1. Right now, I’m polishing the last D&D idea I have in the pipeline: “Gnarlfang’s Goblin Casino: An Evening of Bad Decisions for Low-Level Characters.”

2. Longer term, I’m working on a game about Tolkien-style orcs after the fall of the Evil Overlord–figuring out how to make a society for themselves and survive in a world without a place for them. Working title: “Orcs of the Broken Tower.” (I started out trying to tweak Dogs In The Vineyard around the edges and fell down a rabbit-hole where I ended up hacking it into a game about something else entirely.)

The main thing I am working on is still my Sword & Sorcery Dinosaurland setting Kaendor. Which is the current incarnation of a concept and set of ideas I started tinkering with 12 years or so ago. A young civilization of humans slowly spreading out into the vast wilderness that used to be the territories of a series of sorcerous inhuman empires that kept destroying each other and left behind numerous ruins from different eras that still hold old magic and treasures. Currently for Dragonbane, which I feel is exactly the kind of game system I’ve been looking for to really fit this setting for the last 10 years.

I also have a Space Opera setting in the drawer called Iridium Moons, which was inspired by Dune, Cyberpunk 2077, and Prey. A galaxy with an aetshetic similar to classic Star Wars and Dune where the entire exploration and colonization of new star system is being driven by the mining industry. Starships, space travel, and combat are based on early 20th century war ships and ocean liners, and the people in power are like old railroad magnates and oil tycoons who control their own planets like personal fiefdoms beyond the reach of state governments and run their colonies like company towns. But that’s even more in the concept phase and doesn’t have real content to run a campaign in yet.

These are some things I’m working on (in varied degrees of completion):

• A Cthulhu Mythos campaign plunging the players into the Taiping Rebellion
• Studying how to make a version of Eclipse Phase using M-Space (based on the Mythras roleplaying game)
• Toying with some ideas using Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition and 2300AD
• Toying with some OSR concepts using Axis Mundi by 77 Mundos

I try to finish tiny swords & sandals inspired osr adventure (Narbassal‘s Fall). Still unsure wether I’ll provide stats for Shadowdark or The Black Sword Hack. I also tinker around with another osr module which features a maritime setting and has a Folk Horror vibe. „Needless to say, I’m not actually making much progress on finishing anything.“ - I feel seen 😂

I have a couple of things simmering. One-that I recently sent to the back burner because it keeps oozing into “huh, how am I going to write that?” directions is a take on your classic domed city/everyone is out to get you vibe.

The other, much closer to final form, is a time travel hex-crawl thing. More of a bolt-on for your game that suddenly needs that than a fully-formed game od its own.

I’m not working on anything, I’m playing with a theory. The core of the idea is that people to their best, most free-flowing, most imaginative GMing when they don’t really know what they’re doing. When they’ve first taken up the hobby, when they are running a new game that they don’t really know well, or when the player characters go so far off the prepared plot that the GM has to improvise wildly.

This is outside a lot of people’s comfort zone—but I think there’s an element of truth to it. What if, the more you study how to GM, the more you work at it, the harder it gets?

Were this to be the case, it might explain why many GMs are in an endless quest to discover that cool new system/background/adventure that’ll REALLY create an immersive experience.

Again, were it to be the case, what would be the best rules system to get back to the improvisatory state of gaming naivety that makes the magic happen?

I’m toying with the idea of running a campaign with no game system at all—to force me, as the GM, to improvise on the spot!