Dark Pantheon - More Thoughts
09 July 2019More Thoughts about the Dark Pantheon
NPCs for Loga et Dus
13 May 2019Four NPCs for Loga et Dus
Barbie the Astronaut - What My Mom Taught Me about Feminism
16 September 2015Yesterday, I mentioned my mom. I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell an anecdote about my first positive exposure to feminism. My…
Word Overload - "Permission"
12 March 2015In case you didn’t know, I like words. A lot. The other day I was thinking specifically about the word permission. It’s a word that pulls…
The Quick and the Dead FAE, Part 2
21 November 2014First off, huge thanks to Quinn Murphy for giving me the next round of changes to my FAE hack for the Quick and the Dead. His input directly…
D&D 5E PHB - Through Chapter 2
19 August 2014I told myself I wouldn’t purchase D&D 5E. I did. The price tag was a bit steep, and I wanted to believe I was done with D&D. It brought me…
On Max Temkin
14 July 2014Content warning: This post deals with the topic of sexual violence. The gaming community is one that I’m usually proud to be a part of. It…
Game Chef 2014 - Pilgrimage
17 May 2014I decided to submit to GameChef this year. It’s the first year I’ve done it. My entry, Pilgrimage is below the break. Pilgrimage Pilgrimage…
Semantics
22 January 2014Today, there was almost a scuffle on the internet. Surprise, surprise. This one in particular revolved around the word inclusive. This word…
2013 Recap
31 December 2013Recap posts appear to be a thing, so I thought I’d take the opportunity and be one of the sheeple. I am not afflicted with nostalgia; in…
Metatopia 2013 Recap
04 November 2013Metatopia was awesome and amazing. I met so many wonderful people, and I didn’t have a negative experience all weekend. This is only the…
13th Age Apostolic Icons - The Zealot, The Skeptic
29 September 2013This represents the third couplet of Apostolic Icons for 13th Age. As I progress through these, I find that some of the apostles are hard to…
Apostolic Icons for 13th Age
19 September 2013Several weeks ago, an idea came to me in church (I go to church; I don’t think I’ve mentioned that here before). There are 13 apostles (1…
The Witcher 2, My Thoughts
20 June 2013I finally caved in and downloaded the Witcher 2 this weekend and started playing. I had struggled with the idea of purchasing it ever since…
BHM - The Ahshan
12 February 2013Over at Thoughtcrime Games, they’re taking Black History Month and blogging topics specific to that. As part of this, Quinn issued this call…
Clans in Night's Black Masquerade
23 October 2012I started working on fleshing out the Clans for Night’s Black Masquerade tonight, and a strange thing occurred. I had a well-laid out path…
Confession
22 September 2012I have a game design confession to make. An appropriate term for my problem fails me, so I’ll have to use more words than I’d like. I’m bad…
Initial Thoughts on Planescape Icons
17 August 2012Rob Donoghue has been doing a very thought-provoking series of articles on Icons in 13th Age. In case you didn’t know, Rob’s one of the best…
Crucible of the Odds 2
22 May 2012So this weekend marks the second Crucible of the Odds run! A mostly brave group of crusaders shall enter the ziggurat and face certain death…
Initial Thoughts on a Fourthcore Dungeon
22 April 2012Disclaimer: This post will contain my thought process on a fourthcore dungeon I’ve been kicking around for a while. It might be a bit…
Charity of the Odds
04 March 2012I had the opportunity to try my hand at some Fourthcore D&D. What is Fourthcore? It’s an amazingly fun way to play, that’s what. I’ve never…
Editor's Voice - Lego Heroica
19 December 2011Today, I’m going to do something a little bit different. I’m going to practice my editor’s voice. I had the opportunity this weekend to play…
The DM's Role as Apologist
01 November 2011So I wrote earlier about using literary theme in your role as a DM. Today I want to expand on that topic and cover a topic that a lot of…
The DM and Literary Theme
05 October 2011I’ve branched out a bit lately with my blog reading, and I discovered Chuck Wendig, @ChuckWendig on Twitter, over at his blog Terrible Minds…
Planescape 4E - The Gray Languor
24 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest Today is part 2 of our planar ecology for the Gray Waste. Last time I talked about the overall planar effect of the…
Planescape 4E - The Aasimar
13 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest Today, I have the write-up for the third and final race that we need to deal with for now, the Aasimar. Technically…
Planescape 4E - On Alignment
29 August 2011So last post, I introduced a framework to help me with my thoughts moving forward. Disclaimer #1: I realized after beginning to dig through…
Question about Theogony
11 January 2011I like to consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to mythology. I always find the part about the universe’s creation (cosmology…
December 2010 Update
19 December 2010Okay, I’ve been completely silent for quite some time here. I could make excuses, but I won’t. I hope to add more content here in the coming…
One of the Reasons I Play D&D
08 July 2010One of the reasons I play D&D is that some of the moments that can occur are truly epic and worthy of any blockbuster action flick. Last…
The Ardent
24 June 2010I went to session 3 of D&D Encounters last night, and here’s my promised post about the Ardent player class. The Ardent fulfills the leader…
Let's Talk about the ENnies
04 June 2019My Thoughts on the 2020 ENnies Judge Nomination Form
2019 Return
10 May 2019Looks like I'm blogging again…
Death, Emotions, and Miscellany
14 September 2015I’ve got a dear friend, John Adamus, and one of his favorite sayings is “put your guts on the page.” I like to push back on this saying…
Identity
03 February 2015For background, read this post first. That article went up yesterday, and it’s prompted some discussions online. Some positive, some less so…
Quick and Dirty - The Quick and the Dead FAE
15 November 2014Quinn Murphy’s been doing a take on Sleepy Hollow FAE, and it inspired me to do this. It’s quick, it’s dirty, and it’s not something I’ve…
Icons of Planescape - The Lady of Pain
13 August 2014Two things led to this post. The first is that I’ve been thinking about Planescape again. The second is this post from Quinn Murphy…
Loading the Game With Relationships
31 May 2014Our question today comes from Josh Jordan, an all-around great guy with a podcast, an indie publishing company, and who knows what else. He…
Feedback Hurts Sometimes
05 May 2014Today I want to talk about feedback. You know, when you’re designing something and you get other people to play it and tell you what they…
Doing What You Love
16 January 2014There’s an article that bubbled up on my twitter feed several times today. I didn’t bother to read it, so I don’t have a link. I’m sure you…
A Quick Rant about Stories and Emotions
24 November 2013I need to let my editor voice rant for a bit. I heard from someone I care deeply about that someone told them not to read anything that…
My Metatopia 2013 Schedule
28 October 2013This is the obligatory convention schedule post. I’ll be at Metatopia this year (2013)! I’m not playtesting any of my own stuff this year; I…
13th Age Icons for Planescape Redux
27 September 2013A while back, I tried to port Planescape into 13th Age by creating some Icons. A large part of defining a setting in 13th Age is wrapped up…
Why I Edit
29 August 2013It occurred to me that I haven’t discussed editing much here. That ends now. I’ve discovered within the last year that editing is something…
Revisiting Firefly - Belief in the 'Verse
19 April 2013Dev Purkayastha recently concluded a series of posts that revisit the Firefly/Serenity universe. There’s some great stuff there that takes…
Marco Polo Sucks Compared to Ibn Battuta
08 February 2013Ever heard of Ibn Battuta? No? It sounds like your history class was as eurocentric (read: lacking) as mine. This man was amazing; his…
A Cool Minute with John Adamus
19 October 2012This is the first of what might become a new feature here at Stormin’ Da Castle! I email questions to various RPG luminaries and pester them…
Night's Black Masquerade
12 September 2012Continuing with my Dragon*Con 2012 posts, today’s topic is an interesting one. I got to play in a Vampire: the Masquerade (V:tM) game one of…
Quickfire Update
07 August 2012I moved the blog and some of you might be wondering why I haven’t posted anything since doing that. The reason is that I’ve moved physically…
Intelligence as an Attribute
17 May 2012I had a thought the other day. It might be because I’m now getting to play in @MilwaukeeJoe’s Revenge of the Iron Lich play-by-blog game…
Night's Black Agents
01 April 2012Super-spies vs. vampires? Yes, please! Night’s Black Agents (NBA) from Pelgrane Press takes this concept and cranks it to eleven. Kenneth…
Link Roundup - dndnext
10 January 2012This post is mostly for me, but I thought others might benefit from it as well. This contains links to all of the articles that I’ve found…
Planscape 4E - The Planes, Fate, and Cortex+
08 December 2011It finally happened. I screwed up. I mistakenly talked about Aspects in Cortex+. The problem with that is Aspects are a thing in FATE, not…
Planescape 4E - On Chaos
27 October 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest I know I said that the second part of Limbo was going to be next, but I’ve hit a bit of a snag with it. I was…
Planescape 4E - Wrapping Up in the Gray Waste
04 October 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest So today is part 4 of the planar ecology for the Gray Waste. This will be the last post for the Gray Waste, and…
Planescape 4E - Don't Waste the Gray Waste
20 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest Here, I talked about a framework for the planes. Today, we’re going to put some meat on those bones with regards to…
Planescape 4E - The Bariaur
08 September 2011Editor’s Note: The original post of this talked about a gender binary. That’s been removed in this version. I also removed the part about…
Bringing Planescape Back to the Planes
26 August 2011After reading NewbieDM’s post here on the Planescape Campaign Setting, I managed to pick up my own copy, complete with all the maps…
Initial Thoughts on L5R Character Creation
10 January 2011I bought my brothers-in-law the fourth edition Legend of the Five Rings sourcebook in PDF form from DriveThruRPG for Christmas. They’re…
Aldurukh Keep - Session I
22 August 2010I kicked off a new campaign tonight. I had been talking about running a campaign for my father-in-law and two brothers-in-law, and fate (in…
The Storm Is Coming for Blizzard
06 July 2010Edit: Check my updated post here. Edit: This post should help illuminate some of you who are sitting on the fence. So, Blizzard announced…
Random Thoughts
23 June 2010I know I’m early with my post, but this one is kind of an intermission. Ok, so I’m checking Facebook and I run across a link to this. I…
Dark Pantheon - Initial Thoughts
31 May 2019Initial Thoughts on a Dark Pantheon
Sometimes Flakiness Can't Be Helped
04 September 2017So this article is making the rounds on my Twitter feed, and I have thoughts on it, and on the first response I saw to it. Let’s give you…
Two Types of Conversations
03 May 2015Today I want to talk about types of conversations. Specifically, I want to talk about the difference between external and internal…
Out of Spoons
15 January 2015Last post, I tossed out a half-formed idea. This is a continuation of that. It’s shaping up into a microgame I’m going to call Out of Spoons…
Metatopia 2014 Recap
12 November 2014I have so many thoughts about Metatopia. I went last year as a player and this year as a designer. I was a bit anxious, but this year…
People You Should Be Paying Attention To
04 August 2014Today, I want to point out some people you should know if you don’t. Quinn Murphy Quinn’s the mastermind behind Thoughtcrime Games, and he’s…
What Do I Do With This Feedback?
23 May 2014The topic today comes from Mark (@slavetothehat on Twitter), friend, fellow game designer, and cartographer par excellence. You’ve written a…
Comparisons
11 February 2014The impetus for this post is a document I had the misfortune of seeing at work. There was a section that attempted to relate Maslow’s…
Impostor Syndrome, Advice, and the RPG Community
10 January 2014*Before I get to the main point, let’s cover what Impostor Syndrome is for those who don’t know. Among creatives (artists, game designers…
Rough Mechanics for Iron Edda - Memories of Metal and Bone
07 November 2013A dear friend told me the last post was fluffy and asked too many questions without defining things. Let’s change that. Laby Blackbird and…
How I Edit
14 October 2013Inspired by this post from John Adamus, I thought I’d share the process that I use when editing a manuscript. First, I start reading the…
Planescape 13th Age - Bariaur
25 September 2013A while back, I did a Planescape conversion for D&D4E. Since I’m on a 13th Age kick right now, I thought I’d see if I could re-port those…
First Editing Gig
26 August 2013Great news, everybody! I’m in the process of contracting for my first paid, freelance editing job! It’s something I’ve been meaning to do…
A Cool Minute with Olivia Hill
26 March 2013Yesterday I mentioned that I might interview Olivia Hill about #ADX. I emailed her some questions, and she was kind enough to respond…
Planefate
29 December 2012I’m terrible with names, but let’s go with Planefate for now. I’m a backer of Fate Core on Kickstarter (you should be too, if you’re able…
Skillfull Thinking and Feeling Evocation
02 October 2012Night’s Black Masquerade chugs along in my head. I had gotten to the point where I was starting to map the guts of one system into another…
Atomic Robo Playtest
05 September 2012This will be the first in a series of posts about my time at Dragon*Con this year. D*C represents my first ever trip to a convention of any…
Old School Hack
21 July 2012There’s nothing quite like playing an RPG and having the creator of the game be the GM. It’s a magical experience, one I recommend to all…
Fourthcore Character Creation
26 April 2012@MilwaukeeJoe runs a cool Fourthcore blog over at Grind4E, and he posted an article called Revenge of the Iron Lich Call to Crusaders about…
Thoughts on Morality
19 March 2012The topic of morality has been on my mind recently for numerous reasons. One is the ongoing speculation with #dndnext in regards to…
Don't Overlook This Game
27 December 2011I got an opportunity to play Don’t Rest Your Head (hereafter DRYH) from Evil Hat last night (I’ve talked about it before here). It was a…
Planescape 4E - Hacking the Planes with Cortex+ Distinctions
01 December 2011So last time I talked about belief and the planes. I wanted to lay some groundwork before diving into these posts. Let me be clear that I am…
Monte Cook and the Monstrous Legacy
19 October 2011I’m taking a short break from my usual series to talk a bit about the latest Legends & Lore article from Monte Cook (@MonteJCook on Twitter…
Planescape 4E - [WiC] The Plane of Ice
29 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest Part of the Winter Is Coming RPG Blog Festival. “Hello, mortals. The name’s Sanctimarin, Master of the Frozen…
Flash Fiction Challenge - The Numbers Game
16 September 2011This is my entry for Chuck Wendig’s (@ChuckWendig on Twitter) Flash Fiction Challenge that he posted here. Long story short: write a story…
Planescape 4E - The Rogue Modron
06 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest Ok, so last time I presented a partial implementation of the Rogue Modron. The one at the bottom of this post…
Unnar the Mythender
25 May 2011So, Jeremy Keller posted this on his blog the other day. I’d seen posts from Ryan Macklin before, but for some reason hadn’t seen Mythender…
Aldurukh Keep - Stillborn Campaign
05 January 2011So the Aldurukh Keep campaign is stillborn. I’m disappointed, but I don’t really have the time to DM a campaign right now. The ideas I had…
The Planes
21 July 2010First, my apologies for not posting anything recently. I’ve had real-life situations occurring, so my posting has been non-existent the past…
My 3.5 Character
05 July 2010So, I messed up and didn’t post on Thursday, and this post is almost late. There’s been some sickness in the family. I thought I’d take a…
Initial Thoughts on the 2nd D&D Encounters Season
22 June 2010So the second season of D&D Encounters has come. After a pretty successful foray into Undermountain in the first season, this season pits…
Sticking the Landing
19 May 2019A good example of sticking the landing on the setup/payoff cycle
Two Reminders for Writing Genre Fiction
22 September 2015An editor friend of mine was at a writing conference not too long ago, and he came back with a horror story about genre fiction (no, not a…
Don't Waste Your Afterlife
16 April 2015A long, long time ago, I pitched an idea to Evil Hat’s Don’t Hack This Game. It was my first professional game design work, but the project…
Random Game Design Thought - PME
14 January 2015Here’s something that I’ve been kicking around in my head for a little bit. It’s not fully formed, but I need to get it down on paper, so it…
My Metatopia 2014 Schedule
03 November 2014I’m putting this here on the blog so I can refer back to it later. Last year, I went as a playtester (even though I used the convention to…
Protagonists and Morality
17 July 2014I recently started watching House of Cards on Netflix. I’m three episodes in, and it made me think about a topic that influences what media…
Sections and Subsections
22 May 2014Today’s topic comes from Christopher (@EldritchFire on Twitter), one of my favorite clients. One of the things an editor does is assess a…
Inspiration and Iron Edda - Memories
24 January 2014Last night, I was thinking about inspiration. I’m one of the stretch goals for the Iron Edda Kickstarter (you knew that, right? I think I’ve…
On Writing and Guilt
03 January 2014Today, I want to talk about writing and guilt and family. Bear with me, as I’m likely to say things you might not agree with. That’s okay…
Iron Edda - Memories of Metal and Bone
07 November 2013“The dwarfs came for us, and we raised the bones and the runes against them. We fought the good fight, but it wasn’t enough. They overran…
My Tendencies as a Writer
30 September 2013I’m writing a short story, did you know that? It’s the first one I’ve ever written and the first fiction writing I’ve done for pay. It’s a…
13th Age Apostolic Icons 2
25 September 2013Today, I continue my series on Icons for 13th Age based on the Apostles. Without further ado, I give you the Caretaker and the Thunderer…
Are You Ready for the Astropocalypse?
23 June 2013This weekend I got the opportunity to play a new micro-boardgame from Ryven Cedrylle, a friend I’ve had the honor of knowing and gaming with…
Two Awesome Kickstarter Projects
25 March 2013Today’s a marketing post, but it’s well worth your time to check out these two awesome Kickstarter projects. Don’t feel too bad if you can’t…
Night's Black Masquerade - Clans Redux
29 October 2012The last time I talked about Night’s Black Masquerade, I included a first stab at the Nosferatu. After posting, I talked with one of my many…
Mapping Vampire the Masquerade to Night's Black Agents
28 September 2012As part of my new process, I decided to do things properly and revisit my Night’s Black Masquerade idea. Today, I want to talk about a…
13th Age Icons for Planescape
22 August 2012Last post, I talked about creating a list of Icons for Planescape. Today I’m going to present the list I came up with in a similar format to…
The Lady of Pain, Mythender
25 June 2012If you’ve been following me at all here or on on Twitter, you should be aware of two things. One is that I love Planescape, and two is that…
More Fourthcore Dungeon Thoughts
23 April 2012Last time, I talked about Fourthcore and gave some initial thoughts on a dungeon idea. This post is a continuation with more thoughts. I’ll…
Retooled Lord of Chaos Epic Destiny
07 March 2012I had the wonderful opportunity to be on Tome Show Episode 191 last night with Jeff Greiner (@Squach on Twitter), Tracy Hurley…
Don't Neglect Your Update
22 December 2011Thought I’d give a small update on what’s happening around here recently. I haven’t lost steam on the Planescape 4E stuff, I’m just taking a…
Planescape 4E - The Planes and Belief
23 November 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest This one will be short and more of a conceptual post, but I must write my thoughts down before they disappear into…
Planescape 4E - Chaos Incarnate, The Plane of Limbo
11 October 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest I’m going to attempt to tackle Limbo today. As part of the planar ecology, I’m going to need planar traits, horizon…
Planescape 4E - Languor to Larvae
28 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest This is part 3 of a planar ecology for the Gray Waste. Last time I talked about the horizon effect to add menace to…
Planescape 4E - The Plane's The Thing
16 September 2011The Lady of Pain's Crest We’re going to continue with our Planescape 4E revamp but start into a new series. I’ve covered races, and now I…
Planescape 4E - Races
01 September 2011In the DM’s guide provided with the Planescape Campaign Setting, several races are mentioned. Let’s discuss how to handle these races in 4E…
Twenty Questions Character Creation in L5R 4Ed
18 January 2011Editor’s Note: Originally, this content was posted in two parts. I’ve taken the liberty of combining them into one, using the original…
The D&D Virtual Table
05 January 2011Update: Added link to guest post by Sarah Darkmagic at Loremaster.org So I’ve now had the opportunity to play with the D&D virtual table…
The People Have Spoken
09 July 2010So Mike from Penny Arcade tweeted this link, and all I can say is, “Congratuwelldone, Blizzard.” Although the weasel words, “at this time…
Lament for the Loss of Discovery
28 June 2010I play World of Warcraft, yes, I said it. I’ve played since open beta, and I was even able to get a copy on release date without preordering…
First Post and Background
22 June 2010Normally I eschew slangy things like the use of the word, ‘da.’ I believe in this case I must beg forgiveness and explain why I chose it…