Do you need a character backstory? Here are the questions that are worth answering.
How To Make A Compelling Backstory
What does your favourite character look like?
One of the most popular articles I wrote last year was a bit of a surprise. Inspired by Legend of the Five Rings, I came up with 20 questions for deeper character creation. A year later, it is the most-read page on my site! The first question in the article is ‘What do you look … Continue reading What does your favourite character look like?
Available now: Adventures in Hawk’s Rest, a love letter to low-level adventuring
Adventures in Hawk's Rest is my love letter to low-level gaming: a mini open-world hexcrawl, perfect as a prologue to a longer campaign, with fantastic maps by Dungeon Baker. Think Studio Ghibli meets the Shire meets Lost Mine of Phandelver.
Everyday Heroes: a great new RPG for modern adventuring
d20 Modern was one of my favourite games of the 3rd edition era. Everyday Heroes is its spiritual successor – and it's great!
How to reimagine evil species in D&D
There is a long tradition of certain D&D creatures being 'always evil'. But what if they are just misunderstood?
Make your own megadungeon with Dungeon 23
It's 2023, and many people in the tabletop RPG space have decided to do 'Dungeon 23'. The principle is simple: a 365-room megadungeon, with one room for every day of the year. What a great idea!
Treasure Hoards and Magic Items in 5e
How much treasure should your players receive in D&D? Gems, coins, art objects, magic items? The answer might surprise you.
How to make D&D challenging at higher levels
If you have played 5th edition D&D in Tier 3 or 4, you will know how difficult it is to challenge players at these levels. A well-optimized party can steamroller through encounters without breaking a sweat. So how do you stop the game getting stale?
How to run low fantasy D&D
Low fantasy is gritty, grounded, and high stakes. How can we make that work in 5th edition D&D?
Make Your Goblins Unique: Thinking in Depth about Monsters and Factions
I have recently enjoyed watching Baron de Ropp’s YouTube videos about fantasy geopolitics, and it got me thinking about how we can do so much more with the monsters and factions in our games. I wouldn’t necessarily say that this post is ‘geopolitics’ per se, but that's certainly part of it. I think this approach … Continue reading Make Your Goblins Unique: Thinking in Depth about Monsters and Factions