The continuing adventures of that eternal man of mystery…
You Think Survival Is Scarcity. It Isn’t. This is part of my ongoing series on system structure and pressure models—see my previous: Heroic Fantasy TTRPGs: The Real Test (And So Many Games Fail It) You think you know what a survival game is: tracking rations, counting torches, rationing ammo, worrying about encumbrance. So if a … Read more
Heroic Fantasy TTRPGs: You Think It’s About Dragons. It Isn’t. This is part of my ongoing series on system structure and pressure models—see also: Grimdark TTRPGs: The Real Test (And Why Most Games Fail It) You think you know what heroic fantasy means. Any game where you fight dragons and save kingdoms, right? D&D, Pathfinder? … Read more
Grimdark TTRPGs: You Think You Know What Grimdark Means (But You Don’t) You think you know what grimdark means: dark atmosphere, high lethality, morally grey characters in a brutal world. So Shadow of the Demon Lord is grimdark, right? Shadowdark? Call of Cthulhu? No. In TTRPG talk, grimdark often gets used as a label for … Read more
The Most Complete One-Book TTRPGs The best one-book TTRPGs give you everything you need to run a full campaign without buying a single supplement. No three-book treadmill, no “optional but mandatory” expansions, just a complete game in one volume. That means robust character creation and progression, GM tools that actually support play, and enough content … Read more
Top 6 Underappreciated Tabletop RPGs I’ve been writing several posts about underappreciated video games on various consoles in the past several week. I began thinking, aren’t there underappreciated tabletop RPGs too? Those that are very well-made, creative, innovative, fun, but slid under the radar? There must be. So I did some research…okay I did a … Read more