Hello. It's my final week as a full time game designer, and as if to underline why I can't do this anymore, I currently can't afford to cover my bills at the end of the month. All of my work on itch is on sale. Tell your friends, buy something, thank you very much. itch.io/s/179351/jan...

Getting back on the ghosts (and their medium) solving crimes with the new book from @abeewords.bsky.social, Grapples of Wrath!

I didn't make it to Dragonmeet when that was a thing a few months ago, but I did get a friend to pick up a few things for me, to avoid the big shipping charges. Finally managed to meet up and get my stuff this week!

Yesterday the local Indonesian Tabletop RPG community that my friends and I have been growing since Q4 2025 held its first convention! Call of Cthulhu, Nobilis, DURF, Mothership, Daggerheart, D&D 5e. 40+ participants. Hopefully this will inspire the local scene to keep on growing!

RTFM, the (an) RPG book club podcast, is back from hibernation. @snaxwell.bsky.social and I talk about This is Where the Stars Died by Scott Malthouse, "a non-linear narrative wargame." What does that mean? What's a war game? Am I supposed to be painting small men? open.spotify.com/episode/5ow2...

My cover for Paramour, an Orbital Blues Adventure, by @chrisair.itch.io and @unenthuser.bsky.social. I'm doing more pieces for it too, and it's being a blast. You can get notified when the crowdfunding campaign starts on the link below ~* www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

In tabletop rpg design, sometimes gameplay doesn't come from the mechanics we add, but the ones we omit. www.explorersdesign.com/dominant-mec...

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you've been to Dead Can Dance The Sisters of Mercy The Beauty of Gemina DOOL Castle Rat

one more thing about freeplay, and an issue that's been on my mind for a while (alt text available):

Very excited for this frozen city, and playing into the alienation of feeling lost in a city that was once your home for the setting writing

What if creating maps was done through letter writing? I give you....Epistle Maps. Frist write-up of my first system :) theplayreports.com/posts/epistl...

There's a lot of good discussion of randomness in tabletop, so I wanted to be a real sicko and talk about how to model random engineering processes with dice tbr.bearblog.dev/reliability-...

Nova reviews my Mothership module Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

my friend alex wrote about how to preserve the spirit of zines as what he calls “democratic media”: 📝 cheap to make 🖨️ easy to print at home 👯‍♀️ free to reproduce this #ZiMo, why not participate in the DIY spirit? an open literary culture benefits all of us! todistantlands.github.io/2026/01/15/h...

January issue of Carouse just dropped! If you like indie TTRPGs check out this collaborative newsletter from a diverse group of indie creators. www.carouse.blog/january-2026...

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

Hi #portfolioday I'm snow. I'm a game designer and writer. My work explores gender fuckery, communication struggles, and the impossibility of balancing it all. If you like what you see, let's do something together!

I've just released a cursed, handmade tarot Deck for The Lost Bay RPG! You should check it out! wren-the-forrester.itch.io/querents-gui...

New Blog Post: Eating the Book--a response to 'We Need to Talk About Goodman Games.' Wherein I critique that Questing Beast Video, articulate different approaches to game preparation, and advocate for more intellectually curious criticism in the RPG space. orthopraxy.bearblog.dev/eating-the-b...

Looking back on 2025, one thing that was great was seeing live music. I'm therefore going to do a little recap thread of my best concert experiences last year. It's going to take the form of a top 8, because I can do whatever I want, so strap in and get ready for a little thread:

I wrote a game in ~8 hours. It's not fun, but it exists. Experience being a young person in the alt-right pipeline, and what it's like getting out of it. Content warnings listed on the page. ambynavy.itch.io/black-ice

New blog post! This one about the role played by (the lack of) games media in the tabletop RPG landscape: personable.blog/media-crowdf...

I'm relaunching THE MEAT GRINDER, my TTRPG writer's group, and structuring things to let us support 16-20 total members. For more info on how it all works and to let me know if you're interested, check out this form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Yet another amazing blog built with OBR, the open source blog template I've initiated bibliothecadantalionis.com

The blog says "4-minute read." That's a lie. Here's every finalist from the past three years of The Bloggies. www.explorersdesign.com/the-bloggies...

Good read. Echoes a lot of what I've felt about the TTRPG space. There is hardly any actual media coverage that goes on, it's almost all just marketing. We still get our news from talking with our neighbors in the digital town square.

Surprise post! Randomisation errors and how to avoid sabotaging your model with bad use of randomisation! idlecartulary.com/2026/01/06/w... #osr

RELEASE: The complete #hexmas map is now available for you to peruse! Download the pdf version to see all the bloggers who contributed to this awesome blogwagon by @prismaticwasteland.com. #blog #ttrpg #bloggers #blogosphere bakenshake09.itch.io/hexmas-map-2...

Decolonising the Dungeon Crawl--- Like everything else re: decolonisation and TTRPGs discourse, this is a solved problem. There's only metric that matters: How many creators from the colonised world are participating in and able to make a living from their games? That's *it*. 1/

New blog post! This one about the role played by (the lack of) games media in the tabletop RPG landscape: personable.blog/media-crowdf...

Liz is angry at terminology, and frankly, I get it.

Inspired by everyone else, I also went and wrote a 2025 retrospective post, with a dash of "hopes and dreams for the year ahead": personable.blog/new-year-2026

If you have a spare $1 a month (budgets are tight so I would not assume anyone does honestly), I have a Patreon where I post early blogposts and early PDFs of my games. Also occasionally some exclusive stuff like this little retrospective.

Submit your best rpg blog posts to the bloggies! Especially if they weren't dungeon-game related, I'd love to see more cross-pollination between scenes this round.

The Bloggies 2026 submissions are now open! Submit your favorite posts, series, and debut blogs via the official Bloggies page between now and Jan 31st! Please share this around. I'll be making regular Bloggies-themed announcements throughout the month. www.explorersdesign.com/bloggies-2026/

Hit me up at Hodagmag at Gmail dot com if you want a copy for just 7 buckaronis! Cheap and Cool!

It’s the last day of Critique Navidad! for my final game, I’ll be looking at OddFolk, a d4 based basic fantasy narrative driven RPG with a twist! idlecartulary.com/2025/12/31/c...

I've been playing Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, and while mostly I agree with the critical consensus I did wanna share something I found a bit silly. https://magnoliakeep.blogspot.com/2025/12/practicing-sustainable-agriculture-in.html?m=1

It’s the penultimate Critique Navidad, and we have a winning micro-module: The Knight Errant! idlecartulary.com/2025/12/30/c...

a dungeon game is pay what you want grimdark dungeon crawling. Dungeon crawling as survival horror with body horror and violence consequences. Exert yourself to succeed, get weaker, get stronger. All rules free online. https://dungeon.loottheroom.uk

Today for Critique Navidad, it’s Hardcase! Are you prepared for solo play in working class cyberpunk space station? It’s Hardcase! idlecartulary.com/2025/12/26/c...

I'm making another art book but with all analog, old-school, pen-and-paper art. Mostly sketches and doodles that took less than 5 minutes to make so expect lots of squiggly, unruly lines and uncontrolled, smudgy chaos. 250-ish pieces, 264 pages, uncountable horns and skulls.

Today, for Critique Navidad, it is the odd and wonderful Field Agent Handbook! What if you turned your entire life into a Hilda-meets-SCP larp? idlecartulary.com/2025/12/24/c...

5 RPG things I want to make (or finish) in 2026: 1. The starter adventure for Mistwalker 2. Ripped Stockings, Leather Jackets, and Bloody Lips (vampire RPG) 3. A full dungeon for His Majesty the Worm 4. Richilieu's Recipe (Mothership trifold heist) 5. Barony (crusader kings solo game)

Today on Critique Navidad, it’s the Cycle! Will you be rehabilitated, or fine out the dark secret of your prison? idlecartulary.com/2025/12/23/c...

Paradise Killer is currently FREE on Epic Games Store as one of their festive free games! 😱 May the Silent Goat walk with you! 💗💜💙 https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/paradise-killer-c3ea1c

www.affinity.studio/blog/fcr Attention older affinity users. That free font collection is now available for you. (You can get it from the welcome screen in v2 apparently)

are you jewish and do you think you can gather 2-5 players for TTRPG playtest that must take place in the next 48 hours? if so, send me a DM!

Move over Bloggies, there's a new blogging award in town

There's no greater feeling as an artist than being cited as source or inspiration. Fuck I love that shit. Makes it all worth it.