This is a well-made online rulebook! Still in development. It reminds me of Butterick's Practical Typography and his book-making process with Pollen (complimentary). Check out the game below. Link to Butterick in the reply. incunabuli.com/rulebook/

My favorite post from last month was a glowing recommendation for the Cairn adventure, Rise of the Blood Olms—a recommendation buried in satire. But I want to set aside the satire for a moment to ask a serious question... 1/4 www.explorersdesign.com/reviewing-bl...

The latest Explorateur is out. Last month was quiet for the design heads. If you're like me and you like to absorb every rpg design idea you can find, Exploratuer is the hyper-specific publication just for you (and a little over a 1000 other subscribers). www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

Wrote a quick review of a Cairn adventure I’ve run a few times now. Give it a look. It’s free. www.explorersdesign.com/reviewing-bl...

@explorersdesign.bsky.social writes a perfect send up of adventure reviewers, myself included. www.explorersdesign.com/reviewing-bl...

As a follow-up to last week's post about writing modules, I wrote another post on writing adventures for Cairn, and how that might be different than other OSR systems. newschoolrevolution.com/writing-modu...

Lot of good posts in this month's issue.

Today on Between Two Cairns, @bradkerr.net, @betterlegends.bsky.social and I are joined by @outridercreative.bsky.social to review Red Gwen's Bandit Hideout by Stonedrunkwizard, answer a mootsack question, and make a ruling. www.patreon.com/posts/155636...

I sat down with the Between Two Cairns crew to yap about games.

Angel Studios and Wonder Project make christian nationalist slop designed to look like movies. We should be critical of actors like Ben Kingsley, Andy Serkis, Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris, and JK Simmons who legitimize their revisionist narratives by starring in them.

Hi, #PortfolioDay! I'm Lone Archivist, a games and graphic designer specializing in branding and visual identity design for the tabletop industry (but open to work with other fields as well). You can see my work in the quoted post or view an in depth Portfolio at: lonearchivist.com

Mausritter and Pico inspiration: Photographer, Charles Brooks, explores the hidden spaces inside instruments, revealing a small world of hidden architecture. www.charlesbrooks.info

I've been re-reading a lot of books on urbanism lately. It's going to be hard not making this profile all about urban design. www.explorersdesign.com/5-urban-desi...

Here's how I like to run a campaign in an established setting: I kill Luke Skywalker. I find a load-bearing character and kill them in the first session. The player characters are the Marty McFly of their universe. The moment they drop in, the timeline changes. Other thoughts on canon by Pris:

For some reason I get this itch when games have me memorizing number values whose sole justification for being that number is meta probability and balance. - OSR games' starting their DC 11, 12 or 13 - PbtA's 2d6 + Stat. Less than/equal/more than - All iterations of "Health starts at 8 + Muscle"

Ape see game. Ape find ape. Ape play.

A decidedly unfunny, non-jokey newsletter for April 1st, it's The Explorateur! This month's issue has a landslide of design links including a call for volunteer judges for The Awards. Oh! And there's a non-rpg link all about book cover art rates 👀 www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

Happy April Fools' Day. Here's something I'm dead serious about. www.explorersdesign.com/cookbooks-le...

It's usually bad execution that triggers the occasional crusade against things like bullet points, typesetting, and line breaks. They're tools. Sometimes you have to put the hammer down, and sometimes you have to hammer in some nails. Though I am tempted to write my grocery list in verse now...

Personally, I think we should go outside and see what the hell is making these shadows.

In addition to being fun playable material, it's also a great little case study for how different systems describe and lay out their locations!

This is a fun post by Patchwork Paladin! It turns lore blocks into a mix-and-match monster generator where you piece together heads, arms, and legs. There's a book like this called The Düngeonmeister Random Monster Generator, but I like this execution more. patchworkpaladin.com/2026/03/19/e...

Looking for a logo for your game/publishing imprint or layout for your next book/zine/board game? Reach out! I want to hear about what you're working on. Contact and Portfolio at: lonearchivist.com

This is a really cool project that adds a kind of “digital walkability” to the community of blogs.

Realis—the moon-hopping TTRPG by @austinwalker.bsky.social—lands on Kickstarter April 2026! Featuring 55 classes, 150+ NPCs, 100+ illustrations, expanded GM & homebrew guidance, and much more, bookmark the campaign today at: www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru... | teaser art: @decassette.bsky.social

Nearly everywhere, editorial design is disappearing. Magazines, newspapers, and publishing houses are shrinking. There are fewer and fewer typesetters every year. And yet, over in Elf Games Land, we have a hundred new people learning and fussing over baseline grids every year.

Seven-Part Pact, my fantastical and ornate TTRPG about the seven most powerful wizards in a fantasy world, is coming this summer to kickstarter!! www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjg...

This is a great bundle for anyone interested in the craft (and even art) of visual design. It features essays, reference books, manuals, and two design influencer portfolios. I haven't read those, but I'm sure they're fun to read. 20 books for $18. 12 days left to get it.

A new link-collecting newsletter has dropped. It's really good. I like that it includes @elmc.at's projects, I'm especially interested in their more robust webring idea. elmc.at/catmail-2/

This month's Blog Carnival topic is right up my alley. I added the event to The Explorateur as well. Give the world your small hero/big world ideas, mechanics, play reports, and more. Think: Mausritter, Pico, Household, and more. The community blogathon ends March 31st.

A short and very busy month on the road means this month's Explorateur is light. I mean, it's still a mace to face with design links, but it's not the usual two-hander. I'm doing this new thing with the intro where I share three design/creative/craft ideas. www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

Billionaires are rogue nukes let loose on society. They would sooner kill everyone and everything than be disarmed. We have more in common with the dead and dying than these monsters desperate to control us.

Excited for Elmcat to take the reins, especially since he has coding know-how I lack. All of my Bloggies ambitions ran up against my lack of computer skills.

Very please Designing Dungeons which I co-wrote with @riseupcomus.bsky.social won best blog series! And was enhanced by being turned into a podcast by @3d6downtheline.com so now it’s in an even more potable form! Link 👇

I WON LET’S GOOOOO!! 🎉

The Bloggies have concluded for 2026! Congratulations to this year's winners. You can find the results (and a whole slew of awesome blog posts) here: www.explorersdesign.com/bloggies-2026/

Please vote Birdmilk for president. I guess you could also vote Birdmilk for best debut blog, but if you have to choose, president.

Today's the last day to vote in this year's Bloggies! Voting closes Friday at 7:00 AM EST. Ballot: forms.gle/oWyc19sKXkod... Want more Bloggies? Elmcat's got a whole archive for you. 👇

What's better than a small game about being mice? A long thread about a small game about being mice, transposed onto a blog.* *It's not actally better but you should read my long read of Mausritter anyway: https://loottheroom.uk/the-long-read-mausritter

A reminder that today is the last day for this. Which also means that today is the last day to vote for the "Books in TTRPGs" series by... (checks note) moi!

Double the Ryans on today's Weekly Scroll livestream. Shoutout to Perils & Princesses! www.twitch.tv/theweeklyscr...

The second half of The Bloggies is happening. Check out this year's nominations for Best Debut Blog, Best Series, and Best Overall Post, then vote on your favorites! forms.gle/VNA674tbsW4m...

If you like these, I have a few books full of them! idlecartulary.itch.io/ludicrous-co...

🚨NATURAL LANGUAGE, RIGID SCHEMA🚨 Seeing @explorersdesign.bsky.social (and others) run with the statblock-without-stats thing is so very gratifying. I'm still really proud of this bit of design! 1/

Few things make me smile like Destiny Howell and Ryan Lynch collaborations. Perils & Princesses is just puffed with charm. I love how it presents its fairy tale themes so simply and earnestly—I mean this adventure has gnomes with little red hats, cmon!

It's been a couple years since Reach of the Roach God was published, and I'm still thinking about how it pulled off stat blocks without stats. It's a load-bearing piece of tech that's criminally underused. www.explorersdesign.com/designing-lo...

OK NOW IS THE TIME, FRIENDOS. Vote for me and my besties but mainly me. I will pay you in good vibes.

The Best Debut Blog category is brutal 💀 What do you mean I have to pick up to three between myself and many of my blogging friends 😱

Voting for the Bloggies’ bonus categories is now open! My AD&D Series is nominated & I would love your support! The competition is crazy! & don’t forget to vote for Best Debut Blog.

It’s up! Vote 1 Critique Navidad!