The best posts in the theory category of this year.
What are the Bloggies?
The Bloggies are back. A yearly celebration of blogging in tabletop roleplaying games. It’s one-part award show and one-part battle royale. It’s silly. It’s intense. It’s an opportunity to read great posts from across the blogosphere.
What is this series?
I love RPG blogs, but my friends don’t. They’re not going to read the 80+ blog posts that make up the entire Bloggies competition. But maybe they’ll read the best ones if I give some solid recommendations. If you’re someone who already plans to read all (or most) of the Bloggies, this isn’t for you. This short series will proposes the best posts from each of the five Bloggie categories this year: advice, critique, gameable, theory, and meta.
Other posts in this series
Theory for Casuals
This category is all about systems, mechanics, gameplay, and more. I didn’t even list all of my favorites as they might be too specific or too long for me to recommend off-hand. If you like the four I present here, go check out the rest!
Everything is pointcrawl!
Skeleton Code Machine rarely misses. Another banger post that analyzes tabletop RPG map design, focusing on the distinction between point crawls and hex crawls. The section on “false choices” is essential reading for pretty much every map making GM I’ve ever played with.
Why Orcs? Or, Why Do I Love Orcs?
A love letter to maybe the most maligned modern fantasy archetype. Powerful enough to turn my hoary, brackish heart to a muted vermilion. Required reading for Orc lovers everywhere.
Combat as My Balls
This year was certainly one for punchy titles. You might’ve heard the phrase “combat as sport” if you’ve been in an OSR space for long enough. This post covers the simplified taxonomy of combat as sport vs war, but goes on to emphasize other “combat as [noun]” possibilities. A more straightforward title would be, what are the reasons a game has “combat”?
Does Super Mario Bros. (1985) Have Rules?
You can ignore the clickbaity title, this is actually a highly approachable text concerning the nature of rules. However, if you’re not too interested in deep game design theory it will probably bore you.
Theory finished. Bloggies voting is well underway! I am trying to finish these blog posts as soon as possible, but… they’ll probably come out on the last day of Bloggies voting. Oh well! I might have better timing next year.
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The Dolent Chronicle is an RPG blog produced by Dante Nardo. If you liked this post, please consider sharing it on whatever doomed planes you reside.