Sixsmith Games blog and product updates

The blog covers releases, product updates, studio announcements, and other time-sensitive notes. Evergreen product guides live on the Articles page.

Release notes, product updates, and studio announcements. For product guides and evergreen explainers, visit the Articles page.

Latest posts

You Readied an Attack. Your Second Swing Didn't Come With It.

Readying an action is one of the most misplayed rules in D&D, and the Extra Attack trap is the part that catches even experienced tables.

Your Typing Accuracy Isn't One Number. The Table Changes It.

The score MasterTyping's assessment gives you and what actually happens when the table's waiting on you mid-fight are two different numbers. Here's why, and how Game mode's pressure levels are built to close that gap.

Your Longsword Has Had Sap This Whole Time. Nobody at the Table Used It.

D&D 2024 gave every Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue a mastery property built into their weapon, one meant to fire on every qualifying hit. Here's what each property actually does, and why most of them never leave the character sheet.

Your Help Action Isn't Free Anymore. It Needs a Proficiency Behind It.

D&D 2024 quietly rewrote the Help action: granting advantage on an ability check now runs through a proficiency you actually have, not just a declared "I help." Here's what changed, what didn't, and where to catch it before the roll.

Your Ship Didn't Need an Enemy To Lose This Turn

In Gravity, the power you route through your own ship carries a risk the enemy captain never touches. That's worth planning for separately.

More Tanks Wouldn't Have Cracked the Hedgerows. A Sergeant's Scrap Metal Idea Did.

A WWII case where terrain, not unit count, decided the battle, and what it means for reading terrain and picking the right unit type in Four Star General.

Spotlight Isn't Shared by Accident. It Gets Written Down First.

Six sessions in, and the party's fighter has had exactly one scene built around them: getting knocked prone by a trap nobody else triggered. Nobody's checked...

Why We Still Love Waiting Our Turn

Why We Still Love Waiting Our Turn Every few months another headline declares that strategy gaming is "back," and 2026 has been especially loud about it....

Your Homebrew Isn't Done Until It Survives Contact With Your Table

Your Homebrew Isn't Done Until It Survives Contact With Your Table Writing the cool ability is maybe 30% of the job. Here's the actual workflow for...

Session Zero Isn't a Rules Read-Through: The 90-Minute Framework We Actually Use

Session Zero Isn't a Rules Read-Through: The 90-Minute Framework We Actually Use A concrete, 90-minute Session Zero framework for GMs: pitch, lines and veils,...

The One-Page Session Zero That Actually Survives Week Three

The One-Page Session Zero That Actually Survives Week Three Most session zero docs get written once, nodded at, and buried in a Discord channel by the third...

Whose Turn Is It Anyway: The Habit That Keeps Big Fights From Stalling

Whose Turn Is It Anyway: The Habit That Keeps Big Fights From Stalling The stall in every big fight isn't the dice. It's not knowing whose turn it is. Here's...

Running for Strangers: A Gen Con 2026 Prep Checklist That Actually Works

Running for Strangers: A Gen Con 2026 Prep Checklist That Actually Works Gen Con 2026 hits Indianapolis July 30 through August 2, and if you're one of the...

Steal This Boss Fight Trick: Villain Actions Instead of Legendary Actions

Steal This Boss Fight Trick: Villain Actions Instead of Legendary Actions Your boss monster gets one turn to the party's four or five. Here's the...

Your Dice Didn't Lose That Fight. Your Reserves Did.

The oldest trick in operational planning has nothing to do with dice, and Four Star General is built to punish you for skipping it. Every tactics table has...

Power Triage: Why the Best Ship-Combat Games Make You Choose Before You Can See the Fight

Power Triage: Why the Best Ship-Combat Games Make You Choose Before You Can See the Fight FTL taught a generation of players to yank power from the engines to...

Board Games Just Discovered What VTTs Have Known For Years

Gen Con wrapped up a few weeks ago, and if you spent any time on the board game floor instead of camping out in the TTRPG hall, you probably noticed something...

Your Players Remember That Tavern. Do You?

Your Players Remember That Tavern. Do You? A player calls back to a location you improvised three sessions ago and you've got nothing. Here's the three-line...

The Recap Nobody Reads (And the Three-Line Fix That Actually Works)

The Recap Nobody Reads And the Three-Line Fix That Actually Works Most session recaps get written once, skimmed for ten seconds, and ignored by session three....

The Magic Sword Everyone Wants and Nobody Will Ask For

The Magic Sword Everyone Wants and Nobody Will Ask For Your party finally kills the vampire lord, and the loot drop includes exactly one +1 rapier. Three...

The Ending Nobody Plans For (And the Two-List Fix)

The Ending Nobody Plans For And the Two-List Fix Most campaigns don't end. They fizzle. A scheduling gap turns permanent, or the GM burns out three arcs from...

Splitting the Party Isn't the Problem. Forgetting Half the Table Is.

Splitting the Party Isn't the Problem. Forgetting Half the Table Is. A heist splits your party into two crews and you cut back to find you've lost the thread....

The Empty Chair: What To Do When a Player Misses Session Twelve

The Empty Chair: What To Do When a Player Misses Session Twelve Somebody's out and their character is missing from the table. Here are three ways to handle it...

The Downtime Tax: How "What Are You Doing Between Sessions" Quietly Eats Your Prep Time

The Downtime Tax: How "What Are You Doing Between Sessions" Quietly Eats Your Prep Time Downtime between sessions either vanishes into nothing or eats a whole...

The New Guy Doesn't Need Your Wiki. He Needs Three Sentences.

The New Guy Doesn't Need Your Wiki. He Needs Three Sentences. A new player is joining your session-twenty-three campaign. Here's the three-part catch-up card...

Your Boss Fight Isn't Going Sideways. It Just Doesn't Have an Exit.

Your Boss Fight Isn't Going Sideways. It Just Doesn't Have an Exit. A boss fight can go wrong in two directions: dead in two rounds, or a TPK waiting to...

Your Table Just Got 33 New Spells. Your Combat Tracker Didn't.

Your Table Just Got 33 New Spells. Your Combat Tracker Didn't. Arcana Unleashed's renew-each-turn spells look great on paper and terrible in practice. Here's...

Your Player's Character Just Died. Nobody Planned For What Happens Next.

Your Player's Character Just Died. Nobody Planned For What Happens Next. A character dies mid-campaign and the table stalls on two fronts: how the new one...

You Have a Reaction. You Just Forgot You Have One.

You Have a Reaction. You Just Forgot You Have One. Reactions are the most powerful resource on a D&D character sheet and the easiest to forget mid-fight....

Your Boss Has a Lair. It's Not Doing Anything.

Your Boss Has a Lair. It's Not Doing Anything. Lair actions are close to free damage and battlefield control for a solo boss, triggering every round at...

Your Wizard Never Runs Out of Spell Slots. That's Not a Compliment.

Your Wizard Never Runs Out of Spell Slots. That's Not a Compliment. D&D's class balance assumes six to eight fights between long rests. Almost nobody runs that...

Your Player Didn't Mean To Metagame. Your Notes Made It Easy.

Your Player Didn't Mean To Metagame. Your Notes Made It Easy. A player's character acts on something they couldn't possibly know, and it's not cheating. It's...

You Lost Concentration Three Turns Ago. Nobody Rolled For It.

You Lost Concentration Three Turns Ago. Nobody Rolled For It. A concentration check fires off someone else's turn, which means it's nobody's specific job to...

The Desert Fox Had Better Tanks. He Still Ran Out of Road.

The Desert Fox Had Better Tanks. He Still Ran Out of Road. Rommel had the better tanks and the better tactics. He still lost North Africa, because logistics...

Zero HP Isn't the End. It's a Countdown Nobody's Watching.

Zero HP Isn't the End. It's a Countdown Nobody's Watching. A dying character isn't tracking one number, they're tracking a success count, a failure count, and...

You Slept Eight Hours. You're Still Exhausted. That's Not a Bug.

You Slept Eight Hours. You're Still Exhausted. That's Not a Bug. Under the 2024 rules, a long rest only knocks off one level of exhaustion, not the whole...

Your Prep Time Isn't Too Short. You're Prepping the Wrong Half.

Your Prep Time Isn't Too Short. You're Prepping the Wrong Half. Most GM prep guilt comes from treating every item on the list like it's due tonight. It isn't....

Your Boss Doesn't Fail Saves. It Decides Not To.

Your Boss Doesn't Fail Saves. It Decides Not To. Legendary Resistance doesn't work the way the dice make it feel like it works. The monster doesn't get lucky,...

You're Sitting on a Free Reroll and You Forgot You Have It

You're Sitting on a Free Reroll and You Forgot You Have It The 2024 rules turned Heroic Inspiration into a reroll you spend after seeing the bad number, not...

The Ambush Isn't a Free Round Anymore. It's a Rigged Roll.

The Ambush Isn't a Free Round Anymore. It's a Rigged Roll. The 2014 rules let a surprised creature skip its whole first turn. The 2024 rules just make it roll...

Your Cover Call Isn't a Guess. There's a Line For That.

Your Cover Call Isn't a Guess. There's a Line For That. Cover isn't a vibe check. It's a geometric test with real numbers attached, and it's not just walls and...

Nobody Rolled a Nat 1. You Just Typed One.

Nobody Rolled a Nat 1. You Just Typed One. A bad roll and a bad typo look identical in Discord, until you notice which one keeps happening to you specifically....

The French Had More Tanks at Sedan. They Still Lost the Race.

The French Had More Tanks at Sedan. They Still Lost the Race. Four Star General's requisition budget is the same bet Guderian and the French high command each...

Your Campaign Has a Ticking Clock. You Just Haven't Drawn It Yet.

Your Campaign Has a Ticking Clock. You Just Haven't Drawn It Yet. A borrowed TTRPG technique for tracking offscreen threats and countdowns without relying on...

Your Grapple Isn't a Contest Anymore. It's a Number You Set.

Your Grapple Isn't a Contest Anymore. It's a Number You Set. D&D 2024 swapped grappling's old dice-off for a fixed save DC, and the caster you used to pin for...

Nobody Remembers Who Hates Who: A Faction Web That Actually Works

Nobody Remembers Who Hates Who: A Faction Web That Actually Works Three sessions of political intrigue in and you can't remember if the Ashguild owes the Duke...

Fast Fingers, Fewer Typos: Typing Speed Is a Table Skill Now

A handful of boring-but-effective habits — targeted drills, personal shorthand, timed reps — that actually shave seconds off combat callouts and PbP replies, plus why MasterTyping's assessment-first approach beats another generic worksheet.

Canon Debt: The One-Page Log That Stops Your Campaign From Contradicting Itself

Session notes are a diary. Canon is a different document — here's the one-page format that stops your campaign from contradicting itself six months from now.

Session Zero, But Make It Actually Do Something: The Three-Thread Trick

Session zero has a branding problem. Ask most tables what it's for and you'll hear "safety tools" and "house rules" and maybe "we picked our characters." All...

The Five-Minute Fix for NPCs With Amnesia

Your players remember every promise an NPC ever made. Here's the lightweight tracking system that keeps your world's memory as sharp as theirs.

The Three-Sentence NPC: How to Stop Freezing When Players Go Off-Script

Your players just walked up to a blacksmith you didn't prep. Here's the fast, three-part method for improvising an NPC who actually feels like a person, and how to keep the good ones from vanishing after the session ends.

Stop Counting Squares: The Zone Trick That Keeps Combat Moving Without Losing the Tactics

Stop Counting Squares: The Zone Trick That Keeps Combat Moving Without Losing the Tactics A middle-ground technique for running combat when a full battle grid...

It's Not Your Wi-Fi: The Real Bottleneck in Play-by-Post Games

Async Discord campaigns live and die on how fast you can type a reply. Here's the real math on WPM, why your typing plateaued in middle school, and the fifteen-minute daily fix.

Locked Orders: Why the Best Strategy Games Won't Let You Take It Back

RoboRally and Diplomacy figured out decades ago that locking in your move before you see what happens creates more tension than any dice roll. Here's why Gravity is built the same way.

Instant Play Unlocked: Your Browser, Your Game World

Instant Play Unlocked: Your Browser, Your Game World The gaming world is buzzing about a huge wave of high-fidelity, browser-based games, especially MMORPGs,...

Deep Strategy, Zero Downloads: Four Star General

Deep Strategy, Zero Downloads: Four Star General Dive into the future of wargaming where browser-based means deep strategy, not simple clickers. Four Star...

Conquer Campaign Chaos: Organize Your TTRPG Lore with GameMasterCraft

Conquer Campaign Chaos: Organize Your TTRPG Lore with GameMasterCraft Feeling overwhelmed by your D&D campaign notes? GameMasterCraft helps TTRPG game masters...

Combat Clarity: TTRPG Tools Level Up

Combat Clarity: TTRPG Tools Level Up Tired of D&D combat chaos? Digital tools are transforming how Game Masters run encounters, bringing order to the...

Roll for Initiative: AI Joins Your Writing Party?

Roll for Initiative: AI Joins Your Writing Party? AI is poised to transform creative workflows for GMs, worldbuilders, and game designers. With Apple's...

Commanding Respect: Four Star General Unlocks All

Commanding Respect: Four Star General Unlocks All This Memorial Day is 25 May 2026. Four Star General is unlocking all its features, offering players...

GM Prep: Level Up Your Campaign Flow

GM Prep: Level Up Your Campaign Flow Tired of campaign prep feeling like a full-time job? This post dives into how GameMasterCraft streamlines organizing NPCs,...

Beyond the Bloat: Refocusing on Combat Clarity

Beyond the Bloat: Refocusing on Combat Clarity The Virtual Table Top VTT space is buzzing with updates, but GMs and players are looking for focused tools....

Hexes & Heroes: The Panzer General Legacy Lives On

Hexes & Heroes: The Panzer General Legacy Lives On Dive into the enduring appeal of hex-grid WWII strategy games, from the community-driven Panzer Marshal to...

Level Up Your GM Game: Tools for Master Minds

Level Up Your GM Game: Tools for Master Minds Ever wonder what happens behind the GM screen? It's a challenging mix of worldbuilding, improv, and keeping...

Unlocking Your Lore: The Evolving Landscape of Writer Tools

Unlocking Your Lore: The Evolving Landscape of Writer Tools New platforms are emerging that prioritize ease of use, integrated features, and even AI...

Grimdark's Grip: Sharpening Dark TTRPGs

The air thickens, a suffocating blanket of dread. Your players are trapped in a tomb, the last torch sputtering, and every shadow whispers of a painful end. In grimdark TTRPGs like Shadowdark or Deathbringer, one wrong move, one forgotten rule, and a hero becomes another forgotten corpse. This is the brutal beauty we chase. But what shatters this fragile immersion? Not the fangs of a beast, but the flicking of pages, the frantic search for a modifier, or the agonizing guess about range. That’s when the 'grim' stops being about existential horror and starts being about tedious administrative burden.

Unleash Your Inner General: Why Strategy Games Are So Much Fun, and Why Four Star General Is a Must-Play

Discover the joy of outthinking your opponents in strategy games! From recent hits to hidden gems, we dive into why plotting your next move is endlessly fun, and shine a spotlight on Four Star General, a WWII tactical turn-based game that promises pure, strategic satisfaction.

Beyond the Dice: Must-Have Tools for the Modern Dungeon Master

Every great Dungeon Master knows the magic and the madness of game night. The lights are low, snacks are arrayed, and the clatter of dice is a promise of adventure. For many, nothing beats the classic tabletop RPG game night. Whether you're delving into forgotten ruins in a D&D 5e campaign or exploring the new frontiers of Daggerheart, the magic of the tabletop is undeniable. But behind every legendary quest and unforgettable character stands one unsung hero: the Dungeon Master. Their role is a unique blend of storyteller, referee, world-builder, and even a little bit of IT support – and let's be honest, it's a monumental task. From creating compelling NPCs to tracking intricate lore and managing chaotic combat, the sheer volume of "DM work" can feel like a quest in itself. What if you could lighten that load, letting your creative genius shine without getting bogged down by the administrative beast?

Your DM's New Best Friend: Virtual Combat Simulator

Every Dungeon Master knows the struggle of tracking epic battles. Sixsmith Games' Virtual Combat Simulator is a browser-based tool designed to streamline TTRPG combat, freeing DMs to focus on storytelling and immersive play. It's perfect for systems like D&D and Daggerheart, enhancing the tabletop experience by handling the administrative grind, much like the thriving turn-based strategy games that value tactical depth.

Tactics & Chill: TBS is Back, Baby!

The turn-based strategy genre is experiencing a vibrant resurgence, blending classic mechanics with fresh innovation. Recent launches like Xenonauts 2 and Fight Life: Vanguard, alongside anticipated titles like Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, are captivating tacticians with their strategic depth and community-driven gameplay.

AI Art in Games: Glitch or Feature?

The gaming community is locked in a heated debate over the role of AI-generated graphics in video games. While AI for efficiency is largely accepted, its use in creative content like art and music is met with strong opposition, raising questions about artistic integrity and the future of human creators.

Leveling Up Your Lair: New DM Gear Drops

Dungeon Masters, get ready! Wizards of the Coast and D&D Beyond are rolling out significant updates, including a major virtual tabletop glow-up and new physical accessory bundles, all aimed at making your D&D prep and play easier and more integrated than ever before.