Papers & Pencils 10 Year Anniversary

I started this blog 10 years ago today, on August 8th, 2011.

It began as a desperate groping towards meaning. Dedicating myself to writing meant I could call myself a “writer,” which was a preferable identity to “failure.” Shortly thereafter I stumbled into the then-thriving subculture of the OSR. I developed a self-discipline I needed, produced work I’m proud of, and most importantly built relationships which give my day-to-day life meaning that mere art never could. Sometimes I miss the energetic pace of work from earlier years of the project, but looking back I know the source of that energy was a terror of backsliding into aimless depression. I’m glad I’m not terrified anymore.

I won’t say ‘here’s to 10 more years,’ because all things must end and it’s likely that this project has passed its halfway mark. I’m not done with RPGs, but there are only so many hours in the day, and too many projects I’d like to pursue. Instead I’ll say: Thank you for a good time these past 10 years. I hope we have lots more good times.

Stay safe, have fun.

Papers & Pencils Has Been Hacked

As those of you who follow me on g+ will already know, Papers & Pencils was recently hacked. To my knowledge there was no risk posed to visitors. No malware, or anything of that sort. Certainly, though, some naughty bois and gurls were running amok on my back end. Their primary goal seems to have been to upload hidden pages to manipulate Google search results for a bunch of Asian websites.

The most important thing I have to say about this is fuck Bluehost. I’ve spent well over $1000 on their services since I first set this site up back in late 2011. I’ve never required any significant assistance from their support staff, and their first suggestion to me in resolving this issue was that I sign up for an $800/year security protection plan. Failing that, they’d help me resolve the issue for a minimum payment of $300. Money my little tabletop blog doesn’t generate, and which I don’t have. That is some absolute horse shit, and I would not recommend their services to anyone.

Fortunately I have good friends. Thanks must go particularly to Robert Freeman-Day who held my hand through the process of deciding what I could do about the situation. Unfortunately the best solution we could come up with was to burn the whole house down.

That’s what this is. I’ve purged the files and the SQL databases. Everything is gone. That includes not only Papers & Pencils, but also Blogs on Tape. Whatever hole the hackers were using to get in ought to have been destroyed. That’s the hope anyway. My fingers are crossed, but we weren’t able to understand how they gained access in the first place, so we can’t say with any certainty that I’ve gotten rid of them quite yet.

I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrated I am about this. My work on this website is among the proudest accomplishments of my life, and I hate to have it disrupted like this. Everything is backed up several times over in redundant formats, and I hope that I’ll be able to get it all back online soon. However, I don’t know how much of the nasty google-manipulating pages were collected in my backups. There is a potential worst case scenario where I have to add everything back to the website bit-by-bit, copying and pasting it from my archives. It would be a tedious process. One I would have to balance out with writing new material for weeks, or even months.

I was really starting to get into that “Discovering Dungeon Moon” series as well. Go figure I only managed to get a single post out before this nonsense hit.

To make matters worse, all of this is coming at the worst conceivable time for me personally, with my day job keeping me too busy & exhausted to give this problem proper attention, AND the looming shutdown of Google+. It’s a tangled mess that I’m only just barely coping with, to be perfectly honest.

Blogs on Tape is going to be a particular challenge. The only sign of vandalism that occurred during this hack was that the Blogs on Tape website was made entirely inaccessible. I have all of the audio files themselves stored locally, but it never occurred to me to back up the website. All of those posts, as well as syncing them to iTunes, will need to be done over again. Whee.

I am sorry about this, everyone. Keep an eye on this space, and know that I’m doing what I can. If you need to get in touch I am available on Google+, on Mastadon, or by email at linkskywalker14@gmail.com. With any luck we should be back up and running soon.

-LS / Beloch Shrike / Nick Whelan

October 14th, 2018

Play Reports for Fuck the King of Space

For the past year I’ve been maintaining private play reports for Fuck the King of Space, same way I’ve always done for ORWA. They’re dry, soulless things intended strictly for my own records. None the less, I’d always intended to create a section of the site where I posted them publicly, same as I’ve always done for the ORWA recaps. I was lazy about it, which is why they’re still not up even though the game is 9 months old now.

Or, rather, they weren’t up until today! A few hours ago Play Report Author Extraordinaire Anne Hunter prodded me about my laziness, and knowing someone is actually interested in reading something is always a great motivator. So now they’re all up and ready to be read if you’re interested. You can always access them using the little “Fuck the King of Space” link on the top navigation bar.

While we’re on the subject, if anyone is wondering why the ORWA recaps stopped…yeah, I’m sorry about that. I had a rough few weeks where I just didn’t have the energy to post them, and then I never felt like going back to upload all the ones I missed, and because I didn’t do it the project just kept getting bigger, and now I’ve got 30 posts to upload and it just sounds like a tedious mess and I’m sorry. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.

Also, visit DIY & Dragons. Her play reports are much better than mine.

Methods for Writing d100 Tables

For the past couple years, I’ve been posting a fair number of d100 tables, because they’re awesome. They’re fun for me to write, useful in play, and people seem to friggin’ love reading them. Each one I write is pretty much guaranteed to spike my site’s traffic, so it’s a win-win-win.

Often, when I upload a new table, I’m getting the same sort of comment. Something in the vein of “I don’t know how you do that, I can barely fill a d12 table!” It’s happened like…twice now, so you’ll have to excuse me if I indulge myself a bit. Being impressive is an unusual feeling, and I’d like to revel in it. Ego stroking aside, I can understand where these comments are coming from. I will never live down my self-imposed shame from that one time I tried to write a d100 table, and failed so hard that I just published a d50 table instead. Writing up 100 variations on the same theme is hard.

Fortunately, I’ve developed a few techniques to make the process easier on myself. Hopefully these will translate well enough for others to benefit from them as well. If I’m lucky, this post will spawn a whole slew of new d100 tables all across the OSR Blogosphere, and then I can just spend the rest of my gaming career rolling for everything I want.

The first is the simplest: time. I don’t just sit down and write d100 tables. I don’t think that would even be possible for me. They’re written slowly; a few entries here, a few entries there. A quick turnaround on a d100 table would be about 10 days, from start to finish. Those are usually either very simple tables (such as the magic words tables), or something I’m particularly invested when I write them. (d100 wands went pretty quick.)

Most tables require a few months, and there are even some which have been sitting in my drafts folder for more than a year at this point. This is one of the biggest reasons I work to maintain my huge buffer of posts. Back when I was starting out, I didn’t have the luxury of working on projects that required more than an evening to put together. If I started to write something, it had to be done by the end of the night. If it wasn’t, I’d be off my schedule.

Which leads into my second point: I’m not writing these one at a time. As I write this, there are currently fifteen d100 tables in my drafts folder. Some of these have 2 or 3 entries in them. At least one of them already has 100 entries in it. Most fall somewhere in between. At any given time, there are usually 2 or 3 of these tables that I’m actively thinking about, and trying to add a few entries to each day. It’s not until a table is pretty much done that I start to really focus on it. Going back, polishing up what I’ve written, checking for repeats, and getting it out the door.

Which actually leads into my third point: separating brainstorming from writing. The hard part of populating any table is coming up with X number of variations on a theme. Maybe there’s those first 4 or 10 which come easy, but by the time you get to 100 you’ve been all the way to the depths of your creativity and back again. By comparison, turning a single table entry into easy reading is almost rote.

Coming up with ideas, and putting those ideas into words that make sense outside of my own head, are two entirely different mental processes for me. Trying to switch between them over and over again slows my writing down to a crawl. Sometimes I’m tempted to flesh out entries 1-10 while trying to come up with entry 11, but that is a trap. If I ever want to get the thing done, I need to come up with 100 cool ideas first, and only later do I worry about making those 100 cool ideas appealing to read.

Something I do a lot of is standing in front of a whiteboard telling myself how much of a hack piece of shit I am, until something good comes out of me. This is probably the least effective technique I have, but it’s the one I use most frequently. The whiteboard part helps at least. It’s easier to jump from idea to idea when I’m away from a keyboard. Keyboards make me feel a strong need to be more descriptive than necessary.

Probably the best trick I have is the disguised d33 table. This is one I used for “d100 Results of Drug Addled Engineering,” and “d100 Human Beings for Sale.” Basically, before I start working on the 100 entries themselves, I write up a list of 33 subcategories. Each of these categories could theoretically be the theme of their own tables. For example, “A box with a button on it.” That button could do anything.

Once I’ve got my 33, I add each one to my table 3 times. Starting from there, it’s honestly pretty easy to come up with 3 unique variations on each one, which gets me all the way up to 99 entries without breaking a sweat. Entry 100 can then be something big and awesome (like in d100 Humans), or it can just be “roll twice & combine” (like in d100 Drugged Engineering). I suppose if the list is of bad things, you could also switch it around, and make entry 1 spectacularly bad in some way.

A variation of that same idea is the not-so-disguised 10d10 table. As of this writing I haven’t published any tables using this method, but I am using it for d100 Pieces of Dungeon Moon Starting Equipment, which will be posted eventually.

Much like the method above, you start by coming up with some broader ideas (in this case, 10 rather than 33), then you divide your d100 table up into that many chunks, and use those broader ideas to help create the specific entries.

The nice thing about this method is that it makes your work serve multiple purposes. For example, if a player creates a new character, then they’d roll d100 to find out what item they start with. If they then decide they want to find some armor in town before they go out to adventure, the referee can roll a d10 on the “armor” portion of the table.

The benefit of this method is that it allows a referee to roll a d10 on one of those sub tables if it suits their fancy. For my dungeon moon equipment table, maybe the referee doesn’t want to go full random. Maybe he wants to make sure that his players have at least one piece of armor and one weapon before they head out into danger. That’s fine, roll dice that are smaller increments of 10! It’s all good.

Breaking a d100 table down into smaller chunks doesn’t always work, of course. At least, not for me. Take d100 Reasons the Wizard is More than they Seem, or d100 Curses. I could have tried to break these down into smaller groups: curses that afflict your feet, curses that afflict your encumbrance, curses that afflict the player in some meta-game way, etc. I didn’t do that because it didn’t seem to flow naturally when I was putting those tables together. Maybe these more gonzo themes defy any kind of organization, or maybe that’s just not where my headspace was when I wrote them.

And I think that’s pretty much everything I can think of that makes writing d100 tables more manageable for me. Thank you for supporting my ego trip, it was fun.

Papers & Pencils Patreon!

That’s right. I’ve joined the hordes of the semi-talented who wrestle over pocket change on Patreon. I’ve screwed up my courage to ask you for some money, and would appreciate it if you’d hear me out.

If you enjoy Papers & Pencils, and would like to see more from me, here are the basic facts of the matter:

The only thing preventing me from getting more writing done is the amount of time that I have for writing.
A lot of my time is spent working paycheck jobs so I can pay my bills. This is time which could be spent writing.
If I start to get money from my writing, then I will be able to spend less time at those paycheck jobs.
The less time I spend at paycheck jobs, the more writing I can do.

As I write this, I’ve spent the last 2 months without needing to get up and go to a job every morning. During that time, I’ve been working on RPG stuff for 10-16 hours each day, 5 days a week. Some of it even sneaks its way into the weekend, because even when I’m resting, I want to do this.

But my little “writing vacation” fund is empty, and I need to get back to making money. I’ve got bills to pay, food to eat, and alcohol to drink. And because I need to spend my time doing something other than writing to make money, the amount of writing I can get done will return to the same old trickle.

That’s the simple math of it. I’m not saying that you owe me anything. I write Papers & Pencils for myself, because I love doing it, and I’m going to keep doing it whether you give me money or not. But, if you like what I do, and you have a few dollars to spare, giving those dollars to me will allow me to do more of the thing that you like.

So, if you are able, please consider supporting my Patreon campaign.

On a Red World Alone Play Reports

Occasionally, I’ve gotten requests to start writing play reports. Usually I’m only too happy to respond positively to reader requests. I rarely get them, and it strokes my ego to know that someone actually wants something from me. Validation is intoxicating.

But play reports…I hate play reports. They’re painfully boring to read, and I tend to skip them even when they’re written by some of my favorite bloggers. Heck, I even skip them when they’re written by some of my favorite bloggers and I feature prominently in them. Clearly there’s an audience for these things, and I don’t want to denigrate anybody who reads them, or indeed, anyone who writes them. It just feels uncouth to publish something that I wouldn’t want to read myself.

All that being said, I’ve recently been making a big effort to improve my note taking. Part of that effort has meant sitting down after a session and writing out detailed notes on what happened. Essentially, I’m actually writing play reports. They’re unpolished, and organized more for my reference than for readability. But whether or not I’m sharing them with people, they exist. So I may as well share them.

I don’t want to make them part of the regular stream of posts. The unpolished nature of the things would bother me too much if they were going to spend any amount of time on the front page of the site. But, if you’re interested, I’ve been uploading them to the campaign page for On a Red World Alone. I’ve actually been doing this for awhile now. It only just occurred to me recently that I probably ought to tell people I’m doing it.

There should be a new one every Thrusday.

New Look

As you may or may not have noticed (Hi, RSS readers!), I redesigned my website. As this change comes shortly after the first of the year, I think I’m obligated to write something to the effect of: “I’ve got a new look for a new year.” So…yeah. Consider that done.

P&P has needed this for awhile now. The old setup was clunky, loaded slowly, and was starting to have some really odd presentation issues. For example, for the last 9 months or so, when I logged into the admin account, the left and right sidebars would both load on the right side of the browser. It looked really stupid. Hopefully it was just me, as the admin, who saw it.

As rough as the old layout had become, though, it was a labor of love. I worked on it for two entire months, consulted with dozens of people, and modified it so heavily that I don’t think the original creator of the theme I used would even have been able to recognize it. This setup is much less fancy. It’s just the current default wordpress theme, with about 3 days of tinkering thrown on top of it. But there are significant improvements. Much more space for content, much faster loading times, and I’ve finally got a pretty solid search function! That’s exciting. I should also be able to get a nice navigation menu set up within a few weeks.

I hope you like it. Let me know if you’re having any issues. And just in case you’re wondering: no, it is not lost on me that my first post in several weeks has absolutely nothing to do with tabletop games. I’ll fix that too.

2nd Annual Papers & Pencils Reader Survey Results

The reader survey is over, with my thanks to everyone who participated! I had a total of 46 responses which is a little shy of the 50 I was hoping for, but a respectable improvement over last year’s 38. Another improvement over last year is that this is going up the week after the survey ended, rather than in October. This is partially thanks to Google introducing some better support for surveys in the past year, and partially thanks to the fact that I’m still kind of embarrassed about how long I procrastinated last year, and am eager to do better.

There’s a lot to sift through, so I’ll just jump right in. But quickly, before I do, I’d like to note that the image to the left was the first result when I performed an image search for “accountant cat.” Thank you, Internet. Thank you for being you.

Are you a regular reader of Papers & Pencils?

Yes, I read every post.	24	52%
Yes, I read most posts.	16	35%
I read the site occasionally.	6	13%
I’ve never read the site prior to taking this survey. (If so, please do not take the survey)!	0	0%

How long have you been reading Papers & Pencils?

Since 2011	6	13%
Since 2012	17	37%
Started reading earlier this year.	23	50%

Upon first looking at this information, one might think the number of readers I pick up each year is increasing. However, cross referencing with the same question from last year, I had 28 readers from 2012, and more than 6 readers from 2011. The most reasonable hypothesis is probably that people don’t tend to read blogs long term. They read a blog for awhile, then move on. I’ll be interested to see if that trend continues next year.

How would you rate the technical aspects of the Papers & Pencils website?

(1 is the worst site on the Internet, 5 is the best site on the Internet.)

1	0	0%
2	0	0%
3	24	52%
4	21	46%
5	1	2%

Could you briefly elaborate on why the site’s tech is good or bad?

(Answers grouped by type.)
Loads quickly. (2)
Loads slowly. (8)
Hard to find specific stuff. (5)
No complaints. (18)
Twitter feeder doesn’t work. (2)
Pictures don’t load. (1)
Needs a search function. (4)
I like the recommended reading. (3)
Color Palette is too dark. (1)
Needs a mobile version. (1)
WordPress sucks. (1)
Post tags are too messy. (1)
Post tags are great. (1)
More inline links to groups of posts. (1)
Since you’re not on a blogging website, I can access your site from work. (1)

All in all, this turned out a little better than expected. Nobody rated the site below a 3, though it seems as though about half of you guys use RSS readers, which is why there are so many ticks in the “no complaints” column.

My reasons for asking these questions about the quality of the site’s tech are twofold. First, it’s coming up on time to renew my hosting. I’ve always thought the site’s loading times have been a little long, and seeing that so many of you agree with me has convinced me to try to work a hosting upgrade into my budget. Of course, Papers & Pencils will never load as fast as a Blogger website does. Google’s servers are lightning fast. But hopefully we can improve that a little.

Second, I’d really like to rebuild the Papers & Pencils layout from the ground up. This is a huge job, and I worry that I won’t be able to find time for it. But there’s a lot of stuff I really hate about the website’s current format. The difficulty of finding old posts, lack of search function, and that fact that my layout is incompatible with wordpress’s Jetpack plugin are all huge frustrations for me.

Regarding the color palette, I honestly appreciate you letting me know. But I’m probably not going to change that.

Regarding a mobile site, I gave this a solid try when I was designing the site’s layout originally. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone close to me has a smartphone, which makes testing difficult. I’ll try to make a higher priority of that when I get around to the redesign.

Regarding the post tags, I agree with the guy who thinks they’re too messy. Still working out what I want to do about that in my head. I’m generally not fond of how wordpress handles post tags.

Regarding the fellow who reads from work; rock on brother.

How do you access the posts on Papers & Pencils?

I keep the website bookmarked.	23	50%
I have Papers & Pencils in my RSS reader.	20	43%
It’s in the blogroll of another blog I read. If the newest post looks interesting, I click.	2	4%
I get updates via Twitter.	0	0%
Other	1	2%

How did you first find Papers & Pencils?

Linked from another blog. (14)
Google+ (1)
Google search. (15)
Don’t remember. (3)
Linked from a forum. (2)
I’m your brother. (1)
Played a G+ game with LS (2)
Twitter (1)
Directed here by a friend. (2)
Met the author at Paizocon 2012 and he gave me a business card. (1)

Dude, Paizocon guy, you’re still reading? That’s awesome, I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it! Having lunch with you and your wife was easily the highlight of the convention for me, which didn’t really live up to my expectations otherwise.

Are you one of the 38 champions who participated in the 2012 reader survey last year?

Yes	9	20%
No, I didn’t want to / never got around to it.	2	4%
No, I wasn’t a reader at the time.	35	76%

I think it’s fair to say this supports my hypothesis about most people moving on from blogs after reading them for awhile.

What is your level of involvement with tabletop gaming?

Disinterested	0	0%
Casual	5	11%
Passionate Beginner	6	13%
Avid Player	6	13%
Game Master	23	50%
Aspiring Professional	5	11%
Professional in the tabletop gaming industry	1	2%

Hah! I’ve still got my professional from last year. He or she has yet to reveal themselves to me, but at least they’re still reading. They makes me feel relevant.

I’m interested in the high number of non-GMs among my readership. Given that I mostly post about game master stuff, I wonder what they find useful here.

Are you a blogger yourself?

Yes, I also blog about tabletop games.	11	24%
Yes, but I blog about a topic other than tabletop games.	4	9%
No, I’m not a blogger.	31	67%

What is your tabletop game of choice?

(Multiple answers were allowed).
Pathfinder (14)
Lamentations of the Flame Princess (1)
Dark Heresy (1)
Warhammer 40k (1)
Unspecified Edition of D&D (2)
OD&D (4)
B/X D&D (3)
AD&D (3)
AD&D 2nd Ed (3)
D&D 3.5 (4)
4th Edition D&D (5)
Traveler (1)
ACKS (1)
Custom home-ruled game. (3)
World of Darkness (1)
FATE (2)
Shadowrun (2)
Battletech (1)
DCC RPG (1)
Dungeon World (2)
D20 (1)
“Between Systems,” (1)
Conan (1)
DARPG (1) (Dragon Age?)
Warrior, Rogue & Mage (1)
Sixcess (1)
Cortex (1)
Ars Magica (1)
BECMI
Spells and Steel

Say what you will about the way WotC handled the D&D license, at least they never allowed the clusterfuck of confusing game editions that TSR allowed in the early days. I can hardly keep track of it.

There are a number of these I’d never heard of. I performed some googling for my own curiosity, and included links in case you’re also curious. Sixcess kinda caught my eye, I’m curious to learn more. Spells and Steel appears to be a homebrew system (from Charles Taylor, I suspect)? A cursory google didn’t reveal much about BECMI, save for the fact that it does exist.

I had no idea Pathfinder was still so popular among my readership. I feel kinda bad about not wanting to play it anymore. >.>

Earlier this year I released an adventure module titled “The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth the Necromancer.”

I didn’t know this module existed.	3	7%
I know the module exists, but have no interest in it.	3	7%
I know the module exists, but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.	20	43%
I read the module, but I didn’t like it.	0	0%
I read the module, and I did like it.	17	37%
I’ve played through or run the module, it wasn’t good.	0	0%
I played through or run the module, it was good.	3	7%

Wow! I’ve actually been concerned about how linear the dungeon was, and its general lack of tricky puzzles. It’s good to know so many people enjoyed it.

I don’t want to impose on your time any more than I have, but I’d love to hear any thoughts from people who’ve read it–in particular those who actually ran through it! If you’re so inclined, email me at linkskywalker14 [at] gmail [dot] com.

What is a recent Papers & Pencils post you enjoyed?

Deadly Dungeons (In general) (2)
Magical Marvels 13: Snowstorm Blade (2)
Colorful Characters 26: Ronder Thelleper, the Drunk Warlock (3)
Overview of Pathfinder’s Skills: Perception (1)
Deadly Dungeons 23: Flippy Turny Fally Room (1)
Pathfinder Class Analysis (2)
GM Tips (1) (Not sure if this is what they meant, but it’s my best guess).
Vendor Saving Throw (1)
You Don’t Need to Roll a Character to Start Playing (1)
Magical Marvels 12: Silvertongue Ink (1)
Magical Marvels (In general) (1)
The New Project (1)
Colorful Characters 6: The Owlbear (1)
Colorful Characters (In general) (1)
Not Everything Needs to be Finished (1)
Feat Slot System for Pathfinder (1)
Legend of Zelda Adventure System Combat Notes (1)
Magical Marvels 14: Hat of 5 Birds (1)
When Ginny Bo Fails a Morale Check (1)
Lamentations of the Flame Princess (1)

What is a recent Papers & Pencils post you did not enjoy?

Not Everything Needs to be Finished (3)
LS and the Fuzz Covered Vessel (2)
Magical Marvels 13: Snowstorm Blade (1)
Colorful Characters 26: Ronder Thelleper, the Drunk Warlock (1)
Dear Pathfinder (1)
Pathfinder Class Analysis (1)
Ding! Level Three! (1)
“Honestly nothing, I guess if i had to pick a type of post i like the least I would say picture Thursday’s are a little to short description wise.” (1)
“Some NPC or content posts could be more concise.” (1)
“I prefer looking at technical aspects of gaming.” (1)

It’s super interesting to see which stuff shows up on both lists, am I right?
To the fellow who was made sad by “Not Everything Needs to be Finished,” I’m sorry! While that post was a load off of my mind, but no one is more sad than I am that some of my past projects will never reach fruition. Hopefully someday I’ll make a living off of this stuff, and spend more time finishing stuff!

Regarding the length of my content posts, I agree. I let them get way out of hand. I’ve tried to be more concise with those posts since I came back from hiatus. I hope you’ve enjoyed them more since then. NPC posts might continue to be long, since I often use those as an exercise in writing fiction in addition to creating interesting characters.

Regarding the length of picture Thursday posts, those are unlikely to become longer I’m afraid.

Also, to the fellow who said their favorite recent post was “The Owlbear;” really, dude? That’s the most recent post you enjoyed? It’s one of the oldest posts on the site! I feel inadequate now. ( =p )

Do you leave comments on the site?

Yes, often!	0	0%
Yes, occasionally.	8	18%
I have, once or twice.	12	27%
No, I don’t comment because it’s too much trouble.	3	7%
No, I don’t comment. (For reasons other than it being too much trouble).	22	49%

What is your gender?

Female	1	2%
Male	44	98%
Trans Female	0	0%
Trans Male	0	0%
Other	0	0%

This makes me profoundly sad. My female readership is down 75% since last year! I weep for the gender inclusiveness of our hobby. ;_;

What is your age?

Under 15	0	0%
15-17	2	4%
18-25	14	31%
26-35	19	42%
36-45	7	16%
46-55	3	7%
56+	0	0%

Hrm, I’ll need to work on getting that “Under 15” readership up by next year!

What is your level of education?

Not yet in highschool.	0	0%
Some highschool.	1	2%
Highschool diploma.	4	9%
Some college.	9	20%
Associates degree / Professional certification.	2	4%
Bachelor’s degree	13	29%
Some graduate school.	3	7%
Master’s degree.	11	24%
JD	1	2%
PhD	1	2%
MD	0	0%

What the what? How in the world do I have such a highly educated readership!? I’m a dropout!

11 of my readers have Master’s degrees! One of my readers has a PhD! That is so cool!

What sort of work do you do? For food money?

Marketing/advertising
Tourism information
Computer Programmer
Web Architect
Software Developer
Cook
Graduate Student (!)
Officiate Soccer/Deliver Pizza
Military
Working on my PhD in physics (!!)
I have a PhD fellowship. (!!!)
Residential remodeling
Web Design
High School English Teacher (Shit! How am I doing?)
Engineer
Air Force Medical Services
Own software company
Teacher
IT Professional Banking
VFX student
Adjunct Biology Instructor
None
Physics
Office staff
Daytrading
Information Technology
IT Sysadmin
Business owner
Office Manager and Testing Technician
Software Engineering
Software Support
Computer programming
I am an acting major who works at a truck stop.
Litigator (Hey Gustie!)
Student
Disabled

Thanks to everyone who answered this question! After last year, reader Gilmoure suggested I add it to the survey. It was a good suggestion, some of you folks are super badasses. Did you see the person who does “Physics” for food money? I like to imagine he or she is a mad scientist.

Do you play tabletop games online, or off?

I play offline whenever I can, but enjoy playing online as well.	18	40%
I much prefer online play.	2	4%
I can’t find an offline group, so I play online.	1	2%
I only play offline.	17	38%
I have no group to play with at all!	3	7%
Other	4	9%

How frequently do you play tabletop games?

More than once per week.	7	16%
Weekly	18	40%
Bi-weekly	7	16%
Monthly	6	13%
Rarely	1	2%
Don’t have any group right now, but I want one!	6	13%

How long does a typical game session last?

1-3 hours	17	39%
4-6 hours	27	61%
7-9 hours	0	0%
10+ hours	0	0%

Tabletop RPGs are…

a cooperative storytelling experience.	13	30%
a way to explore imaginative worlds.	8	18%
a tactical adventure simulation.	1	2%
a game of challenges with open-ended solutions.	10	23%
Other	12	27%

The “Other” responses were:

-A mix of everything but most important fun with friends
-All of the above! (3)
-Can’t choose a single one, honestly. It used to be the “tactical adventure simulation” too, but not quite so anymore.
-Exploration and creative problem solving (#2 and #4)
-An escape from the world we live in
-all of the above are valid. tailor the game to the group.
-Both storytelling and tactical, in a proportion that depends on your players
-All of the above! I believe that story is the most important element, but without a well crafted world, and challenging situations story is useless.

I’m shocked by how many of my readers consider themselves story gamers, given how generally derisive I am of making the story the focus of play. I’m glad you folks have been able to find something to enjoy here, despite that disagreement.

I’ve been very very slowly writing a piece of fiction called “The Girl and the Granite Throne.” It’s linked at the top of every page on the website.

I…huh. I never noticed that there before.	25	61%
Not interested in reading your D&D fanfiction, dude.	7	17%
I’ve read it, not terribly impressed.	1	2%
I’ve read it. It’s alright.	6	15%
I’ve read it, please write more!	2	5%

Not terribly surprised by this response. I’m conflicted, because I’ve got my heart in that story. I want to tell it, but it doesn’t seem like a valuable use of my time given people’s general reaction to it, and the fact that it includes Vecna, a character owned by WotC. So I could never profit from it.

Thanks to everyone who answered this question. I was really curious to know.

You’re a GM, and one of your players tells you they would like to play an Illithid.

What’s an Illithid?	2	5%
No, that’s too overpowered.	1	2%
No, that’s not thematically consistent with this game.	12	27%
Yes, this might prove to be interesting.	6	14%
Yes, but make sure the other players receive some benefits to put them on an even footing.	3	7%
Yes, but plan for some disadvantages the player will face on account of his or her race.	6	14%
Other	14	32%

The “Other” responses were:

-What’s an Illithid do in d20 Modern 😉 ? Depends on context.
-go find some illithids and recruit them
-b and c; plus I find it stupid. For the record, Tieflings are also stupid.
-Yes, but you’re going to have to help come up with why you’re part of the group.
-Last two options
-Yes, but you will need to build your way up, train just like the others. Skills will come with time and practice
-Not if it’s your 1st character in that world
-If all the other players are OK with it and you can give me an AMAZING background story for it, we’ll make it work
-Why do you always do this to me!?!? Play normal! [Never, Jeremy! NEVER! MWUAHAHA!]
-“Have you thought about the mob with pitchforks and torches?”
-Depends on the setting
-Yes, but understand that most of the world believes you’re a brutal, evil creature and will treat you that way.
-Only OK in a game where min-maxing doesn’t exist (like. FATE core) or for a beginning player. If a regular wants to play something like that they need to help come up with an errata’d build that won’t hog the spotlight.
-Depends. Experienced players should “know better.” New players should enjoy themselves.

Do you have any disabilities which makes reading Papers & Pencils difficult? If so, how can I accommodate you?

“I have poor eyesight. I fix it with glasses.”

Very funny, you silly person, you.

“I’m stupid”

If education is any indication of intelligence, and my readership isn’t full of liars, then my readership is statistically more intelligent than the average population of the U.S. And you’re among my readership.

Checkmate.

Do you have any criticisms of Papers & Pencils not covered above?

Mechanics for mechanics’ sake isn’t that interesting. Ronder Thelleper is an example of that. Where did he grow up, train, how did end up how/where he is? Why is alcohol his only goal and trusted companion? What has he done for alcohol already?

Amusingly, despite the fact that Ronder Thelleper was cited by 3 people as the post they had most enjoyed recently, I actually agree with you. Ronder Thelleper was an idea I’d had the previous week, and I knew I was going to write it for that Friday. Then time got away from me, and the version which went online wasn’t written as thoroughly as I had intended. I think it stands well on its own, but if I’d had more time, I would have answered some of those questions you pose.

I’ve honestly racked my brain for 20 minutes now trying to think of one, and can’t come up with anything. Post more, that’s about it 🙂

Compliments are my favorite kind of criticism. I hope you’ve enjoyed 5-posts-per-week the last couple weeks!

I would LOVE it if you would put out more deadly dungeons posts =D The creativity in those posts is amazing and they are super helpful to me. My players are just about to start a dungeon with a slide room in it hehe.

Fun fact: the last two Deadly Dungeons posts were written because of this criticism. So there you go, LS delivers.

Deadly Dungeons is one of my favorite post series as well, and won’t be slowing down any time soon. I’d like to do a book of them eventually, if I can.

Can’t think of any criticisms. The ridiculously unkempt beard seems strangely appropriate.

I’m halfway convinced that ridiculously unkempt beards are a prerequisite for success in the tabletop industry. Otherwise I would shave.

no

Good.

I’m not too thrilled that you’re moving away from Pathfinder, but that’s honestly not that big of a deal. I read your site for articles on game philosophy more than anything. I wish you had a cell phone so I could easily chat with you.

This comment looks creepy without context.

You seem awfully caught up in ambition. My experience is that the best work one can do is that which comes easily. It’s good to push yourself, but don’t beat yourself up so much for failing to achieve your aims! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of my favorite posts (like game stories, or things you’ve learned as a DM, etc.) are some of the ones you’ve put the least effort into (because they’re not “creative”, they’re just pure expressions of your thoughts).

You’re not wrong. Some of my most popular posts have been ones I thought were garbage at the time I wrote them! And I’m definitely caught up in my ambition. I can’t really help it. My ambition, and my hope that someday it will pay off, are the only things which keep me alive.

I didn’t even know you had a big dumb face and an unkept beard (ridiculous or otherwise). Congrats!

1) I massively enjoy seeing content (even if open ended) discussing concepts and ideas you have regarding campaign management or making the adventure more lively. This type of post has arguably been the kind of thing that has me coming back for more.
2)I totally understand that you will be posting your characters and whatnot for LotFP from now on, but it would be nice if the post was somehow divided into two portions. One focusing on the concept and the other more on the ruling. Making the transfer of the concept to different rules easier.

1) I will keep this in mind. It’s about time I go back and revisit a lot of the concepts I’ve already discussed. Encumbrance, ration and ammunition tracking. I think I could improve on what I’ve done before, and I keep telling myself I’m going to do it eventually.

2) Most of the content posts have been very crunch-light for awhile, and LotFP is a crunch light system. For most posts, I doubt you’ll even notice the difference. The only posts where the difference will probably be noticeable are Malevolent Monsters (which won’t have a new entry until I start doing promo for the monster book I’m writing), and Colorful Characters. I’ll be curious to know if you’re having difficulty with the different rules. If you are, send me an email (linkskywalker14 [at] gmail [dot] com) and let me know. I’ll see if I can’t work out the kinks.

I have no interest in doing any more of the hours-long pathfinder crunch sessions, but if there’s something else I could do, it’d be good to know!

Your opinions are interesting – the only thing I would mention is this: if you can make Pathfinder better, why don’t you? Thousands and thousands of people are using Kickstarter every day to do just that – and if you can make the game system as good as it sounds in your blog, I have about two dozen people who would fork over $40-$50 for it.

Okay, fun story. In January of this year, a new friend told me they wanted to join my Pathfinder game. This friend is lively and imaginative; perfect for tabletop play. But he’s also impatient, bores easily, and has something of an acerbic sense of humor. I knew the Pathfinder character creation process wouldn’t go well, and he’d be frustrated and annoyed before the game ever started. So I decided to finally work out some quick character generation rules for Pathfinder.

Then I decided that even a quickly generated character would be complex and annoying. Most of my current player’s characters are filled with flaws because the players don’t understand the rules. I decided to undertake a project I had been wanting to undertake for a long time: a full bodied Pathfinder hack. I was going to call it “Play Pathfinder Like LS,” or PPFLLS.

My Ability Scores Weighted By Race system began its development here.
THEN I got to the combat system, and decided I didn’t like the way AC or attack rolls worked. Too complicated, too confusing. But I knew that this was too fundamental to change and still call the game “Pathfinder.” Once I changed that, it wasn’t a Pathfinder hack anymore. So I took the plunge, and decided that I was making my own tabletop game system. (This is where “Simple Attacks & Grapples” came from). I needed to change the name, of course. PPFLLS, said out loud, sounded like “Piffls” to me, which sorta sounds like “Pitfalls,” so I called the game “Pitfalls,” until regular commenter Jimmy pointed out to me that there was already a tabletop game called “Pitfalls and Penguins.” I decided to change the name of the game to “Rocksfall,” after another similar trap.

Rocksfall continued in development for awhile, but designing a tabletop RPG is a lot more difficult than I thought it was. And I started to wonder what the fuck I was doing. I decided to refocus my energies. First, to learn about more game systems so I had a better idea of what was out there, and would be better equipped to make Rocksfall someday. Second, to work on some large scale projects (such as a monster book) so that when I do set about making my own system, I have a better idea of the scale of the project I’m getting myself into.

Rocksfall isn’t entirely dead, mind you, I’m just not sure whether I’ll pick it up again someday or not.

I sometimes struggle to find old articles. This is probably a flaw with me, not your site.

No, it’s a flaw with the site. It’s my #1 frustration with the site, actually. I’m going to try to fix it.

I hated to learn that you’ve given up on Pathfinder. But, I totally understand the appeal of OSR-type games. I find Castle & Crusades very tempting.

It was a tough decision. But I don’t think I could continue doing Pathfinder justice anymore. I’m too involved in OSR games these days.

Just re-iterating the quicker/more organized categories. I often refer back to previous articles of yours that I intend to implement in my own games, but I can’t often remember which month/year/etc to look under, nor am I very competent with the search function.

I am sorry. It is a major failing of the site. I’ll do what I can to figure out a better solution.

I would organize and group posts more efficiently.

I would too. It’s a mess right now.

We have some philosophical differences so sometimes your articles are just not relevant to me. You seem very old-school in the type of roleplaying you expect from your players. I’m much more pragmatic: I don’t mind players rolling perception, narrating from a detatched point of view (“I’ll provoke that guy, maybe with something about his mother”), or having combat become basically a board game with miniatures.

I don’t mind players narrating from a detached point of view at all. I quite encourage it, actually. Though you’re right that I don’t like perception rolls or endless rounds of combat. I’m glad you’re still able to find something worth your while here!

I actually really like how Papers&Pencils has come up with a lot of different ways to use the base Pathfinder tabletop system. I have adopted versions of Encumbrance and the Randomized Hex Crawl for my own game, and have tried to simplify things for my players. I know you have talked about writing your own game system, and I think coming up with a simple system that puts power into the players hands would benefit tabletop gamers significantly.

I’d be interested in hearing more about what you mean by “a simple system that puts power into the players hands.” Feel free to email me if you’d like to discuss it a bit (linkskywalker14 [at] gmail [dot] com)

And thank you for your kind words about my ideas. I’ll try to keep them coming!

Was sitting on the edge of my seat all June for new posts and only got 1 🙁

I’m sorry. 🙁
I hope August has made up for it!

Ridiculously Unkempt Beard! I shall call it RUB for short. It is too distractingly amazing. Or is it amazingly distracting? This should be remedied.

Now people can point at my face and say “That’s the RUB, isn’t it?”

Is there anything you would like to add in closing?

Campaign toolbox was also a great post.

Aw, thanks!

Keep it up! Your readers need you! Well, need is maybe a strong word, but we sure do like and appreciate you.

Well, maybe need is just the right word! Maybe some of you would perish without the illumination of my deific intellect!?

No?

Alright then.

Obviously I enjoy your work as I usually check it once a day. I like to think of myself as a good Gamemaster, but I often find myself thinking, “wow, that’s a really cool idea I wouldn’t have thought of.” You are a great writer.

I lament your breakup with Pathfinder. While I can’t argue with your reasoning and I certainly appreciate you letting our dear Pathfinder down easy, this was the only Pathfinder-friendly blog I read, and I’m certainly going to miss the plug-and-play content I could get here. I am still going to be a regular reader, and I’m not about to attempt to change your mind, but, well, the two of you were so *good* together. Or, rather, you were good for it.
Cheers,
NowhereMan

I understand. When I first started Papers & Pencils, I spent a long time looking for good Pathfinder blogs I could read and link to. The scant few PF sites I actually found were nothing but character builds, feat analyses, and play reports. Nobody out there is actually assessing the game, trying to find its flaws and make it better. The only blogs I was able to find which WERE doing that were OSR blogs. Which, coincidentally, is how I was introduced the OSR in the first place.

A lot of the content here should still be good for you as a Pathfinder player. Deadly Dungeons has almost never been game-specific, and many of the GMing posts (like the recent one about bookshelves that I’m very proud of) can be used easily with any game system. I have some amazing Pathfinder-only readers, and I want to make sure they still find as much to interest them here as they can.

Also, thank you for referencing my stupid joke about being in a relationship with pathfinder. It made me smile.

I enjoy the depth and thought you put into many of your posts; something that can be rather lacking in some areas of the internet.

I just wanted to thank you.
Your blog posts have not only entertained me but have truly enlightened me.
You have great ideas and good tidbits of information that has proven to be very useful in helping me form my first campaign.
Cheers and keep up the great work

That’s awesome! Good luck running your first campaign. It will get away from you (all campaigns do), but it’s exciting like nothing else.

I enjoy how open you seem to be to thinking and learning.

The years I spent as a philosophy major had to be good for something, right?

Keep the mind open, and keep up the good work!

Instructions unclear. Attempted to cut open my skull. I’m a vegetable now. Thanks a lot.

(Seriously. Thanks a lot. That was a very nice thing you said to me.)

I’m glad you came back from your time off. The internet was sad without you.

I’m just impressed to learn my presence has such a huge impact on the Internet.

I love your trap rooms, your ideas for the Legend of Zelda (especially the non-experience point advancement system), and your general system write-ups (especially using Xd6 drop the lowest/highest instead of +/- modifiers for race; it can work with class too if you have a small enough selection).
Keep up the awesome work.

I’ll keep the trap rooms coming plentifully. The Legend of Zelda stuff is pretty much done, but if I come up with any more ideas I’ll be sure to share them. And system writeups are my favorites. No other post makes me feel more accomplished than a really good game system.

I’ll keep my work awesome, for you!

Keep it up. Me want more!

Dude be careful. Didn’t you see there’s an English teacher reading this site?

Awesome, amazing blog. I get so much out of your posts as a fairly new DM. I look forward to more articles. If I can suggest one thing, and it may be too much work, but instead of abandoning Pathfinder for LotFP, work on overhauling certain aspects. I enjoy your posts about why Pathfinder doesn’t work as I agree wholeheartedly, but I’d love to see more solid ideas about how to improve them. I’m currently working on a “Swords & Sorcery” style overhaul of PF and you’re previous posts have inspired a lot of that. Thanks, and keep up the good work!

There will absolutely be more criticisms of Pathfinder in the future. If nothing else, the Class Analysis series isn’t done. But I’m sure I have a few other thoughts in me as well.

Keep up with the interesting ideas!

I will!

If you were my DM, I’d buy you a beer.

I don’t drink, but I’d share a beer with you anyway, Internet chum!

Keep up the great work, I’m happy to see this survey and it gives me the push i need to let you know you are doing great instead of being lazy and lurking. I’ve adapted many of your deadly dungeon rooms in different forms and I haven’t been disappointed yet.
Final thought: I started with dnd 3e in middle school and thought it was the end all, then pathfinder gave me that same feeling, howeever as I’ve read your posts I am beginnning to agree that maybe I’ve lost sight of what the point really is… You’ve gotten me into looking at the older editions and I may even play an OSR stlye game in the near future.

That’s fantastic! I’d love to hear about what you think of older editions and OSR style games.

And thanks for filling out the survey. Hearing from readers seriously makes all the time I spend writing worth it.

I miss chatting on twitter about Star Wars books. 😛 In all honesty I think of you as an upstanding guy that I would love to be friends with in person. Also, I would love to build a game with you some day. Finally, I really want you to eventually finish more things so I can play and run them! You can do it, Nick! Your stuff is fantastic!
PS: I have found the system I want to run the Slaggoth adventure in. After running Sixcess at Gen Con I am super excited about the system. Also, check out Spectrum Games. They rock.

Ah, you were the guy who plays Sixcess? That game DID look interesting from what little I saw of it. I’m planning to give it a good look later.

Your site is a fount of creativity which both helps and inspires me to create bigger, better and more original things.

I don’t think anyone has ever called me a fount of creativity before. Thank you, it’s very touching to hear that.

Even though our group (not least of all me) got sick of Pathfinder, I am interested to see the class series finished.

It will be. I promise. (Really promise. Not just “I’m planning on it but will probably lose interest” promise.) [2019 edit: Apparently this was a huge lie. I’m sorry.]

Keep up the great work!

I will, but not because you told me to! You’re not my mom!

HOLYSHIT YOU GUYS THIS IS THE LONGEST POST I’VE EVER WRITTEN FOR THIS BLOG AND I’VE BEEN SITTING HERE FOR HOURS AND I’M SO GLAD IT’S DONE NOW. I MEAN, I LOVE YOU GUYS, BUT I’VE SERIOUSLY BEEN SITTING HERE FOR FIVE AND A HALF HOURS AND I JUST WANT TO EAT!

2nd Annual Papers & Pencils Reader Survey

With another year passed, it’s time for another reader survey! Perhaps this ritual of mine is a little strange, but it’s fun to learn about the people who read my blog. And even if I lack the mathematical knowledge to draw sound conclusions from the data, I can still muse over what type of people my writing attracts, and what they think about what I do. So I hope you’ll take a moment to fill it out.

It’s quite simple to do. You just need to visit:

The Papers & Pencils 2013 Reader Survey

There are only 11 required fields for the form to process. If you’re feeling particularly generous with your time, though, there are some optional questions at the bottom which I’m very interested to see the answers to. The survey will remain open until the weekend of the 24th, at which time the polls will close and I’ll post the results. All of which are anonymous, of course.

If you read and enjoy Papers & Pencils, I would like to ask you to take a few minutes to do this. It should only take a short time, and the more responses I get, the more reliable my eventual data will be. Last year, 38 people generously filled the form out. After a year of growth, I’d love it if we could hit 50 responses.

Thank you for reading.

Ding! Level Three

We interrupt our normally scheduled Picture Thursday to announce that Papers & Pencils has completed its second year. Woo! It’s honestly kinda hard to believe. By the time I reached the site’s 1st anniversary, I felt as though I had been writing for years. But the second anniversary completely snuck up on me! I didn’t even have time to ask my ladyfriend to make a doodle for me this time.

As with last year, I thought it would be valuable to go through the past year’s posts and pick out the gems to share with anyone who might have missed them. Even with the long break I just finished taking, there’s about 200 posts to go through, so I’m just going to dive right in.

Lively Locals: 6: The Godstone, 7: Lilbr, Village of the Dead, 8: Hero’s Rest – The Lively Locals series is one I think I enjoyed writing more than anybody enjoyed reading. And I’ll be the first to admit that it is far more hit-and-miss than my other “Friday game content” series are. All the same, last year had several which I thought were great. Lilbr, Village of the Dead in particular would make for a fantastic adventure location. Also, because nobody asked, Lilbr is an anagram of Brill, because I like Brill.

Merciless Monsters 6: Octorok for Pathfinder – Just as I was starting to think about what would become my LOZAS project, I decided to take the most classic Zelda monster there is, and stat it for Pathfinder. Because I’m a nerd, I decided to figure out how the creature’s anatomy functioned, given their strange ability to hurl rocks from a large orifice on their bodies. I’m still rather proud of what I came up with.

Seven Cursed Items for Fun and Profit – There’s nothing particularly special to mention about this post. It’s just seven cursed items which I still think are pretty cool.

Legend of Zelda Adventure System: Notes on Magic – The Legend of Zelda Adventure System, or LOZAS, was never finished. But it produced some of the coolest ideas I think I’ve ever had. The magic system, in conjunction with the spell list, is something I’d love to revisit in a future game system.

Zelda Adventure System: Rationale Behind the Game’s Experience Mechanic – Aside from being notable for the ridiculously long name, the mechanic I debuted in this post (having a single type of difficult goal which, whenever achieved, grants a level) was and is quite popular. I’d go so far as to say that of all the mechanics I can claim credit for, this one is the most well liked. Which is cool, because it’s a great mechanic.

Merciless Monsters 7: Fotavyon – The Fotavyon may be my single favorite monster I’ve posted on this site. The thing makes a freakin’ minefield of exploding eggs around its lair. And the art cbMorrie made for it is phenomenal.

Streamlined Skill Rolls – Blogging, or indeed any creative effort, is an odd beast. Sometimes the stuff you think is crap turns out to be very popular, while the stuff you work hard on gets ignored. I really like the streamlined skill rolls system, though I don’t think many other people do.

Using an Open-World Video Game as a Campaign Setting – I think I enjoy remembering World of Warcraft a lot more than I enjoy playing it. I’d still really love to do this sometime.

Campaign Management Toolbox – Orchestrating a campaign has always been a struggle for me. Running sessions is easy, but making good notes, and creating a world which is both consistent, and alive, is a struggle for me. Gathering / inventing these management tactics has helped a lot, though not all of them were as useful as I thought they would be when I started out. My technique needs updating. Perhaps there’s a future post in that.

8 Rules for Dungeon Improvisation – To be honest, I’m not sure if this post is good or bad. Am I repeating shit that everyone knows, or am I sharing the secrets of a skillset which not every GM has? Am I being pompous about my ability, or does this post actually help people? I hope it’s the latter. I don’t like being pompous, and I like being good at things.

The Girl and the Granite Throne: Chapter Four, and Chapter Five – I love writing The Girl and the Granite Throne. I love it when people read it, I love hearing what they think of it. I love the never ending slog of revisions I go through, which I’ll never be happy with no matter how many times I go through it. Unfortunately, 6 chapters (including the prologue) in 2 years is not a great record. It’s hard to prioritize a project which can never make me money (Wizards of the Coast owns Vecna, who plays a central role), and hasn’t been all that popular with readers. (Not surprising, this is a gaming blog, not a fiction blog).

Despite that, I’m not giving up on TGatGT. I have enough story plotted out already that I could get to chapter 50 and still have more story to tell. Chapters 4 and 5 were huge leaps forward in quality, and easily represent my best fiction writing so far.

(Which means I really need to write more fiction).

Vampiric Classifications 1: Hierarchy and 2: Types – I love vampires, and I enjoy the challenge of creating comprehensive lore. These posts are easily the best things I put out during a very long dry period of shitty posts. (I had an extremely unfortunate situation going on at the time). Were I to write them again, I’d change a few things, close a few loopholes, etc, but that doesn’t diminish how cool these posts already are.

Magical Marvels 8: The Greatsword of Horrid Dreams – Back in 2008, when I was playing World of Warcraft for several hours a day, I had a sword. It wasn’t the best sword for a Warlock. It wasn’t even all that great. But it had two things going for it. First, it was the best sword I could get. And second, it had the coolest name and the coolest appearance of any item I’d ever possessed. It was huge, and purple, and had a partially translucent appearance to it. And while I eventually replaced it, I have fond memories of it, and those memories inspired me to make perhaps the coolest magical weapon I’ve ever posted on P&P.

Feat Slot System for Pathfinder – The Feat Slot system popped into my brain a few days prior, when I was writing another post about feats. I sketched a quick outline of it, and got some positive / curious response, so I expanded the outline into an entire post. The Feat Slot system is one I would very much like to integrate into a future game system as an official part of character advancement.

Simple, Deadly Poisons – It’s hard to reinvent something which has been part of tabletop games since their inception. People have been thinking about traps and poisons for nigh on 40 years now, and just about everything has been done and tried. And while I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that someone else had come up with this idea before me, I still feel as though it’s one of my bigger accomplishments to have come up with a method of running poisons which is, in my most humble opinion, better than any other I’ve seen.

Critical Hit and Critical Fumble Charts for Pathfinder – Being honest, this chart is a tad bit bland. I never had very good luck with it, as my players seemed to almost exclusively roll on the low, boring results. That said, I like that all of the results are grounded and believable. Charts with wacky results are fun, but there’s something to be said for a more “realistic” chart, even if realism isn’t a design goal I often praise. (Also, Tatsubo’s comment was highly educational for me).

Fallout 3 Tabletop Game 1: Characters, 2: Skills, 3: Equipment, 4: NPCs and Foes – This game system is not good. It was never really meant to be good. Any casual reader will notice that it’s extremely crunch-heavy, requires lots of work on the part of the players to maintain their characters, and just generally doesn’t follow my design aesthetic. The goal wasn’t to make a game I’d call good. The goal was to recreate Fallout 3 as a tabletop game, and in that effort I think I succeeded well enough, and learned some interesting things along the way.

And it’s still totally playable, I think. I’d like to run it sometime.

Moving with Subtlety, and How to Roll Dice for it – This is a stealth system based on the Streamlined Skills System mentioned above. I quite like it, but it also had a lukewarm reception.

Pathfinder Class Analyses, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard, Alchemist, Cavalier, Inquisitor, Oracle – Holy shit that was a lot of links to find. The Pathfinder Class Analysis series has been one of the most edifying projects I’ve undertaken for Papers and Pencils. Going through each class and its abilities, thinking about what I would have done differently and spelling it out in detail, is a large part of what inspired me to take my leave of Pathfinder, and begin thinking about finding (or making) a game which is more in line with my sensibilities.

Checking for Traps is Bullshit – This post taught me an important lesson which, truthfully, makes me a little sad. Regardless of how much work you put into writing something valuable and interesting, the attention it gets won’t be able to hold a candle to a mediocre post with an inflammatory title. I think this post received more comments than any two other posts I’ve put up.

For those interested, Courtney’s response on his own blog convinced me I had been wrong.

D&D Christmas Carols: Dark Lord Wenceslaus – I was shocked this didn’t get more attention. It’s a video of me making a total fool of myself. What does it take to please you people!?

Deadly Dungeons. All of them, except 1, 2, and 6 – I’m not going to link these individually, because there’s something like twenty good ones in this past year, and I don’t need to develop carpel tunnel any earlier than I already will. This series is probably the best thing I’ve ever introduced on the site. Its given me an opportunity to make some really cool maps, and share some of my best dungeon ideas. The awesomeness of this series is part of what convinced me to start spending more time producing game content, rather than working on game mechanics.

Placing Treasure – While placing treasure is a pretty basic GM skill, I rarely see sourcebooks offer advice on how it can be done best. Perhaps nothing I wrote here was news to more experienced GMs, but it took me a long time to figure this stuff out.

Crafting Weapons & Armor in Pathfinder – Fixing Pathfinder’s crafting system was probably the most ambitious thing I ever tried to do within Pathfinder’s ruleset. The difficulty involved in just getting the damn thing to work was profoundly disheartening. None the less, I’m proud of the outcome.

Magical Marvels 10: Glasstouch Dagger, Magical Marvels 11: The Steedmaker Barding, Magical Marvels 12: Silvertongue Ink – None of these really have much of a story, or any interesting additional information to share. I just think they’re super cool magic items. And that’s what this post is all about: sharing the stuff I think is super cool.

Ability Scores Weighted by Race – I worked hard on this idea. I think I spent an entire evening pacing my apartment, trying to figure out the best way to mate the decision of which race to play, and the rolling of ability scores. I knew I had something, I just didn’t know how it should look. The work paid off, the idea is great and people responded to it quite favorably. Easily one of the best mechanics I’ve made.

Simple Attack and Grapples – At the start of this year, I was heavily invested in working on a project called “Rocksfall.” It started as a Pathfinder hack, but grew into an entirely unique system when I decided that I wanted to rewrite the combat rules from the ground up. This is what I was working with.

Book Review: “At the Queen’s Command,” by Michael A. Stackpole – A book review for a book I quite liked. In and of itself, probably not a post which would end up on this list. Except for the fact that the book’s author, Mike Stackpole, is a childhood hero of mine. And not only did he share this review on his twitter feed, but sent me a message thanking me for writing it. I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day. I don’t even know what cloud 9 means, but I was on it. That’s how stoked I was.

When Ginny Bo Fails a Morale Check – An awesome idea, stymied by the fact that Ginny Bo did not survive long beyond the writing of this post.

Merciless Monsters 13: Simonlefera, or “Cricket Wizard” – The Simonlefera marks the beginning of a shift in the way I develop monsters. A shift towards the unsettlingly bizarre. A shift towards bolder mechanics, divorced from the normal game structure. Plus that’s gotta be some of the best art I’ve ever personally produced.

Vendor Saving Throw – A clever mechanic, although Brendan’s criticism in the comments is probably correct. There’s no need for each community to have a different saving throw.

Free Module: The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth the Necromancer – My first gaming product. A significant personal milestone, for me, and a fun dungeon adventure if I do say so myself.

LS and the Fuzz Covered Vessel – It seems strange to include a week old post in a retrospective. But next year’s retrospective won’t look at any posts prior to this one, so if I’m going to point it out, I have to point it out now. And I think it’s a pretty great post, with some pretty great ideas. The idea of forcing players to literally memorize their spells, in particular, sounds really fun to me.

And that’s it. Hope you enjoyed this past year, and I hope you’ll enjoy the next one more!

The second annual reader census will probably go up next week.