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| THOUGHTS U: Search the top half of your Draft pile. Select one topic to post. Shuffle your Draft pile. |
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.
