“Wretched man! Short indeed are the memories of mortals, that you O king should stand in this shrine and without shame ask for a father’s blessing! You who gave your first daughter in sacrifice to the Beast of Kolkoris, defying the will of the immortal gods!” In the labyrinth of Kolkoris a monster lurks, hiding […]

Fresh on the heels of Temple of Hera, our next Agon adventure Beast of Kolkoris has gone to playtesting. When I originally ran the game it set the record for “most Fate spent in a single quest” among my heroes. Seriously. Piles of Fate (somewhere John Harper is cackling with glee). Will the playtest heroes […]

Oh, I know: you wanted to run some Agon this weekend, but work got kind of crazy, and you had a lot of errands to run and blah blah blah so you didn’t have any time to prepare. Well now you have no excuse. Temple of Hera is done and ready for download. Big thanks […]

Our first Agon adventure, Temple of Hera, is now in playtesting and peer review. If you listen carefully you can hear the clash of bronze and the anguished cries of heroes as their comrades bludgeon them with oaths and steal their glory. I had intended to send Beast of Kolkoris out first, but as I […]

Interested in playtesting some upcoming Agon adventures? Now’s your chance. I’ve already run them, but I like having outside groups do “blind” playtests so I get an objective opinion of whether they really work, whether there are any kinks, etc. The playtest windows will be fairly short, probably just two weeks for each adventure, but […]

“Heroes, my anger is hot within me! Slay those who defile my shrine! Cleanse my temple! Let not one escape the wrath of Hera!” What’s coming up next from Lame Mage? I’m working on a series of adventures for the AGON role-playing game by John Harper. The plan is to make them free releases, so […]

“This is Chip Chopper, high in the sky in the Channel Four Action News Copter!” “There’s a swarm of… what look like bugs, big metal bugs, crawling up out of the bay. Each one is as big as a car. They climbed right up the bridge tower, and now they’re spread out across the road, […]

Hmm, so many Dr Null adventures. But, you ask, how can I use them all to maximize the pain and suffering I inflict on my players? Here are some notes for connecting the different Lame Mage releases to form a complete Dr Null adventure path. I originally posted this over on Atomic Think Tank but […]

One of these guys has already taken 7 hit points of damage. Now if I can just remember which one… I’ve run lots and lots of games where I’ve tracked the individual hit points of every orc on the battle map. Every GM comes up with their own clever methods of remembering which figure took […]

After many revised release plans, Like Father, Like Son (Trial of Dr Null) is out the door and looking for heroes to kick around. Following my own advice, I always try to have the next project underway before the last one is out. Otherwise it’s just too easy to sit around and noodle over the […]

Next time you want to do something a little different but have no idea how the M&M rules support it, try the Universal Combat Maneuver: 1) Think of an appropriate description of your maneuver, including how it’s different from your normal attack. 2) Use a Move action to perform the maneuver. 3) Take a +2 […]

With the release of Evil Genius #2: Crime & Punishment, I think I have more M&M adventures in print than any other author. My reign of terror marches on unabated.

Generally I post whenever the mood seizes me, but January was particularly slow because I was busy finishing up the playtest draft of Evil Genius #2: Crime & Punishment. But now it's off in the hands of the playtesters, and I'm catching up on the ars ludi posts that were rattling around in the back […]

The normal M&M Minion rules are great: they reflect the genre and speed up combat. But you are still left dealing with each opponent individually, which can make large battles slow and boring (particularly since the individual minions are not a real threat to most heroes, so there’s less sense of danger). The Field Battle […]

Toughness saves in M&M may seem too passive to some. The Guardian swoops down, punches the giant robot, and then waits to see what happens when the robot rolls its save. He can use a Hero Point to re-roll an attack roll, but nothing to make sure the blow actually does any good (Extra Effort […]