July, 2025 - July, July!

We're halfway through the year now, and what have we got to show for it, a handful of RPG newsletters published? A long list of cool blog posts read (perhaps we should be taking notes, so we don't forget come Bloggie nomination season), and hopefully some exciting games played? Whether you're languishing in the northern hemisphere heatwave, or trying to stay warm down under, we're providing you with a refreshing pile of RPG content to read! In addition to a veritable cornucopia of blog posts, this month we bring you reviews of Dreadfarer and The Mountain, opinions of Posting and Prep, and a really sad javelin.

Roll to Carouse!

1. Lighten your coin purse at the Projects Pavilion.
2. Pilfer ideas from the Blog Bazaar.
3. Sample the delights of the Gameable Gallery.
4. Hear the raving of Reviewers Row.
5. Stroll the Columnists Colonnade.
6. Languish in the Opinion Oubliette.

Projects Pavilion ⤴

• A Second Summer LEGO RPG Jam! by DIY & Dragons
  The latest LEGO RPG Jam is already underway and runs through the end of August. That may sound like plenty of time, but it'll be over before you know it—so grab your bricks and get jamming! - elmcat
• Designing Dungeons Course by Josh McCrowell & Warren D.
  This landmark series guides the reader through the process of designing a dungeon—and in case you missed it, the final installment was released in June! - Rowan H
• Palestinian Children's Relief Bundle by Molgannard Press
  Scott of Molgannard press is organizing an itch bundle benefiting the Palestine Chrildren's Relief Fund. Get in touch with Scott if you wish to contribute games or other content. - Markus M

Blog Bazaar ⤴

• 10 Budget-Friendly Typeface Resources for RPG Designers by Explorers Design
  Do you spend a fortune on RPG books? Consider diverting some of that cash to quality fonts instead. Clayton highlights several budget-friendly font sources—making it ever harder to justify sticking with Google's Montserrat, Fraunces, or Poppins. - elmcat
• Advice & Inspiration for Gaming Andor by Hobby Games Recce
  This incredibly thorough review of what it would take to start a Star Wars Andor campaign is system neutral and notable for the way that its presentation serves as a template really for flushing out a campaign idea. - Patchwork Paladin
• Debt in Mangayaw by Goobernuts
  I love using debt as a narrative driver in games, and Mangayaw takes it a step further: there's no money at all—only favors, each pegged to a specific amount of labor. That framework naturally builds community, because everyone owes someone for something, weaving a web of obligations that shapes every decision. What does that mean for play? Absolutely fascinating! - elmcat
• Deep Space & Derelicts: Basic/Xenotech version, an idea for a game by Cavegirl's Game Stuff
  Every once in a blue moon, Cavegirl's blog resurfaces with another banger—this time, a dead-simple hack that transforms classic B/X D&D into a sci-fi game. My personal highlight: the Elf class reboots as an AI-powered android. - elmcat
• Don't write Lore, write tables by David Blandy
  David Blandy advocates letting players engage with—and work for—the lore you deliver them. Includes a short walkthrough of designing an encounter table. - Zak H.
• Dungeon Room Appendix: Monsters, and Encounters by Dungeon Scrawler
  The Dungeon Room Index remains one of my favorite series this year. This post dives into dungeon monsters—what they're good for, why they're there, how to use them, and even how they fit into the dungeon's ecology. - elmcat
• duopost: gift economy / tablefill resolution by 400 independent bathrooms
  I'm a sucker for gift economies that actually matter in play, and this post offers a clever, streamlined concept to try out! - elmcat
• Escalation dictionary by MURKDICE
  I love love love love LOVE seeing where OSR and Storygames align, and this post by Murkdice makes an apt and gameable observation, specifically about increasing tension. The attached chart from their own work is an amazing add to any DM binder. - Farmer Gadda
• EVERY Initiative Method, Addendum by A Knight in the Opera
  Ever wonder whether your initiative-system idea is truly original—or whether the Street Fighter RPG already nailed it years ago? Dwiz's freshly updated, fully reworked list catalogs every initiative method ever conceived. - elmcat
• Daylight Initiative by Benign Brown Beast
  Speaking of initiative, here's a clever twist on the classic—yet underused—side-based random method that literally lets you look outside once in a while. - elmcat
• Facilitating Fiendish Fights by Press The Beast
  Wow—this is a truly in-depth guide to running combat in old-school dungeon crawlers. It tackles tactics, terrain, monster types and reactions, reinforcements, split battles, practical running tips, and much more. Absolutely worth your time—check it out! - elmcat
• Incentivizing Death by Fallen Constellation
  Don't let the title fool your inner Luke Gearing—this piece explores a fascinating twist: what if the Mythic Underworld not only grows stranger the deeper you delve, but also gradually transforms you into one of its uncanny residents each time you succumb to its dangers? It's a very fun concept. - elmcat
• Let's Make a Forest by New School Revolutions
  Yochai offers a thorough commentary on his design process using the Cairn 2e Warden's Guide. It's fascinating to see how he interprets random prompts to create an adventure. As an aspiring adventure designer, this is exactly the sort of post I love to see. - Rowan H
• Level Up Your TTRPG Room Descriptions: My 4-Step Design Process for Better Prep by Domain of Many Things
  You can never have too much guidance on describing and designing TTRPG spaces. JimmiWazEre offers four straightforward tips—familiar to veterans, perhaps, but still invaluable—for crafting dungeon rooms that are interesting, fun, and easy to run. - elmcat
• Magic item identification, the fun way by Puzzle Dungeon
  Should you reveal a magic item's powers or leave them shrouded in mystery—at the risk players will ignore it? Directsun tackles the latter approach, sharing practical tips to make unidentified items interactive, memorable, and fun while jump-starting your own creativity. - elmcat
• Tallying Damage by Patchwork Paladin
  Math sucks—especially in the middle of an intense combat session. Luckily, our own Patchwork Paladin has a slick trick: just tally the damage your crazy, overpowered PCs dish out. The method scales effortlessly, even against the most ridiculous HP-sponge monster you can dream up. - elmcat
• The Dice Bank by This Vorpal Coil
  I recently played Citizen Sleeper and was captivated by its resolution system. This post digs into the mechanics—I'm amazed no one has adapted it yet—showing how they give players extra agency while staying simple enough to bolt onto almost any game. I can't wait to try it at my own table! - elmcat
• The Great List of OD&D Games by The Fantastic is Fact
  I always figured B/X had more clones than anyone could count, so its little sibling OD&D would be just as untrackable. Turns out I was wrong—you really can compile a comprehensive list of every OD&D clone, reskin, and derivative. - elmcat
• What it takes to get a drink around here by Town Scrier
  Be the alewife you always wanted to be with fascinating generator. The granularity of this post really evokes the feeling of a late medieval settlement. - Zak H.
• Wolf Eats Wizard: A Review of Wolves Upon the Coast by Grinning Rat
  Grinning Rat isn't the first—and won't be the last—to review Luke Gearing's beloved Wolves Upon the Coast, however, it digs a little deeper than the usual praise for the game's innovative Boasting mechanics. - elmcat

Gameable Gallery ⤴

Blood Letter, Javelin

by Zak H.

The witch Aster fell in love with a hunter. He stayed with her a while.

When he left, she sent him letters. The paper she made from willow and apple, so it would always find his heart. She wrote in ink of lily ash, in which it is impossible to lie. She folded the letter into the shape of a hawk, and in forest, slope or glen, it would find him. It was a lot.

When she found he had been unfaithful, she wrote a final letter, of her heartache, and of her dreams for the days which were to come. She signed it, With Love, Aster, and she folded it into an arrow. The hunter's last lesson: do not spurn a witch. A new letter affixed to the arrow recharges its magic, so long as it is signed With Love, from one who did. So many missives have been delivered that the arrow is now a javelin, composed of jilted hope and tear-stained paper.

Damage: As Short Spear / Javelin
Activation: A letter signed With Love, from someone who does--or did--love the target must be folded in to the javelin's existing papers.
Effect: Automatic critical hit against target named in the letter.

Reviewers Row ⤴

Sprinting Owl Reviews: Dreadfarer

by Sprinting Owl

It is a nebulous time in the 1800s. For reasons of poverty, arrogance, hope, or cynicism, you have voyaged to a newly discovered Pacific archipelago in order to fill a small journal with pictures and stories of its contents.

Should you die in the process, your journal and your mission will pass to whoever discovers your corpse.

This is the premise of Dreadfarer, a solo (and limited multiplayer) journaling TTRPG recently published by NeonRot and Eduardo Valdés-Hevia.

Check out the complete review here.

Unholy Roller: A review of The Mountain

by Taylor B.

Background

Your people endlessly climb the Mountain. How has civilization been shaped by your eternal struggle? Why do you persist? Does the mountain have a top?

The Mountain (words by Sotiris Pitelis, art direction by Niki Lampada) is a free, system-agnostic setting written for the Tiny World TTRPG Jam, presenting itself as a space of "sisyphean climbing, liminal civilization, and false hope." I wasn't familiar with Sotiris' work before this, but frankly you can throw "liminal" in front of any old noun and I'll come floating down the road like a cartoon character smelling a beautiful pie. My first thought was a reminder of an abandoned indie-game-that-couldn't, Against the Wall, but in the TTRPG scene there's also Leo Hunt's delicious megastructure outlined in Vaults of Vaarn 4. I'm always drawn to works that show life and culture in massive, hostile spaces. Maybe I was a corpse fly in another life. Will The Mountain match my freak? Let's find out.

What's it about?

Across eight pages, The Mountain paints the broad strokes of a group of ragged nomads climbing an endless, strange mountain.

The zine covers:
- why you climb
- your culture
- the mountain's locals, unnerving because they settle down instead of climbing
- melancholy wildlife
- apocalyptic weather
- random events

A few random tables help flesh these topics out, and each page has some open questions that invite the reader to provide finer details.

It should be said: the whole package is clean. The prose is sharp, sinister, and gets a lot of space to breathe thanks to Niki's stark art direction. The overall feeling is barren - even emotionally distant? - but a few hints of despair fight their way to the surface, presented like the text is showing itself to you against its better judgement. Not bad for eight pages!

What do I think?

How eerie! The atmosphere here just feels so oppressive. I like the open questions. You can always catch me thumbs-upping vigorously at any work that invites readers into dialogue with itself. My favorite section covers the Mountain Folk - the way they're described as sharing your shape and language but still feel alien and other because they don't climb is almost sickening. IMO where the text succeeds the most is in portraying a face of weary resignation with other, harsher feelings bottled underneath: resentment, desperation, a horrible, gut-wrenching seed of hope.

But is it playable? Hmmm. Technically, yeah, but I dunno. The broad strokes are maybe a little too broad for me. I'm hungry for more, but I say that as a reader, not a GM. The Mountain overflows with feeling but leaves the burden of specifics (the hardest part!) to you. I'm not here to should all over this - it's an accomplishment within the confines of the jam - but, as a system-agnostic piece, what system wants this? My first thought went to Trophy Gold, which has some overlap in emotion, but that would require so much prep you might as well be writing your own shit whole cloth. Also, frankly, I don't think The Mountain wants any system where violence (or even player death) is a real option. It just wants you to keep moving.

Tbh, and maybe I'm crazy, but I kind of like Wanderhome (or, more broadly, any GM-less low-prep game) for this. Collaboration and building up the specifics of a location together are built into the game, so it doesn't ask too much from you other than just to show up and engage. I can see pulling this up for a one-off session with a darker tone, or, if I were feeling like a TRUE sicko, using it as the setting of a series of sessions where we create different spots on the Mountain together each time we play.

Here's the kicker: all opinions above are assuming you're using The Mountain for group play. Where I think it would really shine is actually in solo play! While reading, my mind kept going to a journaling RPG called Colostle, which deals with a similar sense of scale but has a much more optimistic tone. The open questions leave a lot of space for a solo player to make the world their own, and the infinite nature of the setting makes for a great (if emotionally draining) daily writing exercise. You don't even really have to add anything to use the game this way - just roll on the Events page once a day and write about it. Honestly, if The Mountain swapped out "system agnostic" with "journaling RPG" in its ad copy, it'd instantly feel more like a complete package.

Flavor Packet: 1d6 Mountainous Creatures

This is part of my ongoing initiative to show how, in our shared hobby, reading a work goes hand in hand with being inspired by it. The wildlife section is one of the less fleshed-out parts of the zine, so I thought I'd write my own take on what they might look like. My goal was to capture the overall thrust of The Mountain (endurance, eternal climb, distant hope) with a little of my own bullshit added on top.

1. Pilgrim Pedes: Bison-sized centipedes on a hundred wheel-shaped feet. Complex silk threads wind through them, rotating the wheels even while the creatures sleep. In this way they climb eternal. Often bump into careless travelers.
2. Adversaries: The name is an old joke that's lost all meaning. These snails coat themselves in a sticky secretion that picks up grime for camoflauge and protection. Knock one down the mountain and it falls forever, picking up debris, growing in size the whole way. Some have reported Adversaries the size of skyscrapers in the far mist, parting the clouds above. How far have they fallen?
3. Us?: We don't climb at night. Here's why: footprints join our midst, cutting into the earth from unseen legs. They look just like ours. We cannot feel their makers. Some say they're our ghosts, forced to climb even after death. Others say they're our own tracks, forcing themselves into view from the fog of memory. Have we already been here?
4. Grave Eaters: Holes in the mountainside ringed with wispy feeler hairs. Moist flesh lines these gullets, descending into darkness. No object or person thrown in has hit bottom. Used for disposal, mostly. We try not to ask: is the fall better than the climb?
5. Passengers: Not an omen. We hope. Passengers are patient carrion-eaters, red as sin and light as dust. They attach themselves to us with painless burrs and then just... wait. When we fall, they start the slow work of erasing our empty flesh. They don't hurt and weigh nothing, so we stopped trying to remove them ages ago. Our oldest are almost completely covered.
6. Unspeakables: Cursed owls, taunting us from overhead. They come from the skies further up the slope. Only rarely do they flit down to our level. We kill them on sight. Why? Their awful coats always carry flakes of cold, fresh, snow - something we have never seen on the Mountain itself.

Final Thoughts

I rate The Mountain any numbers of steps divided by zero. It's tight. Give it a download here!

Columnists Colonnade ⤴

Kindred Tables in Dolmenwood

by Rowan H

I'm about two dozen sessions into a Dolmenwood campaign as a player, and today I'd like to highlight one of my favorite pieces of the Player's Guide: the Kindred tables.

Many of the Kindred tables inform surface-level characterizations: a Mossling might have a "mouth foaming with yeast," an elf might have "gold hair at day, grey at night," and a Grimalkin might have a face that "constantly looks surprised." These are all quite fun, and it's no coincidence that the characters in my group's Dolmenwood campaign feel more distinct and fully-realized than those from many of the other campaigns I've participated in.

It's the desires and beliefs tables, however, that I find most compelling.

In Having an Opinion: How to Play OSR Games, Mr. Mann writes: "You are a causal force, not something to be acted upon by the intricate narrative web the Referee has crafted," and "An OSR referee is giving you the reins; it's up to you to steer!" It's solid player-facing advice and succinctly communicates one of the distinctions between OSR play culture and trad/neo-trad.

The wonderful thing about Dolmenwood's desire and belief tables is that the set the character up to have opinions. A Mossling might desire to "sample all known ales" and believe that "bathing is inimical to health." A Grimalkin might desire to "build a sky ship to the moon" and believe that "the Nag-Lord adores cats." A Woodgrue might desire to "burn down a castle" and believe that the "the penal system must be a joke."

These tables do a lot of work to assimilate the player characters into Dolmenwood. Although I haven't opened the Campaign Book, they seem to tie into the setting's themes and landmarks. They signal to the players what sort of opinions their characters might hold, what ambitions they might have, and how their chosen Kindred fits into Dolmenwood at large.

In my group's campaign, these desires and beliefs have not only informed how each of us portrays our characters, they also consistently drive the action. Our group's friar hopes to become the first Mossling saint and wishes to restore the lost shrine of herfavorite saint—and that's where our party finds themselves now.

These small tables provide a lot of value, and I'd like to see more of this sort of thing in games with bespoke settings. They do so much to bridge the gap between the players' narrative baselines and that of the setting.

Dear Diem

Relationship Advice for People who Roll Dice
by Carp A. Diem

Greetings again, dear readers! Summer has graced us once again with bright, cloudless skies, and I, for one, am making the most of it as best I know how; reading letters from the audience! Another batch of creative folk have written to ask for advice, so let's dive right in!

Dear Diem,
One of my players constantly tries to meta game, but his assumptions are always incorrect. Currently he believes the town mayor to be Three Kobolds in a trench coat and is tries to cast Hold Person on their legs. How do I correct this behavior without giving away that they're really a pair of Halo Grunts in a Great Coat?

Twins trying to Lead.

Dear Trying,
Meta gaming is one of the most sinister sins a player can commit. Meta gaming -wrong- is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. You've come to me with a problem, dear reader, but all I see is an opportunity. Stay the course for the remainder of this adventure. Keep track of every suggestion or assumption your player makes, and note them down. Then, add those notes to the next adventure you run; and make them objectively true. There is no benefit to you doing this, other than my personal amusement. It will be difficult, but I believe in your ability to stomach the nonsense for a bit longer.

Trying less - Diem

Dear Diem,
Someone at our table is having a baby! In this economy! How do we best include our new adventuring party member once they join us? We want to make sure they feel welcome.

Forging a Family

Dear Forging,
A new player is joining the party?! Oh, how wonderful! What an exciting time for your table-mates, introducing a new life to the world! Parenthood is truly the greatest adventure of them all. Don't worry, dear reader, I have just the thing for such an occasion - though it's best as a surprise! Should any parents to-be happen to be reading, please skip ahead lest you be spoiled!

... Ok, are they gone?

Listen, reader. I have to be blunt. It's hard enough with responsibilities like dayjobs and marriage and car troubles to organize a game sesh, but throw a baby in the mix? Ugh. Your buddy is on their way out, whether they know it or not. I know, I know... It's okay to cry. It's sad, but this is the natural way of things. What matters now is that you keep a brave face and give your pal the best adventures possible while it lasts. You've got, what, 6 months at best before they fade away like dust on the wind? That's probably enough time to finish that last dungeon and send them off into the setting sun. Remember to let yourself grieve in this difficult time.

Thoughts and Prayers - Diem

As always, dear readers, remember that all relationships require mutual respect and communication. Until we meet again, Carpe Diem!

Letter Submissions may be sent care of carousingcollective [at] proton [dot] me, titled "Dear Diem." Letters may be edited for space and anonymity.

Opinion Oubliette ⤴

The Gated TTRPG Community

by Markus M.

In many ways, tabletop role-playing games is one of the most accessible hobbies out there – at its most basic, you just need some friends, some dice, and some pens and paper. In fact with some games, you can do without the friends, or the dice, or even the pen and paper!

Anyone can do freeform roleplay – and if you want the guidance of a system, there is no shortage of good free systems, and even more if you’re happy to pay a little bit of money. Cairn is freely accessible online in its entirety, and with a little bit of creative input from the player/GM side, could provide all of the RPG game you would need… forever?

Similarly, if you want to create your own games, there are really nothing stopping you. You can just make up a game in your head, and it exists. If you want to share it, you can type it on some paper and photocopy it, or you can write it in a Google doc (or your preferred free writing software) and upload it on itch.io for anyone to download. If you have done this? Congrats! You’re a designer! (regardless of any arbitrary criteria anyone would set)

However, this just puts you in the pile of disconnected people who design games, you are not suddenly part of the community. This is a much less accessible space. Yes, there are many community spaces that would welcome you, and be happy to have you, but the RPG community is built on a layer of dead social networks. If you weren’t there, you are missing the context for so much, because people will not necessarily tell you. Old feuds from The Forge, Google+, Twitter, and Discords lurk in the wings, and in a space with its fair share of bad actors, it can be hard to tell if someone is one of them, or there is just personal bad blood.

People don’t like to speak openly of this, often, they will not even link to posts that they have a problem with, just posting their vague complaints, leaving it as an exercise to the reader to backtrack all the people vaguely complaining until the offending bad take is found.

People love to complain about the discourse, but this is taking part in the discourse. Maybe the discourse is indeed cyclical, returning to the same topics again and again, but perhaps it is because discussion on these topics is not readily available to newcomers in the scene.

Perhaps everything would be better in the long run if we weren’t afraid to stand up and name names and call it as we see it. Perhaps it would be carnage in the short term, with a million micro-feuds popping up, but I imagine we all ought to grow some thicker skin. We should be able to be in community with people we just don’t like and stand firm keep out the nazis and abusers. Whisper networks only help those in the network. Discourse is a lot more useful if we’re not afraid to name what we’re actually talking about instead of posting against some vague description of a bad take.

I think there are two separate problems here, which can amplify each other: nazis and abusers in the hobby, and how we talk about things.

To me, the unwillingness to publicly engage with calling out one part feels related to the unwillingness to just call out bad takes. I want people to be less reluctant to call out everything, rather than being vague about it: both harmless badfeel discourse and genuine problems, because otherwise it's hard to tell whether something is a genuine problem or just badfeel discourse.

I guess this is a kind of companion piece to my Hater Manifesto. Say what you think (non-libelous) and damn the consequences. Open the gates to the social dungeon that lurks beneath the community for us all to crawl. Only that way will we exorcise the monsters that lurk there.

So the next time you have the urge to vaguely complain about some post or unnamed person, step back and take a deep breath, then either choose peace and don’t post (the coward’s way), or cite your sources, name that person, link to that post. Help us all figure out what’s going on without having to do our own investigation.

Dinkie's Droppings 3

We are all familiar with David “Dinkie” Rizzle. One of the forgotten luminaries of the early TSR days. His own work on Dungeons and Dragons was discarded after he allegedly crashed his Volkswagen Beetle through the front door of the Hotel Clair office, and he faded into obscurity. However, I was able to convince him to join Carouse, Carouse!, and tell us stories about the olden days and offer advice to modern gamers.

Much is made about the art of “Preparation,” and it is not hard to see why. A neophyte Game Master is left with many questions about what to prepare, how to prepare it, and so on. It is determining what information is important, and determining that is a complicated personal process. It depends, after all, on the game, the players, what materials they have available, and the temperament and character of the Game Master. However, as a veteran of tabletop wargames and roleplaying games in many systems, (Dungeons and Dragons, Holmes Basic, Moldvay Basic, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and once even venturing into material as obscure as Pathfinder) and I can bequeath upon you all my greatest piece of advice for preparing a session:

• One should prepare material before running the adventure, not after.

For the longest time I failed to grasp this concept, preparing the locales and inhabitants of the Underworld after my heroes had already begun plumbing their depths. Why I had done this I could not say, but it began to be noticed by my players that I was flying by the seat of my pants at the time of the actual session, only to spend much time and labor figuring out what had happened after the fact. I was akin to a forensic examiner who sought to glean information about a murder mere minutes after he had shot the poor victim himself. While this method did produce some classic adventures (Like my lost B0, Catacombs of the Inked Eye), it was strikingly inefficient.

However, before GenCon 78, I realized I would be flying to a friend’s wedding in Hawaii the day after, and would not have the time to prepare after my session. Because of this, I resolved to prepare beforehand, and lo and behold what a difference it made! Suddenly I had a keyed map available to me to refer to during the session proper. No longer did I need to decide random encounters through “Duck-Duck-Mosquitillo.” It was revolutionary!

I remember taking my notes about this process to Gary, at which point he sneered at me from behind his filing cabinet and called me several words I shall not repeat. I still allege that he stole my process for session preparation, no matter what the courts say, but regardless I now share my wisdom with the gaming public. Aren’t you lucky!

So to all of my apprentice DMs, who I consider to be the closest I will ever come to to the act of reproduction, do not despair at the overwhelmingness of preparing a session. Simply adopt the Rizzle Method, and observe the positive effects for yourself!