• general

    Unasked-for silliness: Some gaming “humor”

    Any doofus can post a dumb thing online in an attempt at “humor”. But it takes a special kind of doofus to compile and release a collection of his misfires in a warped plea for further public ridicule. Here’s a collection of gamer-related “humor” tidbits that I’ve left steaming on forums or Twitter. Consider it a break from yet more pretentious posts about the proper cost of SM-dependent strength-based logarithmic damage with semi-balanced polearms, or whatever. I serve it as an amuse-bouche (if decidedly light on the “amuse”). Into the breach: The “Three GURPS Books” challenge You are allowed three random GURPS supplements. What’s your campaign? This thread on the…

  • general

    A questionable resource: Names for things in fantasy games

    A clump of collective nouns So we have collective nouns for animals, from the mundane “herd of cattle” and “flock of birds” to the twee “pounce of cats” and “cackle of hyenas”. Gamers have taken up the baton to suggest similar words for fantasy beings: “a band of bards”, “a convocation of clerics”, and what not. I hereby suggest a few of my own, with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game foremost in mind. Below is my beginning (and not-too-serious) mess of monikers for your collective consideration. (You can expect – if not exactly look forward to – updates as more names come to mind.) Characters Creatures Cockatrice,…

  • general

    What happens when you read Dungeon Fantasy RPG books just before going to bed

    I’m writing this for my own amusement (having resolved long ago to write down remembered dreams in the morning, but almost never doing so). I’m posting it here as a bit of gaming comes into the story. (Barely. Don’t expect much.) It happened after perusing Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game books before sleeping. Hmm, if I do that more often, maybe I’ll have some proper gaming dreams – say, a dream of me as a PC, descending into a dungeon. (That’d be worth writing about!) Or more realistically, maybe a dream of prepping for a convention session, and heading into the room to GM for a crowd of excited players. (Of course,…

  • general

    Magical mystery tours: Three GURPS Dungeon Fantasy adventure seeds for bards

    Three… bardventures? No. Let’s not do that. What we have here is simply three adventure seeds that highlight PCs of the musical persuasion, though of course other Dungeon Fantasy professions may be involved. The scenarios came up while I was writing Dungeon Fantasy: The Musical! feat. Bards, a look at all things bardic that could go into a future Bards installment in the Dungeon Fantasy Denizens series. I didn’t include the storylines in that article because the Denizens series doesn’t deal in adventure seeds, and because no one would use these ideas anyway. But what the heck. They do no good sitting in my slush pile. So here you go: a…

  • general

    Dungeon Fantasy: The Musical! (feat. Bards)

    Ooh, look! Yet another “They oughta write a book” article from me! Because it’s so darn easy to lay out the work that someone else should do for my amusement! You know the still-nascent Dungeon Fantasy: Denizens sub-series of books, each showcasing an adventurer archetype? The next installment ought to be Bards. Actually, when the sub-series first launched with Denizens: Barbarians, I thought Bards would be next. You see, I drew on my knowledge of game industry publishing, brought the full breadth of my intellect and reasoning skills to bear, examined and analyzed all relevant factors, and arrived at a deduction: “Bard” comes after “Barbarian” alphabetically, so that should be…

  • general

    Illuminati: New World Order: An unearthed review

    Hey, look what I found on an external drive! It’s an old review of Steve Jackson Games’ Illuminati: New World Order trading card game. I don’t even know when this dates back to; I picked up the game some years after it was released in ’94. I wrote the review for a site or ‘zine, but it wasn’t published.  While my memory of this article is hazy, I recall some great games with a good handful of mutually-backstabbing players. Ah, INWO. Good times…  Illuminati: New World Order: An unearthed review “Betray your friends. Crush your enemies. Control the world. Drink some coffee.” That pretty much says it for me, folks.…