Dungeons and Dragons at Work

May 29, 2026May 29, 2026

Nice Marines: Murder Hobos try Diplomacy

There are games that arrive with binders of lore, intricate rules, and the expectation that you will prepare. Then there is Nice Marines by Grant Howitt, a free one-page RPG that asks the simple question: what if genetically engineered space marines tried to solve problems with diplomacy?

I first came across this game on my favourite actual play podcast Dungeons and Daddies. Definitely worth a listen.

Everyone plays a kick ass, no nonsense murder machine in service to the Emperor of Mankind. Anyone who has walked past a Warhammer store knows the drill. Buzz cut, massive power armour and a very clear view on what action to take against heretics and aliens. Kill them all.

In this game the twist is that the war on this world is over and this team of murder hobos has been left to get the planet ready for the new imperial government that arrives in a weeks time. So no shooting your way out of problems. Diplomacy and tact are needed by these super soldiers who usually do their talking from the barrel of a gun.

Given it was one page of rules and I’d already planned and run Shoot out at Virellion Estate that day I decided to hot the table with zero prep. No maps, stat blocks or carefully balanced encounters. Just a table, some dice, and the kind of players who are keen to lean into whatever crazy concept hits the table.

The day of gaming had been so busy that I hadn’t had a chance to worry about this lack of prep until dinner, when it suddenly dawned on me that I’d be running it…. Here’s how it went.

The Setup: Bureaucrats vs Zealots

To say I didn’t do any prep is a slight over exaggeration. Straight after dinner I sat down with the one page of rules and rolled up the two factions who needed their dispute solved.

The Capuleys: bureaucratic administrators, drowning in parchment and procedure
The Motags: religious zealots of the Imperial Church, fueled by doctrine and divine certainty

Both had the same goal: Control the Governor’s Palace, and build a statue honouring the war hero fallen Brother-Captain Valek. No deeper intrigue. No hidden twist. Just two unstoppable forces politely trying to outmaneuver each other.

Besides writing a name and two word description for the leader of each faction, that was the extent of my prep.

Making It Work (Because the Rules only give you so Much)

Being literally one page Nice Marines is extremely light on guidance for the games master. So I bolted on a simple structure:

Each round = one day
Each marine gets one action per day
At the end of each day, everyone meets back at base to discuss their next plan
The bosses return on Day 5, so everything had to be “resolved” by then

This gave the game a rhythm and clear direction to the players around how to achieve their goals. As we had eight players, it was going to be difficult to keep them all engaged. Having a structure like this meant that no-one hogged the spotlight and there was a clear area for actions and discussion stopping the analysis paralysis that sometimes plagues players.

The Dice: Agents of Glorious Ruin

The core mechanic of this game is beautifully chaotic:

Roll low → something bad happens
Roll too high → something catastrophic happens

Outright success is an unusual thing to achieve. Only different flavours of disaster.

Highlights from the Descent into Madness

I’m lucky in that my players are always up for some silliness. And that is what we got. Here ae some of the highlights from the session.

The planet’s communications system was accidentally destroyed during what was meant to be a simple data gathering excercise.
The meat farming industry suffered a similar fate, which raised some uncomfortable logistical questions about feeding the population.
A political marriage was arranged between the rival families to secure unity…
…which led to the murder of the now inconvenient spouses.
Yes. That escalated quickly. The tone briefly dipped into something surprisingly dark before bouncing back into absurdity.
A grand parade featuring jetpacks turned into a skyborne chain reaction of explosions, debris, and heroic overcompensation.

Despite causing irreparable damage to the planet our bred-for-war heroes managed to solve the dispute and prepare the planet for Imperial rule.

The Emperor Mechanic (House Rule Madness)

We added one rule that, frankly, stole the show. Whenever anyone praised the Emperor, everyone at the table had to immediately praise the Emperor and make the sign of the Aquila.

Last person to do it? They get a black mark.

At the end of the game, whoever had the most black marks would likely be… dealt with… by the Inquisition. This did two things:

Kept everyone constantly on edge
Turned casual dialogue into a reflex-testing panic sport

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a table of grown adults snap into synchronized religious fervour because someone muttered “for the Emperor” under their breath.

Renowned author Dan Abnett knows the Aquila. He wont be talking to the inquisition any time soon.

An Unexpected Story

What surprised me most wasn’t the explosions or the chaos. It was the story that emerged. No one sat down intending to tell a tale about a forced political marriage spiralling into dark comedy. No one planned the uneasy alliance, the performative unity, or the quiet unraveling beneath it. But it happened anyway.

It seems that when you strip a game down to almost nothing, what fills the space is player ingenuity. And in this instance, morally questionable wedding planning.

Final Thoughts on Nice Marines

Nice Marines was amazing fun to run and from what I gather to play. However, it does rely on the following, which may not be every groups cup of tea.

Improvisation
Player creativity
A willingness to let things go completely off the rails

If you need structure or definitive rules, it will frustrate you. However, if instead you enjoy improvisational craziness and your group has a spare couple of hours definitely give it a go.

Praise the Emperor. Quickly now.

May 22, 2026April 25, 2026

How Often Should You Play Dungeons & Dragons?

rustic december calendar page with vintage style

One of the questions that quietly haunts many gaming groups is simple: how often should you play Dungeons & Dragons? I once met “that guy” who was very militant in his thinking. Weekly was the right answer and fortnightly at a push, anything else was unacceptable to his rather limited world view. But let’s be realistic there isn’t a universal answer. Like choosing a class or rolling up a character background, the right cadence is deeply personal. It depends on life, work, family, enthusiasm, and how much space everyone has in their schedules. Over the years, I’ve played at several different rhythms, and each one has brought its own flavour to the table.

The Golden Age of Weekly Games

Many moons ago when I was an undergraduate at Edinburgh University we played every Sunday night at GEAS. It was a sacred time slot. We all attended come hell or highwater.

Weekly play has a kind of magic to it.

The story stays fresh. Everyone remembers what happened last session. Plot threads remain tight, character relationships develop naturally, and momentum builds quickly. Over a typical ten-week university term, our party could accomplish an astonishing amount. Dungeons cleared, villains defeated, mysteries unravelled. It felt like living inside a novel that advanced a chapter every week.

If you can manage weekly sessions, you are fortunate indeed. It’s the closest thing to an uninterrupted narrative flow. But life has a habit of filling Sundays.

The Fortnightly Campaign

These days, my main game runs every two weeks.

The story takes a little more effort to remember. We always begin with a quick recap while we settle in and character sheets appear. But the trade-off is worth it. A fortnightly rhythm fits comfortably around work, family commitments, and the other obligations that quietly accumulate in adult life.

Because the group can maintain consistency, the campaign still thrives. Our adventures tend to run one to two years, which gives the story plenty of space to breathe. Characters evolve slowly, reputations grow, and the world responds to the party’s actions over time.

It may not have the relentless momentum of weekly play, but it has something equally valuable: sustainability.

The Monthly Table

For a long time I also ran a monthly game.

Monthly sessions have their own rhythm. The longer gap means there is usually a bit of catching up at the beginning. Notes get checked, stories retold, and memories nudged back into place. But there is a surprising benefit for the Game Master.

More time between sessions means more time to prepare. Encounters can be polished, storylines carefully woven, and worlds expanded without feeling rushed. I even had time to build specific terrain pieces for the more involved encounters.

My friend Rich now runs that monthly slot and does it brilliantly. His sessions are tight, focused, and enormous fun. The only real side effect of monthly play is that campaigns stretch out over longer periods. What might take a year in a weekly game can take several years to complete.

But if the table is enjoying itself, time is hardly the enemy.

The Quarterly Experiment

Finally, there is the most unusual cadence I run: a quarterly game of Imperium Maledictum.

I really wanted to run the system, but I simply didn’t have space for another regular campaign. So instead of forcing a traditional structure, I borrowed inspiration from cinema.

Each session runs like a film in a franchise.

Think of something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Characters grow over time, relationships deepen, and the setting slowly evolves. But each individual story is self-contained. You can enjoy a single adventure without needing to remember every detail from the previous one.

The result is a campaign that feels episodic. Every few months the characters reunite for another dangerous mission in the grim darkness of the far future. It works remarkably well for a group with limited availability.

Play at the cadence that works for you and your friends

The Real Answer

So how often should you play Dungeons & Dragons? for a start ignore “that guy” I mentioned above. Instead:

As often as works for you.

Weekly games create powerful narrative momentum. Fortnightly campaigns balance story with real life. Monthly sessions allow thoughtful preparation and long-form storytelling. Quarterly adventures can feel like cinematic episodes in an ongoing saga.

There is no wrong schedule.

If you gather every week around a battered table with maps and miniatures, you are lucky indeed. But if your group only manages a few long sessions a year, that is just as valid.

Because the real magic of D&D isn’t the frequency.

It’s the moment when friends gather, dice tumble across the table, and for a few hours the world becomes a place of dragons, danger, and shared imagination.

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026

Ten Candles on Rottnest: Watching the Light Go Out Together

Group lit by candlelight ready to play the tragic horror game 10 candles

Most of the games I discuss and play are full of story and cinematic moments, but tend to be relatively light.

Ten Candles by Stephen Dewey is not that game.

It’s a bleakly immersive tale of tragic horror played in the dark. For it to work the players must lean into these themes and become emotionally invested in the characters and their fate. Chilling, yes. Emotional, yes. Scary, yes. But, wow is it fun.

What is Ten Candles?

Ten Candles is a collaborative, tragic horror roleplaying game built on a simple, brutal truth: Your characters will die.

There are no hit points to cling to, no clever builds to save you. Instead, the table is lit by ten real candles. As the game unfolds, those candles go out one by one, each extinguishing tightening the noose of dread. When the last flame is extinguished, so are the characters.

The mechanics are elegantly cruel. Dice pools shrink. Characters lose what makes them human. Hope erodes. The darkness, quite literally, closes in. There is no winning in this game. But as the rules point out, you have to play your characters with hope. Hope that everything will work out. Even though we all know it wont.

Martycon 2026: Not Enough Light

We played during Martycon 2026, crammed around a large dining room table, the rest of the house in darkness. Everyone was aware that we were in for an immersive horror game and I think we were all slightly on edge.

We had eight players and Rich, our GM. Too many, really. But to his credit, Rich conducted the game beautifully and kept everyone involved and on the edge of their seat.

Rottnest Island, but Very Wrong

Our session of Ten Candles was set the game on Rottnest Island a location known to all Western Australians as a place of holidays, sun and rest. Rich made a clever move to set the game in a place known to the players. It immediately grounded the game in reality. No magic potions for us. And no guns either. Instead our characters were armed with torches, chair legs and bottles of vodka.

In our version, the island was a trap. Blood soaked the beaches and strange unformed creatures ranged the darkness. The mainland was pitch black and felt impossibly far away. Our only hope: a rumour of rescue from the western edge of the island. A boat. If we could get there. If we could stay in the light.

One of the key premises of the game is that if you Step into darkness, “They” will take you.

“They” were never fully explained. Just glimpsed. A black, roiling smoke. Something that moved with intent. Something that could be breathed in. Ambiguity did the heavy lifting. Our imaginations happily supplied the nightmare.

Meet Jerry (Briefly)

My character, Jerry, was a plump water monitoring technician. Cheerful. And just a little bit manipulative. The kind of man who smiles while quietly steering the boat.

Character creation involved writing a vice and a virtue and passing them to other players. I got joyous and manipulative and worked from there. We also had to write a moment of hope. Jerry’s was that he got to see the stars. Finally, another player handed me Jerry’s brink. Which is how he acts when all hope has gone. He would break down crying.

These four items made up the character and each could be literally ripped up to gain a reroll of any one’s rolled on the dice. Each time the character lost a little of who they were.

Before the game began, we each recorded a short voice message in character. A small slice of life before the end. Jerry’s was simple:

“Hey Sarah… job’s almost finished. I’ll be home soon.”

Joyous optimism for his wife on the mainland. After we had all recorded our messages, some bleak, others frantic, we started to play.

Ten Flames, Then Nine…

The candles were lit and we turned house lights off. And just like that, the world shrank to a circle of firelight.

We began in a small holiday cabin. The town was empty and the sky dark. We argued. We clung to the idea of the boat. Jerry got stomped by a pack of young thugs trying to steal his car keys. Not villains, just desperate people with the same bad idea we had: survive at someone else’s expense.

We got to the car and drove frantically towards the west of the island. We (well Jerry) crashed. Things in the dark began to notice us. One of us got infected. His mouth blackened, like ink spreading through paper. And all the while:

Candles went out.

Each extinguishing was a tiny tightening of the vice. The table grew quieter, more focused, our inevitable doom creeping closer. And yet our characters clung on, believing that escape was possible. By the time we were down to the last few candles the mood was tense.

The End Is the Point

Of course we didn’t make it. Our party made it to the rescue boat, but everyone onboard was infected. The last candle went out as Jerry was splashing in the dark water desperately clinging to the side of the boat.

Total darkness. Just eight people and a GM sitting in the void. Silence for a few heartbeats. Then Rich pressed play.

The Voices We Left Behind

Our recordings filled the darkness. Fragments of lives that no longer existed.

Hopeful. Ordinary. Human. Made much more poignant by the harrowing ordeal they had just experienced.

No one spoke.

For what felt like an eternity we sat in the dark, lost in our thoughts of the game and what had transpired.

Lights On, Breath In

When the lights finally came back on we all stared at each other for a moment and breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Then there was laughter and incredulous sharing of our favourite moments. We’d just shared something strange and intimate. A kind of collective ghost story where we were both the storytellers and the ghosts.

Of course, Ten Candles is not a game to be played every week. Rather it’s an experience. A ritual, almost. Something you step into, knowing it will be a unique and unsettling experience

With eight players, it was a little crowded. With four or five, I suspect it would tighten into something even sharper. More personal and possibly even scarier. But even as it was? It was unforgettable, an absolute highlight of the gaming year and one of the best gaming sessions I’ve ever played in. A big shoutout to our GM Rich who did a masterful job of running a new game, while keeping the atmosphere and tension at an all time high!

Would I play again? Most definitely. I would also like to try my hand at running a session and I have some ideas already beginning to percolate. Should you give it a go? 100%! Just make sure your group is on the same page with creating and maintaining the atmosphere. And of course remember:

The light goes out. What matters is what you do before it does.