I’ve been inspired by Hilander’s ZLDA dungeons recently. It’s made me reconsider what I view as the essential components of a dungeon. This is not the first time I’ve mused about dungeons, but I’ve ga...

The third entry in the Final Fantasy series was a departure from the game design of Akitoshi Kawazu and a spiritual return to the first game. It’s a story about four prophesied heroes destined to rest...

After wrapping up our Sword World mini-campaign, our meet the rpg crew voted to explore MEGALOS by matara. I hadn’t heard of this game until it was proposed, but after reading the 354 page book, I was...

Final Fantasy II could have been a ttrpg…but it probably would have been even more controversial than its video game counterpart. Despite having relatively limited exposure to the Final Fantasy commun...

The first one, I mean. If you’re new here, this is the third post in a series where I talk about video games from a ttrpg perspective. Video games are one of my major inspirations as a GM and ttrpg de...

I’ve been playing my way through Final Fantasy and other Japanese roleplaying games, and I have many thoughts on how their design translates to the tabletop medium. Earlier this year, I was inspired t...

Symbolism is important. I have never experienced an easy dragon fight. I used to hate monsters in ttrpgs because I felt like fights were never interesting unless the opposition was using tactics. I’ve...

Sword World 2.5 has been on my list of games to play for several years now, ever since I saw this youtube series discussing Japanese TRPG culture. My understanding of ttrpgs was exclusively limited to...

In 2025, I wrote a post called “alternative game fantasy: a manifesto“. It was my best attempt at expressing dissatisfaction with the six cultures of play, specifically because I feel left out of the ...

During college, I used to attend weekly board game nights with some friends. Sentinels of the Multiverse was a repeat favorite: a cooperative, fixed-deck card game. The game is easy enough to play whi...

A decade of knowledge applied to the most common questions in tabletop.

YouTube video by _NetNomad

We started preparing for our GURPS mini campaign about two months ago. Myself and several other intrepid explorers from the Paper Cult forums have been running a variety of our unplayed games in an ef...

I need to be less of a tourist when it comes to Japanese roleplaying games. I exist downstream from decades of culture and art that exists in conversation with itself, and I thoroughly enjoy the bypro...

A primer on applying Instructional Design to Tabletop RPGs

Create your pilot, craft your mech, then join the revolution. The iconic Lancer TTRPG has arrived, re-imagined as a mech-based tactics simulation. Put your synergies to the test in Instant Action, tac...

As part of an organized effort on the Paper Cult forums, I have been playing a variety of games in short 3-session campaigns to “Meet The RPG“. It’s kindof like a book club, but for games. Our first g...

In late 2024, I was hanging out in Farmer Gadda’s discord server, talking about tabletop rpgs (as was custom at the time). He mentioned that he had published 28 blog posts that year, and would like to...

I was born in the USA, but my parents moved overseas when I was four. Outside of a very brief stint in an international school, the vast majority of my pre-university education was homeschool. When I ...