Game Design Archive

1January 23, 2012
Slumbering Heroes – A Super-Powered Campaign Setting

Every gamer faces the same dilemma at some point: What game should I run next? Well, this article proposes that you take two genres and slam them together to…
33January 12, 2012
Interview with Angel Leigh McCoy, Stories in the Ether Author & Guild Wars 2 Designer

Angel Leigh McCoy loves writing. Her fiction has appeared in numerous print and digital media, and in 2011 alone she published stories in the anthologies Beast Within 2, Fear of the Dark, Growing…
20November 7, 2011
Game Design and Risk vs. Reward, or Why Game Balance Matters

Last week I was briefly involved in a Twitter conversation with Sean Preston, Michael Wolf, Tracy Barnett, and Marshall Smith about whether Pathfinder RPG or another system (Savage Worlds) would be…
6November 1, 2011
#SteampunkGear on Twitter

I’ve been posting on Twitter over the few weeks the names of fantasy steampunk gear under the hashtag #steampunkgear. Things like “Dr. Stanley’s Eicosapentine Oil of Mysteries” or “Armstrong’s Pneumatic…
9October 19, 2011
Mind Flayer Redesigns

I have been reading H.P. Lovecraft lately and he is influencing my style a bit… The mind flayers – also known as the illithids – are one of the most…
3September 21, 2011
Challenging Terrain: Hysterical Mob [4E D&D]

[reus id="6967" meta=""] I employed this in a game where the scenario had the party members in a crowded temple – every square occupied by something or something – when…
0July 28, 2011
Souljack: Card Crack

It seems …we can’t have our cake and eat it too.
5July 20, 2011
What makes a Badass Steampunk RPG?

I would argue even that all the really badass examples of steampunk happen when the genre (a mashup of genres itself) is mashed up with another genre.
0April 14, 2011
Lessons from Recent Movies

At a recent film festival, I had the opportunity to watch three movies, Skeletons, Bird on a Wire and Mission London. As this is an RPG blog, I will discuss…
1February 28, 2011
Worldbuilding

[reus id="6967" meta=""] I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on Flying Island Press’s monthly podcast, Galley Table, along with Zach Ricks, Jeff Hite, Doc Coleman, Scott Roche,…
0December 29, 2010
Gunplay and Powder Weapons III

This is the third of what should have been a two part series about including firearms in a fantasy role-playing game. This article covers the design plan that went into…
12December 14, 2010
Gunplay and Powder Weapons I

[reus id="6967" meta=""] This is the first of two articles about including firearms in a fantasy role-playing game. This article discusses including firearms in terms of game philosophy and game…
0December 5, 2010
Greetings from December 5th, 1920

I am one of the newest contributors at Nevermet Press and it is time for an introduction. An unfortunate accident involving a time machine and a sledgehammer stranded me in…
8November 19, 2010
The Dead Queens of Morvena – Cover and Setting Preview

Here’s a preview of the cover for the upcoming Dead Queens of Morvena for Savage Worlds. Matt Meyer is the artist – you can check out more of his work…
0October 29, 2010
Horror: What Scares You?

I’ve been spending a good amount of time lately thinking about horror. NMP’s upcoming product Dead Queens of Morvena fits snugly into this genre. The basic premise of this setting…
22October 28, 2010
Grit, Steampunk & Fantasy – Sources of Inspiration

Many of you who follow Nevermet Press know that we are working on a quasi fantasy steampunk setting called “Loaerth & Feywyrd” (although we prefer to think of it as coalpunk)…
0September 3, 2010
Notes on Demons and Undead

by John Payne I wrote this for Shayakand and plan to develop it in the future. Feel free to adapt them to your setting. For more details behind the scenes,…
2August 25, 2010
Where’s the Love? Emotion in RPGs

by John S.R. Schutt While the world RPGs is filled with abstractions and simplifications, from the hit point system to the alignment system, one thing that remains constant, at least…
5August 23, 2010
Elves in Sheep’s Clothing

by Christian Martinez Hello everyone! This is my first post here on the blog and I hope to be making more on a fairly frequent basis. I’m a new face…
3August 20, 2010
More Than Reskinning the Horse

by John Payne Sometimes I want the players to feel like they are in a place that is different. I don’t mean different in a disturbing way, but in a…
4August 13, 2010
The Chaos of Game Night

Immersion, Interaction, and Organic Worlds by Charles Dickey When I engage in a role-playing game, whether as a player or GM, my highest priority is immersion. A few defining points…
11August 9, 2010
“You feel strangely compelled to…”

by Tony Hoffart Have you ever heard “You feel strangely compelled to…” said by the GM during a role-playing session? I have, and I’ve probably said it myself a few…
0August 6, 2010
Deathscapes: Addendum

by JSR Schutt I have seen death. Thoughts circulate in my mind of what I wrote in that last post, what I understand now I did not then, what better…
3August 4, 2010
Personality as Attributes?

by Tony Hoffart As a designer, I generally lean towards more “simulationist” approaches to games. Not that I prescribe to much of the high-minded gaming philosophy schools that people might…
1August 2, 2010
Deathscapes

by J.S.R. Schutt The afterlife is not something to be taken lightly: neither here in the real world nor by characters in the fictional worlds of roleplaying games. In our…
0July 30, 2010
The Business of Religion

by Tony Hoffart One of our talented writers, Matthew Meyer just finished a couple very interesting posts on Alignments and the Divine in D&D, and like all good discussions about…
2July 26, 2010
Mixing it up with EVIL

By Jonathan Jacobs Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons is used as a guideline by players and dungeon masters (DM) to compartmentalize the game world into clear choices of good or…
11July 21, 2010
Religion in Roleplaying Games

[reus id="6967" meta=""] Religion in most RPG’s has always seemed bland to me. No doubt it’s due to the sensitive nature of the subject, but it seems like successive systems…
16July 19, 2010
RPG Character Alignments

By Matthew Meyer Alignment has been a staple of many roleplaying games since the industry’s beginnings. It’s been the subject of countless essays in fanzines and blog posts. Most people…
5July 18, 2010
The Jokes On Us: Putting Jokes & Humor Back Into Table-Top RPGs

In character humor and jokes are an easy fix to stale RPG – the problem is, where are they?