A Recent Roleplaying Read Roundup
One of the wonderful things about the OSR scene is that people still care a lot about blogs. One of the terrible things about blogs is you need to find a blog to tell you another blog is good. Because of this, I adore the "roundup" blog posts that throw a million links out to let you know what's good.
Here's what I've been reading recently!
I got into The 4D Handbook which is a fascinating guide to a playstyle from the OSR-adjacent 4D movement. They're deeply interested in speedy turns, player freedom, and staying in character. Some of the rules in here are a little rich for my blood (leaving to use the bathroom without saying a word as not to break immersion?) but there's definitely a lot to be learned from this style and often it takes extreme rules to break out out of bad habits.
The 7-3-1 Technique is a lovely prep method to give you tools to reinforce improv-heavy GMing. I love a bit of structure to my prep and this one is definitely going in my GM ringbinder.
Wushu Open Reloaded is a rules-light, description-forward, combat-focused game I played a little as a youth that I've been thinking a lot about again recently. It does some very fun things with narrative authority and fight pacing that I think could be perfect for my friend who's new to the hobby but wants to play a mech game. I fear Lancer may actually kill her dead but this seems like it could be a promising alternative for some nice robot fights without the crunch.
I've never wanted a blog post to kiss me gently on the lips the way I became instantly obsessed with Make Better Mind Pictures. Like the advice here is solid as you can expect from the author of The Most Beautiful Woman You've Ever Seen but it's the writing style that gets me. This movement for RPG writing to be evocative and poetic in the last few years has been a wonder to see.
I've also been reading The Gamemaster's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying which hasn't had much that I didn't already do as a player but is a lovely guide to how to really push player goals as a GM and plan around them. This is going pride and place in the "advice I give everyone" box alongside the all-time great Don't Prep Plots as I continue to remind every RPG player I meet that railroading was a bad word for a reason and tactical infinity is the thing TTRPGs have that nothing else does and we should treasure that.
The wonderful Jay Dragon has been posting for a bit now about what OSR tools are going in their toolkit. I follow this with great glee, picking my own favourites from their choices but, of the articles they've dropped recently, my favourites are A Person-Shaped Hole and Fighting and Why It's Horrible.
Speaking of, the sun is definitely out this week which means I can feel a Wanderhome game stirring in my bones.