RPGChat Topic: Alt-History and Your Game
This week’s #RPGchat is a special one! We’ve got the incredible Elsa S. Henry on board to guest host as we discuss alt-history settings and games. Not only is Elsa a historian, she’s on the cusp of...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Running a Generations Game
It’s lonely at the top, but more than that, it’s kind of boring. Not every group gets there, but there can come a point with a long-running or high-level campaign where you feel like it’s all been...
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New Columns and Administrivia!
Hello, faithful readers! It’s a big week here at The Illuminerdy! We’ve got two new columns that we’re preparing to launch in the near future and we need YOUR help to get the off the proverbial ground....
View ArticleUsing Google Earth Pro To Chart My Dracula Dossier Scenario
One of my favorite things about writing and running GUMSHOE games is that everything in them is true. Ok, maybe there aren’t really shoggoths and ghouls and vampires—or nobody will admit there are—but...
View ArticleWelcome to Table Tots!
It’s official! The Illuminerdy will be home to my new column, Table Tots, all about gaming with your kids (and your extended family). I’m really excited to launch this project – it’s a thing I’m...
View Article#RPGchat Topic: Well-Known Settings and Your Game
It’s that time of the week again! #RPGchat is just around the corner (and, remember, we’ve not made the switch to DST here in Europe, so it’s at 4pm ET instead of the usual 3pm ET!). Today, we’re going...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Compelling Gaming
Build a better mousetrap, the world will build a CR12 mouse. At least, it feels that way as a GM sometimes. You can spend an afternoon figuring out and statting up the perfect adversary or challenge...
View ArticleTable Tots: Nobody Likes a Sore Loser
Welcome, dear readers, to the inaugural article of the new Table Tots column! I’m so excited to be writing about kids and games and how the simple rolling of dice can strengthen our familial bonds,...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: On Board
Easter always makes me think of Halloween, in part because zombies and in part because bunnies. And on one Halloween, during our tradition Halloween one-shot game, a GM in the group had us all set up...
View Article100 Word RPG Hook: Widdershins
A Fairy Tale No moon. No stars. No light for the chipped clapboard siding to reflect. But the old church glowed. No bell hung in the steeple, but the air rung in time with his gasping breath. He ran....
View ArticleExperimental Remixes: Omertá, an Alternate Setting for Night’s Black Agents
Cu è surdu, orbu e taci, campa cent’anni ‘mpaci “He who is deaf, blind, and silent will live a hundred years in peace” In Night’s Black Agents you play highly competent covert ops and intelligence...
View Article100 Word RPG Hook: Bermuda Triangle
The Hunt The Bermuda Triangle is a myth. Just another patch of ocean, statistically no more significant than an equivalent area anywhere else in the Atlantic. But there are…places. Places where things...
View ArticleEmergency Gaming Kit: It’s Not Post-Apocalyptic Until Someone Has a Dog
The scenario – you need an emergency one shot game for a bunch of your friends. You can’t put any more time into plot development than the players will be putting into character creation. You need to...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Character Recycling
Generally, I’m a fan of recycling in all its forms. Yet it took me years to come around to the notion of recycled characters in tabletop gaming. For a very long time, I simply didn’t get why so many...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Onion Nights
If you’ve been paying any attention to the tabletop games coming out the past few years, it’s easy to spot a trend of systems getting simpler, quicker, softer-edged and more lightweight. Fate and FAE,...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Fusion Dance
If I only ever learned one thing from the rabid fixation with fanfiction, it’s that there is no out-of-bonds for the human heart. But if I only ever learned TWO things from fanfiction, it’s that people...
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#RPGchat: Plot Twist!
Hello out there, #RPGchat crew! I originally planned a super long post about this, but in the end, I’m just diving in: With our move back to America complete and my hiatus over, it’s time to make some...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Pattern Recognition
There’s a fantastic article from earlier this year about the ‘shape’ of choice-based games. It was based on the Choose Your Own Adventure books many of us grew up with, though the principles apply to...
View ArticleBehind the Screen: Alpha Weirdness
The most terrible thing about Tiggers is just how common they are. I should explain. A ‘Tigger’ in this case is a player who’s deeply dedicated to having a super-unique character and making sure...
View ArticleIt Happened Again: The Illuminerdy Nominated For an ENnie
I woke up this morning to discover it had happened again. No, not that. This. The Illuminerdy has been nominated for “Best Website” in the Gen Con/ENworld RPG awards, better known as the ENnies. I...
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