W. F. Smith 4/1/23 W. F. Smith 4/1/23

Of Mysteries, Monsters and Mosquitillos

I reveal a new monster from the origins of the hobby. This monster languished while its siblings, like the Owlbear and Rust Monster, are being featured in major motion pictures. Life is unfair sometimes.

W. F. Smith 2/9/23 W. F. Smith 2/9/23

Barkeep on the Borderlands: Pub Previews

Previews of four pubs from Barkeep on the Borderlands!

W. F. Smith 2/7/23 W. F. Smith 2/7/23

Names on the Borderlands

A d100 list of fantasy names for humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, goblins, lizardfolk, orcs and more!

W. F. Smith 1/31/23 W. F. Smith 1/31/23

Lore! What Is It Good For?

RPGs shouldn’t blather about their lore. Hide your lore in something gameable like you’re hiding your pet’s medicine in a piece of cheese.

W. F. Smith 1/10/23 W. F. Smith 1/10/23

The Winners of the 2022 Bloggies

Announcing the winners of the first annual Bloggies, with some acceptance “speeches” from the top bloggers of 2022.

W. F. Smith 1/3/23 W. F. Smith 1/3/23

Bloggies 2022: Voting Begins

The inaugural Bloggie Awards, recognizing some of the great blog posts of 2022.

W. F. Smith 12/28/22 W. F. Smith 12/28/22

Here Be No Product Identity Monsters

File off the serial numbers, take what you want. Also, I talk about and rate some classic (some less so) monsters.

W. F. Smith 12/15/22 W. F. Smith 12/15/22

Hexcrawl Checklist: Part Two

The second part in a comprehensive guide for designing and running your own hexcrawl campaign, which focuses on random encounters, calendars, factions, history and rumors.

W. F. Smith 10/17/22 W. F. Smith 10/17/22

Hexcrawl Checklist: Part One

The first part in a comprehensive guide for designing and running your own hexcrawl campaign.

W. F. Smith 9/19/22 W. F. Smith 9/19/22

Doppelgänger Dos & Don’ts

Advice for bringing the fun of hidden role games to your doppelgänger encounters.

W. F. Smith 8/15/22 W. F. Smith 8/15/22

Shopping, Listing, Picking and Gambling

I evaluate the various methods of equipping starting characters based on the goals of player agency, speed and randomness.

W. F. Smith 8/4/22 W. F. Smith 8/4/22

Hey, You Got Commercialization In My Hobby (also ZineQuest 4)

Why commercialization doesn’t mean you aren’t a hobbyist, plus a look at this year’s Zine Quest offerings.

W. F. Smith 7/12/22 W. F. Smith 7/12/22

Encounter Checklist

A checklist you can use to improve your TTRPG encounters.

W. F. Smith 6/21/22 W. F. Smith 6/21/22

What Even Is a “Procedure”?

So a game has “procedures” but what does that mean? This post presents a basic definition for an aspect of TTRPGs that is garnering more and more critical attention.

W. F. Smith 6/9/22 W. F. Smith 6/9/22

Tempus, Fudge It

Include time-tracking directly in your game’s procedures, and you will never have to fiddle with a calendar for your campaign every again.

W. F. Smith 5/10/22 W. F. Smith 5/10/22

Quicker Combat for Boot Hill

I boil down the complicated shooting system in original Boot Hill to a single roll to make a combat system that is quick and deadly.

W. F. Smith 4/26/22 W. F. Smith 4/26/22

Worldbuilding as a Team Sport

A procedure for building a starting scenario (and the seeds for building a world) for both referees and players at the start of a new campaign.

W. F. Smith 4/18/22 W. F. Smith 4/18/22

Universal, System-Neutral Stats

It isn’t much fun to convert monsters from system to system. The answer is to not give non-diegetic stats for the monsters in your system-neutral adventures.

W. F. Smith 3/24/22 W. F. Smith 3/24/22

I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again

A few options for making healing from 0 hp feel more realistic and offer more tactical depth.

W. F. Smith 3/15/22 W. F. Smith 3/15/22

Level Up Everyone and Everything

In most games, the player doesn’t have a choice about what to do with their XP. But what if they could invest it into their character, their followers, their equipment or anything else?