Our family has a lot of board games. Gaming has always been a huge part of how we entertain ourselves and also an important part of our kids’ education. But typical “educational games” are almost uniformly awful. And unnecessary — all games can be educational in one way or another, whether they use math or […]

Mouse rubbed his jaw. The muscles were tight from clenching his teeth which had been chattering all night as he tried to sleep in the shallow cave he found as the sun began to set last night. Having no skill in fire building, he merely huddled against the rounded wall and tried to make himself […]

Alia woke in the dark room as she did every other morning. She got dressed and made tea. The kettle heated the water for precisely three minutes and thirty-seven seconds before clicking off. While it was simmering, she put the tea infuser in her cup and scooped exactly two teaspoons of looseleaf, ceylon tea into […]

This is how the paladin fell. “…and lead us not into temptation…” Javid didn’t know much, but he knew the Dawnfather brought the light, brought good, brought hope. Most of all, he knew the Dawnfather saved his mother when she was near-death after eating destroying angel mushrooms when he was too young to know the […]

“This last card, Death, represents your future. But don’t worry, it’s not talking about your actual death. Death represents an ending and, possibly, a new beginning. However, when it’s reversed, as it is now, it’s the lack of that end. This card is saying that you are stuck, or there’s a danger that you might […]

The smell of coffee and ramen intermingled with Cheetos, a 12-pack worth of empty cans of Mountain Lightning and a hint of male body odor. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed somewhat, joining a chorus of crickets outside the open window. The mood was tense. The group sat around a small table, notebooks, clipboards, binders or […]

Snelgorb liked wind. He liked the feel of it on his scaly skin. He liked the way it tickled behind his horns and along the ridges on the back of his head. He liked things that made wind, too. As a youngling, he loved to just spin his sling around and around in front of […]

All the chefs at Animulus were highly trained professionals. Culinary experts. Nothing less than the best, the brightest, the most talented culinary artists in the world. For the privacy of their patrons, only one party per night was served. Plates were not infrequently thousands of US dollars. And the waiting list was months long. Everyone […]

“Hello. Hell-o. Helllooooooo.” She was never good at small talk. Simply saying simple words of greeting felt like a waste of time. It’s implied that she was addressing them, right? People get that, right? “Hello. Hi. How are you.” The words feel unnatural on her tongue. Practice makes perfect. Or something. That’s what they say. […]

Crisp air fills my nostrils and I open my eyes to whiteness. Temporarily blinded by the sun overhead, I rub the dust and grime from my eyes, feel the dryness in my nose and on my lips as I look around to gather my bearings. The flat, parched desert expands all around me, broken up […]

Continuing from my last post about my (analog) DM workflow, I thought I’d share my virtual DM setup, since there are a number of things I’ve picked up over time that have proven to help quite a bit, as well as learnings that I’ve picked up along the way. Platform: Roll20 It may not be […]

I recently moved my site to a new host. And I’ve also added my partner’s site to the WordPress multisite stack running this site and a number of others on this domain and chrisreynolds.io. Previously she was using WordPress.com, but was frustrated by a lack of adequate support and persistent caching bugs that even I […]