The Magician-Detective: Bugsy's Mission Statement

Hello, Dear Readers. I’m Bugsy, and I make up half of Never Say Dice. I am a writer, a gamemaster, a musician and songwriter, a scholar, and ~~most~~ best of all, a fool. I’d like to talk about why I’m here, what I’d like to accomplish in this space, some things we might talk about, and we’ll start with the totally not made-up thing I wanted to be when I grew up: a Magician-Detective.

Two of my absolute favorite, best-loved books as a kid were The Young Detective’s Handbook by William Vivian Butler and The Magic Handbook by Peter Eldin. Maybe I just liked handbooks, but these two made my most voracious obsessions both practical and real. I wanted to be the knower of secrets: to find them, to learn them, to keep them. The seeker of truth and the teller of lies. The Magician-Detective. Many years later, when faced with the obligatory “when did you first want to be a writer,” this imagined vocation immediately sprung to mind, and I realized that, without knowing, I had fused the disparate, contradictory roles of a storyteller. All my life, I’d longed to find the man behind the curtain, to study his ways, and one day, to take his place.

In this space, I would like to talk about storytelling and narrative for all the other kids who wanted to be Willy Wonka, the Wizard of Oz, or the Cheshire Cat, to lead their poor trusting protagonists with a grin through landscapes of wonder and nightmare. Sometimes, this will be about writing. Sometimes, it will be about gamemastering. And sometimes I’ll talk about works of media and what material we can take from them to spin into pretty, shining lies. I’m especially eager to sink my teeth into the storytelling frontiers of video games, since there’s so much to explore, but also film, fiction, and (naturally) tabletop roleplaying.

By going through all this, by mapping out the gears, polishing the mirrors, and having an honest heart-to-heart with the hamster in the wheel powering the whole thing, I believe we can all become better storytellers, better gamemasters… better liars.

So please, pull up a chair, pour a cup of your preferred psychotropic beverage, and watch out for the scones - they’ve been known to bite.

Combat Culture

For the past two years, this weekend has seen “ Moments of Silence ” posts, the first in response to the murder of George Floyd, and the second to comment on what had taken place in the ensuing year. This year, the weeks leading up to the anniversary have seen a number of brutal, preventable, man-made tragedies, and, given their nature, the standard litany of finger-pointing - particularly from those desperate to draw attention from the obvious connection between mass shootings and the ready availability of firearms. In addition to their current favorite targets, both human and conceptual (funny how the blame always falls on the people they were already mad at), and something that can only be described as “architectural victim blaming” (at least Ted Cruz’s comments about doors are being roundly mocked), the old classics were trotted out, including that aging recurring villain: video games. Both of us at NSD were in the same graduating class as the Columbine shooters, so, while we wer

The Mission Will Be Very Safe and Fun for Everyone: Some Thoughtcrimes on Running Paranoia

I'm sorry citizen, but the question "why hasn't there been a Paranoia post in over fifteen months" cannot be processed. Records indicate that the previous post, " [Backstory Redacted] - Getting Ready to Run Paranoia " was activated in the Year 214 of the Computer, and, as this is currently Year 214 of the Computer, your internal chronometer must be malfunctioning. Rumors that is has always been Year 214 of the Computer are treason. Please report to Internal Security for cerebral re-adjustment. Have a nice daycycle. So, why hasn't there been a post about Paranoia in fifteen months, anyway? The previous two have been quite popular , and, as I'm fond of saying, I've put more thought into this game than nearly anything else in my life, formal education included. As time went on, I found myself procrastinating on the follow-up. I didn't have enough time to work out everything I'd want to cover, I'd tell myself, or that some other top

An Introduction to Risus

While roaming the internet in the late nineties/early noughties, I came across a TTRPG that was rules-lite and called itself “the anything RPG.” Want to play a high school cheerleader/samurai-in-training part-time goth enthusiast fast food cashier? The hot pink stick figure art glared back at me. Nah, not interested. But I was wrong. The stick figures were actually purple, and Risus is a surprisingly versatile, handy and down right fun TTRPG. I wouldn’t figure that out though till I discovered it again several years later. Even though it was written as a comedy system (and somewhat lighthearted response to GURPS) you really can use it for just about anything: space opera, high fantasy, pulp, vampires,western, any movie setting you could think of...seriously anything. You can read a far more detailed and interesting history in a number of other places should it strike your fancy. It is time for your Risus indoctrination introduction. Risus really is versatile and fairly easy to learn

Be a Grinch! (in a Tabletop RPG)

The Holidays may be almost over (for a while), and we hope you’ve all enjoyed your seasonal music and movies/specials. We here at Never Say Dice have covered the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special and the new LEGO edition a few posts ago. A common thing many of us into tabletop RPGS like to do is incorporate media into our games. After all, many of us have grown up with the blending of media and the holidays as a given. It provides us a framework to build on and a common touchpoint to the people at our tables, virtual or otherwise. One classic character featured in holiday specials and commemorated in his own song is the Grinch, the avocado-green villain with strange cardiac growth problems apparently linked to his personality. The Grinch, villain though he may be, has a slew of characteristics that would make the character an excellent one at the gaming table. Those of you not familiar with Suess-lore may really only know the Grinch from the How the Grinch Stole Christmas animated

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