Brilliantly Entertaining Monster Movies

Cut the lights and turn up the sound. Get ready for a wild ride. Herein lies my favorite monster flicks, everything from aliens and vampires to classics and contemporaries; the cheesy goodness and the award-winning films. Creature features are my absolute favorite horror subgenre, overlapping with my favorite science fiction films. I love the chase, the heroes, the monsters, and I especially love the variety which the monster genre offers, sometimes even within a single film.

Continue →

Dungeon Generator & Drawing App for D&D & TTRPGs

Generate dungeon maps for your Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowdark, and other TTRPG sessions: draw, customize, and generate loot with Mystic Waffle's free Dungeon Generator v2!

The v2 generator builds on the foundation of my v1 Dungeon Generator, adding new features, enhanced visuals, and more advanced generation algorithms. The app features a complete suite of dungeon map drawing tools, detail stamps, and a map annotation editor. The extensive customizable D&D / fantasy RPG loot generator is perfect for quick room and chest content randomization mid-session.

Continue →

Minecraft World Screenshots

Minecraft is one of those games I just keep picking back up. I'll go years between playing Minecraft—but something about it keeps pulling me back. Maybe it's the hundreds or thousands of hours I spent in my early childhood building castles, vehicles, spaceships, and robots with LEGOs? Minecraft is truly the game of virtual LEGOs, and who doesn't like playing with LEGOs?

Continue →

Ellis' Players Roll Everything - A D&D 5e Combat Mod

With this mod for D&D 5e players roll all the dice. This optional rule from D&D 3.5e simplifies DM responsibilities in combat and keeping everyone engaged between turns.

Ok so Ellis didn't actually make up this house rule, it's an optional rule from D&D 3.5e. But Ellis introduced me to it, and adapted it to 5th edition, so I'll always remember it as Ellis' Players Roll Everything mod. Why this isn't an optional rule in the core 5th edition rule books is beyond me; this one little tweak simultaneously streamlines the DM’s workflow—freeing them up to focus on combat tactics, environment, and pacing—and keeps players more engaged in combat in between their turns.

Continue →

Environment Tables For Your Sci-fi TTRPG

Your players are deep in space, orbiting a strange new planet, or traversing the surface of a small moon. Environments in your sci-fi TTRPG are a critical story-telling component; they add tension, obstacles, and excitement for your players. The following tables should help you create awesome and unique environments and solar systems to explore! Roll for a random environment or pick and choose for inspiration to concoct your own creations.

Use these environment tables to quickly generate solar systems—and the environments contained within—for your science fiction table top role playing game: Star Wars D6, Star Trek Adventures, or (my favorite) Index Card RPG's Warp Shell setting.

Continue →

Is AD&D 2e Better Than 5e?

Well you’re here. So you’re likely in one of these three buckets:

1. You think it’s ridiculous that AD&D 2e could ever hold a candle to modern D&D 5e—you’re ready to grab a pitchfork and start a riot in the comments!
2. You’re on the fence. Maybe you’ve played some 5th edition, maybe you’ve played some AD&D 2nd edition long ago, and you’re simply curious about the pros and cons.
3. You love AD&D 2e, you’re tired of the 5th edition hype, and you’re looking to validate your feelings on OSR (Old School Renaissance / Old School Revival).

Continue →

AJ’s AD&D 2e House Rules

Dungeon Masters often weave their own house rules into game play. Unlike almost every other board game, the AD&D Dungeon Master's guide actually encourages the DM to tweak, change, add, remove, bypass, or ignore any and every rule in the book they feel has a good reason to be modified. This is the genius behind D&D. It is not restricted by traditional board-game limitations. In this article I've collected most of the custom house rules I like to play with.

Continue →

Fixing THAC0 in AD&D 2e

This guide will walk you through how to convert THAC0 to an Attack Bonus system and adjust Armor Class for streamlined AD&D 2e combat.

Whenever Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition comes up, the first thing out of people’s mouths is, “Uggh, THAC0.” I love AD&D 2e, and I played it for over twenty years before trying 5e. It is a great game which can be played simply, using just the PHB, DMG, and MM, or with dozens of optional rules and optional expansion books—deepening the game with hundreds of optional player and DM rules to mix and match as your group sees fit. Working with your DM in 2e to select a race, class, and kit, drawing from over a decade of printed content, is seriously fun; dare I say more fun than min/maxing a first level 5th Edition character. That said however... Uggh, THAC0.

Continue →

Magic: The Gathering Squirrel Deck: Getting Squirrelly in Bloomburrow Limited

Hello, wafflers of the internet. It’s Vale, Mystic Waffle’s own Magic obsessive and hardcore spike. I’d like to talk today about Bloomburrow limited, which I think I’ve been enjoying quite a bit more than most people. More specifically, I want to talk about why I’ve been drafting so much green-black in the format, and why you should too. So without further ado, let’s get squirrely!

Continue →

Vintage MTG Booster Pack Collection

Hi there. Taking a pulse on how many old Magic: The Gathering boosters I have stashed away in a shoe box in my office. I was opening these for a while for drafts, but once the price on these old packs kept climbing I decided that probably wasn't the best idea. Not sure if I'll ever open more of them, but I'm sure tempted to!

Continue →

Highly Recommended Sci-fi Novels

Looking for some great science fiction novels to read? I'm not exceptionally well read in science fiction, but I can highly recommend the following books to anyone looking for a fantastic journey.

Continue →

D&D Dungeon Generator: Random Maps, Rooms, & Loot

Mystic Waffle's Random D&D Dungeon Generator is a web application, forged by AJ, a Human Sorcerer, written in JavaScript. The app implements a procedural generation algorithm to draw Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, or other RPG maps for your next session. The maps are accompanied by randomly generated room descriptions, doorway connections, and items. The generator can be configured using a number of settings.

Continue →

Surviving Mars: Strategy & Tips

Surviving Mars is a fantastic real-time strategy and resource management video game. It's a modern Sim City except your mission is to colonize and terraform Mars! Difficulty can be customized for each scenario and a random mystery drives the storyline. It's got full controller support which is hard to come by in a RTS game—which I love because I can enjoy it from the comfort of my couch.

Continue →

Single Page D&D 5e Character Sheet

Tired of flipping back and forth between multiple sheets to manage your D&D character? Annoyed that your stats, spells, features, equipment, background, etc. are scattered across multiple pages, forcing you to shuffle parchment every time you need to recall or update some small detail?

Introducing the Single Page 5e Character Sheet (PDF)!

This character sheet has space for everything on a one-sided piece of 8 1/2 by 11 inch printer paper. Streamline your game play with your entire character right at your fingertips!

Continue →

Wall-Mounted Cat Tower with Shelf: Cat Tree Build Guide

So you want to build your cat an epic cat tower? Check out this DIY cat tree tutorial for a 6 foot tall wall-mounted cat tree, complete with a carpeted shelf on top. Materials cost about $100, which is quite a bit cheaper than buying a pre-built 6 foot cat tower, assuming the required tools are already handy.

Continue →

Witcher 3 Screenshots

You heard correctly. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was nothing short of an incredible experience. It is absolutely one of the most phenomenal video games I have ever played. Truly, I can't say enough good things about this game. It rivals Oblivion and Skyrim as one of the most expansive and extremely detailed open world games I have ever played.

Witcher 3 has amazing character development, a dynamic atmospheric world, and a story so rich that it entraps you like a great novel. This cinematic experience includes so many details; leaves falling in the wind, critters scurrying around you, and subtly shifting weather. As you grow closer to the amazingly detailed characters, their struggles, and their immaculately crafted unique personalities, you'll get lost in this vast fantasy world.

Continue →

The Legend of the Broke Dragon Slayers

This adventure for Dungeons & Dragons 5e can be run for 4 or 5 level 12 to level 14 characters (difficulty will vary with number of players, character level, and player experience—Challenge Ratings are based on 5 level 12 characters). The adventure typically takes 3 to 4 sessions.

Continue →

Musical Chord Interval Quiz App

This Chord Interval Quiz App is designed to help musicians practice, memorize, and quiz themselves on chord intervals. Perfect for music students, pianists, guitarists, and anyone learning music theory. Customize your quiz to easy major or minor chords or step it up a notch to include seventh, diminished, and/or suspended chords.

Continue →

Hand Drawn 5e Character Sheets

Greetings adventurers! Tired of the same old character sheets? Frustrated by limited inventory space or those ridiculously tiny text labels? Try my custom hand-drawn grid-paper Dungeons & Dragons Character Sheets for 5th edition with generous space and flexible sections.

Continue →

CSV Graphing App: Free Data Visualization Tool

Graph App is a free, browser based, graphing tool for tagging and filtering data points. Data points require a date and an amount which are plotted on the X and Y axis respectively. Points may be assigned an optional type. Data types can be associated to one or many tags, allowing the data set to be grouped and visualized in multiple ways. Tags can be toggled on or off to compare different subsets of data and the data set can be filtered by date ranges.

Continue →

The Long Dark: Survival Tips

"So... cold..."

Keep dying in The Long Dark? Don't feel bad. I did. Especially after I decided Interloper mode was the perfect challenge for me. I love this game. It is meditative, brutal, beautiful, and addicting. There is only one goal in survival mode. How long can you stay alive? Until your last match? Until a wolf inevitably ambushes you? Or maybe you stumbled on a sleeping bear? It's likely you'll die of exposure to the elements or lack of food or water.

Continue →

Amazing Science Fiction Films You Should Watch

Make some popcorn and dim the lights before buckling down for another adventure into the great unknown. Will the future be ruled by a tyrant robot lord? Or perhaps a race of ultra advanced humanoids? Don't fret because a lone savior will defend humanity at the cost of personal sacrifice.

Here is a list of my favorite science fiction films. Forget teen boys riding flying bikes with awkward cuddly aliens. I want blood thirsty monsters and seductress doppelgängers! A good science fiction film better have laser gun battles, cryogen space travel, or witty techno-babble.

Continue →

Sony Alpha Battery Life Tips

The Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras have notoriously short battery life. This comes with the territory of an incredibly lightweight camera packed with awesome features. Often after a few hours of constant shooting you'll find your battery is completely dead. The good news is that with a few modified settings and an awareness of your battery usage, a single Sony battery can last an entire five day backpack trip. Here are my Sony a7 battery life saving tips, pulled from my personal experience and scavenged from the Internet.

Continue →

DIY Planter Box Build: Step-by-Step Instructions

So you want to build a planter box? Awesome. This DIY redwood planter box guide will walk you through the build from materials to constructions.

Gardening is fun and good for your soul. Humans have been growing food for thousands of years, and so can you. You just need a box full of dirt. This guide will point you in the right direction to build a simple planter box that will last for years. The most difficult part will assuredly be getting motivated to drive to the hardware store. So roll up your sleeves, jot down the tools and materials you'll need (listed below), make a trip to the hardware store, and get building.

Continue →

Sony 90mm f/2.8 Macro E Mount Lens Review

You probably landed here deep in the process of researching Sony's full frame macro lenses for E Mount cameras. Well kudos to you for researching first because amazing glass ain't cheap. My advice to you is do your due diligence; research all the options and make sure this lens is the perfect lens for you. I did hours and hours of research before pulling the trigger on this sweet baby. The Sony 90mm Macro is an amazing lens and I haven't regretted the purchase for even a second.

Continue →

AD&D 2e Optional Rules Guide

Trying to figure out which optional rules to play with? It can be overwhelming. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comes jam packed with optional rules for customizing the game's mechanics to perfectly fit your group's playing style. AD&D is so flexible that every group I've ever played with has had a slightly different flavor of awesome and offered a fresh experience. This rules guide covers which optional rules might enhance your game and which ones you should consider skipping.

Continue →

Star Trek TNG Random Episode Generator

Welcome to The Random Next Generator!

You've poured yourself a drink, dimmed the lights, and settled into your couch. All that's left is to click Engage and enjoy a randomly generated episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation 🚀

Continue →

D&D Dungeon Trap Ideas

A good Dungeons & Dragons adventure needs some good dungeon traps! Here are six illustrated trap ideas I quickly sketched up to get your dungeon master thinkers workin'.

The best traps are ones your characters have a chance of overcoming with some patience and collaboration, but a misstep, failed check, or blatant disregard of obvious clues may leave the party impaled or under some ancient being's mind control poison. Which sounds like a great way to start your next adventure.

Continue →

Awesome Movies with Sword Fighting

Welcome to my list of awesome Movies With Sword Fighting! Notice the emphasis on the word awesome? I'm sure your first question is going to be, did Krull make the cut? Well! I think you know the answer to that! These aren't in any particular order except maybe nostalgia. Also, Star Wars didn't make the cut because, despite being a massive Star Wars fan, lightsaber fighting is NOT sword fighting. Keep in mind this list is totally opinionated.

Continue →

Legacy MTG Draft

I recently splurged on a bunch of legacy Magic: The Gathering booster packs, as I've been known to do in the past. I'll let you in on my little secret: I let the 1% cash-back on my credit card build up for over a year, then I blew it all on sixteen pristine legacy booster packs from the 90s and 2000s! Everything after that was history. I dropped a few text messages to some very lucky friends, we cracked open a few beers, then indulged ourselves opening up these ancient Magic: The Gathering booster packs while drafting some awesomely nostalgic decks. Some of these packs were over twenty years old! Which is kinda crazy to think about. I'm amazed these packs even exist unopened anymore.

Continue →

The Cursed Helmet: D&D Campaign & Adventure Guide

Looking for a D&D campaign to run? The Cursed Helmet is a loose campaign adventure arc with interconnected quests.

The following adventures are loosely based on a campaign I'm DMing with some of my closest friends — so far we've all had quite a few good laughs. It has been a silly riot with plenty of intense moments, complete disasters, and an epic struggle of good vs evil. I try to balance an overarching storyline with lots of good distractions and random side quests. Feel free to copy, borrow, steal, etc.

Continue →

D&D Quest Ideas

So you gathered a group of the finest players in the land, created characters, filled out their detailed character sheets, and even devised intricate back-stories to give them some personality. Whether you are deep into a campaign and looking for some good side quest ideas, or you are starting fresh and need an adventure or two while you figure stuff out, here are some fun Dungeons & Dragons quest ideas for any level that I have dreamed up, just for you.

Continue →

Sony a7 Accessory Guide

If you have landed here you are one of two people: either you are looking to buy a Sony A7 (and you totally should) or you are already a happy owner and you are shopping for a new lens or accessory. If either of those resonate with you, then welcome to the Mirrorless Sony camera club!

Continue →

Old School Magic: The Gathering Decks

Looking for old school Magic: The Gathering deck ideas? Look no further!

I love collecting and playing 90s Magic cards. It's that amazing feeling of nostalgia that many of us get when we see that early edition print quality; how we can instantly identify each of those early editions' unique look and feel. I love how Unlimited is slightly blurry and overexposed, Revised images are crisp and the borders are exact, and 4th Edition is ever so slightly saturated—or Alpha with its slightly more rounded corners.

Continue →

Resin Coasters with Custom Photos: DIY Tutorial

Disappointed there isn't much Oblivion swag? So was my wife, Meg, who is obsessed with Oblivion (it's kinda hard not to be—Oblivion is, without a doubt, one of the greatest video games ever made).

This DIY coaster tutorial shows you how to make custom photo coasters using tiles, Mod Podge, and epoxy resin.

We needed coasters (about a year ago) and Meg got the brilliant idea to make a set of coasters with each of the cities in Cyrodiil! And she was off to the research station (the Interwebs).

Continue →

Book List

Here is my list of every book I have ever read—the ones I can think of at least. I'm sure I'm missing a whole bunch, but this is a good stab at remembering. This list consists mostly of fantasy and science fiction novels (because that's the cool nerdy stuff). I haven't included boring stuff like any text books I have read, or any of the awesome comic books I have read.

Continue →

D&D World Map Guide: How to Draw Campaign Maps

Want to create a D&D world map for your campaign? This guide covers map drawing techniques, geography tips, and location naming strategies.

Hello fellow DMs! I have been drawing maps for D&D, and just for the fun of it, since sixth grade. During that time I would like to think I have learned a thing or two about RPG cartography, and what players expect and enjoy. Every good fantasy book has a map and so should your D&D campaign!

Continue →

My Top Five Favorite Comic Books

Looking for some good comic books to read? Here are my top five favorite comic books and graphic novels. Obviously I haven't read all the comic books and graphic novels in the world—so this isn't a "best comic books ever" guide or anything. This is just a few of my favorites that I have been lucky enough to own or borrow.

Continue →

Shadow of Mordor Review

Wow. Not sure where to start. This game was freaking amazing. I'll tell you all about it below. I completed with 100% and loved absolutely every minute of it. It's got a narrative that completely sucked me into J.R.R. Tolkien's amazing world of Middle Earth. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan and this game didn't let me down. I loved that it took place prior to the story we all know and love and I'm okay with the fact that it only loosely fits into the history of Middle Earth.

Continue →

28 Days Later Review & Analysis

Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) is a groundbreaking zombie horror film starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, and Christopher Eccleston. This post-apocalyptic thriller redefined the zombie genre with its visceral cinematography and exploration of human nature under extreme survival conditions.

Continue →

Just Finished Tomb Raider 2013 and it was Totally Amazing

I just finished playing the 2013 release of Tomb Raider and it was totally amazing! But that's no surprise since it gets 9.1 (Amazing) on IGN. As far as third person adventure games go I really liked Tomb Raider. Recently I played through the first three Uncharted games, as well as The Last Of Us (all of which I extremely enjoyed), and I would say that Tomb Raider totally holds its own in comparison. All these games have similar combat mechanics, but Tomb Raider just feels silky smooth. Targeting and dodging in combat have an excellent pace. Melee combat is dynamic and gets better and better as you upgrade your hunting skills. Combat, exploring, and cutscene transitions are seamless and Lara's interaction with the environment is completely dynamic. As Lara Croft climbs, swims, squeezes, and explores the ancient island ruins of Yamatai she must fight to stay alive, hunt for her survival, and do everything she can to save her friends. This game is jam packed with unique situations and I felt that it had very little repetitive gameplay.

Continue →

Unopened Vintage Magic: The Gathering Booster Packs

Back in the day the retro Magic Cards were a bit different from what the game has become today. I remember getting my first starter pack of Revised way back in 3rd grade. That's 1994! Over twenty years ago. Recently, out of nowhere, I was overcome by an extreme nostalgia for the old 90s magic cards.

Continue →

AD&D Player Character Sheets - Free PDF

Hey there D&D friends! Attached below are my home-brewed AD&D Character Sheets and an AD&D Weapon List. I made these in InDesign and played a campaign from 2013 to 2017 with them (more late-night sessions to come). Hopefully they are as useful to your campaign as they have been to mine. This article includes some background on my AD&D upbringing as well as some of the thought process that went into making these character sheets.

Continue →

Lord of the Rings Illustrated By Alan Lee With Rare Upside Down Binding

So about 10 years ago for Christmas, while my classmates were asking for footballs and new shoes (or whatever normal kids want for Christmas), I, in proper Nerd fashion, asked for the hard bound, all in one copy, of the Lord of the Rings, illustrated by Alan Lee. Christmas morning, in a fury of wrapping paper ripping I unveiled this exquisite hard bound copy of JRR Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece. I broke it open to peek at the amazing illustrations and paintings by Alan Lee contained within. But I immediately closed it because I didn't want to ruin the experience of seeing each illustration for the first time while I re-read one of my favorite fantasy novels. So I flipped to the front page and to my dismay I found that it was a manufacturer defect!

Continue →

Banjo Kazooie 100% Completion List

Not too long ago I got 100% in Banjo Kazooie! It was totally fun and a total blast from the past (1998 to be exact). One of the best Nintendo 64 games ever released.

Continue →

Wishing you a Happy birthday from Vault-Tec

Vault Boy highly recommends:

• Braid – A 2D puzzler where time is reversed with the push of a button
• Limbo – An atmospheric 2D platformer with many chances to fail
• Terraria – 2D Minecraft. Enough said.

Continue →

The Next Generation Drinking Game

Alright all you Star Trek fans. Here is a really fun Next Generation drinking game. Get all your friends together, grab a drink (or a non-alcoholic beverage of your choice—alcohol is bad for your health), pop on an episode of TNG and let the good times roll.

Continue →

Knights of Badassdom Review

Knights of Badassdom (2013) is extremely badass with a side order of nerd-fantasy-role-playing. Can I say, "yes please"? Eric just about sums up the narrative when he enthusiastically says to Joe, "Join us in tasting the sweet nectar of victory! Or mope around an empty house all week like a b****!" Joe, who was previously dumped by his girlfriend, has been playfully kidnapped by his friends and brought to a live action dungeons and dragons extravaganza in the woods! "It's a lot like you remember it.", says Hung, "except for sitting around a table, we do it for real." Unbeknownst to the protagonists, this renaissance fair of fantasy gamers is about to get dunked in a brutal blood bath of demon succubus death dealing.

Continue →

Pitch Black... Sorta, a Look at Riddick

Something that I should make abundantly clear, I don't consider myself a critic. For the most part, I will give a movie every chance and if I enjoy the ride I can let a great deal slide. I tend to roll with a lot of punches as long as I am entertained. This is also applicable to my feeling about sequels, I love them. Sequels, to me always feel like an opportunity to know what happened after the curtain comes down and lights go up. Where did they go? How did they change? Was it happily ever after and if the previous didn't have a happy ending, will the Phoenix rise? A critic's job is to critique with a scrutinizing eye; I spend enough of my day scrutinizing already. If I see something I take issue with there's nothing I can do about that, it's a shot across the bow, however I would hardly say I go hunting for it. The whole idea of critiquing I often find antithetical to the experience and akin to going on Space Mountain trying to find flaws. That being said... Riddick.

Continue →

What's Up With Pandorum? Review & Analysis

I watched Pandorum (2009) a while back and took detailed notes in preparation for this article. So here it goes. To quote my wife, "this movie blew." Ha. I agree but also I loved Pandorum despite all of its defects. What it lacks in special effects and acting, it makes up for in storyline and sheer awesomeness. Part of me wants to love it but the other half just can't take it seriously. At first I thought the aliens were cheesy, just humans with some spiky outfits, but then it comes out that they are in fact twisted mutant humans in space. Good save.

Continue →