I started up a Delta Green [affiliate link] campaign last September, and it’s been a blast. It’s become one of my favorite RPGs, and with a few sessions under my belt that means I’ve done some noodling about why that’s the case. One part of it — the bit I want to look at today — is that DG deftly combines superb information design with game mechanics designed to reduce handling time and friction. Two examples of that sit right next to each other in the upper left corner of its GM screen. Two tables from the DG screen, which I’ve called out in redDon’t roll dice DG is far from the first RPG to ..read more

I’ve been logging RPG sessions on RPGGeek since 2008 — 961 of them as of this writing. I was thinking about Ars Magica [affiliate link] this morning and wondered where it stood in terms of my longest campaigns in the past 16 years, and lo and behold it’s right at the top: Ars Magica 5th Edition: 41 sessions, 2016-2019 D&D 4th Edition: 37 sessions, 2009-2010 CODA Star Trek: 26 sessions, 2010-2012 Urban Shadows: 23 sessions, 2017-2019 Hunter: The Reckoning: 23 sessions, 2013-2014 I posted about that Ars campaign here on Yore when it was around its halfway point. It stands as one of my all ..read more

I’ve decided on a TTRPG collecting goal for 2024: I’m going to try to acquire the entire Ars Magica 5th Edition line in print. If you happen to have any Ars Magica 5e books laying around that you’d like to part with, comment or drop me a line (martin at martinralya dot com)! Out of the 165 RPGs I’ve played, Ars Magica is one of just nine I rate a 10/10. I’ve written a bit about why I love it so much here on Yore. It’s an absolutely superb game. What got me thinking about Ars again was today’s announcement of the forthcoming Ars Magica Definitive Edition. According to the announcement, the 5e s ..read more

My beloved Kaweco Sport mechanical pencil, which I’ve used in every in-person game session since 2015, finally gave out. Its plastic internals stopped working; all the brass and other metal parts are perfect. I’m hoping to have it repaired, but haven’t had much luck with their US repair partner so far. The Kuro Toga Advance sounds like a Traveller subsector In the meantime, I went down the mechanical pencil rabbit hole. When I came up for air I picked one of the consensus Mechanical Pencils Everyone Should Try At Some Point, the Uni Kuro Toga Advance. It’s the white, sci-fi looking instrument ..read more

I wrote my last #dungeon23 room today! I have no idea what I’ll do with the Black Furnace next, if anything, but I’m proud to have finished it. The Dungeon23 logo in old-school blue This is only my second or third dungeon ever, and by far the largest I’ve ever created. It’s a rough draft, but everything starts out as a rough draft, right? I’ve got nine levels mapped by hand, 365 rooms all typed up, and plenty of notes. There’s still lots to create (monster stats, treasure, encounter tables, etc.), but with a couple hours’ work I could start running this tonight and just develop the later mater ..read more

I haven’t written about the end of the world in Godsbarrow, but the entire setting — everything I’ve ever created for it that doesn’t live here, on Yore — nearly vanished today. I woke up to a corrupted hard drive, which Windows helpfully automatically recovered for me…but without hundreds of gigs of files, including my entire PDF gaming collection and every scrap of my Godsbarrow material. Okay, a pain in the butt, but hey: That’s why I have a cloud backup running in the background, right? Well… Yes, I do. And it works (I’ve tested it). But. But! Only if I configure it properly. Guess what I ..read more

2022 has thrown the Ralyas a couple pretty hard curveballs, but so far we’re doing [whatever you’re supposed to do in baseball when someone pitches you a curveball] and managing pretty well. I usually focus on hobby stuff here on Yore, though, so I figured it was time for a little 2022 wrap-up — all highlights, no lowlights, and a few surprises. The Unlucky Isles One of my biggest hobby milestones for 2022 was starting up Halfbeard Press and publishing my first Godsbarrow sourcebook, The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link]. I’ve never had a well-developed fantasy campaign setting of my own before ..read more

I’m not sure all my notes (many rolled in Tome of Adventure Design [affiliate link]) will survive the next steps, but I’m off to the races with #dungeon23. Weep at my terrible handwriting! Sketching out the surface level of the Black Furnace: five entrances, with notes I like megadungeons with multiple entrances and verticality, so the Black Furnace has a main entrance, two chimneys (which can be used as dangerous entrances), an observatory side entrance, and a collapsed garden/cave that also allows ingress. Today’s room was S1, the main entrance: a huge black kiln with three ways down to leve ..read more

I’ve juggled things around a bit since my initial #dungeon23 post. With less than 24 hours to go until my first room, it’s time to lay the last bits of ground work for the Black Furnace. Dungeon23 logo created by Lone Archivist and released under a CC BY 4.0 license The thing I’ve changed up is mapping: I bought a graph paper notebook (4 squares/inch) and a Jujutsu Kaisen pencil mat, and I’m going to do some — or maybe all — of the mapping myself. My #dungeon23 mapping notebook all stickered up and ready to go I still might use some of Dyson Logos’ gorgeous maps later on, but for the ..read more

Sean McCoy‘s #dungeon23 challenge has been making the rounds on Mastodon: Every day in 2023, write one room of an old-school fantasy megadungeon (or whatever similar project tickles your fancy). I’ve been intrigued, but felt like I didn’t really need another project next year — until this morning, when the puzzle pieces fell into place. Dungeon23 logo created by Lone Archivist and released under a CC BY 4.0 license These days I do best with long-term projects that I can 1) work on every single day, no exceptions, and 2) just “check the box” if I don’t have the energy today. That means projects ..read more