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In the Roots: Playing with Habitats and Ecosystems in My Bayou RPG

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Illustration by Gus Dirks for Bugville Life: For Big and Little Folk (1902) I haven’t interacted with the RPG Blog Carnival before, but I was so excited when I did finally happen across this month’s prompt: Tiny Epics: Small Souls in a Big World! by Errant Thinking . I love “tiny epics” of all shapes and sizes, whether in a devoted “swords-and-whiskers” game or through a more general use of scale as tension. Reading the posts from this month has been an incredible treat, and they have inspired me to take a more deliberate look at how I have (or have not) been encountering some of these ideas in my own upcoming critter-feature, BAYOU .  In particular, I wanted to write a bit about my intentions and aspirations for creating environmentally-informed player critters (PCs). First, though, a general claim for consideration:  Defining “Player Critters” I believe a game’s “character creation” procedures are the most pivotal expressions of that text’s voice and spirit. This is the f...

Additional Tips & Resources for Provenance of the Dead

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Provenance of the Dead , my competitive storytelling game about archaeology, was   recently published in the collection Roll for Learning: 51 Micro Role-Playing Games to Use in the Classroom  by Play Story Press, which you can get free ( or print on demand via Lulu)! The "textbook version" of Provenance of the Dead (whoa... P-O-D)   includes tips for facilitating the game in your classroom, reflection prompts, references, and an expanded ruleset.  These supplements might be useful/of interest to gamers and material culture-fanatics outside of the classroom, too. Since the book is also Creative Commons, I copied these appendices over here for easy reference! Here's a brief rundown: Best Practices for Playing & Tips for Running the Game Safety tools, referee roles, time-keeping, and extra rules for "advanced" or more squarely collaborative play Guidelines for Classroom Implementation Adapting subject matter, necessary background knowledge, ethical conside...

Worsening the Whippoorwill Wood: Expanded Travel Procedures and Setting Tables

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I recently put up a new version of my Cairn adventure Wands of the Whippoorwill Wood on itch.io . The update is 90% quality of life edits, alongside some slight flavor and prose shellacking added for a new print run earlier this year (you can find the full changelog here ) . Here are some things that didn’t make the cut—namely, additional travel procedures to replace the standard ones detailed on the Travel in the Wood page of the adventure. These tables capture themes and flavors habitual to the Whippoorwill Wood I have in my head and run at the table, but don’t make much imprint in the text itself. I play the module heavy on daze, misdirection, psychedelia... aiming for the Wood to feel like a brambly finger trap that contracts the further in you trek ( one gimmick away from the Count’s Men scratching “War is Hell” on their kettle helms... hopefully). These procedures were ultimately too cumbersome to sit in the 30 page booklet itself. They help works towards that confined feel tho...