Will Doyle

Alone, together.
#Directive8020

I love the brevity of description in the new D&D starter set. Locations and NPCs are pared down to the bare minimum, without turning things into an ugly list of bullet points. I think we could all learn a lesson from this!

We’re down to the last day! Get your pledges in now, me hearties!

I'm going to be trying out the Draw Steel RPG next month with my old 4E group. They never really clicked with 5E, so I'm hoping this game will be more up their street.

First contact at Gamescom: unsettling...unforgettable.
#Directive8020

Humble RPG Bundle: Dungeon Master’s Guild Top Content from the D&D Community Get the latest and greatest campaigns for your Dungeons & Dragons adventures today and help support charity with your purchase!

Three titles that I contributed to are available in this Humble RPG Bundle: Durnan's Guild to Tavernkeeping, Lost City of Mezro, and Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else!
www.humblebundle.com/books/dungeo...

5. The writing team is a heavyweight lineup of RPG champions: you’ll be in the trusted hands of Andy Collins, Erin Roberts, and James Haeck, with me waving them on from the ship’s helm and Shawn Merwin and Joe Raso manning the deck guns. It’s going to be EPIC.

4. It’s classic “High Adventure”. You’ll cross cutlasses on the decks of sinking ships, explore ruined tombs, get sucked down whirlpools, battle more than one moustache-twirling villain, hunt enormous sea monsters, pose as undead, plan an infernal prison break, and even steal a moon from the sky.

This system of exploration is something I’ve been plotting for a long time, and I’m really happy with where we’ve got to with it! It’s essentially mixing very light board game elements into your RPG campaign, while keeping your own stories at its heart.

3. We’re doing some funky things with exploration. At the heart of the campaign is this nonlinear point crawl where you’ll use 'Clue Cards' to guide your journey across a sea map. Your story develops around these cards, at your own pace, and your actions change the makeup of the world in fun ways.

2: It uses the Aetherial Expanse as a "hub" setting. This realm hooked me from the off: an astral sea where rival colonial powers clash over an arcane power source, aetherium. It’s Master and Commander meets Spelljammer meets Arcane meets Pirates of the Caribbean. I love it.

1. It’s a love letter to one of my favourite campaigns of yesteryear, Stormbringer’s ‘Rogue Mistress’ - a madcap heavy metal romp across a bunch of unorthodox worlds, on a magic galleon armed with laser guns. Our campaign has the same drive for big ideas and inventive settings.

Aetherial Expanse: Dreams of the Drowned God Embark on a plane-spanning 5E 2024 adventure full of mystery, war, and cosmic catastrophe.

Ten days left on this kickstarter and we're smashing through those juicy stretch goals! If you’re still on the fence about joining us, let me hit you with some reasons why I think it’s going to great...(cont)

Kickstarter:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/gho...

Trailer:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BHE...

Finally watched Vivarium. I know it's a bit of a divisive horror movie, but my god it got under my skin. Kept waking up all through the night, thinking there were children running about my bedroom.

YouTube video by RollenspielWelten Unboxing D&D STARTER SET 2025 - ALLE Inhalte im Überblick! | Heroes of the Borderlands | D&D deutsch

Lovely detailed unboxing of the new starter set here (it's in German but autotranslate works well). Great to see our maps in print, including the Keep on the Borderlands and Wilderness map posters. The set looks amazing overall, definitely going to run a mini campaign at work.
youtu.be/Ub_xg2U4V2g

Also, never swear in front of a bee.

Excerpt from a book of English folklore I’m reading. Looks like powdered frog is the material component of a knock spell.

My first 3 #TTRPGbox sets:

1. Call of Cthulhu
2. Pendragon
3. Ghostbusters

Took us a while to get to D&D!

Feels like everything was in a box back then: sort of wish more games were now.

Right now Rogue Trooper is going strong, Dredd obvs, Dexter appeared in a spinoff based in future Downlode, there was even a one shot the other week featuring Jonny Alpha…

Still churning out the zarjaz thrills!

For Father’s Day this year my family got me an annual subscription to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine and I have to say it’s brought me more happiness than I ever expected.

Thank ye dogs o' the Aetherial Expanse! You've unlocked Barrowheap, the plane that the lost things of the multiverse drain into! It's a pirate's dream... and who knows what else might be hiding there?

kickstarter.com/projects/ghostfiregaming/aetherial-expanse-dreams-of-the-drowned-god

Thank you!!

Our swashbuckling kickstarter is live! Go back now, ya landlubbers!

Glad you liked the article. I never expanded the idea, but I'm pleased to hear you've enjoyed it. There isn't really a framework for building them - as I recall, we went through a load of playtest iteration!

Of course, a couple of years later, the official movie comes out and it's set on Earth. And now, just to add salt to this old wound, here comes Alien: Earth.

Never forgive, never forget.

They sat there looking appalled, like we'd reached over and slapped them across their faces. I got nervous, choked, everything became a blur. Anyway, one of them finally says "Look, we'll never do this game. It's a hard rule of the Aliens franchise that the aliens never come to Earth."

Over 20 years ago, I screwed up a pitch for the Aliens vs. Predator 2 game. Our concept was amazing: basically AVP meets the Abyss, with everything kicking off on a deepsea mining facility on Earth. These grumpy execs turned up from Fox and we pitched it to them from our crappy Croydon office...

Pre-order The MCDM RPG on BackerKit This project was funded with $4.5m in December 2023 by a community of 30,000 generous Backers who believe.

I am a lot distracted at the moment, but I am feeling super duper grateful. DRAW STEEL is out now. drawsteel.com

YouTube video by Ghostfire Gaming Dreams of the Drowned God - Cinematic Trailer | 5e Adventure | Aetherial Expanse

I was delighted when @ghostfiregaming.bsky.social asked me to dream up an adventure for their Aetherial Expanse setting, and I couldn't be prouder of the salty buccaneers they've assembled for its creation!

Kickstarter:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/gho...

Trailer:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BHE...