rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ringDreaming Dragonslayer
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On the ring since 2026-03-24
Latest activity 5y ago
356 posts
Earlier
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Spoilers. Read with care. I love the tabletop RPG Electric Bastionland. I’ve written about it a few times. I love the anime Attack on Titan. I’m watching season 4 right now....
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Lest we forget, fiction is diceless. Books, movies, radio dramas. They tell stories of problems that have the Upper Hand (which we talked about last time). The protagonists...
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We did diceless violence before, but the process for making diceless resolution, diceless violence, and diceless warfare is all the same: give the “bad guys” (orcs, evil...
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Been playing more Darkest Dungeon (my way, of course). Sudden urge to run it as an RPG (as with most things I watch or play). Looked for stress mechanics for Into the Odd (not...
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If you go down far enough in the Underground, you’ll hit breathable water. Without a dive suit, you just continually float as if detached from gravity. Even if you have a suit,...
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On to more RPG-related things. I’m a building sub now (heh, fooled you, didn’t I?). Things in the classroom can get a bit rote when one class period to the next is “work time”...
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After the greatest month of posting in the history of this blog, it can be hard to return… But first, this from John Comer in “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”: …Our...
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Cabin fever, so I’ve been dorking with another open table concept. I mentioned Blades for open OPEN tables and it’s been stuck with me. I’ve even stole the game structure for...
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Let’s take a (short) break from life and RPGs and talk video games. I love Darkest Dungeon. It’s been a huge inspiration for my past darker games like Skorne, Maze Rats, and...
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Imagine a solved Rubik’s Cube. You stand on one side, I on the other. We’re both looking at the Cube straight-on, so I can’t see what you see, you can’t see what I see. We have...
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You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved...
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Spotted on the Free Kriegsspiel Revival Discord: When a player does something, draw cards from a deck: 1 card if unskilled, 2 cards if skilled, 3 cards if expert. Keep the...
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This summer I started a small gig: running RPGs online for kids on Outschool. I’ve since GMed for 30 players in 10 different games. It’s made me a better teacher, designer, and...
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Page 254 Ask what they want to get out of it, give them a choice of how to do this. Make one appealing but expensive. Make one exciting but dangerous. Bullet point #1 is up to...
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Welcome to the next episode of “Conquering Perfectionism.” I’m your host, contestant, director, producer, and proud audience member: Sam. A piece of advice I’ve been given...
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Whimsicality. It’s in games like Troika, Break!!, many of your Final Fantasies and in adventures like Garden of Ynn and in settings like Ultraviolet Grasslands. My media...
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Celebrating the end of student teaching with the purchase of blank index cards and black gel pens. Saw Scrap Princess‘s work in Tomb of the Serpent Kings first. Eyeing up Fire...
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I saw this one on the Free Kriegsspiel Revival Discord from @Zakharan, thought I’d share here: For ANYTHING, roll a d6: “No, and” “No” “No, but” “Yes, but” “Yes” “Yes, and” For...
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Ever had a work-related role play? I’ve had three. None of them went well. #1 was during an interview for a children’s program at a zoo. The interviewers were all women in...
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I’m weird about dice. I made a d366 table of spells JUST so I could have d6s only, no d100. I go the extra mile. Sometimes that extra mile is a circle, no real movement, just...
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I asked around on the Electric Bastionland Discord Server for classic fantasy character packages for Into the Odd. Chris has written about how the implied industrial setting of...
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This specific idea is one I stole a long while ago and have since forgotten it’s origin. This is a campaign idea for Adventure Hour!, my answer to fantasy gaming with younger...
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In fantasy fiction, there are really only two kinds of threats in combat: straightforward and serious. This is pretty obvious to spot in movies: So how can you tell which...
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Long ago the four nations lived in harmony… Play worlds, not rules. This is an Free Kriegsspiel Revolution game inspired by Jim Parkin‘s excellent Galaxy Away Far RPG for Star...
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I’ll make it quick. I’ve made a few things. Some projects I’m proud of. Others are just projects I cringe to look back on. Here I’m going to talk process. I make games in...
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For use with your Maze Rats games… Or any other d6-based fantasy game of your choice. No levels, (generally) totally diegetic. Here is the two page PDF. Here is the three page...
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Play worlds, not rules. This includes the worlds of movies. Anyways, I steal ideas from media recklessly. My media diet has to be good for something, right? I stole from...
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What genre tropes are there to break when your younger players have no sense of genre? None. None tropes. It’s like when you were young, playing with a Batman action figure and...
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Last time, I talked about portraying NPCs and the world in the third person. Something like this: “The ranger moves to you table and whispers a rumor about the Iron Circle...
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Not gonna lie, I’m a terrible actor. I’m just a total goofball playing a dorky game about pretend elves with my friends. So when a buddy of mine is leaning across the table...