“I Attack the Goblin.” D&D Combat Can Be Much Better Than This
‘I make a flurry of blows attack and two bonus attacks' turns into an active contribution to the narrative of the battle being collectively spun at the table.
Domain of Many Things
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I guess I’m a videogame developer now, too
I found a video which talks you through making a videogame in PyGame (that’s another Python library, like PySpark). Massive thanks to the author for making a really good tutorial, that’s really easy to follow.
Better World building At The Table Is Easy - Quinn’s Quest Reviews Stonetop
Quinn's Quest season two covered Stonetop, a fantasy TTRPG that tackles the classic lore-gap problem where GMs know everything and players know nothing by baking collaborative world-building directly into its rules. Rather than slowly feeding players lore over many sessions, it prompts them to co-invent the world as they play. Nifty like a fox.
Who Was Woodes Rogers? Pirate Borg World Building
To understand Woodes Rogers is to recognise two distinct chapters of his life which without a doubt go on to change the course of history for Caribbean piracy. Since Rogers must play a pivotal part in my Pirate Borg campaign - as with Blackbeard, we’ll start with his relevant real history up until 1719 where my campaign picks up.
Pirate Borg Factions - Blackbeard And The Scourge
Drawn by instinct deeper than memory, the corpse made its way toward Chesapeake Bay to reclaim what had been severed from it. When Blackbeard stood whole once more, something happened. Unlike the rest of the Scourge, he retained his will.
Who Was Blackbeard? Pirate Borg World Building
I’ve bit the bullet and and I’ve agreed to run a couple of one shots for Pirate Borg. One’s for my regular group, and the other is a group of people I met in a local online community. This is all well and good, but it got me thinking more about Pirate Borg lore.
How To Run A Dungeon - Fixing The Lost Mine of Phandelver
Here’s the problem, if you grew up in the 90’s or later, and have only ever played 5e - it’s likely that your only detailed point of reference for what a dungeon experience is like comes from video games - maybe something like Zelda (Ocarina of Time - best game ever made. Fight me!) The issue here is that they teach the player that a dungeon is this linear place, to be solved in a set way, with…
GM Burnout - When You Just Can’t Anymore
GM Burnout is a unique form of creative burnout, where a lack of inspiration and joy from the creative aspects combines with the drain of the relational and performance demands of the role.
Happy New Year! 2025 Is Over!
Post 52 baby!
I Posted A Blog Once A Week For A Year, Here’s What Happened - 2025
According to my Squarespace analytics, DoMT has had 35,000 visitors in all of 2025, which works out on average to be about 2,900 per month.
9 Meta TTRPG Bitter Pills to Swallow
The internet is full of advice on the nitty gritty of TTRPG play. I thought I’d leverage my experience slightly differently today and focus on some solid tips that are way more wide angle.
Nemesis Retaliation: Single Play, First Thoughts
Tactics don’t carry over, and that’s for the best. I didn’t want a reskinned Nemesis. I wanted something that pushes you into new patterns of play, and the game delivers.
5 Cuts To 5e That Make The Game More Interesting
I know I'm gaining a bit of a reputation as someone who doesn't like 5e, but the truth of the matter is that I actually think that there's a very solid game there, it’s just hidden under layers of interdependent ill-considered bloat.
Cheap Medieval Fantasy Terrain for Tabletop Games
Whether you play TTRPGs or miniature war games, sooner or later you might want some fantasy terrain. This piece is about where I get my terrain from and how I paint it using simple and fast methods.
The Five Variables of a Core Dice Mechanic That Matter
A core dice roll is a bundle of variables that shape how a game feels, how players assess risk, and how much work the GM has to do. This post breaks down the five big factors inside the dice loop: who sets the target, what shape the randomness takes, how odds get modified, how outcomes are interpreted, and when you should actually roll in the first place. Each of these choices changes tension,…
I Went To The National Maritime Museum in London to View The Pirate Exhibition!
Pirates have cemented their place in human culture quite firmly, with hundreds of entries ranging from books, films, tabletop games and computer games.
What’s in a Core Dice Mechanic?
I’ve been asked to review a lot of systems lately, and I’ve noticed myself drawn immediately to an analysis of the core mechanic of the game in question. Long may this continue, but wouldn’t it be helpful, thought I, if there was some well thought out way for me to sort and identify techniques, using common language and a clearly developed pitch regarding what does what well?
1970’s Italian Horror Mysteries! First Look at Lies by Omission & L’Isola Lacrime
LxO tries to capture the tone and aesthetics of 1960s and 70s Italian Giallo films - thrillers that mixed mystery, horror, and eroticism, often featuring stylized violence, psychological tension, and vivid visual design.
What happens when you mix The Old American West with Folkloric Horror? A First Look at Huckleberry
In the case of Huckleberry, I’m happy to report that the central mechanic is lush. To begin with, all your character attributes and skills are represented by a single step dice each (that is, d6, d8, d10, d12 or d20). To make a check, you roll two dice. One from the relevant attribute, and one from the relevant skill.
Yo-Ho-Ho-Ho and a Collection of Off-Brand Pirates
As you know, I like pirates, pirates are cool - and I have a Pirate Borg game that I'm building up to running. Well, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that it might be fun to grab some pirate LEGO sets, and maybe even find a use for them in game?