Dust to Dust


LARP Design: The In-Town Game

Thanks to a long list of complicating factors, I had to miss almost every LARP event of 2023 before September. Since the start of September, I’ve played an Eclipse event, an Altera Awakens event, and two Alliance events (one Atlanta chapter event, one National event run by Crossroads TN), I’ve […]


LARP Design: A Further Five Field Battles

It has been more than two years since my last post in this series, in part because we spent two years not LARPing. We’re back at it now, and that makes it easier to write. In the first two posts, I talked about ten field battle models I’ve seen. Today’s […]


LARP Design: Five More Field Battle Models 1

Back in January, I wrote about five common field battle designs, and it sparked an interesting couple of days of conversation among my LARPing community. This time out, I’m talking about five much less common (but still highly reusable) models. Image by Christian Körtke from Pixabay 6. Long-Distance Escort If you also play […]


LARP Design: Five Field Battle Models 3

It’s been a long time since I’ve talked LARP design. Quarantine has of course put games on hold for the last year, though as vaccines roll out, we might be stirring again from that long slumber. Anyway, in this post I’m talking about field battle models and implementation guidance for […]


LARP Design: Wandering Monsters and Active Locations 3

In a boffer LARP campaign, it does a lot of good for the wandering-monster gameplay experience if the players have a steady supply of reasons to move around the game site in small groups. That is, it both improves the experience of being a wandering monster (and yes, people playing […]


D&D 5e: The Inquisitor Background 2

For the same project as the Cultist background, I’m creating another close variant on the acolyte, but on the opposite, more enforcing side of the social order. Inquisitors work about equally well as crusading heroes or the authority to rebel against. Figure out which side is the underdog in your setting, and […]


Villain Design: Cabals

Over the course of the campaigns I’ve run, my PCs have faced a whole lot of cabals of evil spellcasters. One of those campaigns was an early run of the Dust to Dust setting, and the Blackfeather Order played an important role in both the tabletop game and the LARP. […]