Personable Thoughts

  One of the staples of old school play is gold for XP. I don't use it myself, because I don't particularly like it. This dislike comes down to main issues: I don't like counting XP, and I don't like counting gold (or silver, copper, or any other currency). In this blog post, I behave much like a cooking blogger, ruminating a bit on my thoughts before presenting something gameable at the end. If you just want the game juice, skip to the section just before the bullet points. In my mind, XP is by far the easiest of the two to get rid of in a satisfying way. Just level up whenever it makes sense, such as after looting the dungeon, slaying the dragon, saving the prince(ss), etc. or just throw levels out entirely and rely on diegetic advancement instead.  Money however, has the problem that it is already entirely diegetic. The money is normally tracked as it exists in the world, not as some external game currency. Adventurers need money to spend on survival, buying trinkets...

  I finally found the time to read Nova's post on hyperdiegesis , which, among other things, has taught me a new word. I love implied settings in fiction, and Nova cites some of the best ones with Blade Runner and M John Harrison's works, however, I think with tabletop RPGs, it's all about finding the right balance between known to all and implied. As I have written about previously , I also think it is very helpful for players to have a basic understanding of the world they are playing in, but these two things need not be in conflict. Hyperdiegesis is not about the blank spots on the map, but rather about the "known unknowns". Hyperdiegesis, as I have understood it, is about putting placing things in the consciousness of the players without elaborating. Rather than empty space, the map may have the "Lower Marlborough Lake of Fire", which has only been visited by the most daring adventurers. If the player characters (or indeed the players) wish to know m...

  One of the accepted wisdoms in the OSR (as codified in e.g. the Principia Apocrypha ), as well at the NSR (as defined by Yochai Gal or Pandatheist) is that lethality is good, and a core component of OSR/NSR play, because it means that player choice has real consequence. I do not entirely disagree with this, but I also do not entirely agree. My opinion aligns more with Pandatheist's follow-up post , arguing that "consequential" would be a better term. Perhaps my brain is poisoned with modern "trad" ideology, but when playing longer campaigns rather than one-shots, I find that the characters tend to evolve beyond vehicle's for the players' problem solving, developing interesting quirks and personalities that it would be a shame to lose because of an unlucky dice-roll (because that is one OSR tenet I do still believe in - the sanctity of the dice result). A dramatic death because of calculated risk gone wrong, or a heroic last stand against an ogre whil...

  Having read through another Big Book , I am here to offer my thoughts my thoughts once again. This time I have read Fabula Ultima , written by Emanuele Galletto and published by Italian outfit Need Games! Originally in Italian, but in English since 2022. Compared to His Majesty the Worm, my previous Big Book , this one is physically much smaller. However, the text feels much denser with less art and whitespace on the pages, so I would not be surprised if the word counts were at least comparable. This poses no problem, however, as the layout design is impeccable, making the book a smooth read. Similarly to The Worm, this seems like a book with a singular purpose: where The Worm wanted you to have fun making and playing in megadungeons, Fabula Ultima seeks to emulate the JRPG genre of video games. This is a clearly stated goal to the extent that the cover calls it a TTJRPG. I am not extremely experienced with the genre, but I have played a few and absorbed enough knowledge throug...

  It's Mothership month , and that's as good a kick in the backside as any to finally get around to reading Cloud Empress . I ramble a bit about zines in general at the start, so if you're not interested in that and just want to get straight into some juicy imago flesh, just skip the next two paragraphs. Back in early 2023, I came across Cloud Empress  on Kickstarter , and I was quick to back it based on the strength of the art and the pitch. Later that year, impressively close to schedule, I received a little plastic bag full of zines. They ended up on my RPG shelf, squeezed between a bunch of hardbacks, until I later established a Zine Box, where they were equally, if not more hidden. I was always excited by the concepts presented in the game, but the jury is still out on zines for me. I really want to like them, because they allow for small products taking big swings, and should in theory be much more affordable than the big fancy hardbacks. However, I always hit two sna...

  Role playing games and music have been entwined for a long time, in many different ways. Just off the top of my head, there is a Fate world about being a DJ , Void 1680 AM and Ribbon Drive both have you building playlists as part of the play experience, and a plethora of games have the aesthetics and vibes of specific music genres and core inspirational texts, perhaps most famously MÖRK BORG and Ultraviolet Grasslands , though I am sure you could find many more. The influence of music on play can take many forms, some people listen to music while writing, others play background music to set the scene during play. His Majesty the Worm suggests associating each underworld level with a specific song, as well as using tracks for beginning and ending sessions, for challenges, as well as recurring NPCs. Music can be a terrific tool to set the mood. In my free-time listening, I experience a bunch of different music, and one of my great regrets is not knowing any music theory. I ther...

      I will preface this with the fact that I am not an industry analyst. I am not looking at any hard data here, relying instead only on my own anecdotal personal experience, and vibes. I look at enough data at work, I'm not going to do it now. There is a great mismatch in the heart of the TTRPG hobby, in fact there may be more than one. I am talking about the mismatch between the "products" being written and bought, and those being played. You could even add in the intermediate stage of being read. Most of us are limited in the amount of products we buy by money, and all of us are limited in reading and playing by time. For non-solo efforts, play has the additional complicating factor of getting schedules to align, meaning that in general, fewer games are played than read, and for some (including myself), fewer books are read than bought. And yet, I there are many books I would like to buy (or have supported in crowdfunding), but have (probably) wisely skipped or postp...