naught101

Great blog posts related to playing, GMing, and designing TTRPGs, from the last year.

I made a one-word horror roleplaying game!

It's a free to download PDF.

If you're not familiar with lyric games and are curious, check out the linked episode of the Dice Exploder podcast - in short, they are focused on exploring the question "what constitutes a game?" (and often being a bit obnoxious in the process of answering).

https://naught101.itch.io/it-comes

I'm interested in table top games that have a strong focus on power and politics, or possibly social change or intrigue that intersects with power and politics.

Not hung up on format or system, open to anything.

Any suggestions?

After years of decline, economic profits rebounded with a vengeance—driven by tech companies, performance in the energy and materials sector, and capital growth in China and North America.

To be clear, this seems like nonsense to me, in a systematic sense. Most of that profit seems to be off the back of shrinkflation, enshittification, and AI hype, all of which is rent-seeking, and none of which is based on any meaningful material increase in real underlying value..

Do these people ever think about the connection between finance and economics and real, underlying value?

What campaign archetypes (e.g. defeat the dungeon boss, rescue the princess, heist) exist that can work in a really short campaign, ideally a one-shot?

Interested in stuff that can be used for any system, but suggestions for cool game-specific campaigns that can be generalised are also welcome.

What interesting mechanics exist out there?

I don't mean just "here's a new way to roll combinations of polyhedral dice", or "here's a new theme overlaid on a standard progress tracker", or "here's stress with another name".

I mean, actual new conceptual mechanics that produce new and interesting behaviours in-game. Things like CoC's push rolls, or Slugblaster's Beats/Character Arc, or Blades in the Dark's Flashbacks (these might not be the first games that those appeared in, but the point isn't the game, it's the mechanic).

Interested particularly in what those new mechanics bring to the table in terms of player interactions or story development.

There are games that have a "big fish in a big pond" feel - e.g. sandbox D&D games, or a "big fish in a small pond" feel, e.g. games with contained campaigns/missions.

There are also games that do a "small fish in a small pond" feel really well, e.g. Fiasco.

Are there any games that do a "small fish in a big pond" feel well? e.g. games where the players are not outstanding heros, and where the world feels big - not only spatially, but also socially and politically?

Edit: lots of good suggestions so far, but maybe I could have added:

• it's fine and good if the small fish somehow end up having a big effect
• it would be amazing if the big-world had well fleshed out other goings-on. Ideally some mechanics that let all players contribute to this feeling, so it doesn't depend entirely on the quality of the DMing

Edit 2: title, to avoid all the computer game suggestions. I guess the community name isn't hint enough, huh?

Have you ever learned things from playing table top RPGs (or other story games) that you've been able to apply in other areas of life, outside of gaming?

I want to get into Keats, because he keeps getting referenced in other fiction that I love.

Anyone have recommendations for where to start, and also what to pay attention to?