PONDER THY BLOG(GIES): Thoughts On The 2026 BLOGGIES

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2026 BLOGGIES

Well, 2025 was a banner year for I CAST LIGHT! given that I won an unprecedented two Bloggies for GAMABLE post, WHY MEGADUNGEONS?, THEORY post, RANDOM ENCOUNTER TABLES AS ADVENTURE RAM, and an additional one with co-author with Josh at Rise Up Comus Bloggie for BEST SERIES with the Designing Dungeons course. 

With great relief, the TOP POST went to elmcat for the Mapping the Blogosphere. This blogger is a far, far better candidate to lead the 2027 BLOGGIES, as measured by the substance of the mapping project which encapsulated the WHOLE blogosphere, but also the technical ability. It's a post that will help not only the hobby but the scholarly study of RPGs as oral folk art. Extremely well-deserved top win!

Clayton, of Explorers Design, did a fantastic job on MCing the 2026 BLOGGIES. I think, by collapsing the format into two weeks, he set a great bar going forward. He also did a lovely job keeping everyone updated on the progress and getting the word out.

WRITE THY BLOG- FOR THY SELF!

YOU should start your own blog. I really can't expand much more than I did when I originally posted on the topic in 2022 with the purchase of Twitter by Elon. Nor, can I write better than when I argued in KNOCK #5 that blogs are a slow, thoughtful medium that leaves ruins, as False Machine put it, for others to dig through.

But I can add now that by writing a blog, people will read your blog, and people will revisit your blog. Your thoughts are valuable in this hobby space, and you should not be shy about sharing them. Shockingly, your blog will be picked up by all sorts of people. But not shockingly, it won't happen overnight (or hell, it could), but in either case, the blog must be started and maintained. Often it's because folks will find one post, think its cool, then read through the rest of your stuff and find other posts that resonate with them.

I can also say only write for yourself! Seriously. Don't chase a perceived blog ideal. I don't say this to be condescending, putting on airs, or holding "office hours". I say this because it's a mantra I repeat constantly to myself as an antidote to the (strong) pull that social media has. It is one thing to mimic the focus of a particular blog, but another to want to copy the eyeballs-on or pull of another blog.

To me, when you write for yourself, your authenticity shines through, but far more importantly, your idiosyncrasy shines through. And it's that individual, in-grown, feedback loop fermentation of ideas that gives blogs the pungent flavor people love. Are these tastes for all people, hell no! Are these flavors intended to appeal to all, hell no! Are they good- yup! "Good" here being distinct with a discernible intent, even if not "liked".

Blogs are like cheese- the one that smells like feet is better than the unoffensive Kraft single. Be the feet cheese.

PONDER THY BLOG- I CAST WRITE!

If three BLOGGIES are proof of good feet-cheese, here is how those posts got written and a little bit on the origin of the blog itself.

I CAST LIGHT! was originally going to be a micro-blog with a post word-count equal to the light spell from D&D. More notes to myself rather than full posts. I thought I didn't have a lot to say-- this lasted all of ~3 posts and would show up in a smattering of posts since. I pivoted instead to trying more to write about the practicalities of playing D&D. Everyday DM-level stuff that arises from trying to run D&D in addition to trying to implement concepts other people blogged about. 

WHY MEGADUNGONS?: This post arose from a comment in a Discord, but I think what drove me to write it especially was (1) the connection between megadungeons as a historical D&D aspect, an interesting resurgence in popular media, and a D&D game structure that supports ~4-hour game once a week that doesn't require the exact same players every time; (2) convey the enjoyment of my own experience in the Nightwick megadungeon.

I think by taking time to discuss some common misconceptions of the megadungeon I hopefully was able to draw a line between what they might be seeing in popular media (eg Dungeon Meshi) into actual play that was easier to pull off than one might think.

RANDOM ENCOUNTER AS RAM: This post is a great example you should just blog on what you want and hit "publish". The idea arose out of trying to figure out how not to have "scripted events" but figure out how to store information outside of just notes. Again, this is a problem that arose from me playing my own dungeons. I wanted to remember player impact but also have it feed directly/immediately into the game. It is also an example of me trying to modify old-school procedures beyond their initial presentation into something more modern without changing it too much.

I would have never guessed this post would be up for any sort of award. But it also demonstrates that sometimes the things you blog about, which you think the fewest people care about, can be things that a lot of people care about. Or enjoy. Or didn't realize they cared about until you posted it. So to repeat, write what you want, hit "publish", and play your game.

DESIGNING DUNGEONS: I have to give Josh a lot of credit for the energy here. So I was lamenting out loud on Discord that while there are several books on running fantasy RPGS, several of them don't really go step-by-step into building a dungeon. These books are often both too brief on dungeon design and too long to help a DM get going. Also a lot of modern dugneons are quite small, which really doesn't give the format a chance to breath. Nor a lot of fantasy adventure games, dungeon rules a chance to be impactful. Yet, the old-school answer is to read like 20 blog posts scattered over a decade of OSR writing-- also not helpful.

So Josh agreed the idea was solid and was like "let's write this". The final document seems to have worked out really well. And it's nice to have something out there folks can easily have access too to start building their own dungeon AND megadungeon. The document also pulls together several other very helpful posts on dungeon design which people can reference before or after they build any particular part of the dungeon. The writing reinforced to me the value to me of a writing partner to help maintain energy, consistency, and quality. So try out a two-headed blog. That's something I've not seen a lot of.

FIN

I'll stop here and hit publish because the risk of navel gazing is that one gazes too long and finds one's head up one's own arse. I'm thankful for my readers, my hobby friends, and the blogging community that has allowed my growth in gaming. Blog. Do it.

ORIGIN STORY: How I Got Into The OSR

In an effort to keep to my word to make things more blog-centered, I am going try to read, link to, and respond to more blog posts.

Over at Gorgon Bones, there is an OSR origins story of sorts. And I thought it might be fun to tell my version. I don't know how long this will be but I will try to not meander too much.

I STARTED WITH 2e AD&D

Despite BX being my preferred edition of D&D, I actually got into the hobby by stumbling upon my brother's comics and 1e AD&D collection. But the frustrating thing is that I had a bunch of adventures and filled out character sheets, but no starting rules. However, I did find in the collection a copy of TMNT and Other Strangeness so that was my very first RPG. A few years later, the second edition of the game was put out and I snatched it up quickly. Fortunately, I had made a friend in middle school who played with his 2 brothers and cousin.

And so I headed off into the RPG wilds, rolling up several characters that I would never play and really only ever getting about 1 Saturday afternoon's worth of adventuring in on any adventure. Eventually, group had bought boxsets, splat books, and such-- Ravenloft and Planescape being the favorites. By 14, it had all accumulated to just too many rules for one DM (usually me). So, things wound down by about 16 with the occasional game of Battletech or 40k in there. And of course Magic the Gathering. I eventually got deep into school and dating and all my RPG stuff lay dormant but the fun never forgotten.

INTERLUDE SEPERATED BY MANY YEARS

ME: Wait you said you ran games for White Wolf? They do Vampire?
TEACHER: Yeah but before my friends and I did do a lot of Call of Cthulhu.

ME: I don't play WoW because I've already played that game... its called Dungeons & Dragons 

ME: I never understood where your Player's Handbook was because how did you learn the game?
BRO: Oh, I guess I did have the Basic Box but must have given it away. I never did understand why people moved to AD&D, Basic was enough.

YEARS LATER AT THE CROSSROADS OF 5e D&D & 6e CoC, I MET THE DEVIL

I was comming off getting big into the US boardgame revival in the mid-2000. There were three games that stuck with me (and continue to do so) all from FFG: Cosmic Encounter, Talisman, and Arkham Horror. 

Of course 5e D&D came out and hearing it was a more back-to-basics D&D and not the direction that 4e had taken, I was all back in. But as I started reading the adventures I couldn't help feel they still were the same on-rails experience a lot of 2e was. Which, in addition to the volumes of splat-book rules we piled on, really made the game a drag. So, remember how much fun Arkham Horror was I wondered if Call of Cthulhu was the same fun. And The King in Yellow was one of my favorite mythos stories-- so I started looking up "Carcosa" as a setting.

And lo-and-behold, I start reading on the internet how someone has published suppliment to D&D called Carcosa and there were calls for it to be banned or censored or burn because it was just too much.

At first I thought this was some sorta gag right? Like a book based on a book about a play that makes people go insane and see visions of a planet called Carcosa was being boycotted? Just like the fictious play. Can't be real.

With a little more digging I, like a lot of folks in the OSR scene, had my first encounter with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. But I still couldn't figure out what kind of D&D it was and no store in my area were carrying the rulebooks. Casting about more I hit upon a few notable blogs like False Machine, Monsters & Manuals, Monster Manual Sewn From Pants, Dungeon of Signs, and Zak's blog. So the first three things I got my hands on were: 

• Deep Carbon Observatory
• Yoon-Suin
• Vornheim

And after reading those books, I all of a sudden I had a version of D&D that I could keep in my head. I realized that unlike 2e, I didn't need to keep a bunch of chats and stats in my head. Instead, I could keep a few relevant numbers and relationships in my head. I had also found Matt Finch's manifesto about the old school scene. That too clicked with me.

Those three books also kinda represented a mix of what I wanted out of D&D-- a game where creativity moves to the front, instead of numbers. They also encouraged me to develope at-the-table tools and to creatue situtions, instead of trying to create a "story" the players are to follow. The tone of DCO and Vornheim appealed to my inner meloncholy while I found Yoon-Suin sorta reminded me a little bit of Planescape in that it was a D&D setting, but pretty removed from traditional D&D.

MY VERY OWN BX D&D

In the near present, I started running BX in earnest when I was asked to start a D&D campaign for some folks who worked around me.

5e of course was a natural start, but it quickly became apprent that it was just too much for complely novice players. They really didn't "get" how to play an RPG so I needed a system that was stripped down. A few sessions with the Black Hack and then I transitioned to BX. At first with a lot of LotFP as it was about the best BX out there. But, I finally looked on ebay for a copy of B/X D&D. Found a good copy of each book along with a copy of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and as a treat I had them bound together in library binding (left pic). A now very cherished relic. But so much so, I hate to use it unlike my very well worn copy of OSE.

An really from there the rest is on this blog!

BLOG!: Good God! What Is It Good For?

How Twitter views blogging

With the recent Twitter turmoil caused by its new owner, there has been a call to return to blogging as a means of communication in the OSR pond I swim in. And I absolutely agree.

WHY BLOG

Slower & more in-depth: To me, one big reason is blogging's slower, cooler, longer form is a good counter-balance to Twitter or TikToks rapid hot-take environment. Blogging allows for a deeper discussion, better dissection, and/or a more balanced review of whatever RPG topic is being looked at.

"Quieter": Blogging too helps muffle the other voices in the same space. Responding on Twitter to trending topics presses you to prioritize rapid response and a bit more group think, but with a super spicy twist, in order to get those likes and reshares. Blogging on the other hand is far quieter- you, your thoughts, and a blank sheet. I find it a relief.

Archival & stable: The last broad reason to blog is that its comparatively more long-lived and archival and therefore paradoxically easier to share than something like Twitter. Less on an individual post level, but its easier to share things from years ago or share like or grouped things-- like all monster posts for the "Sky Castle of Violet Spires" series.

WHAT TO BLOG

Rule Zero- write about what interests you and don't worry about anything else. Seriously. That is the simplest piece of advice I can give. The more you drill into what interests you, the more the blog will develop its own voice. I love reading people's idiosyncratic views on the game.

Like, start A Fist Full of Fighting-Men (great name!) a blog all about fighters and fighter-centric campaigns. Its fine to hyper-specialize because that will lead to more novel posts of even well-worn topics like reviewing B2 again for the 1000th time.

A close second is writing about what you have recently been playing. I still think there is a surprising lack of this sort of content in the RPG space. A lot of theories exist. A lot of ideas about what works, what should work, and what is the correct way. But still few people showing their work. And for new players and DMs, being able to see this work is important because it helps explain the "why" especially in a lot of old-school play cultures. 

This is primarily my reason for blogging all my Nightwick games. To demonstrate that GP = XP, mapping, and rolling a random 3d6-down-the-line magic-user can work. And it had a knock-on effect of generating ideas about how to make the classic d4, one-spell at level 1 MU successful in-game-- resulting in one of my highest read posts and having it featured in KNOCK! Vol 3. But let me say again, this MU advice didn't arise from me theorizing, it was from 20+ sessions of megadungeon play with this PC.

Write about problems, campaign-wise, you are trying to overcome. This is similar to writing about playing, in that its starts with experience first not just an idea about how things should be done without actually attempting it first. Like a house going up in a neighborhood, people often find the process more interesting than the finished product because they can see "inside".

Here at ICL, this is why I started blogging at bit about my "Super Cleric Bros." campaign. I thought it might be useful to describe problems or content that needed to be generated for the game and then just show the "think-through". Nothing is incredibly novel about the campaign, but it generated some good responses. And I think represents more the sorta campaigns/game people are running.

But this also can something as simple as, "I'm running a swamp campaign.  Here is my d6 random encounter table for the next session." Even that is blog-able. Why? Because of Rule Zero, you are interested in it.

GETTING STARTED

1. I keep a Mead Five-Star grid-rule notebook close at hand for jotting down anything that pops into my head. Its also great for responding to hot takes without responding to hot takes. Occasionally review it just to see what good ideas I've forgotten.
   
   
2. I just use Blogger because its easy for me. But just use whatever platform is low effort. But when blogging, content is king, so I'd not worry about more than just a banner to convey what your blog's "thing" is. Some famous blogs don't even do that.
   
   
3. Then I am trying to post once a week- so 52 times a year. And I do want maybe about 1/3 of those posts to be something from play. So far I am at ~40+ posts and really I think I could do more if I would just relax, post more idiosyncratically, and leaning into posting about whatever I want.
   
   
4. Tags do help! I wish mine were a little better and I think a good way to start might just be to use the OD&D titles as tags themselves (ugh- that IS a good idea):
• Men
• Magic
• Monsters
• Treasure
• Underworld
• Wilderness
• [Campaign Title]
  
  
5. Here are some topics (from an OSR perspective) that might help: 
• Last RPG post that lit a fire in your brain and why? 
• Description of the last session you played in. 
• What are 6 pieces of "terrain" to add to any dungeon room encounter? 
• Who are the gods of law, neutrality, & chaos in your campaign and what if my fighter gives an offering to each?
• What are three illustrations that define some part of your ideal D&D?
  
  
6. Finally after you've built up a good bit of material, try to organize it in your sidebar for ease of reference for yourself and the folks who start dropping by!