Categories are Soft Skills, Philosophy, Advice, Design, Resources, Games, or Reviewers.
Soft Skills
The Elements of Style
Standard advice for improving one's writing.
Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
Classic text on improvisation skills.
Philosophy
Five Geek Social Fallacies
Explanation as to why geek communities are always overrun by creeps and villains.
Finch's Old School Primer
Old school explainer from 2008. Much of the advice is quite wrong and not relevant to modern readers.
Principia Apocrypha
Newer old school introduction by Ben Milton & Steven Lumpkin. Better than you may expect.
History of the OSR
Five-part series detailing the full history of the old school renaissance.
Six Cultures of Play
An imperfect attempt to categorize D&D play cultures interesting for the historical perspective.
Fantasy Heartbreakers
Heartbreakers: knock-off D&D systems created by hobbyists whose preferences run contrary to good design.
Conceptual Density
Terminology for describing whether a supplement is useful or not.
Responding to The Impossible Thing
Do referees control the direction of the game, or do players? 4 possible resolutions to the conundrum.
F*** You Design
Callout of rules lites and fake rulesets that do not function unless the reader already knows D&D.
Playing to Win
David Sirlin explores what it means to play to win, as compared to the scrub who does not do so.
Dungeon Crawl Theory
Long-winded analysis of old school dungeon crawling.
The Sacrament of Death
Examination of the special role that Death plays in roleplaying games.
XP for Loot
Semi-interesting discussion of old school XP, including several very dumb commenters who don't get it.
Do Not Use Trigger Warnings
Why earnestly describing content is better than applying the flawed trigger warning concept.
Advice for Referees
Philotomy's Musings
Seminal discussion of old school play focused on OD&D. Also available in HTML.
Blorb Principles
The idea that good old school play preferences first preparation, then rules, and lastly rulings.
How to Run Puzzle Dungeons
All around practical advice for running any type of dungeon.
"Rulings Not Rules" is Insufficient
Arnold K examines of how the rules interact with diegetic problem solving.
Impactful Gaming
Practical advice for ensuring that game activities matter.
Illusionism and the Quantum Ogre
Hack & Slash makes an early attempt to discourage illusionism.
How to Awesome-Up Your Players
Rients gives some advice on running awesome games by emphasizing player engagement.
On System
Rients argues in favor of just playing the damn game instead of worrying so much about what system is used.
How to Run Into the Odd
Chris McDowall explains how he runs Into the Odd, advice which is applicable to many games.
Designing Content
Jaquaying the Dungeon
Techniques for improving your dungeon maps.
Resource Management
Exhaustive analysis of resource management within D&D.
Melan's Sandbox Guide
A quick broad overview of what it takes to run a sandbox game, written by Melan.
Melan's Hex Crawl Guide
Simple guide to designing hex crawls written by Melan.
Three Types of Hexcrawl
Blogpost describing three ways of using a hex crawl.
Six Mile Hexes
Article describing the benefits of using six mile hexes.
Time, Gear, Skill: Approaches to Skill Checks
Ensuring that skill usage has consequences.
Ability Score Design
Exhaustive analysis of ability score design in adventure games.
Spells and Resource Management
How various spells affect the resource management aspects of D&D.
Resources
Appendix N on Project Gutenberg
Read various books from Appendix N, for free and online.
Medieval Demographics Made Easy
Tool for generating medieval demographics, also available as a PDF.
List of Medieval Prices
List of English prices for a variety of goods during the medieval period.
Middle Ages Village Layouts
Deep dive into middle age villages, including how to use this information in D&D.
3E Demographics Calculator
Calculator for D&D demographics created for 3rd Edition but may be useful to any game.
How to Communicate Dungeon Maps
An extensive guide on how to communicate room dimensions succinctly when players are doing the mapping.
20 Campaign Questions
Twenty quick questions to establish the most important details of a campaign setting.
First Line of Each D&D Edition
A quick look at the first line of every edition of Dungeons & Dragons, without comment.
The Average Bestiary
Google Sheet listing all monsters across a huge number of games and which appear most frequently.
The Great Net Equipment List
Compilement of items found within products by or related to 1st and 2nd edition D&D.
Games
D&D Retroclone List
An exhaustive list of retroclones, although it is unclear when it was last updated.
Delving Deeper v4
Comprehensive OD&D retroclone. Easily searchable due to being a single HTML document.
Fantastic Medieval Campaigns
Full cleanup and reorganization of the original D&D game.
Aerdrie's Adventures as of May 2022.
A variety of adventures written for 2nd Edition D&D.
OSRIC SRD
An online SRD containing many of the rules for an AD&D retroclone.
Old School Essentials SRD
An online SRD for Old School Essentials, an exact B/X retroclone.
Shadis Magazine Issue #21
Rare magazine containing the Code of the Rats adventure.
OED Games
The Original Edition Delta by the blogger Delta; a set of house rules for OD&D
Tacspiel Wargame Procedures
Wargame developed in the 1960s by the US Army for research into guerilla warfare.
Reviewers
Bryce Lynch
Reviews nearly everything at a prodigous rate, leaving the quality of individual reviews in question.
Interviewed in a blog and video by Patrick Stuart. Plays about 2x per week in a home game & store group.
Melan
Hungarian author of Helvéczia, Castle Xyntillan, and the Echoes from Fomalhaut magazine.
Involved in the hobby since at least 1991, most recently running Seven Voyages of Zylarthen in 2023.
Prince of Nothing
Loquacious Dutchman who reviews a wide variety of old school modules, new and old.
Began playing with 2nd Edition, Dark Heresy, and B/X. Penchant for the gonzo.
Bones of Contention
Review blog with an ensemble cast selected for political views.
Due to the ensemble cast it will be difficult to contextualize any given reviewer.
Questing Beast aka Ben Milton
Milquetoast reviewer who exactingly describes products rather than give any actual opinion. Known also as "the poor man's Trove" since his high-def camera reveals every page of what he reviews. Joined the hobby in 2013 running games for young school children. Maintains his own list of interesting links.
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