monkeyx
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After: Stonepunk Dreams at the End of the World
Every few months I get the itch for “my” post-apocalyptic game. I’m not looking for the one with gun-nuts in ice-cream vans or zombies in tactical vests, but something stranger: broken worlds, new cultures, weird ecology, big feelings about the end of everything and the awkward beginning of whatever comes next. Then I look at
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How I Run Session Zero
There was a time when my “session zero” was about fifteen seconds of nervous throat-clearing followed by, “Right, you’re all being hunted / fighting some gobbos / on a job for BigCorp. Go.” No discussion of tone, no boundaries, no sense of what anyone actually wanted out of the game. We just hurled ourselves at
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Dolmenwood: Pixie Boots on Firm Old-School Ground
There are books you leaf through and think, “Lovely art, someday.” Then there are books that smell like a campaign, the kind that squat on your shelf and mutter rumours until you give in. Dolmenwood is the latter: three brick-thick hardbacks that look like a children’s fairy atlas left out in the rain and retold
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A Simple Call of Cthulhu Chase System
I like Call of Cthulhu’s chases in theory. On the page, they’re clever: abstract locations, hazards, vehicles, movement rates. At the table, though, I always hit the same snag: I can’t remember the sequence, I start flicking through the book, and what should feel like a breathless sprint turns into a rules consult. So I
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Golden Scars & Bad Decisions: Reviewing Cosmic Dark
The phrase “cosmic horror in space” covers a multitude of sins and a fair number of excellent games. What makes Cosmic Dark interesting is not just the corporate-hellmouth vibe, but how confidently it structures that vibe into something you can run tonight. The book opens like a briefing from a smiling HR ghoul: you’re Employees
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How to Actually Improvise at the Table (Without Having a Panic Attack)
I run games in two completely different modes. On one side, there’s my Children of Fear campaign: a glorious monstrosity of prep. I’ve turned the book into episodic node graphs for an open table. Every chapter is broken into session-sized cards containing scenes and locations with arrows going everywhere. I have digital sticky notes, colour-coded
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a|state 2e: Hope, Grit, and the Corner You’ll Bleed For
I’m the kind of GM who likes frictionless rules and plenty of texture: fiction first, mechanics that nudge rather than nag, and a setting that gives me a reason to care whether the power stays on in a tenement. Also, I am an unrepentant sucker for good art; this book is a stunner. Paul Bourne’s
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How to Prep a Published Module
There’s a particular sadness in the eyes of a GM halfway through a 250-page campaign book. You can see the journey: they bought the shiny hardback, they decided to “run it as written,” they tried to read every word… and now they’re trapped in Chapter 4: Minor Trade Routes of the Eastern Barony, quietly regretting
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Beneath and Above: Diving into Heart & Spire
There’s a particular shelf in my study where the “beautifully doomed” RPGs live. You know the ones: art that looks like it was printed with occult ink, settings that smell faintly of incense and revolution, rules that don’t so much simulate reality as dare you to make better fiction. Heart and Spire sit there like
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Dragonbane – The Secret of the Dragon Emperor #2
After the adventurers arrive at Outskirt in the Misty Vale, they make straight for the Three Stag Inn. Warm light and pipe smoke spill from its open door, the sound of laughter and clattering tankards cutting through the chill evening air. Inside, they are greeted by Vagnhild, broad-shouldered proprietor and de facto leader of the
