Shop Now! But PDF and print copies of my games from a combination of DriveThruRpg, Indie Press Revolution, itchio, and on this site.
Blog Expect-three-visitors Expect Three Visitors - playtest My latest game is inspired by Scrooge and It’s a wonderful life. A story game of the possibility of redemption, no matter how bad someone is.
Blog Born-to-the-purple Born to the Purple - Design 03 Although the diplomats are agents of their government, it isn’t just the ruling body who call the shots. Who are the other power brokers within each regime?
Blog Born-to-the-purple Born to the Purple - Design 02 What kind of currency do I want in a game? Do I want people worrying about credit balance, or… something else?
Blog Born-to-the-purple Born to the Purple - Design 01 I’m working on a Forged in the Dark (FitD) science fiction game, with a working title of “Born to the Purple”. This is a short discussion of aspects and facts.
Blog Cards as Randomisers A deck of playing cards provides a wonderful set of randomisers in one convenient package.
Blog Inner-circle Inner Circle - Playtest I’m opening up the first playtest for Inner Circle. Please join me!
Reviews Review - The Between RPG A deeply atmospheric game of people with dark secrets hunting monsters in Victorian London.
Blog Inner-circle Blog - Inner Circle Mechanics What did I want to achieve? I had two things in mind for Inner Circle a push your luck bidding game Some light guidance/prompts for story elements to include in plans
Blog Inner-circle Blog - Inner Circle Concept I’m in the process of working on and playtesting my next game, which is called Inner Circle. It is a lightweight black comedy story game about terrible people working for a terrible dictator.
Reviews Review - Jump the Shark RPG Do you remember Happy Days, with Fonzie, Richie Cunningham and all their pals in a nostalgic situation comedy back in the 1970’s? It was fun, exciting and spawned a whole generation of people
Kickstarter Kickstarter Results Review At the time of writing I’ve done three kickstarters, and all of them have been successful. I think it might be interesting to do a quick review of how each of them have
Reviews Review - One Page Howitt During the last year of COVID I’ve had the great delight of enjoying some regular Sunday night games with friends from America. We’ve played a wide range of one-shot games and playtests. Today
Blog Barbed-wire Love & Barbed Wire Playtesting Playtesting of Love and Barbed Wire has produced some lovely stories. Here are some of the letters which people have created as a result of their playtest games
Starguild Blog Adventures in the Underbelly Update Things have been very quiet on the front of my first supplement to Starguild: Space Opera Noir. You can see a number of blog posts about work on these rules dating from 2017
Blog Blog - Mysteries in RPGs I love mysteries - mystery stories, mystery movies and especially mysteries in RPGs.
Reviews Review - Affinity Publisher Move over indesign, there is a new kid on the block and Affinity Publisher is better for game designers than you!
Reviews Review - The Kraken Wakes John Wyndham was a master of writing dystopia science fiction from the point of view of ordinary people. I think this is one of his finest, with elements which are directly applicable to
Lonely-courage Lonely Courage Actual Play I was hugely priviledged to have a number of groups of people record playtest sessions, and agree to have them made available for people to listen to.
Reviews Barbed-wire Review - Love Letters of the Great War In these days of instant messaging, WhatsApp and texts, the pleasure of writing and receiving letters is perhaps in danger of being forgotten.
Blog Barbed-wire Love & Barbed Wire My next game project that I am working on is set further back in time, during the first world war - the Great War. The quotes in this blog are from real letters
Reviews Review - Blades in the Dark Why I think Blades in the Dark is an important new design in tabletop RPG’s
Blog Blog - Retro Rulemaking It turns out that I’ve been interested in game design since my very earliest days as a gamer. Back in 1975 I read a review of Dungeons & Dragons, couldn’t afford a copy,
Reviews Review - Metatopia 2019 Metatopia 2019 Report Metatopia is the game design festival run by Double Exposure. I was able to visit Metatopia again this year, with a different game in a different state of development. It
Reviews Review - Fate Core Description and mechanics brought together beautifully through the rules for ‘Aspects’
Reviews Review - Timewatch RPG Time travel as an RPG genre is one with infinite possibilities, but really hard to do right. For my money, Timewatch is the best example out there today, and I’m going to tell
Games Lonely-courage A Cool and Lonely Courage This is an ENNIE-nominated tragic role playing story game about the women of the SOE (Special Operations Executive) during world war 2, for two to five players.
Kickstarter Kickstarter - Planning Funding v2.0 I’m working out the funding for a kickstarter again, and once more it is proving complex to get a really clear view on what the target goal should be. I’ve found it necessary
Lonely-courage Lonely Courage Playtesting I don’t think that any game designers underrate the value of playtesting. I want to tell you some of the improvements that I’ve been able to make to Lonely Courage as a result
Games Our Last Best Hope - Lovecraft Style Have you ever wanted to save the world from monstrous Cthulhu style threats from the lovecraftian mythos, in a one-shot game that follows classic disaster movie tropes? Then read on!
Reviews Lonely-courage Book Review - Between Silk and Cyanide, a code makers war Leo Marks was the principal code-maker for the SOE during the war. This book which is filled with wry humour and bureaucratic frustration covers his war from 1942-45. He was considered the “one
Reviews Lonely-courage Book Review - Lonely Courage by Rick Stroud This is the true stories of seven of the SOE heroines who fought to free Nazi-occupied France. The author has taken a chronological view of events from the rise of Hitler in 1933
Games Innsmouth Innsmouth Summer Camp This is information for a hack of Grey Ranks. It allows you to tell lovecraftian stories of horror and love for teenagers in Innsmouth, the spooky fishing town which has a rather too
Lonely-courage Stories of Lonely Courage Here are some stories from people who have played the game. The first one is based on the kitchen table recording which can be downloaded on this site. The following ones were told
Reviews Metatopia 2018 What does a tiny game design company do in order to get high quality feedback on a new game they are developing? Why, go to Metatopia of course!
Reviews Innsmouth Grey Ranks - Review I had always wanted to try a ‘story game’, but was afraid to try. I didn’t think I’d have the creative wits to be any good at it, let alone enjoy it. So
Games Starguild Adventures in the Underbelly Adventures which focus on the dark places, where evil people work on forbidden science. In this case that is Cybernetics and Psionics
Reviews Ten Candles I have come to understand that some of the very best games have mechanics which support the theme of the game in some way. For me the outstanding example of this is Ten
Reviews Book Review - 1984 So I decided to re-read 1984. I first read it about thirty years ago as a teenager, and I remember it being dreary and with a bit of horror at the end. Reading
Games Starguild Starguild: Space Opera Noir In space, nobody can hear you scheme… Space Opera style science fiction, with a noir twist!
Starguild Blog Underbelly Setting Dials What kind of power level do you want cybernetics and psionics to have in your Starguild game? Whether you like rare and dangerous or powers that wouldn’t look out of place in a
Starguild Blog What do psionic powers look like? Psychic powers cover a wide range of science fiction mental powers. They are broadly divided into six disciplines, each of which have a number of talents which can be gained within them.
Starguild Blog What Do Cybernetics Look Like? Cybernetics are man-machine interfaces of one kind or another. Characters and opponents can use money to build in additional capabilities of one kind or another, but at a cost – every bit of
Starguild Blog Starguild Core Game Design In this page I describe the fundamentals of the Starguild game - backgrounds, ability scores, skills, saves and Non-Player Characters
Starguild Blog Influences on Starguild When setting out to write an RPG, it is useful to consider all the influences which you have had along the way. Starguild was a long time in the making, and these are
Starguild Blog Professional Art on the pages As a result of the successful kickstarter, art is coming in from the three main artists that I have commissioned. These page excerpts show their work and my goodness I’m pleased with the
Kickstarter Kickstarter 6 - The print proof I want to be able to underline the fact that the game is done apart from additional artwork, and there seems to be no better way of doing that than being able to
Kickstarter Kickstarter 5 - Making the video Planning and preparing the kickstarter video is somewhat less straightforward than I might have hoped…
Kickstarter Kickstarter 4 – The Shipping Forecast If you live in the U.K. You are probably aware of the shipping forecast. It is an institution beloved of many in this island nation, because it reflects our relationship with the sea.
Kickstarter Kickstarter 3 – How many words on the back cover? How much text should you put on the back cover of a book? Well, I guess the first question to ask is “What is it there to do?” Actually, that might be the
Kickstarter Kickstarter 2 - What proportion of each pledge counts towards your goal? This is the second of my short blog posts about my path towards kickstarting Starguild. How much money do you need to raise, and what should you set your kickstarter target at?
Kickstarter Kickstarter 1 - So you're planning a kickstarter This is the first of a series of short blog articles about my kickstarter planning process. I hope you might find them useful or thought provoking