This early access PDF covers all the Shakespeare Sundays from the end of March through mid-May. The Merchant of Venice is an incredibly difficult play, but it is also an incredibly rich one. I hope you enjoy my exploration of it! PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1802623&i=81050
2015-03-02 06:55:55 +0000 UTC View Post
The rumor is that the 3rd Edition of Unknown Armies is supposed to be coming some time this year. I heartily endorse this. PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1802552&i=81048
2015-03-02 06:52:33 +0000 UTC View Post
After a series of delays, my essays on hexcrawling were left incomplete back in 2012. Quite frequently, people would ask me when I was planning to finish them. Now, thanks to you, I've wrapped the series up with two final installments, of which this is the first.
2015-02-25 18:22:07 +0000 UTC View Post
At long last, I'm finishing my series of essays on hexcrawling! As a special bonus for Early Access backers, I'm including a PDF of the entire series (dating back to 2012) along with the final installment appearing on Wednesday, the cheat sheets appearing on Friday, and the DM Worksheet. ZIP Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1751645&i=78379
2015-02-25 07:50:10 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a scenario I created early last year, IIRC. It finally hit the table over the weekend and so I'm sharing it with you here. The actual play experience of the scenario was not at all what I was expecting. That story will be hitting the Alexandrian tomorrow as a "Tale from the Table".
2015-02-23 20:04:36 +0000 UTC View Post
As I mention in my post-script to this article, "The Names of Legend" was my first professional sale. In fact, it was almost my first professional sale twice over. It was also the first time something I had written appeared in print. (Not counting the fantasy story that was published in the Post Bulletin newspaper when I was in 5th grade.) PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=17...
2015-02-22 05:55:02 +0000 UTC View Post
A nifty little scenario for Numenera that I hope you enjoy. I think the PDF presentation for Early Access backers on this one will actually add a lot of utility for you: The formatting is a little superior and printing will obviously be a lot easier. PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1734381&i=77088
2015-02-22 05:50:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Much like the Dungeon Level Connections addendum to Jaquaying the Dungeon, this material about prepping bangs was cut from the main Art of Pacing article because it grew to a size that was disruptive to the essay as a whole. Much like the film-banging of The Matrix a couple of days ago, this is material that was left in a half-completed state. So we're continuing to tidy up loose ends here at the Alexandrian. PDF Link: 2015-02-18 22:32:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Over the past couple years there have been a couple of series at the Alexandrian that have been left dangling with the last installments unfinished. With the Patreon going well, I'm responding to popular demand by returning to those series and tying off the loose ends. We're starting with Film Banging and we'll see where we go from there.
2015-02-18 19:45:15 +0000 UTC View Post
You may be wondering why you're only getting this early access PDF 24 hours before the article goes live on the Alexandrian. It's because I only just finished writing it. Phew. PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1708562&i=75172
2015-02-17 08:47:07 +0000 UTC View Post
You can see here how I would have stocked the City State with a number of small dungeons. What I didn't know at the time was that Judges Guild had taken a similar approach with WRAITH OVERLORD in 1981. These days you can easily find it online: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/56510/Wraith-Overlord-1981?affiliate_id=81207 Back then, I had no idea it even existed. If ...
2015-02-17 01:12:13 +0000 UTC View Post
The "mindwarp ale" pictured here is an actual liqeuer called VINIQ. It really does sparkle and shimmer like that (minus the purple glow). It's pretty cool.
2015-02-13 20:51:36 +0000 UTC View Post
I've had the flu for the past few days, so I'm behind on a bunch of stuff including producing new content for the Alexandrian and getting early access PDFs out to early access patrons. Fortunately, I had built up a little bit of a buffer of material so I think I should be able to get back on track before we start seeing outages.
2015-02-11 20:06:16 +0000 UTC View Post
Early access to all the Ex-RPGNet reviews coming in March: - Mao - Puppetland - Settlers of Catan - Power Kill: A Roleplaying Metagame PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1663127&i=71573 (Sorry for those receiving this update multiple times. Patreon didn't attach the PDF and I needed to repost to force the issue.)
2015-02-09 01:21:10 +0000 UTC View Post
This is the big wrap-up for the Thinking About Urbancrawls series. If you've got Early Access, you might want to take a moment and click through: I added several new chunks of thought to this post as a result of our discussions over the past month.
2015-02-06 19:07:30 +0000 UTC View Post
When I dive into old ideas like this I occasionally get the itch to try to complete the stuff that was never finished. But while it might be fun to explore the planet of Callashan some day, I think I'll leave it here for the moment and see what others might do with the fallow field. We wrap up Thinking About Urbancrawls on Friday.
2015-02-04 20:47:23 +0000 UTC View Post
This collects the Shakespeare Sunday essays that'll be appearing at the Alexandrian from late February through March, including: - The Three Texts - Disasters in the Sun - Hamlet Writes (Never Trust an Editor) - Hamlet: Of Acts and Scenes - In a Web of Tragic Flaws: Hamlet the Anti-Tragic Hero If you're any kind of Shakespeare geek, then I think "The Three Texts" and "Disasters in the Sun" will legitimately have you jumping up and down in glee. There's honest-to-god breakthrough material in th...
2015-02-01 21:58:13 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm wrapping up my current thoughts on using cities in RPGs, so let’s take a moment and go back in time by a decade or so. In May 2002, I sent Bob Bledsaw a query letter for writing an updated version of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. He sent me a polite, but somewhat vague, rejection. The reason for the vagueness became apparent a couple of months later when Necromancer Games announced their license to do exactly that thing. So I repackaged my proposal and shipped it over to Necro...
2015-02-01 07:45:49 +0000 UTC View Post
This is the point where we swap from research to conclusions. And I'm very curious to see what people think of my conclusions.
2015-01-28 19:12:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Comparing the wild creativity of the hobby's first decade to the truly remarkable homogeneity of the industry post-1982 is kind of amazing.
2015-01-26 18:31:59 +0000 UTC View Post
You know that a game is good when you want to drop everything else and run it. You know that a game is tragically flawed when it makes you want to drop everything else and rewrite it. PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1559032&i=64996
2015-01-23 19:35:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Mark Fitz called it yesterday: We're visiting Pavis and Sanctuary. (And also Tekumel and Boot Hill.)
2015-01-23 19:17:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Ronald has already described this as an "archaeological expedition". Probably true in the classical sense of rifling through other people's stuff and yanking out anything that looks valuable.
2015-01-19 20:48:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Early access to the Shakespeare Sunday articles discussing Cymbeline, including: - The Scripts: Cymbeline - Geeking About "Geek" PDF Link: https://www.patreon.com/file?s=446910&h=1513383&i=62954
2015-01-17 21:49:45 +0000 UTC View Post