Troy Press

The BASIC Programming cartridge for the Atari Video Computer System has the distinction of being the worst commercial BASIC interpreter of all time. The limited available RAM meant that programs could be at most 11 lines long and no more than 64 bytes total. Anyone who bought this cartridge, expecting to be able to type in the BASIC programs from 101 BASIC Computer Games or the computer magazines of the day, would have been profoundly disappointed. I do love the above illustration from the manual, which gives BASIC programming the […]

Our family friends the Hansels were the first to get a videogame system, the Atari VCS. I remember playing Combat, Breakout, and later Space Invaders. My dad was jealous, but he ended up getting us the Bally Astrocade. This turned out to be a great system, and its BASIC was far better than the Atari’s (the Atari BASIC Programming cartridge limited programs to 64 characters!). The Wikipedia article on the Astrocade didn’t have many details about its BASIC, so I added a section on the language. To that point, I’d […]

So I discovered Dungeon World originally through Sly Flourish’s blog, and he is open about adapting techniques from other systems in his 5e games. He recently blogged about zones in combat, lifted from Fate Condensed: Zone-based Combat in D&D. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, I had a lot of miniatures and terrain maps that would come out for battle.  In switching to online play for 5e, I found maps (and icons for opponents) to become a huge time sink. Because battles can look phenomenal in Roll 20, there’s an expectation that […]

I synthesized nine Wikipedia articles into a new article dedicated to BASIC interpreters: A BASIC interpreter enables users to enter and run BASIC programs and was, for the first part of the microcomputer era, the default application that computers would launch. Users were expected to use the BASIC interpreter to enter in programs (often from printed listings) or to load programs from storage (often cassette tapes). Why do I think a new article is warranted, rather than just referring to the BASIC and Interpreter articles? As I write in the article: BASIC interpreters are of […]

Here were some resources I used to prep my first Dungeon World one-shot, which I ran last Sunday night: These resources all proved very helpful. Now, because we only had a 3-hour window, I encouraged people to pick a class (first come, first serve) by text message in the week up to the game, and to create their character in Roll 20. I then created a copy of the “Dragonslaying on a Timetable” Google Doc and hacked out questions for classes that weren’t going to be in my game, and […]

Melee, Missiles & Magic is my homage to the first edition of Tunnels & Trolls and is a streamlined 3d6 TTRPG suitable for solitaire adventures, GM-ed games, or for writing gamebooks. It contains a list of spells and a table of monsters. I played a lot of Tunnels & Trolls solo adventures (its key differentiator) when I was a teenager, and so I was thrilled last year when I found the first edition reprint of the 1975 typescript was now available. (First printed at the ASU copy shop! Go Sun Devils!) Anyway, […]

In my recent survey, I funneled respondents into one of four areas, based on the role-playing games (RPGs) they played: Key attractions of PbtA games are the mechanics (especially the moves), the ease and simplicity of the rules, the emphasis on character-driven story and narrative, and the narrow focus of each game. “The simplicity of mechanics allows for more player agency and control of the narrative, and it tends to focus on unique and intriguing characters,” said one respondent, who had played Ironsworn, Monsterhearts, and Monster of the Week. “Short […]

After running close to 100 5e sessions, I’m ready to move on. It was fun and got me back into the hobby in a major way. But I have grown increasingly frustrated with 5e, and its attempt to carefully simulate everything fantastic. I find battles to be tedious and boring. The 5e Player Handbook is over 210,000 words, and I have players who’ve read it all and want to integrate from the other books and various Unearthed Arcana. At this point I own the PHB, MM, DMG, as well as […]

Last updated 2020-08-02 I’m publishing a thing a week to my blog. Each is either an old project that I am publishing here for the first time or an unfinished project that I am finally returning to and completing. OSR Spell Preferences Survey – Which spells are most useful for each level cleric and magic-user? (20-06-07.) Castle Conquests – A one-page print-and-play where you race your opponent to surround and plunder castles. (20-06-13.) The Pearls and the Peril – A 9-card push-your-luck game played best with oyster crackers before dinner! […]

The goal of this survey is to provide feedback to the OSR and RPG community on what Level 1-3 spells are considered most useful. The results can then be used to create shorter spell lists and player aids – or to inspire custom spell lists for other designs. Spell descriptions take the form of “Name [120′, 2] Effect” showing “[range in feet, duration in turns]” before the magical effect. Spell descriptions © Zenopus Archives, http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com. Used by permission. The survey was fielded from November 10, 2019, through June 1, 2020. […]

Last week I wrote about micro-RPGs. This week we take a look at one of my own such systems, for the gamebook Hero’s Arc: Under the Blood-Red Mountain, winner of Best Dungeon Crawl in the 2018 Solitaire Print-and-Play Contest. You are the hero of this story, making decisions that will shape your fortunes. Unlike a conventional book, you don’t read this sequentially – most numbered sections will provide you with a choice to make: depending on your choice, you will continue reading a different section. Creating Your Character To begin, […]

The very first published role-playing game was the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set, with its three 36- to 40-page booklets (Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures) presenting the idea that RPGs should go big. Of course, the second RPG was Tunnels & Trolls, which fit everything into one 42-page booklet. Still the belief has been that RPGs need to go big, with the average length of main books about 250,000 words. So it may surprise you to learn that RPGs can be less than 0.1% that […]