During March, elements of my Dungeons and Dragons collection were on display in the main room of the headquarters branch of our local library. My wife, the Motorcycle-Riding Librarian, who is a clerk in the Putnam County Library system, had suggested I do the display. The display was up in advance...
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This past Friday, Tom Bisbee (AKA Gospog) ran the first season finale session of his steampunk campaign — in which the PCs fought a 300-foot golem: It goes without saying that in addition to being an all-around nice guy, Tom is an amazing minis painter and sculptor. I’m an evil...
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For the Burning Empires pitch session I’m running tonight, I tried something new: I put together a custom soundtrack. (That’s Treasure Tables HQ in the picture.) I’ve used music in my games before, but in the past I’ve always just popped in an appropriate CD and let it run....
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Back in middle school, I was the player in a solo campaign set in the Forgotten Realms. When my character first entered the desert of Anauroch, my friend flipped on his TV and played a short clip from a movie he’d cued up. It showed the windswept, rock-strewn badlands one often encounters at...
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Fantasy Handouts: Wanted Posters, from Ronin Arts, looks like a fun way to add some props to your game without having to do a whole lot of work yourself. They also offer a blank wanted poster as well as menus. The menus seem less useful, but in the right circumstances they could be — if your...
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I spent a couple hours last night importing album art and fiddling with my iTunes playlists, so I’ve got music on the brain. If you use mp3s for background music during your games, playlists offer variety with a consistent theme. With shuffle turned on, you get maximum variety; with shuffle...
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Fantasy Money is a PDF product from E.N. Publishing, and it sounds pretty nifty. The idea is that instead of tracking your gold in fantasy games, the GM just prints out a pile of fantasy bills and you spend them at the table — just like in a game of Monopoly. So when you loot the kobold...
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Doesn’t this just make you want to run a Star Wars game? With 1,367 pieces and 75 steps, this is easily the most involved Lego kit I’ve ever put together. It took me 3 1/2 hours to build, and the finished ship is two feet long. This Star Destroyer is a smaller version (scaled for use...
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Great gaming can happen almost anywhere, just like great sex. But just like sex, it helps to set the mood. If you have a designated gaming area in your house, put up some gaming-related art. It doesn’t have to be wall-to-wall Conan posters, just a couple of carefully chosen pieces that make...
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Random GMing idea #276: Ask each of your players to bring a game-related prop to the next session. The prop could be anything that enhances the game for the whole group — a plastic sword, a hand-drawn map of the team’s HQ, a bag of plastic Pieces of Eight, a mix CD of background music,...
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