Graph Paper Games

So far, my decision to use Waterdeep: Dragon Heist  appears to be a wise one.  The group is enjoying the rich tapestry of personages the book has to offer, and I find myself freed up from stressing about what to do next.  Without getting into any spoilers, the group is in the second chapter of the adventure, a curiously low-key exploration phase before beginning ratcheted back up in chapter three to a pace that will continue for the rest of the book.  The long-time GM in me is mildly disappointed that I'm not creating my own material, but this has given me the time to focus on a lot of other projects, including renovating the game room.  I will have to see if I transition from Dragon Heist  to Dungeon of the Mad Mage .  In November two of my players will have a baby, while after Christmas break another player's schedule changes so he is no longer available on my game night.  That leaves me with three players, all youth rather than adults.  At...

This post may contain spoilers to the D&D Adventure "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" I think the last time I used a pre-generated adventure was the prior time I ran D&D a couple of years ago, and that was an old Goodman Games module for 3E that I updated for 5E (which wasn't without its challenges).  But with several of our regular GM's in my gaming group unavailable, but my still having a lot on my own plate, I thought I would consider doing it again, only this time trying out one of WotC's up-to-date publications. After doing some research, I decided on their most recent product, Waterdeep: Dragon's Heist .  I'm a big fan of "caper" movies and the whole premise seemed to be a nice change from your typical murder-hoboing.  The whole adventure takes place in a city, there's a ton of investigation and roleplaying, and it serves as the prequel to their release of the latest iteration of the Undermountain megadungeon, which is being relea...

It has been years since I joined my Ohio friends for their annual three-day RPG micro-con called "End of the World" or EOW.  They have literally been doing this event for 29 years, and have it down to a science.  This past weekend was EOW, and I was able to make it out to Ohio to join them for three days of gaming one-shots all featuring their homegrown (and somewhat suspect) system. One of the cool things about EOW is that you can end up with a pretty wide variety of scenarios, each run by a different member of the group.  The first one was a post-apocalyptic adventure where a group of villagers have to travel beyond the valley into the greater, scarier world to try to find a cure for a plague killing off their tribe.  The second was set in 1959, with the PC's being a combination of FBI and CIA agents and the staff of a powerful congressman trying to prevent an attack by satanic Nazis on Nikita Kruschev's visit to Disneyland in California (a visit which nearly hap...

I've featured Phil Cho's work on my blog before.  I'm a big fan, and frequently am inspired by his work to create superheroes or villains for my own campaigns. I thought it was only right, and a great way to make a present for my daughter, to commission him to draw her character in our Champions Now campaign.  So, presenting, Dark Matter!