Troy Press

Our most popular posts center on fantasy PbtA TTRPGs, card games, and Star Trek watchlists. Less popular are articles about interactive fiction, BASIC, and conlangs.

If you were invited to a beer-and-pretzels game night, but you’re the designated driver, here are my favorite “non-alcoholic” beers to consider, though technically some of these do have up to 0.5 alcohol by volume (ABV). Or perhaps you’re thinking of abstaining or limiting your alcohol consumption.

Many PbtA games have a core set of moves that the GM is to make during play. Apocalypse World has five additional modules of threat moves. Subsequent games by other authors extended this modularization of GM moves. For instance, Dungeon World added threat moves for over 100 monsters, and Masks added playbook-specific GM moves.

I’ve been looking for some high-crunch PbtA games for my players. Crunch is derived from number crunching and, in the context of tabletop RPGs, refers to the added steps required by more extensive mechanics. Some examples specific to PbtA systems: almost no rules, more moves, more variables.

Here are the top 10 episodes of Voyager, based on IMDB user ratings but rearranged in chronological order, as I’ve done with other series. However, you may want to start with the pilot (“Caretaker”) for its introduction of the premise and characters, even though it is ranked #73 of 172 episodes (rating 7.4).

“When Gandalf & Thorin’s Company overcame the stone trolls, they found in their lair two great elven blades: Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver & Glamdring the Foe-Hammer. I don’t know if they’re +1 or +2, but I do know I’d much rather have something called ‘The Foe-Hammer’ than a +2 longsword. On top of the names, they have a history (like everything in Tolkien). Glamdring was wielded by Turgon, the elven King of Gondolin, during the First Age.” – PTFO

A mini adventure to choose which blog post to read to learn more about interactive fiction. Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash.

Lexember is a social-media challenge to add one word to your constructed language each day of December. Lexember was created by Mia DeSanzo and Pete Bleackley in 2012, so this will be its thirteenth year! Add a word a day over a cup of coffee, on a commute, or when using your smartphone.

The current streaming landscape is dominated by a few major players, but with interesting nuances in who uses them. According to a recent Researchscape survey of 1,023 U.S. adults, YouTube Music leads overall usage at 38%, followed closely by Spotify at 36%, while Amazon Music rounds out the top three at 30%. However, raw usage numbers tell only part of the story.

Stonetop was first released as a village playbook for Dungeon World 10 years ago yesterday. It’s come a long way since then, and I keep discovering new things I love about it. Stonetop has the best system of magic items I’ve used in a tabletop roleplaying game, with unique items, shared with players as cards or inserts, which require taking action to unlock custom powers.

When my 12-year old Toyota was in the shop, I drove a new loaner car for two days. I’ve driven newer model cars when renting a car while traveling but using a new car in a familiar environment—where I was not constantly worried about navigation—gave me a chance to dwell on the new features.

I’ve tried 41 different pumpkin beers over the years, as part of flights, as singles at alcohol retailers, and at restaurants. The only six pack I bought this fall was 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.

Dune: Imperium is a deck-building worker placement game about political intrigue that plays best with 3 or 4 players. With great implementations on Steams, Google Play, and the Apple App Store, it is also a fun board game to play electronically. You play a character representing one of four Great Houses (e.g., the Atreides House).