Your Summer Assignments
Kick back with a cold drink, write some game stuff and read some blogs.
Okay, sure, school is out for the summer, and I hope you soak up some sun (or snow for all you in the other hemisphere), but that doesn’t mean you can shirk your many responsibilities as a TTRPG fan. Luckily, your course load over the summer is pretty light, but I want to highlight all of your assignments so you don’t forget to do them:
July 16 - Post something on your blog related to the theme “Holes” for the next blog bandwagon. The full assignment information is in the link below:
Before August 29 - Submit your entry to the Second Summer LEGO RPG Jam, which is being hosted once again by the DIY & Dragons blog. Last year, I released a summer-themed murder mystery adventure, Trouble in Paradisa. Still thinking what I should do this time around, but not sure I can one up Paradisa as least-expected-Lego-theme for an RPG setting.
Before School is Back in Session - Your book report on Prismatic Wisdom is due. 10 pages, double-spaced with 1-inch margins. No Chat GPT allowed; I will know! Actually, forge the book report, just get the book (copies still available as of now at my blog’s webstore). Report whatever you like, I’m not actually your teacher, merely your parasocial internet chum.
As a final note before I get to the eagerly awaited blog roundup, if you are like me and need to fill every moment of silence and possible self-reflection with talking heads, I was recently featured on a couple of podcasts: Blogs on Tape and Reading D&D Aloud. Both are worth a listen, not simply by virtue of their association with me but that certainly doesn’t hurt.
Blog Roundup!
Languages! I recently wrote about how The Languages of D&D Imply a Specific Setting over at the Prismatic Wasteland blog. It has been well-received (and quite thoroughly commented upon, for further reading). It also received the second-highest praise a blog can receive in the form of a respond from Delving Wolf on Languages in a recently dead Empire.
Monsters! In a prior issue of this here substack, I reviewed a review of a compendium of monsters in Michelin Star Monsters, but of course there is always plenty of other monster-based writing on the blogosphere. Musings on Monstrousness mused on Lesser Draconids, Meg Zone has an entire mystery scenario around The king of all beasts and inhuman violence, and What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse writes about Monsters in Flying Swordsmen 2e. In a similar vein, I have been enjoying my read of Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings (of which you can find a blog-review from Books & Boots here).
Calendars! The blog that was the subject of my aforementioned monster meta-review, Save Vs Worm spilled some lore across the web with Moon Men and a Calendar System for King of Kings. In response, Dirty T Nerd Games wrote their own advice about how to Make Your Calendars Interesting, Not Impenetrable. This is a topic I think about an inordinate amount of time, as evidenced by my own past postings from Calendars, Not Just Maps to my more fleshed out Tempus, Fudge It post.
Knights! My friend, Amanda P. (who blogged their own review of Mythic Basionland on the Weird Wonder blog), recently ran a session of aforementioned game for me and some other comrades, and it was a ton of fun! One of the other players, Josh bleeted about the experiences. It was a one-shot (but will maybe have a sequel?), for which Mr. Bastionland himself recently offered some guidance in Mythic One-Shots. But you are also legally allowed to play more than just one session, as illustrated by 3 Sessions of Mythic Bastionland with Thomas and MadJay, Sunday Mornings in July from Githyanki Diaspora. You should also check out Mythic Walkingland or my problem with overland procedures from Beneath the Moon of Ancient Balansiya for a mild critique of one aspect of the game. My only critique so far is that the book has not yet, as of this writing, landed physically in my grubby hands.
Innovative Games! I am very jealous of all the people who have gotten a chance to be a wizard in Seven Party Pact. At least I get to learn more about the game vicariously from Knight at the Opera who wrote about The Shapeshifter's Duel and For Want of a Silver Bullet who wrote A Day With Jay Dragon's Wizard Madness Simulator: 7 Part Pact. Another game that tests the limits of the roleplaying game medium is Sam Sorensen’s Cataphracts game, a war game about logistics and verisimilitude, which they blogged about in two design diaries, which inspired further blogging from Ms. Quixotic Talks About Games. Board game elements are clearly in the bloodstream as of late, because I also wrote about using a makeshift boardgame for TTRPG purposes earlier this year in A Game to Generate the World History for Your Campaign. Perhaps it is simply a renewed interest in the toyetic aspect of roleplaying games, in the sense used by Toys Vs Rules in a recent post from Jay Dragon.
I had a list of a lot of other blogs to round up, but we are already at 24ish posts. Surely that is enough to clog your browser of choice with open tabs.