Shiny links from about the internet. For more, see last weeks collection found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
I Cast Light! asks WHY MEGADUNGEONS? A Campaign Structure for Modern Lives
Patchwork Paladin gives us How to Read Blogs
Elven Enchantress writes Folkloristics of Playing RPGs
Grinning Rat shares 100 Ways to Improve Your GMing
Verdant Core provides a design for a Lectern Book
Sly Flourish proposes Use Agnostic Tools
Crow’s Corner shares Table-Tested Review of "Cyberpunk Red"
Son of Sun Tzu blog gives us Lessons From Running a Hybrid Megagame
5th Dimensional Tavern writes Warlock and the allure of complexity
Trick's Tales gives us I published a game (and have cool friends)
Dozens and Dragons shares Diplomacy in FKR and open-strategy matrix games
Hill Cantons gives us Oiorpata and Battle Barge Contest
Patchwork Paladin writes Stop with all the rolling already
Hobloglin gives us Sunday School DM
ars ludi shares The Star-Pattern: a Pitfall of GMing
dungeon doll gives us A Small Combat Matrix
Blog of Forlorn Encystment shares Advanced Diseases and Diagnoses
Leicester's Ramble gives us Create
Bundle of Holding offers discounted Weird Wizard
29 September 2025
27 September 2025
Campaign Spin-Up X - Back of the Envelope Campaign Planning
I wrote about "rebooting a campaign with 2d20 Conan" - spinning up a new campaign in the Scaled Lands.
In the grand tradition of getting going by making promises and getting yourself deadlines I poked a list of players and then was committed to at least running something. Shortly after I had a flight for work so that was me stuck in a place with nothing else to do so I worked up the guts of what I needed on the back of an envelope.
Altogether this serves as a nice illustration of constraint breeding creativity. This world had been the campaign where I 'applied the OSR' after discovering all the blogs and wisdom, I had put a lot of thought into it pre-pandemic, including using it for NaNoWriMo, but I had none of that with me when I did this.
First I blocked out things I felt I needed to prep, to declutter my brain and help corral my thoughts into some kind of order. Up in a corner I stuck a to-do list of tasks as I thought of them, again to note and refocus.
Then I started properly thinking of the immediate recent history - the ramp-in to the start. I thought of the forces at play to give factions kicking around, recalled those that I remembered from before, gave names to some that had just existed as 'the infernal fire cult' before.
I thought through what stuff I wanted to see, what were the various secrets for the players to find and what kind of big interesting things could they get up to.
With Yaksha's hexfill method recently in mind, I wrote a d10/d4 encounter table - 10 factions likely to be found out and about and four examples for each.
One of the key reasons I wanted to return to the Scaled Lands is that I hand some wonderful art for the place commissioned from Evlyn Moreau and I never got to use even half of it before the old campaign collapsed. I had a think through how to use that art for best fun.
In the grand tradition of getting going by making promises and getting yourself deadlines I poked a list of players and then was committed to at least running something. Shortly after I had a flight for work so that was me stuck in a place with nothing else to do so I worked up the guts of what I needed on the back of an envelope.
First I blocked out things I felt I needed to prep, to declutter my brain and help corral my thoughts into some kind of order. Up in a corner I stuck a to-do list of tasks as I thought of them, again to note and refocus.
Then I started properly thinking of the immediate recent history - the ramp-in to the start. I thought of the forces at play to give factions kicking around, recalled those that I remembered from before, gave names to some that had just existed as 'the infernal fire cult' before.
I thought through what stuff I wanted to see, what were the various secrets for the players to find and what kind of big interesting things could they get up to.
With Yaksha's hexfill method recently in mind, I wrote a d10/d4 encounter table - 10 factions likely to be found out and about and four examples for each.
One of the key reasons I wanted to return to the Scaled Lands is that I hand some wonderful art for the place commissioned from Evlyn Moreau and I never got to use even half of it before the old campaign collapsed. I had a think through how to use that art for best fun.
24 September 2025
Assessing your local crystal sphere for campaign potential
tl;dr: roughing out your local crystal sphere can pay dividends in keeping campaigns consistent.
This is an extension of the 'high-mobility magic' discussion about handling your players rapid unlocking of access to huge new areas.
As part of early-days prep for my Home Campaign I rolled up the local crystal sphere, just to get a sense of what was out there and what kind of things would be visible when you looked at the stars at night. I was glad I did because a couple of odd local phenomena that would be obvious in the night sky revealed themselves. Lately the players have begun to contemplate travelling off-world after getting access to some higher level magics and so I have revisited that early prep to build it out some more.
This is an extension of the 'high-mobility magic' discussion about handling your players rapid unlocking of access to huge new areas.
As part of early-days prep for my Home Campaign I rolled up the local crystal sphere, just to get a sense of what was out there and what kind of things would be visible when you looked at the stars at night. I was glad I did because a couple of odd local phenomena that would be obvious in the night sky revealed themselves. Lately the players have begun to contemplate travelling off-world after getting access to some higher level magics and so I have revisited that early prep to build it out some more.
22 September 2025
Shiny TTRPG links #243
Shiny links from about the internet. For more, see last weeks collection found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Prismatic Weekly gathers dozens of respondents in Bandwagon Roundup: The Appendices Ns
Sealight Studios gives us Fun in the Stun: Alternatives to Paralysis Mechanics
Epic Empires asks Save vs Poison Or Die?
A Knight at the Opera gives us How Do You Handle the "Inside" of a Hex? (George Lucas Special Edition)
Fluorite Guillotine shares boss relative: telegraphs & radial positioning
Taskerland writes The Hollow Valley Method
Fail Forward shares The Hex Crawl as a Stamp Rally
Spiceomancy gives us Witchlance
Blog of Forlorn Encystment shares It Did Not End with a Mere Slaying of Ogres: Treasure as a Source of Challenge in D&D
Sea of Stars gives us Adding Many Faces to Fear in D&D 5E
Castle Grief writes Building A "Real" Fake World
Prismatic Weekly gathers dozens of respondents in Bandwagon Roundup: The Appendices Ns
Sealight Studios gives us Fun in the Stun: Alternatives to Paralysis Mechanics
Epic Empires asks Save vs Poison Or Die?
A Knight at the Opera gives us How Do You Handle the "Inside" of a Hex? (George Lucas Special Edition)
Fluorite Guillotine shares boss relative: telegraphs & radial positioning
Taskerland writes The Hollow Valley Method
Fail Forward shares The Hex Crawl as a Stamp Rally
Spiceomancy gives us Witchlance
Blog of Forlorn Encystment shares It Did Not End with a Mere Slaying of Ogres: Treasure as a Source of Challenge in D&D
Sea of Stars gives us Adding Many Faces to Fear in D&D 5E
Castle Grief writes Building A "Real" Fake World
20 September 2025
Beetlescale Technical Band
"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, and little fleas have lesser fleas and so ad infinitum" - Augustus De Morgan (Siphonaptera)
Signature of the insectfolk, bane of those who cross them, a huge beetlefolk with multiple scales of its fellows aboard.
As a group they are well habituated to acting and fighting as a team; most typically consider them a work crew with their crane-truck - they go places; everyone dismounts and climb around the space to do what they need to.
Often this might look incongruous like the huge beetle perched on a wall or ceiling acting as the anchor to a pulley while the medium ones are pulling on a rope - like the largest guy is putting in the least effort - but they know their physics and are happy to do the seemingly impossible slowly.
With a little reconfiguration of the mounting straps, the huge beetle can also get its wings out and the whole lot can fly but it is exhausting for the huge beetle and not used directly into danger if at all possible.
Rare to be found outside of beetlescale vaults in this current age unless shoring up a breach or re-excavating access ways.
What makes these guys particularly dangerous is they all have spider-climb ability to traverse any surface and hang upside down from anything that is not perfectly slick
They trundle into battle while the smaller ones pelt the foe with projectiles until the mediums dismount to fight alongside it while the smalls continue to harass the foe from atop the huge one.
A medium insectfolk can carry along two of the small ones in a similar manner - like having large cats or small child riding your shoulders; transporting is doable, fighting can get tricky.
With mediums and smalls alone, typically the smalls dismount for high surfaces to support while the medium stalls the foe. Well habituated pairs can have a single small fight from their medium - also fighting melee, typically with a lance.
Stats
Huge Beetlefolk - as Ogre, less unpleasant, can in an hour prepare themselves for flight and get a fly speed equal to their normal movement
Medium Insectfolk - as human, bandit stats for workers, thug stats for soldiers
Small Insectfolk - as kobolds, plus natural ability to Haste themselves once daily
Signature of the insectfolk, bane of those who cross them, a huge beetlefolk with multiple scales of its fellows aboard.
As a group they are well habituated to acting and fighting as a team; most typically consider them a work crew with their crane-truck - they go places; everyone dismounts and climb around the space to do what they need to.
Often this might look incongruous like the huge beetle perched on a wall or ceiling acting as the anchor to a pulley while the medium ones are pulling on a rope - like the largest guy is putting in the least effort - but they know their physics and are happy to do the seemingly impossible slowly.
With a little reconfiguration of the mounting straps, the huge beetle can also get its wings out and the whole lot can fly but it is exhausting for the huge beetle and not used directly into danger if at all possible.
Rare to be found outside of beetlescale vaults in this current age unless shoring up a breach or re-excavating access ways.
What makes these guys particularly dangerous is they all have spider-climb ability to traverse any surface and hang upside down from anything that is not perfectly slick
They trundle into battle while the smaller ones pelt the foe with projectiles until the mediums dismount to fight alongside it while the smalls continue to harass the foe from atop the huge one.
A medium insectfolk can carry along two of the small ones in a similar manner - like having large cats or small child riding your shoulders; transporting is doable, fighting can get tricky.
With mediums and smalls alone, typically the smalls dismount for high surfaces to support while the medium stalls the foe. Well habituated pairs can have a single small fight from their medium - also fighting melee, typically with a lance.
Stats
Huge Beetlefolk - as Ogre, less unpleasant, can in an hour prepare themselves for flight and get a fly speed equal to their normal movement
Medium Insectfolk - as human, bandit stats for workers, thug stats for soldiers
Small Insectfolk - as kobolds, plus natural ability to Haste themselves once daily
17 September 2025
Adventuresome Times Getting Your Magic Rocks (RPG Blog Carnival)
Wobble Rocket gives us this months prompt Magic Rocks for the RPG Blog Carnival.
This is a build-out of an ideas-bouncing conversation with Robyn Proffer on a shared discord where they were looking for a "metal that gets mined that has terrible consequences and people wanna figure out how to use it" - where my immediate thought was 'steal and repaint warpstone' that staple of Warhammer techno-arcanic genius-geniuses the Skaven. Warpstone is mutagenic, magic-boosting and addictive, snort it to enhance your spells, forge it into armour-piercing bullets, grind it to make explosives, use it in flamethrowers, leave it in your beast pens to grow exciting new mutants - all for the low-low price of madness, mutation and death - either through affliction or explosive-mishap.
Another possible idea is 'earthblood' like liquid metal or crude-oil like substance that conveys similar magical properties.
This is a build-out of an ideas-bouncing conversation with Robyn Proffer on a shared discord where they were looking for a "metal that gets mined that has terrible consequences and people wanna figure out how to use it" - where my immediate thought was 'steal and repaint warpstone' that staple of Warhammer techno-arcanic genius-geniuses the Skaven. Warpstone is mutagenic, magic-boosting and addictive, snort it to enhance your spells, forge it into armour-piercing bullets, grind it to make explosives, use it in flamethrowers, leave it in your beast pens to grow exciting new mutants - all for the low-low price of madness, mutation and death - either through affliction or explosive-mishap.
Another possible idea is 'earthblood' like liquid metal or crude-oil like substance that conveys similar magical properties.
15 September 2025
Shiny TTRPG links #242
Fresh links from about the internet! For more, see last weeks deep-time trawl found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Cats Have No Lord hosts launches Onegeon Jam until Dec 31st
Grumpy Wizard shares Why and How I Connect Adventure Locations To Everything Else In a Sandbox Campaign
Ruckerworks gives us Best Dungeon Master’s Guide for Creating Adventures: AD&D to 2024 Compared
Meg Zone creates A mental inventory for occult horror campaigns: an HPless system
This Vorpal Coil gives us Party Geometry
PhD20 writes D&D's 4th Pillar
glorified notepad asks Wanna be a better DM? Try Practicing.
Connecting the Fictional Dots writes People Who Only Play D&D Have a Point
Crow’s Corner gives us Playing With Care: A Guide to RPG Safety Tools
Jay Dragon shares The Expressionist Games Manifesto
Cats Have No Lord hosts launches Onegeon Jam until Dec 31st
Grumpy Wizard shares Why and How I Connect Adventure Locations To Everything Else In a Sandbox Campaign
Ruckerworks gives us Best Dungeon Master’s Guide for Creating Adventures: AD&D to 2024 Compared
Meg Zone creates A mental inventory for occult horror campaigns: an HPless system
This Vorpal Coil gives us Party Geometry
PhD20 writes D&D's 4th Pillar
glorified notepad asks Wanna be a better DM? Try Practicing.
Connecting the Fictional Dots writes People Who Only Play D&D Have a Point
Crow’s Corner gives us Playing With Care: A Guide to RPG Safety Tools
Jay Dragon shares The Expressionist Games Manifesto
13 September 2025
New Campaigns on Obsidian Portal (2025 Update)
tl;dr: continues the stable trend since 2023 - 5e still 2/3 of campaigns, very little sign of change anywhere. So on the one hand, this is a 'nothing to report' report - on the other, the stability is the point.
Another year with scarce data on what people are playing in general (come back Orr Reports, bring light to your people...) - we turn to another years data from Obsidian Portal to try and read the tea-leaves of what is going on in the general gaming sphere. I have been tracking these now for a few years and things seem to have hit a stable state relatively speaking.
This data was collected by loading the Campaigns page on Obsidian Portal and noting the campaigns per system for each year available (back to 2008) using the Wayback Machine. Happily the format never changed to greatly and it is possible to get a roughly mid-year capture for every year. I can only use the categorisation that Obsidian Portal uses, though some dispute where those lines are drawn, particularly for early D&D editions - so keep that in mind.
The raw numbers show overall Obsidian Portal having as many new campaigns in 2025 as 2024; no market conquering growth but let us say it has maintained its presence.
Things are broadly stable year on year but do show a bit of a lift in non-D&D games. Taking these figures at face value we see a ~3% shift towards non-D&D games, pretty interesting for they year of the big new-edition-that-wasn't-a-new-edition. That 3% came straight out of 5e, the fraction playing the other editions stayed flat year-on-year.
The bump in non-D&D can be mostly accounted for by an extra 1% going to each of Savage Worlds, GURPS and Starfinder RPG - old warhorses finding a new campaign. Given that neither Daggerheart nor Draw Steel appears and Shadowdark is present only in the most token sense (2 campaigns) this makes me sceptical of how representative this all is. Are we looking at a static community and its gaming habits? Even if it is just the same people, are none of them inclined to try the new hotness?
Checking in on our edition popularity evolution, the trends continue - 5e looks like it has definitely plateaued; 2/3 of the games played is what it can get to.
Looking at our top-14 non-D&D games things similarly trend in line with last year - flat or a slight fade down for most of these, Savage Worlds, GURPS and Starfinder RPG showing a kick since last year, Traveller, World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu holding to their upward grind. Dataset is relatively small, take this with a grain of salt but overall it looks like the next tier behind D&D is not changing rapidly either.
Looking into what games did appear and get played in 2025 we have Otherscape and Shadow of the Weird Wizard (4 campaigns each) and Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, Lyonesse, Shadowdark RPG, Shadowrun 2E, Sigil & Shadow, Subversion, Tricube Tales & Tactics, Warhammer: the Old World with 2 campaigns each.
Digging into this I also noticed some games who did appear in 2024 but had no campaigns now getting played in 2025 - Pirate Borg (6 campaigns) and Swords of the Serpentine (4 campaigns) being the big ones followed by 2 campaigns each for City of Mist, Dishonored Roleplaying Game, Truth & Justice and Vast Grimm.
All told that makes ~ 40 odd campaigns on new systems in 2025 out of ~6500 total played; hardly a vast rush for novelty.
All in all it says that 2025 has thus far not been a year to seismically alter peoples playing tastes - people found their games and continue to play them. Perhaps all the folk playing the new stuff are on the VTTs or using Obsidian or something else for their campaign management - certainly a possibility. But in this particular corner of the TTRPG online sphere, things sail along with very little sign of change.
Another year with scarce data on what people are playing in general (come back Orr Reports, bring light to your people...) - we turn to another years data from Obsidian Portal to try and read the tea-leaves of what is going on in the general gaming sphere. I have been tracking these now for a few years and things seem to have hit a stable state relatively speaking.
This data was collected by loading the Campaigns page on Obsidian Portal and noting the campaigns per system for each year available (back to 2008) using the Wayback Machine. Happily the format never changed to greatly and it is possible to get a roughly mid-year capture for every year. I can only use the categorisation that Obsidian Portal uses, though some dispute where those lines are drawn, particularly for early D&D editions - so keep that in mind.
The raw numbers show overall Obsidian Portal having as many new campaigns in 2025 as 2024; no market conquering growth but let us say it has maintained its presence.
Looking into what games did appear and get played in 2025 we have Otherscape and Shadow of the Weird Wizard (4 campaigns each) and Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, Lyonesse, Shadowdark RPG, Shadowrun 2E, Sigil & Shadow, Subversion, Tricube Tales & Tactics, Warhammer: the Old World with 2 campaigns each.
Digging into this I also noticed some games who did appear in 2024 but had no campaigns now getting played in 2025 - Pirate Borg (6 campaigns) and Swords of the Serpentine (4 campaigns) being the big ones followed by 2 campaigns each for City of Mist, Dishonored Roleplaying Game, Truth & Justice and Vast Grimm.
All told that makes ~ 40 odd campaigns on new systems in 2025 out of ~6500 total played; hardly a vast rush for novelty.
10 September 2025
Campaign Phase Shift
On the theme of 'how I prep' - sometimes you hit inflection points or changes to the campaign that require some unusual prep. My home campaign has been running a while, I have talked about 'shifting gears' before but there is an unusual prep condition that crops up when you *shift back* in trying to recapture an old campaign mode. This could also apply where you are trying to spin up a lore-true campaign in a setting with a lot of books; say a Baldurs Gate campaign with players who are Ed Greenwood fans and Forgotten Realms lore fiends - though that would be even worse for a DM. I touched on this in Ducal House Year 6 - DM Challenges - where the player-side solution is 'delegate' and 'domain manage' - but what is the DM to do?
The specific instance for me is that after a 'quest phase' which looks a lot like old school trad style landscape bashing, the party are back at base and once more in their urban familiar terrain of Thenya and its palace.
I was having a little trouble getting the 'urban campaign' gear back, after a whole section of the campaign that had been deliberately broader strokes, coarser grained days with faster time passing and fewer, shallower encounters with NPCs all those needed to be inverted (or consciously adapted where we decide to retain faster time passing in an urban setup).
I had been tracking the 'ongoing activities' - the actions their minions were taking care of and the few major NPCs that they would take the time to scry on a regular basis. It felt a little sparse; the palace, their base of activities, lived but the city did not.
Prep Notes
As the party bounced around the countryside, focused on their main mission, I had been doing a light touch view of actions within the city/realm, mostly the PCs own to-do list.
Each session I was doing a sweep up of
- actions they left on the boil
- factions and their agendas
- timeline evolution / consequences
The results of this can be seen in the 'timeline/consequences' section (box 7) for session 136.
Session 136 itself was an extended fight sequence as the party attempted to escape an ancient temple with while rescuing an ally, retrieving an artifact and holding off a swarm of undead pteradons and a pair of vrock. The session ended with them teleporting back to their home-base so the 'post-session consequences/next session set-up' needed to be focussed on their being back in their home city.
Here I pulled forward the elements last left lying around - activities of their minions/hirelings, continuation of the threads set in motion last time they were in town - all this was fine, good information but it left the question of 'what is the rest of the city up to' unclear because the players focus prior to leaving had been on prep for the quest they just did and absolute emergencies. The faction politics and actions of other NPCs they were likely to check in on had fallen out of focus - if they had set off to visit old NPC pals I would have struggled. The gears of the city were no longer spinning in my head.
To overcome that trouble getting that mode back I had a look back 100 sessions to a previous 'full swing urban session set' for inspiration - going a few sessions forward and back to recall how the pacing had worked and what happened session on session.
Looking back to my old urban format and recalling while 'wilderness' adventures use space and distance, urban adventures use time so the days schedule (box 3) becomes important again.
In those couple of sessions there were activities happening at the palace, slower RP-heavy interactions with various NPCs, planning sessions, some palace dungeoneering and various social outings. I had rumours, notes on major NPCs opinions, rosters of who was present at the palace and social occasions for evenings.
I decided no harm to re-activate or echo some of those elements that were seen in those sessions; pruning away ones that got resolved and expanding or escalating things that had been left to fester and run wild.
All this got folded into my single session prep format as a very extended 'post session notes / session consequences' work up.
- the long list of ideas
- till back over old soil
- make the NPCs spring back to life
These were collected into the 'consequences' part of the last sessions sheet (box 7) - this could have been done at any point but best if it is done relatively close to time of use so they are as fresh in mind as possible.
I was given the boon of session 137 was taken by the players for R&R, a stand-alone beach episode which bought me the time to do this prep.
This set me up well for a 'report in and take stock' session 138 - this included resolving a plotline running since the start of the campaign by executing the last priest of a wicked god using their freshly-retrieved artefact. There was a run to an outlying fortress to stash said dangerous artefact, teleporting out to an outlying monastery to have dinner with a seer, teleporting back and then using the few hours before bed for some impromptu dungeoneering in the basement.
And of course - after all that set up for urban play - the players decide to visit the moon, to see if they could - but at least the base city breathes once more.
The specific instance for me is that after a 'quest phase' which looks a lot like old school trad style landscape bashing, the party are back at base and once more in their urban familiar terrain of Thenya and its palace.
I was having a little trouble getting the 'urban campaign' gear back, after a whole section of the campaign that had been deliberately broader strokes, coarser grained days with faster time passing and fewer, shallower encounters with NPCs all those needed to be inverted (or consciously adapted where we decide to retain faster time passing in an urban setup).
I had been tracking the 'ongoing activities' - the actions their minions were taking care of and the few major NPCs that they would take the time to scry on a regular basis. It felt a little sparse; the palace, their base of activities, lived but the city did not.
Prep Notes
As the party bounced around the countryside, focused on their main mission, I had been doing a light touch view of actions within the city/realm, mostly the PCs own to-do list.
Each session I was doing a sweep up of
- actions they left on the boil
- factions and their agendas
- timeline evolution / consequences
The results of this can be seen in the 'timeline/consequences' section (box 7) for session 136.
Session 136 itself was an extended fight sequence as the party attempted to escape an ancient temple with while rescuing an ally, retrieving an artifact and holding off a swarm of undead pteradons and a pair of vrock. The session ended with them teleporting back to their home-base so the 'post-session consequences/next session set-up' needed to be focussed on their being back in their home city.
Episode 136 session sheet
Here I pulled forward the elements last left lying around - activities of their minions/hirelings, continuation of the threads set in motion last time they were in town - all this was fine, good information but it left the question of 'what is the rest of the city up to' unclear because the players focus prior to leaving had been on prep for the quest they just did and absolute emergencies. The faction politics and actions of other NPCs they were likely to check in on had fallen out of focus - if they had set off to visit old NPC pals I would have struggled. The gears of the city were no longer spinning in my head.
To overcome that trouble getting that mode back I had a look back 100 sessions to a previous 'full swing urban session set' for inspiration - going a few sessions forward and back to recall how the pacing had worked and what happened session on session.
Looking back to my old urban format and recalling while 'wilderness' adventures use space and distance, urban adventures use time so the days schedule (box 3) becomes important again.
In those couple of sessions there were activities happening at the palace, slower RP-heavy interactions with various NPCs, planning sessions, some palace dungeoneering and various social outings. I had rumours, notes on major NPCs opinions, rosters of who was present at the palace and social occasions for evenings.
Episode 33 session sheet
I decided no harm to re-activate or echo some of those elements that were seen in those sessions; pruning away ones that got resolved and expanding or escalating things that had been left to fester and run wild.
All this got folded into my single session prep format as a very extended 'post session notes / session consequences' work up.
- the long list of ideas
- till back over old soil
- make the NPCs spring back to life
These were collected into the 'consequences' part of the last sessions sheet (box 7) - this could have been done at any point but best if it is done relatively close to time of use so they are as fresh in mind as possible.
I was given the boon of session 137 was taken by the players for R&R, a stand-alone beach episode which bought me the time to do this prep.
Episode 137 session sheet
This set me up well for a 'report in and take stock' session 138 - this included resolving a plotline running since the start of the campaign by executing the last priest of a wicked god using their freshly-retrieved artefact. There was a run to an outlying fortress to stash said dangerous artefact, teleporting out to an outlying monastery to have dinner with a seer, teleporting back and then using the few hours before bed for some impromptu dungeoneering in the basement.
And of course - after all that set up for urban play - the players decide to visit the moon, to see if they could - but at least the base city breathes once more.
Shiny TTRPG links #241
Some more deep-time blog-trawlings while I am away. For more, see the previous list found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Roles, Rules, and Rolls gave us Analog, Digital, Procedural
How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less shared Why D&D Has Lots of Rules for Combat: A General Theory Encompassing All Editions
ChicagoWiz's Games gave us The 3 Essential Elements of the Perfect D&D Village/Town/City
Prismatic Wasteland wrote A Better Approach to Deadly Games
Rise Up Comus asked What are you holding? - The GM's Most Important Question
Hill Cantons shared AD&D's Apocalypse and Domain Game Index
Roles, Rules, and Rolls gave us Analog, Digital, Procedural
How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less shared Why D&D Has Lots of Rules for Combat: A General Theory Encompassing All Editions
ChicagoWiz's Games gave us The 3 Essential Elements of the Perfect D&D Village/Town/City
Prismatic Wasteland wrote A Better Approach to Deadly Games
Rise Up Comus asked What are you holding? - The GM's Most Important Question
Hill Cantons shared AD&D's Apocalypse and Domain Game Index
06 September 2025
Own Personal Appendix N
In response to the Appendicitis N Blogwagon and Prismatic Wastelands request for "a list of inspirational media (books, movies, comics, video games, what have you) that impact your design, inspired by the original Appendix N at the back of the 1979 Dungeon Master’s Guide for D&D" here is a list of the inspirational material that fed my original AD&D games back in the early 90s.
The first thing to note here, this is a younger persons reading list - I came to the game pretty early ~ 12-13 as I described in "On childrens story gaming and later play style". Second thing to note, there is little to no overlap with the original AD&D Appendix N - what we have below is a mix of kids stuff, original myth and legend and derivative fantasy - second or maybe third wave after the books from the original Appendix N and probably influenced by them. All this strongly steered by what was on the shelves in my local library or at home.
For the first block - kids stuff; animal folk and a mildly gonzo mish-mash of stuff:
* Rupert Bear annuals
* Curly Wee books
* Enid Blyton kids series - Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair, Noddy
* Roald Dahl - particularly BFG, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
* Asterix comics
* Tintin books
Of the second block - "original sources" - the kind of thing that would have been influences on the books of AppendiX N, being written earlier
* Irish Faery tale collections
* Greek myths
* Hobbit (Tolkien)
* The Seafarers non-fiction books
* King Solomons Mines
* Biggles novels
* Three Musketeers
* Last of the Mohicans
* Ivanhoe
The third block - riffing off the established fantasy tropes
* Riftwar (Feist)
* Discworld (Pratchett)
* Belgariad & Malloreon (Eddings)
Within that third block I would include the direct gaming related stuff like:
* Fighting Fantasy books
* Heroquest scenarios
* White Dwarf
The two 'adventure series' that complemented all those were
* Courtneys of Africa series by Wilbur Smith
* Aubrey & Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brien
In parallel to this I read a lot of sci-fi which did not directly inform my AD&D tables but was in mind for other stuff.
* Dan Dare comics
* Tower and the Hive (Anne McCaffrey)
* Dune series (Herbert)
* Culture novels (Banks)
* Asimov short stories - Robot series
* The Damned Series (Alan Dean Foster)
All this to say the 'open system' mix that got shovelled into my early AD&D games was not the same as the classic Appendix N - but for The Hobbit it is an almost perfect donut of sources around those books.
Other media going in there to inform things were early morning cartoons: Transformers, Fraggle Rock, Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Alladin cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian, Galtar and the Golden Lance, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Robotix, Defenders of the Earth, X-men, Flintstones, Captain Planet and the Planeteers and post-school Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Things I note as I compiled this list: the gonzo 'anything can happen' aspect that came from the kids books worked fine at the table. Riftwar is, to the best of my knowledge, inspired by Feists own D&D campaign so that is a direct 'second order' input - delivering the tropes of D&D distilled from their original sources.
After this, things evolved - starting with a Dragon magazine subscription and then with the internet coming available in my area, getting to college and accessing bigger libraries and finally with Amazon and DriveThruRPG coming online and making both RPG books and original Appendix N books much more easily accessible. I sought out influences that were mentioned as part of the origins of D&D, read more D&D supplements themselves, and consuming other media which was influenced by D&D.
By the time I came to many of the original Appendix N, I had seen the tropes washed through D&D so often it sometimes seemed un-original but only because I had seen so many derivative works. I am not necessarily recommending anyone attempt to replicate this as their own Appendix N, more just to record for curiousity how little of an overlap with the 'official' canon of inspirational materials I had when I started.
The first thing to note here, this is a younger persons reading list - I came to the game pretty early ~ 12-13 as I described in "On childrens story gaming and later play style". Second thing to note, there is little to no overlap with the original AD&D Appendix N - what we have below is a mix of kids stuff, original myth and legend and derivative fantasy - second or maybe third wave after the books from the original Appendix N and probably influenced by them. All this strongly steered by what was on the shelves in my local library or at home.
For the first block - kids stuff; animal folk and a mildly gonzo mish-mash of stuff:
* Rupert Bear annuals
* Curly Wee books
* Enid Blyton kids series - Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair, Noddy
* Roald Dahl - particularly BFG, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
* Asterix comics
* Tintin books
Of the second block - "original sources" - the kind of thing that would have been influences on the books of AppendiX N, being written earlier
* Irish Faery tale collections
* Greek myths
* Hobbit (Tolkien)
* The Seafarers non-fiction books
* King Solomons Mines
* Biggles novels
* Three Musketeers
* Last of the Mohicans
* Ivanhoe
The third block - riffing off the established fantasy tropes
* Riftwar (Feist)
* Discworld (Pratchett)
* Belgariad & Malloreon (Eddings)
Within that third block I would include the direct gaming related stuff like:
* Fighting Fantasy books
* Heroquest scenarios
* White Dwarf
The two 'adventure series' that complemented all those were
* Courtneys of Africa series by Wilbur Smith
* Aubrey & Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brien
In parallel to this I read a lot of sci-fi which did not directly inform my AD&D tables but was in mind for other stuff.
* Dan Dare comics
* Tower and the Hive (Anne McCaffrey)
* Dune series (Herbert)
* Culture novels (Banks)
* Asimov short stories - Robot series
* The Damned Series (Alan Dean Foster)
All this to say the 'open system' mix that got shovelled into my early AD&D games was not the same as the classic Appendix N - but for The Hobbit it is an almost perfect donut of sources around those books.
Other media going in there to inform things were early morning cartoons: Transformers, Fraggle Rock, Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Alladin cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian, Galtar and the Golden Lance, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Robotix, Defenders of the Earth, X-men, Flintstones, Captain Planet and the Planeteers and post-school Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Things I note as I compiled this list: the gonzo 'anything can happen' aspect that came from the kids books worked fine at the table. Riftwar is, to the best of my knowledge, inspired by Feists own D&D campaign so that is a direct 'second order' input - delivering the tropes of D&D distilled from their original sources.
After this, things evolved - starting with a Dragon magazine subscription and then with the internet coming available in my area, getting to college and accessing bigger libraries and finally with Amazon and DriveThruRPG coming online and making both RPG books and original Appendix N books much more easily accessible. I sought out influences that were mentioned as part of the origins of D&D, read more D&D supplements themselves, and consuming other media which was influenced by D&D.
By the time I came to many of the original Appendix N, I had seen the tropes washed through D&D so often it sometimes seemed un-original but only because I had seen so many derivative works. I am not necessarily recommending anyone attempt to replicate this as their own Appendix N, more just to record for curiousity how little of an overlap with the 'official' canon of inspirational materials I had when I started.
03 September 2025
Review + Actual Play: Winters Daughter
tl:dr; fun old school dungeon with a romance-story core, solid recommend.
Attronarch was selling off some adventures and I seized the opportunity - got a bunch of the OSE classics - completely forgetting I had a copy of Winters Daughter on the way as part of my Dolmenwood order. All to the good, I will probably pass on my extra copy as a raffle prize or the like.
I thought I would run it against my Friday night open tables on the 'off weeks' of my dual mode game. This was an experiment on how old school adventures survive contact with 5e players - in short pretty darn well, would solidly recommend.
So what do you actually get in the book?
Attronarch was selling off some adventures and I seized the opportunity - got a bunch of the OSE classics - completely forgetting I had a copy of Winters Daughter on the way as part of my Dolmenwood order. All to the good, I will probably pass on my extra copy as a raffle prize or the like.
I thought I would run it against my Friday night open tables on the 'off weeks' of my dual mode game. This was an experiment on how old school adventures survive contact with 5e players - in short pretty darn well, would solidly recommend.
So what do you actually get in the book?
01 September 2025
Shiny TTRPG links #240
Start September with some shiny links. For more, see the previous list found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Aboleth Overlords gives us Action-Oriented Interaction
To Be Resolved writes Breaking Bad Habits - Turning a Plot into a Situation
Sam Seer's Blog shares [An OSR Pattern] One, Two, or Three Exits
BASTIONLAND gives us The ICI Doctrine: Information, Choice, Impact
I Cast Light! shares DOWNTIME DEMANDS OF SENTIENT WEAPONS: Or The Care & Feeding of Excalibur
Blog of Forlorn Encystment writes Adventurers Are a Threat to the Established Order
A Room Containing 1d6 Goblins gives us Crawling Ever Upwards
Glyph and Grok writes Make Your Quests "Mythic"
AMONG CATS AND BOOKS gives us Running Mythic Bastionland
Busy Wyvern gave us Is Your Game a Prophecy, or a Blank Page?
Mindstorm shares Sicko Worldbuilding
Castle Grief gives us Lordes: Dark Arthurian...ODND?
No Foes, No Traps writes BENEATH! TOWER ELVES! (A RARE HERITAGE IN DUNGEONFLOOR: ACCELERATED!)
Tito's Geekery gives us RPG Worldbuilding: stealing from my 10-year-old self
Aboleth Overlords gives us Action-Oriented Interaction
To Be Resolved writes Breaking Bad Habits - Turning a Plot into a Situation
Sam Seer's Blog shares [An OSR Pattern] One, Two, or Three Exits
BASTIONLAND gives us The ICI Doctrine: Information, Choice, Impact
I Cast Light! shares DOWNTIME DEMANDS OF SENTIENT WEAPONS: Or The Care & Feeding of Excalibur
Blog of Forlorn Encystment writes Adventurers Are a Threat to the Established Order
A Room Containing 1d6 Goblins gives us Crawling Ever Upwards
Glyph and Grok writes Make Your Quests "Mythic"
AMONG CATS AND BOOKS gives us Running Mythic Bastionland
Busy Wyvern gave us Is Your Game a Prophecy, or a Blank Page?
Mindstorm shares Sicko Worldbuilding
Castle Grief gives us Lordes: Dark Arthurian...ODND?
No Foes, No Traps writes BENEATH! TOWER ELVES! (A RARE HERITAGE IN DUNGEONFLOOR: ACCELERATED!)
Tito's Geekery gives us RPG Worldbuilding: stealing from my 10-year-old self
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