Troy Press

One of my favorite parts of TRON: Ares is when ENCOM’s CEO and her business partner have found a remote complex in Alaska, built by Kevin Flynn. They write a BASIC program to search a file line by line for “PCODE” (in this case, standing for “permanence code”). The first bit of code makes sense (see above). The second screenshot has a number of issues. We’re missing lines between 70 and 120. Inexplicably, it uses question marks instead of quotation marks. If you delete lines 120 to 150 and fix […]

When you embrace co-creation or shared narration with your players it can sometimes lead to a pastiche, less like Middle Earth and more like Narnia. For instance, my hexcrawl setting was initially conceived of as Iron Age, but my players kept bringing Medieval elements into it.

We surveyed 204 past and current players of D&D to determine what they recalled about the game’s rules, in a survey designed to be representative of the typical player.

Our library ran a one-shot of Shadowdark, the $1.37 million Kickstarter from 2023 that has developed a loyal following. The GM used the “Pipes on Droomen Knoll” adventure starter from the Dolmenwood Campaign Book, while I would have liked a Shadowdark-specific adventure, as Kelsey Dionne, creator of Shadowdark, built a reputation for her 5e adventures.

As I developed the pantheon for Cycladic League, I gradually evolved away from the Classical Greek era towards primordial goddesses.

My youngest son and I have met and talked to Andy Looney, the designer of the Fluxx family of games, a few times at PAX East shows. One year he taught us Homeworlds, another year Time Breaker. So I was eager to interview him about card game design.

My speed-run through The X-Files to come up with a list of the best episodes that form a cohesive whole.

You as GM can certainly handle factions solely through the fiction and the regular rules, but it is great when the game supports factions mechanically. Your characters help this faction, but in doing so run afoul of that faction, and the GM tracks this in some way.

The current IMDB ratings, including the top 3 episodes (the last four of the arc of Paul Giamatti’s villain). Bonus: The 10 Worst Episodes of Star Trek All Time (where one SFA episode has been unfairly consigned).

Skills aren’t commonly used in Powered by the Apocalypse games, and take different forms when they are used.

The episodes of A History of Rock Music by Andrew Hickey aren’t just histories of a song, but broader histories that might be epitomized by the background behind the song, especially the evolution and collision of different music genres and the constant exploitation of African American musicians.

When asked what kinds of exercise or fitness activities they do, 19% of Americans said cycling. It’s well behind walking/treadmill at 61% and behind the next three: hiking or trail walking at 34%, strength training at 32%, and running at 28%.

Pravic is a constructed language, even within its setting, where it was created as part of the settlement of the moon Anarres by refugees from Urras. Here are links to the pages that I found most useful to learn more about Pravic.