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Post GenCon Report
This past weekend I returned to GenCon for the first time in 10 years or more. For the uninitiated, it is the grand festival of table top gaming, much like San Diego Comicon is for comics. Unlike SDCC, it still holds tight to its roots and is chock full of people playing games at all hours of…
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Yggdrasil MGZ Halloween Preview
In the mythology of Yggdrasil, necromancy is one of the worst crimes that can be committed. This class in conjunction with the Grey Guardian illustrate this. It will come with a host of Necromancy wyrds, a new Necromancer skill, and a new magic item, the Bound Bracelet. It has been a lot of fun to write up.…
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Yggdrasil MGZ Halloween Issue
I have a fondness for Halloween and Halloween themed issues of magazines. It is only natural that for my own, Yggdrasil MGZ, that the third quarterly issue would follow suit. I already had the seeds in place with the second half of the comic I was finishing for it – it’s a ghost story – so…
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Halloween Issues
A lot of my game design and writing these days is a reflection of my fondness for the weird publishing moment of the 90s. Though entirely unsustainable as a business model, you have this rush of high quality print products hit the market seemingly all at once. Bookstores were awash with magazines covering every subject…
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Who Doesn’t Love a Good Monster?
One of my favorite things when I was a teenager was the loose leaf pages of the AD&D 2E monster manuals. I loved how the best entries treated the monsters they covered with the seriousness of an 18th century naturalist, positing theories on how a goblin exists inside its corner of a wider ecosystem. And as these…
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Tribal Discovery and Adoption
Gaming is a conservative medium. The dominant vehicles of play, like D&D, are centered on the conservation of the past, and has foster a culture adverse to the exploration of new ideas. Even people deeply progressive in their politics are deeply conservative when it comes to gaming. Why is that?
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Yggdrasil Magazine. Away We Go!
Last night I launched a crowdfunding effort to bring to life a quarterly gaming magazine called Yggdrasil. I am filled with excitement, and a bit of dread. Excited because I love creating things and sharing those things with others. Dread because of the vulnerability you expose to others when you share your self. So, par…
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Into the Barrow Downs We Go
As often happens around the holidays, my kids get the LOTR Fever. This is a legitimate diagnosis that stems from our marathon watching of Peter Jackson’s Extended Edition Lord of the Rings movies on New Years Day. It leads to a sudden uptick on related board games, audiobook listens, and this year, a request to…
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Journey into Almost Something
Two weekends ago, a friend of mine and I decided to finally take Journey into Middle Earth for a spin. He isn’t into table top games, but is willing to give it a go. I figured that it could be a gateway drug into other games, as it combines the familiar (it is run with…