The 46er - July 2026

16 Jul, 2026

This Month on Table 46

No posts this month, though as you can see below, I did get a lot of reading done. I hope everyone was able to participate in Free RPG Day in some capacity!

I'll be at Gen Con in two weeks. If you're interested in organizing a meet up or a game, send me a message on Bluesky (@lysus.bsky.social) or find me on Discord (@lysus). Hopefully I'll be able to offer some play reports! I haven't forgotten that I still need to finish writing up my playtests from Forge Midwest. Fortunately I took detailed notes for Jewelsea RPG's sessions.

Blog Posts and Other Gaming Reading

Theory

The Activation Energy of a Game - Seraphim Seraphina - what does it take to get a game to the table?
Of Randomisation and Responsibility - afcbrodie - on randomization and how it removes accountability for outcomes in roleplaying games.
People Walk Too Fast - Valeria Loves - a detailed examination of hexcrawls and a proposition for how to provide players with enough information to make them interesting.
Looking through Stances at Luke Gearing's Boast Mechanic - AFC Brodie - an overview of Ron Edwards' three roleplaying stances, a proposed alternate stance framework, and a review of Gearing's advancement mechanic for Wolves Upon the Coast.
High Level Play and Scaffolding - Bommyknocker Press - how do campaigns embrace or avoid the problems of high level play?
Simulation is the antithesis of play - anb's logs - why adherence to the reality of an imagined world can impede the playing of a game.
Consequence Heatsinks - Fool's Pyrite - how to use dice even if you don't want to impose immediate, devastating consequences.
Fight or Flight, Tense Decisions in Tabletop RPGs - To Be Resolved - musings on how people generally don't have a wide array of choices in tense situations - they follow the scripts they've memorized.
Combat as Art - Boss Design and Reflections on Violence - Fail Forward - how can a game and combat be designed to reveal character and theme?

Gameable

Rolling for Inspiration - WormLikeChain - thoughts on using tables to create adventures, along with a prompt generator using fragments from public domain works and a worked example of how to use it.
od&d combat maneuvers = dungeon doll - extra combat options for the OD&D Fighter.
How to roll dice with cards - Lonely Star - details on how to simulate polyhedral dice from d4 to d30 and beyond using a standard deck of French-suited playing cards.
Three-round combat - Pretendo Games - how to run an exciting combat in a maximum of three rounds.
[How to Make a Caravan Crawl - Ye Olde Revivalist](How to Make a Caravan Crawl) - how to build your own version of something like Ultraviolet Grasslands.
Free RPG Day: “FIGHT ITEM RUN” - Toucan't Blog - ultralight Pokémon based on Tunnel Goons.
Wildfires in a Hexcrawl - Idraluna Archives - why people have done controlled burns for millennia and rules for simulating wildfire spread.
And Other Stories - Was It Likely? - a collection of dramatic adventure seeds.
Vampyre of Time and Memory - To Be Resolved - an undead that attackers your being and memory rather than sucking your blood.
Lake-lady, a Cairn 2e background - anb's logs - the sword distribution system.
Friendship Simulator: a Procedure for Friends and Contacts - Traipse - a system for using downtime to make social contacts and friends who can be called on later.
Useless wings stretch wide to embrace the world (Dragon Class) - Lonely Star - an extremely Glorantha-inspired take on dragons as player characters.
Add Mystery to Magic Items - Brandes Stoddard - a look at magic items with hidden properties followed by several magic items design for 5e.
Ur-Beings: Ancient Precursor Races - Dice Goblin - what if the giant animals scattered around many D&D bestiaries were the remnants of ancient species?
4e in Cairn - Seedling Games - a fun conversion of some of 4e's races and classes into Cairn backgrounds.
LAW, ORDER, & DOLMENWOOD: Bringing Courts, Calendars, and Consequences To A Fantasy Setting - I CAST LIGHT! - how to add legal complications to your Dolmenwood campaign.

Advice

On Caves - Game Shelf - all about caves, including how to emphasize their differences from constructed dungeon environments.
Why You Should Write Your Game to Be Played at Conventions - I Know Adam Seats - how to make the most of a time slot at a convention.
Player Trust (Definitive Guide) - Pool Time with Swim Allen - how to handle NPCs lying to the players without involving the dice.
Playing the Social Game - Patchwork Paladin - how players can get and use leverage over NPCs.
Legwork and the Home Game - Unturned Hovel - why you don't need to have super-detailed prep for everything your players might run into.
Keying a Dungeon with Class-specific Descriptions (Microblog) - Rise Up Comus - key your dungeon so your players feel rewarded for choosing their class.
A Discord Toolbox for Play-by-Post Perverts - thoughts into words into thoughts - an explanation of play-by-post and how to best use Discord to do it.
The Prison Megadungeon: Doors as Exploration Complications - Cryptic Keyway - an examination of how stuck, secret, and locked doors shape exploration and how to use them in your dungeon.
How I Use Google Sheets for My Games - Lonely Star - a great guide along with spreadsheet templates.

Critique

A Real 17th-Century Dungeon Delve - an overview of An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels by Evliya Çelebi, specifically looking at an expedition under the Great Pyramid.
How Arden Vul uses its size - Lonely Star - an examination of how The Halls of Arden Vul interconnects its spaces to direct the way players move through the dungeon.
A waste of a great concept - Fabled Lands - a plea to use Tékumel as a more mundane setting instead of sword & planet fantasy.
Seas of Blood, Rains of Fire: The Post-Apocalyptic Worlds of Early ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ - We Are the Mutants - an overview of the post-apocalyptic themes of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance.
[A Review of Forgotten Realms; Underdark - False Machine] - a look at what's interesting and what's not in 3rd edition's crack at the concept.
Dissecting Carcosa, and Levels of Gameability - Orkish Odyssey - what does it take to turn something from a vignette into something interactive?
What I Like About Orc Babies - Blog of Forlorn Encystment - an overview of noncombatants in the 1e monster manual, thoughts about why they're absent in 5e, and ruminations on what they mean for a campaign.
The Thoughtlessness of Deathbringer's Marketing - Magnolia Keep - an overview of some of the problems with the new DungeonTube Kickstarter.
Review: A Book of Beasts - Prismatic Wasteland - a review of Jason Lutes' supplement for his Perilous Wilds expansion to Dungeon World.
He Ain't Gonna Jump No More! AAR & Review - Idraluna Archives - a play report and review of a capsule game set during Operation Overlord and the parachute jumps at Normandy.
Yap Blog June 2026: Daggerheart and Tactical Combat - ABBADON - Tom Bloom reviews his experience with Daggerheart and contrasts it with 5th edition D&D and Draw Steel.

What I'm Reading

What I'm Playing

Expedition 33
D&D 5e
Warhammer 40K: Wrath & Glory
Under Fantastic Skies