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flight of four pumpkin beers in front of a pumpkin and fall seasonal decorations

Top 20 Pumpkin Beers

I’ve tried 54 different pumpkin beers over the years, as part of flights, as singles at alcohol retailers, and at restaurants. The only six pack I buy these days is Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin, which packs a nice bit of heat and is definitely my #1 pumpkin beer. Here are my top 20 pumpkin beers.

5e minis and a gelatinous cube mini on cavern tiles from The Sorcerer's Cave

Sea Cave Complex for 5e

Running Colossal Cave as a setting recently reminded me that I once got a delightful three sessions of play out of the following notes. These were for a dungeon underneath a seaside city, with three traps from James Introcaso’s 20 New Traps and assembling the dungeon on the fly using tiles from The Sorcerer’s Cave (get your own set of tiles for this out-of-print game from here).

Choose Your Own Path sign in the woods

My Gamebooks

Links to my three gamebooks.

man climbing up an indoor wall with colorful plastic handholds

Playbook Currencies: Named Hold

A look at hold in Apocalypse World, named hold in Dungeon World 1 and its hacks, and move-specific currency.

an abandoned swimming pool

Drained-Pool Politics

One example of how Jesse Jackson challenged segregation.

Amazing_Stories_01_07

Magazine Covers for Pulp Science Fiction

Here’s some art that I didn’t use in Planet of the Week but wanted to highlight.

A picture of Worf with the quote: “The true test of a warrior is not without, it is within.”

Worf, from First to Last

Worf in Picard seems true to this quote from the very first Worf-focused episode, “Heart of Glory”: “The true test of a warrior is not without, it is within.”

HP-or-conditions-poll

Quick Polls: HP or Conditions; Debilities & Damage

Most PbtA players of Reddit prefer conditions 4-to-1 to hit points (63% vs. 16%). A separate poll, on just the Dungeon World subreddit, asked how often GMs dispensed damage with a debility. All but a few do it occasionally, with “sometimes” the most popular answer.

The_Odyssey_SYMPHONY_X_cover

Pop Songs Inspired by The Odyssey

I’ve been curating this short playlist of pop songs referencing The Odyssey since 2013.

Gramma C’s Rules for Rummy 500

Today would have been my maternal grandmother’s 111th birthday (1915). Alas she was not as long-lived as a hobbit with a corrupting magic ring.

BG Stats 3 x 3. Play count: 11: SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; 11: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Trick-Taking Game; 6: The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship; 6: Ticket to Ride: San Francisco; 5: Scrabble; 4: Brew Crafters: Travel Card Game; 4: Turing Machine; 3: Blood on the Clocktower; 3: The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

Board Game Plays So Far in 2026

In the original spirit of Blaugust, here are some random observations of some of the games I have managed to play so far this year.

Orkestro_definition from Esperanto Wikipedia

Esperanto Words with Ambiguous Segmentation

Some Esperanto words can be parsed into roots and affixes in multiple ways.

Cycladic_League_Apple_II

The Prehistory of Cycladic League

Early versions of my civ-lite BASIC game, Cycladic League.

definition of Esperanto highlighted in a paper Esperanto dictionary

Esperanto Homographs

A look at seven word forms in Esperanto that are homographs.

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Featured Posts

  • Axis & Allies and the Technology Development of World War II

  • Anti-Canon in Stonetop

  • The Top 10 Songs from Subspace Rhapsody

  • Quantum Gear from Schrödinger’s Catalog

  • Play BASIC Computer Games Online

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