An old coder’s new game dev adventures! — You know the saying…if you don’t hear from me, I’m working. It’s true for me, which isn’t always good in today’s world of attention currency. I’ve had fun with DragonRuby, Defold, and Lua. It is only as I edit this update that I understand why those tools aren’t working for…

Cool Ships, Hard Fights, Sharp choices and other Weird tales. — Good Monday, Gamers ☕ It’s been a week of Starfield and Armored Core 6 happening at my house! Max and I have both been playing Starfield. It’s been good so far. It’s an ARPG, nothing we haven’t seen before — yet! I do love the short, strong narrative character generation. Pick a background, pick…

Make NPCs your players love to hate! — Phil the Spook Phil started life as a Polish guy the Americans worked with, a liaison between the Polish folks in the community and the American forces hunkering down there. Phil isn’t even his real name, but he got tired of the Americans butchering his Polish name. Two PCs were detained and zip-tied…

Intro to the Lifted Superhero RPG setting Powered by Cortex I’m not the best at shouting out what I’m working on. Lifted: Indomitable is the biggest RPG project to date for me, and I’m excited, terrified, and giddy about it. I’ll do design inspirations, game vs. story, and how this…

Prep and plan for games on StartPlaying.games — If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. — B. Franklin Greetings Adventurer! I’ve recorded a great long session with Judd Karlman of the Githyanki Diaspora about his experiences running games on Start Playing. He shares his approach, what he would do differently, and his hopes for paid GMs down…

Roleplaying Faerie Agents of Change! — I did not want to play this game. Of the three or four roleplaying game options Judd tossed out for us to stream on Twitch/ActualPlay, I assumed the other players wouldn’t both pick this game. They for sure both picked Under Hollow Hills, and I’m sooo happy they did. For…

An old coder’s new game dev adventures! — Hello World I not only sling code for a living, but I’m also the owner of a code-slinging consulting business. These days I work on a lot of bespoke software for small businesses. Full-stack stuff. Ruby-on-Rails is my workhorse around here, often paired with a React front-end. We’ve done a few projects…

One Plan for Becoming a Professional GM — Hello gamer, [This article is the crossposted and free version from playfearless on Substack.] I travel a lot and often use Uber to get around the city I’ve traveled to. I often ask my driver: “Are you making money?” I get a lot of yeahs, and a few I don’t…

Good Monday Gamer Having wrapped up the first two books of The Dread Empire, I started on The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon. Mecha Fiction(whaaat?!!) The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon’s Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series. War machines and AI gods run amok in…