rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ringThis Vorpal Coil
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On the ring since 2026-03-20
Latest activity 9mo ago
66 posts
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In summary: this has been one of my most difficult years, but I have a lot in the pipeline that I’ll be releasing soon. In more specific terms: I’ve had a lot of chronic pain...
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Because the end of the Minimalist TTRPG Jam 4 was coming up, I put together a System Reference Document (SRD) for the upcoming game Protoplastic, offering a generic version of...
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I’m part of a group formed to sample the many fruits of the Old School Renaissance tree, called “Elfgame Bootcamp”. When I joined, the game was Electrum Archive, but after the...
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I love tabletop roleplaying games to a slightly obsessive degree. The first time I flipped through a D&D book on the shelf at a bookstore next to the science fiction novels, it...
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The Protoplastic prototype is now available for free download HERE. If this is your first time hearing about it, Protoplastic is a game inspired by my childhood affection for a...
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Every time the topic of bleed in roleplaying games comes up, people polarize into one of two spectral ends: A Bleed is thrilling but dangerous, something games should be built...
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Itch: https://vorpalcoil.itch.io/alpha-cipher DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540338/alpha-cipher Forty-eight hours ago, multiple oracles independently predicted...
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As I mentioned in my prior post about Visit Beautiful Carcosa, this summer saw a profusion of TTRPG jams going on all at once. Thus, as with that last game, I once again chose...
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This post was written for the Appendicitis N blog bandwagon, encouraging people to list the books, movies, and other media that influenced them creatively. My name happens to...Linked by the ring
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It seems like last month ended up hosting every single TTRPG jam all at once. In order to manage all of them (and provide some fruitful creative constraints) I’ve been working...
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Whenever I enter a new campaign and start thinking about what kind of character to make, I ask the same question: “what characters are other people playing?”. Not only does the...
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I love games about mining. I played Motherload repeatedly when Flash was a thing, the alpha version of Minecraft when it was first released to the public, and uncounted runs of...
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I have a confession to make: I like rolling knowledge checks. It’s bad game design, I know! The general arc of the hobby for the last 15 years or so has aimed towards removing...Linked by the ring
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Dice and I have never gotten along particularly well in the context of roleplaying games. I appreciate them as fun Platonic solids (other than the black sheep d10), they feel...Linked by the ring
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Hot on the heels of Black Iron Engine, I’ve just released another tabletop RPG. This one, however, consists of a single two-page spread, so it wasn’t quite the years-long...
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Today is the 26th, which means – as promised – my new tabletop roleplaying game, Black Iron Engine, is now available on Itch.io. Just click that link and take a look! In the...
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Perhaps no one can be told what the Engine is without seeing it for themselves – which is why Black Iron Engine is finally dropping on March 26th! At last, you will be able to...
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When I first started writing tabletop RPGs, I made a huge mistake. Not an entirely unique one, but one those with similar tendencies of temperament have made many times before...
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[This post originally debuted on Patreon, and I’m migrating it here now after a delay. Future blog posts – save for immediate announcements – will be up on Patreon first, so...
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Previous Entries: Design Diary 1 – The Pitch | Design Diary 2 – The Blockcrawl Now we come to the special sauce that makes Protoplastic a distinctly Lego-inspired game: you...
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The cardinals have been summoned and the conclave has commenced: therefore, we interrupt your regularly scheduled Bionicle-adjacent RPG series to bring you a theoludological...Linked by the ring
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Previous entry: Protoplastic Design Diary 1 – The Pitch With the preamble covered in the last diary, let’s get down to the specifics. Future posts will cover other aspects of...
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When I was growing up I had several toys from the Lego line called “Throwbots” in North America, or “Slizers” outside of it1. They were elementally themed robot warriors with...Linked by the ring
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Last night I finally had a chance to run the second playtest of Alpha Cipher, a one-shot RPG I’ve had in the works since late last year. Those who’ve been in the loop may...
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Of all the pithy sayings in Apocalypse World, perhaps the most often repeated is “fiction first”: the idea that an action taken during play should begin and end with narrative,...
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And we’re live! From here on I’ll be posting my thoughts here in text form, primarily on topics related to my interests – that is to say, mostly tabletop roleplaying games and...