If you're a geek online (and I have it on good authority that you are), then you may have come across sites like Github or Gitlab, and you may know them as places where programmers store their code. If you're particularly adventurous, you may have even downloaded an open source application from suc...
The floor here is not paved, but covered in dirt, gravel, and sand. As characters walk, 1d4 of them must make a Dex or Saving Throw, or be caught in fast-moving dry quicksand. Characters have just 1-2 minutes (50-50% chance) to find some way out.
Magic might help. A long pole which extends beyo...
Jules Verne is one of my favorite authors. He's one of those classic speculative fiction writers who gets your imagination churning with cheap thrills and incredible plot-lines. I could spend a whole week reading his stuff and never get bored. Or I could just re-read a handful of his books, like 2...
This is an item for clerics and thieves. It appears as a ring with a stone of shiny black onyx. It will radiate powerful magic if tested for.
The Shade Ring gives the wearer influence over ghosts and ghost-like entities. Such beings will see the wearer as a person to be trusted and followed, a...
Trigger warning: Food,starvation
Game masters: Be sensitive to your players before using this cursed item.
This cursed item has to do with food, and may upset anyone with a history of eating disorders or who knows someone with a eating disorder, or anyone who experiences discomfort over...
Have you been procrastinating in your resolve to finally get into tabletop RPGs? Have you been thinking about buying Pathfinder or Starfinder rulebooks, but the prices are too steep? Today's your lucky day, because you can get everything you need to play Pathfinder, which is the continuation of D&D...
I found Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning back when there were a few good video podcasts doing reviews of video games. Those are mostly all long gone now (at least the ones I was watching then), bought up and then killed off by TV stations looking to control visual media (I guess). At the time, I...
Upon triggering, an incredibly powerful magical magnetic field forms in the area, drawing all metals (ferrous or not) up to the ceiling. Characters wearing metal armor are thrown to the ceiling without any chance to react, taking 1d6 "falling" damage.
Metal weapons, coins, or other metallic...
HTML and CSS are wonderful tools, and examples of how technology can be both powerful and yet easy to learn. To this day, if you go to a well-structured website and look at their code, you can teach yourself the basics of web design without investing a single penny. That's exactly what open source...
Originally consecrated to the worship of a god of spies and assassins, Telltale Candles allow magical types (ostensibly, the clerics, priests, monks, or nuns of the spy god) to watch the movements and actions of anyone who uses one. Radiating magic if tested for, these will appear as expensive-lo...
Do you play music during your game to set the mood? Here are the top 10 albums that have been playing in the background of our D&D sessions.
1. Basil Poledouris - Conan the Barbarian
Most Poledouris soundtracks are great for a game, but the power and might of the original Conan is an i...
A valuable item (adjust the price in gold pieces to whatever appropriately entices your players) is trapped in a block of magical ice.
The ice melts as normal if heated, but the loss of weight triggers the release of a suspended pendulum (a sickle) made of magical ice. This swings down at any...
I'm a big fan of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian series. Along with the Tarzan series, I used to read Conan stories while visiting my grandparents, because my grandfather had a vast collection of dime novels stashed away in his workshop.
Today, I think many people associate Conan, or ind...
Upon triggering, the floor in the affected area collapses into a chasm, except for a very narrow balance beam in the center. Characters may roll Dex, Saving Throws, or use some sort of acrobatic skill to grab hold of the beam before falling (GM's choice). After this, walking across the beam will re...
I stumbled across a little one-issue zine called A Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming today. It's maybe 12 pages long, and it is an *excellent* book on [tabletop] RPG gaming. If you're a fan of OSR, or if you're just curious about the history of RPG and how it influences games and gamers today,...
If you're in the mood for some classic RPG adventuring, look no further!
Brent P. Newhall is an astonishingly prolific creator of games, game materials, blogs, and more, who has, among many other clever things, produced a charming little high fantasy role-playing game called Dungeon Raid...