Archive

2024

February

Stretch Goals Are Haggling
The Insufficiency of Language
When are you ready to crowdfund?
The Bottom Line
Add it to the Key

January

Environmental Horror Design

2023

November

High Level Shortcuts
Prep isn’t play
Megadungeons are Anti-Product
Dragons are the Encounter

October

Hex map encounter levels
My favorite problems
Luke Gearing on Into the Megadungeon

2022

October

Thinking about Safety Tools in RPGs

June

Getting Rid of Dogfights
The First Line of Every Edition of Dungeons & Dragons
James Maliszewski: The Tékumel Interview

May

What I’m Working On

2021

May

Violent Encounters

2020

August

Leveling Down
Heating Up

July

Gradient Descent Dive 07: Anatomy of Bad Session

June

Learning to Crawl

May

Gradient Descent Dive 06: Session Report [Mothership]
Gradient Descent Dive 05: Session Report [Mothership]
Gradient Descent Dive 04: Session Report [Mothership]

April

Gradient Descent Dive 03: Session Report [Mothership]
Gradient Descent Dive 02: Session Report [Mothership]

March

Gradient Descent Dive 01: Session Report [Mothership]

2019

December

Mawbreakers, Resource Management, and Combat Centric Gaming

October

A Crash Course on Marketing Your Indie RPG

August

Getting Better At RPG Twitter
Where Do We Go From Here?

July

Mothership, the ENnies, and A Pound of Flesh

March

Eleven Questions about Layout in RPGs

February

Mawbreakers: A Weird WW2 Para-shooter RPG

January

Building Custom Backgrounds for Mothership
My First Shootout
Stop Worrying About Layout Software
Painless Character Creation for a Painful Game
Why Setting High Stakes Matters

2018

December

How to Create a Criminal
Rey Burtnolds Debriefing Communicades: Session Archive [Mothership]
A Small Rant about Investigation in RPGs
Better Crits for Mothership
Carousing & Stress in Mothership

November

Critical Hit Tables for Mothership

October

The End of G+ and an OSR Guide For The Perplexed

August

Divine Right: Minaria as a D&D Setting
Yanovich’s Inauguration: Session Report [Insurgency]
Prisoners of Hecate Balaam: Session Report [Mothership]
Notes from Gen Con 2018

July

How We Designed Dead Planet
Screaming on the Alexis: Session Report [Mothership]

June

Mothership PDF Now On DriveThruRPG
Fire in Hyperspace: Session Report [Mothership]

May

Escape from Banquo IV: Session Report [Mothership]
Build a Dungeon, Level Up
Crash Landing on Banquo IV: Session Report [Mothership]

April

Can We Make This an Image? Designing Better Tables
The Connecticut Job: Session Report [Heist]
Mothership: Ship Creation Sheet

March

Lessons I Learned Designing the Mothership Character Sheet
The Golden Barge: Session Report [LotFP]
Brendan’s Twenty Rules Questions
The Hall of Sweet Mourning
Designing Heartbreaker, My Tactical Card Game

February

Urban Geomorphs for Cyberpunk Games
Equipment As Prestige Classes
Designing a Character Sheet for Castlevania
Node Based Dungeon Design in Fighting Fantasy
Simple Poison Rules for Old School Games
My House Rules for Weapons in OD&D
From Fighting Fantasy to Troika!

January

I’ve Got Some Art in Megadungeon Issue 2
Heist: A Smash & Grab RPG

2017

December

Isaac’s Basement
Battletech: HPS-222 HOPSCOTCH
Battletech: FAL-5A FALSTAFF
What Do The Monsters Want?
d20 Quick Cleric Religions
Running a Siege Against the Keep on the Borderlands
Building Better Magical Components
My Infatuation with 2D Maps
What Are the Guards Doing?

November

How to Make Treasure Interesting

September

B/X/R/X: Ape, White
B/X/R/X: Acolyte
B/X/R/X: Remixing the Best Monster Manual

August

The First Time We Played Mothership
Mistakes We Made at Gen Con 50

July

My ENnies 2018 Judge Application

June

Top 20 Twitter Bots for D&D
Survive, Solve, or Save: Pick Two

May

Removing Agency in Horror Games

April

A Primer on Publishing Boardgames

March

Why Buc-ee’s Made Their Bathrooms Their Core Business Offering

February

Why We Tolerate Failure