Winter 2026 Newsletter
Thoughts about playing catch-up, playing games, and fighting figurative fires.
It took six long months, navigating one of the most challenging periods in my life as gracefully as I could manage, to get back to where I was when I first launched this site. For a long time, it felt like I was treading water, barely able to keep up with life, creative projects, and friends. But now that I'm almost entirely caught up, I'm able to start looking ahead and imagining what this year can become.
Beyond my creative goals, there are so many personal goals I want to work toward. Some are little things that I've given up as I've gotten increasingly busy. Others are much more overdue: more time outside in nature, reading more books (always more), collaborating with new folks in the TTRPG space, reconnecting with friends and previous collaborators, making myself available to mentor people wanting an outlet to create, connecting more with my local communities, and trying to organize a big gaming get-together for the many awesome people in my life.
But I'm going to do my best to take things one at a time. Right now, I'm really looking forward to an upcoming camping trip with my wife. We're going to rest and unplug, and just be—surrounded by the desert, the mountains, and the stars. And, of course, I'm bringing my dice so we can play a little entirely improvised Dark Sun adventure while we're out there. The odds of the story involving a snake cult and some wretched ritual sacrifice are very high. (It's going to be great!)
Acknowledging Things on Fire
Outside the games and stories that dominate my thoughts much of every waking day, there are a lot of scary things happening in the world right now—and I know that they can so easily consume an incredible amount of our attention, energy, joy, and hope. I hear it all the time from folks I love. I hear that, right now, it's hard to create. It's hard to even just be. It always hurts to hear that, especially because I understand entirely how it feels.
It might seem like a small thing, but I know that the stories and games I create (and the people I share them with) help me feel powerful and hopeful, even on Really Bad News days. Roleplaying and writing have always helped me process the toughest parts about being a caring person living in a world that can be shockingly uncaring. But sometimes, when the world seems particularly on fire, I feel guilty for obsessing over a story I'm writing or escaping into a fantasy world that I'm building.
When I feel that way, I think about when I was in college, deeply struggling to reconcile with America going to war with Iraq. A friend recommended Arundhati Roy's book, War Talk. I'd already read and loved her novel, The God of Small Things, so I read all of the book's essays in one night. One section, in particular, has resonated with me ever since. It's what I think about when I feel guilty or like I am inconsequential. It always helps me feel more optimistic about the future.
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories."
I strongly believe that the act of telling collaborative stories (like in Tabletop RPGs) helps people feel personally empowered and become more empathic. And, corny or not, I think empathy is the most important part of being a human being, and the only force that can oppose cruelty and division.
That's all! I've been thinking about these things a lot the last few days, as history looks to repeat itself yet again. It's nothing revelatory for folks who love the hobby, but, in short: Tabletop RPGs are chicken soup for the soul.
What I'm Working On
Is this even a newsletter? I might be a terrible newsletter writer, actually. There is so much I could write about, regarding all of the many creative projects I'm involved with right now.
I could wax nostalgic about the bittersweet ending of our amazing Pretty Marsh Harbor 1990 campaign or how my first of several original Ravenloft campaigns is going (it's been wicked and wonderful, of course). I could share updates on the support site that Faye and I have been developing to help folks transition to the new TTRPG system we're using moving forward.
I could ramble in-depth on the four (FOUR!) new campaigns I've been working on for the past few months—and how my years-long Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance groups are kicking off their final campaigns in those settings for now.
I could talk about how the massive game industry layoffs have disproportionately impacted writers and narrative designers—as companies consider them non-essential and, laughably, think they can be replaced by generative A.I. chatbots. (Though, I do have upcoming game-writing projects that I can't talk about yet for contractual reasons!)
But since everything happening is quite a lot, that's as detailed as I'll get with this newsletter! I do think I'm working on even more cool things at once than usual right now. Hopefully, by this summer, I'll be better rested, the world will be kinder, and I'll have just finished writing a new TTRPG book, which I can share more about.
Okay, so I will share this: hopefully, this month, Faye and I should finish a beta website that will allow my players to build Ravenloft character sheets (similar to sites like D&D Beyond but for my system)—and easily find all the lore, rules, character art, and recaps for our various campaigns. It’s a practical tool that should be a great quality-of-life improvement and make our games more accessible. Faye's put a ton of work into it over the past couple of months, and I’m excited to get it into folks’ hands. I'm very sure players will immediately break it in a million different ways!
Final Winter Thoughts
Right now, I'm looking forward to wandering the desert far from the nearest algorithm, rolling some dice by the light of a campfire, and (always, always) reflecting on my gratitude for the amazing people in my life.
Until next time, I hope you have great games and wonderful stories to look forward to this spring—and plenty of good people to share them with.
If you've read this far, here! Have three weird random tables, because random tables are the best, and there's no wrong time to roll on them.
[1d20] Half-Remembered Dreams...
| 1–10 | 11–20 |
|---|---|
| 1. Every word spoken turned to sand | 11. Wet, three-toed footprints stalked you |
| 2. Your shadow predicted your every move | 12. A mirror revealed a door that wasn't there |
| 3. A bell rang beneath the floorboards | 13. A stairway to nowhere descended forever |
| 4. A very vulgar tree ate your loved one | 14. A very friendly tree spat out your rival |
| 5. Chased through alleys by an ominous choir | 15. A feast table covered in edible maps |
| 6. You were sad until it started raining keys | 16. A thousand tiny ghost hands in the dark |
| 7. No, no – they saw you – the real you | 17. Not-a-Man watched through a dirty window |
| 8. The tarnished wedding ring wasn't yours | 18. You bricked your childhood home's doors |
| 9. Snow fell upward in slow sheets | 19. A foreboding black star sank into the sea |
| 10. A letter arrived dated tomorrow | 20. Storm clouds formed a Sorceress's Eye |
[1d20] Cut Open the Monster’s Belly and Find...
| 1–10 | 11–20 |
|---|---|
| 1. A sealed love letter | 11. A bell that won’t stop ringing |
| 2. A coin stamped with your face | 12. A gemstone pulsing faintly |
| 3. A warm iron key | 13. A map to a familiar place |
| 4. A child’s wooden toy | 14. A mystery ring fused to flesh |
| 5. A saint’s bone wrapped in cloth | 15. A sack of mismatched teeth |
| 6. A locket with a stranger’s portrait | 16. A lantern still burning |
| 7. A jar of black sand | 17. A broken claw from another beast |
| 8. A dagger etched with tiny runes | 18. A vial of golden, humming liquid |
| 9. A ribbon with an odd monogram | 19. A perfectly preserved musical instrument |
| 10. A contract signed in blood | 20. A prayer written on thin vellum |
[1d20] Tomes Interesting Only to Adventurers...
| 1–10 | 11–20 |
|---|---|
| 1. A Practical Guide to Suspicious Statues | 11. Famous Last Words, Annotated |
| 2. Identifying the True Villain at Court | 12. How to Out Mimic a Mimic |
| 3. Surviving Your First Possession | 13. Devils and the Fine Print |
| 4. Delighting at an Awkward Noble Dinner | 14. On the Proper Disposal of Necromancers |
| 5. The Economics of Tomb Robbing | 15. Signs of Hidden Rooms and False Walls |
| 6. How to Apologize to a Dragon, Unabridged | 16. The Subtle Signs of Impending Betrayal |
| 7. Escaping Ritual Sacrifice with Dignity | 17. Good Paladin, Bad Paladin, Dead Paladin |
| 8. A Dictionary of Threats in Twelve Tongues | 18. Unchosen: Learning to Love Yourself Again |
| 9. What to Pack for a Probable Siege | 19. A Treatise on Respectful Corpse Looting |
| 10. Common Causes of Spontaneous Undeath | 20. What You Wished For: Adventurer Edition |
