Just a Goth Girl, a Game Controller, and a Set of Polyhedral Dice
One of the goals for my new homebrew world that I'm most passionate about is to remove many of the old fantasy tropes that bring all their baggage with them to any new edition. I've talked about these in my last two World Building columns on Race and Culture. Now, I'm going to turn away … Continue reading World Building 5 – Mythology and Culture
This is more of a thought piece on how to incorporate real-world issues realistically into the fantasy worlds of our tabletop RPGs. Scholars of popular culture from Henry Jenkins to the present have long noted that we can use such conflicts in fictional worlds to discuss similar issues in our own world. Heck, we all … Continue reading World Building 3 – Race and Racism in Tabletop RPGs
When I started running a FantasyAGE campaign last year, I spent a lot of time reflecting on how I handle Skill Checks or Tests or whatever the system wants to call them. I know that when I first started DMing, I used a very simple metric: Pass/Fail. If the player’s roll met the requirements for passing, they … Continue reading Skill Checks: Success by Degree
I’ll start this off by stating the most basic truth: I’m not a huge fan of traps in dungeon design. I think that, more often than not, it’s an easy and lazy way to add difficulty or challenge to a dungeon. Also, it’s not realistic to have numerous doors and chests and floor panels and … Continue reading It’s Not a Trap! When Less is More
This post is about dungeon crafting, and it’s based on the Five Room Dungeon model. What I’m going to offer here are a few tips on expanding that model for those who want longer, more in-depth dungeons, why I like the “Five Room” model, and a refutation of some of the main criticisms of that … Continue reading The Five Area Dungeon
In my first World Building post I talked about starting small - giving your world a name, a brief history, a cosmological sketch, and then mapping out a single country. In this example, I mapped the island nation of Kalibor, home of the Elves. Now, we're going to reduce the scale even more so that … Continue reading World Building 2: Just a Small Town Tale
Let's talk about gender identity and play in a tabletop RPG setting. Now, I'm sure some of you are cringing at the thought. Some of you may be certain that I'm going to bash "white men" or the hobby store as a "boys club". Neither of those is my goal for this post. I'm going … Continue reading Gender Identity, Play, and the Tabletop RPG
So, I’m currently in the process of working out the narrative for a new campaign for a group of players, three-quarters of whom have never played any tabletop RPG before. I’ve developed a reputation over the past few decades as a Dungeon Mistress/Game Mistress who has a knack for bringing new players into the fold … Continue reading The Tutorial Adventure for the Tabletop
For this Tabletop RPG post, I want to focus on tips for DMs/GMs who want to build their own fantasy worlds. I've built my own fantasy worlds since the mid-1990s, and I've learned from my mistakes as well as from the successes of others. So, as I work to create a new homebrew setting for D … Continue reading World Building 1: Start Small
Today, I'm going to share something that's a bit different. I'm not going to talk about world building or advice for Dungeon Masters/Game Masters or even social issues in tabletop gaming. Instead, I'm going to give players tips on something that has helped me be a better player and more engaged with the story and … Continue reading My “Player’s Notebook”
Goth Girl Gaming 