My reading of B3: Palace of the Silver Princess continues here 👇

I started adding rumors to my monthly scheduling email and highly, highly recommend it compared to sharing rumors at the table. Saves tons of time and gets players thinking about the game between sessions.

Here I will begin reading Dungeon Module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess! I am of course reading the orange version.

I wrote about the four main types of play environment in D&D: settlements, strongholds, dungeons, & monster lairs, the play experience provided by each, & how each exists on a gradient of complexity & agency which allows the scope of the campaign to grow alongside the player characters' abilities.

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...

BEHOLD: 60 festive hexes for your next Christmastime campaign from a variety of your favorite bloggers. Go give them a read and steal the best bits for your games #osr #ttrpg

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...

It’s Bloggies Time! This is a thread of what I’m nominating, so you can, if you choose, read them and nominate them yourself! Firstly, please nominate something of mine that made an impact on you — a series like Critique Navidad or a single post like my Module-Writing Play by Play! Thanks! 1/🧵

Just in time for your Bloggies consideration, I present the Forlorn Encystment AD&D Series, 2026 Collector's Edition! If you enjoyed this series and would like to submit it in the Best Series category, there is now one handy post you can use to do so. Thank you!

Bloggies submissions are open! If you enjoyed any of my writing this year, please don’t hesitate to submit your favorites for nomination! Even just getting into the voting bracket would be a huge accomplishment for me.

Getting in one last post before the end of 2025. It was a very good year. I feel much better about blogging than I did 12 months ago. Presenting the Blog of Forlorn Encystment's year-in-review:

My blog post about toyetic dungeon rooms in B1: In Search of the Unknown made it into this month’s Glatisant! Go check it out if you haven’t already.

For my contribution to the Merry Hexmas blog bandwagon, I made a mini sandbox: the Jinglebell Barrens, a land which lives in the shadow of a lost city which forgot the meaning of Hexmas. Will the adventurers restore warmth & cheer to its streets, or simply plunder everything not nailed down? #osr

Best Series was undoubtedly the closest contest this year, but "Stocking a Sandbox" by @forlornencystment.bsky.social clinched a victory from the jaws of second place! I highly recommend making your own silly little sandbox using these procedures. forlornencystment.blogspot.com/2025/02/stoc...

New Dungeon (in blog form): Castle Claus, or The Keep on the North Pole A Rankin Bass Christmas-themed dungeon for the Merry Hexmas Blog Bandwagon. Possibly one of my more high effort blog posts to date #osr #ttrpg

I am once against digging into AD&D. The question: Who can build a stronghold? Different classes can build different strongholds at different levels, but demihuman characters are limited to certain levels as certain classes. Who can attain a high enough level to build a stronghold in this world?

I love these posts about turning the area surrounding Middle Earth's Shire into a hexcrawl!

Finished my read of B1: The Keep on the Borderlands today. Peep the whole thread from the beginning here 👇

Since B1: In Search of the Unknown provides little context for the area where the dungeon adventure takes place, I created a sandbox in which to locate Quasqueton. I talk about my thought process & provide descriptions of several new locations to place in the area surrounding the dungeon.

Today's Keep on the Borderlands thread 👇

Continuing with the Keep on the Borderlands 👇

Continuing my reading of B2: The Keep on the Borderlands here 👇

Like pokemons, all D&D monsters should speak by saying their own name with different inflection.

I like this description of the Realm of mankind as "narrow and constricted" with the forces of Chaos always pressing upon its borders. I don't love the assumption that the player characters are heroic Lawful types out to do good, but eh.

Here we go! I'm starting a readthrough of Dungeon Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands! Is it a better introductory adventure than B1? Let's find out!

I wrote about B1's role as a teaching module & how that affects its room descriptions, which are filled with stuff to look at, poke, & question. As a result, almost every room is a playground for the DM's imagination when placing monsters & treasure. Write your rooms like this! #TTRPG #D&D #BX #OSR

I come to you like Paul Revere on the back of a liger. The Bloggies are coming! Like, share, and subscribe. www.explorersdesign.com/the-bloggies...

The Explorateur #14 is out now! The only newsletter designed to level-up your design skills (how's that for sales copy?). Please like, share, and subscribe. If you have any links you particularly like, drop a comment on Explorers Design or here. www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

Every RPG blogger is allowed one “What is the OSR?” post. Here’s mine:

d100 - Brainfood for Burgeoning Blogs One Hundred Tentative Topics to Post About blog.d4caltrops.com/2025/11/d100... #osr #randomtables #ttrpgs

Here’s my recap of PAX Unplugged 2025 weirdwonder.net/pax-unplugge...

I went to PAX Unplugged 2025, played in/ran a lot of OSR game sessions, and had a lot of fun chatting with other bloggers, designers, and other very cool people within our little hobby. widdershinswanderings.bearblog.dev/pax-unplugge...

I wrote about B1 & how Quasqueton gives us a look into the psyche of Rogahn & Zelligar (& maybe retired adventurers in D&D more broadly). #D&D #OSR #B/X

I really powered through the rest of B1: In Search of the Unknown! Read the final part of my play by play below. 👇

So how did law and order work in Medieval England? And can we bring that into D&D? I decided to take a look and found the first thing is that almost no one would tolerate 75% PC foolishness: icastlight.blogspot.com/2025/11/law-...

Continuing my readthrough of B1: In Search of the Unknown over here 👇

Here to help with a Hundred to get you started: blog.d4caltrops.com/2023/12/d100...

So true! A severed wizard’s head sits in a corner, if you grab it: 1. Screams as you pick it up, roll an encounter 2. Babbles incoherently, loyalty check hirelings 3. Attempts to cast charm person on you 4. Listen for a turn, maybe some info 5. Will teach 1 🪄 (1st) 6. Will cast 2 2nd lvl 🪄

Oh btw I’ll be at PAXU Friday Saturday & Sunday. If you see a guy with gout talking about AD&D or B1 that guy is me.

We loved this room so much back in the day! It was a massive time waster as you mention, but Curious Players are always going to want to open every last one to see what's inside. A few ended up being used as Tools later in the Dungeon sometimes to solve problems, so not a *total waste* My Tribute:

I'm continuing my readthrough of B1 here! Finally getting into the meat of the dungeon & figuring out what's all in there.

I'm starting a little readthrough of Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown! Not a terribly original idea, but I'm interested in finally digging into some of these classic TSR modules to see for myself what they have to offer. I'd really like to pick one of these up to run in a low-effort game.

something i’ve always found somewhat whimsical about od&d is that due to how the encounter tables are set up, there is basically always a minimum 12.5% chance you run into a werewolf (well, lycanthropes generally).

Okay, this is a rad article. Last time I ran a campaign, I presented the main city as a big, nasty, Lankhmar-type place, but (mostly) ended up playing it as pretty safe and reasonable. This gives me some stuff to think about.

This is a very thoughtful analysis of towns in AD&D, but applicable to just about any rpg.

I decided it would be beneficial to collect my findings over the past few months with regard to AD&D towns & cities into one "master" post. I came up with a list of four themes that characterize these environments which the DM might keep in mind when running adventures there:

I dug through AD&D to find out: where are all the high-level NPCs? I talk about why it's an important question to ask & do some number crunching using an average AD&D city & some demographic figures I made up. It's better than nothing!

New Carouse, Carouse! This time featuring, among other things, me writing about Over/Under, AI in games (not like that) from Patchwork Paladin, a review of Gorman's Larder by @giantrobottackler.bsky.social and a selection of blog posts, as always! www.carouse.blog/november-202...

I enjoy Halloween! I blog about it somewhat frequently so have eight (8) blogposts that are appropriately spooky for you to enjoy on this Hallows Eve. I shall collect them here for you #osr 1/8: Do the Monster Mashup! Combining different classic monsters to make new, weirder monsters

An unsophisticated collection of Special Rooms for your #osr #dungeons. foreignplanets.blogspot.com/2025/10/thin...