Bogblins

I feel like I've been reading way too many research papers recently. The [snazzy remark] [content description] format has been branded into my brain. Before I get into it, no, I didn't write this with AI (ew + I like fun and creativity, actually), and if you don't like reading stuff this way, just skip down to the Results and Discussion, I drop the   research paper bit there.   Introduction  Mythic fantasy is a fantasy-fiction subgenre heavily inspired by mythology and folklore, often emphasizing the role of deities, demigods, and spirits in the narrative and as the primary sources and users of magic ( Living for Literature 2025 , World Foundry ). This magic is often of the softer, less straight-forward kind, where the effects (and even the domains) of deities and spirits are rarely laid out ( The Valakirian 2026 ). Mythic fantasy then, is defined by the fantastical being largely A) external and B) nebulous. Within the Old School Renaissance (hereafter "OSR") scen...

Just a fun little post.   1) Pointcrawl Procedures These are the same as from this post. Essentially, I set up a pointcrawl map with distances marked in  days , and roll a 2d6 weather roll for each day. There's also a 1-in-6 chance of a random encounter (d6 table, prepped per region/area) and a 1-in-6 chance of a "small place" (d6 table, just places the characters might stumble upon). This leaves most of the travel as fluff (describing the weather, landscape, etc.) with a little bit of travel involving dangerous weather, random encounters, or cool little spots (which get added to the map!). Each of the d6 tables has 3 ordinary/safe results, 2 unordinary/threatening results, and 1 rare/magical/dangerous result.   2) Equipment Slots = STR I know equipment/encumbrance slots aren't supposed to be tied to STR because they're also a measure of space, and not just weight, but I just really like the vibe of the buff knight carrying a bunch of stuff and the wi...

Title feels a litle cheeky; I wrote nothing in 2025 T_T   What's been up? I don't have a good reason for not writing anything last year, I just kinda didn't! I'd love to say it's because I was too busy playing instead of theorizing (partially true! I played a lottt of Mausritter) but it's probably just that my work/life balance has gone way in favor of work, and, well, TTRPG theorizing is low on my priority list for the little free time I got.   That being said, I did accomplish some things! I... made a Pokemon hack of 2400 (for a home game, probably never going to see the light of itch.io) played a lot of Mausritter, as mentioned wrote up v0.16 of Jangli , my South Asian mythic fantasy game (will be posted soon-ish! for reference, my last update on that game was v0.05, and the playtest announcement was v0.03) thought a lot about character niche protection (will also become a blog post)   Blog Resolutions! With the hope that next year is going to be le...

So I've recently started working on a new campaign for my players, something akin to the Counter-Colonial Heistcrawl , set in a fantasy and steampunk-y island chain in totally-not-the-Arabian-Sea. Think pirates, witches, and animal-folk carving out a refuge from totally-not-the-British. Oh, and there's edible magic called "jz āduchi" (or "seraphic" in not-British), made from a sugarcane-like plant. Fun stuff.   Anyways, I needed a map, and thought this would be a fun tutorial. First, a look at what we're making: Very empty, but so is the ocean. I want them to feel small and alone.   Ok, tutorial time. Step 1: Getting GIMP GIMP is an open source image editing program in the same vein as Photoshop. We're going to be using it for the rest of the tutorial, so if you want to make your own hex-map, I'd recommend picking it up. It's totally free, and really easy to install, just click the download link, run the file, and it's all set up.   Ste...

Hi! I hope y'all have had a happy Halloween (and a happy Diwali)!   In this post I wanted to detail how I prep my pointcrawls! This isn't about prepping for the purpose of publishing, but about campaign prep and weekly session prep, the kind of stuff that you do at the table. To start, let's get some guiding principles out of the way. 1) Easy to prep -- I have a busy life! Prep should take an hour tops. 2) Consistent -- I want a regular system for session prep. When designing the campaign, I tend to start creative and untethered, but once I get down to the weekly session prep, I want the process to be very consistent and logical. 3) World-First -- Prep situations, not plots. As in, prep a world with conflict that involves the characters, but don't prep outcomes. Let them occur naturally as a result of character-world interaction. Ok, principles done! For my actual prep notes, I'll break it into two parts. The first is campaign prep - it's about how I set up the...

This is Part 2 in a four part series! See Part 1 here for context. ~ ~ ~ Personal opinion (and known hot take): there are far too many rules in RPGs. In fact, I'd say the ideal amount of rules for most traditional RPGs is something like Into the Odd or Cairn 1e . Nothing but the barest of bones, to adjudicate the fiction when the GM's common sense judgements are insufficient. The Intentions of Minimalist RPGs The goal, to me, in playing and designing minimalist RPGs is to stay immersed in the fiction as thoroughly as possible. Some people play RPGs for the strategic combat element (and I do too - just different RPGs) and others play for structured storytelling. But for the people who play RPGs for immersion and fast moving fun, I think minimalist games are ideal. The lack of structure allows for freedom in play, and the little structural formations that do exist provide for those cases where complete trust in the GM is not enough. That, then, is the purpose of rules. To provi...