The TTRPG blogosphere is in fine form right now with new games, sharp theory, and big setting swings, so here’s a quick tour of what’s worth your eyeballs this week.
Shiny knights, sharp tools
If you like your fantasy equal parts steel and vibes, go read “Knightcore the RPG” over on Mottokrosh’s site. It takes the “castlecore” aesthetic and turns it into a full game where your armor, hair, and general drip are actual mechanics via Knightcore Aesthetics, purity tracks, and a chaos die tied to how stylish the whole party is. It is equal parts Mythic Britain, Troika-adjacent initiative, and “my boots are a build choice,” and it absolutely owns that lane.
On the crunchier DIY side, Alone in the Labyrinth digs into weapon variations. It is the sort of post that asks “how small can we keep the rules while still making weapons feel different” and then actually answers it in table-ready detail. If you are tuning an old-school heartbreaker or just want your spears and swords to matter mechanically without a 200 page arms catalog, this is catnip.
Adventures, maps, and weird cities
Dyson Logos has a new slice of dungeon goodness in “Blackglass Vein North”. Expect a tight map, evocative mining complex vibes, and that classic Dyson thing where you immediately start thinking “ok what if the black glass is cursed, psychic, or a crashed ship.” It is an easy drop-in for any campaign that needs an off-road delve with some industrial menace.
If cities are more your thing, check out “Kazar, City of Dreams”. Kazar sits at the edge of a desert where dream magic, bone-lifting deathmen, illusory fountains, and lineage-obsessed elites all collide into one very gameable city. The post walks you through landmarks like the Speaker’s Fountain, the Library of the Dead, the Shös Da palace, and the golem-maker Sbësh, plus factions like turfers, Ancients, and wraith-led underclasses, all screaming “run a whole campaign here.”
For something darker, The Dice Pool takes a deep dive into The Sutra of Pale Leaves for Call of Cthulhu. The piece digs into its 1980s Japan setting, the meatmorphic Prince of Pale Leaves, cult structures, and how the campaign braids Carcosa-flavored cosmic horror into a very specific cultural and historical moment. If you wanted a big tentpole CoC campaign that is not just “gloomy New England again,” this looks like a serious contender.
Theory, structure, and playstyle
Skeleton Code Machine goes full structure-brain with “Everything is Pointcrawl”. It pitches pointcrawls not just as “hexcrawls but with nodes” but as a general lens for designing dungeons, cities, social networks, and even campaigns. The argument is that once you start thinking in points and connections you get cleaner prep, clearer choices, and less dead space at the table, and the examples make that pretty convincing.
Over on Burn After Running, “The form factor: Alternatives to the 4-hour session” looks at changing the shape of game nights. The post talks about shorter, punchier formats, campaign “episodes,” and ways to build for 60–120 minute play instead of the traditional long block. If your group is busy, tired, or scattered across time zones, this is basically permission and a toolkit to stop beating yourself up about not doing “proper” sessions.
Science fantasy, archetypes, and NPC magic
From the Sorcerer’s Skull keeps swinging at genre clarity with “Differentiating Science Fantasy”. The post argues that science fantasy should lean more into psychic powers, non-medieval societies, and clear differences between “magic” and “weird tech,” instead of just “fantasy with ray guns slapped on.” It is a short read, but it gives you enough hooks to rethink how your ray guns, demons, and aliens actually feel at the table.
On the practical NPC side, Murkdice drops “The only 12 NPCs you need”. It offers a framework of 12 archetypes defined by combinations of goals, leverage, and weaknesses, with names like Controller, Mastermind, Underdog and so on. The cool part is that each archetype is tuned to be gameable first, so you can very quickly spin up an NPC with clear behavior, tension, and stakes without trawling through huge charts.
One last thing: Blackglass & Kazar campaign
If you grab that “Blackglass Vein North” map from Dyson Logos, pair it with the dream-scorched politics of Kazar and the pointcrawl ideas from Skeleton Code Machine. You basically get a ready-made mini campaign: a dream-haunted desert city, a cursed mining operation out in the wastes, and a clean way to connect it all so your players can bounce between nightmares, politics, and black glass tunnels without your prep melting down.
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