My God, It's Full of Hair: One Night With Vast & Starlit

Please excuse the title of this post. You see, a couple of weeks back I played Vast & Starlit at Open RPG Night and V&S features a very interesting alien creation mechanic. It works (roughly) like this: Every player names an animal they are familiar with. Each player, in turn, picks one of the animals and singles out a defining feature. Another...

Categories: Open RPG Night, Review, Science Fiction, Vast and Starlit

Lasers & Feelings & Game Night

Last week my Open RPG Night played Lasers & Feelings (PDF Warning), the latest single page RPG from John Harper/One Seven Design. It's a swashbuckling, Star-Trek-esque game inspired by a song by The Doubleclicks. As is usual for one of Harper's games, it is an RPG boiled down to only the most necessary elements. I became aware of the game the...

Categories: Free RPG, John Harper, Lasers and Feelings, Open RPG Night, Science Fiction, session report

No good deed goes unpunished.

I recently mentioned how I had started an Open RPG Night in my city and that each week a random assortment of gamers assemble to play an arbitrarily chosen game. Last week that game was Dungeon World and this week a group of (mostly) different people chose to play Apocalypse World. This time around I wasn't in the GM's seat and I got to flex my...

Categories: Apocalypse World, Open RPG Night, session report

Indigo Galleons and Sea Ghouls

This is the 'cover' panel of the trifold. Last week I hosted the first weekly "Open RPG Night" in my city. I did so with the help of my local RPG Meetup group and while RSVPs were sparse at first, they came flying in during the last 24 hours or so. The group that assembled consisted of myself and one other RPG fanatic as well as a handful people...

Categories: Adventures, Dungeon World, John Aegard, Review

Chroma Team Revised

Regular readers of this blog may remember that my game, Chroma Team VS The Terrorlights, was a finalist in this year's Game Chef. I received a lot of good feedback and suggestions on the game and this weekend I sat down and started revising the game. You can view the current version of the game here, and I have kept the original Game Chef entry around for those curious about such things. The revised...

Categories: Chroma Team, Game Design, Kaiju, Sentai

Orc Name Generator

Today I add an Orc name generator to my list of name generators. The seeds for this one came from a list of notable Orcs from Lord of the Rings, Paizo's Orcs of Golarion and a list of notable Orcs of Mystara. The tribe/last names started with a list of words from the tribes of Mystara and Golarion and I expanded from ther...

Categories: fantasy, generators, js, names, orc

Once a mighty bastion against evil fell to diabolical treachery...

A while back J.D. Barnes put a call out to the RPG blogosphere to take a look at his latest project, a megadungeon meets small press zine called The Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord.  Normally I only look at PDFs here at Impossible Boulder, but Barnes is going back to basics with his foray into megadungeonry and that interests me. You might...

Categories: Adventure, megadungeon, Old School, Review, Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord, Wielding a Bohemian Earspoon

Game Chef 2013: Chroma Team reaches the finals!

The peer reviewing and nomination process for Game Chef 2013 is over and the finalists have been announced. The dust has settled and ten* games are going before the four expert judges and this year I am astounded to say that my entry is one of those ten. My goofy little game, that was written stealthily in the middle of the night whilst my wife slept...

Categories: Chroma Team, Game Chef, Game Chef 2013, Game Design

Obscure RPG Appreciation Day: Lone Wolf RPG (1989)

A little blog named Mesmerized By Sirens that focuses on obscure RPGs is running what they call Obscure RPG Appreciation Day and have challenged bloggers to post about a little known RPG. I have decided to join in the fun with this blog post. Did you know that a Lone Wolf RPG was published way back in 1989? Yes, I do mean the Lone Wolf of choose-your-own-adventure...

Categories: Lone Wolf, Lone Wolf RPG, Obscure RPG Appreciation Day, Project Aon

Campaign Pitch: Djinni Unchained

As May draws to a close I have decided to squeeze in a post for this month's RPG Blog Carnival, hosted over at the always entertaining Age of Ravens. This month's carnival topic is games that you would like to run, so now is as good a time as any for me to do another campaign pitch. Al-Qadim was always one of WotC/TSR's more interesting settings...

Categories: Age of Ravens, Al-Qadim, Arabian Nights, Campaign Pitch, Dungeon World, Legacy of Fire, RPG Blog Carnival

Game Chef 2013: Chroma Team vs. The Terrorlights

The design part of Game Chef 2013 is now complete and I am already hard at work on the the peer reviewing phase. I have already shared my initial brainstorming session as well as teased a character sheet, but now that my entry has been submitted it is time to actually share the fruits of my labour. How's that for an ugly cover? Chroma Team vs....

Categories: Chroma Team, Game Chef, Game Chef 2013, Game Design, Kaiju

Game Chef 2013: Character Sheet Teaser

The clock is ticking on Game Chef 2013 and submissions are due when it is no longer May 26th anywhere in the world. Naturally, with less than 48 hours left on the clock I have decided that my time is better spent updating my blog than actually working on the game. It's all part of the creative process, I swear! I have stepped away from designing and...

Categories: Character Sheets, Chroma Team, Game Chef, Game Chef 2013, Game Design, Teaser

Game Chef 2013: Ingredients & Brainstorming

Game Chef is back for 2013 and I am already scratching my head and staring at the ingredients. I have participated in Game Chef twice before, 2010 and 2011, but have never won or placed as a finalist (historically I have done better with the 24/48 hour jams). This year's ingredients come in the form of five images, the first of which is the theme. I'm...

Categories: Brainstorming, Chroma Team, Game Chef, Game Chef 2013, Game Design, Kaiju, Sentai

Elven Name Generator

Today I round out my set of standard fantasy race name generators with an elven name generator. For this generator I took pieces of ancient celtic names and mashed them up with new age/hippy names. I am relatively pleased with the result, which gives a suitably elven first name paired with a cheesy surnam...

Categories: elf, fantasy, generators, js, names

A Review of Mutants & Machine-guns

What Is It? Mutants & Machine-guns is an eight page post-apocalyptic role playing game from Experimental Playground. EP has been around for quite a few years now making print and play board games, but this is their first attempt at an RPG. Like EP's many board games, Mutants & Machine-guns is a completely free download and available in...

Categories: Experimental Playground, Free RPG, mutants and machineguns, post-apocalypse, Review

Experimenting With Wild Magic in Dungeon World

Last session we playtested a class that I have been working on for Dungeon World, the Wild Mage. A friend from out of town is taking on the role for a couple of weeks while he is visiting and he ran with the idea. Without further preamble, here are the wild magic highlights from the session. Capturing Mist The first major use of wild magic in the game came early on. The adventurers were investigating...

Categories: Dungeon World, fantasy, Magic, session report, Wild Magic

Campaign Pitch: The Dungeon Apocalypse

I enjoyed putting together my last campaign pitch, so here is another one that brings dungeon crawling to a broken Earth. This pitch is inspired by the tradition of megadungeons and what little I know of a Japanese RPG called Meikyuu Kingdom. The Dungeon Apocalypse People thought they knew what what the apocalypse would be, that they were ready...

Categories: Campaign Pitch, d20 modern, Dungeon Apocalypse, megadungeon, meikyuu kingdom, post-apocalypse

Flipping through FolkLore

F'olkLore appeared on my radar late last week and since it bills itself as a simple fantasy RPG with only a $1 price tag I knew that I would have to take a look. What Is It? FolkLore is an ultralight fantasy RPG from Seth Zaloudek. It weighs in at four half pages in total. I say half pages because the author's intent is for the game to be folded...

Categories: fantasy, FolkLore RPG, Review, Seth Zaloudek, Ultralight RPGs

Monday Monster: Deadwood Fungus

Anybody that has taken a look at Seedfall will know I have a thing for killer plants. Here's another one for you. View this monster on DW Codex. I used this monster during my last game and, to be honest, it wasn't as much fun as I had hoped. Once the players realized it was a plant and it couldn't chase them they just ran away...

Categories: deadwood fungus, Dungeon World, fantasy, fungus, killer plants, monday monster, monster

Halfling Name Generator

It has been a few weeks since my last name generator and today I am finishing off the short races with a halfling name generator. I used a mix of hobbit, middle english and paizo halfling names to seed the generator and added some things into the gaps that felt like they would fit. I am also trying something a little bit differently in how I handle the name generation, but I doubt many of you are...

Categories: fantasy, generators, golarion, halflings, javascript, middle earth, names

Monday Monster: Castoff Golem

The Dungeon World crew has launched an online tool for building monsters. It's very cool and also doubles as an ever-growing monster manual. I decided to take it for a spin and you can find what I came up with below. View monster on DW Codex. This tool took all the pain out of monster creation for me. I like coming up with ideas for monsters,...

Categories: castoff golem, Dungeon World, fantasy, golem, monday monster, monster

The Sewer Solution

Sanitary Sewer (Photo credit: K e v i n) Sometimes I GM myself into a corner, I can't help it.  I have never been the meticulous type that plans in detail or crafts elaborate set pieces; although, occasionally I wish I was.  I am the kind of game master that flies by the seat of his pants and relishes in batting the curveballs pitched...

Categories: chuul, curveballs, Dungeon World, Elemental plane of water, fantasy, Game Mastering, sewers, tritons

Campaign Pitch: NW Mounted Monster Hunters

In all of my years of playing, reading about and otherwise enjoying RPGs I have come across very few games or campaign settings that are set in Canada. There are definitely some out there, most notably as supplements for games such as RIFTS, oWoD and Deadlands; however none of them really have any kind of connection to the Canadian identity or history...

Categories: Campaign Pitch, Canada, DitV, Fate, GURPS, Monster Hunting, Northwest Mounted Police, nWoD, RCMP, RPG

Gnome Name Generator

I'm slowly working my way through the typical fantasy races and this time gnomes are getting the name generator treatment. I seeded this one with Golarion gnome name fragments, but there weren't a lot to work with and I had to expand into my own thematic interests. As per usual, resulting names will be on the cheesy side. ...

Categories: fantasy, generators, gnomes, golarion, javascript, names

Dwarven Stone Whisperers

My Dungeon World campaign keeps trucking along and recently two of the PCs uncovered a secret dwarven item. I don't have a name for the item and, since it was destroyed shortly after the PCs discovered it, I'll likely never have to give it a name. What I can tell you is that it was a small stone sphere covered in runes and other etchings, etchings that contained the secrets of the order of Dwarven...

Categories: Compendium Class, Dungeon World, dwarf, fantasy, Homebrew, Stone Whisperer