The Vault is a curated archive of my past tabletop RPG material. Some of these pieces were early publications, others were actual plays or side projects.
Actual Plays
I was honored to have some of my work used for actual-plays.
Scooby-Doo: Swamp Stomp
Back in 2015 the RPG Academy did an actual play of my Savage Scooby-Doo adventure, “Swamp Stomp.” Sadly, it doesn’t appear to be in their archives any longer, but I saved the audio file. I’m happy to remove this if requested.
Part 1:
Part 2:
The Horror of Huntley House
In 2024, Radio Salad Studios performed an actual play of my horror adventure, “The Horror of Huntley House.” You can watch the entire thing on YouTube:
Shark Bytes Articles
In the early days of Savage Worlds, the main fan publication was called Shark Bytes. They published several of my articles. I’m forever grateful to the editors for the opportunity to get my work out there, and I’m sure it helped usher me into my career as a professional roleplaying game content creator.
The Spark of Life
From Shark Bytes Volume 4, Number 2
This was a Savage Worlds fantasy adventure in which the heroes became entangled in a tale of courtly intrigue, betrayal, and evil magic.
Spellcasting in a World of Thieves
From Shark Bytes Volume 4, Number 2
Inspired by the magic system in Green Ronin’s Thieves’ World, this alternative magic system ditches the standard Power Points method in favor of one where spellcasters roll to “power up” before casting a spell.
I also had content published in Volume 1, Issue 10, Volume 2, Issue 2, and Volume 3, Issue 1 of the short-lived fan magazine Savage Insider. Those are available for free at Obatron Productions (https://obatron.com/savage-insider/).
GURPS Articles in Pyramid Magazine
All right, now we’re really going way back. Two of my first paid (i.e. “professional”) roleplaying game articles were published in Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid magazine, which was a great resource for all kinds of GURPS articles, adventures, and house rules.
The first article was called “Machine Magic,” and presented a new type of magic that used specially-built magical machines that connected to ethereal gears that (in the fiction) powered everything in the world behind the veil of our reality. The three monster entries I sold to West End Games for their Torg “Creatures of Aysle” bestiary was the first sale I ever made in this industry, but this was the first one that stood on its own. I don’t remember how much I made on that sale—not much, I’m sure.
“Machine Magic” seems to have completely disappeared, sadly. I’ve searched the internet for it to no avail. Here’s the original text version I sold to Steve Jackson Games. (I’ll happily remove this at their request, but since it’s 30 years old and clearly not published by them anymore, I hope they won’t mind.)
Somehow I forgot about another pair of articles I sold to them a year or two later. The first was an article called “GURPS Dramatic Card Play,” an idea that was almost certainly inspired by Torg, which uses a specialized card deck to determine initiative and to give the player characters some extra narrative control, but rather than propose a similar deck for GURPS, I offered rules on how to use a standard card deck or Tarot deck to create a similar effect.
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1916
The article is free, their way of promoting the other magazine content. After this sale, I went a good 15 years making only free stuff for my own use or as fan freebies.
The other article also appears to have been lost to time along with “Machine Magic.” This one was a localized fantasy encounter called “A Hole in the Ground.” I have a crude text copy sitting around. Perhaps I’ll convert it to a PDF and post it here.