Bard of Valiant

A good survival game will have a variety of survivor societies and community-based settlements and groups. One of the more interesting and dynamic of these groups are the predators.
Predator societies are based around the hunting of other survivor groups. To a predator, a measure of one’s value and status in the community is his hunting [...]

Whatever RPG rules you choose, it’s really all about the dungeons and the dragons, isn’t it? In 2007 we visited Slovenia and got a full dose of both. Slovenia is just south of Austria, across the Alps. The alpine scenery is fantastic, with an emphasis on the fantasy. Walking up the valley to Predjama castle, [...]

My wife and I first visited Portugal about fifteen years ago. The visit was tagged onto a trip to Spain. Ironically, it turned out to be the highlight of the trip. This past August, we finally made it back to Portugal for a more thorough exploration. Our focus was on the castles and other historical [...]

Physicist Michio Kaku talks about different kinds of space-faring civilizations and discusses the challenges and achievements we face as we advance. Well worth watching.

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Getting your players involved in your setting can take work but an effective rule of thumb is, don’t answer all their questions. If you leave holes in the setting, players are going to ask questions about it.
Don’t answer these for them.
Instead, tell them you’ve deliberately left some things about the world vague so that they [...]

Taverns are a staple of many fantasy games. Roll 2d6-1 and pick one of these encounters for this week’s game.

When the players walk in, everyone at each table in the common room is drinking through straws from a bucket in the center of the table.
Every inn and tavern in the town stops serving drinks at [...]

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Magic is a huge part of any fantasy game and a common complaint for some is that it’s too common to the point of becoming mundane. If you’re hearing this at your table, consider this 3-part series by Scroll of Lankhmar on Keeping Magic Magical.
Part 3 is the best of the series with [...]

This guest post is written by Lord Oz in response to my post Classes and Levels Suck. Lord Oz is a fellow Steven Brust fan from Indianapolis, IN. today he writes about how to take level mechanics out of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Not too long ago, my players and I all felt constrained by [...]

Life in space might be a utopia or a dirty, nasty  existence. Take a look at these for some ideas:

Baby-Making is Tougher in Space As humanity expands its sphere of influence, immigration from Earth and other colonized planets might be the real impetus. If giving birth in space is difficult, if not impossible, think about [...]

For the foreseeable future I have private art tutoring on Wednesday nights now and like most people, I’m spending most of Tuesday night doing homework I have to grab time for this somewhere and I’ve decided to do it here.
Wednesday posts are now going to collections of links from around the internet.These links [...]