Fall is my favourite time of year and often finds a place in my writing...it is a time of change, balance, and reflection, of celebration in the fruits of our labor over the past year. The earth itself transforms in a dramatic symphony of fiery reds, oranges, and golds-- a regal raiment to celebrate the… Continue reading Harvest Time!
As I've gotten older, I've realized I have a thing for "kits". It's oddly satisfying, gathering a collection of carefully curated items that share a common purpose...whether it's your camping gear, a first-aid kit, your go-to stash of snacks and sweets you keep in your desk drawer at work (I know I'm not the only… Continue reading Tools of the Trade
If you read "Why Stories are Important", you may remember that stories often teach important lessons about life and this world we call home. But wouldn't it be simpler, a more efficient use of time to just...tell them? Why waste time with a drawn-out story? Just say "Hey, don't go into the forest alone" or… Continue reading Remember when…
You've done it!! You've spent hours, days, weeks even, preparing for your campaign. You've created an intricate story to seduce your players with the promise of adventure. You've developed lively towns and masterfully-written NPCs with motivations and objectives of their own. Every clue, hook, and plotline is detailed in your notes. You're ready, from the… Continue reading Roll With It!
It's Story Time! This is my first post in a series of things I find interesting, entertaining, or just outright wonderful...and what better way to begin than to talk about a place that is near and dear not only to my own heart, but the collective heart of Cambridge as a whole: Heffers Bookshop! When… Continue reading A Story about a Bookshop
In "What I Learned from DMing for Children", I talk about running a D&D adventure for kids. In this post, we will explore some of the things that take place before you get to the table when writing the adventure. While there will be some overlap, I recommend reading that first post before you continue… Continue reading Four Tips for Writing Family-Friendly Adventures
And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream We have a large bookshelf in our dining room...the sort of square, modular kind with sixteen cubes, all filled to the… Continue reading A Scribbler’s Musings
The first series of the D&D Storytelling Workshops came to a close last weekend, with a fully customized, Scene-by-Scene one-shot in which the children had the chance to take turns acting as the DM. The adventure was inspired by the students themselves, using their ideas from the first two Workshops. In Workshop One, they created a… Continue reading Workshop Notes: Passing the DM Screen
“It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children.” J.M. Barrie People all around the world have been enchanted by fairies for centuries, to the point that we have an entire subgenre of stories named after them: the… Continue reading Concerning Fairies
Why do we do the things we do? What guides us to believe the things we believe? Each of us is shaped by our own unique blend of experiences, which creates a lens of perspective, through which we observe and interact with the world around us. For example: whenever I got sick as a child,… Continue reading Workshop Notes: It’s All About Perspective
