Hunting for Cthulhu

The Cthulhu Mythos is probably the most frequent setting for RPG games next to High Fantasy (excluding perhaps The World of Darkness). The original Call of Cthulhu RPG is still the strong favorite for Mythos games but has been followed by many other beloved games including Cthulhu Dark, Trail of Cthulhu and the Fate of […]

Tasha’s Cauldron

Are you done taking advice from a floating eyeball that worships his fish? Now you can get real grounded advice from a villinous witch instead! In all seriousness, I was / am totally hyped for this book’s release. For some reason though the first read left me underwhelmed. I came to like the book much […]

Muckraker System & Future Game Dev

It has come to my attention that not all persons are as obsessed with aliens as I am. This is honestly a bit of a shock. Nonetheless, I wanted to make my Tarot based RPG system accessible to lovers of all genres so now the rules behind the Martian Muckraker RPG are available as a […]

Halloween RPG: Pulse and Pressure

The rules for Pulse and Pressure now fit on a single buisness card! Wishing you all a Happy Halloween. Hope this game helps you create some scary stories. The Ghoul Master narrates how the players wound up in a dreadful situation. The player characters roll two dice when they take a risky action. On a […]

Pulse & Pressure

For those curious about how Martian Muckraker RPG is doing, please note that based on my playtest I have made a simplified dice system. A 3 page ruleset is ready that I will be playtesting with a group early November. If you want to take an early look at it, it is the Streamlined Hybrid […]

Roll for Trick-or-Treats

Nothing beats scary stories around the glow of Jack-O-Lanterns. But here’s the thing. . . you already know how most of the neighborhood stories go right? You can read your friend’s face and know when he will make the boogyman come out. What if there was a way to make them a bit more unexpected […]

Worldbuilding Spreads

Tarot is a most under appreciated tool in roleplaying games. If you need inspiration in a flash a quick tarot spread and give you tons of world building possibilities, devious plot twists or hidden clues. Here are some world-building tarot spreads from the most recent version of my Martian Muckraker RPG book followed by an […]

Playtesting and Other Extreme Sports

So the first Martian Muckraker playtest was a little rough. Maybe more than a little rough. A lot rough. It was rough. Solidly rough. So the first part of this post is to state that when you are designing a game: PLAY TEST PLAY TEST PLAY TEST. And be not discouraged. The chief areas of […]

Facing Fate Core

Many RPGs are known for their tomes and tomes of rules. The recent Pathfinder Player’s Handbook runs 600 pages (and I can’t wait to dive into my copy!) This allows the game designers to craft and simulate a detailed and fascinating world, and provide lots of meat for players to strategize with. There is a […]

Micro RPGs

Many people think of tabletop roleplaying games as requiring books and books of rules. However in recent years, there has been interest in rules-light systems. The limit case of this is the Micro-RPG or One-Page RPG. A Micro-RPG can cover its rules in four-pages or less and is designed when players want a quick-and-easy game […]