This whole blogging thing is all very new to me so I thought that my first post should honor all of those who’ve come before me to serve both as inspiration and encouragement because if they can do it, so can you and I.

I’m gonna list a few blogs I try to frequently read if I’m aware they have something new OR they just have such good evergreen content. These bloggers have paved the way for a lot of the advice and creativity that I’ve put into my TTRPG games.

1. Delta’s D&D Hotspot

I thought I should mention this guy first (Dan) as I am frequently listening to his podcast on Youtube – The Wandering DMs.
Not only is it chock full of great interviews, rules interpretations and general DM advice, but Dan and Paul make the content all the more digestible.
They have a great back and forth chemistry that even when they disagree they’re never bitter towards one another.

Back to the blog aspect – Dan has absolutely harnessed the core of OD&D and molded it like clay into something nearly perfect for onboarding new followers of the hobby, Original Edition Delta.

From my prior stance of being adamantly transfixed to B/X (Old School Essentials) and thinking that it was the crème de la crème of OSR games, OED has kicked the legs out from under the chair and presented me with something easily understandable and despite the rules being so intuitive, they’re still based on similar percentage odds of success/failure as when the rules were published – with the most notable mechanic of the system…

Target 20

So imagine you have this almost needlessly complex system called THAC0 which scares away the hoes and your 5e friends, then on top of that they wanna play a cool class like the Thief and see the massive table of percentages + the accompanying list of saving throw values assaulting their retinas.
In all of our monkey brains, we love that number high = good, and with Target 20 you’re able to maintain the pop culture standard of rolling high and landing natural 20s as the peak gaming experience, condensing all of combat, skill checks, saving throws, and even thief specific skills all into one concise mechanic.
d20 + Level + appropriate modifiers and on a 20 or more EXCELLENCE!

AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT – Stone Units for item encumbrance.

Wait – I know what you’re thinking, if it’s not pounds it’s cringe and you don’t want to learn but it’s all whole numbers and thirds, dude.

I believe in you.

So yeah, check out Original Edition Delta.
ALSO listen to Dan’s podcast and read his blogposts, some of them are very insightful. Check out Testing Balanced Dice, What is the Best Combat Algorithm?, On Money and Stone Encumbrance: Detail & Example.

2. BASTIONLAND

I’m sure those who are quite familiar with OSR content know the name Chris McDowall as he is one of the pioneers of NSR style games.

This GOAT created the popular titles Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland and Mythic Bastionland.

I won’t go into too much detail about his games as this is primarily about his blog, but these games are well known for their quick and intuitive game mechanics – making a sort of blend of a B/X and BRP chassis with B/X style simple character creation, and the BRP skills methods of rolling under an Ability Score to resolve skill checks.

The games also do away with Attack Rolls and just allow the attacks to deal damage dice right away, which I think was a huge inspiration for a recently popular game in the 5e scene, Nimble.

WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY – THE BLOG

Chris has some of the most compelling thoughts and perspectives on TTRPG design that I’ve ever seen. It’s shown through both his game design working on ITO, EBL, and MBL + his methodical approach to adventure design and mechanical application. Most if not all of his blogposts can be sifted for gold and if you’re looking to improve your understanding of how TTRPGs work and what you can do to make the most of your games then I urge you to please read his stuff.

Some of my favorites posts of his is as follows –
Three Step Dungeons, The ICI Doctrine, 34 Good Traps, An Example of Delegation Style Play, and The Rules Made Me Do It.

Don’t forget to check out his Youtube – a few gems are Difficulty in RPGs and Celeste, The Great D&D Monster Manual Ranking, and his Electric Bastionland RPG Deep Dive.

3. Goblin Punch

So do you guys remember that huge wave of 5e Youtubers discussing the False Hydra awhile back? Well, our 3rd blogger Arnold Kemp, aka Goblin Punch, was it’s origin and creator.

For more OSR leaning readers, if you’ve ever heard of a system called The GLOG, Arnold also made that too.

It’s funny how a lot of these brilliant minds eventually go down the rabbit hole of developing their own system.

There’s not much more I can say about Arnold that isn’t just immense glazing, but he has so many great blogposts discussing procedural dungeon creation and crawling such as Advice for OSR DMs, The UNDERCLOCK, A Comprehensive Guide to Secret Doors, Dungeon Checklist, Non-Euclidean Architecture, and The Mighty Plot Machine.

He’s also has quite a nice backlog of adventures and dungeons he himself has written and published, such as –

The Lair of the Lamb
A Level 0 Crawl (a funnel?) underneath the Great Free City of Lon Barago, where a gaggle of peasants are thrust into the secret crypts underneath the White Temple. Within the dungeon is also a large, pale, hairless, centipede legged beast called The Lamb which the adventure is named after.
It’s a great adventure to run your new-found OSR players through as it even includes some crawling advice in the front of the PDF (I believe used specifically for GLOG but I imagine you could apply it to any game).

The Boswitch Bath House
A Level 1-6 Crawl that takes place in a bathhouse in the city of Chainwater.
Several possible hooks lead to investigating the place – such as..
a bounty on a wizard, an unguarded treasure vault being fought over by vying thieves’ guild factions, and a vision of an unpunished murder in which the PCs have to find evidence of in order to fulfill said vision.

and lastly – The Mouth of Mormo
A Level 0 – 4 Crawl within a temple to a long forgotten sea goddess named Mormo who’s known primarily for her affinity with Snails. The temple was invaded by a cabal of enchanters which took control over her sea life and ever since the temple has laid in ruin.
The adventure has many different starting points depending on the party’s level and there’s even a chunkier version of the adventure which includes what I’d call a Directors Commentary on OSR musings.

I might do a Part 2 to this post at some point as there are many more blogs I love to read and re-read, but I think this is a good stopping point for a first blogpost.

Thanks for Reading! -Dylan