I hang out with a lot of OSR folks. It’s where I’ve found community, and it’s where I perceive the most discussion happening in the ttrpg space. The blogging culture is thriving and it feels like people are talking with each other rather than posting to an audience. Unfortunately, despite the excellent work Elmcat is … anti-blorb principles
It’s time we re-examine what we mean when we use the term “quantum ogre”. The seed of this post started when Valeria posted her review of Fabula Ultima and quoted Emanuele Galletto (the game’s author) using the term to describe the game’s playstyle. If I had been vaguely aware of the term beforehand, that post … quantum ogre reborn
In the absence of position-based tactics, singleplayer turn-based RPGs have converged upon some similar mechanics. I want to look at how this works through a few case studies and talk about what it would look like for ttrpgs to adopt this design pattern. Rather than try to talk around this in the abstract, it’s easier … weakness break mechanics: a case study
– The Water Magician if hunting monsters and delving into dungeons is so organized and regulated, you’re not playing a fortune-seeking hero, you’re playing a government employee with a weapon I was talking with some friends a few weeks ago about adventurer’s guilds and found myself confronting this popular understanding of organized adventuring. I get … adventurer’s guilds: the anime perspective
The annual convention for Warframe, TennoCon, happened this past weekend. For those unfamiliar with the video game, it’s a space ninja looter-shooter with uncharacteristically benign monetization. Unlike other free-to-play games, Warframe ensures that all players can earn premium currency and has even removed microtransactions when players were using them too much. Between the lore and … warframe & tabletop game design
About a week ago, I jokingly announced to my friends that I had seen one too many posts about torches. My comrades in the OSR have received abundant mileage from blog posts talking about torches, torch alternatives, lighting, making light matter, and all manner of darkness mechanics. Truly: I love that for them. I am … alternative game fantasy: a manifesto
I’ve been working on some organization lately by putting together a library of all my tabletop games. Part of that process involves trying to come up with a “pitch” for each game — a brief summary on what the game is about and what makes it different from any other given game. Sometimes this summary … design ramble: expectation & structure
A little while back, I showed one of my friends the website I’m building and she asked me what faggot games meant. I directed her to click on the link, as I believe that Eclipse expresses an eloquent vision for the movement in her post. However, I wanted to give a shot at explaining in … Faggot Games: in my own words
I grew up in Suzhou, China, which had a population of about 6 million people when I was living there and has only grown since then. I considered it to be a small city in comparison to Shanghai, which was roughly an hour away and had a population of 25 million and better public transportation. … urban depthcrawl
On January 1st, Idle Cartulary over at Playful Void threw down the gauntlet by challenging everyone to make a dungeon zine. Everyone should make a dungeon, at least once. Everyone should get in touch with the hands-on craft of something physical like a zine. Everyone should get a little messy with it. I took this … dungeons (where do i start?)
