I’m a tabletop RPG gamer and creator. When I’m not rolling dice, I’m writing adventures, crafting supplements, and drawing maps to fuel other people’s games. You can check out my work here:
- much of it is free.
At work, I’m lucky to have a group of fellow gamers who play together four days a week during lunch. I also have a family group that includes my wife, son, daughter, and some of their friends. We dive into epic online adventures every couple of months, building memories one session at a time.
I’m hoping to share more about my experiences and creations in 2025. To get a headstart, here are a few highlights from 2024.
I published my first adventure, Love and War at the Ren Faire. I posted this as part of the first Game Jam for the game Public Access. It’s a mystery about something fanning the emotions of Faire Goers into a fire that might just burn Deep Lake to the ground.
I also published my first game, The Awful Weekend On-Call. It’s a dark, solo story-telling game about being on-call for a tech company when everything goes wrong. If you’ve ever been on a tech support call, you’ll be able to connect to this game.
I’ve also played or run 14 different games this year, 8 of those were new to me. I may sneak in one more solo game before the end of the year.
Games That Stood Out
Public Access
Three members of my lunch hour group and I picked this up, and we’ve had a fantastic time. The level of player world-building is outstanding, and the writers’ room approach to resolving mysteries really clicks for us. I’m so smitten with the game that I wrote and published an adventure for it (see above) and even organized two game jams centered on it. If you’re into collaborative storytelling and love unraveling mysteries, this game is worth checking out.
Trophy Gold
One of the mysteries we ran in Public Access revolves around a D&D-like game and the PCs ended up playing it. To emulate this, I ran Trophy Gold as an Inception-style in-game RPG. It was such a hit that some of my players have asked to revisit it for a holiday pick-up game. Trophy Gold’s focus on dark fantasy and character-driven storytelling makes it an excellent fit for creating rich, atmospheric sessions.
Dungeon World
I’m currently running a couple of players through the OSE adventure The Incandescent Grottoes using Dungeon World. The three of us have been having a blast, though we’re still getting used to drawing moves from the fiction instead of the other way around. On my end, I’ve been working to be more proactive as the GM, breaking a habit of simply reacting to player moves. As we’ve grown more comfortable with the system, the gameplay has become increasingly smooth and rewarding.
Paranormal, Inc.
My after-work group and I really enjoyed the shared GMing approach of this game. After running games for this group for a couple of years, it was refreshing to join them as a player at the table. The shared storytelling framework encouraged everyone to elevate their world-building efforts, resulting in an engaging and collaborative experience.
Cthulhu Dark
I’ve been running an adventure from Times That Fry Men’s Souls for one of my players. We started with OSE but switched to Cthulhu Dark to push the boundaries of a minimalist system. While this game isn’t for every table, it’s been a delight for the right group. The ultra-light rules get out of the way and allow the story to unfold naturally through play, creating an experience that feels organic and immersive.
Things I learned
Demo Games - I was struck by short, actual play demos of games run on the Plus One Forward podcast. Since my lunch-hour gaming group is a bunch of IT folks playing at work, it’s pretty common for us to have to cancel a session because too many people got called into a meeting or an incident. In the past, that meant we just didn’t play. Now, we’re building a collection of mini-scenarios we can play with different systems. It’s been a fine way to try new games, settings, and genres.
Better Paint the Scene Questions - I’ve been using Paint the Scene Questions from Carved from Brindlewood games in other systems. Since they’re system agnostic, they slot right into most games pretty easily. Inviting players to do some of this small-scale worldbuilding has improved their buy-in to the games I run. The more I see of Pain the Scene Questions, and the more I use them myself, the more I want to hone my ability to write and ask these questions at the table.
Looking forward
I’m hoping to get some new games to my table in 2025: Haunter in the Dark, Pariah, Rosewood Abby, First Knight, Dark Streets and Darker Secrets, and Vaesen. This represents a variety of systems and settings.
If this year is anything like past years, I’ll play or run some of them, miss out on others, and end up trying some that aren’t on the list.
One of my players is developing a Carved from Brindlewood game called Charmbreakers. I’m hoping to play it once we wrap up our Public Access campaign. It’s exciting to see a gaming style catch on and spark this kind of creativity.
I really want to get my own CfB megadungeon game into a full playtest this year. I’m excited to use the mystery-solving system to represent the exploration of a sprawling dungeon. It feels like a potent mix that will result in some amazing games.