Every time I reread The Face in the Frost, I mourn the fact that John Bellairs gave up writing adult fiction for young adult fiction. (Not that there’s anything inappropriate in the Face in the Frost. In fact, I read it as a kid)
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
John Bellairs: gothic horror for kids
Monday, May 29, 2023
Some tiny PnP dungeons
When I saw Crumbling Dungeon by Alexander Sheen, I thought it looked familiar. A little bit of looking through the old records and I found that it was because I had tried a later iteration of the concept called Dungeon Dailies.
Friday, May 26, 2023
Roll and Writes and the art of staying sane
LAs folks who read this blog know, when I got into Roll and Writes, I really got into them. I became one of these folks who will bore anyone who will listen to me about my obsession . So you can guess what this is going to be about lol
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Aging and Super Heroes
In Michael Stackpole’s afterward to I’m Hero Years… I’m Dead, he wrote about how he had to publish the book electronically because publishers didn’t l know what to do with a superhero novel. My, how the world has changed. I credit the MCU movies with making superhero novels and Cape Punk viable.
Monday, May 22, 2023
If everyone uses the same spell, it’s probably broken
Many years ago, when Wizards of the Coast tweaked Dungeons and Dragons and gave us 3.5, a friend of mine said that ‘when everyone is using the same spell, you know it’s broken’
Friday, May 19, 2023
The Grand Opening is good, gentle fun
I went into Dark Imp’s Placemat games with some reluctance. For one thing, some of them are ink heavy and I’m stingy with ink lol
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Time to move across the country
Yes, it’s that time again. Time to move across the country again.
Monday, May 15, 2023
Silver age idealism and Cape Punk
Around a year ago, I wrote about how I had started reading the ‘Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain’ series. (Man, I’m not sure how to shorten that. Please Don’t just sounds creepy)
Friday, May 12, 2023
Rules that makes sense shouldn’t be optimal
I decided to try out two different Roll and Write games that I had gotten from PnP Arcade, City of Muziris and Grand Opening. And the experiences ended up being a fascinating contrast in coherency.
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Hey, thanks for Hoity Toity too!
As we learn how to live in a world without Klaus Teuber in it, a number of folks have pointed out that he made more than the 194 gaming products that have the word Catan in them.
Monday, May 8, 2023
A blurry snapshot of Operation Market Garden
First off, I am not a war gamer. I have played war-themed games and I have played a few games that actually cross the line into what I think can honestly be called a war game but I don’t have the drive or interest to be what I could call a war gamer.
Friday, May 5, 2023
Tents and Battleship
Camping Gaming is always an adventure, particularly with a child who would rather play video games. (No, we don’t take the Switch to the mountains) This time, we discovered that Colorform makes an edition of Battleship.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
My April Gaming
I have to say that more of my time gaming in April was spent decompressing than learning new games or exploring more complicated games.
Easter Egg Roll and Write
Turn on the Lamp (14th R&W contest)
Tabletop Arcade: Roll and Snake (14th R&W contest)
Numbsters
My First Castle Panic
Monday, May 1, 2023
My April PnP
I honestly hadn’t thought I had done much PnP crafting in April. Then I looked at my files and had to say ‘Oh, I guess this was in April and not March’
Möbius Circuit (2023 In Hand Contest)
Power Brawl (2023 In Hand Contest)
Fungi of Phalanges Forest (2023 In Hand Contest)
Flipword
Agincourt (low ink version)
Numbsters
Opening Night
Tiny Epic Kingdoms (two-page low-art demo version)
Royal Limited (demo version)