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Fresh Starts

by | Jan 12, 2026 | ,

It’s a new year! Time for resolutions (I don’t do those, BTW). Time for fresh outlooks on life. Time to plan some goals (I do make goals for the year, BTW). Time for some fresh starts. These fresh starts can come in many forms. New characters. New campaigns. New games. New Systems. New...

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A large bookstore in Seoul. There are walls of books, and numerous people shopping for books.

Why this game?

by | Dec 19, 2025 | , ,

For the most part, I pick the games I am going to run by, as the kids today say, vibes. It has always been instinctual. I hear about a game, the right ones set off my Spidey Sense, and I am hooked. That has been my method for the last 43 years. At different points during those years, I have...

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Gnomecast 227 – Actual Play and Your Game

by | Dec 17, 2025 |

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GC_228_AP-and-your-game.mp3 Join Ang, along with Chris and Josh as they talk about Actual Play games as entertainment and what we should and should not take away from them to use in our own games. Ang has been on a Critical Role kick and wants to...

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Gnomecast 226 – Get this Party Started

by | Dec 3, 2025 |

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/GC_226_Getting_Started_final.mp3 Join Ang, Chris, and JT as they discuss different methods to pulling a party of characters together at the start of a campaign. They talk about everything from strangers shoved together to deeply established...

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A stack of folded newspapers on a table.

Background Events

by | Nov 26, 2025 | ,

One of the things I love about Blades in the Dark is that it has a mechanism for creating background events for your campaign. During Downtime (though I do this after a session), you roll to see how various factions make progress (or not) on their goals. Mechanically, this is a series of Fortune...

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Prepping Your Game in Obsidian

by | Nov 21, 2025 | ,

The perfect game notebook doesn’t exist. That said, out of all of the notebooks I’ve tried—physical, digital, or otherwise—I’ve yet to find an option as close to perfect as Obsidian. I love it a lot, and what’s the point of writing for a TTRPG blog if you can’t share that nerdy love with others? So here’s a rundown of why I think you should try Obsidian with some tips for how you can use it to organize your campaigns, improve your prep, and evolve the way you run sessions.

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Gnomecast 225 – What’s Your Type?

by | Nov 19, 2025 |

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/GC_225_Whats-Your-Type-.mp3 Join Ang, Jared and Josh as they talk about the types of characters they like to play, why they love those types, and why it’s also good to branch out and try other characters. Links: Global Comix Seth Skorkowsky...

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Make It Personal

by | Nov 14, 2025 | , ,

Session zero is packed. Like, really packed, with so many things to do and consider and take care of. There’s establishing the style/theme/tone of the game. Discussing safety tools. Establishing a genre to experience. Determining which system to use. Figuring out what setting to romp around...

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A close up of a piece of paper and a pen, as the pen writes the words, "Once upon a time".

Preludes

by | Oct 29, 2025 | ,

In my current Blades in the Dark game, I started to post preludes in our Slack channel a few days before the game. These preludes are short narrative pieces, centered on one of the characters, and convey some information to the players about the upcoming session. It is not the first time I have...

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Small Groups vs. Large Groups

by | Oct 24, 2025 | ,

How large is your RPG group? Small? Large? Average? What are the ramifications of each size of group? Do you have too few players? Too many? It all depends on what you’re looking for in your games and sessions. Back in early high school, the largest group I was part of had 15 players and 22...

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It Came From The Stew Pot

Hey you. Yeah, you. Do you know about Gnomecast 21? Why isn’t it in the archives? What are they hiding? If you value your safety… don’t go searching for Gnomecast 21…

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