Musings about Combat in RPGs
One thing I noticed while reading RPG rules (and even while writing them myself) is that combat rules often make up the majority of rules. Even in rules lite games, combat rules are...
August 17, 2016
Game Design
Some Thoughts on “A Time Of War”
Recently I had the chance to create a character for Catalyst Game Labs’ latest Battletech roleplaying game “A Time of War”. While the core mechanic is a pretty simple and straightforward “roll 2D6...
September 25, 2015
Don’t Think Too Big!
For a while I have been struggling with a long-time dream of mine: a homebrew cyberpunk setting. I always loved the genre but I am not 100% happy with the cyberpunk games commercially...
August 31, 2015
Game Maker Studio
Again I am breaking one of the rules that I wrote down when I started this blog. Today I want to write about a topic unrelated to pen & paper RPGs. While pen...
May 8, 2015
An Elegant System For A More Civilized Age
Most of you probably remember the line “An elegant weapon for a more civilized age” from 1977’s Star Wars. So it’s probably no surprise that this post is about the rules of the original Star...
April 30, 2015
Why there will be no 2nd Edition of WR&M
Over the last years I have thought several times about creating a 2nd Edition of Warrior, Rogue & Mage. No game is perfect and WR&M is no exception. The combat rules need fixing,...
February 11, 2015
NaGaDeMon: WR&M Pocket Edition
Over the last few days I have continued working on the project I dubbed WR&M Pocket Edition. Initially I wanted to create something which is to WR&M what Chris McDowall’s Into The Odd...
November 21, 2014
NaGaDeMon: So, what am I working on?
Yesterday I wrote that it was still a bit too early to talk about my projects. Today I think it’s already time to reveal at least some details to you, my dear readers....
November 4, 2014
It’s THIS time of the year again: NaGaDeMon!!!
November is a special month for all budding game designers. It’s the NaGaDeMon, the National (or rather interNational) Game Design Month. A couple of years ago, Nathan Russell had the awesome idea to...
November 3, 2014
My thoughts on “Chess is not an RPG”
Today I stumbled upon a blog post by John Wick about game balance, social skills, weapon lists etc. If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out and come back afterwards. You’ve...
October 2, 2014
More Thoughts on the Cypher System
Over the last few weeks I have posted several times about Numenera and praised the so-called Cypher system which powers the game. The same rules have also been used in The Strange, Monte...
October 1, 2014
Ask The Readers / Blogging / Game Design / Mutants & Masterminds / Other Systems / Pathfinder / Random musings / RPG
Fantasy Fridays! Ask the readers, Pathfinder RPG House Rules?
Hello readers! Sorry for another skipped week RL and all that. I’m very interested in continuing my contributions to the blog with at least one post a week. Let’s do this… You’ll notice...
July 4, 2014
Lazy Wednesday Video Post: Tabletop RPG Design 101
A couple of days ago, Tim Kirk posted a very interesting video blog on game design on his YouTube channel. In the about 13 minutes long video he gives great advice to anyone...
July 2, 2014
Fate Accelerated Idea: Fallout
If you have been following my blog for a while, you might have read my posts about the Fallout game I’ve been running with Fudge. Recently I looked into switching from Fudge to...
May 15, 2014
Changing Spells
On the weekend I played the “Mansions of Madness” board game for the first time. In this Fantasy Flight Games’ board game each player takes control of an investigator exploring a mansion full...
January 20, 2014
Shadowrun using Technoir? Might that work?
Yes, I am still looking for alternative ways to run a Shadowrun game. While I am still trying to find a good way to use the Over The Edge rules for it, I...
December 10, 2013
Fallout Fudged
A while ago I had the idea to run a campaign based on the Fallout computer game series. I was actually just replaying the original Fallout computer game when I realized that it...
November 6, 2013