Me in 10 seconds
My name is Sam Doebler. I am a follower of Christ who makes games, runs them online for kiddos, and plays the drums. INTJ. 1w9.
I dream. I slay dragons. I meditate a lot.
The NSR server is my home on Discord.
What do I write about?
Running tabletop adventure games! My niche is running them for youngsters. Oddly, my top posts are about death, deathlessness, and violence in games for kids. I’m known for talking about stopwatch duels, open table games, diegetic advancement, helmets, trait drafts, scene-based adventures, and open strategy games. I think there’s a better way to do advantage and that perception and knowledge rolls smell bad.
I consider myself part of the NSR, OSR, and FKR movements. Whatever focuses on the world, exploration, and problem solving more than hit dice, spell slots, and levels.
There are RPG bloggers that I read as well. The blogroll on the bottom-right is randomized, so just click one and see how deep that particular rabbit hole goes.
Check the tags on the right side of this page for whatever grabs your interest by topic. Click “Browse all posts” at the top of the page to begin trekking through everything I’ve written. Or scroll down more to view posts by month and year. And here are my most recent articles:
Fault and Responsibility
Nothing is your fault, everything is your responsibility. Imagine your younger brother is playing a game of chess and asks you to take over. Would you feel bad about losing? The setup wasn’t exactly “your choice”. Would you feel awesome about winning? Those first moves may have very well set you up for success. The…
Read on…
Into the Odds and Ends
A few procedural bits and bots I’ve found enhances gameplay of Into the Odd (and other Mark of the Odd games): Rolling a Character Before rolling a new character, find which method you’ll use (d6): This you a 50% chance of a “normal” character, keeping true weirdos abnormal. Power Strike An attacker rolls double the…
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Out the Odd – Fleeing the Dungeon
This is how to cut an expedition short and remove tedious dungeon backtracking from your Mark of the Odd game: When the group flees danger to end their expedition and return to safety, each character rolls their three saves in order: STR save (vs harm and danger): if failed, you lose 1d12 STR. If killed,…
Read on…
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My favorite adventure games?
Electric Bastionland, Maze Rats, and Cairn. And yes, those games are all just Into the Odd. I run Adventure Hour! the most often (which, spoilers, is watered-down Into the Odd). Every once in a while, I dabble with Blades in the Dark and Follow.
What am I doing now?
At 24 years of age, I’m living in Phoenix, AZ on my own while working finances at a solar construction company and playing worship music at my church. I got engaged at the start of the year, getting married in July. Still finding ruthless ways to slow down and reduce clutter of all forms; no internet at my house, no TV, more reading. Goof around online at my local coffee shop once a week but still available via links below.
Reading Lies of Locke Lamora (book 2), Essentialism, Orthodoxy, Mere Christianity, 1984, The Signal and the Noise. Listening to half alive, Ghibli soundtracks, Dave Matthews Band, Sabaton. Rewatched Firefly with the fiance. Finished Uncharted 4, moving to Dishonored 2.
Updated Feb 11, 2023.
Contact me?
I read everything you send me. Here’s where you can reach me in long-form. Come chat on the NSR Discord too.
Follow the blog via email, the last free frontier of the internet.
DREAMING DRAGONSLAYER 