From time to time, people get bored. When many people get bored, they look around for a game to help pass the time. Not me though. When I get bored, I design new games. This small archive will hopefully let the results of my boredom alleviate yours.
Once upon a time, my friends and I would get together every weekend to play games. Usually we would try to start playing a complex tabletop strategy game, but then somehow end up playing Magic for several hours. Now of course all my friends all live too far off, and Magic is a bit passé. Still, setting up a complex strategy game and then just playing Magic can be fun, and the following combination of the two is an excellent way to get some use out of those thousands and thousands of cards you probably have sitting in a box somewhere.
Stratego is the first real strategy game. Chess and Go are really just more complex games in the vein of Tic-Tac-Toe. Whichever player has a better grasp of the principles will always win, assuming neither player makes a mistake. They aren't quite as dull as tic-tac-toe, only because the number of possible board configurations is too large for the average person to work out a surefire road to victory. Stratego on the other hand mixes things up without using any random factors. Each player begins on completely even footing, but has the ability to keep information hidden from their opponent, in turn placing more emphasis on deducing your opponent's strategy, and making for a more surprising game. The only other games to touch upon this concept are computer strategy games. Sneak Attack! therefore exists to broaden the genre, using only common household items.
My game design philosophy revolves around the combination of four elements in exciting ways, on the foundation that any single one of those elements will provide a shallow experience by itself. Lynch Mob serves to illustrate this point, by involving what I call "Social Factor" but not including any traces of strategy, random factors, or hidden information.
Are your RPG sessions getting a tad stale? Here's an interesting way to add some variety, and keep PCs from always playing the same type of character.
Have you ever taken a few d6, bunched'em up into a nice grid, and noticed how sometimes you get little hallways? It's a surprisingly good means of generating random maps.
Have you ever needed a quick die roll but didn't have the right type of die? In a pinch, and with the help of this chart, you can emulate any die using any other die. Of course, I can't forsee any situation when this chart can be more easily obtained than a die, so you should probably memorize it if you plan to get any use from it.
Did this ever happen to you? You're getting ready to play some strategy game or other, but you misplaced all your hex grid paper, and all you can find is a pen and a couple pieces of paper. Here's how you can get an accurate hex grid whipped up. Also nice for triangular grids or replacing lost Car Wars turning keys.
The English language is full of words with strange, arbitrary spellings. Sure, "I before E except after C..." is a little weird, but look at the word cough some time. We're essentially using "-ugh" in place of "-f" there. The goal of this game is to establish a set of fixed rules for spelling, with no exceptions that aren't specifically explained. Being able to spell any given word at the end of the gameas one normally would isn't a priority.