A new link-collecting newsletter has dropped. It's really good. I like that it includes @elmc.at's projects, I'm especially interested in their more robust webring idea.
elmc.at/catmail-2/
Something in me likes the vertical lines. I can't deny it.
This month's Blog Carnival topic is right up my alley. I added the event to The Explorateur as well.
Give the world your small hero/big world ideas, mechanics, play reports, and more. Think: Mausritter, Pico, Household, and more. The community blogathon ends March 31st.
A short and very busy month on the road means this month's Explorateur is light. I mean, it's still a mace to face with design links, but it's not the usual two-hander.
I'm doing this new thing with the intro where I share three design/creative/craft ideas.
www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...
There’s something very satisfying about changing one line and seeing the whole website change on a reload.
Billionaires are rogue nukes let loose on society. They would sooner kill everyone and everything than be disarmed. We have more in common with the dead and dying than these monsters desperate to control us.
It's a labor intensive project! Fun and rewarding, but labor intensive.
Can you imagine that on top of everything else? Thankfully, I asked Cat if he wanted to host, and would have done the same for you.
And I managed to add this floating table of contents on my blog posts, so readers can click between sections.
Here's an example from "Designing Lore Blocks" where I praise the idea in Reach of the Roach God. You can see the little table on the right.
I did teach myself some things during The Bloggies though!
Like how to modify the CSS so my dropdown/toggles aren't ugly boxes anymore.
I hated how they looked so much that I never used them. Now they're so much simpler.
Excited for Elmcat to take the reins, especially since he has coding know-how I lack. All of my Bloggies ambitions ran up against my lack of computer skills.
Very please Designing Dungeons which I co-wrote with @riseupcomus.bsky.social won best blog series!
And was enhanced by being turned into a podcast by @3d6downtheline.com so now it’s in an even more potable form!
Link 👇
I WON LET’S GOOOOO!! 🎉
Me to all of you after hosting The Bloggies.
The Bloggies have concluded for 2026! Congratulations to this year's winners. You can find the results (and a whole slew of awesome blog posts) here:
www.explorersdesign.com/bloggies-2026/
Please vote Birdmilk for president. I guess you could also vote Birdmilk for best debut blog, but if you have to choose, president.
Today's the last day to vote in this year's Bloggies! Voting closes Friday at 7:00 AM EST.
Ballot: forms.gle/oWyc19sKXkod...
Want more Bloggies? Elmcat's got a whole archive for you. 👇
What's better than a small game about being mice? A long thread about a small game about being mice, transposed onto a blog.*
*It's not actally better but you should read my long read of Mausritter anyway: https://loottheroom.uk/the-long-read-mausritter
A reminder that today is the last day for this.
Which also means that today is the last day to vote for the "Books in TTRPGs" series by... (checks note) moi!
Thank you! It owes a lot to the ideas and innovations that came before it. Obviously Zedeck's work, but also story games and other rpg adventures by folks like Patrick Stuart.
I look forward to evolving it as my games drift further away from traditional adventures and D&D stat blocks.
Double the Ryans on today's Weekly Scroll livestream.
Shoutout to Perils & Princesses!
www.twitch.tv/theweeklyscr...
The second half of The Bloggies is happening. Check out this year's nominations for Best Debut Blog, Best Series, and Best Overall Post, then vote on your favorites!
forms.gle/VNA674tbsW4m...
If you like these, I have a few books full of them! idlecartulary.itch.io/ludicrous-co...
🚨NATURAL LANGUAGE, RIGID SCHEMA🚨
Seeing @explorersdesign.bsky.social (and others) run with the statblock-without-stats thing is so very gratifying.
I'm still really proud of this bit of design!
1/
I love Legend in the Mist. It will become annoyingly obvious to everyone when I eventually unveil my hack of its tags system.
It's a little crunchy, but it's (in my opinion) closer to my personal tastes than City of Mist, which I loved, but found too crunchy after playing two campaigns of it.
Few things make me smile like Destiny Howell and Ryan Lynch collaborations. Perils & Princesses is just puffed with charm. I love how it presents its fairy tale themes so simply and earnestly—I mean this adventure has gnomes with little red hats, cmon!
That's a clever tweak. Especially depending on the system or setting.
I'm not a strict OSR guy. I was a lurker on The Forge back in the day and half of my collection are storygames. But I do love making the two play cultures kiss.
Yeah this would not work for your style of game, it takes on more structure in an attempt to excise abstract arithmetic. I think GMs have to decide which they'd prefer to translate, because both are speaking different languages.
Yeah the inciting idea behind lore blocks was, "What game could use this schema without conversion? What tweaks would need to be made?"
