I recently ran the final session of my long-running D&D 5e campaign, a West Marches–style campaign centered around the frontier town of Phandalin on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms. Using the “Dragon of Icespire Peak” adventure from the Essentials Kit as a foundation and mixing in elements from the associated DLCs, “Lost Mines of Phandelver,” Tales from the Yawning Portal, Neverwinter Campaign Setting, and more, I was able to turn this map by Mike Schley into a living sandbox. Starting in December 2021 and wrapping up in August 2024, I ran 69 sessions and 34 discrete adventures total for 18 characters across 15 players. The PCs started at level 3 and worked their way up to level 9 by the end, slaying multiple dragons and defeating the ghost of a dreaded dracolich.

I’m really proud of being able to maintain and finish a campaign that lasted almost three years. Typically, my interest in any given campaign begins to wane at the tenth session or thereabouts, by which time I start getting the itch to run a different game. For this campaign, a couple of factors made a big difference in helping me continue to run adventures without burning out. What follows is something of a campaign post-mortem of lessons learned from my experience running the game. Perhaps you’ll find some of these reflections useful in your own campaigns, especially if you’re considering using the West Marches structure for your next game.

Another quick update rounding up some of the cool stuff I’ve been working on in my role as “loremaster” (not my official title) on the Asmodee Franchise Development team, this time focusing on Legend of the Five Rings!

At Gen Con this year, I spent four days working at the Legend of the Five Rings booth helping Palindrome Interactive show off the combat demo of the first-ever L5R video game, Shadowveil. You can watch the reveal trailer and learn more on the game’s Steam page, and if you weren’t able to try it out in person you can get a basic walkthrough of the demo at LegendoftheFiveRings.com. Over on Facebook, I interviewed game director Filip Andersson about the title’s design and development so far, and I also asked some fans about what they thought of the demo. I’m really proud of the work the Palindrome team has put into the game so far, both in terms of making something that’s great fun to play as well as capturing the essence of Legend of the Five Rings and the Crab Clan specifically. I hope you’ll check it out!

Also at Gen Con, Office Dog showed off the very first L5R Eurogame, River of Gold. Having played it several times, I think it’s a fun, lightweight, quick-and-easy play that will appeal to fans of euros more generally, not just Legend of the Five Rings fans. I also had the opportunity to talk to the game’s designer, Keith Piggott, about his work on the game and some of its design inspirations and goals. To help promote the game in the weeks leading up to its launch, I worked closely alongside Aconyte Books and author Robert Denton III as they created a series of short stories that brings the ports and markets along the River of Gold to life and introduces readers to four of the clan patrons included in the game. The short story series also included the first online story choice offered to L5R players since 2021. You can check out part one of the series here and either read or listen to it—Heather Jinmaku did a fabulous job narrating these stories and bringing the characters to life.

Over at L5R.com, we also shared updates on the upcoming Clan Wars novels and comics, roleplaying game supplements, board games, and more!

It’s been some time since I posted an update about the projects I’ve been working on as an Asmodee Franchise Development team member, so I wanted share some of the recent and upcoming releases set in the world of Arkham Horror!

This spring, Aconyte Books released what I consider to be the first true Arkham Horror setting guide, Welcome to Arkham: An Illustrated Guide for Visitors. I’m so incredibly proud of the work put in by the team on this full-color hardcover book, as it turned out beautifully and is absolutely stuffed with amazing artwork, pieces of ephemera, and detailed lore from the Arkham Horror series of games.

Back when Arkham Horror Third Edition was released, circa 2018, I worked as the editor on the lore sections of the Deluxe Rulebook, a limited-edition pre-order bonus which detailed the various neighborhoods and locations featured in that game. However, the base game covered only parts of the legend-haunted city. For Welcome to Arkham, we brought back my dear friend A.P. Klosky to flesh out the remaining locations from the Arkham Horror games, including the classic Lovecraftian locales of Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport, as well as some brand-new locations that have never appeared in the IP before! The 176-page book also includes excerpts from “The Book of Living Myths,” the in-world bestiary of Mythos monsters put together by Kōhaku Narukami, one of the new investigators from The Feast of Hemlock Vale expansions for Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Horror author David Annandale also contributed an eerie tale told across letters, postcards, and other pieces of ephemera scattered throughout the book.

I view Welcome to Arkham as the setting gazetteer companion to Dark Horse’s The Art of Arkham Horror, a traditional coffee-table art book, and Fantasy Flight Games’ The Investigators of Arkham Horror, a short story anthology I edited in 2017. To celebrate the release of Welcome to Arkham, Aconyte Books also released a digital updated edition of The Investigators of Arkham Horror, which you can purchase from DriveThruFiction or your preferred ebook retailer. The updated edition includes the two stories of Calvin Wright and Daniela Reyes from the Arkham Horror Third Edition Deluxe Rulebook, as well as a brand-new tale featuring Alessandra Zorzi. The Countess originally debuted in Josh Reynolds’s Arkham Horror novels but made her way into the card game as a playable investigator this spring in The Feast of Hemlock Vale.

Looking ahead to this summer, Edge Studio is releasing their starter set product for Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game, Hungering Abyss, just in time for Gen Con! Based on the “Night of the Zealot” scenario from the Arkham Horror LCG, it’s meant as an introduction to roleplaying, the setting, as well as Edge’s new Dice Pool System (DPS). If you’ll be at Gen Con this year and want to check out the game, get yourself a ticket for the Comets of Kingsport scenario or drop by the Grand Central Ballroom (rooms A – D) in the Crowne Plaza Hotel with some generics in case a seat opens up.

Finally, in Arkham Horror comic book news, take a look at this awesome cover featuring Jenny Barnes for The Terror at the End of Time from Dark Horse Comics! The issue comes out August 7, so be sure to stop by your friendly local comic book shop to get the first installment of the limited series.

Image Source: Aconyte Books

Often, aspiring writers ask me how to break into the worlds of tie-in fiction or role-playing game writing. My advice for folks looking to get their foot in the door includes knowing somebody, making cool stuff and putting it out there, making it easy for folks to find you, and applying to freelancer open calls. In this article, I’ll go into detail on each of these four ways to get noticed and hired, and then give my recommendations for ways you can stand out from the crowd.

Tip 1: Know Somebody

The hard truth is that knowing somebody working in the industry is the most surefire way of getting hired to write for them. If you can put yourself in a position where people doing the hiring can contact you—or you can contact them—you’ve overcome the hardest part already. Even if you don’t have a contact inside the company, someone in your network who has worked for them before could recommend you for that new project or assignment.

Although cultivating those connections can be challenging, there are ways you can grow your network without seeming disingenuous. When trying to make new connections, the key lies in networking with your peers—those at a similar level in their professional career. Folks in your cohort can provide valuable feedback on your work, share useful resources, serve as accountability partners, and help keep you motivated. And as you and your connections make headway within the RPG- and tie-in fiction-writing industries, opportunities might arise where they can recommend you for projects, and vice versa.

So how can you meet folks in your cohort? Try joining subreddits or Discord communities for the games, genres, and fandoms you’re looking to break into. Attend conventions and game days both online and in person, or consider hosting a game day yourself. Chances are, you’ll find local creators who are demoing or playtesting their games or supplements. You can also look for writing groups to join in your local community or for specific fandoms. You might also consider seeking out folks to collaborate with on projects such as podcasts, actual plays, game supplements, setting sourcebooks, or fanfiction. Note that LinkedIn is not the greatest platform for building genuine connections (in my opinion), but it is a good spot to showcase the work you’ve created (see tips 2 and 3).

At the 2021 Origins Game Fair, I experienced one of the best convention one-shot RPG sessions I’d ever played in—as well as the worst—back to back. This gave me a unique opportunity to compare and contrast what went well in the first session and what went awry in the second, especially in light of my experience as a tabletop RPG professional responsible for developing one-shots as well as demoing RPGs for convention play. Over the last ten years, I’ve run open and VIP tables at large flagship conventions like GenCon and Origins, regional cons such as AcadeCon and Con of the North, and local mini-cons on college campuses and at my own home. Over the years, I’ve also made my fair share of mistakes that I hope you can learn from.

Although there are many aspects to consider when planning and running an RPG one-shot at a convention, focusing on three elements of the session can give you a solid foundation and yield the best payoff per hour of prep spent. These three essential ingredients are: 1) exciting and accessible pre-generated character sheets, 2) a scenario that is optimized for one-off play, and 3) excellent player management at the table. In this third and final part, we’ll take a look at the hardest part of running a great one-shot: handling the players themselves.