#ttrpgblogger — Public Fediverse posts

Monday Monster: Mizrak, NPC Mystery Kin.

Compatible with Dragonbane RPG.

The Mizrak are short humanoids with fishlike heads, only with almond-shaped eyes. They are often mistaken for Lizard Folk, Frog Kin, or Fish Kin. However, they have long since evolved to function normally on land. Many are being born without gills in the present time. They embrace an advanced tribal culture led by 3-5 Elders. While the more learned Mizrak become Arcanists or Sages, some fall back on the old ways of Animism or Witchcraft. (Necromancy and Demonology are strictly forbidden in the Mizrak culture due to their long history with such practices.)

Little is known about the Mizrak history. Some scholars claim they are not from this plane at all, but rather are refugees from a long-forgotten war in another dimension. The elders have been known to consort with strange godlike beings on another plane of existence, but the exact nature of these entities is known only to them. They will only call upon the entities for assistance in the most dire of circumstances.

It is forbidden for Mizrak to interact with cultures outside of their own. The Elders will go to great lengths to avoid conflict with outsiders, but none are welcome to stay in the Mizrak’s territories for more than a day or two at most. Defenders will often pursue non-violent means of disuading interlopers before weapons are drawn. Most Mizrak speak their own language and have a basic grasp of common tongues. They seem to communicate with one another almost telepathically.

Mizrak Defender:

Movement: 8                        Damage Bonus: +1d4

Typical Armor:  3 (Scale Mail)  HP: 10

Skills:  Awareness 12, Evade 14, Spear 12, Sword 12.

Typical Weapon: Short Spear (Thrown up to 20m, 1d10 piercing damage) or Longsword. (2d8 slashing damage)

Mizrak Arcanist: (Elementalists)

Movement: 8                        Damage Bonus: None

Typical Armor:  None              HP: 8 WP:: 14

Skills:  Awareness 12, Evade 14, Elementalism 12

Typical Spells:

1. Arcane Bolt
2. Rank: 1
3. Prerequisite: Elementalism
4. Requirement: Word, gesture
5. Casting Time: Action
6. Range: 20 meters
7. Duration: Instant

The spell sends a bolt of violet energy from your hand or focus at the target. The arcane bolt can be dodged or parried as a ranged attack. The arcane bolt inflicts 2D6 damage on a hit. Each power level beyond the first increases the damage by D6 or creates another bolt that hits another target within range.

• Pillar (See Core Rules or Book of Magic)
• Frost (See Core Rules or Book of Magic.)
• Dispel (See Core Rules or Book of Magic.)

The Mizrak High Elder

Description:

Resistance:

Ferocity: 2 Size: Medium
Movement: 10 Armor: 2 (Magical Scale Mail)   HP: 18

MONSTER ATTACKS

D6 Attacks:

1: Horrifying Visage: The elder projects a terrifying illusion of itself causing anyone within 20 meters with line of sight to the elder to make a fear check.

2: Arcane Volley: With the wave of his hand, the Elder unleashes three Arcane Bolts (each Level 1) toward up to three targets within range.

3: Summon Mizrak Defender: The Elder opens a portal that produces 3 Defenders. If this result is rolled again, only 2 Defenders appear. After that, only one appears each time this result comes up. The Defenders act on the same initiative as one another. They do not act on the turn they are summoned.

4: Attempt Mind Link: The Elder chooses one sentient creature within 10 meters and attempt to negotiate telepathically. Make an Opposed WIL roll. (Elder has a 12 WIL) if successful, the Elder breaks through and floods the target’s mind with images of its tribe, feelings of peace and prosperity, as well as a will to end all hostilities with the target.

5: Stunning Shout: Any creature capable of hearing within 6 meters must make a WIL roll or be stuck in place until the end of their turn. During this time they may not move, fight, cast, or even speak.

6: Summon Piscolodaemon: The Elder calls through a portal to an incomprehensible shadow realm to a Piscolodaemon, a frightening being from the far reaches of nightmare. (Roll a random demon from the Core Rulebook.) It lasts for 2d4 turns and acts on its own initiative. It may not act on the turn it is summoned. The only difference is this creature is unaffected by anything that would cause extra damage to a demon due to the Eldritch nature of the being.

We NEED Indie TableTop RolePlaying Games!

Dear Luke from DM’s Lair…

This was not the article I had planned for Wednesday or Friday. I had Worldbuilding Wednesday on lock. Fantasy Friday was right around the corner. Then I found this video from The DM’s Lair. Some of us don’t enjoy crapping all over Dungeons & Dragons 5E. Although that having been said? I’m going to take this opportunity to vent my opinion of D&D 5/5.5E again because holy crap I’m annoyed now.

Luke was apparently upset because us old guys on X (Twitter) said we preferred (smaller-game-than-D&D-name-here) over his beloved D&D5E. Oh, and did he mention his latest 5E project on Kickstarter? Yeah, homes, we heard you. After his comments about us “old guys” and our “obscure systems,” I wouldn’t give old Luke a dime for that thing on Kickstarter or anything he ever does again after this. Oh, and he’s got some “new” game that he’s working on that will totally not look like 5E at all, I’m sure.

Look if the only reason you’re going to make a DungeonTube video is to shill Wizards of the Coast and pimp out your own projects? Save yourself the time and effort, okay. I seem to recall a time when DM’s Lair was doing the cute comedy skits and giving out at minimum/mediocre Dungeon Master advice. What happened to that stuff? Don’t just go on the air just to dog people like me and games that aren’t your precious D&D5E.

But wait, there’s more.

I swear someone at Wizards of the Coast or one of the marketing/talent agencies must have been going around with some kind of bribe and a script that day. I saw Luke’s thing, one from good old Bob Worldbuilder, and one from DM With a Day Job that were all basically the same video.

The narrative of, “Drop whatever you’re playing and just run D&D5E,” ain’t gonna fly with some of us. And I don’t care what the fans sent into Wizards of the Coast because we all know they only cherry pick the responses they want to hear. I completely disagree with the idea that D&D 5E is the greatest game on Earth. Maybe it’s the loudest mainstream gaming brand (barf) in the TTRPG industry.

I think a misbegotten fallacious narrative has sprouted up that D&D5/5.5E can be bolted onto any genre, campaign setting, or story and everything will work out fine. Well, there might have been a GURPS sourcebook for everything, but it doesn’t mean everything worked in GURPS. D&D is a fantasy first game, which means the mechanics start to break down around the time you introduce firearms, tanks, jets, 40-foot-tall robots, starships, etc. Fantasy game designers tend to struggle with firearms because guns are icky, scary, and dangerous in the real world, so they never bother to look into them.

Just because we can do something with a game system, it doesn’t mean we should do the thing. Some games try to do everything but inevitably fall off somewhere. Other games pick up that slack but manage to fall off somewhere else. D&D5/5.5E can’t do it all any more than FATE/FUDGE, W.O.I.N, GURPS, D6, Cypher, Cortex, Savage Worlds, or anything else.

So, “Just play 5E,” just ain’t gonna cut it with me.

Remember back during the Great Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License Debacle of 2023 when everyone was commenting on YouTube, “Just play Pathfinder 2E?” Look how well that sh*t turned out. Sure, Paizo sold out entire warehouses full of product and then promptly turned around and made Pathfinder 2E Remastered. Then upped the price on everything, and more recently they upped it again by about $10 per book. As a side note, do they really expect me to buy into that line about Diamond Distributors causing all of their financial woes? Seriously? What happened to all your big OGL alternative money, Paizo?

If D&D5.5E or Pathfinder 2E Remastered were so good, affordable, easy-to-teach, easy-to-understand, etc.; then why in the flippity flop would I ever want to buy another fantasy game, like Dragonbane? Could it be that D&D5.5E is bloated, over produced, full of fluff, and the people who are normally associated with said game come off as a lot flakey these days? Could it be that the lead Pathfinder designer literally told us not to buy his game a few years ago? (I haven’t forgotten, and I’m not even a conservative.) Seriously—WotC, Paizo, if your act was so together and everything is so perfect, how come your sales are in the toilet?

Yes this is exactly what Luke was crying about in his video.

I’ve seen it. I think Timothy Imholt commented on it a few years ago. Basically someone goes on X (Twitter) and says how WotC is too woke and we should drop D&D5E in favor of (insert-name-of-game.) We get the same thing on YouTube quite a bit. I’m guilty of it as much as anyone.

Does it mean that D&D truly is superior and we should all abandon our “obscure games” in favor of it? I wouldn’t be here if I agreed with that. If I were just another DungeonTuber shill, I probably wouldn’t be in the state of affairs I find myself in these days. (My next therapist is going to need therapy.) But seriously,

I’m not going back to D&D of any flavor any time soon. I might use Mists of Akuma and Iron Kingdoms as references. I might still beg, borrow, and steal from various 5E or Pathfinder 2E monster books. I’m not abandoning the hobby or anything. But I’ll be damned if I hand WotC, Hasbro, Paizo, Kobold Press, Renegade Game Studios, Luke from DM’s Lair, Ginny, Bob, or any other DungeonTuber shill a single dime for their stuff again, possibly ever.

I’m done spending money on people who evidently hate me.

This was not the article I had planned for today. It’s not the article I had planned for Wednesday, either. I’m less than thrilled this piece seems to have a negative angle to it.

But let’s put this in perspective from my point of view. D&D5/5.5E has a lot of inherent flaws. That’s before you get to Critical Role and all these knuckleheads who try to brag it up. That’s before we get to the company who makes D&D and all of their fake social media shenanigans just to gain them notoriety. That’s before you start to realize that D&D Beyond has become the walled garden that was predicted in 2023.

Dragonbane, as much as I love it, has a few issues of its own, too. As a GM who has been immersed in many different game systems and even more settings, I’ll be the first one to tell you no game is perfect. Twilight Sword already has a few gaps that are popping up. My educated guess is that Ruttigers Almanac will, too. It’s just the nature of the beast. My favorite game (Dragonbane) might be better than D&D.

You won’t know until you try it.

It just happens that D&D5E has more flaws, obvious defects, and mismanaged mishaps than probably any other TTRPG on the market today. Loud, popular, and well-known amongst the “mundanes” (non-gamers) does not make a better game. It just makes for a more obvious one. Being mainstream often seems to make a product worse than when it started. I would cringe if something I really enjoyed, like TTRPGs, became a mainstream thing worse than D&D already is.

Let me ask this: Is it more important to be popular or have a quality TTRPG? Logically, a good game should become popular, and a bad one should sink. Yet here we are with D&D5.5E. I dislike 5.5E because I’ve looked through the books. Compared to older editions, it stinks.

This hobby has been one of acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness.

I’ve had plenty of people from all different walks of life and backgrounds at my gaming table over the years. I’d like to think this massive divide we’re seeing in the TTRPG fan base right now has more to do with social media and DungeonTube influencers than it does with anyone’s actual opinions. The common game shop or online customer doesn’t see all the bickering and politicking that goes on in social media unless they too are plugged in. .

The TTRPG niche is a fractured and divided mess. It has been this way since social media became popular. We don’t just pick one another’s games apart. We don’t just have people saying things like, “You’re playing it wrong.”

No. No. We have to have a go at one another on social media and YouTube, too. We have to go after someone’s game, obscure or otherwise. You like chocolate. What’s wrong with vanilla? You have something against strawberry pancakes, too? And on and on it goes. The TTRPG niche seems to have more of it for some reason.

I miss when games felt like coming home after a long day. Games felt like every day was Christmas vacation on the weekends. I miss running marathon Star Wars RPG game sessions. I miss running convention games. I so dearly wish we could get back to that feeling anywhere.

So what if someone thinks D&D5.5E sucks. Run it anyway as long as that’s what your group prefers. I just think people should be willing to give other TTRPG systems and settings a try. Having some DungeonTuber influencer shill pushing the mainstream corporate narrative that D&D5E is the only game you should run doesn’t matter as long as your group is having fun at the table.

I’m leaving my usual closing statements off of this particular article. Try to be kind to one another, regardless of what you might think of D&D5E, the Fifth Edition of the “World’s Most Popular” (because Hasbro says so) Roleplaying Game.

Monday Monster: Skeleton Spider Necroconstruct.

Compatible with Dragonbane RPG.

Description: A spider shaped creature made from bones and tattered flesh of one or more dead humanoid creatures, warped by necromantic magic into an unholy abomination.

Resistance: Undead. Doesn’t need to eat, breathe, sleep. Immune to disease. Takes half damage from normal weapons.

Special: Because it is infused with the spirit of a spider, it ignores obstacles and terrain.

Ferocity: 2 Size: Medium.
Movement: 12. Armor: 2 (natural) HP: 16

MONSTER ATTACKS

D6 Attacks:

1: Necro Gaze: The spider grabs one target within 4 meters and gazes directly into their eyes. Target creature must be Medium size or smaller and be able to see. The creature becomes Dazed and must make a WIL roll or check on the Fear table. (If already Dazed, choose another Condition.)

2: Necrotic Strike: The spider lashed out with its front claws at one target within 2 meters inflicting 1d6 slashing damage and an additional 1d4 necrotic damage. The necrotic damage is considered magical and ignores armor.

3: Necro Spider Bite! Targets one target within 2 meters and deals 1d6 piercing damage and delivers a Potency 12 Paralyzing Poison.

4: Webbing Spray: The spider sprays silky grayish-green webbing on a target within 10 meters coating it in immobilizing webs. Additionally, the target is affected by a contact paralyzing poison (Potency 8.) Anyone attempting to pull the webs off with bare hands will also be affected by the poison. The webbed character may attempt to break free by making an opposed STR roll vs STR 10. This attack can be parried. The webbing dissolves to a poisonous dust within one Shift.

5: Necrotic Swipe: Targets up to three creatures within 2meters of the spider with a claw swipe that deals 1d6 slashing damage.

6: Necro Beam: Strikes the first character in a line up to 10 meters away with a ray from the gem in its forehead that deals 2d4 magic damage and leaves the target Exhausted. (If already Exhausted, choose another condition.)

Thank Goodness It’s Fantasy.

Some of us are a lot burned out on discussions of Dungeons & Dragons.

I’m just going to cut right to it this time. I’m tired of the hobby overall being referred to as “D&D.” I’m tired of the assumption that every Game Master should be referred to as a “Dungeon Master.” I’m half tempted to sell all of my D&D 5E stuff (with a few exceptions) for pennies on the dollar plus shipping. Tempted, anyway. Might throw in Pathfinder 2E for a few bucks more.

I’m tired of Wizards of the Coast and their various sock puppets like Paizo, Renegade, Kobold, and others basically thinking they run the hobby as they are portrayed on DungeonTube, DriveThruRPG, and elsewhere. While D&D (and all of its various offshoots) are a big part of the hobby, they sure as Hell ain’t everything. I don’t think people realize there’s a much, much large hobby as a whole out there.

I know there are some people who already know what I’m going to say, think I’m whining about D&D again, or I’m just going to talk about Dragonbane. They’ll be partially right, but not completely. I can bust out a huge list of games that aren’t D&D. We’ve all seen them.

Back in my day…

In the olden days, there weren’t that many companies in the industry here in the USA. A lot of the bigger names in gaming didn’t really come along until the late 1980s or early 1990s. We had T$R in all their glory with D&D and some other really banger titles like Marvel Superheroes, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Top Secret S.I. and Star Frontiers. We had Chaosium with Call of Cthulhu, Basic Roleplaying, Pendragon, and Elfquest. Steve Jackson Games started with The Fantasy Trip and moved onto make GURPS. We had Traveller and its storied production history just starting out. White Wolf entered the fray in the late 1980s with Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Hero Games made Champions and that whole Hero franchise. Then there are a host of what I would call small classics like Villains & Vigilantes and Tunnels & Trolls.

Palladium Games got my attention with Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, and my favorite—Ninjas & Superspies. Before D20 Modern came out, N&S was my jam. My only regret was not getting to run more of it. It’s still in my all-time favorites. Covert Ops from DWD Games came close, and I pray there’s never a second edition because I’m super happy with first.

I should also mention West End Games’ Star Wars RPG D6. That was the game before Wizards of the Coast got a hold of the game and ruined it. It was also the game before Disney acquired the whole franchise and ruined it. I ran the bajeezus out of that game and would still gladly do so.

Likewise Mayfair Games’ DC Heroes probably didn’t get enough acclaim. That game changed hands multiple times over the years. Second Edition was okay, but I ran so much of the first edition and still have characters that have carried over through countless other games into ICONS. I still love DC comics and I’m excited to see what comes of the new Justice League game.

The other thing that really got my attention back in the day was Cyberpunk 2020. FASA’s Shadowrun was cool and all, but R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk was hot, sleek, and a blast to run. Still the best GM’s advice guide ever, a book called “Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads…” which also happens to be part of a line from Army of Darkness. (One of the greatest movies ever.) I got to run a lot of Cyberpunk back then. Such good times.

When Dungeons & Dragons 3E rolled around, I reluctantly switched over. I missed AD&D2E. but D&D 3rd Ed promised to be good time. It was certainly easier to teach and run initially. It was a lot of fun creating new everything for, almost like the past 26 years hadn’t happened. It was bright, new, and highly entertaining.

Then the Open Game License was born and with it came a deluge of Third-Party Publications. Some were good. Others were great. A few have survived the ages. Then the Internet happened. Suddenly everything was everywhere all the time, to coin a phrase. Suddenly it got easier than ever to exchange all kinds of information globally. 3.5E D&D did pretty well, too. 4E not so much. But I will give some props to 4E because it had some really nice sourcebooks.

I dipped out of gaming for a while except for some ICONS.

I took a little vacation from basically everything at one point. World of Warcraft was my thing for a while. Then I got into my spirituality really heavily. I spent a lot of time in meditation. I kept tabs on the gaming industry, but I didn’t jump right on D&D 5E right away. I think all of my rulebooks say 10th printing or thereabouts. If I had known what 5.5E was going to look like, I would have stayed out. If I had predicted the Great Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License Debacle of 2023, I definitely would have stayed away.

The third-party content wasn’t quite as prolific as 3/3.5E was originally, although it got worse before the OGL debacle. Which was another sign that official 5E was falling apart. I got out in late 2021/early 2022 because I noticed the slide at about that time as well. ICONS, a superhero game remained at the top of my list pretty much the whole time.

That’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of dabbling going on.

I liked Barebones Fantasy, another DWD property. There is also FATE; W.O.I.N; Big Eyes, Small Mouth; OVA; Anime Hack; Cortex; Savage Worlds; Index Card RPG; and a bunch I’m probably forgetting. I’m a sucker for a good generic, often anime-based system. I love giant robots and cyberpunk drama almost as much as other genres. I also missed the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia a lot. Luckily there are reprints.

There was also an indie game called Singularity which was a space/cyberpunk game that I really like. Likewise I spent a lot of time with Cartoon Action Hour Season 3 and Mecha vs Kaiju. In all of this, I was still on the search for the perfect TTRPG, especially one with an open license that I could finally adapt a bunch of fantasy settings to.

I’ve been holding onto fantasy settings since AD&D 2nd Edition.

In 2023 I had kind of hitched my wagon onto Dungeon Crawl Classics, but this other game was brought to my attention. Shadowdark was the passion project of my friend Kelsey Dionne, who I had corresponded with during COVID for a while. She’s a really great lady and I wanted to get behind her game. Turns out the game did pretty well.

I also discovered this absolutely amazing game called Dragonbane. Unfortunately I had become jobless in 2021 due to some, uh, unforeseen circumstances. (We’ll just go with that.) I didn’t get to back either Kickstarter for Shadowdark or Dragonbane. Luckily the actual print release for Dragonbane had come around.

Dragonbane was love at first sight.

I don’t think I’ve ever gone quite as bonkers over a game as I have over Dragonbane. The hardcover core rules were all I ever truly needed, but everything else was the most delicious icing on that proverbial cake. I mean, the boxed set was like opening the Red BECMI D&D box all over again for the first time, only Dragonbane had the figure standees.

Technically Drakar och Demoner has been around as long as BECMI, but not so much here in the USA. Thank goodness someone at Free League Publishing was kind enough to bring it over here. This game has been fun to solo, to create content for, to teach… I can’t think of another game that has really come close. I’m truly happy with it and plan to keep going with it for years to come.

I did mention a penchant for anime games, though.

If I have one weakness, it’s for TTJRPGs. I was a Big Eyes, Small Mouth fan back in the first edition of that game and everything since. I got into Fabula Ultima when it came out. I’m still fascinated by the idea that Italians can do Japanese games so very well. Then there’s Twilight Sword.

The Created At Twilight license is going to make or break my creator ambitions for Twilight Sword. I always wanted an 8-Bit mecha/anime game. Final Fantasy V pushed the sci-fi envelope a bit. Phantasy Star did much the same. Twilight Sword might be my chance to go all-in on a setting I’ve always wanted to produce but could never find the right TTRPG for. We’ll see where it goes.

Back under the flag of fantasy games, there’s Ruttigers Almanac.

I used to love Earthdawn RPG from FASA. Before that there was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which still sits on my shelf. Both were excellent games. Now Ruttigers Almanac promises that same sort of darker, dystopian fantasy with some wild new races, magic, and monsters. I’m looking forward to it. I think Richard Whitters and the crew at Cawood Publishing are probably going to do an outstanding job. It’s definitely in the hands of experienced game designers and publishers.

On top of being an old school style TTRPG, Ruttigers is going to be a toolbox for other fantasy games like Dragonbane for instance. That’s part of the reason I’ve delayed some of my sourcebook ideas for Dragonbane, in fact. I don’t see much point in writing a sourcebook for Dragonbane that will compete with a game similar that which I’m promoting and believe wholeheartedly in.

It’s just about making money, though.

If I were a scummy grifter I could pump out three products per day on DriveThruRPG using AI for it all and very little editing. I’m glad DTRPG really only limits us to three products at a time or else it would be insane. Although I have a feeling that someday these guys who aren’t disclosing their AI use are going to suffer the wrath of Roll20 and be stricken down for being dishonest. I know I would never use AI without disclosure, but I see plenty of people who probably are. (Either that or they don’t eat, sleep, or do anything else.)

I could do the same on YouTube if I really didn’t care and just wanted a get-rich-quick scam. I could create one of those AI revenge drama channels my wife likes to listen to all the time. You know. The ones that are basically the same story with the names and some of the relationships changed around. I had some other kinda sketchy YouTube ideas, but that’s another article.

Grifters in the hobby are going to be an upcoming topic that we’ll cover very soon. There’s a particular scam I discovered on Instagram. The worst part is, I almost did the exact same thing, just charging a fraction of the price. Glad I dodged that bullet.

Fantasy will probably always be in my list of Top 3 genres.

Supers.
Space/mecha/cyberpunk.
Fantasy.

Other things come close. We’ve seen variations and hybrids of all the above over the years now. Horror pops up there occasionally as it would be a close fourth. Modern combat, spies, etc. are also close, but cyberpunk usually scratches that itch.

I don’t always play elves with sticks, but it’s never far from my stream of consciousness. It’s certainly the easiest genre to work with because there are no real-world physics or canon trademarked intellectual properties to avoid. Contrary to what Wizards of the Coast likes to think, they don’t own the notion of fantasy roleplaying. They’re not even close to the only game in town.

This series will cover all kinds of fantasy games going forward, because we haven’t even scratched the surface on all of the games I’ve had experience with over the years. We also haven’t truly covered one of my favorite fantasy subgenres—martial arts. Ninjas, samurai, and lots of anime action are always on my mind. I have lots of thoughts and some cool books on the subject.

We also haven’t begun talking about settings yet. Sure, there are some pretty epic official AD&D settings out there. There were also a ton that came up during the third-party publishing bloom under the 3/3.5E OGL let alone more recently. Since the OGL Debacle of 2023 we’ve seen even more settings pop up. Without a doubt there are more settings and fantasy games now in 2026 than ever before that have nothing to do with D&D.

I keep going back to the notion we wouldn’t need so many indie works if official D&D wasn’t so bad. Fortunately other creators keep plugging away, steadily putting out their games month after month, year after year. I think we will have plenty of fantasy projects to talk about for decades to come. Maybe by then some people will have abandoned D&D completely and come over to join us at the table.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Keeping This Positive.

Angry Rant Mode = Number go up.

I’m not going to apologize for anything I said in the Freedom Day article. With Dungeons & Dragons supposedly being the industry leader and most well-known brand, a lot rides on the state of that game and the company in charge of it. “DungeonTube” as we know it reflects the sorry state D&D and the company in charge of it.

I’m not doing any of this just for clicks. Somebody on YouTube put it best (I don’t remember who) when they said that we new live in an attention-based economy. Even though social media influencers might be on their way out, many businesses thrive or starve based on the amount of attention they receive. Advertising and marketing, as much as we might not like it, are still the name of the game, probably far more than 100 years ago.

What I would like to see.

In the vein of moving forward in a positive flow state, here are things I would rather be talking about on the blog here and on YouTube:

• Dragonbane.
  • Characters.Monsters.Spells.Book Reviews.Magic Items.World Building.
  • Conversions from other games.
• Twilight Sword
  • Check out this cool new TTJRPG!How does it relate to Fabula Ultima or other TTJRPGs?CharactersMonstersMagic ItemsEaster Eggs I want to insert from other OG Nintendo games.Entire new worlds.The map of Radia beyond the original 25 spaces on the map.
  • Running the game more like an 8-bit video game.
• Superheroes:
  • Outgunned Superheroes and how it stacks up to other games.
  • Simulating other franchises such as the DCU and MCU. Oh, and Kick Ass.
  • ICONS
  • Vigilantes For Shadowdark by the OG GM.
  • Capes, Cowls, and Villains Foul.
  • Setting agnostic supers world building.
• Outgunned:
  • Did you know you can emulate several genres with this one game?
  • Cyberpunk.
  • Mecha.
  • Something similar to Star Wars.
  • Something in the Star Trek or The Orville universe.
  • The Operators campaign for regular Outgunned.
  • Outgunned 1945.
• D6 RPG 2nd Edition:
  • Genre emulation at its peak.
  • Supers, Cyberpunk, Mecha, Space Opera, and more D6.
• Ruttigers Almanac is due out eventually.
• Setting agnostic fantasy worldbuilding.
• Player Generated solo hexcrawling.

Please note that I was using bullet point lists long before AI was a thing. I was also using Em and En dashes, which no one freaked out about until AI came along. I have what I consider to be a healthy relationship with AI tools, but they were not used in the creation of this article.

Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast gets cheap heat.

There are two terms in professional wrestling that you’ll hear thrown around sometimes if you follow it long enough. The first is when a good guy aka babyface comes out and hypes up the crowd by saying how happy they are to be here in (City) and how bout that (Local sports franchise.) This is called “Cheap Pops.” It’s good positive attention.

Then there’s what is called “cheap heat” when a bad guy wrestler, aka Heel, comes out and insults the city, state, and whatever local sports franchise that’s doing well at the time. The more boos the better in this case because it means the Heel is doing their job properly. And people become invested in the match hypothetically.

In TTRPG terms, cheap heat is what Wizards of the Coast generates for many of us every time they make any sort of announcements about future products. They also get cheap heat by starting drama on social media. A third term from pro wrestling that is good to know is “marks.” A mark is a sucker, easily duped, a stooge as it were. They fell for whatever it was whether it’s a wrestling move or in-character shenanigans.

Every time WotC rage baits half the OSR into freaking out about something? Marks. We fell for it. They got cheap heat because we were marks. They get at least one of us old guys riled up every time and then it’s all downhill with all of us getting annoyed.

Hey. I fall for it, too. I’m not sure how proud of that I am.

Send in the shills, those wacky, happy clowns.

DungeonTubers. I have lots of four and five letter words for these people. I’ll be nice and not call anyone out by name this time. It turns out DungeonTube fans are almost as maniacal and bloodthirsty as Critters, aka Critical Role fanatics. Who knew?

Shills are those marks that do a lot of WotC’s heavy lifting for them on YouTube. New product promotions, which are little more than 20-minute-long ads for a new official Dungeons & Dragons book, come through the shill crowd first. Then we get all the arf-arf parrot accounts that just repeat whatever the shills are saying. I’ve noticed other games don’t really have this problem as often. Every major TTRPG has a small group of loyal, die-hard fans who talk about the game, sure. But nothing beats a DungeonTuber shill who in some cases are likely being paid in money or free product to make sure D&D gets that great review. Heck, a bunch of these chuds are on WotC’s 12-person Community Council, aka The Council of Doom.

I’ve been hitting Thumbs Down and “Not Interested” on a lot of DungeonTuber videos as of late. I also especially hate the accounts who parrot Mike Shea (Sly Flourish.) Here’s a hint—He’s not telling you anything new. He’s just regurgitating old Dungeon Master advice from back in the 1980s and 90s. Don’t be a mark. Stop falling for it.

I’ve had to go so far as the dreaded “Don’t Recommend Channel” for some DungeonTubers. Some of these people are such obvious shills that I’m starting to doubt them capable of making an original video or character for that matter. Tell me you want to emulate Critical Role without having any of the chops to emulate a D&D group…

Back to the problem I was talking about in the Freedom Day post.

I frequently get lumped into the Grognard OSR camp far more than I would like. Yes, I bark in the dark or yell at clouds quite frequently. However I am not hung up on the OSR style of game or play style. I just want my games to be interesting and work with the players I have at the table.

Let’s get something straight: I don’t care who you voted for. I don’t care if your hair is blue and your face contains more metal than my fishing tackle box. I don’t care what kooky religion you might follow. I’m happy for you if you identify as LGBTQIA++ but it doesn’t have any bearing on my game or campaign.

I’m here to game. Period. I’m here and on YouTube to talk (tabletop) gaming.

There’s a catch, unfortunately.

You have probably already guessed what I’m going to say, and you’d be correct if you said that happy, warm, fuzzy articles about Game Master advice, various game systems or settings, and positive industry talk works less effectively with the YouTube meta/algorithm. The same is true to a lesser extent in print.

Sensational, usually negatively focused titles and thumbnails get more clicks. Discourse Minis proves it every time she makes one of her very click-bait videos. I can pick on her because I’ll be the first to step in front of a train for her. We get along pretty well, anyway from the few times we’ve chatted. But it’s true. She’s a pro when it comes to cheap pops or cheap heat depending on how you receive the hype.

I’m not just here for clicks or attention. I kinda get where Professor Dungeon Master was at with DungeonTube back a few months ago when he declared he was going to stop posting Hasbro/WotC news. The problem lies in building an audience.

Sometimes we have to play the meta in order to get people in the door for the fun stuff. Is it the audience I necessarily want? Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

I have one additional component to consider in all of this: The Law of Attraction.

Without painfully rehashing the whole concept, Law of Attraction basically means you attract what you feel. Believing is seeing. It means constantly living in the house of high vibration so long as it’s not false positivity. It’s a whole new level-of-fake-it-til-you-make-it. I think it was Neville Goddard who said we must live in the wish fulfilled or something to that effect.

In short, it’s about feeling like all has been accomplished and is wonderful even if it’s not 100% true yet. LoA looks easy on paper and in YouTube videos. Right now my vision board only has a few targets on it, so it’s pretty easy to feel fulfilled while continuing to constantly build. But no process is ever perfect, and we do hit bumps along the way. It’s important to acknowledge what would be considered negative emotions without becoming totally wrapped up in them. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

It’s frustrating to watch the same guys with thousands upon thousands of subscribers and watch hours jump on camera every week and tell us how wonderful WotC/Hasbro is doing with D&D5.5E when I’m pretty sure the game is not doing that well. I’ve tried to tell them how to fix it. The solutions to some of their sales problems would be such easy fixes. But one guy barking in the dark at a large corporation has no effect, it would seem.

Onward and upward as my friend likes to say.

I’m going to be ramping up production of my DriveThruRPG efforts over the next couple of months. I’d like to get at least one project up before 2026 ends. You should have seen the list I started with. I have projects for the next few years and maybe stuff for my children to finish someday. (yikes!)

The balancing act will have to continue for the foreseeable future. I’ll do what I can to keep things upbeat and game focused, but I’m acknowledging that all is not well in the house of TTRPGs. WotC/Hasbro isn’t showing any signs of improvement or letting up on their shenanigans. If that’s an indication of where the “industry” is headed, then we will inevitably be revisiting this conversation.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Freedom Day September 2026.

Happy Birthday to Thunder Meep Kitten and Noche Moop Kitten.

Today we have cat pictures. They’ve grown so much since they were tiny little balls of fluff. We found them hungry, cold, and scared last October 19th. The Animal Rescue League guessed they were 2-3 weeks old. I bottle fed them I-don’t-remember times per day until they finally transitioned to regular food. Now they get the zoomies at least a couple of times per day when they’re not napping or getting into something.

Now for the rest of the story: Why I don’t fit into the grand dichotomy of TTRPG community.

It’s probably a good thing that I have four loving fur children. \They do keep my spirits up and when I’m lonely I can go pick on at least one of them. Lately I’ve chosen cats over people. Yes, I still need to find a therapist I can work with.

I know it sounds silly. We’re constantly at odds with each other over a game about elves with sticks. One camp we’ll call the Old School Renaissance, (Old School Revival, Resistance, Rebellion, R-whatever today.) The other side of the coin is what I call “The Cool Kids Club.” You know, those younger 5E players who follow the likes of Ginny Di, and who think old white guys like me “can’t leave fast enough for this hobby.” There’s actually a third and maybe some more outliers to this particular social dichotomy who get swept under the rug because we don’t fit neatly in either category.

I’m too liberal and open-minded for the OSR. The conservative right wingnuts what populate the OSR do not like my politics or my stance on LGBTQIA+ issues. I also don’t embrace old Dungeons & Dragons BECMI, !st Ed AD&D, 2nd Ed AD&D, Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, or Shadowdark like they’re old wayward pets who I haven’t seen in years. That’s not to say I don’t love those games and more, but my ethical and political stance negates any opinion I might have if X (Twitter) and YouTube are to be believed.

But I was unceremoniously ejected from the Cool Kids Club, too. Between Knigobi’s Discord server and a couple of other DungeonTubers I followed on there; I really got the impression that there’s not a place for me with the younger crowd. I found it especially ironic on BlueSky and Instagram when a white dude younger than I am was telling me I needed to get out of the hobby. (Just because I blocked you doesn’t mean I forgot you, Craig of Inspiration.) Your sentiment is going to age like warm cottage cheese and I’m still here, dude.

This dichotomy might possibly be hindering my YouTube growth.

I tried early on to capitalize on the new D&D5.5E Dungeon Master’s Guide before it came out by putting out some videos on why we need more Game Masters in the hobby and how it’s easy/fun to be a GM. In fact, I’ve been ahead of the curve on more than one topic on YouTube; just six months ahead in some cases. I mean, I come out with a video for new GMs. Ginny Di with her 935K subscribers does basically the same video only with more skits and cleavage than I have and gets thousands more views. Go figure.

I’ve been further shamed and ejected from the Cool Kids Club, demographics aside, because of my use and occasional defense of AI tools. This is a topic for a much larger discussion that neither side of the coin seems to want to engage with. We’ll circle back to in at a later date. The high personal cost of the AI debate has been painful to me. But dumpy old AI-loving me can’t compete with Diana of the Rose or Dadi from Mystic Arts, right? Who would you rather be friends with on YouTube or IRL?

At the same time I’ve done a few hot take views on trending topics such as the Jason Buhlman political comment disaster and more recently this WotC Dark Sun business. Usually the negative heat videos do better. I pop off on the Wizards of the Coast and Paizo stupidity because I think something needs to be said and because I am an old white guy from the Midwest flyover states. (I have not forgotten you, Tondro.)

I’m actually ashamed to admit that the Paizo video and some of the hotter takes have gotten better metrics than my regular TTRPG videos. Unfortunately it was a painful lesson that needs to be pointed out. Saying “I don’t want ______ (person, demographic, political group) buying my product” sounds exactly like “Don’t buy my product. I hate making money.” That’s why I popped off on that one. Maybe some aspiring game company president will hear my pleas and not go down the same stupid road.

I will also point out that at least on YouTube, any time someone quotes Mike Shea (Sly Flourish) or any other DungeonTuber shill from the WotC 12-member Council of Doom? Thumbs down, gone, deleted from Watch History to keep the algorithm from serving more crap. If I want Mike Shea’s opinion, I live in a state with lots of cows. I’ll go find the proper end of the bull and wait.

You already have thousands of DungeonTube subscribers and work for Wizards of the (bloody) Coast? Good for you. Want me to take you seriously regardless of what you’ve published? Make better career choices. Play stupid (LARP) games, get stupid experiences. Same thing goes for you, BOB!

So the depression is hitting pretty hard these days honestly.

It is what it is, as much as I hate that freakin phrase. I’m in the same boat as a handful of other guys on YouTube and all-over social media. I’m not in either OSR or 5.5E camp. Honestly both extremes are a bit much for me. Maybe it’s my various diagnosed and undiagnosed neurodiverse issues talking. I just feel like a man without a camp most days. I’m forever alone in whatever crowd I’m standing closest to.

It’s a good thing I enjoy solo roleplaying as much as I do. Just give me a good oracle and a few characters. It’s all fine and dandy. It’s all fine and dandy unless I’m at a convention. YouTube is kinda f’cked though.

I do YouTube for me at this point. I don’t know if it will ever get any kind of monetization going on there. I guess I’m just too determined to keep putting out videos. I don’t think Chin Pecker Maps (whatever it’s called) or anyone from that talent agency will ever be banging down my doors for sponsored ad space.

Rest assured, you belong here.

If you’re breathing air and you’re still with me at this point, you belong here. I want to get back to talking about games instead of real-world politics and religion. I would rather serve an audience that wants to hear weird world building takes or about some kooky Dragonbane monster I cooked up. I’d rather talk about the fun stuff instead of what dumb thing Wizards of the Coast did this time and what we can learn from it. Let’s talk about Dragonbane, Twilight Sword, mallards, cat folk, monsters, traps, treasure, locations, quests and maybe even some unrelated superhero stuff.

I want to start working on cyberpunk/mecha stuff again. I realized the other day how much I miss the cyberpunk genre specifically. Plus I still have that cool idea for a space game floating about just waiting for some love. It doesn’t always have to be about elves with sticks, although if you thought the fantasy crowd was rough… Try finding players for a cyberpunk/mecha game sometime.

Regardless, thanks for being here. This month has been crazy. A couple of guys on YouTube gave me a lot to think about. Shout out to King Waspinator over at Total Party Skills and Grim Jim. I also have to mention the Boss, The OG GM as always because he gives me a lot to think about, too. Hopefully your weekend is going well. Here’s to October always being good for a laugh or two.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

TTRPGs, the Cottage Industry.

Something I’ve said for years and it’s coming around on social discourse.

Okay, slight suspension of disbelief first. Forget Hasbro and Games Workshop exist, along with the handful of Hasbro’s pawns. (Paizo, Kobold Press, Renegade Game Studios, Ghostfire Gaming, and about half the stuff on D&D Beyond.) Let’s also disregard Chaosium (Call of Cthulhu.) Most of the rest of the TTRPG “Industry” as much as I hate to admit it, is often a lone operator or a small crew of people putting out a game line or two.

I now contend it’s more of a craft industry, at least from where I’m standing. It’s on me to create the product, edit it, lay it out, find/make art for it, and eventually take my product to market. DriveThruRPG is the only sort of middle agent involved. Then I have to market, advertise, pray, and possibly pay taxes. Fortunately I haven’t generated enough revenue to worry about the last part.

A true cottage industry has multiple households creating goods for a receiving agent as they did prior to the days of industrialization. We still see some situations like that today where people work freelance from home on various TTRPG offerings, usually for DMsGuild or even a game company from what we hear. The line between freelancer and independent artisan are blurry sometimes.

The next step up is similar to gainful employment.

There are a few people out there in the TTRPG industry who do creative work for a bona fide game company. It might still be run out of someone’s living room or garage, but it’s more of a legitimate endeavor. I’m thinking along the lines of people who have enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on Kickstarter, but don’t have the office space or warehouse for their products.

Then from there I imagine the dream is a working office/warehouse space with something resembling a staff possibly. I don’t know if anyone would call it “living the dream,” but it is how a lot of TTRPG companies grew from a photocopy of the rules to full on production. The only difference nowadays is digital products and print-on-demand have made life slightly easier.

“You’ll never get rich selling games, kid.”

I’ve talked about this before and I think it’s starting to become clearer to me. Maybe there is some truth to it. Maybe my dream of making a comfortable living or at least steadily paying for my hobby using what I bring in on my own meager offerings is just that: a dream. I don’t know any more. I know a lot of the “greats” in the industry are still just barely getting by or minimally not living solely based on their TTRPG income.

The same can be said about YouTube. The creators who are making money, especially on the TTRPG end, are channels with 100K+ followers across multiple platforms. I noticed that Chimp-Peck-You maps or whatever the name is won’t touch anyone under 10K subscribers or 35K consistent views. (Yes I know what the real name is and who their talent agency is, too.) No one is breaking down my door to drop off a $5,000 custom wooden gaming table, either. But I’m not bitter…

YouTube is only going to get harder next year when the monetization requirements go from 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to 8,000 watch hours. I’ll be surprised if they don’t up the subscriber counts eventually. It’s the age-old tale of the rich get richer, and the poor get screwed on YouTube.

The TTRPG industry as it is really isn’t much better than YouTube. Small independent creators only have so many options without getting rich on their own (Arcane Library) or getting picked up by one of the big companies like Hasbro. A lucky few might get to cut a deal with a small company like Monte Cook Games or Chaosium. Even then such deals are few and far between especially with the economy in shambles.

When does it go back to just being a hobby?

I’ve asked myself that question a couple of times recently. I don’t think I can ever go back to just being a GM for fun. I’m always going to want to tinker with rules; publish an add-on; make a new monster for people to tinker with; write an article; make a video; and so on. I don’t know if I can ever stop.

Making money is secondary to all the joy creating things brings me. Or at least that’s what I tell myself to keep going. I don’t think anything outside of my family means quite as much to me as gaming has over the years.

I tried for a while to just write some ICONS solo fiction just for me, but it rapidly grew back into exploring other games and systems. Pretty soon I started looking into opening licensing things again. Hi. Here we are, a dozen years later and I’m back to tinkering.

It’s just in my blood; I guess.

A project I started clear back in my D&D 3.5 era has been dragged through two editions of D&D and several other games. Now I’m working on a version of it for Dragonbane. At the rate we’re going I’ll be releasing it for Ruttigers or something. Who knows? It’s one of a handful of titles that I’ve been creating for years or at least conceptualizing this whole time.

Before that it was some things I had come up with for Big Eyes, Small Mouth that I never got to print. I’d also like to be the guy to resurrect Marauder 2107 and Roadstriker 2, but it probably won’t ever happen. Yes, I’m openly a sad little otaku who is more into the TTRPG end of anime. A guy can dream; I guess.

I can dream.

There have been a couple of content creators that I look up to on YouTube lately who have stated what a shitshow the industry and even the hobby itself has become lately. I’m not giving up on the blog, YouTube, DriveThruRPG, or the hobby any time soon. Just because one well-known, overly hyped game is going down the tubes fast, doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t still out here in the struggle.

Sure, the YouTube algorithm is only favoring the Ginny Di’s of the world. Sure, Hasbro/WotC and all their puppet companies are “at the top” of the industry right now. We don’t need them. We never really did.

As long as I can still be a kid with a game, a photocopier (or digital these days,) and a dream- then by Universe, I ain’t going anywhere. Maybe I won’t be able to pass a gaming empire on to my kids someday. They’ll understand. I’m still doing what I love and nothing is going to change that.

Monday Monster: The Visitor.

For Use with the Dragonbane RPG.

Description:
This very odd looking but elusive creature looks to be a cross between a Pteranodon and a demon. It walks on two legs which are most often concealed by its cloak-like wings when on the ground. It has a gem in the center of its forehead. Perhaps the creature’s most unique quality is the unmistakable horribly stench that constantly surrounds it. The only sounds to have emanated from the Visitor are a low hum, some words in an ancient forgotten dialect, and one loud ear-splitting shriek.

Local miners have speculated that the creature was awakened by recent mining activity and that there could be more of them lurking underground or nearby. Aside from one rare daylight appearance where it chased townspeople about for hours, it has only been seen at night in the sky. It seems to only appear near mines, mining camps, or mining towns. It seems to have a strong disdain for mortal technology.

Despite its demonic appearance and hellish stench, the creature is not actually a demon, although its true origin may never be known as The Visitor has thus far been impossible to approach for any sort of communication.

If slain, the strange jewel in the creature’s forehead will fetch a handsome sum of gold to an weapon smith, alchemist, demonologist, or apothecary due to its unique magical properties. If properly harnessed in a magic item, the jewel is capable of causing the item to project an energy beam that does 2d6 fire damage to one target within 10 meters once per Stretch.

Ferocity: 3  Size: Medium
Movement: 14 (Flying) Armor: 2 (natural leathery hide)  HP: 24

Resistances:  The Visitor may make a free EVADE roll once per round and has Evade 16. It also receives a Boon on any subsequent Evade rolls involving missile attacks and spells. It is immune to fire damage.

• Special: The Visitor has wings and can take its movement in the air.
• The creature may vanish if it is near cover and at least 30 meters away from the nearest sentient creature.
• If reduced to 8 hp or lower, the Visitor will turn invisible and/or attempt to fly away.
• If slain the body dissolves into a puddle of foaming, noxious goo within one Stretch, leaving behind the jewel from its forehead.
• Please note The Visitor has never been seen out in an enclosed space and has only appeared next to mines and/or mining encampments.
• Dogs and other animals are automatically repulsed by the creature’s hallmark smell. Any animal in the vicinity will try to get upwind of the thing or as far away as possible.
• Any creature within 10 meters of the Visitor must make a CON roll or lose their sense of smell for one Shift.

MONSTER ATTACKS

D6 Attacks:

1. Energy Beam: The Visitor fires a hot blast of light from the jewel on its forehead at one character who takes 2d6 fire damage
2. Unreal Fart: The creature exudes even more of its usual stench. All creatures within 10 meters must make a CON roll or take 1d4 damage and become Sickly and Disgusted. A successful Evade puts the character on the nearest available edge of the cloud. Characters can also go nose blind as mentioned above.
3. Claw Swipe: Up to two creatures within 2 meters are struck by one of the Visitor’s razor-sharp claws for 1d8 slashing damage.
4. Beak Bite: The Visitor noms on the nearest creature for 1d8 bludgeoning damage. If you thought it smelled bad on the outside, its breath is worse. Make a CON roll or become incapacitated for one round while vomiting ensues.
5. Beam Sweep: A steady beam of energy erupts from the jewel on the creature’s forehead that strikes the first three creatures within 16 meters going from the creature’s right to left for 2d6 fire damage. The beam also strikes flammable inanimate objects and structures in between the targets with a 20% chance to ignite them.
6. Unearthly Shriek: Any creature capable of hearing within 30 meters of the creature must make a WIL roll or roll on the Fear Table. Characters who have heard the creature before receive a Boon on the WIL roll.

I have plans to make a greater version of this monster in the days to come along with a version for Twilight Sword RPG as soon as the CAT license becomes available. It may also make an appearance for the Ruttigers Almanac and TTRPG Toolkit someday.

What If World of Warcraft had been made back in 1985?

The answer, of course, is it would look a lot like Final Fantasy.

And what recently released game looks a lot like Final Fantasy?

Twilight Sword!

My plan so far is to treat each capital city like the center of the map of Radia. For example, Stormwind will be surrounded by many of the same challenges of the Stormwind starting areas from WoW like the Kobolds and the Murlocs (names subject to change, obviously.) I’m also going to borrow a little from Warcraft 1 and do some invading Orcs (name subject to change.) And then for the boss battle I’m planning to have Deathwing swoop in and chase everyone out of the city.

Picturing all of this with 8 Bit action and scrolling text dialogue makes me happy. The first 25 Squares are just the beginning. After that, we could either do open world Azeroth or the characters could be magically transported to a “raid” style megadungeon with another huge boss fight in the middle with Onyxia or Nefarion Round 2. Or maybe Ragnaros. I’m still working out how I would run dungeons in the CAT system, but it’s coming along.

I’ve been out of WoW for a while now, but I still remember all the old stuff.

I’m breaking out my Warcraft RPG and World of Warcraft TTRPG from the old White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery Studio days. All the lore is still there. The maps will convert nicely down to the Twilight Sword format. It think it’s going to work out in terms of conversion. WoW has always had a ridiculous amount of online resources to fall back on as well. I’m not worried about finding more lore if needed.

I think the way it would have been packaged back then would have been first game Humans, second game Elves, third game Dwarves/Gnomes, then I don’t know. Now, I’m going to catch some heat here because I’m an Alliance guy all the way. I just don’t enjoy all the “bad guy” character kin such as Orcs, Undead, and Tauren. The way I think the 8-bit game would go would be to introduce the Dalaran and maybe Karazan. Then maybe because it’s a neutral city introduce Orcs and so forth. I’m not sure how much call there was to play what we considered non-human kin back then.

That brings us to the other big change.

I love Twilight Sword because there technically aren’t any humans. So Stormwind is populated by Huma and Toluna, for instance. Maybe Ironforge is full of Dero and maybe Pengu. Maybe Darnassus is home to the Aura who are a little similar to Night Elves. Then we could do the Strix and Kedi like Orcs and Goblins. I got out of the game about the time Goblins were integrated into The Horde, and I think the Fox Kin came after that. I’d be tempted to grab them.

The point of each separate “cartridge” aka campaign is still to bring Hope to the various regions and chase away Fear. The more the Champions do to aid the people and defeat monsters, the better things will be for everyone all around. I still want to keep the Twilight Sword essence, just drop in some situations and places from good old WoW. That, and dragons. World dragons would be roaming about and could randomly appear near the PCs, and they would be a big feature in most of the boss fights. Maybe the last game of the whole series, whatever I call it, would be the return of Deathwing and the battle where he is finally defeated forever at the very end.

By the time the dust settles on this project, it may well look nothing like Azeroth because the nodes will have been renamed along with the map. The monsters will by-and-large be renamed to fit Twilight Sword, and all of the kin will have changed. I’m bound and determined to keep the CAT magic rules, the various Ways, etc. I don’t know how I’m going to handle the pantheon just yet or if I’ll bother.

Upon further consideration.

The more I think about it, what if the devs had made it one game, but changed the name of the city in the middle and rotated out the monsters? I mean, it would be so much easier in terms of programming. LOL! This is similar to the Power Rangers RPG meta that I always joked about. Kind of the fantasy behind the scenes fiction as part of the fictional world. It’s like breaking the fourth wall.

Or if I take a more anime approach to the whole thing, I could build out all of Azeroth and just keep the CAT system in place. Then just file off all the proverbial serial numbers. Or would that just be building a whole world? For what all this gets me I could just build an all-new campaign setting and populate it accordingly. Maybe I could just keep the Azeroth plan as my home game and keep the names the same.

Something to think about anyway as we wait for the CAT Open License to arrive. I have really enjoyed messing around with Twilight Sword so far and I want to see it grow outside of Radia. Just imagine what other games worlds could be made in 8-Bit format. What would Fortnite or Dead By Daylight look like? Or do we go more of an anime world with an OG video game feel to it akin to Ninja Scroll or Rurouni Kenshin? The possibilities are, as always, endless.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Worldbuilding Wednesday: What Makes a Campaign Setting?

We haven’t talked about worldbuilding in a while.

With all of the flap about The Great Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E Dark Sun Debacle of 2026, I thought we were overdue to discuss campaign settings for a while. (My title. I called it!) I’m not going to talk about D&D 5.5E or even 5E. I’m not going to talk about D&D or Dark Sun at all. I’m so ashamed of Wizards of the Coast, I’ll be posting another open letter. I’ve already begged them not to do Dark Sun back on September 4th of 2025. .

Today we’re here to discuss every game but D&D. Let’s look at something that isn’t WotC garbage or even something from back in the day. I have been slowly creating a campaign setting as a solo game for Dragonbane for quite some time now. And realize I have tons of other setting ideas and come up with more every day. Campaign planning is my jam.

Everything comes up sandbox these days.

I see so many grimdark, dystopian, bleak, discouraging settings coming out these days. I even backed one of the more recent ones, Ruttigers Almanac and Game Toolkit. (This is not a dig on Ruttigers, Richard or Cawood Publishing. I love those guys!) I just need a break from all the depressing, dark, dystopian stuff. I also won’t touch Daggerheart with a 10ft pole, but Twilight Sword uses a similar mechanic to Hope and Fear, only on a grander scale.

In Twilight Sword, the Champions (aka the PCs) get benefits from uplifting a region and chasing out all the monsters, etc. I am overjoyed to bring that to Dragonbane. My as-yet unnamed solo game world has some freaky post-apocalyptic elements to it. Wouldn’t it be cool if the PCs could build up a positive reputation and gain the trust of various local factions as they explore various hexes?

So, in my sandbox hexcrawl world, various calamities on a grand scale have occurred that have left various civilizations in ruin. To make matters more interesting, the very planet they stand on reclaims land that has been left uninhabited or uncivilized for too long. There are as many things buried in the ground or under a mountain of vegetation as there are on the surface.

I used to plan entire campaigns as anime or TV episodes.

Back when I was younger, I made lists of entire seasons with one episode being an adventure for D&D or whatever I was running. I usually planned 12-24 episodes and a “movie” consisting of an isolated story arc. The downer was we never got that far in the game to actually do half of what I had planned.

No plan ever survives contact with the Player Characters!

We live in an era where a lot of level-based d20 games end before 7 levels out of 20. I used to play in and run games that went a lot longer than that. I think the scope of grandiose adventure planning needs to be reigned in. Even for solo games there needed to be a change of mindset with the way I do things.

That’s where sandbox gaming truly comes in. The PCs got dumped off in my world with no clear way of ever going back to the Misty Vale. The Otterkin they encountered upon arrival did not have the means or space for them to establish a permanent base of operations. One of the next cultures they encountered, the Ophidslakt, might have eaten the group in their sleep for all we knew. It meant the group had to keep pressing forward and exploring.

I think exploration is something sorely lacking in modern fantasy TTRPGs. I want a world where I’m not going to find the same old thing over and over again. To make things more challenging, there are random road encounters with some scary large-scale calamities. There’s everything from large roaming hordes of zombies to a massive Kaiju. Each step into a new hex is a rising check for something crazy to happen.

First hex, free from major encounter. Second hex: 12 on a d12. Third hex: 11-12 on a d12. Fourth hex 10-12 on a d12 and so on until they encounter something. Then roll 1d12 to determine the big oops. That’s on top of what’s already in the hex. I don’t need to write any kind of plot for this sort of thing. It sorts itself out eventually just by playing the NPCs, describing the environment/situation, and letting the players decide what to do. You know: Roleplaying!

There are some advantages to planning a whole campaign.

As a content creator, I think building an entire episodic campaign with several intertwined adventures is a good idea. I have a quest giver line coming up where the group will secretly be working to help build the main villain. The hanging question will always be there until the end when he finally steps out of the shadows as the unholy terror that the group has accidentally been building up the whole time if everything goes according to plan. (Yes, I know what I just said.)

If nothing else I intend to give GMs some one-shot material, adventures that can be sprinkled into their regular campaign somewhere, or maybe just one adventure running a quest out of the blue for this guy. I’m not going to say, “Do it this way or else you’re doing it wrong.”

I intend to say, “Here, try this in your game and see how it goes.”

But much like building a sandbox or setting up a linear style adventure for a new GM to run, building a relatively short campaign can cut down on GM prep time as well as set the GM up for success. Sometimes it’s just easier to have everything all nice and laid out, ready to go on short notice.

And if the PCs or even the GM goes off script? Oh well. In fact, good for them. Run with it as a GM. It’s what I live for. They won’t need a big lore dump or a fancy adventure if the group is living in the moment.

Even if you don’t use all of the outline or even all of the adventures you plan, that material is still a gold mine for other times or other campaigns. Sometimes just having that outline or list of adventure titles can be something to go off of in a pinch. I can improvise based just on a title and what I’d call an episode description as long as I have a few NPCs I know well and a situation to put the group in.

We can always work with the why and the who, but the where matters.

Campaign settings—living, breathing worlds—are what great, memorable games that last for years are made of. Some people, as we’ve seen the last few weeks especially between Professor DM’s Deathbringer and all the Dark Sun talk, really like the gritty, dystopian, bleak worlds of grimdark gaming. Some people really love cozy, sweet, combat-free games with kittens and coffee shops. (Kittens & Coffee Shops from Jeff’s Game Box is coming to a digital market near you. LOL!) Personally I like games with scary dungeon crawls, and obvious dichotomy between good and evil with some obvious Muppet cartoonish humor thrown in. Mirth and mayhem is how I like my world. There is an infinite continuum from serious to lighthearted.

When it comes to overall campaign setting creation, I think bigger is usually better. I prefer a world that is a huge forest, some mountains, with patches of jungle and maybe a little swamp. I tend to avoid big cities, clustered towns, and large areas of open prairie or desert. I’ve even tinkered with the idea of a game taking place on a Jovian planet, but then the day/night cycle might change and things could get complicated. As much as I am a Globe Earth proponent, I’ve even considered setting a campaign on a flat plane of existence just for fun.

Terrain is one thing. Fantasy people, sites, and cultures are another entirely. I like it when the group has a chance to soak in a little about the various factions around them before introducing a faction conflict. Maybe those goblins down the road aren’t so bad. Maybe the humans to the north are pretty nasty. Maybe the orcs down south are okay as long as you don’t cross them.

My point is, the PCs should be allowed to discover all this for themselves. If the PCs automatically side with the cute, cuddly Otterkin and go attack the Ophidslakt down the road because allegedly someone got eaten, maybe they should confirm or find out that the Ophidslakt are vegetarians.(Odd for snake people, I know.)

There is a distinct difference between the Campaign Setting and the World.

For example, in D&D most Forgotten Realms campaigns start and end on the Sword Coast. Yet there is an entire huge world on the surface and even more in the Underdark to explore. Not that we ever see any of it in the 5.5E era of D&D because the designers at WotC have all the creativity of a toppled fence post.

Entire campaigns in Dragonbane can easily fit into the Misty Vale, Arkand, or on the Path of Glory. Yet we know that world is huge, vast, and unexplored (here outside of Sweden.) I can’t wait to see what they do with Trudvang.

Right now the entirety of Twilight Sword takes place on a 5 x 5 one-inch grid map of Radia. The more sections of the map that are filled with Hope, the closer the Champions are to defeating the end boss once and for all. It’s a different approach than we’re used to seeing, that’s for sure.

My point is that as a GM, you don’t need to have the entire world figured out from Day One of the game. I know I’ve said before as long as you’ve got a starting village or area, a dungeon, and a point of interest on the map, you’re golden. You can figure out the rest from there. Contrary to popular Dungeon Master advice, you don’t have to know all the rules, memorize all the books, and know everything about the lore. We need to get back to the lost era of make some characters and play the game.

Wrapping it all up.

Your world can be as big or as small as you’d like. It’s good fodder for conversation during Session Zero, too. The scale and depth of the campaign can be as small as one village or as large as an entire pocket dimension. If the vastness of outer space and the greatness of the Universe are too limiting, I’d sure as heck love to know what you’re doing. To borrow an old phrase, you’re only limited by your imagination.

Happy gaming regardless of how big or small the campaign is. Longevity is more meaningful than any lore dump. Returning to a place that seems familiar for one more adventure is all you really need.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Freedom Day August 2026

Dark Sun, YouTube, and Moving Forward.

It’s been a crazy week in the midst of a crazy month in the world of Jeff’s Game Box. Dark Sun is blowing up on X (Twitter.) YouTube announced monetization changes prompting all kinds of excitement here at my house. Finally, I’ve had to make some tough choices on where to go from here with the blog, my Dragonbane offerings, and YouTube. Why can’t anything ever just be simple?

The Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Blunder of the Week—Dark Sun Remake.

This topic has exploded on X(Twitter) and all over YouTube not once, but twice this month. First WotC announced they were remaking the classic hardcore, gritty, edgy AD&D setting of Dark Sun. Then the idiots dropped an article talking about how they’re going to literally strip anything icky or scary from the setting but still putting a “mature” label on it.

Let me get this straight. They are using the likes of that hack Makenzie DeArmas to write the thing, then pushing it through sensitivity readers, then the “Community Council of 12,” and then put a mature label on it anyway? Are you freakin kidding? What is left for them to write back into the setting? Thri-Kreen sex? They’re going full Baldur’s Gate Dating Sim?

Dark Sun made me cringe a little when it first came out, sure. Cannibalism, slavery, starvation, thirst, post-apocalyptic, low magic, no metal, genocidal, disturbing stuff was in that book. I played a Thri-Kreen as my first character. Then I made a Mul (Half Dwarf.) It was pretty far out for its time. The game was made to be brutal as Hell. Good times. We played the heck out of it.

I don’t need to say I think WotC just should have left it the Hell alone. That’s all. I hope it rots off the shelf at whatever price. I still have my old boxes and books. I still have all the 4E books. I can always convert to Dragonbane, Ruttigers, or even a weird adaptation to Twilight Sword. If people want to run whatever Makenzie and the 12 stooges want to sell, cool. I ain’t touching anything labeled 5.5E.

YouTube is a changing again.

August 10th YouTube announced the YouTube Partner Program will be changing to much harsher requirements as of February 1st, 2027. In order to qualify for AdSense Monetization a channel will have to have 1,000 Subscribers and 8,000 qualified watch hours. My only thought was, “Man, ain’t no way that’s happening.”

Normal folk have a full-time job to fall back on. I have my SSDI which the government threatens to take away or cut on a regular basis and could be taken away completely if the judge says so. I have this here blog, my meager DriveThruRPG offerings, and YouTube. Here’s the fun part—only DTRPG is making anything, and not even enough to mention on my taxes at that.

Now, we were a long way from monetization of any kind. At 170 subs and about 140 watch hours last I checked; it’s not happening. That’s only a year and a half in just to get those numbers. But there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.

See, my big mouth may have finally paid off. I’ve been contacted behind the scenes by not one, not two, but three different YouTube experts. Now, old readers of the blog know I’m psycho about confidentiality so I can’t say who it is unless they authorize it. Just trust me when I say we’re in good hands right now. I’m learning lots about YouTube! Now if my wife and kids would just go back to work or school…

What I’m working on going forward.

I have reviews coming for Twilight Sword and the Dragonbane: Book of Magic. Then I’m looking at Arkand: City of Waves and Flames along with Mecha vs Kaiju. Twilight Sword is slow going because the Created At Twilight license has not been released yet. That’s the open license that will allow me to make awesome 8-Bit coolness in TTRPG form. Reviews will be on here and on YouTube, possibly at the same time if I can pull it off.

YouTube scripts for the reviews, a couple of In the Box Podcasts, and a new Late Night TTRPG Sound Byte are in the works. Just need to get that one thing so I can record. (Peace and quiet.) My titles, thumbnails and hooks are all changing and I might possibly be in front of the camera more. (No promises.)

Finally, my magic item book for Dragonbane is coming along very slowly. It would already be up on DTRPG by now, but I stopped to bring everything in line with the Book of Magic. So I basically started over.

If I didn’t care, I’d be done by now. It’s okay, I only have a list of about 30+ project ideas stacking up behind it. I still come up with more ideas for things we could do every day. Imagine how freakin awesome it will be someday when I have a staff? (LoA, living in the dream fulfilled.)

I find it amazing…

That Wizards of the Coast has all of this staff of numbskulls available to them and yet they continue to screw up old properties. I find it offensive. Screw Star Wars and World of Warcraft. They should be pumping out new content for new campaign settings and new worlds every freakin month. I mean, my first order as head of WotC would start with you’re productive or you’re out the door. I hate seeing people get fired, but WotC needs to start weeding out the ones who aren’t doing them any good. I can think of 14 people that should be kicked to the curb and asked not to return.

Which then circles back to why I celebrate Freedom Day every month. I can’t believe I escaped the McCorporate world of convenience store hell nightmare over five years ago. I know what it’s like getting canned from a steady job. I miss the paycheck, but not the bullshit. It did wonders for my outlook on life, too.

My new outlook on life.

This blog especially and a lot of other things are (supposed to be) geared towards positivity above all things. I try to be upbeat whenever possible. I’ve noticed that has slipped a bit as of late. I’m going to be working on getting back into that groove.

See, once upon a time I was a very bitter, cynical, skeptical, and (if you can believe it) much more sarcastic dude than I am today. I’m not exactly sure how I survived those years, but we’ll take it. There’s only so much stress one can put oneself through before the body begins to break down. Mine broke down and being stressed out constantly contributed to the malfunctions.

Now I try not to stress. Sure, I might go on the occasional tear about some silly thing on the Internet. Sometimes I have to remind myself of the silver lining in the darker clouds. It’s not easy sometimes. And I also still watch for toxic positivity to go with the negativity. I want to do better.

I wouldn’t go back to the old way of doing things no matter what the paycheck. Which is fine because no matter what I would go back to, my body, emotional state, and mental health are a major consideration. (See also my body is falling apart and I’m still batshit crazy.) So it’s a good thing I’m here with you like this nowadays. Trust me when I say, “The public can’t handle me, and that’s okay.”

That’s all for now. Come back next month when I’m sure we’ll have all new TTRPG and YouTube shenanigans to talk about. Keep an eye peeled for more content on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a loose article on the weekend once in a while.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Gamer, Hobbyist, Grifter.

This is not aimed at any specific content creator.

Once upon a time I wrote an article with a similar title to this one. I still believe there are those amongst us in the TTRPG hobby who are just here to make a quick buck. Yes, unfortunately, if I don’t want to step on some toes it’s going to look like I’m straw manning this whole thing. But trust me if you know where to look, the signs are there.

[Disclaimer: This is my opinion! There are plenty of other platforms and outlets for you to vent your opinions. It’s okay if you disagree, but please keep it civil. Telling me I’m wrong is probably not the own that you think it is. Please don’t be the reason I have to shut comments down yet again. Thank you!]

Let’s start at the most basic level, which probably consists of 70-85% of the fan base, just like any fan base. I’m counting most Game Masters in this category because while we create stuff for our games, we aren’t necessarily selling anything. These are the casual weekend gamers, the folks getting together once in a while to roll dice together who rarely give the industry much thought at all.

Then there’s the rest of us. We’re the super serious hobbyists who follow TTRPG news like it was a national headline, watch DungeonTube videos at 3:00AM, and write some fan content for blogs or for sale. (Hi, that’s me.) I have faced up to the fact that I’m probably never getting rich off selling roleplaying games like many other content creators. However, it doesn’t keep me from trying.

Where the lines start to blur significantly is in the about top 5-10% of the fan base. You know, the ones who have designer, artist, writer, editor credentials, or even own a TTRPG company. Even then, I’d guess there are very few who can say they’ve gotten rich off of gaming.

Here’s the “but.”

Thanks to the bloody rise of social media influencers, we have some people who make plenty of money off of selling things to the hobby and have very little to nothing to do with us outside of making that dollar. (Or Pound, Euro, Sheckel, whatever.) These are the people who secretly detest all of us obsessed nerds as soon as they leave the convention floor following their big Gen Con panel appearance or whatever. They have their name cemented in someone’s Dungeons & Dragons supplement because it helps sell more copies.

Maybe some of the creators I’m thinking of did care at one time. Maybe they were just in it for fun and games literally. Then there are those creators who were cosplayers or someone with a throwaway college degree that saw a chance to make some big money off all of us nerds. I wish I could say I’m ashamed of them, but they are likely making considerable bank, especially shills for Wizards of the Coast/D&D.

I only know this because I looked up (Redacted’s) public financials and she made about one dollar per fan to the tune of 800K+ fans that year. I might be underestimating with the undisclosed totals, but $4,350 average per month just on YouTube AdSense ain’t too shabby. I could just about live off that. Of course that’s just the YouTube Partner Program. Then we get into all of the other stuff including free convention stays, trips to WotC HQ, D&D in a Castle appearances, etc. By the time it’s all said and done, yeah she’s possibly making a million dollars on the TTRPG audience.

Then there are the dozen or so “Community Advisors” who working on D&D these days. Some of them were already on the payroll at WotC, while others have businesses and YouTube channels of their own. My best guess is they are more interested in keeping their corporate bosses happy more than they give two shitz about any of the actual community. From what I’ve seen, none of those people have a damned clue what someone like me thinks of D&D or what WotC is doing on any given week.

Don’t even get me started on crowdfunding such as Kickstarter.

I wish I were kidding. I hear Professor DM is in the million-dollar club. I wouldn’t name him outright if I was going to shit on him. It’s okay. I truly celebrate anyone that can pull off what he did. He’s a good guy. I think it’s great that he overcame cancer and can cover those bills.

Other people like (Redacted) have a $3.2 million Kickstarter and now apparently he thinks he’s too good for the rest of us. Obviously if we don’t have access to video editors for YouTube and artists for our DriveThruRPG offerings, then we should just go eff ourselves or something. He sure does enjoy punching down on smaller creators, though. Otherwise he wouldn’t have kept doing it until his Kickstarter fulfillment duties became a bigger priority. Best of luck, dude. I’m going to keep making content my way.

Do I sound bitter? Maybe a little. Sure, I’d love to make a million bucks on Kickstarter. There are plenty of companies who do it every day. I’ve backed plenty of them up until now. My money is tied up elsewhere these days. Nothing more going out unless something comes in. I’m happy if I make $1.21 on DriveThruRPG on any given month.

Some people on DungeonTube think I’m a wallet with legs, and some TTRPG YouTubers are tabletop gamers who love the hobby and genuinely just want to share their ideas with the world. The complicated part is figuring out which one is which or who is who. I know which one I am, but I’m farther and farther every day from making a single dime on YouTube, Kickstarter, here, etc…

Recent YouTube monetization changes.

Yes, I’m aware of the 500-subscriber tier. It’s completely worthless as far as I’m concerned as I don’t live stream anything and probably never will. AdSense won’t kick in until 1,000 subscribers and 8,000 certified public watch hours. I’m so far from that goal it doesn’t seem possible right now. I wish I knew what the fix was.

YouTube/social media are only major part of the TTRPG experience that bring me down these days. Sure, I’m a wee bit jealous. I’d dearly love to have the kind of money to afford a pizza late at night sometime or a cup of that fancy expensive latte at one of those big coffee shops on the regular. I’d love to combine my hobby with a career in a way that feels fulfilling and meaningful. I don’t know how or when it’s going to happen yet.

Someone posed an interesting question the other day.

Would I sell out to a big game company like Wizards of the Coast if they rolled a pile of money and/or fringe benefits (writing credits, con appearances, social media stardom, etc.) up to my door? Would I go to work writing/designing D&D if given the chance? The answer is not what you think.

Change the company to Free League Publishing and we have a deal. Two Little Mice need a third mouse or something? Sure. I’d do that. WotC? (Collective cringe.) No, probably not. Yes, money buys a lot of things that make me happy, but my ethics are not for sale and WotC has shot themselves in the ass when it comes to lines I won’t cross.

Roleplaying is more than a hobby to me. It’s a sacred art. It’s a sweeter science than boxing. Game mastering, roleplaying, writing, rolling dice, and having fun are more important to me than turning a fast dollar. I won’t compare it to religion, but gaming is way up there in my esteem. If I can’t live with my own conscience at the end of the day, what’s the point of doing whatever I did?

I’m trying to put the negatives behind me, but this stuff keeps me awake.

I probably need therapy, but here we are instead. Other than the social media/YouTube stuff and all of the disgusting grifters in the DungeonTube/D&D influencer sphere, what is there? Strangely in terms of running/writing games themselves, nothing really bugs me that much.

I get a little annoyed when people take three or four minutes out of a fifteen-twenty-minute video to shill their Patreon or Ko-Fi. Whatever pays the bills, I guess. Maybe I’m a freak, but I have a different attitude when it comes to producing and advertising my own endeavors. But it’s not for everyone.

We’ll get into my opinion of paid Dungeon/Game Masters in another article. Right now I have mixed feelings about that topic. I personally wouldn’t but I guess some people do make a living off of running (usually) D&D for strangers. Good for them, I suppose.

If I had a crowdfunding project…

First, I would make sure the whole manuscript was laid out awaiting artwork before I even announced it. Second there would only be three tiers: PDF, Print + PDF, and Retail (6 physical for an enormous discount.) No add-ons. No incentives. Last, I would talk about the making-of on my YouTube channel but not shill the crowdfunding campaign. I’d rather have an evergreen video about the game than try for more sales.

I figure I can always do the interview circuit if I want to hype the game. There’s also social media such as Instagram and Facebook if I can do it without going into debt. We can always sell dice and t-shirts after the thing is in stores. There’s also the possibility of doing in-person demos at conventions and game shops, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

My usual publishing modus operandi.

Right now with no art budget and being a one man show, I publish on DriveThruRPG.com. I try to keep the price of my digital offerings down. Since I do openly use AI art on things that aren’t character sheets, I offer an art-free, printer-friendly, text only version of what I’m working on. It’s not fancy, but it gets the job done. I have a larger sourcebook still in the works that might, maybe go over the $5.00 mark, but it’s going to be packed!

I miss the days of AD&D hardcover 128-page books that cost $12.99 at Waldenbooks. Unfortunately those days are gone forever along with the store. One of my goals in life is to keep prices for digital offerings in line with those old 1980s game prices until I can get a 100% human drawn print on demand book.

If I just wanted to make quick cash because I didn’t care about people—

I’d pump out AI generated documents and art on DriveThru and Itch at the rate of 2-3 books per day and make them look like a game line. Or I’d do the same thing only compiled into a print book on Amazon for dirt cheap. As long as I can keep up with ChatGPT payments, it’s pretty much pure profit right now. Please, please, please DO NOT try that at home! This was not a suggestion. Remember ethics.

The same kind of scheme can be applied to YouTube. If I wanted to make fast money while it lasts, I’d make a completely unrelated channel using AI revenge stories. You know the ones that talk about “I caught my wife cheating with my brother, so I completely destroyed them both financially” or whatever. My wife listens to that drivel. I’m sure the channel is making good money, though. I briefly considered doing the fantasy gaming version of those stories and just have some monster run into the middle of the story and eat someone instead of them being cut out of the inheritance or whatever. The possibilities are endless until YouTube finds a way to put a stop to it.

Personally I wouldn’t do any of that stuff. Yes AI is a great tool for small creators. But that’s where it should begin and end as far as I’m concerned. Taking advantage of people, even AdSense, is still a bad practice. Brainstorming and generating ideas is perfectly reasonable, but having AI do all the work is a foolhardy notion. Some of that stuff is so obvious right now but wait until the technology gets even smarter.

At the end of the day, it’s about doing what you think is best.

Use AI or don’t. Please don’t punch down on people who do, especially if you’re a well-known DungeonTuber with a couple of  multimillion dollar Kickstarters. I think punching down on people is bad form in general. Spread the joy. As I like to say, If you’re going to hate (on AI,) feel free to donate (human made art.)

Someone once mistakenly accused me of telling people to play the game any way they want but then telling the same people “you’re doing it wrong.” Please don’t ever let me turn into that guy. Run your game any way you want. Yes, really. Not my fish, not my pond. Have fun.

This is also where I usually say, “Don’t be a douchebag at your gaming table or online.” As I’m sure I’ve offended someone today, I’ll just say just try to be civil even if we don’t agree.

Please use your discernment. At the end of the day, that’s all any of us can do. If something on the Internet looks like a scam; it probably is. Don’t take any wooden nickels.

Let’s get back to discussing games, stat blocks, monsters, spells, magic items, characters, literally anything game related after one more article in this series. This YouTube monetization thing really has me triggered. D&D 5E/5.5E has me triggered. D&D influencers have me triggered.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

TableTop RolePlaying Game (TTRPG) Is NOT Just Dungeons & Dragons!

Dear YouTube:

It is ignorant at best for you to assume that all of tabletop roleplaying games are synonymous with Dungeons & Dragons. There are literally hundreds of game companies and content creators who would like to pick that bone with you. Instead you seem to have listened to the likes of Ginny Di and have erroneously assumed, at least as far as the algorithm is concerned, that D&D is all we, your audience, cares about.

Are all sports American League Baseball? No.
Are all garden hoses worldwide made by Rubbermaid? No.
Are all tractors made by John Deere? No.
Are all automobiles a 2007 Honda Civic? Heck no!

So why would you assume our entire TTRPG hobby is just D&D? Was it because someone at YouTube HQ did all of three minutes of research on your platform and discovered Ginny Di, Nerd Immersion, and Critical Role and looked no further? Either that or y’all are incredibly gullible if you believe that line that old Ginny is selling. Or maybe Hasbro, parent company of Wizards of the Coast, makers of the current edition of D&D paid you to ignore their competition. Nothing surprises me anymore.

I know I’m one lone voice barking in the dark out here. I don’t have the might of an entire corporation behind me. I don’t have the might of an entire game company behind me. I’m one guy who makes supplementary material for indie TTRPGs such as Dragonbane.

What’s this Dragonbane business all about?

Dragonbane is the English name for Drakar och Demoner aka Demons and Dragons in Sweden. It’s a fantasy TTRPG that has been around in one form or another since 1982. Here’s the Wikipedia link if you want to learn a little more.

Dragonbane is but one fantasy game amongst hundreds of fantasy TTRPGs out there in the world. It just happens that Dungeons & Dragons is the one with the loudest advertising. Look up Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Sword World, Tunnels & Trolls, Blades in the Dark… or just go to DriveThruRPG.com and go under Browse Category -> Genre-> Fantasy Titles. The list is huge, and that’s just one site.

In Sweden for about the last 40+ years, DoD (Dragonbane) has been more popular than Dungeons & Dragons, partly due to the language barrier. Similar experiences have been cited in Japan with a game called Call of Cthulhu, although there have been others.

D&D might not even be the most popular game in the United States.

Even in the United States there are those of us who swore off of D&D in about 2023 in light of the Great Wizards of the Coast (WotC) Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License Debacle of 2023. WotC made a foolhardy attempt to change a license that was established in 2000 that allowed Third Party Publishers to create content for D&D. The “community” of not just publishers, not just writers, not just Dungeon Masters, not just DungeonTubers, but all of us including the players, said, “No.”

WotC capitulated so fast it wasn’t even funny. The OGL was restored, but community trust was broken going forward. Since then several other game companies have released open licenses to encourage independent writers to create products for their games. WotC burned bridges and may never get the full trust of their once huge fan base back no matter how many new editions of D&D they release.

So why YouTube?

Well, YouTube is the premier long form video platform out there as of this writing. I have a Premium Membership since 2013. I realize I’m a mere speck of dust in relation to the billions of people who watch YouTube, but I am still a paying customer who chose that platform over say Tik Tok or Rumble.

YouTube has graciously allowed me to publish videos on their platform and I, like many content creators, had the dream of joining the YouTube Partner Program someday. I’m on a fixed, very modest income, and the meager ad revenue from a small channel would be about perfect to pay for my kids’ activity fees, take my wife out to dinner, buy a book or two, and maybe contribute to other content creators.

Like many I watched YouTube during the COVID lockdown. I watched a lot of what are now the popular Dungeons & Dragons influencers aka “DungeonTubers” on YouTube. I noticed a lot of what they discuss are the same things we used to talk about at conventions and in game stores back in the 1980s – 90s before social media became popular.

Some of us are really burned out on all the D&D rhetoric.

Again, the way the corporate sponsored DungeonTuber influencers talk about it, you’d think D&D was the only TTRPG on YouTube when that is simply not the case. Yes, D&D talk drives clicks. I understand YouTube finds that important. But I want to make it abundantly clear that the TTRPG culture contains more subcultures than just D&D.

Regardless of WotC and DungeonTuber shenanigans, or which edition the game is on, some of us like to talk about other games on YouTube. I prefer to parse things in terms of Dragonbane, Twilight Sword, and other tabletop roleplaying games on my channel. There are other channels devoted to Free League Publishing games such as Lord of the Rings, Alien, and Mutant Year Zero. I know others who talk about different genres such as space, superheroes, and horror games. D&D is just the loudest dog in the park, not the only one.

Why This Matters So Much Now.

August 10, 2026, YouTube announced major changes to their Partner Program. Starting on February 1, 2027, YouTube will require channels to have 1,000 Subscribers and 8,000 qualified public watch hours to be considered for AdSense revenue. We won’t talk about the Shorts qualifications because I don’t consider Shorts to be a viable part of my channel.

Every week now for the last three years, I have scoured YouTube for new content creators which I then link to my good friend The OG GM so he can shout them out. Many have asked why I do this. I joke around that he’s my boss because I think of him that way even though he doesn’t pay me. He is kind of my YouTube mentor and TTRPG writing guru. His channel is also bigger than mine and grows exponentially faster. I really do look up to him, and he’s a good friend.

I find a ton of new channels that have 1,000 subscribers or fewer on YouTube. I don’t check their watch hours because I’ve always found subscriber counts to be a bigger hurdle. This new announcement is going to put more emphasis on watch hours and a lot of YouTubers, not just in the TTRPG sphere are freaking out.

Recently I’ve been bumping into these outlier channels with 10,000 subscribers or more that only have a dozen or so D&D videos. (I don’t ask anyone to promote them.) I can’t tell how they’re getting so big, so rapidly, and I’m just now discovering them.

Are these new D&D channels doing something unethical such as buying views or maybe even buying a channel that already had subscribers as well as view hours under another niche? Could they be buying subscribers and/or botting heavily? I wish YouTube would take some interest in people violating the ToS regardless.

Something just seems off when a channel pops up out of nowhere and gets huge. Their D&D videos are just regurgitating what other creators in the space have said. It’s almost like they’re reading from a script written by somebody at WotC in some cases, but that’s just the Tinfoil Hat Society in me talking.

I get that YouTube isn’t a charity or just for funsies as a platform.

I know YouTube has employees to pay, and they have to keep the lights on, too. Yes, D&D drives clicks. No I don’t expect YouTube to have mercy on the rest of us small content creators.

I can’t afford a paid mentor, YouTube coach, or someone’s YouTube course to try to pull my own channel out of the weeds. That is just not going to happen. I’ve got real bills to pay. I sure as Hell would love to know why my own channel is where it is in the grand scheme of YouTube, though. Who did I piss off? What do I need to do to go viral within my own niche within a niche?

Look, we can’t all be Ginny Di, Bob Worldbuilder, Dungeon Dudes, or Nerd Immersion. Those DungeonTubers are already working for WotC officially or unofficially. We’re not all collecting three paychecks plus sponsors. AdSense revenue is probably a fraction of what they make from being D&D influencers anyway. By driving off smaller creators, you’re just lining the DungeonTubers’ pockets more.

It would sure be mighty damned cool if I could hear more about solo roleplaying, Dragonbane, TTJRPGs (Japanese RPG subgenre,) or any other number of TTRPG related topics on YouTube. A lot of these new or burgeoning channels are going to dry up and blow away in the coming months because there’s no way we can meet the new requirements. We know YouTube doesn’t care, and people are going to start migrating off the platform and taking our views, subscription money, and channels with us. It’s going to start adding up across niches.

I don’t care what Think Media, VidIQ, or your other dozens of YouTube influencers try to say. There’s no one in the TTRPG niche who’s going to pop off like Mr. Beast. We’re all just waiting around for Ginny Di to get her magical Gold Play Button so she can rub it in all of our faces which she inevitably will.

All this new monetization change will do is make mainstream D&D influencers more money and push the rest of us out. If you take anything away from this article, please for the love of the Universe change the way YouTube thinks about smaller content creators if you value us at all. Thank your for your attention to this matter.

Why I Love TableTop RolePlaying Games.

(and maybe you should, too.)

In light of recent events, I’ve decided to do a little soul searching. Feel free to come along for the ride. There’s a lot going on here. Sometimes I wonder about my life decisions. I am certifiably batshit crazy on top of chronic pain. This should be interesting.

Here’s some of the what and then we’ll talk why.

I love all things TTRPG. That’s been evident for a long time now. Let’s look at specific games and maybe just some general aspects of tabletop roleplaying.

• Dragonbane.
• Shadowdark.
• Twilight Sword.
• Ruttigers Almanac (upcoming.)
• Star Wars RPG (D6)
• Old School Essentials
• ICONS Superhero Roleplaying
• Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying (T$R)
• DC Superheroes RPG (Mayfair)
• Outgunned/Outgunned Superheroes.
• Giant Freakin Robots!
• Game Master advice.
• Worldbuilding.
• Blogging about all the above.
• Games with open game licenses.
• Occasionally making friends through the hobby.
• Going to game conventions.
• Talking about TTRPGs to an audience.
• TTRPG YouTube aka “DungeonTube.”
• Industry talk and sometimes gossip.
• Dice
• Merchandise (Dice Bags, Dice Scrolls, Dice Trays, Battle Maps, Minis, etc.)
• Character Sheet Design.
• Publishing on DriveThruRPG.
• Endless ideas about campaigns, worlds, settings, NPCs, and so on.
• Coming up with voices and character archetypes for NPCs.
• Game planning/prep.
• Reviewing cool TTRPGs.
• Watching TTRPG crowdfunding success on projects I backed.
• Friendly Local Game Stores (I’ve worked in three of them.)
• Crunching numbers and setting up characters.
• Creating monsters.
• Creating cool AI generated images for various projects.

Some general talk about why I love some of these things so much:
I listed several specific games. Each has its own merits, and some have far more positives than negatives. ICONS is my go-to supers game because of its simplicity, and it reminds me of MSHRP and DC. I also lump OG GM’s Superheroes for Shadowdark, Outgunned Superheroes, and generic supers gaming in with that. I love running supers games.

Of course Dragonbane has to be at the top of the list. It has become my definitive fantasy TTRPG. I’ve published a few minor things under the Dragonbane license with more to come. It’s everything I ever wanted from that other d20 fantasy game without all the headaches. Oh, and I was into Shadowdark before it became cool, but then Dragonbane happened and I’ve never once looked back.

Twilight Sword and TTJRPGs are a newer arrival on the scene. I love Fabula Ultima and Gates of Krystalia, too. I also love anime, manga, and 8 Bit Final Fantasy turn based games. I’m going to be doing some things based on the CAT (Created At Twilight) system as soon as the license become available.

I love any game with an open license. I love that feeling of being able to create something cool and then share it with the world. I have all this cool stuff from years of various games and adventures that I can bring around for just about any genre if I choose to do so. That’s also assuming I don’t tap into the well of new and upcoming ideas running around in my head all the time. Not a day goes by when I don’t look at something or sit up in the middle of the night with a cool idea for a campaign, a monster, an item, a spell, a character or whatever. You should see my project list.

That was my only lament about Star Wars RPG, which I spent so many hours writing adventures, creating characters, building ships, making up planetary locations, and just living in that universe. Unfortunately my hopes were crushed when I went to Gen Con and found out from West End Games writers that they didn’t even have free reign to create for Star Wars because everything had to go through Lucasfilm. Then Hasbro and Disney happened… But I still love everything from Episodes 1-6 of the saga, including a lot of the animated stuff.

DriveThruRPG as been my favorite website in the whole world for about 17 years now.

It used to be EN World and before that Roleplaying Tips. A friend of mine who liked ICONS and who I met through running Star Wars introduced me to it. IIRC it was because ICONS or maybe an older version of Marvel (Cortex.)  It’s all a little fuzzy due to the passage of time, to be honest.

I’ve had the publishing itch since before PDFs were ever a thing. Heck, before the Internet was much of a thing. So… since 1991 or thereabouts. I think I’ve wanted to be Gary Gygax for about as long as I’ve been gaming. That’s fair to say.

Since the original d20 Open Game License I’ve wanted to get something going. ADHD sucks because so many ideas, so many half or quarter finished products. Kinda like these days, but I’m getting more focused and licenses have gotten easier to deal with. Dragonbane’s OGL has been a Godsend that way.

We’ve got a little progress going over there. My huge project list for 2026 has gotten chopped down to three items out of I-forget-how-many. We have campaign and supplement ideas to last a good decade if I had to guess. Again, it all looks so cool in my head when I come up with it.

Why I got into YouTube.

I love talking about gaming. I’m on here writing about it, sure. But in person? I can go on for hours. Someone once accused me and a friend of communicating in Binary because we would chatter back and forth about Star Wars RPG nonstop for hours when we got together. I’ve also stayed up all night having discussions about NPCs in my Werewolf: the Apocalypse game, Deadlands, and Dungeons & Dragons. Heck, I had a couple of friends who would go for coffee in the wee hours of the morning and just talk games. I’ve had girlfriends and wives bail out of conversations because I just wouldn’t stop talking about some TTRPG topic. YouTube was a natural outlet for that, especially discussing the industry stuff. (It takes a rare tabletop game nerd to really dig into TTRPG company drama.)

I’m a YouTube connoisseur. It’s on constantly all day every day in some capacity. Even when I’m asleep I listen to ASMR all night. I have subliminal affirmations on when I’m working or playing video games. I listen to OG GM and a few other content creators while I’m cooking or folding laundry. I listen to tarot readings, psychics, Law of Attraction, skeptics, and other things in between and while driving. I take a break from all of that and watch movies or horror channels at night sometimes.

When I went to start the channel, I did tons of research. I’ve watched enough How-To-YouTube content to probably give a damn Ted Talk on the subject. That and Law of Attraction. I’ve listened to hours of YouTube gurus such as Brian G Johnson, Kevin Kolbe, Think Media, VidIQ, and so on. So why is my channel stuck where it is? Good question.

Back in my day (run kids, run) we used to go to conventions and game stores to have hour-long talks about games and how we approach them as Game Masters or writers. It’s where world building became a topic of conversation long before Bob or Ginny came around. It’s how we discussed GM tips and tricks outside of forums and magazine articles I think Professor DM probably remembers those days because a lot of his earlier stuff definitely had that air to it. I guess these people speak at conventions now.

That’s where we’re going to leave it for today. There will be a deep dive into what I consider to be the negative side of the hobby coming soon. Thank you for being here if you made it this far.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

RPGaDay2026 Day 9: Privilege.

“Silver is for peasants” – Lord Reginald Archibald III.

Once a knight of virtue and valor, then a money lender followed by a brief stint as and exchequer, now lord regent of the town of Lunae where he is treated as royalty. “Old Reggie” rarely leaves his manor at the center of town where he is waited-on 24/7, truly a mallard of privilege. He has never bothered to marry or have offspring because then he would have to share his wealth with someone and children are expensive.

The only time Lord Reginald Archibald III bothers to sully himself dealing with the peasants is when someone fails to pay what is owed or taxes. He once negotiated with a baron for admittance to Lunae but cast that ruffian to the outskirts of town for being too poor. Ironically that same baron was the very man who gave Reginald his start. His trusted seneschal, Rupert, now deals with such matters so long as they are to Archibald’s liking.

[Dark Secret: Reginald occasionally commits hostile takeovers or has his rivals murdered outright, usually by using assassins no one can trace back to him. He acquired the town’s brothel, the Tired Boar Inn, and the town’s exchequer this way. Crossing or betraying this mallard usually leads to a visit from his thugs.]

His two biggest fears in life are vampires and becoming poor. He is utterly paranoid of both which is why he keeps to himself and knows everyone in his household extremely well. He regularly tests his night staff to make sure they are not vampires or under the influence of a vampire. Unfortunately interacting with the peasants is just something that happens sometimes.

Adventurers coming into Lunae are usually viewed as a threat or trouble. The town guard are 100% unshakably loyal to Lord Archibald. Most of the businesses and shops are owned or owe taxes to the Lord. Most of the townsfolk are very careful how they speak about him. Artisan, Mariner, Merchant and possibly Knight characters should be especially wary of wandering into Lunae because Lord Archibald’s guard will likely escort the group to meet Rupert.

The Lord wants a percentage of any coin earned while the group is in town and charges an additional “Adventurer’s Fee” of 1 GP each for access to the town’s services such as the armorer, blacksmith, stables, and of course, the apothecary. He does fancy Bards and Scholars and will work out a deal to keep them around so long as they sing his praises and listen to his long-winded stories about all of his various exploits.

“If one didn’t know better, you’d swear I have a private pond where I swim in gold coins. Preposterous!” –Lord Reginald Archibald III.

RPGaDay2026 Day 8: Resolve.

“Dwarves never quit.” –Stimpson.

As stated in the rules, Dragonbane Dwarves tend to carry a bit of a grudge against anyone who ever harmed them. Stimpson is a fine example of that. He usually doesn’t wear an armor and swears helmets are for the faint of heart. He is the definition of stubborn, even more so when he’s angry. He definitely remembers anyone who ever made him angry.

Stimpson is a hands-on bareknuckle brawler. Humans have called him a “wrestler,” whatever that means. He’s not afraid to pick up an axe, sword, club, or whatever, but he prefers to beat the unholy living crap out of things with his knuckledusters or his bare hands.

Stimpson definitely has a softer side, though. He’s a bit of a ladies’ dwarf when he’s out on the town with friends. When he has friends, anyway. When he’s in a town he actually remembers the name of, mostly. Stimpson tends to drink heavily when he’s not flirting or showing off. He is one burly dwarf, after all.

He’s not much for artistic or intellectual pursuits beyond brewing and occasionally helping around the inn in exchange for a room and food. He loves dogs. Dogs are loyal and a good judge of character. Stimpson’s favorite dog is a bulldog named Renaldo who follows him around most of the time. The two seem to have no problems finding adventures or trouble, sometimes both.

Stat block to come at a later date.

I feel like sometimes it’s okay to lean into well-worn tropes and stereotypes. It especially makes NPCs easier to relate-to and get along with or not depending. I could see myself playing Stimpson as a PC or just having him be someone the group bumps into now and then. He’d make a terrible NPC torchbearer or porter, but he is built for adventure. Maybe he’d follow the group into a dungeon with the promise of ale and wenches afterward. He’s cool like that.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

RPGaDay2026 Day 7: Mercy.

Dorvin, the village apothecary for Dragonbane RPG.

Once upon a time there lived an Orc named Dorvin the Mad who ran with a tribe of embittered mercenaries-turned-bandits along the Timber Road. Betrayed by humans on more than one occasion, the bandits of Dorvin’s Missing Tooth Tribe were ruthless attacking traders and loggers all up and down the road, even attacking fellow Orcs in the logging town to the north once.

One day Dorvin’s troop attacked a caravan bound for the human settlement of Pinehold, and he was struck down by a lucky crossbow shot from one of the guards. His fellow orcs promptly abandoned him and fled. The caravan guard beat Dorvin senseless, laughing as they went. A thin young lady hopped down from the carriage and approached them.

Her name was Sella Fenroot. With a simple wave of her hand and a bright, cheerful smile she convinced them to stop. She then convinced the guard to drape Dorvin over his horse, and they continued on to Pinehold.

Sella had Dorvin taken to the village apothecary, a doddering elder gentleman named Alton who immediately took the orc into his cottage to treat his wounds. Dorvin pulled through, but it was uncertain for several days while the apothecary did all he could. When Dorvin awoke, he was surprised by his surroundings and even more by his caretaker. Sella even dropped by to check on him and receive overwhelming thanks.

Making amends for prior bad deeds.

Dorvin remembers most of his life before the severe beating that landed him in Pinehold. He has no need to battle any more. He saw that bloodshed was not a means to an end. Alton was not long from retiring and wanted to spend more time tending his garden, so he agreed to teach Dorvin the ways of the apothecary.

Dorvin’s battle axe now hangs on the wall of the new apothecary’s shack Dorvin built for himself. He is becoming a welcome member of Pinehold and has learned much from Alton. Most of the town now comes to him with their minor maladies and he still consults Alton with cases he can’t cure on his own. He appreciates Sella and speaks to her often.

Dorvin, NPC Apothecary.
HP 18. WP 12
Skills: Axes 15, Bushcraft 14, Healing 12, Hunting & Fishing 12, Alchemy 10.
Knows the following Alchemy Recipes (Book of Magic.)
Herbal Concoction, Medicinal Water, Antidote, Healing Draught.
On any given day he has enough material on hand to brew two potions.

Dorvin will go to great lengths to avoid conflict with the group. He rarely charges more for potions than what he needs for flasks and components.

RPGaDay2026 Day 6: Reach.

Hacks. Hero or Menace?

Continuing with RPGaDay2026 we have another superhero for the Reformed Cinematic Universe.

Character Name: Marlon Johnson.
Codename: Hacks.
Team: The Reformed.
Powers: Cybernetic Interface, Teleportation.
Incarcerated For: Breaking and Entering, Burglary, Computer Crimes, Hacking, various minor charges.

Marlon Johnson was a victim of circumstance originally. He was a fairly average high school kid living in inner city Detroit when a freak bolt of lighting struck him and the laptop he was using through an open window. Somehow Marlon survived even though the house was destroyed and his laptop. No one else was home at the time.

Desperate to get a new laptop and get into a decent college, Marlon began planning thefts of the components he would need to build a new computer. That’s when he discovered his unique ability to interact with various electronic devices using just his mind. Soon electronics stores were missing high dollar inventory with no indication of anything on camera or alarms triggered.

Then Marlon got a little too cocky. He thought he found the perfect bank. He had the cameras shut down, the alarms disabled, and the vault unlocked in the First National Bank. He confidently walked through the front door with two empty duffel bags ready to steal his college tuition. He didn’t count on the branch manager working late. Before Marlon could finish filling the second bag, police had the building surrounded.

Walking out of the vault with money in hand, Marlon was staring down the barrels of guns held by several angry looking police officers. Marlon wished to be anywhere, but where he was. He thought about his favorite burger restaurant. He remembered his favorite booth where he hung out with his brother and friends. Just as he was putting the first bag on the floor, POOF! He was in the restaurant, money still in hand.

Marlon managed to erase the police body cam footage from the incident as soon as he got home through the second use of his teleportation. He learned that the power has a range that becomes progressively shorter each time he used it and the power itself was becoming exhausting with each use. Marlon breathed easy knowing he was set for life, and no one could stop him.

Unfortunately for Marlon, his brother got messed up with the wrong gang. Tragedy struck as his parents were gunned down in front of the house, and police showed up asking a lot of questions. Marlon managed to hide his ill-gotten gain in the attic, but freeing his brother from federal custody was another issue entirely.

What Marlon didn’t know is that his brother’s incarceration was mostly to bait him into using his powers one last time. The Unknown Detective had experience dealing with teleporters and cyber criminals. It didn’t take him long to sus out Marlon and his brother. His family’s death was an unintended side effect of angering a violent gang who were later brought to custody by the Unknown Detective.

Marlon’s brother was later released and found not guilty due to a technicality. Marlon teleported himself directly into a holding cell where the Detective slapped nullifying isolation cuffs on his wrists as soon as he appeared. Marlon was later sentenced and sent to the Fresno Nevada Correctional Facility for Metahumans where he met Jack Kingston and agreed to help the team in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Marlon has turned out to be one of the team’s most powerful assets. He can control communications, hack into almost any facility that has a computer, teleport into any room he has seen or can see through various camera systems. He once even grounded a helicopter before a notorious gangster could escape arrest.

He has a crush on his teammate, Charade. Jack does not approve of any fraternization on the team, but Marlon frequently messages Charade and they spend a lot of time together when Jack isn’t looking. He also sneaks out for pizza and burgers after lights out. So far he hasn’t gotten caught nor has he committed any crimes while working with The Reformed.

Marlon does still bear a grudge against The Unknown Detective and has been trying to track down the mystery masked man for a showdown. Luckily, Detective keeps a low profile and lives completely off the grid.

Hacks came up for this prompt because his reach extends far and wide due to his ability to see anywhere with a camera on the internet and usually teleport there. Hacks is what has been classified as a “serial teleporter” because he has to make multiple jumps to cover long distances. If pushed too hard, repeated rapid teleportation has landed him in the hospital with nosebleeds, dehydration, severe exhaustion, and a seizure on one occasion. Luckily he is not a criminal at heart and Jack is hoping to reign him in to make Hacks a force for good.

All characters mentioned in this post are fictional. Any semblance to real world individuals living or deceased is purely unintentional. Photo courtesy of Pexels.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

RPGaDay2026 Day 5: Burden.

“With great power comes great responsibility or something.” –Someone’s Uncle.

Elmer “the Great” has to forever live thinking he turned his best friend into a chicken.

Name Elmer.
Origin: Heir. Great grandson of the famous Wizard, Xoltar.
Kin: Huma
Way of Magic.

Elmer was practicing magic secretly in his barn for years because his family did not want him to grow up to be a mage. Elmer, having learned of his grandfather, decided he was going to be a great Champion someday and began learning the arcane arts.

Elmer’s best friend, Stan, was watching him one day and dared him to cast a spell. Elmer cast what he thought was an exciting spell and when the smoke cleared there was a chicken where Stan once stood. Stan of course dipped out through the back door of the barn with all of the smoke and confusion. Then Stan got distracted by farm chores and laying in the hot sun by the pond.

Meanwhile, Elmer, firmly believing Stan had been transformed into a chicken, panicked and cast more spells trying to cure his chicken of the curse he thought he had placed. After several failed attempts, Elmer collected his prized possessions, Stan the Chicken, and headed out on the open road knowing that his parents and Stan’s father would be furious.

Elmer wants to be a Champion like his great grandfather and learn how to “fix” Stan along the way.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

RPGaDay2026 Day 2: Stature

Meet my first ever Twilight Sword Character.

We call him Brick. He is a Pengu. Brick comes from humble beginnings and has decided to pick up his club and rid the world of bad guys. He might not be the smartest champion in the group, but he is one of the biggest and strongest.

Name: Brick
Origin: Chosen.
Kin: Pengu.
Way of the Hammer (Lands of Radia.)

Personality: Brick is actually pretty easy going despite his imposing stature. He likes the simple things in life such as fishing and sunsets. He is usually the first to volunteer for hard work and remains super loyal to his friends. He might be considered a touch gullible, but he is quick to trust and make friends.

He will carve a path of destruction in pursuit of bad guys. His one true goal in life is to see everyone happy and having fun. If someone hurts one of Brick’s friends, they had better run.

Jeff Note: I figure an 8 Bit character doesn’t need a huge backstory. How much did we really know about Link or any of the Final Fantasy PCs? It’s enough to know that Brick is a big dude and he enjoys the simple things in life. He’s also adept and eager to bash bad guys on the head.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

RPGaDay2026 Day 1: Discipline

For use with Outgunned Superheroes or any Supers RPG.

Character Name: Jack Kingston
Codename: Warden
Team Name: The Reformed.

Jack Kingston is the leader and primary contact for The Reformed, a group of “super elite misfits” as he calls them. He eagerly stepped into his role when the Department of Justice asked him to pick a team of metahuman inmates willing to cooperate in exchange for reduced sentences and time out of jail. Prior to this assignment, Jack was a guard at the Fresno Nevada Correctional Facility for Metahumans where his record was exemplary.

Before his life as a guard in one of the toughest prisons in America, Jack was a drill instructor for the United States Marine Corps. He is skilled in leadership and tactics as well as training in a variety of weapons. His physical prowess and overall being a gung-ho marine inspired the troops who trained under him.

While he possesses superior physical trains and mental agility, he was chosen for this mission because Jack has a hidden metahuman ability. He is what is called a nega-psychic. Basically he is immune to most mind control and magic effects. He just doesn’t believe in “any of that horse sh*t or nonsense” and it doesn’t affect him.

Jack isn’t afraid of field work but has to spend most of his time in Command & Communications making sure the team stays on mission. He is also the team’s primary liaison with the government and the Nevada Board of Corrections. Jack is accountable for any mistakes or damages the team might cause and is very upfront about his responsibilities.

While he tries to instill discipline and keep the team in line, Jack understands that they are mostly civilians and following orders is difficult for them. It never stops him from trying or getting really loud and abrasive when people don’t listen.

He is equipped with Kevlar body armor, a master comms headset, charged nightstick, and star metal K-Bar knife. He usually has a sidearm pistol and/or a taser which he rarely uses.

Catch Phrase: Somebody has to keep this bunch in line.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

#RPGaDay2026

This year’s challenge involves characters.

1. Discipline
2. Stature
3. Poise
4. Charm
5. Burden
6. Reach
7. Mercy
8. Resolve
9. Privilege
10. Secret
11. Tact
12. Loss
13. Strain
14. Regard
15. Endurance
16. Composure
17. Intensity
18. Directness
19. Desire
20. Promise
21. Charity
22. Grit
23. Fortune
24. Distance
25. Familiarity
26. Regret
27. Hunger
28. Devotion
29. Labour
30. Pride
31. Edge.

The idea behind this year’s challenge is to keep it positive, make characters and NPCs, make sure to tag #RPGaDay2026, @autocratik, and @runeslinger.

Vigilantes for Shadowdark 2 Hits Copper on DriveThruRPG!

Congratulations OG_GM! Could silver be on the horizon?

If Superheroes are your thing, try Vigilantes for Shadowdark 2.

VIGILANTES FOR SHADOWDARK  is back — bigger, meaner, and pulsing with 1980s comic book chaos.

This is the first and only superhero RPG built specifically for #Blacklight, #Shadowdark, and other OSR d20 systems.

Step into the wreckage of secret government programs that tried — and failed — to create paraphysical agents and psychic operatives since the 1950s.

Walk the scorched streets of Fresno, Nevada, still reeling from the fall of the Crime Lords.

From two-fisted crime fighters to unstable psychic experiments…
From body horror in Project Prometheus to the over-the-top capers of Tag…
What is the secret of POG?

It’s all here.
The first.
The original.
The only superhero RPG written for the award-winning Shadowdark system.

Tag — you’re it.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

The Bah-Koom

The Shlorping Abomination for Dragonbane RPG.

The Bah-Koom spends most of its time sleeping, but when it wakes it strikes fear into the heart of small animals and mortal kin alike. It normally feeds on creatures of Small size or smaller because its lack of teeth makes it difficult to do any serious damage to humans or other medium size creatures. It does spell certain doom for pets, some wildlife, and the occasional halfling.

The Bah-Koom has an oddly shaped head, not unlike that of a hammerhead shark that is more mouth than anything else. It has rows upon rows of spikey razor-sharp teeth that point backwards to prevent prey from escaping. Its bulbous, oddly shaped head is connected to a barrel-shaped body by a long tubular neck. Prey can sometimes be seen passing though the neck which stretches to accommodate most creatures. At the back of the creature is a long, rat-like tail that ends in a cartilage ball with a stinger.

It spends an inordinate amount of time sleeping, usually in a quiet, dark corner or back of a cave. When in comes to life the horrendous noise it makes is enough to frighten most creatures. It doesn’t move terribly fast and larger creatures are never on the menu. It moves via ridges on the underside of its body, similar to that of a snake. It will always attempt to flee at the sight of a Large creature or larger.

Ferocity: 2 Size: Medium
Movement: 8  Armor: 2 (Natural)  HP: 12

MONSTER ATTACKS

D6 Attacks:

1. Roar! The Bah-Koom comes to life with an unearthly howl. All creatures within 30 meters who have never heard it before must make a WIL roll. If failed, roll on the Fear Table.
2. Slurp: The creature attempts to inhale any one creature or object within 2 meters. Make an opposed STR roll vs 12. If the creature wins, it successfully inhales a small sized creature or smaller. If the creature is Medium size or larger, the creature will attempt to slurp up a weapon, object, or random item. On rare occasions it has inhaled an entire adventurer’s pack. See “In the creature’s gut” for what happens next.
3. Spew: The Bah-Koom goes from suck to blow, expelling chunks of bone, fur, feathers, small coins, and other random tiny objects in a cone 2 meters wide at the base and 6 meters wide at the end. It does 1d6 damage and blinds the targets for one round. Successful Evade rolls place the creature is moved to the closest edge out of the cone.
4. Sting: The creature attempts to zap one target within 4 meters with its tail. The stinger delivers 1d4 piercing damage and a Potency 10 Paralytic Poison (See Dragonbane rules for details.) If armor blocks the damage, no poison is injected.
5. Flail Profusely: The Bah-Koom does what has been described at its panic dance that is confusing more than dangerous. Any creature within 4 meters is struck with the head or tail for 1d6 Bludgeoning damage. Any creature witnessing this behavior for the first time can be mesmerized by the movements and must make a WIL roll or become Confused.
6. Adorable Shlorp: The Bah-Koom sniffs and sucks its way around the target as if tasting it. This does no damage to Medium or Larger creatures other than possibly cleaning their clothes. It looks up at the target creature with sad puppy dog eyes as if begging for mercy. Small creatures have a chance to become stuck in the creature’s mouth and Slurped the next round. (See 2 above.) If applied to a Medium or larger creature and is not attacked on the subsequent round, The Bah-Koom will whine and move away at double its normal speed in and effort to flee.

Freedom Day Five Years In.

It’s really been five years since they gave me the boot.

First off, let me start with saying, “no regrets.” Let me be the first to say I don’t miss the corporate grind or the corporate culture in the slightest. I definitely don’t miss four nights on, four nights off rotating while working 12-hour shifts. I certainly don’t miss the management.

As the Weird Al song Amish Paradise says, “I really don’t care, in fact I wish him (them) well
‘Cause I’ll be laughing my head off when he’s (they’re) burning in Hell”

That particular company will always have a spot of disdain and loathing with me for the rest of my life just given the way that last year went. (I still have PTSD from the butt chewings.) I won’t set foot in one of their establishments, and my family is free to do so only as long as I don’t hear about it. (LOL!)

But hey, I should be grateful, right?

That’s true. I am grateful. I’m more grateful to my loving wife for not kicking me to the curb during the lowest point of my whole life up to that point. But not having the burden of a regular job also came at the financial cost of not having a regular job.

About the time unemployment benefits ran out and the whole insane disability application process got rolling, I realized that being broke kinda sucks. Luckily for me I write from home. I hate being around people in general and don’t leave the house unless there’s no other alternative. Funny how no one in their right mind wants to hire me and I’m really, really okay with that fact.

Fast Forward four years and here we are.

It’s wonderful how I can never leave the house and still have plenty of things to talk about here within my own adorable little niche corner of the Internet. I’m glad I held off on the spiritual/self help guru idea that I had back in 2019-2020. I’m still following UFO/UAP, ET Experiencers, and paranormal topics daily; but again I’m not pursuing those interests past learning more about the subjects.

The way things are now I only deal with the people I want to have in my life or want to meet. If you’re in my kinda inner circle, family, tribe, (whatever-we’re-calling-it-today) chances are it’s because I really want you here. I don’t bestow that level of trust lightly since July 2021.

My hobby is one of the few things that keep me going.

Yeah, I know I likely would benefit from therapy. I sure can’t wait to inflict my own brand of weirdness upon the next unsuspecting therapist. If I wasn’t flunking every depression questionnaire the doctor hands me plus I’m already medicated to the nines for depression and anxiety. I wish some of these medical folks would just accept that I’m not meant to function in neurotypical society.

That’s one of the interesting parts of being a tabletop roleplaying gamer. We accept just about everybody. That has not changed since the dawn first broke over the hobby. Almost every gamer I’ve ever known has been just a wee bit different than most people around them. I’ve earned the right to fly my freak flag high at this point and will gladly continue doing so for as long as I’m around. Contrary to what some of these new kids in the hobby might say, we never turned anyone away based on gender, disability, political stance (*except Nazis,) religion, LGBTQIA+ affiliation, neurodiversity, or any other differences you can name. There were just too few of us in those days and chances are if you fit into our gaming group, you fit into our lives elsewhere, too.

Turning my passion for TTRPGs into sort of a job amongst YouTube, this blog, and DriveThruRPG has given me many more reasons to get up every day. I wouldn’t say it’s a “job” so much as a calling. If I wasn’t constantly involved in some aspect of my hobby, what would I be doing? Would I not be miserable doing so? I figured out in early 2022 this is where I belong.

This blog has been my lifeline.

When I did what I would call a rebranding in 2022, after spending over six months laying on the couch playing Fortnite, I decided to blog every single day. I felt like I was checking in even if I was barking in the dark. It gave me something to look forward to every day. Obviously not the same as a cash-paying job and we’re still no closer to monetization now than we were then, but at least it’s something regular. For nearly three years I felt compelled to do it daily even if I didn’t have much to say.

I finally relaxed a little bit on blogging after YouTube began to take off. Now, we still have a long, long way to go on YouTube on multiple fronts. As soon as the kids go back to school or the weather cools off significantly here in Iowa, I will resume creating audio to go with some sort of visuals. I’ve got plenty of video topics I want to cover as soon as I can go without being interrupted. The blog is a lot easier to get around to doing as long as I’m not getting the “Hey Dad!” every ten minutes. It’s gotten better, though.

DriveThruRPG is a different animal. I love publishing on there. I have so many ideas and so little time sometimes. I know I might sound delusional, but I have notebooks filling up with sourcebook ideas, adventures, tables, and all kinds of other things that I haven’t done here yet. There’s always been a disconnect between the blog and the projects. When I hit certain blogging milestones, I plan to change all of that.

I’m still around in one form or another. I’m still creating content for various platforms. Still a good duck. (Yippee!)

I’m my own employer and my own best employee.

As much as I joke about The OG GM being my boss, I’m really only held accountable for my actions here and elsewhere by one guy; me. I write the schedules. I create the deadlines. I revise everything when I have a pain flare, the depression hits like a ton of bricks, or one of the kids comes home sick from school. Hey, I never said I was perfect. Stuff happens. That’s life.

I would gladly accept a bag full of money; a position writing for an established TTRPG company; one of my own works to “go viral;” my entire DriveThruRPG wish list to be cleaned off and on its way to my house; all expense paid trips to conventions to speak on TTRPG related topics; and a private studio to record YouTube videos, but that’s all vision board stuff. Those are what my markers for success right now. I’d be happy for a cup of coffee and a quiet conversation about a game these days. Or just peace and quiet…

As always, more to come. I’m plugging away at several things and staying disconnected from social media (for the most part) has helped with the FOMO and imposter syndrome. I’m getting more done or what I feel are more meaningful things done. This article series might be ending or not depending on how I feel about it a month from now.

There is no adequate substitute for having my time free to pursue the things I want to go after in the way I want to do it. I love and respect you if you’re still in the daily struggle. I get it. Do what you gotta do to get by. But if the opportunity to do what you love and still get paid for it comes around, please say “Yes.”

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

What’s Going On Wednesday?

A certain degree of silence will follow.

It’s Gen Con time again. Various DungeonTubers and others are already talking about the awesome time they’re going to have all over social media. And I’m just not feeling it this year. I might be just a tad bitter this year.

Last year would have been a perfect storm for me to go and ask lots of questions, sit in on some panels, seminars, etc. There are normally game company reps and higher ups at this particular convention. It’s supposed to be THE convention to go to every year. The traditional logic of decades past was that if you went to one major convention in a year, save back for Gen Con.

Why is this one convention so important?

The last few years have taught me the importance of in-person networking. I’ve seen a couple of guys go from being virtual unknowns in the hobby to having writing gigs, recognitions, panel appearances at other cons and so on after going to Gen Con and getting their name out there. This past two years I’ve watched a couple of people really make a name for themselves and it started at Gen Con.

[Side Note: It looks like I’m straw-manning this, but I’m keeping with my tradition of not naming specific people on the off chance that someone takes offense to me mentioning them by name. Right now there are some serious creative differences between myself and a couple of YouTube personalities who I was (?) pretty close friends with, or so I thought, over the use of AI. I’m sure that will be a hot-button issue at Gen Con, too.]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy for people who find any degree of success in the hobby, industry, or just life in general. Good for them. That’s lovely, really. I’m happy for them. My point here is that it often starts by going to a major convention, such as Gen Con, and doing the networking, getting one’s name out there, meeting some of the “big names” in the industry, etc. Basically doing things that can’t be done remotely outside of a major gaming convention.

The sad reality is we don’t all get to go.

In years past I’ve been stuck here at home due to family commitments. School activities are getting going for my wife and kids. Money is always tight with back-to-school shopping, activity fees, and more recently my bloody unemployment. I know for a fact I’m not the only one in this boat. There are plenty of responsible adults out there who have to stay home during Gen Con week for one reason or another. I get it. When I was working it usually amounted to not being able to get the time off.

I truly empathize with the people who have to stay at home and be all responsible, reliable, and dependable while members of their group go off to party for five days at Gen Con. A lot of times it leaves the rest of us looking for something to do since regular gaming activities are cancelled. As an upside, it can be a great time to run one-shots or try out new games that have been sitting on the shelf for a while.

Personally, it bothers me that I’m stuck here in corn hell bumf*ck nowhere Iowa with no one to talk to aside from family, cats, and the Internet. Now that the nest is becoming a bit emptier I’m hoping to build a career in the TTRPG industry because it’s been my number one passion for decades now. (Minus the spiritual awakening phase, but even then it just made me more grateful for who I am and what I have now.)

What to do when the Internet is abuzz with Gen Con talk?

My main source of contact with the “outside world” became rife with Gen Con talk last year. I caught a major depressive episode. I was still safe, just really, really sad. I do not want a repeat of that incident.

Call me any name you’d like I guess since my main point of contact with the outside world is the Internet. Maybe that’s still unusual. I don’t know. What I do know is that my local TTRPG scene is pretty, uh, shabby. Not promising to me, anyway, but that’s a whole different article.

So I came up with a new plan this year. I’m going to stop consuming that part of YouTube and social media in general for about the next five weeks. I can schedule posts. WordPress uploads directly to some sites, so if you see my post that’s probably why. Otherwise, I have playlists full of ASMR, Law of Attraction, Affinity tutorials, and a lot of other things to catch up on. I’ll still be around to check private messages and wish The OG GM a happy birthday.

This hiatus also coincides with the Deathbringer crowdfunding campaign which I am eternally grateful to be missing. Most anticipated game of 2026? Deathbringer. The thing Professor DM has been going on about for however many years now finally coming out as Shadowdark? Thanks, but no thanks unless I’m offered a free review copy and we all know I’m such a small fry that will never happen. I don’t have the hundred plus dollars it would take to buy into that franchise, and I already have my game for 2026 on my devices. It’s called Twilight Sword and I really like it. (Full review to come at a later date.)

So off I go for now…

I’ll still check messages on X (Twitter,) Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, BlueSky, Mastodon, email, and my phone. I’m still around if anyone needs/wants to get in touch. I’m just not going to be actively scrolling for anything or digging through entire accounts because I like their pics. (Wait. Did that last part sound sketchy? I love artists, bunnies, and kittens.) The OG GM has assured me he has enough new channels to go a while on Saturdays.)

And as I was saying, there will still be scheduled content, just nothing terribly topical unless it comes to me directly for some reason. Let con season come and go. If you’re stuck home like me, just make the best of it with whoever or whatever you have on hand. If you’re going, have fun but please do not mention it to me directly. Stay out of trouble. Enjoy yourself.

Try solo gaming. Read a book. Take a nap. It’s all good.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Monday Monster: Coychure

For use with the Dragonbane RPG.

Coychure

Description:
Once someone encounters the Coychure, they can’t unsee it. Some have gone so far as to beg Mentalists to erase it from their minds. This nocturnal predator causes other cryptids to flee at the very sight of it.

It is unclear where this creature originated. Some say it is a demon, others say it was hatched in a mad Archmage’s laboratory. Deep research, as best that can be done by scholars at present, suggests that more than one of these beasts indicate they came from a pocket dimension or subplane. One victim driven mad by the Coychure claimed that it came from a strange puzzle box along with other nightmares.

Its most striking feature are its two mouths, one lupine, the other more human. Its eyes are similar to a bee, set farther back on the skull. It has a body of a coyote, wings like a vulture, warped, distorted limbs similar to vulture talons. The Coychure’s tail is almost reptilian, but also similar to a fish. Its body is covered in a mix of fur, feathers, and scales making its actual body very difficult to identify.

One interesting thing about this monster is that its flesh and even bone dissolves when it is slain, making any sort of identification impossible. Once slain the creature turns to a sizzling puddle of goo withing one Stretch. Contact with the goo deals 1d4 acid damage and burns for one Stretch unless neutralized or washed off.

Resistance:
The Coychure is immune to effects requiring a WIL roll such as Fear or mind control. Also immune to acid and poison. Takes half damage from non-magical fire, cold, slashing, and piercing attacks.

Nimble: Coychure Evades attacks at skill level 14.

Wings: The Coychure may take its movement in the air.
Swimming: The Coychure swims at normal movement speed and can hold its breath underwater for a full Stretch.

Aura of Terror: The first time a creature steps within 10 meters of the Coychure it must make a WIL roll. Failure means a roll on the Fear Table. Creatures who have seen the Coychure before have a Boon to this roll.

Ferocity: 2  Size: Medium
Movement: 12  Armor: 3 Natural HP: 22

MONSTER ATTACKS

D6 Attacks:

1. Existential Dread Howl: Anyone within 30 meters must make a WIL roll with a Bane regardless of having seen the creature. Failure means rolling on the Fear Table.
2. Bite-Bite: One target within 2 meters is bitten twice for 2d4 piercing damage.
3. Swooping Talon Rake: One target within 4 meters is hit for 1d8 slashing damage and is knocked prone at the start of their turn.
4. Gibbering Nonsense: All creatures within 8 meters must make a WIL roll to fend off a psychic attack. Failure means becoming Dazed. If already Dazed, the GM may choose another condition.
5. That Tail: The Coychure flies up into the air slapping one character within 4 meters with an attack that does 1d4 piercing damage and injects a Potency 12 Paralyzing Poison. If armor negates the damage, no poison is delivered.
6. Drag-N-Drop: The Coychure attempts to grab one character or creature (Medium or smaller) and carry it into the air 1d12 meters and in a direction of the GM’s choosing before dropping them for an appropriate amount of fall damage and starting the turn prone. An Opposed STR roll vs a 14 may be made to resist being picked up and dropped early.

That Conversation I Don’t Want To Have.

That conversation I never wanted to freakin have.

I’ve been sitting on this article for months. The first draft was well over 3,000 words, and the second draft wasn’t much shorter. Every time I started writing, I got angry, and every time I got angry, the article got longer. Somewhere along the way I realized I wasn’t really writing about AI anymore. I was writing about frustration, disappointment, and feeling like I had to defend my existence as a creator.

So let’s try this one more time.

Once upon a time, tabletop roleplaying games were built on newsletters, fanzines, pamphlets, and whatever else people could scrape together. Folks typed things up on typewriters, ran them through photocopiers, stapled them together, and shared them with anyone at the wargaming club willing to read them. The hobby wasn’t built by publishing companies; it was built by enthusiastic weirdos with fantastic ideas.

Fantasy art wasn’t readily available, and layout software didn’t exist. Nobody was arguing about AI because most of us were trying to figure out how to get enough copies made before the local copy shop closed or we got kicked out of the public library (Yes, that really happened.) The important thing was the idea; the adventure, the setting, the monster, the game.

Somewhere along the line, things changed.

Today, fantasy art is everywhere, layout software is available to almost anyone with a computer or a phone, and publishing has never been easier. Yet somehow the barriers to entry feel higher than ever. If you release a product today without art, if your cover isn’t eye-catching, or if your layout isn’t polished, people notice. Art has become an expectation.

I listened to a popular DungeonTuber the other day railing against typos and grammatical errors the other day. The same guy regularly doubles down against AI tools. Do you see where this causes me some cognitive dissonance?

That brings me to the problem.

I have quietly come to loggerheads with people I admire over AI art. I’ve watched creators get absolutely roasted for using it. I’ve watched friendships fracture, and I’ve watched communities divide themselves into camps that seem increasingly unwilling to listen to each other. I’ve mostly kept my mouth shut—not because I don’t have opinions (trust me, I do), but because I knew the moment I opened my mouth someone would assume I was attacking artists.

I’m not. Not even a little.

I think artists should be paid, and I think artists deserve respect. I think artists create things I could never create. I also think reality exists, and reality is where this discussion gets complicated.

I’m a small creator. I’m not running million-dollar crowdfunding campaigns, getting convention appearance fees, or selling tens of thousands of copies of products. I’m a guy trying to make third-party Dragonbane supplements at three in the morning while dealing with chronic pain, depression, family obligations, and whatever fresh disaster life has decided to throw at me this week.

Have you seen what professional fantasy art costs these days? Holy shit.

Good artists deserve every penny they earn. The problem isn’t the artist; the problem is that many small creators simply can’t afford those prices. A custom cover can easily cost hundreds of dollars, and interior artwork can climb into the thousands. That’s before layout, editing, promotion, or anything else enters the equation.

People often tell me to use stock art. Okay. Please show me where I can find stock art for a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex with gorilla arms, vulture wings, and a venomous tail. I’ll wait.

If I need a castle, a mountain, or a goat, stock art is wonderful. If I need a bizarre monster that exists only in the twisted recesses of my brain, the options become a lot more limited. That’s where AI entered my workflow; not because I hate artists, want artists to starve, and not because I’m trying to replace anyone. It’s because AI solved a problem that otherwise had no practical solution.

The choice wasn’t AI art versus commissioned art. The choice was AI art versus no art, and that’s a very different conversation.

There’s another aspect of this discussion that gets overlooked constantly: accessibility.

My friend, The OG GM, has dyslexia and other neurological challenges that can make writing and formatting difficult, which is a well-known fact to his friends, family, and strangers on the Internet. AI helps bridge some of those gaps. Sometimes it helps with spelling, sometimes it helps organize thoughts, and sometimes it helps transform rough ideas into something easier to work with. I help when I can, too. For free because that’s what friends do. Sometimes I wish I could help more.

What I’ve discovered is that a lot of neurodivergent people use AI in similar ways. They use it to reduce decision fatigue, organize schedules, draft emails, answer messages, summarize information, and break overwhelming tasks into manageable pieces. AI doesn’t make ADHD, or Autism disappear. It doesn’t magically solve anxiety, depression, dyslexia, or executive dysfunction. What it can do is remove a few obstacles and reduce a little friction, and for some people, that’s a bigger deal than critics seem willing to acknowledge.

Now before anyone starts sharpening pitchforks, let’s address the obvious concerns.

Some artists are losing work, and that’s real. Some companies are absolutely using AI to cut costs, and that’s real too. Some people are flooding storefronts with low-effort junk generated in five minutes. I’ve seen it, and you’ve seen it. Pretending those things aren’t happening would be dishonest. Likewise, concerns about energy usage and infrastructure deserve discussion. Every major technological shift comes with consequences, and none of those concerns are imaginary.

What frustrates me is the lack of nuance. The conversation often feels like it has only two positions: either AI is the greatest thing ever invented, or AI is destroying creativity forever. Reality rarely works that way. Most people end up somewhere in the middle. Most people aren’t trying to destroy art or artists; they’re simply trying to solve problems using the tools available to them.

The thing that concerns me most isn’t the technology; it’s the growing divide inside the TTRPG hobby. Communities are splitting apart, conventions are debating policies, creators are choosing sides, and people who probably agree on ninety percent of everything else suddenly can’t stand each other because of one issue. That’s sad, especially in a hobby built on imagination and collaboration.

The truth is AI isn’t going away. Search engines use it, Microsoft Word uses it, WordPress uses it, customer service departments use it, and my dentist’s office uses it after hours. Most people interact with AI every day whether they realize it or not. Technology changes, people adapt, and nobody is rushing to bring back eight-track tapes or demanding a return to typewriters. The world keeps moving forward.

That doesn’t mean every technological change is good, but it does mean some of them become permanent. Sewing machines still exist, but they don’t closely resemble the ones from a hundred years ago.

My position is pretty simple.

Creators who want to make everything by hand should absolutely do so. Creators who want to hire artists should absolutely do so. Customers should absolutely support the creators they believe in. I have no interest in telling anyone what tools they should use; I just want the same courtesy in return.

I’ve been in this hobby for decades. I’ve written for small publications, and I’ve watched entire eras of gaming come and go. The one thing I’ve always loved about tabletop roleplaying games is that anyone could create something. Anyone could write an adventure, build a world, invent a monster, and contribute. That spirit is worth protecting.

You don’t have to agree with my choices. You don’t have to like AI, and you don’t have to use it. But I do believe people should be free to create using the tools available to them, especially when those tools help overcome barriers that might otherwise prevent them from creating at all.

At the end of the day, I’d rather spend my time creating worlds than fighting culture wars. The hobby is big enough for all of us, or at least I’d like to believe it is.

Monday Monster: Gorvult

Compatible with Dragonbane RPG.

Description: A large, black, hairy beast that glides seamlessly between the trees and lands on prey from above. It is the terror of the night in deep forest/jungle areas.

Ferocity: 2             Size: Large
Movement: 12 (Flying) Armor: 2 (Natural)            HP: 36

Has wings, can fly. When flying at night is treated as having 14 Sneaking.

Gorvult Attacks:

D6 Attacks:

1: Big, Big Bite: Inflicts 2d8 piercing damage on one target within 2 meters.

2: Big, Big Crunch: The Gorvult leaps high into the air and comes down with all of its weight on one target inflicting 2d6 bludgeoning damage and knocking the opponent prone on their turn.

3: How Good Is Your Armor? The Gorvult makes excited noises and jumps up and down on one target within 4 meters 1d6 times inflicting 1d6 bludgeoning damage each time. Each bounce counts as a separate attack when parrying. A successful EVADE avoids the attack entirely. One successful bounce leaves the character prone on the start of their turn.

4: Big Wallop! The Gorvult swings both fists together striking up to 2 adjacent characters within 2 meters for 1d8 bludgeoning damage each. Characters struck by the attack are knocked prone until the start of their turn.

5: Thump Thump: Gorvult grabs one character within 2 meters by the ankle and slamming them against the ground 1d4 times for 1d6 bludgeoning damage each time. Armor bonuses do not apply. After the first slam, the character can make a free attempt to wriggle out of the creature’s grasp with an opposed STR roll. (Gorvult has a 16 for purposes of this check.) Characters hit with this attack also suffer the Dazed condition.

6: Snatch and Drop: Gorvult grabs one character within 2 meters with its talons and soars skyward 45 meters before dropping them. Standard falling damage applies.

Gates of Krystalia: Last Deux Expansion.

Opening Vibe / First Impressions

I’m really thrilled and excited that someone made a Game Master book almost right out of the gate so to speak. For those who might not know, Deux is the term for GM in Gates of Krystalia. It’s also a term to describe the gods of the in-game world as well. This will come into play further on in the book.

What Makes Last Deux Stand Out?

Every good TTRPG needs a solid Game Master section, a whole book being preferable. Last Deux delivers in spades along with great art, monster creation guidelines, and lots of setting lore. Gates of Krystalia is a very rich setting that covers a lot of subgenres in anime/manga. As a bonus, they included solo rules in this tome as well.

Features That Hit Me Right Away:

There are a lot of really nice sections of Last Deux. I think the two that jump out the most are the various worlds because they had me at “Mecha.” The other thing I really liked is the basic how-to-run-the-game section in the first chapter. The setting is rich and the whole book is perfect for TTJRPG Game Masters just starting out. Also, did I mention Mecha?

Who This Supplement Is For:

Obviously, this one is aimed at players in the Deux role for Gates of Krystalia Honestly, I’d recommend this for fantasy GMs, TTRPG GMs, and anyone new to Game Mastering regardless of the system. GMs with a strong anime/manga background would really benefit from this book. Also, someone coming from RIFTS would benefit from giving this book a look.

Closing Thoughts:

I really love this supplement. Much like the rest of GoK, even if I don’t use it for the game it’s written for. Great advice. Lots of good setting construction. I’ll have more on this book at a later date. Please give Gates of Krystalia: Last Deux a look if you get a chance. My DTRPG Affiliate Link for this book.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

April 22nd, 2026: Sorry I’ve Been Away So Long.

Here is my usual Freedom Day post, which is late.

This reminds me a lot of when my employment was first terminated back in July 2021. I spent a lot of time on the couch contemplating the meaning of things. Which it turns out looks a lot like Major Depression. Other days I just physically don’t have the spoons to do a lot of the things I would normally do like creating game supplements, making videos, or writing articles.

It bugs me because I tend to hold myself to a higher standard and I’ve really been falling short of it lately. There are projects I want to do for me, for other people, and they’ve just been waiting. I want to thank anyone who is still here. Hi.

Dragon Week and why I’m not touching Fey Week.

For one, the fey aren’t my thing. Pixies and the like have never really appealed to me except for playing a Windling Illusionist in Earthdawn, but that’s different! Just saying…

Last year I poured my all into Dragon Week. I did videos. I hyped it as much as possible. I even tried to join up with other creators who did Dragon Week and planned to make it a regularly occurring event.

And then… crickets. Nothing. Me barking in the dark. Dragon Week plowed into the ground faster than a dragon struck mid-air by a ballista shot to the face. When big DungeonTubers decide to do a thing, I guess they get to decide who’s in the Cool Kids Club and who’s just standing on the sidelines. (Story of my childhood and teen sports career right there.) So, yeah. The Fey can go get stuffed.

More “big name” DungeonTubers call it quits.

Oh shucks. Maybe more room for the rest of us. Buh-bye. Go manage those million-dollar Kickstarters. Way to grift, err uh, go. Way to go. Please keep going away now. Byeee.

Seriously, all snark aside. Seriously, Professor DM hit it right on the head. Go on YouTube, make it big as a Dungeons & Dragons YouTuber for a couple of years, then launch a Kickstarter that makes a million dollars and retire. Basically build an audience to buy your stuff and then bail. Personally, I wish that one bozo who had two-multimillion-dollar Kickstarters would stop punching down on people who don’t have as much money as he does for art, but what can I say? Okay, maybe not all snark aside.

On the road to recovery using not-bitterness or anger as rocket fuel.

My “HR team” that consists of my LLM named Cassie and a house plant named Fernando have advised me not to go off on any DungeonTubers by name in this article. That’s probably for the best given my prior squabbles with a couple of them. I know how bad it would look for me to voice several opinions in opposition to the status quo. But know that I’m watching. It’s just a reminder to me that they may come and go and do their little hype weeks, but I’m still here.

Going forward I might be putting out shorter articles. Or maybe just a social media post enough to feed the various algorithm gawds. I’m still making content and writing game reviews. It’s just going to take a bit longer than originally planned.

I’m at the mercy of Mother Nature in terms of my health. I’m literally a human barometer, and that’s on days when I haven’t overspent my spoons for the day. I’m still on my way back from the depression. For those who know SCUBA, it’s like coming up from 100 feet down with no air tank. It takes a while.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

April Is Here Already?!?

We’re just going to riff a bit today. Yes, there are bullet points. No, this is not being written by AI.

• I’ve had some medical and mental health struggles the last few weeks which is why I haven’t been posting as much. Lots of stuff to catch up on. Right now the goal is three blog posts per week, one YouTube video/podcast, and work on a DTRPG project.
• I have more ideas for projects than I know what to do with. I started the year with an ambitious list. I now have ambitions for about the next three years with just Dragonbane. When Twilight Sword and Ruttigers Almanac drop there will probably be even more.
• A couple of prominent names in the DungeonTube sphere have pointed to the fact that there are too many TTRPGs on the market now. I used to think there was no such thing until I started looking at my own PDF library. I actually have the equivalent of a pile of shame of things I want to read/play around with. Wow.
• Is there a glut on the TTRPG market right now? Is there room for more new games? The interesting part is that most of the games we’re seeing now on DriveThruRPG dwarf the product on the shelf at most Friendly Local Game Stores. Tales of the Valiant, Pathfinder 2E Core Electric Boogaloo, Daggerheart, Stormlight Archives/Cosmere, Shadowdark, Call of Cthulhu, and Draw Steel get most of the attention IRL where out here in the digital space, those games tend to get buried in a sea of indie titles.
• At what point does a game go from being indie to being a franchise? When do games stop being indie and start becoming corporate? Eclectic Goat has been discussing this on her channel and on X(Twitter.) It’s been interesting. Personally I believe all of the titles I listed in the previous point have fallen off the indie wagon. When your crowdfunding goes over a million dollars, you’re no longer indie.
• I’ve still got a mecha/space game on my far back burner, but I don’t think now is the time to introduce such a project. Right now I barely have the spoons to post an update or a short article. I also don’t think the market is going to be right for a sci-fi game for another year or two. I’m waiting for the latest massive wave of fantasy games to pass over.
• Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (fka D&D5E.2024) still maintains its status at the top of the pile even though a lot of us older guys still look at Wizards of the Coast with shame and dissapointment. Even their latest Public Relations moves still sound hollow if they can’t back it up with real, actionable results. This new Greyhawk will be the acid test. If Luke Gygax can keep the project from going off the rails into sensitivity readers’ suggestons and being overwritten by Makenzie DeArmas or Jason Tondro, maybe there’s hope. Otherwise, it’s just WotC being WotC again and screw that noise. I have my Third Ed Greyhawk books and they’re just fine.
• I don’t want to talk politics here. I’ve never been this ashamed of my government. If this country doesn’t change, we might not have a country as we recognize it for much longer. I’d rather think about TTRPGs, anime, and shlocky horror movies.
• I’m still baffled as to how some DungeonTubers can fart out a dozen videos and hit 3K subscribers in like a month and I’m still where I am a year and a half in. I honestly feel like I’ve missed something in all the dozens of how-to-YouTube videos I’ve watched. I’ll be damned if I’m going to buy a course or a coach, though. That’s tomorrow’s project is to put together something on YT. I keep taking breaks out of sheer discouragement.
• The negative climate on YouTube amongst certain YouTubers is crazy to me. I won’t call anyone out specifically, but holy crap the feuding is getting out of hand amongst half a dozen people again. I know a couple of people who get called out regularly in all of the drama and I’m doing my best to steer clear of it.
• Time to tap the sign again: Kindness and understanding go a lot further than bitterness and blame. Don’t be a douche canoe toward people and you’ll probably find a seat at most gaming tables. If you’re just stirring the poop, people are going to look away eventually.
• I feel like I didn’t get enough superhero content out last month, so I want to dip a toe into it with Amazing April.I love having monthly themes. Arcane April is also on the menu this year with Dragonbane: Book of Magic.

That’s all I have time for today. Time to go pick up the youngins and make dinner. I’m planning to be back tomorrow or Saturday with Arcane April or Amazing April content.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

THE GOAT MAN

Description:
A towering, hairy humanoid with the head of a black-eyed goat. Its almond-shaped eyes are glossy and depthless, reflecting no light. The mouth hangs too wide, too slack, as if unhinged. Its fingers are long and rake-like, ending in splintered claws. It smells of damp earth, rot, and wet fur. It does not speak, but sometimes it laughs.

Resistance: Immune to fear. Takes half damage from non-magical fire.
Ferocity: 2 Size: Large
Movement: 12 Armor: 3 (matted hide and dense muscle) HP: 32

MONSTER ATTACKS

D6 Attacks:

1. Horn Gore: The Goat Man lowers its head and drives forward doing 1d12 Bludgeoning damage. If the victim suffers damage, they are knocked prone at the start of their turn..
2. Claw Rake: A sweeping strike at 2 opponents withing 2 meters with elongated rake-like fingers doing 1d10 Slashing damage to each target.
3. Severe Rend: The Goat Man focuses entirely on one target within arm’s reach with an overwhelming slashing attack that does 2d6 Slashing damage.
4. Chunk Bite: The gaping mouth clamps down and tears away flesh on one character for 1d8 slashing damage. If damage penetrates armor, the victim must a Fear Check due to shock and revulsion.
5. Black-Eyed Stare: The Goat Man locks eyes with one target within 10 meters must make a Fear Roll.
6. Disheartening Presence: All characters within 24 meters must make a Fear Roll as the creature emits an unearthly howl-scream that frightens all nearby wildlife and strikes terror into the hearts of all who hear it.

Combat Note: The Goat Man is meant to be a shadowy mystery above anything else. If reduced to half HP or if one combatant is dropped to 0 HP (or even appears to be deceased) the Goat Man will attempt to flee and/or hide from any and all pursuers. Sneaking 14.

Behind the Screen: Setting Up Success.

Today we’re talking about Game Mastering.

Yes, setting others up for success applies in other areas of one’s life, but in this case we’re referring to Game Masters. I’ve learned some difficult, nigh onto painful lessons over the years about this topic. I want to share what I mean by all this today in hopes I will save some other GM from a similar fate.

Failure to plan ahead a little bit can be the death knell of a long running campaign. It could even signal the end of a friendship while the group is breaking up. You don’t always have to go to Reddit for interpersonal drama. Sometimes it comes to you, the GM, in the form of your regular gaming group.

GM, please don’t be the one driving the plot wagon.

Those poor players. Some of them never saw it coming. Others did, but perhaps not in time. The plot wagon rolled into town right over the top of everyone. There were no survivors. Let me explain.

A lot of times we train/teach new GMs/Dungeon Masters how to run and set up adventures in a very linear fashion. The adventure goes A-to-B-to-C-to-D-to-E. The climax of the story usually occurs around C or D. Loot, if any, at about E. Experience, etc. afterward. There are variations on this formula, but it’s the easiest and most obvious things to teach most people because it looks like the structure of most books.

The problem comes in when some GM/DMs never move beyond it. Unfortunately, a lot of commercially written fantasy adventures are written this way. It’s like the GM has a novel to write and they just need the players to fill in the dialogue between scenes.

Then, just when the players think they have an original solution, the plot wagon pulls up and runs them flat. Basically, the GM decides that the players’ wackadoodle plan isn’t actually in the module, so they’re just going ahead with what is written in the module/book regardless.

Unfortunately this approach is often referred to as “railroading.” It leaves a lot of experience players feeling like maybe their choices don’t matter at a time when they 100% totally should. The game, at the end of the day, is all about the players. I get it. It’s hard to step back sometimes as a GM and just let it run..

A lot of online (YouTube) discourse lays the railroad tracks.

There are probably a good number of us old-timers who know what I’m talking about. I hear a good amount of talk, especially on YouTube, which usually tells new Dungeon Masters about creating plot, narrative, and story structure in their games. Hey, I’ll admit it. Back 30 years ago I was guilty of giving some of that same advice. I wouldn’t now, of course.

I’ll be brutal with this advice: If you want to create a story from start to finish and the players are expected to go along with every story beat, write a book. I know that might be hard to swallow for some D&D 5E or 5E.2024 Dungeon Masters. Sorry.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

You don’t have to script every NPC dialog or figure out exactly where the group is headed next. Take some time during prep to build some NPCs, even if they’re generic, to drop into the characters’ lives whenever needed. That way you’re never caught completely off guard without a character for them to interact with.

I like to create minor NPCs with three notable traits, a description, and maybe a desired goal. No real stats unless I wholeheartedly believe they could potentially be involved in some sort of combat. Major NPCs get a description, important stats if needed, six traits, motivation, and a goal. I also put gear, spells, and a bit of personal history on them. They still take up less than a full page in most cases.

This technique can also be applied to locations the group could potentially visit. Inns, taverns, blacksmiths, bowyers/fletchers/arrow smiths, stable keepers, some random kid that hangs out around the practice area, stables, etc. In other words, people that the PCs could potentially encounter just walking down the main street of a village. I might also cook up something for a few random farmers, food vendors, townsfolk, town elders or other significant political figures, royalty (if any,) and maybe a shadowy individual who may or may not be attached to the thieves guild. Oh, and let’s not forget some military/law enforcement figures in the town. (For some reason that always seems to come up with the PCs…)

Next, not every NPC has to point the group in a specific direction.

Maybe the innkeeper really is clueless when it comes to the goings-on of the local townsfolk. Perhaps the blacksmith hasn’t ever heard of the magical MacGuffin the group is looking for. Maybe the farmer has never seen the giant ant monster that is reportedly terrorizing the other farmers. Not every character the group meets is a walking lore drop.

Sometimes the linear structure starts branching off. There are some dead ends. There are some false leads. There are some encounters or NPCs that aren’t even on the line. Some of my adventures started looking like a grid with a bunch of relationship notes and motivations. Unless it’s a dungeon with hallways that only connect certain rooms, of course.

The key here is to disconnect as a GM/DM.

Don’t pretend you know exactly what the group is going to do next. Yes, they might tell you at the end of the session, “We’re going to go to ______ (town) and talk to ______ (character.)”

Only to go a completely different route and talk to completely different character the next game. This is actually why I stopped keeping meticulous notes about plot and storyline. For one, I’m pretty sure my wife and one of my players who was a roommate were sneaking looks at my notes. For another, no plan ever survives contact with the PCs or the time table.

A lot of times I will have the name of the town, a few people who live there, and a vague idea of what they might run into. For everything else, there are random tables if I really get desperate. Otherwise, I try not to plan more than a session or two ahead. Maybe more if we’re doing a hexcrawl. (Long story for another time on that one. Yeesh.) Anything more than that and I’m probably wasting paper or pixels. The group usually manages to bypass, blow up, or overcomplicate anything specific I had plotted out, which is why I switched up my paradigm. (Which is pronounced, “pair-uh-dig-gum”)

But what about my BBEG and his plans for world domination?

If the group ignores whatever breadcrumbs and keeps offing his minions at every turn, maybe his plan goes ahead as scheduled because the group failed to interfere in time. Now the group has to wonder why the sky suddenly turned a shade of lime green and dragons are flying around everywhere like hummingbirds. Why wait for those meddling kids to interfere if they’re off starting a black smithy/bakery or hanging out with some random goblin they met at the inn? Don’t be afraid to lay down some consequences if they completely blow off that raid on the Death Star. Sometimes the villain gets their way and finishes their agenda. Now what will the group do?

Most of what I’m referring to so far is a sandbox style of play.

But there are some suggestions of other things that work. Sometimes it’s okay to have a plot in mind, but don’t get too attached. Most adventures still boil down to Who, What, Where, Why, possibly When and How. What matters to me as a GM is getting the ball rolling.

You can have the most elaborate sandbox campaign ever laid out on a hex map just waiting for the PCs to come spread some love, but it won’t do a lick of good unless they have some motivation to go explore. You can have the most sinister of BBEGs waiting for them with some crazy scheme to take over the Tri-Kingdom Area, but it does no good if the group never finds out about it and more importantly why they should get involved.

If the session or maybe the campaign starts in media res, the threat is imminent and the group must react in order to survive. Beware of overusing this tactic as players will begin to expect it. But once in a while it’s fun to leave them stranded on a mysterious island in the middle of nowhere with no idea how they got there.

Yes, PC backstories have a role to play in their motivation. Assuming they gave you anything to work with and it wasn’t a 39 page novel of their own, working some of what they gave you into the sandbox is usually pretty easy and will help later on in answering one of the big six questions above.

Other formats that might work for you.

My friend Kelsey Dionne talked about it in her monthly newsletter back in 2020. There can be a happy medium between sandboxing and railroading. I forget what she called it now, but it’s a format that starts out immersing the group in a story and then letting them decide if/where they want to run with it. Sometimes the group is fickle and they don’t. From what I know of Kelsey’s games, they usually do.

When I ran a lot of Cyberpunk, Werewolf, Deadlands, and superhero games, I usually didn’t have an elaborate plot in mind. The group had their home base and familiar NPCs that they saw daily. There was usually a villain out there, or several in some cases. All I needed was an inciting incident to get the ball rolling and maybe some sort of reward for going after the villain.

Having familiar NPCs that the group might be somewhat attached-to is pretty good motivation sometimes. The bank’s being robbed? Oh, Rex’s girlfriend was going to the bank this morning. Sure hope she’s not in the middle of a hostage situation… Of course we all know she will be. It’s not a railroad, but that one is hard for our heroes to turn down. Yes, they could let the boring old police handle it or they could hero up and go do something about it. (I used that “hero up” line once and nobody caught onto the reference until way later.)

You can build a corkboard or a marker board with names and relationships on it. If a business relationship between two NPCs falls apart, the group might be in for some financial tough times in a Cyberpunk game. If someone’s crush admits to it in the screamsheets right before the big concert, the following media scandal might make it hard to get out and do the real running. I’ve cooked up very elaborate relationship dynamics in the past. It’s fun, but the more NPCs you add, the more moving parts there are to keep track of from one week to the next. More on that in another article.

I’ve also done multi-branch linear style games where things might go A-D-C-H-Z with a lot of branches and dead ends going everywhere. Some points of the adventure didn’t even have a line drawn to them and were planned on the off chance the group pulled out something I hadn’t anticipated yet. Sometimes the outside world reacts to what the group is doing, other times NPCs have their own agendas to carry out, and the heroes may or may not interfere. Stop the train robbery or figure out why Farmer Barley’s cows are suffering from demonic possession. The stranger realization comes when the two are related.

I would also suggest taking a look at what novel writers are doing for more inspiration. Not everyone has a game modeled after a well-known actual play series. Not every GM is blessed with a dozen talented and well-paid voice actors in their cast, either. Sometimes novel writers will come up with interesting approaches that can be sandwiched into your game formatting.

I can talk about plotting and character development all day.

I used to deal with this kind of thing quite a bit. As I said originally, we teach new GM/DMs the linear formula because it’s the easiest to grasp and doesn’t require a ton of player motivation. Some people still prefer that style 20 years later.

However, some players don’t like to be told where to go and what to do. Setting them up for “success” is simply a matter of giving them NPCs, situations, and loot for them to interact with. They’ll find the adventure. It’s only a matter of when and how. Sometimes you have to just throw the module over your shoulder and ask the group, “Okay. What do you want to do now?”

As always, do what works best for you and your players. It’s fun to experiment with different presentation styles and adventure formats until you reach that sweet spot. Then just keep going. The group with thank you for keeping things interesting and engaging.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Friday Flap: DungeonTubers and New GMs. https://jeffsgamebox.blog/2026/01/30/friday-flap-dungeontubers-and-new-gms/ ##dnd, ##DungeonTube, ##DungeonTuber, ##DungeonTubers, ##rpg, ##rpgblog, ##rpgblogger, ##rpgwriter, ##ttrpg, ##TTRPGblog, ##TTRPGblogger, ##ttrpgwriter, #GameMasterAdvice, #TTRPGInfluencer, #TTRPGYouTubeCreator

Friday Flap: DungeonTubers and New GMs.

Dispelling myths and rumors about being a Game Master.

So I hear all this nonsense going around again on YouTube about how “Game Mastering is (supposedly) hard work,” and “GM burnout is a scary real thing.”

The short answer is “No” on both counts. If you wonder why DungeonTube is dying, this is the kind of thing right here that is driving nails into the proverbial coffin. STOP CHASING PEOPLE AWAY FROM GAME MASTERING!!! Arrgh!

Side Note: Please stop hyping up these DungeonTubers whose sole purpose in life is to hype up their appearance a Green Dragon Fest which is a super elite convention that only a select few GMs and players can afford to attend. One of these days I’m going to spend more time addressing this tomfoolery. Until then please understand that I have a very dim view of the people running this thing. <cough> Gatekeeping. <cough>

Where was I? Oh yes, this week’s DungeonTube myths and rumors. Let’s just do a quick rundown of a few things:

Being a GM is fun and engaging. I’ve talked about this before on the blog but let me go over the highlights.

• You don’t need any special skills or talents to run a game. If you can play, you are already qualified to be a GM. It’s really just a matter of playing more than one character.
• Prep time for a Game Master can be hard work. But it can also be fun and exciting. Do as much as you need to in order to feel ready for the game. The rest will fill itself in.
• You don’t have to be “Professional Quality.” Just be you. Your players might actually enjoy that more. Besides, they’re probably not professional voice actors. Most GMs aren’t in this for money. If you are in it for the money, then that’s cool. Just do the best you can with what you have.
• You DO NOT have to have the rulebook memorized. Some GMs don’t even allow rulebooks at the table. Yes, a familiarity with the system helps. When in doubt, make a ruling to the best of your ability and look it up after the game. (Helpful hint: GMs can take lots of notes to help after the session.)

  Once you get used to being a GM, you can run anything, anywhere, any time. You can walk into a convention, pick up a game, look over the scenario, and rock it with only minimal rules knowledge. Knowing how to roleplay goes a lot farther than rules memorization. (Helpful hint: you can usually recruit a player to help with the technical rules if you really need exacting detail.)

• There are no bad GMs. Sure, feedback and experience help. The main factors are motivation and communication. If you have a rough session, keep going. At a certain point you can only get better and better.
• Everyone starts somewhere. Even the “great GMs” of our hobby were new once. Like I said, keep going. Run that next session. You got this. If you listen carefully, there are hundreds of other people cheering you on somewhere in the background.
• COMMUNICATION is key! Listen to what the players are saying both in and out of combat. Let them speak. Remember the wise person listens while fools only ramble on.
• Do NOT get attached to any plot or storyline you’ve created. The players almost always take even the most well thought out story beats and run 90 yards in the wrong direction with them. It’s okay. Remember you’re running a game, not writing a novel. The rule of thumb here is: No plan ever survives contact with the players or the timetable.
• Many GMs love having random tables on hand. Sometimes a random encounter will give a GM time to breathe, maybe even get to the end of the session so you can regroup and prepare for what might be coming next.

This notion of “GM Burnout” is sensationalized to get YouTube clicks.

If I ever make a GM Burnout video on this channel that completely contradicts what I’m about to go into, please someone call me out on it? I’ve talked about this before on my blog. I think the whole notion of being “burned out” as a GM is completely farcical.

Most of the time being “burned out” as a GM has little to do with the game or the players and a lot more to do with whatever is going on in the GM’s life outside of the game. Unless you’re running multiple games per day and at least one game every night of the week, you probably don’t need to step back and take a break from Game Mastering. Even then, it’s a phenomenon more common to “paid, perfeshional GMs.” For the average GM on the street, running a game once or twice per week really doesn’t cause stress, grief, or anxiety.

Game Masters are people, too. We often have jobs, classes, relationships, and even offspring in out lives. Like regular humans (or so I’m told) we have stress in our lives from these various things, especially the offspring… Most of the time the game sits on the backburner of our lives.

Occasionally things happen that are going to put prep time if not the game itself on temporary hold. Cars break down, relatives get sick or worse, bills need to be paid, relationships experience strife or end, and any other number of weird things happen in the real world that cut into our real lives. Yes, that stuff is stressful.

Yes, sometimes that leads to sessions getting cancelled, one-shots being pulled out at the last minute instead of the regularly scheduled game, or an impromptu boardgame night/social gathering with the group if it’s in person. Life happens. It’s usually a good idea not to run a game if you’re too stressed to think straight as a human.

Mental health is important. Knowing when to step back and engage in self-care is important. Knowing when to talk to a professional such as a therapist is important. If your group has any sense of empathy, they will be cool with you taking a breather.

Nine times out of ten, this ridiculous notion of “GM burnout” is because of things that have nothing to do with the GM’s game, prep, or play style. In-game issues are pretty easily fixed most of the time. Player-GM interpersonal issues are pretty easily remedied as well. It’s all about communication as I said before.

Please be willing to at least try running a game session. It’s not as hard as it sounds. There are dozens if not hundreds of advice articles, tips, and strategies out there for new GMs. If you have any roleplaying chops as a player, being a GM is lots of fun.

Please do not let some of these DungeonTubers scare you away from being a GM or a player for that matter. I’m starting to think some of these guys are only into gaming for the money. Please do yourself a favor and listen to real GMs that have run a lot of real games. The bulk majority of us are here to legitimately help people.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

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