rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ringYore
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On the ring since 2026-03-19
Latest activity 1y ago
422 posts
Brick
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I’ve been logging RPG sessions on RPGGeek since 2008, and last night’s Basement Game session — AD&D 1st Edition, running the module “Citadel by the Sea” from Dragon #78, in my...
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Last night during character creation for our RuneQuest campaign, my group employed a tool we use before almost every new game: CATS. Created by P.R. O’Leary, CATS stands for...
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I took stock of all of my Appendix N reading to date, which entailed a mix of staring off into space, combing my shelves, and blowing the dust off my long-dormant Goodreads...
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Back in 2012, as my interest in old-school D&D was returning and flourishing, I started a project to read all of Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N. I came up with a detailed plan,...
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Back in August my Seattle group started a new campaign we’ve dubbed the Basement Game, and its kickoff AD&D 1st Edition adventure is set in Godsbarrow — making it the third...
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Back in January I posted about my 2024 RPG collecting goal: acquiring the complete game lines for Ars Magica, Delta Green, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, and Dune:...
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I was thinking about why I don’t post more on RPGnet (I concluded that while I like it there, I’ve never felt like I fit in; that’s not unusual for me), and looking back...Linked by the ring
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I started up a Delta Green [affiliate link] campaign last September, and it’s been a blast. It’s become one of my favorite RPGs, and with a few sessions under my belt that...
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Seventeen years ago, I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo 2007. I was proud to have written it but I didn’t think it was any good. Until tonight, I’d never read it. With the benefit...
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I’ve been logging RPG sessions on RPGGeek since 2008 — 961 of them as of this writing. I was thinking about Ars Magica [affiliate link] this morning and wondered where it stood...
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I’ve collected stuff my whole life, including RPGs — but although I bought my first gaming product, Avalon Hill’s Lords of Creation box set, at age ten, I didn’t have my first...
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I’ve decided on a TTRPG collecting goal for 2024: I’m going to try to acquire the entire Ars Magica 5th Edition line in print. If you happen to have any Ars Magica 5e books...
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My beloved Kaweco Sport mechanical pencil, which I’ve used in every in-person game session since 2015, finally gave out. Its plastic internals stopped working; all the brass...
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I didn’t paint much in 2023. I took stock in the new year and realized that after three years of painting minis for 40k, Kill Team, and BattleTech, I’d played just ten games...
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MartinRalya.com has been online since 2009, and has included a blog since 2012. Over the years, the focus has shifted back and forth between blog posts and static pages. When I...
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I wrote my last #dungeon23 room today! I have no idea what I’ll do with the Black Furnace next, if anything, but I’m proud to have finished it. This is only my second or third...
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I haven’t written about the end of the world in Godsbarrow, but the entire setting — everything I’ve ever created for it that doesn’t live here, on Yore — nearly vanished...
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Driving home from running a DCC RPG session, I was noodling about why I love dungeon crawls so much. My usual line of thinking is that I love dungeons because they’re basically...
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I’m coming up on a movie milestone: Given that A) it’s spooky season, B) my default cinematic comfort food is MST3K, and C) I’m working on some anime-watching challenges, my...
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YouTuber DM Tales did a lovely highlight feature on my first Godsbarrow book, The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], on his channel in Skipping Lunch Episode 8. The segment starts...
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After trying to play my first 10th Edition 40k game out of my phone, which was handy about 1/3 of the time and a pain in the ass the other 2/3 of the time, I put some time into...
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Here’s a little old/new paint job comparison. It’s not night and day, but I can see the benefit of experience! From left to right, the Infiltrators are July 2023, May 2020,...
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I committed to learning to pin wash when I started painting BattleTech minis again, and since my first outing I’ve added it to my toolkit. That also means it’s time for an...
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“I’ll get to play with these” has been a powerful motivator since I got rolling in 2020, and I’ve always speculated that “I played and I like/didn’t like X, I need to paint...
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Most of my wargaming has been done with folks I already knew, or if it was with folks I didn’t know it was in the context of a convention (where that’s kind of the norm). Until...
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Reagan and I got together on July 7th for our second match, Tyranids (him) vs. Blood Angels (me) playing the Secure Archaeotech mission. I’m not sure I have the stamina to post...
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I’ve gone from painting and not playing to, at least for now, doing a fun amount of both. It’s great! On July 2nd, Shay and I kicked the tires on 10th Edition with an...
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I like maxims and I like self-reflection. This post combines the two: a little look at some of the maxims that have served me well over the past three years of painting, and...
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Hot on the heels of my first match — the first-ever Kill Team game for Lark and me — on June 23rd my friend Reagan came over for a game. He didn’t have a strong preference for...
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One June 21st, Lark and I played our first game of Kill Team, and it was a blast. This was also the first time I’ve ever played a minis game where I’d painted everything on the...