Over thirty feet of swimming serpent that’s just at home in the dark sewers as it was in the fetid swamps. It lurks amongst the debris that floats in the opaque water, waiting in ambush. It’s constriction is aided by
Author: Chris
Junk Dog
Feral dogs that are living wild on abandoned landfills. The contents of the landfills have mutated them into something more insectoid than mammal. They feed on the garbage but are hungry for live food. The Junk Dog has been created
Porcelain Ghosts
There is little dignity in death but dying on the toilet is one of the least dignified ways to die and surprisingly common. Some souls are so shamed by this lack the dignity that they cannot face the afterlife and
Garbage Golem
Don’t have decent stone or a good supply of metal? The resourceful wizard uses whatever they have to hand including junk and refuse. Garbage golems are held together by their incantations alone as their constituent parts of rotting matter and
Garbage & Sewers: RPG Blog Carnival
Where are the toilets on the Enterprise? It may seem like a silly question but waste is an important part of life and therefore a potential source of role playing. For GM’s, thinking about toilets and garbage can give rise
The Red Shirt Problem
Why The GM Is Forced To Bribe Players A typical RPG plot involves the party arriving in town and being approached by NPC A because NPC B has been kidnapped by NPC C. The typical response by players to this
Story Creation Versus Story Discovery
The split between traditional and story gaming. Murdering The Plot A while ago I ran our whodunit adventure Mince Pies & Murder for the Indie+ team, gamers who are heavily into games such as Apocalypse World and Fate. These are
Can An RPG Tell A Story?
Four key reasons why story telling in RPGs is fundamentally different from other media. RPGs Are A Collective & Social Activity The great story telling media – oral, prose, verse, stage and screen – all have one thing in common.
Stories – The Bare Bones
Stories are defined by a basic structure – a skeleton on which the flesh of creativity can be added. The Arrow of Time In Star Trek (the original series) the crew and ship were identical in all regards at the
Why We Don’t Eat Red Berries From Spiky Leafed Plants
A bad story will always cause player frustration. A Long Time Ago After the arrival of a new pack drove them from their familiar patch of forest, Ug, Krg and their offspring find themselves in unfamiliar jungle. Hungrily they begin
Making Players Care
Why do we care about some games and not others? What Does Caring Mean? Simple answer: Investment The death of a loved one makes us sad because we have invested grey matter in that person. Our brains develop neurons dedicated
Why Stories In RPGs Are Important
The Brain Is A Story Teller Stories are literally how we make sense of the world and not just through the obvious mechanisms of metaphor and fable. To the brain there is no difference between the story of why a