Killing Time

There are moments in life that catch you completely off guard. A few days ago I received a message from the daughter of one of the players from my high school gaming group. At first I assumed she was looking for information about her dad’s old role-playing days, maybe trying to identify a game or a character he had mentioned over the years. Instead, she simply wanted to say thank you. She told…

James Bond 007 RPG artwork from Victory Games There’s something funny about how one game can send you down an entirely different rabbit hole. Ever since I started playing 007 First Light, I’ve found myself thinking less about the game itself and more about the old James Bond 007 Role Playing Game sitting on my shelf. Before long, the books were spread across the table, notes were scattered…

Father’s Day came a little early this year, and Peyton absolutely nailed it with an amazing gift: 007 First Light. Let me say this right now—I haven’t been this excited about a James Bond game since GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64. Anyone who grew up in the late ’90s knows exactly what GoldenEye meant. It wasn’t just a great Bond game; it was one of the defining gaming experiences of an entire…

Photo by Nika Benedictova on Pexels.com The past few days have been a pleasant mix of video gaming and tabletop roleplaying creativity. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with the Challenge Mode in Days Gone on the PlayStation. While I’ve completed the main game before, the challenges are an entirely different beast. They demand precision, patience, and more than a little stubbornness. Some…

Birthday weekends have a way of creating memorable moments, and last night was certainly one of them. As part of my birthday celebrations, I was treated to dinner at the Lockmaster’s Taphouse (and Patio), one of my favourite spots in town. Before we even got to the main event, however, my eldest had a surprise waiting for me. She handed me a gift package, and it quickly became clear that a lot…

This weekend marked another trip around the sun for me, and while it wasn’t a big celebration, it was exactly the kind of day I needed. Like many birthdays, it started with a bit of reflection. This one felt different from last year. Around this time last year, my faithful boy Rory was still by my side. Since then, he has crossed that Rainbow Bridge, and his absence was certainly felt. Birthdays…

This past Saturday, I decided to check out Pop Culture’s Comic-Con in Smiths Falls. The event was held at the Youth Arena this year, which provided a much larger venue than previous years. From the moment I walked in, it was obvious the extra space was being put to good use. The doors opened at 10:00 a.m., and I arrived about half an hour later. After handing over my very reasonable $10…

The other day my daughter suggested that since I’ve been doing a lot of video gaming lately, maybe I should start a streaming channel. My first reaction was, “Why?” Not because I think it’s a bad idea, but because I’ve never really understood the appeal of watching other people play video games. When I sit down with a game, it’s because I want to play it myself. The idea of spending hours…

Saturday evening’s game session turned out to be a little different than expected. While the plan was to dive into our latest adventure, the reality was that we spent much of the evening waiting for Chance, Mikayla, and Darryl to arrive. Brad, Mark, Finn, and I were all set to go with our next Star Wars: Edge of the Empire session. Character sheets were ready, dice were on the table, and…

The original Nightspawn before it had to Nightbane. There’s a certain kind of satisfaction that only comes from finally beating a boss that has been sitting in your way for weeks. That was me this week with the Spirit of Kelvin in Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. After more attempts than I care to admit, I finally managed to put that spectral menace down for good and now the road ahead in the…

One of the questions I get asked a lot when running tabletop RPGs is: “How do you actually write an adventure?” The funny thing is, I rarely sit down and write a linear beginning-to-end story. Instead, what I do looks more like a detective’s conspiracy wall than a traditional outline. There’s usually a notebook, loose papers, maybe index cards, and a bunch of arrows connecting scenes, NPCs,…

This weekend’s gaming plate has been a weirdly satisfying mix of digital hack-and-slash comfort food, mobile word addiction, and old-school tabletop brainstorming. First up, I’m still grinding away in Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance and honestly? I’m having a grand ol’ time with it. Yeah, I know the game gets a lot of criticism for being repetitive and mechanically simple, but sometimes that’s…

Normally, this is the post where I’d be coming down from the high of CanGames—talking about the games I ran, the ones I played, and laying out a spread of loot like some kind of dice-fueled dragon showing off its hoard. There’d be photos, a few impulse buys I’d justify as “essential,” and probably a story or two about something going hilariously off the rails at the table. That’s not this…

There’s a particular kind of morning that doesn’t ease you into the day so much as shove you out of bed and dare you to deal with it. Today was one of those. I woke up feeling off—nothing dramatic at first, just that vague, unsettled sensation that something wasn’t quite right. Within minutes, though, it became very clear this wasn’t just a rough start. My stomach was churning like a storm…

This week’s gaming docket has a nice, satisfying rhythm to it—equal parts digital carnage and tabletop anticipation. I’ve been deep into Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, and it’s hitting exactly the right notes for me right now. It’s unapologetically a hack-and-slash looter, but there’s something honest about that design. You jump in, carve through waves of enemies, scoop up gear, and…