WiddershinsWanderings

Character sheet for Cairn: Barebones Edition by @skullfungus.bsky.social!

Isn't it just grand?

Two-page spread of an RPG wandering encounter table, including a creature called the Knight of Many Mice

Double page spread of a dungeon layout, including a dungeon denizen named Jeriel, the angelic guardian of the treasures

I'm about to send an update to Early Worms about the status of THE CASTLE AUTOMATIC, the Metroidvania dungeon for HIS MAJESTY THE WORM.

A lil sneak peak:

YouTube video by Questing Beast Can the Cairn RPG live up to the hype?

The Cairn box set was reviewed by Questing Beast!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G62...

A Familiar Tower A new escape room adventure for Old-School Essentials. A polished puzzle box dungeon you’ll solve from the inside.

Hey, get a load of this wizard tower. It's my escape room puzzle dungeon infused with my love for zelda and crystal fantasy. It's almost finished and now it's crowdfunding 🥲
puzzledungeon.com/tower

#zinemonth #osr #dnd @zinemonth.bsky.social

The Explorateur: Issue #16 Monthly design jams, critique, theory, and inspiration for tabletop rpg designers by rpg designers. Vetted. Looted. Curated.

Did I forget to write and publish The Explorateur while working on The Bloggies? *Jonathan Frakes Voice:* "Not this time."

A treasure trove of links for rpg designers by rpg designers 👇

www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

What's Next After Submissions? The Bloggies' 2026 submissions are closed. Here's what's next...

The Bloggies 2026 submissions are officially closed. Get ready for the nominations next Monday.

You can get the full schedule and submissions breakdown here:
www.explorersdesign.com/bloggies-sub...

My Dream RPG In search of mechanical-narrative coherence.

Been thinking about @explorersdesign.bsky.social's recent post ("Against Dominant Mechanics") and what we can strip away to maximize the RPG experience.

Yes, there's a backhoe in this.

Good to hear!

If you'd like to nominate something I wrote, I'd really appreciate it. Here are my favorite posts from last year:

Sandbox Settlements: Prep, Run, and Thrive
Sandbox Settlements: Downtime
Running Mythic Bastionland
Mapping the Blogosphere

elmc.at

Play Style Preferences: The Hand You Are Dealt A blog post talking about the benefits of embracing random character creation when playing Adventure games of the OSR play style.

Finally, I started a series of posts on my Play Style Preferences inspired by @betterlegends.bsky.social 's RPG Preference Matrix that I think makes a pretty good argument for random character generation: widdershinswanderings.bearblog.dev/playstyle-pr...

Player-Facing Pointcrawl: Regional Sandbox A blog post about how to design a regional sandbox pointcrawl map that is player-facing.

If you think of Regional Pointcrawls as traveling from scene to scene along fixed pathways, I'd love to change your mind with: widdershinswanderings.bearblog.dev/player-facin...

Sure, why not? I am pretty fond of this post I did on designing obstacles for OSR play: widdershinswanderings.bearblog.dev/a-lock-with-...

Common, Recalled, Obscure Landmark, Hidden, Secret reframed for character knowledge.

What if I change Landmark, Hidden, Secret to use for character knowledge? idk!

elmc.at/common-recal...

A look back at Puzzle Dungeon Jam A retrospective on the jam. My hopes and dreams and oh so many dungeons.

Puzzle Dungeon Jam was super fun and busy. I talk about the experience and looking at the wonderful submissions with so many awesome guests. #osr #ttrpg
puzzledungeon.com/a-look-back-...

Against Dominant Mechanics Some rules guide play. And some rules monopolize it. Designing by omission.

In tabletop rpg design, sometimes gameplay doesn't come from the mechanics we add, but the ones we omit.

www.explorersdesign.com/dominant-mec...

Cover for Cairn Barebones Edition by @amandalee.bsky.social.
There is no one else as good as her, nope

Turning the Dial Nerds love taxonomy; it gives order to the world, and provides a meaningful sense of control. Of course, it's all an illusion. At best taxonomy is a useful t...

I wrote a theory post. Don't worry, I paid taxes at the end.
newschoolrevolution.com/turning-the-...

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.

Some notes about how I write TTRPG adventures:

My texts tend to be terse. A location described in two lines; a single spoken sentence to describe a character.

The aim is *not* to be laconic, but to mirror the pace of natural dialogue; a TTRPG is a conversation between players, after all!

1/

Great post. I agree with Ram that it is best to play procedures straight, especially if you are planning on playing over the course of several sessions. Sometimes things are chill, and sometimes everything is popping off at once and the plans of the PCs are for naught in the midst of pure chaos.

Playtest Early, Playtest Often — Prismatic Wasteland To design a game, you have to break a few eggs and discard some rules or completely rewrite them. But you won’t know what to discard and what to rewrite until you feed those eggs to your players.

A tale of playtesting and how you don’t really know what mechanics work until you bring ones that don’t work to your table, maybe more than once

Cairn Press The official website for the Cairn Press imprint.

Next month I will launch Cairn Press.
I tried to make a publishing agreement that is fair, free, and mutually beneficial. Once the lawyer approves final contract I'll release it as CC-BY-SA, if possible. I've also written up a "plain English" version that you can read here:

cairnpress.ink#terms

Cities, Forests, and Factions, oh, my!

Always nice to see one's work appreciated! I have more thoughts on this subject, and hope to return to this series in 2026.

Plus, everyone who grew up with the Ninja Turtles cartoon embraces beating up robots.

The Bloggies 2026 A yearly celebration of blogging in tabletop roleplaying games.

Listen, I get it.

You're about to see "The Bloggies" all over your feed and it's going to get real old real quick. That's why you can mute it on BlueSky and bookmark the official page.

I made it so you can still participate without losing your mind.
Submissions are officially open til Jan 31st.

2025 in Blog Data Blogging isn't dead: a 2025 year-in-review of the blogosphere map dataset—posts per month, survival rates, and publishing patterns.

Scrambled to get a 2025 review post out. Instead of talking about me, I dug into my blog dataset and made a bunch of graphs.

elmc.at/2025-in-blog...

Smart!

Too bad this was a commission. It would make a hell of a poster or t-shirt design.

Kull: Exile of Atlantis book by Robert E. Howard Buy a cheap copy of Kull: Exile of Atlantis book by Robert E. Howard. In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called ...

Have you read Kull? www.thriftbooks.com/w/kull-exile...