jamiltron — tabletop

Aboleth Overlords Transfer

2026-11-01T00:00:00Z

Back in July I said I was half debating moving my tabletop blog, Aboleth Overlords, onto this site. Well, I finally got tired of the decision to use WordPress and Bluehost for that site, so starting today, everything that lived there is here, and the old domain redirects to this new location.

What Aboleth Overlords was

In the early 2000s I had a blog, on LiveJournal of all places if I remember correctly, that I used to talk about tabletop gaming. I posted pretty sporadically, as I continue to do, about the various games I was playing, stuff I was looking forward to, as well as trends and topics in the hobby.

Around the 2010s I made the heretical decision to disagree with GNS as a valid way of looking at games, as well as the culture surrounding what would become the Big Model theory pool, which drew a small but extremely vocal crew of zealots to bug me online for a bit. Since I was going through some stuff at the time, I just decided to nuke my account and stick to a few forums, and mostly lurk (while always playing).

A few years later, I felt the blogging itch again, and I wanted to pen my thoughts on the, at-the-time, rapidly changing OSR. With a name inspired by Judd Karlman's Githyanki Diaspora, I wrote, and am still writing (sometimes) today.

Why fold it in

The IndieWeb pitch I bought into in July was that your site is your home and everything else is an outpost. Having more than one home is a problem for me, as I will likely always ignore at least one. Keeping the two blogs apart also made less sense the longer I did both. The game dev posts and the tabletop posts are in the same line of thinking, and it's not like other OSRy bloggers don't interleave other hobby subjects in their blogs.

What moved

All 134 posts came over with their original dates and slugs, tagged ttrpg, and each one has a small note saying it was first published on Aboleth Overlords. The 86 comments came with them and sit under their posts as they were, though new replies come in through Webmentions now. I pulled the images out of wp-content/uploads and serve them from here, so nothing depends on the old host.

If you subscribed to the old blog's feed, that URL now redirects to the tabletop tag feed, so you should keep getting posts without doing anything.

What didn't move

A few WordPress pages (a lexicon, a character sheet, a contact form) that I never kept current. The about page redirects to mine here, and the rest land on the tag page. So if you have an old aboleth-overlords.com link bookmarked, it still works, it just ends up here. If you find anything you want to reference that did not come over correctly, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

What's next

Hopefully taking more time to write more tabletop posts. If you want to comment about any of this, reply wherever I've shared it and it'll find its way back here.

Thank you for reading!

Ye Accursed Realm - 2026-02-07

2026-02-10T00:00:00Z

An open table OD&D game I run weekends at a local game shop

Players & Characters

Justin B. - Davin Mugwort, Halfling Thief 1
Alex B. - Corriander, Halfling Thief 1
Sarah B. - Alba, Human Cleric 1
Nic L. - Thomason, Human Magic-User 1

Summary

Our party meets in Heathford, a small walled town in fallen kingdom of Veldmere, there the Earl Aldhelm of Dunmere petitions the party to find his missing bride, Diera of Dahia, who mysteriously disappeared the night before their wedding.

The party investigated, speaking to townsfolk where they learn that a mysterious fog rolled into the town the night she vanished, and that a bandit queen known as "the Shrike" has been raiding caravans traveling through Heathford. They also acquire a hireling by the name of Hrufto, a Halfling scout who survived a massacre, and carries a black cat named Coal.

Speaking to Silas the Storyteller, they discover the Diera has been seen wandering into the Gravehills to the north. Following his lead, they travel through the forest to the northwest, they stumbled upon a dilapidated Shrine of Saint Eadburga, and Alba takes the statue.

They then came upon a strange fellow named Beortic the Hunter. Purchasing some hunted rabbits from him, they note a suspicious disposition that he carries, and notice some bloodied clothes in his hunter's shack. He says that is due to butchering, but they notice may of the cloaks are mismatched in size and quality. Suspecting him to be a murderer, they turn down his offer to accompany him and instead continue north.

Finding the mounds, they trace Diera's trail to a extremely large barrow, the front door open. Davin Mugwort searches the barrows, and on top he found a secret entrance, surrounded by unguarded camp supplies, including a deep yellow potion. Using a rope to descend, the party witnessed a chasm that had split open the room below on the east side, and a dead body to the west.

Going down the hallway, their hireling was attacked by a ochre jelly. The hireling was killed, and Alba was severely burned by acid, but the party slew the slime.

Continuing to the northwest, they found a sarcophagus in front of a mural of two nature deities. Opening the coffin, a pearl-colored woman with silver hair was within. Suspecting undead, Alba attempted to turn her but failed. This woman said her name was Tainwyn, and that she was the second bride of Caedwin the Red King, and that Diera of Dahia was his newest bride-to-be. The party convinced her that they were her servants, which she referred to them as slaves - a practice not utilized on the isle of Veldmere for centuries. She gave them a clerical scroll to deal with supposed robbers that the party convinced they were after.

This is where we ended the session.

Treasure & XP

28gp.
262xp total for treasure, magic items, and threats overcome.

Action-Oriented Interaction

2025-08-21T00:00:00.000Z

edited 08-21-2025 after some feedback, shortening and breaking into sections

One thing I picked up playing with some of the old Twin Cities referees is how action-oriented their tables are, especially from the player-side. Referees encouraged players not to ask, “What does the scroll say?” They encourage them to say things like said, “I try to decipher the scroll,” or “I glance at the diagrams, seeing if I recognize them.”

That shift, from asking about the world to acting within it is a subtle change to the game that provides many benefits, and while it is not a be-all end-all solution, where possible it is worthwhile to try.

The Scroll Example

Imagine a cursed scroll, something Evil Dead-style where reading it unleashes a great evil.

Player: “What does it say?”

Referee: Now they either describe the curse being unleashed, something the player might feel was a gotcha, or they ask "Do you read it?" which is a suspicious question that reveals more about the situation than perhaps is desired. The game potentially now turns into an abstract Q&A

vs.

Player: “I read the scroll, trying to make sense of it," or "I glance at the sigils on the leaf, trying to recall any of them from my studies in the Grave Cult"

Referee: Understands clear intent, and may follow with results in-fiction.

In the second case, the game is in motion. No hedging, no backpedaling. Just a character describing action and desired resolution.

Why It Works

By explaining what the character is doing, and the intent they are trying to achieve, the referee knows exactly what the stakes are and how to deliver the information.

The world responds to action, not to abstract questions. Information is best received in game when there are risks and rewards present in gathering this information.

Instead of probing the referee for lore, players test the world directly. This encourages that thing often described in FKR play as inhabiting. It's not method acting per say, but its thinking of the fiction from an entity within it.

I’m not saying Q&A play is wrong, verbal and textual communication is always flawed. Sometimes “What shape is the room?” is more efficient than the alternative. But when play turns into endless querying to avoid risk, something that can happen particularly in OSR-style play (although it exists in all styles and communities) it drifts from the kind of game I want, one of danger, surprises, and weird, fantastic consequences.

Not Just Reckless

Action-oriented phrasing isn’t about thoughtless actions, leaping into traps blind and rushing head-first into combat (all the time). It’s just as useful for cautious play:

"I tap the floor with my spear, testing for hollows."

"I smell the vial, looking for any hints of its nature."

"I put my back to the door frame, and using a mirror, I produce a reflection from the area where we heard that scuttling."

It keeps information-gathering inside the fiction. We know how this information is gathered. It's not detached lore spouting, nor is it the style of stepping into a room and declaring that you're "rolling perception" (a fate I do not wish upon my greatest enemy referees).

The Payoff

I don’t care much about "immersion," as I have mentioned before, but this style does something that I think some folks seeking immersion look for - it pulls you into thinking as your character, not as a quizzer at the table. And that makes the game richer, stranger, and ultimately more fun.

Tell me what you think, your style of narrating as a player, and anything I may have missed. Thank you!

Skies Shall Sunder Session 4

2025-05-19T00:00:00Z

This is written by my player and friend Will F.:

Daytime

Ainewyn visited the Lyceum, puts her name down, learns that you must be an accredited mage to check out a library book.
Everyone else does reconnaisance on the Severed Hand Bathhouse
- Construction workers hanging out
  - Raedmund and Avery pay to enter the spa,Avery spends 100g to be treated well, and does drugs with a servant girl to get info:
    - Visit the bathhouse chapel during the New Moon, ask to Look into the Mirror of the Silver Lady (i.e. the moon), for illicit worships...
      - Servant girl confirms that Seraine Malcorven was taken down under the bathhouse, but doesn't know what's down there.,

Nighttime

We staged the break-in as an attack by the Bloody Crown gang
We climbed on the roof to get into the bathhouse via the skylights.,
We attempted but failed to avoid a guard dog. We killed it, but it gave away our position.
After a round or so, three severed hands emerged from the basement and attacked. Raedmund took a brutal shoulder injury. Ainewyn managed to put two of the enemies to sleep; the other one was killed retreating.
We kept one severed hand thief alive, interrogated him
- Got a rough map of the hideout
- Told us of a secret entrance from the sewers through the armory that the thief could guide us to.
Avery hired the thief as a hireling,

Skies Shall Sunder Session 3

2025-05-18T00:00:00Z

This was written by my friend and player Rob L., posted here with permission:

Went to Moldy Unicorn to inquire on owner of the purse + wooden nickel found at the bookshop. Barkeep Gorra identified "Latch" as the man with the scar, member of the Severed Hand Gang. Approached by "The Sage" of the Bloody Crown gang who claimed to know the way to the bathhouse that was the head quarters for the Severed Hand Gang. Super trustworthy, 10/10, no notes. The Sage lead the party into an ambush. Rosie and Theodred injured. Acquired crossbows from thieves. Party pushed on to the bathhouse, Theodred swapped out with Raybrid. Infiltrated bathhouse to find secret entrance behind the shrine to Elana which is opened when a small silver statuette of Elana is placed on the plinth. Door opens for one minute and then closes. Three guards down inside. Party moved on to question Temli. Telmi lets party into the store, and he feeds the cat. Party learns that Magister Baiene may be (TB) on the library card and Veric may be (VC). The bookstore owner (Seraine Malcorven), Veric, and Baiene summoned the demon and when the bookstore owner was at her weakest kidnapped her and took her to the bathhouse. V.C. is likely the character Latch was seen with by Temli.

Our heroic adventurers start today’s adventure in the Cats Lantern Tavern, which is in a working class area of Crodeux. We learn from our larger adventuring team that a blind beggar said there was an entrance by the Ink & Ash bookshop. The owner of which hasn’t been seen in 12 days. Our teammates earlier broke in and stole almost everything. Among the finds were a wooden nickel with a moldy unicorn on it, and a bookmark that said V.C. authorized by T.B. of Lyceum academy.

Ran from specter/ghost. Early in the day, we head to the Moldy Unicorn, in the Warrens, a rougher part of town, over the Saint’s Row Bridge. We meet some friendly guards who inquire if we’re there to solve the issues with the poor. We have no idea what that’s about.

Moldy Univorn is 3 stories tall, placard actually moldy with unicorn on it. We meet Gorra, a burly eye-patched woman and see a few straggler patrons. We can tell through reluctant conversation she knows the scarred person as Latch, he lost his coin purse 2 days ago. We pay her 4 GP for the info because he’ll be violent with her if it comes out she’s talked about him. She doesn’t know the cowled fellow with dusty cloak except he’s a student of Lyceum. Latch may be at a nearby Scaldworks bath house.

One of the patrons introduces himself as the Sage. We ask if the bath house is a thieves guild, he says yes, and can take us a shortcut through the sewers. We agree and then notice he’s taking a roundabout route that’s confusing so we mark our path between buildings.

Sage leads us into an ambush, 8-9 people with crossbows. We engage, 2 of our team nearly die, but they are no match for us. We gain their crossbows and coin. Their group is called the Bloody Crown, Sage ran away when the fighting started.

We learn Latch is part of the Severed Hand guild and bath is one of their fronts. Rumored to engage in foul sorcery, as well as abduct and eat children. We learn that the guy with robes is called Veric. We go back to our tavern and exchange a PC with a Barbarian.

We go to the Bath house, which has some goddess architecture around the entrance. Latch shows up with a cart of supplies and helpers at the house help to bring supplies in. Latch is a brawny guy with a scar that looks like it was the result of a fight or torture.

We talk to Latch, try to buy our way in, then enthrall him, neither works. We can see inside a bit and see a marble statue of Elana, ancient goddess or Purity. One in our party distracts the clerk, another sneaks in behind the serving girl bringing in supplies. He finds barrels with supplies, many small silver idols that are illegal to have. Takes one, gives to our member Rosie. Rosie pays to go into the baths.

A serving girl comes up to Rosie and mutters in thiefspeak ‘Unchained is the hand that is severed’ and shows her an idol. Rosie fails the response, and then tries the same tactic on another girl. She learns the response ‘To be severed is to be liberated’ but is confused by the next interaction, and tells Rosie to take the statue to the chapel area with the statue. Rosie finds a spot to put her if. Secret door opens, she goes in, realizes people are downstairs and she’s out of her depth, so she heads back to us and lets us know what she found.

We then go to the alley by the shop and don’t find anything. We go to the warehouse and talk to the attendant, Temli. He tells us what he saw including Latch and Veric leaving with a body-sized bag, and earlier a professor, Magister Baiene, dropping off a book. We go into the shop with Temli’s help, one of our party talks Feline to the cat, named Ser, stole a ring from Veric, gives it to us, one of us puts it on, it’s magical and is a ring of protection + 1 or equivalent. We also find a paper that says ‘on request if T.B.(Magister), summon demon with Veric’ (or something similar)

Skies Shall Sunder Session 2

2025-05-18T00:00:00Z

This report is written by my friend and player Peter P., I have posted it to my blog with permission, with a few NPC name spelling corrections:

Following the rumor of: "There is a hidden entrance to the Spiral Archives in the Ink & Ash bookshop in the Coppergate district of Crodeux. But the door was sealed a long time ago, and the shop owner rarely seems to open for business these days. " our party of ventures to the bookshop owned by Seraine Malcorvin. We found the store and as the rumor said, it looked to not be open, despite being the middle of the day. There were warehouses around and we bribe a worker to tell us what he saw, and he reported seeing 2 figures enter the store. We decided to return at night to break in with less eyes upon.

Come night, the party breaks in through a window on the 2nd floor in the back to get in. We find that the place is unoccupied and no one is around. We take a look around and find several magical artifacts.

Some of which we take. Some if which we don't take, by leaving it in the glass cases. Some of which teleport us to rooms right next to guard dogs that bite your arm. Some of which blind you by just opening them. Fun times.

Oh and there is a black cat named Ser. Who is friendly.

Still searching for the Spiral Archives we find a basement next to the dining room and venture inside. On the ground we saw clear boot prints and dust turned about, signs of a scuffle and a Library card for a "Codex Relgor". There we find an archway, that has been mortared closed, with the word "cherished" written in Sunlander above. It was clear to us this was a secret entrance. Now a smart party would have taken the time to try and figure out what the words meant to get through. We are not that party. (The password was the black cat's name: Ser. Cherished was he) We choose to simply break down the wall with hammers, the constant banging of which attracted a gang of rat mutants living in the sewer connected to this basement.

There was battle with the mutants, but they were no match for us. After the battle we dispose of the wall as well and we ventured inside to find 2 magic circles. One being a protection circle, the other being able to summon the demon Relgor at the call of his name. Doing so we try to talk to Relgor. However Relgor just wants to be free, and he can't leave the summoning circle so long the circle of salt around it is unbroken. Finding him unwilling to cooperate with us we decide to dismiss him.

He however appears to be guarding a secret. behind his circle is a rotating wall. We can't rotate it all the way though, or else we will damage the salt circle holding Relgor in place. But we can peek through and we can see a door with spiral patterns on it.

Gaming Update and Skies Shall Sunder Session 1

2025-05-07T00:00:00Z

I have been very busy with Blight Upon Sombreval, but I have been getting a lot of gaming in, fortunately. I've been doing a bunch of cons, but I have also been hard at work organizing my local meetup.

I have been running a BRP game called Cosmic Wound in a long-time setting of mine, as well as Gradient Descent in Mothership. Both are open tables and through the local adventure game meetup. Mothership has been running strong, although it does seem like we're approaching the end of the module sooner than later.

Cosmic Wound has been great, but it struggled a bit with the open table format. It was also a every-other game, and it had a few unfortunate bouts of getting a few sessions in a row cancelled.

After talking to a bunch of friends at GaryCon, I decided to try utilizing the numbers of the meetup to run an actual West Marches. I have ran and participated in West Marches in the past, some more successful than others, but given my past experiences and recent open tables, I feel like I have a good setup for the campaign. I will do a post on how I set it up in the future, but for now I want to post actual play sessions.

The above is the back of the flyer (sans contact info) for the West Marches campaign. This is a sequel to both the Doomed Reach and Cosmic Wound campaigns I have ran recently, although every campaign always gives an opportunity for a bit of a retcon, as well as trying out alternative takes. This particular take is to shift the setting to be more AD&Dish than I typically run. People often showed up to prior campaigns looking for many of the AD&D or later classes, and it can become difficult to sell people on the 3LBB perspective of "if you want to be a thief, just steal something."

With the flyer and a bit of cross-group posting, I got somewhere around 30 bites expressing some form of interest. Out of those 30, 16 folks signed up for the kickoff. Here we met for pizza and discussion at an FLGS, talked about the campaign, and made several characters. As this campaign will require the use of downtime due to the utilization of 1:1 time, everyone was recommended making two to three characters.

Once we wrapped up, I wanted to at least try playing a bit, as many folks were either new to tabletop adventure games entirely, or they were new to the style. So I started everyone in front of a recently-discovered dungeon, in search for a ring of some ancient star-mage that the Church wants recovered. 16 characters entered into this cavernous dungeon They found rooms with amphora bearing the symbols of winged serpents. They dug through the sarcophagus of ancient astronomers. A halfling was obliterated by a hammer trap, and the party gave most of his corpse to stalking mountain lions. They fought animated statues, and found a hidden entrance to a deeper dungeon complex before we ran out of time.

Running for 16 people is an interesting experience. I have had 11 and 12 player tables in the past, and obviously every person you add in above maybe 6 or so kind of compounds the chaos. It was a fun experience, but I obviously had to abbreviate a lot of the procedures and systems just so we didn't get too bogged down, but I think we were able to make sure everyone experienced that traditional adventure gaming experience.

Upcoming is the session report for the first player-scheduled session.

A Blight Upon Sombreval Campaign is Live

2025-02-14T00:00:00Z

I just launched my zine quest kickstarter for A Blight Upon Sombreval, a dark fantasy, haunted manor style adventure for old-school and classic RPGs and their modern cousins: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cryptic-codex/a-blight-upon-sombreval.

I'd love for you to check it out, I've put a lot of work into this adventure over the past year or so, and have had a lot of fun running it, and hopefully other folks will as well!

Tabletop Adventure Games Community

2025-01-19T00:00:00Z

Maybe its the whole middle life thing or distance decades-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder, but I've been reminiscing quite a bit about places I chatted on and hung around online throughout high school and college, and all of the benefits of forums, in contrast to the current contender of Discord, have seemed very appealing.

The obvious first benefit is the whole indexing and reference problem - Discords are highly segmented, private, and even the big ones you can search - have terrible tools for actually finding things. I don't know how many times (a day) we have a "what is OSR" debate where everyone is making the same points, and maybe forums don't completely solve that, but having a publicly searchable topic is WAY more appealing than beating the grave of long-deceased equine or trying to convince someone to peruse Discord's search.

Another benefit, for me, is just the asynchronous nature of forum communication. I've been (failing to) curtail my social media usage, and when I try to limit Discording to a specific time, that often means I am pinging someone from hours ago, outside of the context of the conversation, and sometimes interrupting an ongoing conversation.

Somewhat related to the first point, but the fact that forums are often referenced years later I think can serve to maybe (slightly) reduce the amount of hot takes and thread conversation-crapping that occurs in Discord. Sometimes I've just become sensitive to it recently, but the negativity and "dunks" on Discord have seemed to increase in the past few years. I'm not going to claim I don't contribute to this, but I think there is something to the format of semi-private throwaway conversation that promotes this behavior.

Each of the above also have their own downsides of course, I'm not going to claim forums didn't have a recession for a reason. I just feel there are benefits in the above, and I'm in a position where I at least think I want more of the above.

I've tried looking around for forums to call home, and there are a few places I still like reading or lurking on (like the classic odd74), but I haven't found a place that really feels like home to me. So then I thought - why not just throw an instance on one of my servers?

I will mince no words and say this is likely to be a pretty sleepy place, but I've done some community building locally, and I feel like I know the kind of community I would like to participate in, and if you're a reader of this blog, you're likely to understand what that sort of thing is. So if you feel similar to the above, feel free to join me at Tabletop Adventure Games.

Thank you!

Playing a Role-Playing Game is Role-Playing

2024-11-30T00:00:00Z

When you play a role-playing game - you are role-playing. If you're making decisions for your fictional character, you're playing a role.

This may include speaking in a voice, but it doesn't have to.

This may include considering things like "motivation" and beliefs and things like that, but it might also just be what you'd want to do if you were in the fictional situation.

When you engage in combat, you're role-playing. When you're negotiating with other players or NPCs, no matter if you go into detail or you abstract it with "I tell them the story" - you're role-playing. When you decide to engage with one downtime activity over another, you're role-playing.

There's nothing inherently better or worse about any activity in a role-playing game than any other, outside of personal preferences and expectations. It's all role-playing either way.

Gaming is Metagaming

2024-11-21T00:00:00Z

Enough discussions of “immersion” and “metagaming” have sprung up recently that I wanted to write my thoughts, so I at least have a place to point to on the topic.

So - metagaming, what even is it? It’s a topic with many interpretations, but it frequently boils down to using knowledge or game mechanics that the player character is unknowledgeable of. Game mechanics that fit under this definition sometimes get labelled as “disassociated” or “non-diegetic” or many other such terms. Searching for concrete examples of metagaming exposes a spectrum of tolerance, with few recognizing their own actions as “meta.”

As a traditional adventure game enthusiast, a lover of old-school-styled play, “free kriegspiel” and Braunstein, etc., I understand why gamers dislike metagaming. The hobby’s fun comes from diving into a world and interacting with it in an authentic nature. We want to inhabit funny little weirdos and sometimes set aside our own world to rise to the concerns and challenges of another, or we want to see how scenarios play out differently than they are likely to manifest in reality. This makes a ton of sense.

However, when you examine where specific lines get drawn, the concept clashes with the physical reality of the social experience and that we are playing a game. Just as observation influences how a scenario plays out, worries about metagaming lead to situations where players act in a “metagamed” way.

Playing Dumb Isn’t Smart (or fun)

Let’s take the typical example of monsters in fantasy roleplaying games. We know classic trolls in Dungeons & Dragons regenerate unless wounded with acid or fire. At one point in time, this was a surprise for new players - they enter combat with some green, rubbery subterranean dweller, and barely survive. As they take a breather and bind their wounds, they are witness to the horror of this malicious creature standing up, its wounds having closed, as it holds its own severed arm to the mess of a shoulder joint - reattaching the limb in moments.

However, it has become common knowledge in the community, and you’re likely to have encountered such a creature multiple times throughout your gaming life. So the next time you’re playing and you run across trolls, you’re likely to use fire and acid to prevent this regeneration.

“But what if we’re playing new characters?” someone concerned with metagaming will ask. Well, what is the goal here? You know trolls are susceptible to fire, everyone else knows it, if you choose to ignore it, all you’re doing is likely to get your party killed and need to start all over - with another group of people who have not encountered trolls before, leading to the same scenario.

What made the troll an engaging adversary was encountering an unusual obstacle and needing to piece together how to defeat it. The highs and lows of discovering its abilities and how to counter them are based around you the player figuring this out. Performing actions you don’t believe in is just putting on a show, which might be acceptable, but I’d say that’s not the point of these games. If that performance comes at the expense of the play and decision making, I’d say get rid of the theatrics.

Why would a new character know trolls are vulnerable to fire and acid? These games allow you to craft reasons that fit the world, perhaps your character travels and hear tales of terrifying creatures. Perhaps your uncle was an alchemist or a biomancer, and they did experiments with the rubbery flesh of such creatures and mentioned it in conversation. If you’re a pious character, you could have gleamed onto the mantra of Saint Phosos, that fire purifies all. Alternatively, your character could have had a gut feeling to soak the monster in oil and burn it, which is just as plausible as any other explanation.

If you agree with the fun of the troll being the unconventional obstacle and learning how to overcome it - how do we get back to that if we already know the solution? Referees can design monsters with unique advantages and disadvantages. They can also always take the traditional monsters and mix them up - maybe trolls in your setting are big shaggy creatures who can’t stand getting wet for whatever reason. I recommend against using this as a gotcha - unless you’re running a Tomb of Horrors-style aggressive referee scenario that your players are looking to be challenged with, don’t shuffle monsters abilities but give them 100% of the same description and tells as their Greyhawk or Mystara variants - actually transform the creature.

If you’re a player, you should make it known to your GM that you’re looking for such discoveries, and recommend to them to create their own monsters and lore, or to recommend different mythologies, folk tales, and fantasy sources to draw inspiration from. Obviously this is work, but it’s work well worth the experience.

The Meta Nature of Not Metagaming

Here’s a paradox: deciding not to metagame is itself a metagame decision. The moment you decide to ignore information you, the player, have in favor of “staying in character,” you’re already stepping outside the fiction. You are reacting to something external to the game: a desire to follow a social norm, maintain immersion, or appear “pure” in your approach to roleplaying. You’re no longer acting authentically as your character would - instead, you’re playing a meta-layer game of not metagaming.

Let’s go back to the troll example. You know it regenerates, and you know fire stops that. If you pretend your character doesn’t know this, what’s really driving that decision? Is it because you think your character wouldn’t realistically know? Or is it because you’re worried about being called out for breaking some unwritten rule of roleplaying etiquette? Nine times out of ten, it’s the latter. Ironically, in trying to avoid the perception of metagaming, you end up making a choice that’s entirely influenced by meta-concerns: the opinions of other players, your idea of what “immersion” looks like, or some abstract sense of roleplaying purity.

This isn’t to say you should always act on player knowledge or blow off in-character limitations. The point is that the decision to purposefully limit yourself isn’t some higher form of immersion. It’s a meta-level performance, one that often feels more like trying to pass a test than genuinely engaging with the game. Instead of forcing yourself to compartmentalize knowledge, why not use that knowledge creatively? Find ways to incorporate what you know into the fiction, whether through history, intuition, or divine inspiration. The game is more interesting when you treat meta-knowledge as a tool to deepen the play rather than as a temptation to resist and a purity test everyone is walking on eggshells around.

The Illusion of (Deep) Immersion

“Immersion” is often treated as the holy grail of roleplaying - a state where you completely become your character and feel fully engrossed in the their perspective and their view of the world. Since the earliest days of the hobby, there has been debates around how much the purpose of play is to determine how you might act in a fictional situation, and how much you should be embodying a hypothetical individual from that time and place (among a thousand other debates). Read Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson for a good discussion on this topic.

Immersion and metagaming are related, but not entirely overlapping concepts, so I won’t go into a full on critique of the idea of deep immersion (in this post), but I do find that most players cite the idea that metagaming breaks immersion, and that being immersed can be a framework to prevent metagaming. I want to perfectly frank that I don’t think wanting being immersed is a bad desire. I definitely want to be immersed (to a degree) in the games I run and play. The issue I somewhat regularly run into is a sort of extremist view of immersion, one in which I do not feel is even possible given the material nature of our games.

We are all humans with whatever background we have in our real life, not having experienced being an immortal elf, throwing a fireball at a pack of ravening undead, experiencing faster-than-light travel, or coming to the conclusion that reality is going to be consumed by a giant squid man with tiny little bat wings. We agree to get together around a table (or computers) at a specific time, we juggle schedules and constraints, and we settle on large set of conveniences to get the game going. When we decide to make dungeon delvers - we are projecting a desire from ourselves into the game, we want to play dungeons and dragons, so we’re going to make someone who on some level can, in theory, deal with both of these things. We aren’t sitting through some world simulation hoping to be fictionally born into the body of an adventurer, we’re cutting to the chase and making one.

When we play, we’re always going to be interjecting our own preferences, biases, and outlook onto our characters. I’m not someone who thinks you can’t imagine what its like to be someone different from yourself, but I think “you” will always be reflected to some aspect in your character. I view this as a good thing, because this actually gives your character soul and the feeling of authenticity, rather than a projected approximation of what someone “should” be.

I also think so much of our day to day is driven by external and unconscious pressures - I know I certainly succumb to temptations like junk food and procrastination if I’m tired or stressed, I often respond to people in ways I don’t want to out of some character failing of my own, and half the time I find myself pursuing ideas and goals without making too many conscious decisions to do so. I think if we were to really embody a character in a fantasy world, there would be a whole lot more to the feeling of wanting to go home because you’ve been in a dungeon for too long and the feeling of your boots chaffing your ankle is getting annoying.

This isn’t saying you shouldn’t try to imagine playing as someone else - if you think your weird dwarf would have certain preferences or prejudices, go ahead and decide to play those out, but I don’t think you can really claim “it’s what my character would do” as if you had no input into the matter. We are already beyond most of the internalized pressures that would exist in this fantasy world, so deciding you “have” to perform a certain way is never going to be separate from a decision you - the human being at the table, has made.

So What is the Real Issue?

If metagaming isn’t really an issue, then why do we even flavor our worlds to have a specific setting? Why isn’t everything thematically neutral challenges devoid of these worlds we can never truly experience? Why not make every decision as a committee and completely obviate the necessity of playing a character?

It comes down to the features of roleplaying, rather than its weaknesses, that we choose to play in alien millieus and as strangers in strange lands. We roleplay because it offers something unique: the blend of narrative, game mechanics, and social interaction that no other medium quite replicates. It’s not about perfectly embodying a character or adhering to an abstract standard of immersion. It’s about experiencing a world and making decisions within it in a way that feels meaningful—both to the player and to the group. The settings we play in, the characters we inhabit, and the challenges we face are tools to create a shared narrative, not tests of how well we can suppress our out-of-game awareness. The world and the characters gives us a context and a shared understanding by which to engage with. It gives us an aesthetic that appeals us, that inspires us to direct our contributions.

Roleplaying games have a secret weapon that makes them distinct from pure storytelling or abstract strategy games: tactical infinity. You’ve probably read me writing about this quite a lot, but to summarize - its the idea that a player character may attempt any logical tactic in the world within reason. At their best, adventure games allow players to approach problems with creative, open-ended solutions rather than being confined to a predefined set of actions. You can ask questions, try unexpected tactics, or come up with ideas that no one else at the table—including the referee—saw coming. This freedom is what makes adventure gaming so compelling, and it’s fundamentally tied to every aspect of play - including the “meta” level that is “outside” of the fictional world.

But tactical infinity doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it thrives in the tension between what’s real to the characters and what’s real to the players. You aren’t just a detached decision-maker in a neutral puzzle game - you’re someone making choices within a fictional world. That world shapes the way you approach problems, not because you’re perfectly immersed but because it provides a framework for creativity. A troll that regenerates unless burned isn’t just a mechanical challenge—it’s a problem that feels alive because it fits into the context of the world, and the solution that comes from “player knowledge” is also easily reincorporated into the fiction as character knowledge.

So instead of hand-wringing over whether or not you or someone else is metagaming - ask how such actions work in the world, why something is the way it is, look to tie your characters to the fictional situation, and help the referee realize a more lived-in world by looking at possibility, rather than filtering based on some impossible metric.

Session Report: Gradient Descent 2

2024-11-06T00:00:00Z

Roster

Caius Lovelace - Computer Scientist and Great Great Great ... Great Grandson of Ada Lovelace
Jedidiah Bidwell - A Wanna-Be Prospector, Teamster, Rigger, and Pilot
Dr. John - Botany Expert
Miotaurex-001 - Android and Hacker
Darius Beck - Gritty Marine who has turned to Relic-Hunting
Ex Mortis - A Marine "Of Death," ready to deal doom and die

Events

The group continues from an Android Replicant storage facility into a Uniform Fabrication lab.
After some time, they successfully replicate the jump suit they witnessed a security android wearing, as well as generating Jedidiah a cowboy's outfit, with quite a large degree of anachronisms.
Searching around, the crew finds a secret entrance into a Organic Observation Deck, but when they try entering into it, the AI Monarch contacts them, telling them that entrance to this area is restricted to her employees only.
The group turns down an offer for employment - a job involving the termination of two entities known as "The Minotaur" and "The Mind Thief."
Leaving the fabrication lab, they proceed west into seminar room - with a bunch of gaudy leather seats, thin client terminals and a large black television.
Thoroughly investigating the area, the party finds a map of the floor they are on (the third floor of the Deep), as well as hidden print outs of thousands of pages of poetry generated by Monarch.
The group contacts Monarch about this, and she offers them safe passage to the fourth floor if they sufficiently destroyed this material.
Caius Lovelace tries reading Monarch her poetry, she hijacks the crew's comms and replicates Caius' voice, expressing hatred for his ancestors.
The group debates destroying the material among themselves, deciding to try to fool Monarch into thinking they had destroyed it, while retaining the poetry to trade to others as a means to "understand" Monarch.
The party finds a Personality Reassignment Room, with a few androids hooked up to monitors being generated a new personalities. They successfully hack one of the terminals, finding a means to fiddle with some of the personality nodes.
Not understanding the nuances of Artificial Intelligence AI, they modify some of the procedures and successfully give three of the androids the impulse to leave doors open.
The party finds these androids newly awakened, and they convince them that they are the "hosts" of the Deep, and need to lead them through initiation. They then use these androids to open doors and check for traps.
They go through a large warehouse with many broken down scan booths, finding one that is still standing, containing a small lead box containing something equivalent to a steampunk heart and an old datastick.
Continuing on towards the Ore Crushing Factory, a place they think they can convince Monarch that they've destroyed her poetry, they find a war simulation room.
Darius plugs the datastick into one of the servers generating a hologram of an ancient battle, and a projection of an eldritch, screaming monster is projected over the table.
The group freaks out, and rips the datastick out of the computer.
Finding a room their map labels as the Warhead Storage, Monarch warns them to not enter this area, and the group complies.
We end here.

Thoughts

A fun session, a lot of searching, investigation, navigation and goal setting. I especially loved how the party, when trying to hack the android personality stations, found a good compromise on something they could impart into some of the reset androids, and they did a great job convincing them that these droids needed to be "initiated" by following them.

Also the random generation of Monarch's poetry becoming the focal point of the session was great, and I like the players doing a ton of work trying to convince this seemingly monolithic AI that they've destroyed thousands of pages of AI-generated poetry.

I am looking forward to session three!

Session Report: Cosmic Wound 2

2024-11-03T00:00:00Z

Players

Ald Sunhelm, thief and cooper
Dravein, traveling outlander
Glühbirne, mercenary strong-man
Maeric Fairwind, itinerant folk mage
Osric, the holy initiate of the Order of the Luminarch

Events

The adventurers continued through the forest to discover the small village of Gothi.
They witnessed dozens of villagers going about their day-to-day
In the center of town, a ceremony was being conducted, where a large ash pole, topped by a mirrored crest of two wolves was being pivoted and paused between the cardinal directions.
They entered into the village, and convinced the peasants to take them to the village elder, a yellow-eyed wiseman known as Gaedra.
Parleying with the priest, they learned that their liege's family had made a pact with pagan wolf spirits, offering a sacrifice of live young, to be raised by the wolves.
Since Thane Oswyn was remiss in his side of the bargain, the village has taken village children by force, citing blasphemy to those that resist.
The characters decided to make their way out of the village before any trouble could begin.
Returning to Oswyn, the Thane decides to call for the strong folk of his domain, and conduct a ceremony under the watch of his wisewoman, Beoth.
Maeric and Ald take part in the ceremony, making boasts of harming the wolf spirit patrons of the village of Gothi.
The others follow the words of the Thane's priest, citing it to be tempting fate and taking power from demonic forces. They have the priest bless their weapons in the morning.
Six men-at-arms join the party, although they suffer a hangover by drinking too deeply at the ceremony.
Venturing back into the woods, the party tracks towards the den of these primordial wolves, and stumble upon a Gothi villager posing as a woodsman.
After seeing through this villain's ruse, the party jumps him before he is able to alert the village, bound him and toss him in a cart.
The troupe discovers a cave being guarded by four brawny looking villagers, and they can see faint light within the cave, and the scent of incense from Gaedra's hut.
Attempting to draw these guards out, Dravein shoots at them, but when the struck guard immediately fells, the remaining guards retreat into the cave.
Glühbirne charges the guards, and the party, along with their henchmen enter into melee within the mouth of the cavern.
As their adversaries, and the hung-over men-at-arms being to fall, a disembodied voice emanates from deep within the cave, and the fallen warriors begin to arise as the hungry undead.
Combat continues to unfold, and once the revenant's numbers are thinned, Gaedra appears, seeking a parley.
We end the session there.

After Thoughts

A fun session. We had a bit of back and forth, and I think I was able to introduce to the players more of the folklore-ish tone of the setting. As always, the players either saw through traps ands conflicts, or were able to figure out ways to leverage the odds, which is always a fun experience for a referee, in my opinion.

Session Report: Gradient Descent 0

2024-10-11T00:00:00Z

Another in a quick session report, we got together, explained Mothership, talked about the themes of Gradient Descent, made characters, and got a little bit of play in.

Roster

Caius Lovelace - Computer Scientist and Great Great Great ... Great Grandson of Ada Lovelace
Jedidiah Bidwell - A Wanna-Be Prospector, Teamster, Rigger, and Pilot
Miotaurex-001 - Android and Hacker
Darius Beck - Gritty Marine who has turned to Relic-Hunting
Ex Mortis - A Marine "Of Death," ready to deal doom and die

Quick Event Log

The party, arriving on their raider ship of the Thylacine pay off a group of blockade marines to enter into the "orbit" of the Deep - the old Cloudbank Synthetic Facilities, now taken over by Monarch - a rogue AI who is producing a bevy of androids, artifacts, and much worse
They encounter Arkady of the nearby "Bell" - a detached fuel cell that operates as a base of operations within the blockade, as well as a rest site and trade hub
After discussing a little bit of the state of the Deep, they convince Arkady to show them an alternate entry - into a disguised missile bay
Flying their shuttle, they encounter some debris and an unusual cryopod housing a deceased android with "tape" spilling out of it
They enter into the Deep's third floor, a maintenance and quality assurance facility, which is lit and hosts breathable atmosphere, but no gravity
Investigating a hanger with over a dozen of microcrafts, they encounter a Ghost in the Machine - a ghostly hologram of a mechanic that they accuse of not being human - which enrages the entity, screaming and attacking them, costing sanity and stress
Caius figures out how to calm the being - asking about its work and offering to help
After aiding the Ghost in "fixing" some of the crafts in the hangar, the Ghost decides to take a rest break and dissipates through a nearby wall
Searching through the massive facility, the find an overhang watch office with computers that show CCTV footage of the hangar, from locations that impossibly do not seem to contain cameras. They also discover a plastic bag full of a writhing bag of tongues, which Minotaurex-001 discards in the gargantuan hangar
Proceeding to a nearby door, Jedidiah pilots a drown into the adjacent facility, housing many nude humanoid figures resembling a variety of people that the party recognizes from history or modern society
They encounter a new android model who, through boredom, takes a liking to the party and gives them details about the third floor, on a promise that they will give him some pre-Monarch-coup Cloudbank memorabilia that they come across
After figuring out the layout of this quality assurance facility, the team makes a plan to head towards a wardrobe fabrication lab to hopefully get some "disguises" printed, and we call it for the night

Summary

Overall, a fun night. Most of the players have WAY more experience with fantasy games, so I think there was just a tiny bit of mismatch in the shorthand way I describe space scenes, as sometimes the players were confused if they could leave their shuttle or if they would be in the vacuum of space or not. I will take note to elaborate in greater detail until we settle on a common abstraction-layer to communicate orientation in space and zero G.

Session Report: Cosmic Wound Session 0 + more

2024-10-01T00:00:00Z

I recently pivoted my almost-two-year OD&D open table to two different open table campaigns, this one, a sort of eldritch, dark fantasy game inspired by stuff like Averoigne, Berserk, We Are All Legends, Lovecraft, and plenty more, titled "Chronicle of the Cosmic Wound," and a campaign of Gradient Descent. Eventually I'll write a retrospective on the OD&D game, but for now I'll go over Cosmic Wound's session zero, and the hour or two we got to play before our time limit was reached.

I pitched Cosmic Wound as a dark fantasy setting I've been working on for some time, although "lower" magic than the OD&D game we had been playing, with a higher emphasis on stuff like Hammer Horror and some Cosmic Horror stuff. To serve this premise, as well as to hopefully address some of the open table issues I was having, I decided to turn the BRP nob on my home system WAY up, using effectively a homebrewed version of OpenQuest 3e, plus some Dark Ages Cthulhu and Mythras material in it.

My players had all voted for this game via a pitch doc where I outlined the CATS of the game - so they were at least familiar with the pitch. Here is the text of that pitch content:

In a world scarred by forgotten calamities, humanity clings to the remnants of a fading age. Crumbling castles loom over plague-ridden hovels, while in the wild places, things
that should not be stir once more. The old gods lie silent in their graves, yet their blood still seeps into the earth, twisting all it touches.

You are the descendants of a broken realm - survivors, seekers, or perhaps something darker. In your veins runs the echoes of ancient power, a curse and an ambition that sets you apart from the cowering masses. Every ruined keep may hide blasphemous secrets, every mist-shrouded forest a gateway to realms beyond mortal comprehension.

From torch-lit cities to forgotten cairns, from moonlit moors to the very edges of sanity, your choices will shape the fate of a world teetering on the brink of oblivion. Will you seek to mend this dying world, or will you embrace the chaos that seeps through its ragged edges?

GENRE: Dark Fantasy, Low Fantasy
*
CONTENT: Gritty, morally ambiguous adventures in a world inspired by medieval history but touched by cosmic horror. Navigate political intrigues, explore eldritch ruins, and confront both human cruelty and otherworldly threats.*
*
AIM: Uncover the truth behind the dark places of the world, amass power both mundane and arcane, and carve your place in a world where reality itself is fraying at the seams. Also provide Justin the platform to more regularly playtest adventures he is working on (as they almost always fit this style).*
*
TONE: Brooding, atmospheric, bleak and dark.*
*
SUBJECT MATTER: Violence, gore, body horror, magic, possession, religious zealotry, feudalism, class inequality, corruption, grave robbing, medieval conceptions of society.*
*
REFERENCES: Averoigne, Berserk, We Are all Legends, Lovecraft, Black Company, The First Law, Between Two Fires, The Witcher, Kane, The King in Yellow, Bloodborne, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Dragonslayer, Mythic Europe, Darkest Dungeon, Song of Ice and Fire*, The Black Cauldron

Right before the session I was doing my usual hacking and waffling of stuff - which parts of which system do I use? What sort of advancement system do I want for an open table after we had two years of gold silver for XP? How can I keep the magic "low and folky" while still appealing to people who want to be known in the setting as the weird, arcane ones?

I threw together a big player doc - mostly copy-pasting out of the OpenQuest 3e SRD, and rewriting whatever material I needed from other systems into that. I sent this out to them, and it was mostly a success. Unfortunately a bunch of revisions, typos, and inconsistencies snuck in, but we caught them early and most everyone was able to make a character in not too long of time.

I made sure to highlight the differences in the general procedures and dice for this campaign vs. our OD&D one, but I told the players that largely my play style is identical.

One change I made to the open table format for this campaign, is giving people a little bonus for taking on a player role, so I was fortunate that one of the players, Tom, took the scribe role and sent me a session report. I will post that below, rewriting and correcting a few details.

Session 0 Play Report

Our party includes:
- Osric, an Initiate into the Order of the Luminarch, a monotheistic faith centered on law, civilization, purifying flame, and the teachings of a mysterious messianic figure
- Ald Sunhelm, a thief, foreign to the isle
- Dravein, a traveling archer
- Glühbirne, a massive, club-wielding mercenary
- Maeric, a traveling folk magician
Our story starts on the isle of Mistholm, in the Hollowbrook Vale , where our band of adventurers arrive, taken under the protection of the Thane Oswyn . The Thane asks us to do a wellness check on his nephew Eorhelm , who lives with his family in a nearby farm. Of late, people have been disappearing from local farms under mysterious circumstances, and the Thane is worried about his welfare. In return for doing the welfare check, the Thane promises that he will reward the party with silver for their troubles.
Whole farmsteads have been found completely empty, with occasional signs of struggle. When the band questions the townsfolk for more details, they are told that some of the missing are seen weeks or months later, returning to their former homes as the walking dead (revenant?). These dead attempt to shamble through their former routines and, if disturbed, are known to get vicious and attack. Around these farmsteads, there have also been sightings of large, canine-esque footprints in the areas where the missing were taken.
When the band inquires about the possible source of these attacks, they are told a number of different stories — some blame the local Ashfolk and their ways, others attribute it to werewolves in the forests, and the band is also told to be wary of goblins.
With werewolves being a likely culprit, the band inquires about the best way to stop them (prayer and wolfsbane). They seek out the local folk person Beoth, who offers to trade them a bushel of wolfsbane in exchange for the promise of future silver. The band agrees, and sets off to the nephew’s farmstead 6 miles outside Hollowbrook Vale .
When the band arrives at the nephew’s farm, they approach cautiously — the scene looks suspicious, and they notice the front door is ajar and hanging only partially on its hinges. There appears to be signs of struggle, which is not confirmed until they investigate the area further. Upon further investigation, they discover the following:
- The nephew’s farm dog is found nearby, dead for a few days and partially wrapped around a tree. The dog looks gored and is rotting.
- In a nearby lean-to, they discover the nephew’s thrall, who has been injured. After some cajoling, he allows the band to approach him, where they realize he has an infected leg, which the band’s priest heals. With reassurance that the band means no harm, he tells the band what transpired, or what he thinks transpired, if he did not witness all of it firsthand. The nephew and his family were attacked by two werewolves, and their child was taken by a mysterious, wizardly-looking man (backwoods pagan?) in a lopsided hat with yellow eyes, presumably for some sort of child sacrifice.
- With more of the story becoming clear, the band ventures to investigate the house. There, they discover the headless body of the nephew (torn off with evidence of canine bites), and the fallen body of the nephew’s wife, who has been gored with bite marks. There’s no sign of the child, and they also see a broken ax, which the slave says was ineffective against the werewolves.
After some deliberation, the band considers next steps. Not wanting to let down the Thane (and also wanting his reward), they take the thrall in their care, the priest cremates the nephew and wife’s remains, and the band sets off deeper into the surrounding forest to find the attackers, following the canine and boot tracks left behind.
As the band moves into the forest, the thief leads the way, using his stealth to his advantage… Until he accidentally steps on a fallen twig and, with a loud crack, alerts a group of wandering brigands. Two brigands threaten the group, telling them that they want their silver (of which the band has none currently), then their weapons, which they’ll use to fund the mercenary army they are building. While technically outnumbered, the brigands raise a crossbow at the thief and then the fighter, when he becomes angry and the situation escalates.
From there, a fight erupts between the band and the brigands. Both sides take some damage, with the brigands hitting a few of the band, and the band fighting back with steel and magic. One of the brigands is near death; the other whistles during the battle to call out more of his group from the nearby trees. When the brigands take too much damage, they offer to parlay.
After some deliberation, the band decides to accept the brigands’ parlay, with their only concession being that they must give up a weapon (a short sword?), which they give to the thrall, so that he something to which he can defend himself (and the band).
With that, the campaign is paused for the night and the story is left to continue another day (or two weeks from now)!

Thoughts and Referee Commentary

For one - making players take on player roles was great - right now I am thinking the "reward" for doing so will be to get a free reroll in the session. If someone makes a play report (which doesn't have to be the scribe), I'll give them one Growth Point (OpenQuest's advancement currency).

In terms of the session, I think it went pretty well and was both different enough from the OD&D game to be a nice break, but also familiar enough that everyone could just jump into it.

There's a bunch of BRPisms I am still struggling with. For one - there is VERY easy access to magic. Granted, it is Folk magic, which is stuff like local charms, prayers, and stuff very in theme with the setting, but there are definitely some spells that players were able to gun for right away. For example, the Priest immediately took Heal 6 which cures mortal wounds and "cures all disease and poison," which I think is a bit more powerful than I want in this setting.

One way I am trying to reinforce the slightly-lower magic setting is to highly limit Magic Point regeneration. Right now I tie it to Charisma, and players heal somewhere between 1-3 points a day. I might even transition that to a week, but that might be a bit too long for many players.

Another thing I am trying is to use one of those wikis for the setting, as many players had a hard time understanding what was going on in the dense lore and situations of our OD&D game. I always run into the issue that players end up not reading it, but we'll see if there's some way around that.

I am looking forward to the next session!

A Blight Upon Sombreval Prelaunch

2024-06-28T00:00:00Z

The adventure I have been playtesting quite a lot recently is ready for prelaunch on Kickstarter, while I get some of the landing page in order. If you're interested in dark, investigative horror fantasy modules feel free to check it out.

Thank you!

The Myth of Free Improvisation

2024-06-23T00:00:00Z

One of the many problems referees encounter is the notion of how much they should prepare for a given session or campaign. Roleplaying games are very open-ended, which can often impose the feeling of a lack of structure when it comes to scenarios, and unfortunately most RPG texts don't do a great job at providing new referees with tools or procedures to conduct play of any length greater than a combat or a "scene."

Often this leads to over-preparation - worried that something will happen that will be unaccounted for, the referee tries to come up with absolutely every situation that could occur in game, and after learning that this is impossible, instead leans on techniques that reduce player agency. If the possibility space of what can happen is limited to only what is accounted for, then the referee is covered, right?

This is probably not new to anyone reading my blog, we've all (hopefully) progressed past the 90s and early 00s style of illusion of freedom style games, but there are always new referees joining the hobby.

Unfortunately the advice they're often given is flippant, and the absolute reverse of "prep everything" - instead they are told to "prep nothing." You especially see this in indie and DIY scenes where this kind of play can be popular. And I think there is a place for completely improved sessions, just as I think there is a place for consensual railroads - they're just different styles. But I think advising new referees to "just wing it" is just as problematic as telling them they have to account for every possibility.

Improv Isn't Easy

To just tell someone to improvise several hours of NPCs, locations, items, quests, challenges, combat encounters, is a massive endeavor. Especially if they have yet to really learn what makes any of those, or other game elements, "work" in a fictional world.

This is also pretty dismissive of how much of a skill improvisation is. There's a reason why improv performers have to try out for places in a troupe. Whole businesses are built around the concept of teaching the skill. Even within roleplaying games, it has become very in-vogue to host workshops adapting improv for tabletop gaming, and Karen Twelves has written a book on the subject.

It's not a skill that can just be formed spontaneously, especially in a hobby notable for its inclusion of less socially adept people (myself included).

Spontaneity Fatigue

Spontaneity, while exciting, can be mentally exhausting, particularly for those who thrive on structure and planning. Constantly needing to generate material on the fly can lead to burnout, I find this to be especially true in situations that continually ask the GM for "mixed results" - needing to always tell a player "you kinda get what you want, but you also kinda don't," when the statistical chance is going to be a repeat of this result when they try to find an alternative path.

Additionally, the necessity to come up with ideas quickly often results in the referee falling back on their most familiar tropes and clichés. The first idea that comes to mind isn't always the best, and without the time to refine and develop these concepts, the situation can become predictable and less engaging. I know when I get tired, needing to spontaneously formulate big pieces of a situation can lead to a reliance on well-worn paths and typical responses rather than fresh ideas.

Balancing Improv & Prep

The best way I have found to feel comfortable for a scenario is to balance improvisation and preparation. This advice will be familiar to anyone who has read anything by Kevin Crawford or the Alexandrian. Prep while you're having fun, or feel that what you are preparing could be useful, while keeping in mind that players may attempt anything sensible. Formulate tools and procedures to help guide you and your table when uncertainty comes up. Make plans for what may happen, but leave a lot of open areas for weird player hijinks to flourish, and for novel characters and situations to flourish unexpectedly.

Status Update & Adventure

2024-06-16T00:00:00Z

I hope the summer finds you all well - I have been hard at work juggling a number of various tasks so I thought I would provide a bit of an update here just to keep the blog feed rolling.

A few months ago I was unfortunately laid off in one of the many mass layoffs in the gaming industry. Fortunately I had been a part of the company for time, and I received a good severance package. None the less, if you need someone with almost two decades of engineering, development, and design experience feel free to reach out.

One of the many projects I have been alternating between is an adventure titled A Blight Upon Sombreval. It's a fantasy medieval investigation scenario, very much in my style of gaming and preferences - inspired by all kinds of 70s and 80s horror flicks, low magic fantasy, a rough take on "medieval" fantasy, etc.

This is an adventure I ran years ago, and decided to dust it off again for some friends. I got great feedback and encouragement to put it out somewhere, so I decided to work on it in a slightly more "professional" capacity. Mostly acquire art for it, playtest some variations on subject matter, figure out how to lay out something besides two-column text.

I decided to throw together another site for my adventure "publishing" stuff, as I have a little bit more time to focus on that stuff, and I thought it might be fun to put out more adventures and tools that I myself wish for. I hope you don't mind the shilling, so I'll just put a link to the site here and keep any publishing endeavors separate from my "free" stuff.

Cryptic Codex

reCalled From Action: Primeval Edition

2024-05-27T00:00:00Z

Recently Sahh and a few other folks put together a blog bandwagon topic called reCalled From Action where bloggers describe a fight scene from a source of media, and try to frame it as if it were an at-the-table play session.

There have been several posts for this challenge so far, including Sahh's, Havoc's, diregrizzlybear's, and Mr. Mann's. I'll try to remember to update this with additional entries that I hear of, but I make no promises, so apologies to anyone I have missed.

I will be using the fight from Berserk that inspired the challenge, the fight between Harvey Berkman Guts and Lord Zondark. For rulestext, I'll use Primeval 2d6 for the resolution mechanism. I will also be posting images and describing the scene from the comic, which has hefty violence and gore, so feel free to skip this post if that is an issue.

Guts' character sheet is piece of paper that the player has a number of traits and gear written on, we might imagine it is something as follows:

Guts

+ Expert swordsman
+ Dragon Slayer sword (massive, monster-killing)
+ Cannon arm (pull mechanism to unleash blackpowder fire)
+ Missing hand (replaced by cannon arm)
+ Missing eye
+ Marked by the Brand of Sacrifice (attracts monsters)
+ Traumatic past
...
etc

Our character has been on the run from several knights who are attempting to take him in for accusations of aiding heresy. We'll say Guts' player is named "Berk" for fun.

Berk: Alright, I'm going to try to get out of here without a confrontation.

Ref: Cool, let's roll, and if you succeed you're going to get away without them catching you. If I succeed, they nab you. There's also a lot of them, so you're gonna have to really outpace them to completely escape.

They roll off, the Ref gets a 9, and Guts' player rolls a 10. Since they're near each other, the Ref decides for a compromise.

Ref: Ok, that's pretty close, and there's so many of them, and this is their home turf, so I think they have you cornered. You're not apprehended yet, and their leader has yet to show, giving you some time before this escalates even more. Sound fair?

Berk: Sounds fair to me.

The player decides it's time to tear through some tin cans.

Berk: Alright, given that I'm stuck Guts will draw the Dragon Slayer and start chopping through these mooks.

Ref: Awesome, so given everything we know about Guts probably the most the enemy could do to you is injure you before their boss shows up - you might have a chance of decimating them before Lord Zondark arrives, let's see what the bones say.

Another roll is made, and as such with 2d6 vs., we arrive at very close results - the knights with 7 and Berk with an 9.

Ref: Swing after swing your massive blade connects with knights who continue to pile in like a herd of steel, although their numbers are not enough to extinguish your battle fury. Where the sword is unable to connect with flesh, it crushes armor - every adversary struck dies a painful and gruesome death.

The referee decides yet again that the roll was too close, especially considering numbers of the knights, their knowledge of the location, and Gut's back to the wall to allow a full break, and total achievement of Berk's intent just yet.

Ref: You see the resolve of those left standing begin to falter, their confidence tested. They are rattled, but not broken. As they begin to back up you hear heavy steeled steps upon the cobblestone courtyard, and you see a massive figure part the armored hoard and loom before - Lord Zondark, the heavily armored commander of these knights, wielding a massive pick-hammer in two hands, wearing a covered helm with a cruel, stoic face depicted upon it.

The referee may already have an index card made up for Zondark, or they might pull one and start listing the various traits outlined above, plus or minus specific callouts they want to make or be reminded of.

The Ref then monologues as Zondark, telling the player his intent.

Ref: Zondark then hefts his mighty pick-hammer above his head, preparing to sunder your blade.

Berk: Hmm, could I hit him with my sword first?

Ref: Well, you're both using pretty long ranged weapons, so closing the distance is probably its own kind of roll. I think if you're just going to swing for him there's a chance he'll still damage your sword, even if you do hit - unless the dice gods are massively in your favor.

Berk: Ok, if my sword is broken that's going to be a huge problem, even if he dies his underlings might pile in. I just want to dodge and make sure my sword won't get broken. I'll look for an opening when possible.

Ref: Alright, since defending against a sunder maneuver is your priority, he'll only get that if he massively out-rolls you, if that's cool let's roll.

Dice hit the table, and Zondark gets a 6, but Berk gets a 10. The ref decides that this warrants both Berk getting their intent of dodging, as well as some consequence on Zondark's side.

Ref: Zondark's swing narrowly misses the Dragon Slayer as Guts dodges out the way. The heavy pick-hammer plants deep into the stone at your feet. He wrenches the massive implement free, callously swinging it without caring for the soldiers of his that are struck in the battle.

You see shock and terror in the eyes of his followers as he clobbers several of them while trying to strike you.

He continues to press the attack never-the-less, slamming a massive overhead swing that connects with the wall behind you.

I think about offensive and defensive cycles quite a lot, thanks to jiu jitsu. Since Zondark was such an imposing figure, he took the initial offensive impetus. Berk could have attempted offense as well, but with a high chance of simultaneous intent being achieved on both sides. Instead Berk cycled through a series of defenses, and citing that they were looking for an opening in their dodging, and the poor roll from Zondark, the "cycle" is turned over to Berk.

I could have had that overhand swing be its own roll, maybe the player would have expressed an intent to have the captain collide his weapon with the wall - that's definitely a fine way to rule the situation. I, however, think that it serves better as color for Zondark's relentlessness, and provide that "opening" in the intent that Berk said they were looking for.

Ref: Zondark insults you and your sword as useless, belittling your lack of offense as he pulls his pick from the wall behind you.

Berk: This sounds like as good of an opening as I am going to get. I want to wait for the momentum to shift, for him to start moving forward again, and time it so I can strike both his weapon, and his face.

Ref: Great, if he succeeds he's going to strike you with his weapon, severely injuring you, ok?

The bones are cast, and Berk pulls ahead - a 10 vs. a 6.

edit: Over on the OSR discord server, Havoc asked if Zondark's intent was still the same, and I realized I hadn't made it explicit that Zondark is basically out to wound Guts now. The reason for this is twofold - I don't like to spam intent for variety purposes - if something doesn't change at least a bit, I almost always pick a different action or goal. The second is that it can keep play from getting too far into a "I swing and you block" loop. Which isn't always bad, sometimes combat needs to be abstracted and shuffled through (sorta like how we did at the start with the mooks), but for a case where it's super zoomed-in, I want to prevent that, and have found this helps in practice.

Ref: Great success, you pretty much have free reign over Zondark at this point, go ahead and describe it.

Berk: The massive Dragon Slayer blade arcs up through the hilt and head of his weapon, breaking it as well as his helm. Shrapnel pierces his ruined face, and he falls bleeding to the ground. I then quip at him, implying it is HIS weapon that is dead weight and useless.

The referee describes the knights hanging back, and Zondark wallowing over his injuries. Berk decides to literally kick the opposition while they're down.

Ref: You can easily kick him, what's your goal here?

Berk: I mostly want to humiliate him in front of his crew.

Ref: Ok, that won't require a roll, but his knights will be outright offended and angered by you.

Berk: Grud. I mean, good.

Towards an Interaction Model

2024-04-19T00:00:00Z

I have been chatting with several people about my last post, MDA for Tabletop Adventure Games. In particular, Sam Sorensen posted his thoughts on the framework—suffice to say, he is not a fan and does not feel the model applies to tabletop games and, in many cases, not even video games.

I appreciate the discussion I've had on this subject - and I'm a big fan of Sam's and find many kindred points in his post, especially in his New Simulationism pamphlet, which purports a play perspective very close to my own and many of us flag-waving in the FKR (although I am a fan of dropping pretty much all terminology that got associated with the Forge, of course "Simulationism" predates that place, so it is very much ingrained into the hobby and I need to get over myself about that).

Speaking of FKR, a big reason I've been gung-ho about that gaming culture and why I even posted about MDA was that I am specifically interested in discussing how interactions elicit different emotional responses among people. The interaction of coordinating play tests in video games that held MDA (at least lightly) reminded me of how I view referees and players iterating over the techniques they use at the table.

This is not meant to be dismissive, but in many of these conversations, I almost feel like we sometimes get stuck in the whole "self-reference" Russel Paradox of set theory. The details of this paradox aren't super important to this discussion, but suffice it to say that it is easily circumvented through axiomizing the details. If we have a problem of "who shaves the barber!?" given the condition that "the barber shaves all men who don't shave themselves," - create a new theory where you add an exception to this, and see if anything breaks down.

Coincidentally, when working in research and development for video games, I often dove into this kind of discussions quite a lot. I would cite something for potential reference, usually an experimental game or toy, and the first response I would receive would be, " But is it a game?" To which I'd shrug and say, " Whether it is or not, by whatever definition you have, I still wanna look at it for potential influence." Determining what is a game can be enlightening, fun, whatever - it's just not something that currently interests me.

I honestly couldn't care less about "defending" MDA from a strict "does everything in this paper line up with what we now know" standpoint. I think it was born out of a very specific context, and while it was doing a lot of trailblazing, I do not think every statement contained within was ironclad. I am more interested in looking at my personal experiences with the model and asking, "Can I extrapolate/adapt this to make running games more fun for me and my players?" Maybe yes, maybe no.

Defining an MDA-like

So, given what I said about definitional arguments, let me post how I see an MDA-like (or MDA-- or MDA++ or pMDA or however you wanna phrase it - I care absolutely nothing if people see this as an extension/adaptation of a theory or something else) working for tabletop adventure games.

Note the emphasis on adventure games, if whether or not this is applicable to story games or solo games or lyrical games, or anything else is not my current concern. This is not to disparage these games, they're just not in scope of what I am thinking about.

Also note that in game studies, there is generally no consensus on what things like a "game" or "rule" is, so I am not proposing these are universally definitional, rather just short hand for the following ideas when talking in this context.

So an Adventure Game is outlined by Retired Adventurer in this post.

The word Game in this model refers to an instance of play. Sometimes we'll use "game" as shorthand to refer to the idea of, general assumed rules and procedures, and culture of a particular adventure game title (eg. the "game" of Dungeons & Dragons), but really all that matters is what is living at the table (and to a lesser degree, how it is discussed/remembered in retrospect).

To me, every player and referee in an adventure game is a Designer. I don't think there's any special privilege to anyone who has produced a rulestext. Every game being a social interaction obviously changes dependent on who is involved - each game is designed by the participants, even if this "design" is just how they make rulings out of pre-existing rules, or if they're coming up with their own defined rules (or many more cases).

Mechanics are all the rules, procedures, ludemes, fictional facts, etc. as they exist - on paper, or in peoples' heads, or anywhere else. I know Sam wanted to distinguish mechanics as mechanisms as "instrument of play," but I think we all kind of know that is not how roleplayers refer to mechanics, and honestly fit with the definition as I learned it in my game design courses (as well as many books on the subject). Things like "Roll a d20 and add your to-hit bonus, compare to your opponent's armour class, and if you meet or succeed you hit" is an example of this. Also "falling into lava kills you," as well as "the referee describes the world - ask questions to clarify then declare intent." Basically its the idea of how anything gets resolved in game.

Dynamics are the actual reified moments of play where humans interact with each other and the Mechanics. So "rolling to hit" as outlined above is not a Dynamic, but when Joanna says what she's doing, the referee asks her to roll to hit, and then she does is a Dynamic.

The way we perceive these Dynamics produce emotional responses, which are fine to call Aesthetics. I copied the original eight kinds of fun in my previous post - I certainly don't think they are exhaustive, and I think when applied to tabletop there's quite a few interesting bits of overlap and places we split some "types" of fun, and call out particularly interesting, recurrent unions between multiple types.

Note that Mechanics and Dynamics are definitely infinite, and they are mutable, within the same Game, sometimes even moment to moment. In one instance you may decide to use a traditional D&D to-hit roll in combat. In the following instance you may decide that in the current world context, or even social context (eg. its getting late let's wrap this up we can imagine how its going to go) and elide this roll or use an entirely different mechanic. Sometimes you use rules to "zoom in" and de-abstract procedures, other times you "zoom out" and do the reverse.

I don't think this breaks the model by any regard - each of these instances are themselves dynamics, and they'll produce various aesthetics among the players. How, and more importantly - why they do is worth looking at. Of course dynamics and aesthetics are fractal - one emotional response accumulates and attenuates a large emotional response of the session which does for the campaign (if playing in one) which then expands out to multiple campaigns with a play group, etc. I think these are all worth investigating among a group, as they continue to drive towards experiences they want to share together.

So the above may be small fry, and for anyone looking for deeper more philosophical theory, this will either be disappointing I have spent so many words on, or seem like nothing at all. Which is fine, I'm not trying to make any real philosophical statements or not.

Why I bring up MDA is because I want to start talking about specific interactions at the table and the responses they bring up. The "Dynamics" and the "Aesthetics" terms are suitable language to use as short-hand here.

Anyway, this was a messy, long post, but I thank anyone who read through it. Let me know what you think, especially if it includes how we can better talk about the actual, in-play interactions.