May 2022 – Roll to Doubt

Blog Scraps 3

Nuromen is really good – Harry Clarke.

Not everything deserves its own post. Today: WIS/INT, OD&D Without Ability Checks, GM facing Rolls, and my solo campaign with many house rules.

Blog Scraps 2

I mentioned GLoG here for like three lines, and I guess this makes me a GLoGger or something. The gretchling transformation has already started.

Not everything deserves its own post. Today: re-skinning demi-humans, save vs check and more.

Blog Scraps 1

A lazy afternoon and some wonders – Illustration from Three Vassar Girls On the Rhine

Not everything deserves its own post. Discussed: Level Caps, Class Restrictions, Human-Only Campaigns and Debt.

Thoughts on Horror Roleplaying: Mental Health Rules

I, and many others that suffer from mental illness, take enjoyment from macabre fiction. In my case, both as engager and creator. The reasons for this attraction have been elaborated, both academically and informally, in other places: the feeling of relief in anxiety; the aesthetic expression of how we may see the world as a hostile, nightmarish place; identification with both the monsters and the damned; confronting our own perspectives about our fears and sense of reality.

Thinking Tunnels & Trolls: Story and Adventure Gaming

Someone once asked me why I love OD&D. I thought about doing a blogpost about that, but really, it’s just retreated ground at this point. I like the freedom, the spirit of the text, how it feels like a suggestion of a distant lost game, its procedures for exploration, the non-variable damage, the offering of procedures for speeding up parts such as searching for doors, the resources for stocking and creating environments, the weird evocative rules like jousting and the strongholds in the wilderness, the implied setting and vision for pulp fantasy.