by guyeatsfood

Actual Prep: The Harvest Hag for Legend in the Mist

I’m fascinated by prep, in all its forms – one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. My own and others. A quick check online leads me to believe lots of you are, too. So, I’m going to showcase this on the blog. I can’t promise every session I’ll share my prep notes, but I’ll try and do it where I can!

These are also going to be 50% patreon exclusive – half of them will never be released to the public – so spread the word, and let me know if you’d like to share your own prep and talk to me about it. This one is not patreon exclusive – it’ll be hitting the Burn After Running public blog a week from today. So enjoy! If you want further details or have actually run the game, let me know; I’d be delighted to hear how it goes. For this, of course, you can actually watch the actual play as well – we had a lot of fun, and, I think, a complete gaming experience in 1 hour 20 minutes or so.

I was determined to run Legend in the Mist on Unconventional GMs, and so needed to work out a way to get a full story in less than 2 hours – and then I happened on their Halloween Creature Pack, which contained a lot of the challenges here. In terms of gameplay, Legend in the Mist is really nice to prep for – basically, you just need to think in terms of challenges. Each scene has some NPC notes, where it fits into the plot, and then 1-2 challenges that are the game bits the players must engage with.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

We Need to Talk About Safety Tools

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Everyone agrees with them, there’s a bunch of videos about them, all conventions do them. Except – we don’t really. We don’t need them for trusted players, do we? We don’t need them in our home groups, only for conventions. We don’t need them if we’re just playing D&D, only for horror games. Well – these are all wrong. Let me tell you why we need to talk about them.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Actual Prep: Cult of the Worm-Thing for Nimble

As promised, here’s an example of an adventure structured as a story circuit from Ion Heart. We actually tried to record this for Unconventional GMs, but technical issues meant we couldn’t get it to work – so here I am recycling it here.

Nimble’s an excellent D&D-adjacent system with no roll-to-hit and some great GMing advice in it – the monsters and opponents here have been reskinned and/or designed using the advice in the core book, and as I often do I’ve just sketched out some possible encounters rather than tying them to a specific location or scene. Other than that, this is presented as a pretty raw example of Actual Prep, that gave a solid 2 hours of low-level D&D fun – enjoy!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Story Circuits – what Ion Heart teaches us about one-shot gaming

As you know, I’m a big fan of the power of solo gaming as a prep technique. And Ion Heart, a solo mech exploration RPG from Parable Games, has a structure for its missions that we can certainly re-skin for group games – and one that is especially suitable for one-shot gaming: Story Circuits.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Gone Viking! – First Look: Age of Vikings Companion

If you’ve read any of my blogs about game lines before, you’ll know I have a lot of affection (nostalgia, even) for a good old fashioned supplement. By this I mean a mixture of additional material for a game – player options, subsystems, source material. You won’t like, or use, everything – but usually there’s something in it that’ll grab you.


And so, Chaosium’s first proper supplement for Age of Vikings is here. And this is as random an assortment of stuff as you could imagine. Like other first looks, this isn’t a review – I haven’t used this book at the table yet – it’s based on a read-through and hopefully gives you enough to decide if it’s for you. I’ve plans afoot to get Age of Vikings to the table with some of these options, and I’ll come back with a proper review when that’s done.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

What Ho, Jeeves! – Three Gaming Things from Jeeves and Wooster

In the latest in an occasional series of TTRPG tips from films, TV, and books, I’m looking at PG Wodehouse’s humorous novels charting the misadventures of Bertie Wooster and his unflappable valet, Jeeves. This was inspired by a trip to a second hand bookshop and a purchase of Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, the last book Wodehouse completed, and barely a novel, really – 45,000 words that you can polish off in an afternoon. It’s light prose, tripping wordplay, and has some TTRPG advice hidden within – whether we’re playing something lighthearted, or not.

If you’re unfamiliar, PG Wodehouse’s series, written throughout the 20th century and set in sort of the same era, follow the misadventures of Bertie Wooster, a happy-go-lucky aristocrat, and his unflappable valet Jeeves. Their adventures often involve becoming engaged to marry by accident, stealing cats by accident, getting involved in hair-brained schemes, and wriggling out of said schemes. Through it all Wooster, the narrator, is hapless but lovable. Jeeves is inscrutable but brilliant, and often effects a solution to the problems faced. I’m not sure if it ever went outside of the UK, but if you’d rather watch it than read it, there’s an excellent TV adaptation with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry that you can no doubt find loads of clips of on TikTok and while away an afternoon getting the gist.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

I ran D&D for 5 teenagers – and survived

Well, that’s it. I volunteered at a summer residential this past week, and offered to run a D&D game as one of the daily activity group options participants could sign up for. I think my experiences have some salient tips for running D&D for kids, running for new players, and making all of that fun, so here goes…

What I did…

So, let me share the format. 5 players (we started with 6 but one had to drop out half-way through the first session), 5 daily sessions, 1 hour 15 minutes each. So, 6 hours 15 minutes in total – so we had to get through stuff quickly. Previously, I’ve rolled my own stuff for this, but I didn’t get a chance and so went with Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, one of the three 2014 D&D Starter Sets – spoilers ahead for that, if spoilers for an adventure published in 2022 bother you. We got through it all with some mild surgery on some of the plot points. Here’s what I learned…

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Coin, Blood, and Words Pt. 3 – Dialect

I’ve just returned from the Prignitz in Germany, where a few days playing games in a Schloss have left me full of ideas for the hobby. The Kraken is a boutique gaming retreat – if you’re at all interested in a diverse set of games with international players, join the mailing list and come and join us.

And I got to play three new (to me) games – all facilitated by other GMs, and all great. This is, I guess, a sort-of review – but full disclosure, I haven’t read these games, only played them – which is the opposite to how most RPG reviews work, but no less (more?) valid. This is a three-part post; I’ll take each game in turn, tell you about it, what I really liked (and was less keen on, if anything) – and crucially, would I play it again.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Coin, Blood, and Words Pt. 2 – Royal Blood

I’ve just returned from the Prignitz in Germany, where a few days playing games in a Schloss have left me full of ideas for the hobby. The Kraken is a boutique gaming retreat – if you’re at all interested in a diverse set of games with international players, join the mailing list and come and join us.

And I got to play three new (to me) games – all facilitated by other GMs, and all great. This is, I guess, a sort-of review – but full disclosure, I haven’t read these games, only played them – which is the opposite to how most RPG reviews work, but no less (more?) valid. This is a three-part post; I’ll take each game in turn, tell you about it, what I really liked (and was less keen on, if anything) – and crucially, would I play it again.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Coin, Blood, and Words Pt. 1 – Two Sides To The Coin

I’ve just returned from the Prignitz wilderness in Germany, where a few days playing games in a Schloss have left me full of ideas for the hobby. The Kraken is a boutique gaming retreat – if you’re at all interested in a diverse set of games with international players, join the mailing list and come and join us.

And I got to play three new (to me) games – all facilitated by other GMs, and all great. This is, I guess, a sort-of review – but full disclosure, I haven’t read these games, only played them – which is the opposite to how most RPG reviews work, but no less (more?) valid. This is a three-part post; I’ll take each game in turn, tell you about it, what I really liked (and was less keen on, if anything) – and crucially, would I play it again.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →