The calendar tells us that it's October, and while it may not feel like it outside, this is officially the season for spooks and scares. Given the time of year and the twenty-year anniversary of its release (and also of my owning it) the next game in my backlog playthrough was obvious: 2001's Silent Hill 2 . Much has already been written about this game (there's a reason it's on so many "Best Games of All Time" lists, after all), so this post will be neither explanation nor analysis, but rather a exploration of the way horror blurs the lines between the world that we know exists, and the way we feel it exists... and the way that games, both electronic and tabletop, are uniquely capable of embodying this dichotomy. Given my love of horror and all things surreal, it's kind of surprising that it's taken me this long to actually finish the game. At the outset, it was because I felt obligated to play the original Silent Hill first, even though I was va

Last week, we lost a man near and dear to a great many nerds. Sir Ian Holm passed away and left for the Undying Lands, and it shall be a sadder Hobbit Day this September. It is an utter shame and loss to us all that he couldn’t grow to Bilbo's ripe age of 131. Bilbo bookends the whole trilogy for us. Before we even start the epic journey through Middle Earth, we have Bilbo’s birthday, and we end (almost) with his trip to the Undying Lands. Bilbo is, in a way, our journey through Lord of the Rings. We’re borne into the series in fellowship with his birthday. We’re excited to see Frodo and his friends make it to the Last Homely House, and we’re jealous that Frodo has the Ring and not us. Finally, our journey ends with all of us on the ship to the Undying Lands with him. End of the story. How lucky we were to have such an excellent actor help us on this quest! This week we’re taking a look at one of the more dangerous events of Bilbo’s burglar career. If you’ve read the Hobbit or watc

There may come a time in your campaigns where you want the fun of combat without the stress that can bring. You probably want something a little heavier than pure roleplaying, possibly a team challenge featuring the thrill and random chance of combat, but less dangerous for the Player Characters. Enter... sports! (Something many of us into tabletop games haven’t been good at.) Sports offer an opportunity to include a game within your tabletop game. You can frame it as a local game regularly played wherever your players are currently visiting, a touring exhibition, or your universe’s very own Olympics. No matter what route you take, players love opportunities to test their luck, their character’s skill, and get a chance to win prizes or accolades without (too much) danger involved. It can be a great break if your campaign has been full of tense moments, and makes a good pause between major story arcs. The Olympics of our own mortal plane present a ton of great examples: protected, monit

It's no secret that we at Never Say Dice have been... strongly influenced by The Simpsons over the years, as we've mentioned before . The two of us can (and have) hold entire conversations with nothing but classic Simpsons quotes, something that's probably not too uncommon for our generation. (And portrayed in Rebecca Sugar's heartbreaking short comic Don't Cry for Me, I'm Already Dead .) And, while we both drifted away from the current run of the series, we still enjoy reminiscing about the older episodes we grew up with. This time of year in particular always turns our thoughts to the "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween specials and their numerous inspirations. In particular, one segment that often crops up in our conversations is "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores" from Treehouse of Horror VI. While it may not be our favorite "Treehouse" segments (that would be "Time and Punishment" for me and "Dial Z for Zombies" f

Happy Pi Day everyone, and Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Never Say Dice and all of you dear readers. It's hard to believe that we’ve been putting out posts every Saturday morning for two years now. As mentioned last year , we wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without the support of all of our readers. So, for our Pi Day Post this year, we’ve decided to do something different. You may remember our pie-pun filled adventure hooks in the previous years posts Happy Pi Day and Pi Day^2. This year, we’ve decided to slice up some character concepts that should serve as great  filling for your games. Before we serve those up though, we have another roundup of some of our favorite posts from the past year, and we’ll top it all off with a dollop of what you might see from Never Say Dice in Year 3(.14). - A Andy : It is hard for me to not select " The Matt Mercer Effect " as my favorite post that I did this past year. It's been the most popular post on the blog by far. Was it serio

Choosing who you would defend, or knowing who would have your back when the proverbial dung hits the fan should be pretty easy. When the dice hit the table, who do you want sitting alongside you to help destroy that dragon or make that million-to-one shot against the space station? Your initial reaction might be to name those same people... but is it really going to be those ones you’re already with? We’ve talked before about how you might convince people you know to join a game . For some of us, it really might be the exact same group. For many, however, the answer is probably very different. Why do we pick different people to join us at our tabletops? Have I been gaming with the wrong people? What kind of thought process even goes into deciding who we should game with? These are all very good questions, and this week we’re going to take a look at some potential answers so you can find the right game and the right people. - A A : Choosing your game preferences is a good first step to

"Tie-in." If you're hearing the term outside of a purely technical sense, odds are it's a pejorative. It's not something we call works we like, even when they fall within the (sometimes blurry) definition. "Tie-in" seems so cold, so mercantile, it might a well be "cash grab" or "knock-off." I'm sure you're already thinking of examples of tie-ins that fit one or both of those descriptions - but I won't name any myself, because all art is experienced subjectively. What might appear as crass commercialization to you may be the take on a character or property that "clicks" for someone else in a unique and meaningful way. Not to mention that, under capitalism, commercialization is inevitable, whether it's an original concept or something adjacent. And if we look at the concept of tie-ins the right way, we can gain some perspective that applies to our own creations... especially, as with most tabletop RPGs, they ex

April Fools! You know it’s a good holiday if an important part of it is shouting the name at an opportune moment. But who, and what, are the fools, exactly? The fooler, the foolee, the act of fooling, itself? The fools inside us or the fools we fool along the way? April Fools is somehow all of these and so much more. Rather than do a leg-pulling post of disingenuous nonsense (not to be confused with our regular… “genuous” nonsense?) that doesn’t read as well between April 2 and March 31, we thought we’d talk a little about how you can go about bringing some of that April Fools’ spirit into your games. Maybe even the spirit of the original April Fool, Dickens-style ? - B     B : Working out what makes any kind of joke “work” is always going to be tricky, if not impossible (a “fool’s errand,” one might say”, but pranks have the additional complication of needing the prankee to “buy in,” and accept something as presented to them, while also making the reveal accessible to them in some way

The COVID era, as we’ve taken to calling it, ain’t over yet - not by a long shot. But as vaccination percentages rise, restrictions are being eased at both jurisdictional and individual levels, and, while the decision is up to you and the other members of your pod (at least we get to use some cool futuristic terminology!), options are starting to open up. This week, we'll talk about our ideas for getting back to in-person gaming and and talk about how you can set up your own Post-Vax Agenda. - B    A : Strangely enough, despite how much we talk about it, I haven’t done any in-person tabletop games since over a year before the pandemic even started. Sadder yet, that campaign left a bad taste in my mouth like burnt pizza. I enjoyed it for what it was at the time, but now I wince at that burnt tongue feeling and nasty aftertaste. I have picked up a few games online since the pandemic started, and that’s been fantastic. Fortunately, those people are spread across multiple states, and t

“Oh man, it was so cool when…” We’ve all heard it from our friends and the people around us when talking about the media they’re engaging with, whether it be movies, books, TV, comics... you name it. For those of us who run tabletop games, words like these tend to get our GM-senses tingling. But how do you go about “making the pitch” to get them interested in joining your game? How can you take the things you know people like and build interest through them, even if your game isn’t officially attached to that media property? After all, “I heard you like explosions…” only tends to work on other GMs! - B   A: You'll probably find that there's a decent system for whatever media you overhear someone showing an interest or appreciation in. Spy movies, action flicks, fantasy shows, space operas... they all have their own systems, sometimes multiple, and often even attached to the specific property they’re interested in. It won't necessarily be what you want to run a game in, tho