The 46er - May 2026
This Month on Table 46
I blogged about why hex maps need blank spaces for the Maps Blogwagon as well as attending Forge Midwest 2026. In the next few weeks I hope to present the systems I brought with me to Forge Midwest and to give more detailed play reports about what happened during my playtest sessions.
Blog Posts and Other Gaming Reading
I'm going to try splitting out posts by Bloggies category this month to see if that makes them a little easier to track.
Theory
- Mothership: A Useful Economic Baseline for Horror - INJECTOR SEAT - a look at how economic pressure can be used to produce horror.
- Is the OSR Evolving? - Tim B. - thoughts on how the OSR is changing and how it might develop in the future.
- Snakes & Ladders: The Problem of Linear Progression in D&D - Methods & Madness - what does the fact that D&D characters either get better or die mean about the game?
- Against Maps - Among Cats and Books - an examination of all the things maps are used for in roleplaying games and how they do (and don't) actually serve those purposes.
- Unbalanced combat is cool - Murkdice - an explanation of why a wide variety of difficulties in encounters enhances a game, offering players a chance to express their agency in different ways.
- Playing vs. Using - Songs of Sibylline - drawing a distinction between playing the game as the designer intended as compared to ripping it apart to do your own thing.
Gameable
- Astrology Signs for OD&D - Idraluna Archives - a proposal to replace ability scores and their associated modifiers with a table containing sun and moon signs that also provide benefits.
- Level Zeta III - Scribbles and Horrors - is this one actually gameable? I'd struggle with it, but this is a massive, convoluted dungeon map.
- Virtual Table-Top Tokens from Tom Gauld - Benign Brown Beast - a set of delightfully whimsical tokens for use on VTTs extracted from Tom Gauld's comic strips.
- Chain Stocking the Hex Map - Prismatic Wasteland - a method of stocking a hex map that makes sure hexes are tied to each other.
- Tracking the Storm - Cats Have No Lord - how to simulate a cyclone in a maritime setting.
- Magical Violence - The Foot of Blue Mountain - a relatively simple freeform magic system.
- WIZARD VIOLENCE - The Black Citadel - rules for warding, wizard duels, and summoning.
- Oathmaking: Beyond the Three Oaths in Mythic Bastionland - additional rules for swearing oaths, geasa, and boasting.
- d4 bags that are worse than bag of holding - 400 independent bathrooms - you really shouldn't let your players have these.
- Sacred Numbers: Alternative Birth-Signs - Hags - another schema for generating boons for characters based on a zodiac.
- Remaking LotR With Only Public Domain Sources: Part 2 - Throne of Salt - further expansion of how to turn a smorgasboard of public domain stories and legends into the narrative structure of Lord of the Rings.
- the woods where the moon will be born - Was It Likely? - a forestcrawl adventure full of interesting NPCs.
- Worked Example: Secrets and Clues for Blades '68 - Viridian Void - an example of Mike Shea's secrets technique as applied to Blades '68.
- Ten Years of GLOG (and! The Tomb of the Khan) - Whose Measure God Could Not Take - a celebration of the GLOG's tenth anniversary along with a short vampire themed dungeon.
- Enhancing Gradient Descent with Memory Theft - Three Witches - how to expand MONARCH's tormenting of the player characters in the Mothership megadungeon.
Advice
- Common OSR System Questions - Beau Rancourt - a list of questions to ask yourself when preparing to run a system or published adventure.
- Triangles, Relationships & Archetypes: Adapting the Nemesis System to TTRPGs - ideas for how to run hierarchies of relationships among NPC enemies.
- Why do adventurers exist? - elbiotipo - how should you shape society so adventurers interact with it in a more interesting way than they do in default D&D?
- A faction's greatest weakness should be its own internal complexity - Dark Star Adventures - a look at how factions having complex relationships with the setting can give the players leverage to use against them.
- DM tip: write fiction - TRAIPSE - a suggestion to write vignettes in your setting to practice your prose.
- 'No' is the most interesting answer - Murkdice - why you should tell your players 'no' more often.
- Why Han Solo Was An Amazing TTRPG Player And TTRPG Players Of Han Solo Characters Mostly Aren’t - Old Men Running The World - advice for players on how to make a lone wolf character cooperate with their party members.
- In Defense of Empty Hexes - I swear I didn't know this was coming! Idraluna Archives makes the same argument I made for Prismatic Wasteland's maps blogwagon, but does it better.
- The Three Secrets of Making Games - Jay Dragon - three reasons you should playtest, playstorm, and seek feedback for your designs as soon as possible.
- Swimming Rules for His Majesty the Worm - To Be Resolved - what it says on the tin. These look like they'd be quite easy to convert to another system.
- The Door Tax - 3x5 Arcana - how, when, and where to place doors and change their attributes so they enhance your game instead of slowing it down.
- Elements of a Key 4: Rules for Key-Writing - Being an Asshole to a Goblin - more advice on how to best write dungeon keys.
Critique
- Review: The Monster Overhaul - Seed of Worlds - a review of Skerples' expansion of many classic monsters.
- Where the Work Happens - Taskerland - a review of Tabletop RPG Design in Theory and Practice at the Forge, 2001–2012 by Michael J. White, followed by thoughts on how RPG play cultures have developed over the last quarter century.
- The Riddle of Steal: HD, Attrition, and Black Sheep - Unturned Hovel - an examination of how mechanics in several classic and OSR games affect attrition and how characters are worn down by play.
- Review - Rare Bird - Cats Have No Lord - a look at a recently released free adventure for Swyvers.
- Flip Through — Fatherfog - the Dolent Chronicle - a review of Tuesday Knight Games' latest effort using the Panic Engine.
- Arden Vul - The Campaign is Cooked :( - Beau Rancourt - a breakdown of one faction in Arden Vul and how the treasure rewards they possess are completely out of whack with AD&D's treasure guidelines.
- An Analysis of Blades in the Dark Criticism - Aggregate Cognizance - a review of Dead Letters podcast's review of Blades in the Dark, along with its own critique of the game.
Meta
- Dead Renaissance - The Waves of the OSR - Snow - a musing on cultures of play and genre in the form of a Socratic dialogue.
- Searching for the free games ecosystem (and designing for desire paths) - MOMMY'S BIG GLASS OF WINE ALONE TIME BLOG MOST FOUL - how does what we can afford to access shape the way we interact with art and games?
- Roleplaying Games as an Expression of Fandom - Owl Knight Games - an essay about how roleplaying and RPGs relate to fandom.
- The Sieve - Beau Rancourt - Beau has coded what look to be some useful tools for rapidly rolling monster hit dice, easily sharing and managing party inventory, and converting Markdown docs into printable two-column adventure modules, along with some planned community features.
- Ruins & Rogues post-mortem - Tim B. offers a retrospective on his game along with some insights into what the goals of game design should be.
- THE ALIEN/MYTHIC FANTASY MANIFESTO: On the Tone of Fantasy I Enjoy - The Black Citadel - a manifesto about inspiration from fantasy that's less concerned with the mundane.
What I'm Reading
What I'm Playing
- D&D 5e
- Under Fantastic Skies
- SETI
- Imperator: Rome