We’ve written a few times on the blog about using commonly shared media to get people into gaming and developing your group's games . Finding common ground can be key in getting your group to coalesce just right. You can’t stick to just that, though. While you can find plenty of shared humor and excitement by walking the same ground you know you all love, you need to expand your horizons to keep games fresh and interesting. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go digging, though, inspiration can be found in any sort of media or event if you consider it long enough and apply it well. So, this week, let's take a look at some unconventional media that could inspire our tabletop gaming stories. A Novel Idea Television shows and movies do it all the time: steal from classic literature and folklore and make it your own. Would the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror episodes be the same if they hadn’t reused classic episodes of The Twilight Zone ? Would Gargoyles have been as enj...

It wouldn’t be the spooky time of the year around here without Never Say Dice digging up some '80s and '90s macabre media or exhuming forgotten toys. In the past, we’ve talked about a myriad of Simpsons " Treehouse of Horror" episodes , had a Mad Monster Party , and played around with finding inspiration in monstrous toys such as Blurp Balls and Boglins . It was an era in which creepiness abounded, and you could find it in just about everything, even things like after-school cartoons and breakfast cereals . Beetlejuice was one media franchise that was adapted into all those things and more... it's even been on Broadway ! (Lets face it, the cartoon was a great kids' show and the action figures did some interesting things you didn’t typically see.) So, with the franchise being revisited on the big screen in the form of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , why don’t we see what inspiration it can bring to our games? Ghost with the Most Across all of the various forms o...

It has happened before, and will happen again. You’ve spent your time aligning schedules and everyone can make it. You’ve been making sure everyone has the things they need to play, the dice, and the pens. Everyone has been well-fed or food has been otherwise arranged. All the details are taken care of... except you’ve spent so much time on all of that other stuff that you’ve neglected to plan for the session. Maybe you have a few ideas in your head, but no solid map or villain for the night. What the heck are you going to run as an adventure this evening?! Does all that sound familiar to you? You could always forgo the scheduled RPG session and just break out a board game. That may be fine every once in a while, but all the scheduling and everything else involved in gathering people (even virtually) is always going to be  next time. Before you break out that (non-roleplaying) other tabletop game, or even while you’re doing it, we might be able to take some inspiration from it for ...

Orange gourds and their kin are popping up all over. Halloween decorations are starting to dot the North American landscape. “Basic" people (we're told) are rushing to the shops to get themed lattes. The smell of the fall season is in the air, and the time has come to bring that fall feeling into our tabletop games. And I’m not just talking about the Risus Pumpkin Spice Edition ... no, this week we’re talking about the pumpkins themselves! From the smallest squashes to the greatest of orange fruits (yes, pumpkins are a fruit, not a vegetable!) pumpkins dominate the fall season. And what better way to bring all that autumn-ness into our games than by incorporating this old favorite. And just how will we do that? Grab yourself a slice of pumpkin pie or bread (or maybe some pumpkin soup? Roasted pumpkin? You pick!) and join Never Say Dice as we do a little picking at our pumpkin patches. - A Flavored Text The quickest and easiest way to get fall, and pumpkins, into your game is t...

Game shows were a huge family favorite when I was a kid. I’m pretty  certain that my mom still watches them.  We used to watch everything that was available: Classic Concentration , Family Feud , Jeopardy , Let’s Make a Deal , The Price is Right , Wheel of Fortune , and all the rest. And then there were the game shows for younger audiences - it isn’t any wonder that kids, including myself, would gravitate towards this media when it was targeted directly at them. Shows like Video Power , Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (which, in its various incarnations, will probably get its own post on this blog at some point) and Finders Keepers found eager viewers in  homes everywhere they were available. Of that era, the most famous was probably a little show called Double Dare . Originally running from 1986 through 1993, with revivals in 2000 and 2019, Nickelodeon’s Double Dare grabbed the attention of kids from all over, a group that expanded even further when it entered b...

This weekend marks a very special holiday that's important to many of us* - National Frog Jumping Day! While one might argue that the holiday started in 1865 with the publication of Mark Twain’s famous short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," , it wasn’t until 1893 that the tradition of an annual Frog Jubilee complete with frog jumping competition started. Held every May 13th, it's a tradition that continues today, with the record high frog jump still standing from 1986 at 21 feet and 5 ¾ inches. While neither of us here at Never Say Dice had heard of Frog Jumping Day, the jubilee or the record before this week (that we can recall), at the very least we're familiar with the works of Mark Twain, and it got us thinking about some very important frogs from other media. Specifically though, the frog that came to mind this week is none other than the amphibian hero of Frogger (apologies to fellow Marylander Kermit). What exactly is Frogger ? It...