Troy Press

One of the things I love about Stonetop is its anti-canon nature, procedurally generating situations, which players are then encouraged to help flesh out. There’s lore, but much of the lore is player generated, meaning it will differ from table to table and that players rarely have to worry about contradicting established canon. Instead of tales from a book think of it as tales told around a fire, changing with each telling. The Ustrina Beneath Gordin’s Delve Here’s a good example of the power of this approach. One session my […]

I finished Level 1 of the Duolingo Esperanto course in 50 days, after about 70 hours of study. Near the end of Level 1, I created an Esperanto-only Twitter account and could read and write basic tweets in Esperanto. All subsequent levels of the Duolingo course after Level 1 are just a repetition of what you’ve already learnt. So the emphasis is really on practice. I completed the Duolingo course on May 14, 693 days in (1.9 years), studying for 15 to 30 minutes a day. And today’s my two-year […]

I recently rewatched Strange New Worlds, in prep for the new season, this time watching it with my son (his first time). The series is well regarded (the average episode rating is 7.9, compared to 7.7 for TOS’s best season), optimistic, and embraces episodic television, covering a wide range of genres. That said, the series does suffer from prequelitis, repeating those problems common to prequels. Here are four types of issues that I noticed. Continuity Issues Prequels often struggle to maintain consistency with the established lore, characters, and events of […]

About one out of four Americans (24%) have ever read any gamebooks (“such as Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, or solitaire RPG adventures such as the Tunnels & Trolls series”), up from 20% in 2019. Here are the most common themes people mentioned when describing their experiences— Slightly more Americans (28%) have ever “played any text adventures or interactive fiction games on a computer, tablet or smartphone, such as Choice of Games, Infocom, or Twine games.” This is also up from 20% in 2019. Reading of gamebooks […]

As part of my ongoing rewatch of Star Trek in chronological order, I binged Star Trek: The Animated Series for the third time and realized that The Animated Series did try to go where “no live action Star Trek has gone before”: Of course, it all too often went where the original series had gone before. Sequels: Reskinned plots: In general, the IMDB ratings show a decline from TOS: In fact, only one episode scores above the average TOS rating of 7.4: “Yesteryear”, by D.C. Fontana, at 8.0, about Spock’s […]

One of the first Apocalypse Engine (Powered by the Apocalypse) hacks, originally crowdfunded in 2013, Sagas of the Icelanders by Gregor Vuga focuses on playing out a historically accurate campaign within Iceland. There’s an emphasis on gendered roles, and playing against or toward gender expectations, which may not be for every table (male moves, a Man playbook, female moves, a Woman playbook, etc.). There’s little to nothing of the supernatural; the focus is on society and feuds. You may want to limit some of the historicity: the lack of nobility […]

Nearly half (47%) of American adults have heard of a fictional of constructed language (“conlang”) such as Klingon (39%), Valyrian (18%), Dothraki (17%), or Esperanto (9%), according to a new online survey of 1,377 adults. Six out of ten Americans (62%) have reported watching a show or movie where people used fictional languages (though they may not have known the language’s name). One out of five (20%) have read about fictional languages. However, few Americans (5%) have ever studied a constructed language. The top three conlangs studied were Klingon (2% of Americans), Esperanto […]

The Top 10 episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), according to IMDB, but in chronological order: Episode Title Rating Rank Season Episode* Balance of Terror 8.8 3 1 14 Space Seed 8.7 4 1 22 The Devil in the Dark 8.3 10 1 25 The City on the Edge of Forever 9.2 1 1 28 Amok Time 8.6 6 2 1 Mirror, Mirror 9 2 2 4 The Doomsday Machine 8.6 7 2 6 Journey to Babel 8.5 8 2 10 The Trouble with Tribbles 8.7 5 2 […]

I had expected 7 Wonders: Architects to be a streamlined version of the base game designed for a wider audience, like Simply Catan vs. Catan (e.g., fewer victory points, fewer cards, nicer components). In fact, 7WA is a dramatic reinvention of the game for the mainstream market, with gorgeous components. The result is a great game to give as a gift but probably not a great game to replay. Differences from 7 Wonders— Game decisions are primarily tactical rather than strategic but there are interesting decisions to be made. With […]

Here is one possible chronological viewing order of Star Trek, arranged in roughly chronological order within the fiction. (If you don’t want to watch all 900+ episodes, you can watch the top 100 episodes in chronological order.) In September 2021, I decided to start a multi-year quest to rewatch all of Star Trek in roughly fictional chronological order. Roughly, because I’m not going to interleave TNG and DS9, and DS9 and Voyager, for instance. And roughly because new prequels like Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, which I watch as […]

If Dungeon World was the PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) homage to D&D 3.5, then Freebooters on the Frontier is the PbtA homage to the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Freebooters provides an OSR (Old School Renaissance) experience, fusing 1970s role-playing with Apocalypse Engine rules: basic character types, a high rate of PC fatalities, and funnel sessions (adapted from Dungeon Crawl Classics, itself an OSR system). The system shines for supporting improv, with hundreds of random tables to use as prompts. Freebooters on the Frontier 2e is available in […]

Which PbtA or FitD games are recommended for science-fiction settings? In part, it depends on which genre you are trying to emulate. The following are each unlicensed settings in similar genres. To boldly go where your favorite science fiction has gone before: For world building—well, galaxy building—check out The Perilous Void. And a few fantasy titles: Comments and suggestions welcome here! Originally published 2022-06. Updated 2022-08-23. Added Starforged’sown list of inspiration. Updated 2023-05. Added Atma, The Continent Adrift, Invasion of the Third Kind, Light Side, Sixth World, Thirsty Sword Lesbiansand […]

Most RPGs require players to carefully track the items they carry. For instance, in 5e, you track how many pounds each item weighs, and the total weight you can carry is 15 pounds times your Strength score: for example, with a Strength of 10 you can carry 150 pounds (!). While 5e doesn’t require you to specify where your items are (e.g., your hands, your pack, your belt, etc.), anti-hammerspace systems require you to specify such details. Such detailed inventory and gear systems are simulationist. As a result of such […]