Big thank you to @riseupcomus.bsky.social for the fun collaboration on this! And thanks to Jon Britton @3d6downtheline.com for lending his voice to the whole thing, @bertdrawsstuff.bsky.social for lending their illos, and Gus L @ratkingrpg.bsky.social for the great worksheet!
A bit about how even some of the best advice for adventure design can fall apart when it becomes dogma: alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com/2026/07/jaqu...
"Jaquays Your Dungeon" - Another OSR Maxim
Be Cautious of Maxims As I've written before , the "OSR" loved its maxims, short phrases that try to describe shared principles and act as a...
alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com
Alas, to be an indie RPG designer is to wear many hats, including marketer. I've talked a lot about ENNIES voting this week. I make no apologies for shilling! But, if I must advertise, I should at least be funny. That's why I put together the... CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVERTISEMENT (CYOA)
Designing Dungeons CYOA
1. It's pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a g̷̫͍͓͙͔̒̅̈́́̇̏̑͂͗̽̿͝r̷̟̬͛̓͌̐͆̈͛͐̽̓̚̚͝͝u̵̗̭̗̤̭̤͖̱̹̠̙͎̝̲̼͈̩̿̇̒̐̌̌̃̄̏̍́̀͋̅̋͘͝ẻ̶̡̧̱̜͚̲̗̞̘̩̼͎̬̘̲͔̽͑̀͋͑͗̓̒. - You cautiously grope through the darkness. ...
docs.google.com
Vote for this - it's the sort of thoughtful, free, creative, and helpful tool that reminds me of the best of the long vanished OSR culture. Plus it helps make dungeon adventures.
𝖂.𝕯.@icastlight.bsky.social · 4w agoVery pleased to be a co-author on this document, & delighted by the ENNIES nomination! The goal was to create an easily accessible aid focused on an often glossed over aspect of adventure RPGs that’s had a recent resurgence- dungeons! A big thanks to @3d6downtheline.com for adding their voice too!
When it comes to RPG adventure creation I applaud both the bullet point fans and the paragraph partisans ... as long as you are writing it yourself and using your human brain. If you are using LLMs for the hobby though ... it doesn't matter what you do - you're bad and you should feel bad.
Reminder that Voidfighter is very on sale on the Osprey website. Order two games and get free shipping. Nice. www.ospreypublishing.com/us/voidfight...
Voidfighter
A streamlined wargame for cinematic space dogfights.Voidfighter is a wargame of space-fighter combat where players pilot their squadron, perform special maneuve…
ospreypublishing.com
I need to get back to drawing dragons and finish writing one of those dragon adventures ...
RPG dungeon design inspiration is everywhere. I've decided to fill this one with very annoyed/Rilkeian angels. Also it needs a basement.
A question I meant to put in this original post... What level is appropriate for a beholder encounter? In Greyhawk and AD&D give beholders don't have HD, and 5E has them CR rated for at least 10th level parties. My own thought is that a beholder is a serious challenge for a 6-9th level party?
Gus L.@ratkingrpg.bsky.social · 4mo agoI have once again produced RPG content. alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com/2026/04/ever...
The Post-OSR is so tiresome ... let's fight about keying design. Bullet point vs. paragraphs... framed as artistry vs. utility. Ugh. 1) We had this discussion in 2016-2019 - productively. 2) Information/Communication design depends on context and designer subjectivity. 3) There is no one true way.
I spent literally entire rainy days playing this game in the late 80's on the C64. Usually against my neighborhood friends. So much beheading. Good sprite work and surprisingly fluid controls for the era.
🏰𝕯𝖚𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖔𝖓𝖑𝖚𝖘𝖙🏰@dungeonlust.com · 5mo agoBarbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (1987) - Title Screen • Initially released for Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum
I'm not saying imagination and poetic writing are bad... but if you're writing an RPG adventure, your monsters need more then lore, adjectives, and similes ... In the end it's a game and that means its parts need to work under the rules and structure that exist. You have to do both art and design.
The past couple of days I’ve dropped links from the course to folks stumped on some aspect of dungeon design- it helped them break through! So give it a listen or jump around in the course itself-each piece is semi-self contained
Rise Up Comus@riseupcomus.bsky.social · 5mo agoDesigning Dungeons has been updated with the audio versions for each chapter! Prefer to listen to your RPG content? Tune in to learn how to make a dungeon step by step! If this is helpful, consider voting for it for the Bloggies! Voting form 👉 forms.gle/d6YbnUqiuypv... Link to course 👇
a response to the @rascal.news article on yazeba's bed & breakfast, clarifying some misunderstandings and (hopefully) providing a clearer explanation of what happened possumcreek.medium.com/a-response-t...
Triumph of the Guillotine in Hell (1795) is a very weird allegorical painting by Nicolas-Antoine Taunay. I wouldn't call it sympathetic to revolutionary violence, but would also note that the Jacobians invading hell in it are executing demons. The penalties of misrule I guess?
Oh look a hit piece about a successful TTRPG creator in the micro-payment clickbait media... Am I old fashioned thinking journalists should have financial and legal literacy when discussing business deals gone wrong? ... at least if the goal is journalism and not whatever that was ...
Just so you all know this (overly) linear map is also from a Jennell Jaquays' product... Loops are good, but are neither necessary or sufficient for good map design.
Apparently there's some kind of Story Games/OSR argument on here somewhere? Two funny things about this: 1) The OSR has been dead since at least 2020. 2) Story Games and the OSR are basically the same thing. They need to hug it out and make up. Deal with the real enemy ... Collectible Card games.
I'd argue that Zedeck is being to generous here - the "Heist" as a modern narrative concept is rooted in lionizing risk taking and cleverness as a means of acquiring unearned wealth outside of the structures of law or community. It is derived from the Western's narrative of heroic individualism.
Zedeck Siew@zedecksiew.bsky.social · 7mo agoThe basic shape of dungeon-delving---ie: the heist---is not essentially colonial. You can even use it to model, say, anti-colonial resistance actions, as @isaacisafraid.bsky.social 's "robbing the colonial government complex" ( afraidofencounters.bearblog.dev/anticolonial... ) demonstrates. 3/
A thought on RPG location design ... I am so so tired of tombs and ruined castles. The real world in infinitely more inventive. Consider instead the first "modern" observatory in Europe - Uraniborg - a pre-telescope astronomy island, including the "underground observatory" Stjerneborg ...
Still illustrating Bones of Bronze - it needs more skeletons.
Welcome to the barrow... Additional Bones of Bronze art - part of why it's taken so long is because it's just a lot of skeletons...
Another piece of interior art for Bones of Bronze - my upcoming five level dungeon set in the Crystal Frontier's Barrow Fields.
Leo's a chill creator ... makes good stuff. Don't steal it to sell, but if you must ... credit him. This is not a big ask.
Leo@infrabeige.bsky.social · 8mo agoI will just comment briefly to say I’m aware of the republished book. I’d reiterate that Vaults of Vaarn is published under Creative Commons and the book text encourages you to remix, edit, reuse the content.
So the plagiarists and grifters are still involved in the Post-OSR space... Not shocking - it's the same shifty, yelling crew as always. Silver lining ... they seem to be recruiting very slowly and their work is still bad ... the mirror of the "TrvOSR" chud boys. Solution? Make good things.
This was a great campaign - very freeform sprawling, but one where so many detail and player initiated goals arose from play. I wish we'd been able to go on a bit longer - as it was ripe to turn into a domain game with dinosaur riding armies clashing in the wastes.
ரமணன்@save.vs.totalpartykill.ca · 8mo agoSession 7 of Masters of Carcosa was a lot of fighting Mi-Go. The party encounters their first Space Aliens.
I have no idea what any of this means - maybe "RPG blogging isn't dead"? It sure is cool though.
elmcat@elmc.at · 8mo agoSpent the last month mapping the blogosphere by its links. The graph is finally ready Communities clump into a big hex and the whole thing looks like a star map What are blogs anyway but stars in the sky? elmc.at/mapping-the-... To check out the graph directly follow this link: graph.elmc.at
Added a community detection algorithm to the data and it found five clusters. The layout now forms a pentagram unintentionally fitting for this little satanic panic hobby. Here's a fun scroll through the years
If you ever thought, "Damn I love Fallout", then here is one woman you can thank for that legacy.
