Red Lasers! Blue Lasers! Freedom!

Heroes and villains fight on a chaotic, G.I. Joe-like battlefield.

The Kickstarter for Freedom Squadron, a Savage Worlds-powered homage to 1980s cartoon action heroes, is in its final days. Inspired by G.I. Joe, Transformers, and their 80s brethren, Freedom Squadron‘s campaign looks to fund two setting books: the Commando’s Manual, which is the character-building book, and the Freedom Squadron Plans & Operations Manual, which is … Read more

Game Day: Ten Years Later

Role-playing book covers. Left to right: Numenera, Dragon Age, Set 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Savage Worlds, Day After Ragnarok

While revisiting the past as part of November’s RPG Carnival, I realized that Nuketown’s Game Day column debuted February 2007. I was stunned to realize I’d been writing it for over a decade, and that I’d written 110 entries in the series. That makes it the longest-running and most prolific column in the ol’thermonuclear burg’s history. There … Read more

Dicember 2017, Day 10: Workaholic

Two rows of different-colored twenty-sided dice.

Tales of a GM is running the 12 Days of Dicember, a project dedicated dice in all their randomized glory. The question for the tenth day of Dicember is “Which are your hardest working dice?” My d20s work the hardest at my gaming table, regardless of which side of the dungeon master’s screen I’m on. Dungeons & Dragons, in … Read more

Dicember 2017, Day 1: The Ragnorak Dice

A variety of different kinds of polyhedral dice.

Tales of a GM is running the 12 Days of Dicember, a project dedicated to dice in all their randomized glory. The question for the first day of Dicember is “Which is your favorite set of dice?” For me, it’s my Ragnarok dice. I bought these Chessex dice at MEPACON 2010 for my The Day after Ragnarok lunchtime campaign. The smokey … Read more

Game Day: A Little Bit of Everything

The massive central eye of a beholder examines a goldfish in a bowl.

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything arrived in my mailbox last week, bringing with it a cornucopia of goodness for Dungeons & Dragons. My only complaint about the book so far is I can’t read the entire thing simultaneously. As expected the Xanathar’s Guide (Amazon) includes a ton of content that originated in Wizards of the Coast’s Unearthed Arcana columns. It’s been edited and … Read more

Kickstarting Flash Gordon RPG for Savage Worlds

Pulp serial hero Flash Gordon stands ready for battle; the logo bearing his name appears behind him.

[… must … resist … Queen/Flash Gordon … reference…] The Flash Gordon RPG for Savage Worlds Kickstarter is live. Created by Pinnacle Entertainment Group, the Kickstarter includes the Flash Gordon RPG core rule book (192 page hardcover), the Kingdoms of Mongo campaign book (192 page hardcover), a 32-page adventure, a game master’s screen, new bennies, new dice, cool maps, and even a boxed set that … Read more

My events at MEPACon, Fall 2017

A stack of role-playing game books. A redheaded vampire appears on the cover of one them.

I’m running three events at MEPACon Fall 2017, which is being held November 10-12, 2017 in Scranton, Pa. The first two are powered by Savage Worlds: SG-13, which is a Stargate adventure and The Curse of the Moaning Mists, which is a Pirates of the Spanish Main adventure. Rounding things out is Light Everlasting, an introductory adventure for Hollow Earth Expedition. SG-13: … Read more

Rethinking Encounters and Defeating the Routine

Green and grey dice rest on a page from Volo's Guide to Monsters

“Rethinking Encounters” is the theme of February 2017’s RPG Blog Carnival, hosted by Table Top Terrors. It’s something I’ve contemplated a lot over the last few years as my gaming group returned to playing Dungeons & Dragons and I struggled to come up with thoughtful and interesting fantasy encounters. That’s because for most of the Blackrazor … Read more