Bloggies losers that won my heart
You stand in front of a door. Wrought iron spirals in patterns more suitable for a garden gate, but stretch tall enough and circle tightly enough to create a solid regularly sized door. Thick parchment peeks out from underneath it, yellowed with age. It begins:
The Bloggies tournament winners have been announced, and after spending a week reading through one category and a day reading through all the rest, I can confidently say that I... don't quite remember who all I voted for, and therefore don't know if I'm particularly upset at the results or not.
Ah well.
What I do know is that all the blogs I read were good, and that they are all very much worth reading. If you have some time you should go do so — or go listen to the incredible podcast that was created for the Bloggies this year.
But if that is (understandably) too much blog for you, I've plucked out one post from each category that did not win but that I really, really think you should read.
(One last thing before we continue! The Bloggies aren't actually over just yet. There's currently voting going on for best debut blog, best blog series, and best overall blog post. Go read! Go vote!)
Advice
This is the kind of advice that makes you go "Oh. Yeah." It feels obvious after the fact, but you still needed someone to lay it out for you in a way that makes sense. It's a post I wish I'd seen years ago when I first started running games and one that I will be keeping in mind whenever I run games from now on. Solid.
Also, the rest of the Knight at the Opera blog is equally good and also deserves your attention.
Critique
The Combat Conundrum: how violence actually works in mothership.
I found this post to be just kind of incredible, really. Disclaimer that I haven't played Mothership (somehow), but I found this deep dive into how the combat works (& how the layout and presentation of it doesn't) fascinating. A lot of good stuff to keep in mind when creating games, I think.
It's also dripping with passion the whole way through which is always awesome to read.
Gameable
1d20 Diegetic Rules, 1d20 Hypo-Diegetic Rules
I've been thinking a lot about Rules recently and really like Sam's thoughts on exogenous vs endogenous vs diegetic rules (most succinctly put here but you can also find stuff on his blog, of course). Note that liking them doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with them — but they are very interesting and I think Sam has quite a lot of good thoughts about TTRPGs. This post is a good example of what diegetic rules look like AND adds hypo-diegetic rules to the pot which may be my favorite type yet.
Theory
Now the cheating time where I'm a cheater and quickly mention another article cause it's also very good but I think it's pretty obvious I like it a lot already so I'll just say you should read it if you haven't: Does Super Mario Bros. (1985) Have Rules?
Ok back to the regular stuff.
What if we all had really cool discussions for ever and ever. I think this post is a great overview of some stuff that RPGs do, and why we choose to play them rather than just play pretend or run Caves of Qud. It provides a handful of helpful ways to look at TTRPGs — theoretical lenses that you can put on or take off — which is what theory is all about!
Meta
Meta is probably my favorite category this year, every post in there is so very good. I could talk at length about any one of them — except for one, which I think truly speaks for itself.
Faggot Games: An Urgent Warning
Make faggot games now, play faggot games forever. That's really it, go read the post.
- N.A.
p.s. alright ok i actually got one more for you. a secret category brought to my attention by this blog post, which was brought to my attention by The Indie RPG Newsletter.
i think noise sans signal has a good point! i certainly enjoy the odd, the unfinished, the poetic, and would like to see more of it in the spotlight. so here are my favorites of the blogs linked there:
a blog post thats also kinda a tombstone. includes text from a blog that no longer exists — a reminder that there are more incredible things lost each year than ill ever see in my lifetime (but fuck if i wont try)
Modern Magic: Shades of the Soul
i love this a lot. more weird and painful magic, please! i think the best kind of magic is the one that gets you. where you look at the cost and think "yeah, i could pay that. im built different." visceral in that i could taste the descriptions of each soul gem. good stuff.