Not controversial, just wrong. Players in my experience mostly don't give a shit about xp and will do the thing they were going to do whether they are going to earn XP for it or not.

seeing a spike in Lowlife sales on itch. anybody know why?

While we wait for The Bloggies in February. Let's check out The Gloggies. If you don't know the "Goblin Laws of Gaming" it's kind of like an rpg design sub culture. They make a lot of content for rules-lite fantasy roleplaying. Most of it is explicitly gameable. We might even see Bloggies overlap.

join us 2/19 for our first ever lecture series event, featuring @ellaguro.bsky.social: "What Doth Videogame? A personal history of art and life in the age of collapse." following the talk will be a listening party for liz's new album, Saint Elizabeth! rsvp here: www.eventbrite.com/e/boshis-lec...

Jarrett Crader is absolutely one of the unsung heroes of the indie TTRPG space. That's the post.

one of my long-running campaigns finally died. as an intermezzo before the next one, we've decided to to play a few sessions of Triangle Agency set in 1974

relatedly, here are some of my favorite book club posters I made this past year:

NYC TTRPG Book Club returns! a week from today at @boshis.place, we're reading John Harper's legendary BLADES IN THE DARK! it's our first meeting in the new year—come discuss with us!

a year ago I posted this on the bird app. I think it's... mostly held? maybe? at least in my immediate circles? most of my work this year, at least, fell in the "In" list

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/

2025 Table Thread! 🧵 Just like last year, I am going through some of this year’s Tables I’ve shared and giving them another once over. I’ll include a few of the “Easter Eggs” that jump out at me as I read through them again (but I won’t spoil them all!) Over 40 this year!

hello gamers, I'm here with my final blogpost of the year. this one's just a big list of every new word I learned this year, with short definitions for each. peruse at your leisure: samsorensen.blot.im/new-words-fr...

good thread good thread good thread

go ahead. post another "discourse". tell me incentives are fascistic in nature. say that blorbo is downstream from the forge. accuse an indie designer of stealing spark tables. come up with a woke way to fuck a dragon.

My $0.02 on the discourse du jour: this dichotomy is fine; I'm on team toy. Toy gang rise up. Where my toy-heads at, who wants to get open-ended & multivalent with me

Lotta ttrpg nerds arguing about incense or whatever but I’ve smelled PAX U and it isn’t going to help.

talk to me about discourse in tabletop RPGs and it won't go well. it'll get ugly. we'll have to step outside. when the dust settles, one us is gonna end up in the incentive care unit

Clearly I hold a minority view on incentives and whatever, but I’ll leave it at this: I like that in RPGs your experiences *can’t* be replicated by virtue of you and your group being unique, I love that. I question the need to finesse players into replication.

it's finally FINALLY time: INFINITE REVOLUTION, my star-powered, zodiac-inspired exosuit dogfighter RPG, is finished, crowdfunded, and publicly released!! Spin up your Revolver Drive, defend the stars, fall in love, burn up, and remember—THE ONLY THING BRIGHTER THAN YOU IS MORE OF YOU🌠 Link ⬇️

I CAN MINE TOKENS AGAIN, FUCK YEAH #OVER/UNDER

is anybody doin like mediterranean hobbits. like corsican harfoots or levantine fallohides or something. hobbits vibing on pipeweed in the numenoroman ruins. olive presses and flatbread and oily little fishes. stomping on grapes with their hairy ass feet. is anyone doing this. is this anything

Met my girlfriend's family today and found out her brother plays D&D3.5. Immediately asked if he'd seen the module that stats out Saddam Hussein.

what's up gamers, I'm back with another blogpost about editing. this one's about development editing rather than line and copy editing, though, so the tips are all a little more vague and philosophical. hope you enjoy anyways: samsorensen.blot.im/ten-intangib...

one of my few good pieces of advice for Being An Artist is to sign and date everything. if you're working on it for longer than one day, give it a month, season or year. even if you never release, just chuck your name and the date on there, it'll feel more real

ten RPG adventures I want to play in 2026: - potter's bay - aberrant reflections - the shrike - brackish - the dream shrine - crush depth apparition - von hynd manor - sag river extreme cold research facility, alaska. - masks of nyarlathotep - [unannounced secret project]

sometimes we just wanna climb up things to see if we can do it, maybe to get a nice view, or to learn a new hiding spot. it's frustrating if every nook has "rewards" in discone, most paths are uncharted, and you will climb and parkour them with your friends #gamedev #indiegame #screenshotsaturday

Now that the 1.0 version is out and the start date is set, it's finally time to post about VANGUARD, my adaptation of Sam Sorenson's CATAPHRACT. lairoftheduskwitch.bearblog.dev/vanguard/

I try not to back crowdfunding campaigns anymore these days, but old debts must be repaid

hello gamers I'm back with another blogpost. this one's about me trying to suss out how different tables play, and the three basic questions I use to draw those differences: samsorensen.blot.im/sams-three-q...

hello gamers I'm back with another blogpost. this one's about me trying to suss out how different tables play, and the three basic questions I use to draw those differences: samsorensen.blot.im/sams-three-q...

Hey everyone! I've been working on a game currently titled Solar, occasionally Solarphracts. It's a hard sci fi play by post wargame, "pbp Eve Online", with a ton of inspiration from @samsorensen.bsky.social's #Over/Under and Cataphracts games.

if you think about it, a megadungeon is the ultimate walkable city

looking at rpg books and feeling like giles corey asking for more weight

I'm not gonna comment on the layout comment because well you know what fair I heavily prioritized the PDF as a physical object than I did other things so it didn't come out searchable idlecartulary.com/2025/12/15/c...

new blogpost! this one is an attempt to write some Lore (with a capital 'L') that employs hypodiegetic rules (rules that exist inside the imaginary world of the game) to be more than just a laundry list of events. maybe it works, maybe it doesn't! samsorensen.blot.im/saint-hunegu...

if your hobby can be colonized and gatekept by people who unironically listen to the wicked soundtrack brother thats a you problem

completely missed this before, but it's rad as hell

In a very special Bonus Episode of Between Two Cairns, @bradkerr.net and I interview @samsorensen.bsky.social about Over/Under, a massive wargame/LARP held during Mothership Month. This episode is only available to Patrons but will see a wider release in the future. www.patreon.com/posts/story-...

I'm not saying Sam's aiming for the Bloggies, I'm just saying he's like that guy from the olympics who competed without any gear because he didn't need it.

what's up gamers, I'm back with ten more tangible tips for editing your tabletop RPG manuscript: samsorensen.blot.im/ten-more-tan...

Boshi’s, NYC nonprofit games space, is hosting an end of year fundraiser!! Your generous support is greatly appreciated. For more about how, what, when, where, and why, see the link in our bio. We love you! #game #nyc #donate #videogames #boardgames #giveback

Just imagine if the fiction world rated their books based mostly on the cover and paper quality like we do with rpgs.

The 2025 Indie Groundbreaker Awards are nearly here and we need Judges! Do you know tabletop games? TTRPGs? Card games? Resource collection? We need your expertise. Join us on a panel of Judges to declare 2025’s best indie tabletop games. forms.gle/2NpVyf4riA8v...

Out now: WHALE ROADS The chronicle of a year-long, 30+ player West Marches campaign of Wolves Upon the Coast by @lukegearing.bsky.social A 250-page "zine" filled with play summaries, original art, and Referee commentary. Available now, and it's 100% completely free. sulcata.itch.io/whale-roads

It's only PBTA if it has sex moves, otherwise it's just sparkling FITD

🌄A LAND ONCE MAGIC IS OFFICIALLY OUT TODAY!✨ Order one of these beautiful physical books and/or a hand-stamped bag + notebook! The PDF is also out on my itch page! vidityavoleti.itch.io/a-land-once-... Make infinite worlds, never stop telling stories, create art with others!

Who knows what games await the tabletops of the world? Well, @ckunzelman.bsky.social kinda does, after attending PAX Unplugged in November. www.avclub.com/pax-unplugge...

i want harder games with longer death runs made by people who respect my need to put the game down and i'm not kidding.

unemployed oooonce again so i am going to be rlly double tripling down on rpg output i think. if you would like to hire me for cool stuff you know where to find me and i'll be trying to put out more solo projects as well. be well everyone

A big PAX Unplugged interview episode featuring: @soengery.bsky.social @gregisonthego.bsky.social @samsorensen.bsky.social Hothead Collective CJ @rowanzeoli.bsky.social Hive Scum Gage Talking politics, secret bathrooms, lifestyle magazines, OVER/UNDER, and more! www.patreon.com/posts/144946...