Blog map

I am not a huge fan of Substack navigation, so I decided to put all links in one easily accessible place. If you want to link this blog to someone, this may be a good place to link: something of a table of contents.

Core sequences

Glossaries

1. Sources & References

2. Core glossary - all the basic terms I have considered unclear, or that someone asked me about.

Building foundations 

Many fields have a known “core” or “fundamental” problem. This is some sufficiently generalized class of problems, such that all other problems in the field are simply sub types of it. For example, the core problem of civil engineering is how to build a structure for the minimum cost within constraints imposed by desired loads, style, materials, and so on. The core problem of economics is usage, production and distribution of limited resources. Core problem of politics is aggregation of preferences across a large population. In this sequence I define the fundamental problem of Pen and Paper Role Playing Games, and give the essential definitions required to understand it. 

1. Building Foundations 1: Why game master? Defines the fundamental problem.

2. Building Foundations 2: Taxonomy of player fun. Gives the first foundational taxonomy that defines “fun” in the fundamental problem.

3. Building Foundations 3: Taxonomy of Game Master fun. Gives definition of fun from the game master side of the table.

4. Building Foundations 4: Taxonomy of Unfun. Other side of the coin: definition of the opposite of fun, Unfun.

5. Building Foundations 5: Utility. Finally, we unite the three taxonomies into one concept: utility functions.

Session Zero

Where the previous sequence was theoretical, session zero is about what has to be done to start putting that theory into practice: how to measure and verify the types of fun your players desire, how to keep track of this information, and so on.

1. Session Zero 1: Fundamentals. What is a minimum necessary outcome of session zero, and what should be discussed

2. Session Zero 2: Profiling. How to keep track of player information

3. Session Zero 3: Case Studies. Case studies in how traditional approaches to session zero can fail

4. Session Zero 4: Value Conflicts. A general approach to dealing with value conflicts at the table.

Golden Core

Now we can get to the meat of GMing: practical techniques you can use in your own games. This is a core of your work as a GM, build upon a solid foundation of session zero talks.

1. Golden Core 1: JIT plot compilation. First technique in the series: Just In Time Plot Compilation. How to GM with no prep time.

Dungeon Architect

Dungeons are a very popular type of locations in PNP RPGs. Here I discuss some things to keep in mind when designing them, and when you should bother to do it in the first place.

1. Dungeon Architect: Fantastic dungeons and where to find them. Here I set up some definitions to establish what I mean by a dungeon.

2. Dungeon Architect: Dungeon Meta. I discuss some of the “meta” concerns about dungeons, such as when they should be designed, how large they should be, and so on.

3. Dungeon Architect: Location, Location, Location. This is a (to the best of my knowledge) most mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive list of considerations that might be relevant when designing a location - for a dungeon or in general - available anywhere. It is meant to be used as a reference material - when you are checking over your work to make sure you didn’t miss anything, or when you want to find something unusual to try.

Reductionist Magic

Magic in TTRPGs often contains various edge cases and inconsistencies that lead to problems for GMs when describing how the world functions. A feasible way of solving this problem is to design magic “from the ground up” - using reductionist principles to figure out consistent principles that would work across various magical effects, exponentially reducing the number of potential sources of problems.

1. Reductionist Magic 1: The Problem. Here I describe the problem of reductionist magic, and why it would be worthwhile to solve it.

2. Reductionist Magic 2: Magic fundamentals. I define some basic laws of magic, specifically when it comes to how spells interact with the world.

3. Reductionist Magic 3: Souls and Illusions. Here I describe the method of analyzing soul interactions with magic by drawing soul-body models, and some consequences of using that when it comes to illusion magic.

4. Reductionist Magic 4: Magical sight and the physics of divination. My attempt to make blocking thicknesses of certain divination spells fit a more general model, and consequences coming from that, including some basic ideas about the ways magical TSA may function.

5. Reductionist Magic 5: Objects and Solidity. Many spells refer to “objects” in their description. But what is an object, anyway? Can we define this objectively? Here I spend 11 thousand words trying to answer this question.

6. Reductionist Magic 6: General Spell Properties. An overview of the general spell properties such as range, navigation and target selection, as well as their impacts on what is and isn’t possible to achieve with certain spells.

7. Reductionist Magic 7.1: Ectoplasm and Summon Monster. A feasible model of how the physics of summoning can work from the perspective of pressure and moving objects aside, as well as a classification of all the conjuration spells on the Pathfinder Sorcerer/Wizard spell list.

8. Reductionist Magic 7.2: Biochemistry of ectoplasm. Addendum to the previous post, exploring the chemical reactions that can happen with ectoplasmic atoms, as well as what would happen to them inside of a human body.

9. Reductionist Magic 8: Object Blueprints. Where previous two posts have discussed the physics and chemistry of summoning atoms out of thin air, this post tries to answer how do the spells know how to put a bear together, and also touches on concepts like scrying, language spells, resurrection, and True Names.

Campaign Retrospectives

Once you are done with something, it’s important to see what you learned from it. This is a group of posts doing retrospectives on the various campaigns I have run in the past.

1. This V-Tuber Does Not Exist. Shadowrun campaign centered on a group of AIs, trying to find their place in the world via V-Tubing, oil tankers, and magical spinning eyes.

   1. Preparations. Discussion of the reasons for running the campaign, preparations I did, setting research methods and player-driven sandboxes.

   2. Plot. Very long post, going through what happened in the campaign, why it made sense, as well as discussing various features of Shadowrun worldbuilding and AI properties.

   3. Conclusions. Here I discuss the lessons I drew from the campaign, as well as what worked and what didn’t.

System analysis

Posts that analyze the overall systems of TTRPGs - specific mechanics, as well as more systemic assumptions shared between different games - go in this group.

1. Attractors and Caster/Martial disparity. Analysis of Caster / Martial Disparity from a systemic perspective, going into the reasons why it would inevitably be present in every TTRPG system which does not deliberately address it.

2. Caster / Martial Disparity in Pathfinder. Follow-up to the previous post, analyzing C/MD when it comes to Pathfinder RPG specifically.

3. Systemic advantages of ranged weaponry. A system-agnostic analysis of patterns of engagement which give ranged weaponry an edge over melee ones, before you get into a detailed mechanical analysis of the math behind a particular TTRPG.

Assorted writing

These articles don’t belong to any particular sequence. They do rely on the theories explained in them, and put them in a proper context.

• Put your fun first. Why Game Masters should generally treat their own fun as somewhat more important than the players’.

• Excalibur from level 1: Why not? Thoughts on giving players “overpowered” weapons or abilities.

• Classism in the Dungeons. Thoughts on tensions within PNP RPG communities.

• Deck of Many Mehs. Why Deck Of Many Things is not, in fact, game breaking.

• RAW and Shelling points. Discussion of Rules As Written as a shelling fence in PNP RPGs.

• Why Alignment is dumb. An argument for why alignment should be removed on the basis of being arbitrary and dumb, as well as a set of houserules that do just that.

• Dungeons and Genders: Analysis of survey data concerning gender identity within the TTRPG community. An analysis of a set of surveys I made in several TTRPG communities.

• Meditations on Hydras: Seven variations of an (in)famous False Hydra monster, using varied mental effects to hunt their prey.

• Mafia of the Coast: A critical look at the efforts by Wizards of the Coast to sink the Open Gaming License.