer, and it ended up taking her life at the end of June (on Grace's birthday, and the day before Mary's birthday...). So, while Mary has been battling to get me treatments, she has also had to bury her own mom. She's been through a LOT. 

Far less importantly, but not insignificantly, I've gone through the process of retiring due to illness, and have had to navigate that whole process about seven years earlier than I expected to... 24 years is a pretty good run, but I had wanted to get to thirty. I'm proud of my career and what I've accomplished, but it's also difficult to say goodbye to a huge part of my life when it hasn't been on my own terms. Our teacher's union hosted a wonderful retirment party for all of the retirees, but it felt like they spent a lot of the evening focused on me, which was a bit overwhelming. 

Yesterday, Mary sorted the last of the things that she had received from her mom, we finished re-organizing our closets, and I was notified that my retirement paperwork is completed, and 'the check is in the mail' for my retirement benefits. My principal and vice principal also stopped by and brought me a retirement gift that they had for me - it was genuinely nice to see them. It felt like the end of many things.

This morning, I woke up feeling like I'd turned a significant corner. As Mary and Grace begin the ritual of gearing up for the school year, I am sitting here sipping my coffee and thinking about the world to come. I contemplate the final verses of Tennyson's "Ulysses"...
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 I have been recently thinking about adding a page on the blog with a complete listing of my rpg related works including both things I have written and things for which I did some graphic design. Easily, some of my best collaborations in this regard have been with Jason Sholtis.

I'm particularly proud of the alternate covers I did for Completely Unfathomable, though I wasn't directly involved with the final decisions and preparation for print, and with the rush to get the project over the finishline, they maybe didn't turn out as well as they might have.

The one that was used for the final cover was this one with refer to as the "blacklight cover." It isn't blacklight, really, but I colored Jason's art in that garish sort of way to look like it might be.

Originally, we had designed it to use the logo I had made for the original Operation Unfathomable, but on seeing the final mockup Jason was gracious enough to let me quickly do another one I thought would fit the image better.

I had originally designed other covers for the various editions of the book, in the end I believe they just went with the one and the others were just given as extras? Anyway, my favorite of all of them was the faux bubble card wrapper cover:

Recently, Jason and I collaborated again on a cover for my Appx. N Jam submission. He held off his usual grayscale shading to make it easier for me to color. I added some texture in the background I hoped support his great image. The logo hand-drawn (or handconstructed digitally really) based on the title text of the Ace Double edition of People of the Lens by Leigh Brackett was actually the first thing done. Jason and I worked out the cover layout in discussion and then he drew the image.

Well, we’ve reached the midpoint of RPG a Day 2025. Technically, the midpoint will be noon today, but you get the idea. The topic for today is Deceive. So, when is it ok to deceive your players? Allow me to give you some context.

I love twists, and often come up with ideas for campaigns where things are not what they seem, and the conceits for the campaign get turned on their head.

I’ve done this twice before; once for a one-shot game that ended up being directly tied to our regular campaign, and another for a campaign that was a secret prequel to an established RG franchise.

The first instance was during a long-running AD&D 2nd edition homebrewed campaign. The players were about to fight with a dangerous Efreeti that guarded a powerful artifact. The session ended as the battle was about to begin, and by the time the next session rolled around, I told the players I was not ready for the adventure and the encounter, and if we could play a one-shot adventure that I wanted to try out instead. I handed out pre-made characters, and as the adventure progressed, the players started to find some odd connections between these characters, their regular characters, and the plot of the regular game. By the time they defeated the BBEG, it turned out the Efreeti had defeated them and ensorcelled them with the artifact, and the adventure they played was an illusory reality they had been living in. They defeated the enemy and the artifact, but realized they had been the Efreeti’s prisoners for months!

The other instance was a D20 Modern game where the characters worked for a secretive worldwide organization investigating strange occurrences and incursions from alternate realities. Unbeknownst to the players, this was a prequel to Torg. The campaign ended with the High Lords’ invasion of Earth. This event was a twist, but ultimately one that satisfied me more than the players, since none were big fans, or even particularly interested, in Torg.

For instance, I have a post-apocalyptic campaign idea where the players are in an isolated and remote geographic area, and they solve some challenges to their community, slowly unraveling the mysteries of what lies beyond their immediate community, only to find out their world is the Rifts campaign setting.

Other twist-based campaigns I’ve come up with include a Robotech game that is secretly, and very subtly, a mash-up with G.I. Joe and Transformers. A campaign that is a twist on the Buck Rogers XXVc game from TSR. In the near future, the characters are a military team sent to take down a Russian station in the asteroid belt that is being prepared as a mass driver cannon against their enemies. By the end of the mission, the characters end up in suspended animation, and they remain so well into the future, a variation of the Armageddon 1995 from the short story anthology, Buck Rogers, Arrival. But instead of arriving in the future of the XXVc game, the players discover Mongo has conquered the future solar system, and it becomes a Flash Gordon-inspired game.

There are a few more like that in my campaign idea list. The problem is that for these twists to work, I would have to deceive the players, lead them to expect one type of campaign, only to discover another. I can see that being fun for me as a GM, and for some players, but not so much for others. False expectations can lead to dissatisfaction, disinterest, or outright frustration.

The first instance described previously, the AD&D 2e game worked because it was a one-shot and tied to the regular campaign. The deception was minimal and ultimately had a satisfying payoff. The second instance, the Torg prequel, worked because it was a fun campaign that the players enjoyed, and ultimately introduced the game and setting to them. I wrote about the campaign in a post here in the blog back in 2010, and mentioned that one of my players remarked about the campaign that this was “the best game of Mage that was not Mage that he ever played.”

However, some of the instances outlined above would require a level of deception that could frustrate players, and I am not a fan of deceiving my friends and creating false expectations. Ultimately, I believe the twist could erode trust between the GM and the players. If I were to run any of the campaign ideas outlined above, I would be upfront and transparent about the twist, ensuring the players are informed and honest with them. No self-satisfying twist is worth deceiving my players.

Do you agree or disagree? Do you deceive your players to achieve similar twists in your games? I’d love to read about your experiences and ideas; feel free to share them in the comments or tag me wherever you share them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

In classic AD&D, a fighter who rolled an 18 Strength did not stop there. You rolled percentile dice for “exceptional strength,” a hidden tier within the mortal limit. An 18/01 was strong. An 18/00 was the peak of mortal ability, the kind of power that set you apart from nearly every warrior alive.

Shadowdark streamlines Strength into a simple modifier and gear slots, but this house rule reintroduces the classic idea in a way that fits the system. Whenever a character rolls or later gains an 18 Strength, they also roll percentile dice. The result can grant extra carrying capacity and, at the highest ranges, a rare burst of might for truly heroic feats of strength.

Percentile Roll Results

• 01 to 50: No bonus
• 51 to 75: +1 gear slots
• 76 to 90: +2 gear slots, 1 Burst of Might per day
• 91 to 99: +3 gear slots, 1 Burst of Might per day
• 00: +4 gear slots, 2 Bursts of Might per day

Burst of Might can be used for any roll involving a feat of raw muscle, such as forcing open a rusted gate, hauling someone out of a pit, or wrestling a foe to the ground. It never applies to damage rolls. When you use it, you gain a +1 bonus to that single roll, possibly turning failure into success. At 18/00, you get two such moments per day.

This is not about making Strength modifiers bigger on your sheet. In Shadowdark, a +5 Strength bonus is rare and typically the domain of giants. Exceptional Strength represents something different, the rare mortal who can, for a heartbeat, dig deeper than most and call on reserves few will ever know. It doesn’t change your base modifier. Instead, it lets you, in moments of dire need, push past the limits of an 18 and brush against that mythic power for a single great feat.

The best part is showing it in play. An adventurer with an 18/60 might shoulder an extra satchel of rations and rope without slowing their pace. An 18/85 could take on a heavy crate during a river crossing without risking exhaustion. An 18/95 might, in the middle of a struggle, shove against a barricade just enough to shift it aside. And at 18/00, a hero like Conan could call on his strength twice in a day, achieving the impossible through sheer force of will.

It is rare, fleeting, and the kind of thing that makes legends.

 

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