At Gen Con this year, I played Night Mother’s Moon, a modern Call of Cthulhu scenario which sends the investigators on the hunt for a crazed man who is hiding from occult-obsessed gang members. While I had some problems with the adventure, there was an an exciting section where we had to plunge into abandoned […]
Category: Adventure
“The next time you see sky, it’ll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it’ll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what’s right for them.” I love the energy of action horror of the 1980s. […]
A couple of years ago I found an old FASA Star Trek adventure that didn’t quite work out of the box, and rejiggered and remolded it into something new. I find that rebooting decades old adventures is not only a fun archaeology experiment, but also keeps my game design senses sharp. Designing around existing constraints […]
In previous posts, I’ve said how much I enjoy savage fantasy — fantasy adventures set on the primeval edges of the world, where life is cheap and magic is weird and dangerous. Conan’s Hyboria, Warhammer’s Old World, and Dark Sun are rife with savage potential. Sandbox adventures are especially appropriate for savage fantasy. A sandbox […]
In our modern era of generative AI, cybercriminals, and tech company failings, and the metaverse as far away as ever, I thought it would be a good time to dive into the genre that has been one of the most requested since I started this blog — cyberpunk! Not having played a cyberpunk game for […]
It occurred to me recently that the best, most classic RPG adventures come from a small handful of genres. Fantasy has a dozens of classics, horror has even more, and even science fiction has some fantastic ones, especially if you count the Traveller and Star Wars D6 ones. One genre that clearly does worse than […]
Last year, I did a fun game design experiment where I asked Call of Cthulhu fans what some of the most underused and forgotten Lovecraftian monsters were. I then took one of those obscure creatures — the alien Insects of Shaggai — and wrote an entire adventure around them. Centering an adventure around a monster […]
I’ve written a lot of adventures for this site over the years – twenty-seven in all! Somehow, I also find time to run other adventures, too. I recently had a blast running Goodman Games’ Tomb of the Savage Kings for Dungeon Crawl Classics, my favorite OSR game, which was only improved by the appearance of […]
I have sometimes found great inspiration when I am angry at the failed promise of another RPG adventure. As Yoda might have said, “anger leads to hate, hate leads to inspiration.” Years ago, I signed up for a one-shot Star Wars adventure at a local convention. The adventure sounded great — the PCs were a […]
Those of you who have read this blog know that I’m a big fan of cliffhanging pulp action. I think it’s one of the best genres for one-shot adventures — exotic locales, big villains, and fast-paced action! Plus, players are already familiar with the conventions, since it takes place in the real world and everybody […]
