Jeff's Game Box

Perfimid RPGaDay 2025 prompt: Flavour.

Your party has been wandering the desert for three days. The food ran out two days ago. You still have a little water left. Up ahead is an oasis with a camp just waiting for you? It can't be real and yet you smell freshly baked cinnamon cakes. What do you do?

Monster Monday: The Wyrdpost Monday Monster + #RPGaDay2025

Picture a floating, furless lynx with elongated limbs and feathered ears, its eyes blank and glimmering like polished quartz. Its paws never touch the ground. It moves as if gliding just above the soil, silent even on dry leaves or gravel.

RPGaDay2025 Day 3 – Tavern: “The Abyssal Maw” The Abyssal Maw might not even be3 on a map. It's a mostly quiet, eerie lille tavern out in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes people wander in off the road and they're never seen again.

Don't ask about the black stew. Don't touch the big cauldron around back. Don't be caught lingering after closing time.
Part of #RPGaDay2025

RPGaDay 2025 Day 2: Prompt. These are the prompts we're using for RPGaDay 2025. Most of my entries will be directly or indirectly tied to Dragonbane RPG. Many of the things I discuss can be adapted to most other fantasy TTRPGs with a little work.

#RPGaDay2025 is underway. Day 2: Prompt. I figured I might want to show you what we're working off of.

RPGaDay 2025: Day 1. Patron. RPGaDay 2025 is underway. We're catching up starting with Day 1: Patron.

Going to try to do RPGaDay 2025. We're going to try to get caught up asap.

Friday Fuzzy: CAPYBARA They're cuddly, zen-like, and super chill. Plus they look like oversized guinea pigs and very cuddly.

Continuing these cuddly entries. Always mellow. Never totally hostile little zen monks of the marsh, full of love and cuddles for all. It's the Capybara!

Stuck at Home During Gen Con? Highly revised article from the original.

Gen Con’s here & I’m stuck in Iowa. Yeah, it stings. But I’m not giving up. Tight budget, big dreams? You’re not alone. Let’s create, rest, recharge, and build our own rebellion from home. Stay strong. Stay weird.

Tuesday’s Threat: Lunarcap Mycelian. It's a big, freaky, glow-in-the-dark mushroom surrounded by glowing mushroom men.

Things are about to get weird. The little guys were a bit hard to understand and then they took us to a bigger mushroom we could only call their leader. Robb made the mistake of slapping its cap and threatening to take a bite. We spent the next six candle marks watching him see things beyond space.

Memorial Monday: R.I.P. Hulk Hogan. "I am a real American. Fight for the rights of every man..." Say what you want about his antics later in life, Hulk Hogan knew how to get a crowd fired up. He was my hero. OG Hogan is still my hero.

We lost one of my true heroes, (Hollywood) Hulk Hogan on Thursday, July 24th 2025. Yes, he made a couple of major mistakes loudly later in life, but he never stopped being my childhood hero. We'll miss you, Brother. Hulkamania lives on in my heart. NWO 4 Life.

Wizards of the Coast D&D Needs Leadership + Ambition! WotC's Dungeons & Dragons is getting pasted by Daggerheart and Cosmere in the numbers. With fans heading into Gen Con next week, I'd say things look incredibly bleak for the D&D and the company. I'm here to offer a solution for 2026, not that I think they'll hear me.

Dear Wizards of the Coast. I have a plan to put Dungeons & Dragons back on top of the tabletop roleplaying game mountain again, but you would actually have to take input from me. This article will be emailed in its entirety to Wizards of the Coast. I just want D&D to improve.

Friday Fuzzy: the Quokka Cute goes a long way around here.

They're small, fuzzy, often funny little companions should your adventurers be fortunate enough to find one. Some would say they're "qute."

Worldbuilding Wednesday: Science Fiction-Fantasy. In various science fiction games, we generate new worlds and strange places all the time. Now port that over to a fantasy game sans spaceships and ray guns. Worldbuilding gold!

Make it extra weird. Compel exploration by adding world elements straight out of science fiction. No phlaysers or trirecorders needed, just lots of imagination.

Monday Monster: Hollow Hag We've got a wicked one for you today. She lives down in the hollows where the creeks run free and the trees grow tall from the lowlands.

Her beak is twisted into a perpetual sneer. Wherever she goes, the ground beneath her rots, mushrooms spring up in unnatural clusters, and the wind carries a faint, spiteful honk.

Freedom Day 2025 July. Happiness is a warm cat sleeping next to me on the couch, a cool beverage in my mug, and knowing the best is yet to come.

Success is not measured in terms of one's job title. It's not about income, prestige, or accolades. It's about happiness. Do that which brings you joy so long as it does no harm to others.

Friday Fuzzies: Magical Friendly ILI PIKA We're doing cute on Fridays now. YouTube has gotten on my last good nerve this week. It was either this or stare at kitten pictures on the internet.

Your Player Characters really need a cute little fuzzy companion. Yes, this is the start of a series. The TableTop RolePlaying Game hobby can be a toxic mosh pit. We need cuddly and adorable sometimes.

Worldbuilding Wednesday: What If I Fall Behind? So you've missed a few days. It's not the end of the project. It doesn't have to be. Don't give up. A little prep and some random encounter tables go a long way.

Hex-A-Day 2025, Dungeon 2025, etc can be daunting. Avoid panic and overwhelm. You can still get back on the horse. You have options. Giving up until 2026 is not amongst them.

TableTop RolePlaying… Grift? What these handful of big DungeonTubers are forgetting is authenticity. I think they’ve completely forgotten what it was like to still be struggling. They’ve forgotten what it was like to not have all those sponsors, deals, convention appearances, name in books, etc. It’s just another source of income and not about the fandom any more.

If I call the five or six DungeonTubers out directly, I risk being chased down the road by round about 1.5 million of their combined subscribers (plus or minus the overlap.) So, sorry for the straw man argument, but I'd rather live through this. It beats ad hominem outrage milling.

The Fall of Rivenhelm. Rivenhelm's problems didn't end with the demise of the Mushroom King. Cawood Publishing is back with another amazing adventure in the World of Myrr. The Fall of Rivenhelm.

We have another outstanding adventure module by Andrew Cawood/ Cawood Publishing. The Fall of Rivenhelm is a fantastic romp for D&D 5E, Pathfinder, OSE, or DCC depending on your tastes. I will eventually be converting it to my beloved Dragonbane. I highly recommend it!!

Worldbuilding Wednesday: NPC Toolkit. One of the most key elements when it comes to encounter creation, campaign creation, or worldbuilding is Non Player Characters. Here's a little bit about how I approach them.

One of my absolutely favorite jobs as a Game Master is creating Non Player Characters. It's one of those fun times when being a GM actually feasibly overlaps with being a writer. There are entire books written on this subject. here is just some of my approach.

Monday Monster: Ghost Elk, Spirit Guardian of the Forest The Ghost Elk is a guardian of the forest, benevolent to the kind-hearted, but merciless to those who would bring destruction.

I once ran across a buck late at night in the dark and the rain while I was on foot that inspired today's Monday Monster. He just stared at me, and I at him before I cautiously walked around him, giving a wide berth. I walked that path many times and never saw him again.

Behind the Screen: Encounter Building. Encounters are the primary building blocks of almost everything we do as Game Masters. Here are some thoughts on how I put them together.

Happy Friday! Here's a few tips and tricks for building encounters. My two favorite Game Master tasks with any give TableTop RolePlaying Game are building encounters and creating memorable NPCs. Here are some notes on Encounter crafting.

Worldbuilding Wednesday. Three unusual locations for adventurers to wander through in my Dragonbane world.

Jeff's Game Box, where we do actually dip into some worldbuilding now and then. Today we have three unusual locations that can be encountered in the world I'm building. Possibly useful as adventure locations or a safe waypoint to rest.

Monday Monster: The Chitterclaw. No one ever said living in a village high up in the forest wasn't without some danger.

Man-sized flying squirrel apex predator. They aren't cute. They aren't cuddly. Usually very hungry for meat. They rapidly become a fuzzy whirling ball of claws and teeth.

Here We Are Again. Just wanted to drop a post on my birthday to say hi to everyone. Hope you're having a lovely Sunday. Please stay cool. Stay hydrated. Enjoy time with family and friends.

Nothing too serious or fancy today. Hope your Sunday is going well. Happy gaming. Here's to another long year of being a human on classroom Earth.

Toxic Positivity in the TTRPG Community. I see so much toxic positivity these days, especially amongst the DungeonTuber crowd.

There's a disease spreading among DungeonTubers in particular. Poisoning the well by calling out anyone who dares have a dissenting opinion by labeling them "the outrage mill." Hey, Bob-- In the words of the great Suction Cup Man, "I wrote you a song."
And we're not even getting started yet. =)

Friday Feature: The Whispering Vines It's Friday. Time for a quick encounter in case you're looking for something to run this weekend.

A creepy Easter Island style idol with a mass of thorny vines blocks the path ahead. What do you do?

Why I Still Love TTRPGs. Other drafts of this article came out far different. This is the tame, reasonable, dare I say "positive" version? You probably don't want to know what I originally said about Bob Worldbuilder and one of his more recent videos.

Fighting my overwhelming urge to call someone a "sellout, shill, idiot..." several four-letter words... But I wouldn't want to get labeled as part of the "outrage mill" for speaking out against toxic YouTube personalities. But hey, when has anyone known me *not* to tilt at windmills?

Worldbuilding Wednesday: Forest Settlements in Harmony with Nature This article explores three distinct forest villages: Syvälehti, Nyano-Take, and Stensvett. Each embodying harmony with nature through unique architectural styles and cultural practices. The settlements, home to elves, cat folk, and dwarves respectively, offer vibrant settings for campaigns, emphasizing connection, adaptation, and balance with the forest environment.

New on the blog! Explore 3 forest villages in harmony with nature. Elves in the canopy, Cat Folk in the trees, and Dwarves under the roots. Perfect for Dragonbane or any fantasy TTRPG!

Monday Monster: The Krone Sitting in it is a shriveled, humanoid-sized form of a goose in a black lace bonnet, gently rocking back and forth by unseen force. On its lap: a storybook titled "Cursery Rhymes", opened to an ink-drenched page that reads itself aloud in a raspy voice. Next to the chair is a crooked shepherd’s crook thrust into the dirt, surrounded by a spiral of tiny, bare footprints.

Trigger Warning: Deeply disturbing imagery. Cosmic Horror. Outright character destruction possible.

This is possibly the most disturbing creature I've ever created. It is intended to strike fear in the hearts of hardened roleplayers. This encounter is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Friday Feature: 5 Useful Minor Magic Items. Five useful, but not overly powerful magic items to assist the party one their merry way.

5 minor items for Dragonbane to improve quality of life for the party.