THE D&D IN MY HEAD: In Only 6 Load-Bearing Numbers
art: Mark Tedin One of the most frustrating questions for me to read is, "Is X-OSR system compatible with Y-OSR adventures?" or "Can I use B...
Advice '23
Dungeon Design, Process and Keys
DES I GNING FOR DUNGEON 23 With my decision to work on Dungeon23 coincides my starting a public Crystal Frontier Campaign and being diss...
Re-inventing the Wilderness: Part 1 - Introduction - sachagoat
In this blog series, I will dissect the spatial elements of wilderness environments and explore how tabletop-friendly prep and mechanics could be
An Example of FKR (near-)diceless combat (with Cosmic Orrery!)
My opinions on elfgames are empirically correct.
Cairn Crash Course
Lesson #1: The cover is flipping you off. Hello there. There has been a lot of new blood injected into the OSR/NSR space recently. I'll leave the ho...
Ransacking the Room
A way to break down searching into three choices with informed outcomes for each.
The Storyteller Technique
Even games have a voice. When you sit down and read a tabletop RPG, the game itself speaks to you. The choice you make around narration…
#Dungeon23
A dungeon room a day for all of 2023.
An OSR approach to Spotlight
This post is based on a conversation I had with Ben L. in response to his recent post over on: http://maziriansgarden.blogspot.com/2023/07/...
Game Mastering Like a Park Ranger - Silverarm
This is going to be one of those posts where someone says how Game Mastering in RPG’s is basically a lot like part of their work experience in another field. I'll also get into the dangerous arena of providing GM advice. I’d like to tell you I’ll avoid cheesy reaches to fit the framework but make absolutely no guarantees.
ULTIMATE ANIMIST MECHANIC: EVERYTHING IS A REACTION
Using the reaction roll as (almost) a universal resolution mechanic: sketch for animist skill system
🏅 Modular Ecology
Been playing that Zelda game everyone’s on about, and rereading Dungeon Meshi ( trailer just came out for the tv version!) and thinking abo...
Action Mysteries
Mystery scenarios are probably the second-most popular genre of gameplay in RPGs after dungeoncrawling. Despite this, quite frustratingly, m...
ONLY Roll Initiative
What if initiative was the only roll in a combat system? Less a question of "can I murder this horrible horse?" and more "can I murder it be...
GM Pointers: Live-Text Games
The Shattered Coasts server sees a fair share of games. Some are via voice, some are slow-form play-by-post, and then there are the dreaded ...
How to Handle Parley as an OSR DM
One of the most unforgiveable things that mainstream D&D has ever done was to make Diplomacy a skill. Weapon skills and knowledge skills, su...