Category: Tabletop Gaming
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When the Party Fights: Using In-Game Conflict to Teach Real-World Resolution
Conflict is absolutely essential for great storytelling. At the gaming table, it can create drama, tension, and growth… as long as everyone’s onboard. Sometimes, though, what starts as roleplay could actually reveal personal discomfort, and that discomfort is easy to weaponize.
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From Dice to Dialogue
I once had a student that we’ll call “Leo.” Leo was tall, Leo was compliant, and Leo was largely nonverbal. This provided difficulty in the classroom, because it was his senior year at the autism center where I taught, and I wanted to do everything I could to prepare him for adulthood.
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The Illusion of Knowing
Imagine for a moment that you’re in a dark-but-candlelit room, across a modest table from a wizened woman. She squints at oversized cards spread across the navy-felted table, and she begins to speak: “Ah yes… I see a decision weighing on you…” You hang on to her every word. What if this same narrative trick…
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From the Neighborhood of Make-Believe to the Tabletop
When I was a kid, I had a happy place: It was peaceful, it was slow-moving, and it involved a geriatric changing into a sweater before feeding the fish and playing with a train. My happy place was Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
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Yes, And… Insight: How Improv Rules Make You a Better TTRPG Steward (and Human Being)
The beautiful thing about tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), which a lot of video-game players have difficulty realizing at first, is that the adventure you’re on doesn’t have preprogrammed coding.
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Your First Step into SEL through TTRPGs
Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) can serve as powerful tools for social-emotional learning (SEL). I made this bold claim in my last blog post. When the TTRPG is rules-lite and optimized for collaborative storytelling (like Ealdsmyth), the potential for SEL increases exponentially.
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How Storytelling Builds Empathy—and Why I Made a Patreon for It
If you’ve ever watched a group of teens lower their guard—suddenly collaborating, reflecting, and finding unexpected courage—you already understand what I’m trying to build with my new Patreon.
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Your game needs tattoos. Here’s why…
I don’t have a single tattoo on my body, and yet I had an absolute blast writing my latest book, Under the Skin. It’s all about incorporating tattoos into your tabletop roleplaying gameplay. My obsession with imaginary tattoos started when playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition and leveling up my character so that he could “craft magical…
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Embracing the Boogeyman
As an ’80s child reared in the Bible Belt, I had the common fear that tabletop roleplaying games–specifically Dungeons & Dragons–paved a pathway to eternal torment. Fast-forward to the present, and I find myself writing supplements for leaders of such games.
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Got books? My fun resource for DMs/GMs
I just published a book! Along with my fellow creator, the talented Roger Speer, I’ve created a resource for game masters/dungeon masters of tabletop roleplaying games. Our book, Off the Shelf, keeps game masters from staring awkwardly whenever a player inevitably says, “I check the shelf for books.” What once served as a master class…
