Often when I'm running a game, I focus on antagonist NPCs, characters who force me to think about what they're doing and how the player characters can react to their activities. It is rare when an allied NPC gets spotlight time, which brings me to this idea of "checklist NPCs". The NPC is associated with a checklist of prompts or events that best represent their purpose in the game. A player can check an item off the list to bring that event into play.
My online group decided to keep going with Monster of the Week, where the weeks are fast and the monsters are furious. This mystery owes everything to The Wraith, Blacktop Wasteland, Christine, Death Proof, Ghost Rider, Fast & Furious, and my childhood obsession with cars that drove by themselves.
I love spooky games for spooky season. Maybe someday I'll run one. Until then, *stick around* for a big dumb action movie for your Monster of the Week hunters.
Seriously, though. You know what you're getting into with February, but March? March is a liar. You need shorts and your winter coat close at hand. Anyways, here's what I've been up to during Scumbag Month.
Finding the right words is worth it, especially when they're going on a character sheet. Take the time to nail the right vibe and your games will be better for it.
I wrote up a very light PbtA game about mischievous animals trying to act like people and generally committing low stakes crimes in the process. The fever dream prototype of this game turned out to be the perfect fit for the roleplaying club I ran for elementary schoolers last year.
YOU ARE A STARFIGHTER. You dance through the void, strapped into a fragile hypervelocity shell capable of glassing moons. Now your colony worlds burn. Your fleets are scattered. The false prophets and traitor kings call you renegade. They hound you through uncharted space while billions of ghosts cry out for vengeance. Let them come. Show them how easily the hunter can become the prey.
Insomniacs is available in print and pdf from DTRPG!
In Part 1, I laid out an overview of my Ultraviolet Grasslands-inspired campaign world for my D&D 5e game. In this post I’ll outline the pantheon I created for the game.
My 5e campaign rips off a lot of stuff but none so much as the Ultraviolet Grasslands.
Don't Roll a One 