Category: Words & Wonders Wednesday

Worlds & Wednesday:The Hardest Thing

People still ask me, every so often, whatever happened to The Dark Fantasy of Sundrah. It’s a fair question, and I’ve decided it deserves a fair answer. So pour yourself something warm, pull up a chair, and let me share a story about lessons learned, failure, and the simple, stubborn act of standing back up.

Worlds & Wednesday: Pulp. Getting it Right.

To boil pulp down to a look is to mistake the ash for the fire. You can paint a cover in faded sepia, scuff the edges, and ape every visual trick of the old masters — and still produce something utterly dead. Why…

Worlds & Wednesday: Yes and No in Editing

Over time I have learned that designing a setting is as much about saying no as it is about saying yes.
A good idea is not automatically the right idea.

Worlds & Wednesday: …for Game Masters

At Scaldcrow Games, there have never been armies of writers, editors, or developers producing books around the clock. There are only a handful of us, and that has always been the case. While I love ambitious projects such as Wild West Horse Opera, Rotwang City, and Cape Noire, those larger worlds require enormous investments of time and energy.

Worlds & Wednesday: Forged in the Crucible

As designers, we often get excited about the details: cool factions, unique locations, interesting characters, or clever mechanics. Those things matter, but before a Pocket World is ready for play, it must answer three essential questions.

Worlds & Wednesdays: From Spark to World

I build them this way because I have always preferred settings that leave room for imagination. Growing up, I often found myself disappointed when I reached the hard edge of a fictional world and discovered there was nothing beyond it. The most inspiring settings are not those that define every detail. They are the ones that leave a few corners unexplored.

Worlds & Wednesdays: Roots of the Game

Big publishers do incredible work, and I’m grateful for them. They built the roads we all walk on. But a healthy hobby doesn’t run on a handful of giants. It runs on hundreds of voices, each one weird and specific and alive.

Worlds & Wednesdays: Where I Game From

Every week, I share the best parts of what I’ve learned. My perspectives, my design notes, the stuff I got wrong and how I clawed my way back from it.

Words & Wonders: Action-ize or Bust!!

Let me show you how we approach it over at the Scaldcrow Games table, using what we call the Action-ize Method! — principles drawn straight from the action movies that built the genre. These ideas work at any table, with any system.

Words & Wonders: Campfire and Firesides

Storytelling is older than history itself, my sweets — it is history, before history knew its own name. Our distant grandmothers and grandfathers told tales to explain the thunder, to warn of the wolf beyond the light, to remember the dead and honor the brave.