Players: Bekhtar Ziphar, Hero (Shy Owl), Osric III of Shophalbelath (EvilTables), Grappadora Hamaques (Jay_zer0), Xaldun of Portage Town (roguewithwhimsy), Prole Beanfeast...

The fastest way to cross Antarctica is to Teleport. The second fastest way is to take the Trans-tundra Express, a pitchblend-powered high-speed train that hurtles over the...

I've been running Murdicog's Manse with the Underworld & Wilderness Adventures dungeon encounter tables. These provide nothing aside from the type of monster encountered...

Players: Bekhtar Ziphar (Shy Owl), Grappadora Hamaqes (Jay_zer0), Pinion Zugzwang (Kwall) SummaryAfter nine weeks spent leveling up, three adventurers gathered to venture back...

I sometimes imagine Weirdness as a form of radiation. It can be emitted, reflected, and absorbed. Many works going under the label "weird" are reflectors. China Mieville, for...

In this post, I argue that hexcrawls don't need to have a key for every hex, and might even be better if they don't.1 My perspective on this is influenced by my experience...

The following system is in use in my Murdicog's Manse game. A couple people had asked for details, so I'm making it a separate post. Instead of rolling the usual six ability...

One of my backburner ideas is an OD&D campaign where all player characters can fly, thus making the aerial combat rules the "default" combat system. Mothmen would serve to...

The countdown on itch.io for the Antarctic Adventure Jam has run down. The jam is thus "over". Participants in the jam keyed areas covering nearly 5,000 hexes, an area roughly...

I recently returned from GaryCon, my first game convention. I had a really wonderful time & got to play some interesting & thought-provoking games. Aside from one game of...

Of all the splendid commodities that have graced our humble hobby, few are more exemplary than the recently announced OSR Pokemon game Into The Oddish. It occurred to me,...

An encounter with the tarot should, therefore, complicate matters. In other words, we benefit most by approaching a tarot reading that amplifies the already intertwined...

In the conversation that led to The Mapping Game -- Conventional Dungeon Paradigm, Scribble & I imagined a few additional paradigms that could support a game focused primarily...

I have been tagged by Jay_zer0 to write a magic mask for Stella's mask relay. Mistuh has requested to go next. The Mask of Yngta PéDun-hued & nondescript, with a crinkly...

I have always found creative writing daunting (thus all my circuitous efforts over 2024 to do anything at all except buckle down & write). But for my Antarctic Adventure Jam...

Players: Simon Vanade (Jake), Bekhtar Ziphar (Shy Owl), Talvthus Alyval (Oldhawkeyes), Grappadora Hamaqes (Jay_zer0), Osric of Shophalbelath (EvilTables), Buster Diamantis...

The proposition: session reports are worth writing even if nobody reads them.1 1.Writing a session report is part of prepping for your next session. Whether or not the reports...

Players: Osric III of Shophalbelah (EvilTables), Xaldun of Portage Town (roguewithwhimsy), Simon Vanade (Jake), Bekhtar Ziphar (Shy Owl), Buster Jortsman Diamantis (mustuh),...

I recently finished a game of Verdun: Dagger at the Heart of France by Marc Miller (who also wrote Traveller). I played as the German Empire, and my opponent was Scribble of...

Players: Bekhtar Kothar (Jay_Zer0), Talvthus Alyval (oldhawkeyes), Osric of Sophalbelath (EvilTables), Simon Vanade (Klaus Mondo), Xaldun of Portage Town (roguewithwhimsy),...

I've been having some fun using the rules in 1977 Traveller to make a big sector map in QGIS. Credit/blame goes to Unturned Hovel getting me interested in Classic Traveller....

My reaction to this year's Bloggie Nominees is a sense that the 'median culture of play' represented in the list has drifted further from that which I participate in (relative...

In Scribbles' REDUX campaign, we've been using character rosters, where each player has a list of (currently) 2-5 characters.1 An ingenious downtime system frequently imposes...

Last year I ran eight sessions of Castle Mordengard, my first time refereeing an OD&D campaign. It is currently on indefinite hiatus (for reasons given below), so I wanted to...

The following is a very, very basic introduction to incorporating randomization into a Typst document. Basic random number generationTypst is a functional language -- I am not...

Jenx of Gorgon Bones started a bandwagon, so here are some things I enjoyed as a youngster that still bounce around my head when I'm running &/or making stuff for games. Will...

Date: Jan 7, 2026 (A.D.M. 26) Players: Bekhtar Kothar (Jay_Zer0), Talvthus Alyval (oldhawkeyes), Osric of Sophalbelath (EvilTables), Buster Diamantis (Black Citadel Games)...

Date: Dec. 27, 2025 (A.D.M. 25, Dec. 27) Players: Ammonia Doolittle, Veteran (TK), Aloysius Cranberry, Blue Medium (ERK), Grandiloqua Sneep VII, White Medium (AK), Pickle...

This was a banger year for actually playing games. I got to be part of five campaigns: Castle Mordengard (OD&D, in-person, referee), was a great learning experience &...

The Infidel and the Professor by Dennis Rasmussen If We Burn by Vincent Bevins: Thought this was good overall, particularly the concluding chapters where the interviewees...