This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

TTRPG where you play as pocket-sized monsters in a Pokapocalyptic world

The role of the Game Master is as old as the hobby. They traditionally have worn many hats: judge, storyteller, referee, rules master, game scheduler, craft services, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Do they deserve all this responsibility? Or are they just another player with an asymmetric role at the table? Should GMs do less at the table and other players step up and do more?

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

Free RPG Day is one of my favorite days in the hobby each year, as it's a chance for me to try a bunch of new games and acquire tabletop RPG product that's new, different, and often weird. It usually falls right around my birthday, June 21, though this year it was the weekend following my birthday. Free RPG Day is an annual event where publishers contribute quickstarts or other tabletop RPG related teaser products to a Free RPG Day kit, and participating retailers can buy these kits to distribute to their clientele.

This June, on the eve of my 36th birthday, as a birthday present to myself I decided to go for my first time to the third biggest tabletop gaming convention in the US: Origins in Columbus Ohio. I went in with almost a sure intention of it being the one time I was going to go, I was going to experience what it had to offer, then I was going to be done with that experience and never go back.

On Saturday, June 13 2026, my friends Maxine and Brandon put together a Pride Game Day for our organization which occurred at an Episcopalian church in Hurst, Texas. This game day was full of 3 slots of 3 hours each for tabletop roleplaying games provided by FWD RPG GMs. For me, it was a bit of a hike across town, given it was an hour away from my house on the other side of Dallas.

A tabletop gaming convention in San Marcos, TX happening Friday May 29 through Sunday May 31. This convention has around 600 attendees each year, and incentivizes GMs who run at least 8 hours of games by giving an extremely discounted badge. I find it's the best con in Texas to play independent tabletop RPGs, though it markets itself primarily as a Savage Worlds convention.

A tabletop gaming convention with a focus on board games put on by the folks behind boardgamegeek.com. This event happens every Memorial Day Weekend in May at the Hyatt Regency at DFW International Airport and is one of their 2 yearly conventions, with the other event occurring in November at the Hyatt Reunion Plaza in Downtown Dallas. BGG Spring is much more family friendly and is focused on a younger demographic than their fall event.

A key to our hobby is a term called "Versimilitude", which represents the appearance of truth in a fictional environment in a way that is believable and immersive. This is crucial to how we embrace our shared storytelling around the table as we talk about elves and hobgoblins, so we can sync our contributions to the narrative and keep the story going strong.

A retreat into the woods where the primary programming is tabletop RPGs, though there are other forms of tabletop and other analog games such as board games and Werewolf in the Dark. This is run by the Portland, Oregon chapter of Forward RPG and this was their third event of its kind. Con was hosted on Mt Hood in Northwest Oregon, just east of Portland, Oregon.

A tabletop RPG game day promoting non D&D tabletop RPGs through folks running one shots of other tabletop RPGs. This is run by the nonprofit Forward RPG, of which I am a member of leadership. We move this event around the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex each year, and this was the fourth FWD Fest. The event lasted from when the store opened until when the store closed, and contained 3 distinct slots in which folks could play tabletop RPGs.

A tabletop gaming convention catering to tabletop games and their community in the Dallas Fort Worth area. This is run by a nonprofit Worldwide Fandom, who until last year ran GameFest concurrently with AnimeFest, one of the biggest anime conventions in the Dallas area. As you can tell from the image below, this convention had way more space than was used for gaming this year.

In the olden days of our hobby, from what grognards say every game was free and people ran Dungeons and Dragons with the sole goal of promoting the game and the hobby without charging a penny. I've heard many long time tabletop RPG players lament the days before the "monetization" of GMing a tabletop RPG session, and it makes me wonder: when is charging money okay for a tabletop RPG?

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

I've been playing in a weekly campaign of Outgunned: Adventure: a pulp adventure tabletop RPG set between the World Wars. It's a good time, lots of punching Nazis and driving old cars, and one of its main mechanics that unites it with the 80s action movie base game Outgunned is the Chase mechanic. The Chase mechanic boils down to the speed you're traveling at (go too slow, quarry gets away), and a clock (when you fill it, you catch them).

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

In the year 2025, my regular weekly Wednesday night campaign group committed ourselves to run campaigns of Forged in the Dark games for the entirety of 2025. We played 7 campaigns across 44 sessions, with campaigns lasting anywhere between 3 sessions to 9 sessions. We played a campaign in each of the following systems. I'll discuss each one individually with my thoughts and experience:

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

The Endies are a method of writing a blog post as a reflection of my time with tabletop RPGs this year, with an optional challenge (mentioning 3-5 games I'm looking forward to playing or reading next year, and a couple "ttrpg new year's resolutions") This trend comes to me by way of Brendan Albano (check his Endies here) where…

Ever since the start of the tabletop RPG hobby with the very first iteration of Dungeons & Dragons, randomizers like dice were a core feature and mechanic. These randomizers serve several purposes for us as we play: - They limit perfect information- They inspire notions that (almost) anything is possible- They dynamize narration by influencing how much or how little something succeeds or fails…

A tabletop gaming convention centered around board games put on by the folks who run . Incidentally, they also own tabletop.events which is currently my favorite site to help with the logistical elements of running a convention. The convention had about 3100 attendees, though most of the gaming and programming was directly board game related. The group I'm part of, Forward RPG, were invited to send 6 GMs to run tabletop RPGs through the weekend.

A tabletop gaming and friend convention at Lake Bistineau State Park in Doyline, LA, happening November 8 thru 11, 2024 NatureCon is a convention for which I’m responsible for all things events and sleeping arrangements. It started as a friendcon where we’d go out to a state park and play tabletop games, and it’s grown in a great way into the event we run today, which is about 50 folks reuniting once a year to get some gaming in.

This is part of a series where I review a system mid flight as I’m either digesting it via reading or running a campaign. This review format is intended to be raw and rough, based on how I feel about a particular system today, knowing that my feelings about the system will probably be different in the future. I will provide 3 Hits, which are 3 parts I am fascinated by or like about the system; and 3 Misses, which are 3 parts I don’t feel I fully grasp or don’t like.

A LAN video gaming convention put on by folks who staffed QuakeCon. They run 2 events a year and have been going for several years. There is a large BYOC (bring your own computer) room where people play computer games as well as a room with a stage, a video game console room, and a tabletop room (board games, roleplaying games, and mah jong).