Bogblins

I've moved!   For many,  many , reasons, I'm discontinuing this blog and have started a bearblog instead.    Why? I don't like the formatting on Blogger I don't like how Blogger's associated with my Google account I feel an obligation to post with a certain style and tone, and by migrating to a new space, I can weaken those mental obligations I only want to tend to  one  blog at a time. I can't have both it'll make my inability to post worse  I want to post about things other than TTRPGs Bearblog's formatting is cuter    The new blog ( strawbeary.bearblog.dev ) is primarily a personal blog where I tell my friends all about the things I'm thinking about and doing. It's linked to my Instagram (for those who have it), and you can get manual notifications when I post if you have my number (which most of my current readership won't). I'll be posting about gardening, photography, and my day-to-day life, mostly. In that way, it's a lot more...

The Universal Cleric a glog-ish class for the whole party partner post  (concept, design, my thoughts, etc.)   Templates You gain one template for each level you earn, for your first four levels. Higher tier templates can only be taken after their prior templates have been taken (A > B > C > D). Some subclasses have two templates for a letter. If so, take both templates as if they were one. At first level, choose a subclass and take its first template. For each subsequent level, you may continue taking templates in that subclass, or take templates in other subclasses (starting again at A). [_] Faith Dice (Default Ability) You have Faith Dice (FD) which you may spend to make appeals to fantastical creatures. Earn one faith die per template taken (max 4). To start, choose one appeal from the provided list. Learn additional appeals directly from clerics of higher level, gods, or monsters. Faith dice are recovered by praying and leaving appropriate offerings at shrines. A...

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...

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...

For a while I've been playing around with really minimalist RPGs like Primeval 2d6 , Into the Odd , and Dungeon World , and I'm absolutely loving it. Without the weight of rules, the players are immersed in the fiction continuously, and are rarely pulled out of the game and into mechanics.   Basically, I have a lot of thoughts about minimalist RPGs, and I want to write them out, so we're going to do a four part series! It was all originally one big thing, but that got unwieldy and hard to edit, so we'll break it down like this: 1. What Makes a Good Character? - essentially outlining the bare minimum requirements for an RPG character, and how the system needs to support it. 2. Fantastic Mechanics and Where to Find Them - discussing the core mechanic and supplementary mechanics, and what role mechanics should play in the game. 3. Genre Imitation and Laser Swords - crafting an example minimalist RPG from this framework, based on Star Wars generally, but especially Star...

Welcome back everyone! I have finally returned to my blog after a weirdly long hiatus, and hopefully I'll be able to blog again about every one to two weeks. Things have just been very busy lately.   In this post I'm going to return to the Combat OSR that I've played around with before and revisit it in more depth. Hopefully by the end of this post I'll have a list of core principles and some suggestions for houserules and gameplay changes. I'm also going to start it off with some musings on motivations and play cultures - feel free to skip that if you'd like.   Motivations The reason I'm revisiting the Combat OSR is due to a recent playtest of Jangli I ran. Character creation went well, the actual gameplay went fine, and when a fight came up the party jumped right in, rather than running like a good OSR party might do. Part of the reason they fought was because this group of players wasn't my usual Mausritter table and weren't super accustomed to...

This is a very short one but something that I feel isn't said enough.   Oriental Adventures (and all RPG products like it - made by Westerners to tell adventures set in the backdrop of fantasy Asia) is Western fantasy. These stories are Western fantasies of Asia and Asian peoples and cultures, and they are Western fantasies of themselves (in highlighting what they foolishly believe the West is not).   Real Asian Fantasy (TM) is written by Asian people. Define "Asian" as you will - I believe Westerners who've lived and grown in Asia to be capable of writing Real Asian Fantasy. Western Fantasies (of Asia) transport the player to a world that is superficially different (ignoring the deeper differences of culture and perspective) and revels in exoticizing those superficial differences.   See The Mahasarpa Campaign . It does not explore South Asian perspectives on duty and community, but instead continues to play in the sandbox of temple looting and treasure-driven advent...

Prismatic Wasteland has issued a challenge ! Here it is: "In January 2024, come up with a new resolution mechanic for a TTRPG and give it a name." So far, my favorite's Davy Jones Bidding , by the Illusory Sensorium (insanely cool blog title by the way). Go check it out ! Now, for my mechanic: D6 Tokens Each character starts the game with X [1] tokens and Y [2] skills. When faced with a challenge, you may spend 2 tokens to overcome it. If you have a relevant skill, spend 1 less token. If you lack the necessary gear, spend 1 more token. Nearby friends can spend up to 1 token each in your place, but will join in the suffering of any mishaps involved. Roll a number of d6 equal to the tokens you spent. If any of the dice show a 6, there is a mishap ! Something goes wrong, but you still succeed. If all dice roll 1s or 2s, there is an opportunity . Your character succeeds with added effect, new information, or gains back a token.   [1] I haven't decided how many tokens a ch...