They’ve finally done it, the players have made it to your big set piece. It wasn’t quite how you planned (not that ever is), but you’ve left yourself plenty of room to improvise. So much that… you have no idea which one to go with! Or maybe you’ve got a player who feels utterly incapable of coming to a decision if there isn’t an obvious course of action. Per the Oxford English Dictionary , “Option paralysis” (also known as “choice” or “decision” paralysis) is the inability to make a decision when presented with a wide range of choices, and it can take many forms at the gaming table… and even before you sit down! In an activity where our imaginations are frequently the only limiting factors, option paralysis is a near-universal problem. Let’s talk about the ways it can come up, and how we can cope with it. - B B : I find this often hits at the very first stages of coming up with scenarios, especially if you feel like you don’t have a good starting point, but also when you need to start

Planning on a Sunday drive this weekend? Oh no you ain’t, you’re going to play Pole Position! You may not have your Atari 2600 or 800 set up and ready to go (mine are safely packed in their dust covers). You may not have access to a sit-down arcade cabinet with wheel, stick shift and pedals. What you do have that's ready and easy to access is Risus: The Anything RPG . What is that? You can read about it in various places, including my Introduction to Risus on this blog. In a sentence: Risus is a rules-lite, versatile, and downright fun “anything” TTRPG. In my last Risus post , we looked at builds of the characters from Gauntlet for an arcade-themed setting I’ve been working on for far too many years, reminiscent of media like ReBoot , Tron , and Wreck-It-Ralph . This week, we’ll add Pole Position to the ranks of games included in this procrastinated sourcebook. If you’re somehow not familiar with Pole Position , you may want to go check out this historic arcade racing game. It

Once again, a Happy Pi Day to everyone and a Happy Blog Anniversary to Never Say Dice! We sure are glad that we've been able to put out some great posts every Saturday over the past year, and we’re especially that you've joined us. Special thanks to everyone following @neversaydice2 on Twitter who's helped us get to (and beyond!) 314 followers for this special occasion. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you. Last year, you may remember us baking up a few pie-pun filled adventure hook treats for you. This time around, we’ve decided to do a brand new set that will be radian minute for you. First, though, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite posts from the past year, and a few thoughts on where the blog will go from here. - A Andy : One of my favorite co-posts of the year would be the one we wrote about The Twilight Zone . We covered a lot of ground in that post, and it was one of our first to get over 100 reads in its first week. We posted it right before we got

Many of you may be aware already, but March 10 is Mario Day! Maybe you’ll break out one of the 200+ games featuring Mario (no doubt Nintendo will have deals on a few), watch the Super Mario Bros. Super Show or read some Super Mario Bros. comics . No matter how you celebrate the day, you’ll be spending time with a character who has a long history and background. Your first experience with our favorite plumber may have been in Donkey Kong , Donkey Kong Jr. (the only game where Mario plays the villain) or the original Mario Bros . My first Mario experience, as is probably the case with many of you, was with Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Mario had already appeared in 21 games by this point, but it wasn’t really until Super Mario Bros. that audiences saw the character we recognize today. To celebrate the character of Mario, in true Never Say Dice fashion, let's talk about the story within that game. Think about the first time you sat down with that legendary game: Super Mario Bros.