The RPG Gazette

The Book That Built the World of Darkness (Whether White Wolf Admits It or Not) There is a version of Vampire: The Masquerade that does not exist. In that version, the vampire is still fundamentally a predator. Gothic, certainly. Brooding, perhaps. But essentially a monster: something took directly from folklore, something cold and inhuman that wears a human face as a disguise. That version of the vampire has a long literary history - Stoker's Dracula…

VtM didn't invent its iconic take on vampires alone. Anne Rice played perhaps the biggest role in that — White Wolf just never said so. 🧛📖 A critical look at the unacknowledged debt behind your favorite RPG.

#VampireTheMasquerade #AnneRice #WorldOfDarkness #TTRPG #RPGBlog #TheRPGGazette

Stealing from the Rich and Giving to The Poor: A Review of The Hooded Man Once again, the fine folk at Osprey Games graciously provided us with a review copy of The Hooded Man. A title I confess, I found very interesting from the moment we received word of it. With my penchant for historical settings, it stands to reason that the story revolving around Robin Hood's escapades now turned into a tabletop adventure will be to my liking.

Outlaws, ambushes, and arrows in the dark 🌲🏹
Our review of The Hooded Man is live! We dive into its clever dice system, medieval flavor, and why it’s a fantastic entry point for new RPG players and GMs alike.

#ttrpg #tabletoprpg #osr #rpgreview #thehoodedman #indierpg #ttrpgcommunity #OspreyGames

Shadowdark vs. OSE: Two Visions of OSR Accessibility When first looking into OSR games, many people ask themselves the same question: "Which one do I start with?" In my experience, nowadays, the majority of the time, there are two systems that people will tell you to start with: Either Shadowdark or Old-School Essentials. Both of these games were created with a lot of love, care and attention to detail, with strong communities backing them up.

OSR curious? Two games, two philosophies. Shadowdark vs. Old-School Essentials — same door, different keys. Which one's right for YOUR table? 🎲⚔️

#TTRPG #OSR #Shadowdark #OldSchoolEssentials #DungeonsAndDragons #TabletopRPG #RPGBlog #OldSchoolDnD #TheRPGGazette

How To Enrich Your D&D Experience: The Importance of Trying Out New Systems Familiarity brings its own kind of peace of mind. For most of the tabletop RPG industry, this peace is represented by a specific structure - one rule system, one set of assumptions and one common language which allows players to easily sit down at a game table with no barriers to play. For many of today's groups, that structure is defined as…

Trying new RPG systems is not about abandoning what you love. It is about learning new tools for play. From Cthulhu to Blades to worldbuilding games, every system teaches something D&D never will.

#ttrpg #dnd #rpg #indierpg #tabletopgames #roleplaying #gmadvice #worldbuilding #TheRPGGazette

Behind the Veil: Why Kult Works Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in multiple sessions of Kult: Divinity Lost (shoutout to V3rtigo from Taverna Aventurilor), a game I have been somewhat interested in before. Afterward, I downloaded the PDF version of the game to take a closer look into it for my own knowledge. While the rules for the game are an acceptable new edition of a modified version of the…

What if The Devil’s Advocate was a TTRPG? 🩸
I dive into why that film captures the seductive, gnostic horror at the heart of Kult—and why its appeal is so hard to explain… but impossible to ignore.

#KultRPG #TTRPG #HorrorRPG #PoweredByTheApocalypse #IndieRPG #TheRPGGazette #TheDevilsAdvocate

A Case for the Return of The Dungeon Turn A mechanic that has vanished from various tables is a subtle one. But along with it is a fundamental change in how we experience dungeon exploration. The Dungeon Turn. It was in some form or other present from the earlier versions of Dungeons & Dragons, eventually defined and codified in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, giving dungeon exploration a more concrete structure.

Dungeon play feels weightless? Maybe it’s not that dungeons are boring, maybe it’s the missing clock. ⏳
In this article I argue for the return of the Dungeon Turn and why procedural time fixes modern exploration woes.

#DnD #OSR #TTRPG #OldSchoolEssentials #GameDesign #DungeonCrawling

Animal Space Comando – A Review of Untamed Worlds To be perfectly honest with y'all, on paper, Untamed Worlds sounds… a little silly. You play genetically uplifted animal operatives working for a paramilitary organization that effectively acts as a space UN, sent to do the dirty work humanity would rather outsource. Talking animal space commandos is a premise that very easily veers into parody, and I will be honest and say that when I first heard about the game, I expected something far lighter, perhaps even gimmicky.

Genetically uplifted animal agents working for a space UN sounded silly at first. Untamed Worlds proved me wrong. A crunchy, ambitious sci-fi RPG with excellent worldbuilding, deep character creation, and some rough edges. Full review up now.

#UntamedWorlds #OspreyGames #Review #TheRPGGazette #RPG

The Tyranny of the Party Composition There is sometimes a moment that tends to occur with nearly every group of players, and typically happens before the players have even made their first roll. Someone from your table will ask, "What's missing in our group?" Someone else will reply, "We don't have a healer." Another player will say, "Do we have a tank?" Once all of these questions are answered, your party becomes just a checklist of characters who have no backstory, character development, or personality.

Do you really need a tank, a healer, and a DPS? 🤔
“The Tyranny of Party Composition” explores how roles shaped D&D, from early editions to 4e and MMO influence, and how they quietly narrow creativity at the table. What if the “perfect party” is the real constraint? 🎲

#D&D #TheRPGGazette

Malkavians Are Not (Just) Comic Relief It seems as if very few clans in Vampire: The Masquerade have been subject to so much tonal shift as have the Malkavian clan. Initially they were the Cassandras of the Kindred world - seers, prophets, cursed to be ignored, but due to a much saddening reason, that of course being their madness. Even with their madness (or perhaps thanks to it), they still manage to reflect the truths of the world around them, but over time at many people's gaming tables they morphed into comedy punchlines.

Malkavians were never meant to be jokes. They are not “lol so random” vampires, but cursed seers who see too much and cannot filter reality. A look at madness as horror, not gimmick, and how to play a Malkavian without fish-malking.

#Blog #VTM #Malkavian #WorldOfDarkness #TheRPGGazette

A Defense of Spelljammer: Response to Runesmith So, I don't think I will break any sort of new grounds by saying that the 2022 release/revival attempt of Spelljammer was more or less a dumpster-fire, from the lackluster rules to the less then sensible reprintings of races such as the Hadozee. But, I remember how excited people were for Spelljammer, how I was also excited for it, a cult classic setting from the days of…

Spelljammer didn’t fail as a setting. It was misunderstood. A defense of fantasy space, crystal spheres, phlogiston, and why D&D never needed NASA. A response to @Runesmith and a look at what Spelljammer was always trying to be.

#ttrpg #dnd #spelljammer #osr #worldbuilding

The “Post-OSR(evival)” Identity Crisis Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a great start of the year! As for us, both me and Yuno managed to catch a cold right before our exam session so things could be better. But nonetheless, I wanted to take some time to write this article to relax my brain a bit before delving right into uni projects and my dissertation.

Old School isn’t what it used to be and that’s kind of the point. From Shadowdark to MÖRK BORG, the OSR has fractured into something stranger and more interesting. A look at the post-OSR identity crisis and what “old school” even means now.

#TTRPG #OSR #TheRPGGazette #RPGBlog #GameDesign

From Basement to Broadcast: D&D After Critical Role Tabletop roleplaying games have historically taken place in very private settings, with the stories and experiences of those playing the games being kept, for the most part, in the minds of those individuals. Advice on the playing of a roleplaying game has been handed down through various mediums, such as rulebooks, anecdotally, through forums and blogs. In addition to limited advice, the manner in which a particular roleplaying game is played has varied drastically even within the same game system, as there has been limited awareness of similar play styles being experienced by anyone outside of those in your immediate circle.

Critical Role didn’t save or ruin D&D. It changed how the world sees it.
Our latest article looks at CR as a cultural moment, not a controversy and closes a year of 116 articles at The RPG Gazette.
Thank you for reading. Happy holidays and happy rolling. 🎲

#CriticalRole #D&D #TheRPGGazette #TTRPG

A Review for Kids on Brooms: Harry Potter Without Transphobia I am not sure how things are in the rest of the world, but in Romania at least, Harry Potter has somewhat become a Christmas/winter film. As soon as December rolls around, the movies seem to go straight into a loop on TV, everyone is nostalgic about it, and the impression of a secret magical school starts to feels oddly seasonal.

New on The RPG Gazette: Kids on Brooms. A cosy, narrative-first magical school RPG that finally scratched my long-standing Harry Potter itch, without the baggage. Simple mechanics, clever meta-currency, and a lot of heart. Full review up now!

#The RPG Gazette #Review #KidsOnBrooms #TTRPG #IndieRPG

The Damned Who Almost Made It: An analasys of the Thin-bloods A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article talking about each VTM clan and each of their particular brand of horror and misery (link here!) . That article was very well received, so thank you very much for that. However, I was asked a question, and not only once: what about the Thin-bloods and the Catiff? Well, this is my answer to half of the question!

Thin-Bloods are not outsiders. They are almost insiders, one step in the doorframe.
Too human for Kindred society, too damned to return, and offered belonging only through violence.
A look at liminality, exclusion, and the horror of near-belonging in Vampire.
New on The RPG Gazette.

Between Gygax and Kafka: The Dungeon as Existential Space in OSR Games A while ago I made an article talking about how the oh so famous and central dungeons at the heart of D&D and the OSR movement and all the other dungeon crawls that came after, have their roots in mythology and literature, through examples such as The Minotaur's Labyrinth from the myth of Theseus, the Kemetic Duat, Dante's Inferno and many others (

The OSR dungeon is not a story waiting to be told. It is an absurd, hostile space where meaning is forged through survival. Between Gygax and Kafka, this article explores why OSR dungeons feel less mythic and more existential. Enter at your own risk.

The Rise of Comfort TTRPGs: Cosy Gaming, Slice of Life, and the Fantasy of Safety Starting with 2020, I noticed an interesting thing in regards to the TTRPG space. While violent, heavy dungeon crawl adventure games are still selling lots of copies and rank high on streaming platforms, there has been a growing trend of what I would dub "Comfort" TTRPGs (wholesome/cosy) that dare I say, started to gain more and more ground even when compared to the holy dungeon-crawl.

Comfort TTRPGs are rising fast. Wanderhome, Ryuutama and other cosy games offer rest, safety and gentle stories in a loud, stressful world. Why do they resonate so deeply right now Find out in our latest article! 🌿

The Sabbat as Counter-Culture: Punk, Cults, and the Fear of Freedom Hmm, yeah... Am I threading on dear Horia's ground with this article? Yes, most likely. Is it a peculiar point to make when the first thought you have when you say "Sabbat" is bloody rituals, shovelheads and that fucker, Sascha Vykos? Yes. But, I do believe there is some degree of irony when it comes to the Sabbat. In the past few decades, …

The Sabbat were never just villains. They were a cultural snapshot of 80s and 90s fears: punk rebellion, cult hysteria, and the terror of absolute freedom. New article on RPG Gazette exploring the counter culture roots of the Sword of Caine.

#VTM #WoD #TTRPG #TheRPGGazette

OSR vs. D&D: Different Answers to the Same Questions There is a certain fatigue that sets in anytime Old School Renaissance and modern day D&D come up in the same discussion. The arguments tend to ramp up quickly, and there are arguments that range from the simple nostalgia versus innovation to rules versus adjudications, lethality versus cinematic survivability, player over character skill, etc… While all of these viewpoints have merit, none, in my opinion, seem to get to the heart of the issue.

OSR vs D&D has never been about which system is better. It is about two philosophies answering the same questions in completely different ways. In our latest RPG Gazette article, we explore how each tradition imagines adventure, heroism, danger and story.

A Review of DIE RPG: A Game About You, But Not About You There are roleplaying games that let you escape your problems, and then there are the rare few that gently take you by the chin, lift your gaze, and say: “No dodging. Look”. DIE is one of those games. Developed by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Stephanie Hans in tandem with their comic by the same name, DIE does not offer wish-fulfillment so much as an invitation to confront the versions of ourselves we abandoned along the way.

Just wrapped my review of DIE: The RPG, a game that asks more of you than most and gives back something raw, strange and unforgettable. If you like your fantasy with emotional teeth, give it a read.

#TheRPGGazette #DIE:TheRoleplayingGame #Review #TTRPG #IndieRPG

Why Every Clan of Vampire: The Masquerade Is Its Own Unique Brand of Tragedy By now you know I very much enjoy Vampire: The Masquerade. In the past couple of months however, I have realized something about the game. I think to some extent, Vampire: The Masquerade is not about playing a monster that looks like a person, but rather it’s about playing a person who slowly realizes they are a monster. And the Clans embody this conflict more than any other aspect of VtM.

Every Clan in Vampire: The Masquerade is a tragedy. New article up now.
Also, RPG Gazette turns one and we are running a giveaway. Follow us on Instagram and tag us in a story telling us your favorite TTRPG for a chance to win! Winners announced December 24th.

#giveaway #TheRPGGazette #VTM #WoD

The Problem with Epic Level Play: Why D&D Breaks Down When Characters Become Gods Well, this, above any other article, is first and foremost an opinion piece. You see, I think that at some point in every long running campaign, the party stops being made up of people and instead becomes a natural disaster in clothing form. Spellcasters casually alter reality; martials do their best to keep up; monsters become more like puzzles than threats; and the DM (Dungeon Master) looks at the notes for the session and starts to feel like they might as well have written the session notes on a conspiracy board with all the red string connecting everything.

New article on RPG Gazette. High level D&D is epic, wild and honestly kind of a mess. We break down why the game strains when characters reach godhood. Also, to celebrate one year of the Gazette, we will run a giveaway, more details in the article. Happy reading!

Why the OSR Aesthetic Became a Movement: From Old School Renaissance blogs to MÖRK BORG’s art-punk explosion At one point in my obsessively reading OSR blogs, junking through home-printed zines, and debating random encounter tables at unreasonable hours, I noticed something strange. The OSR aesthetic was categorically more than a surface visual preference for somebody. It was a declaration of values. All of a sudden scratchy black-and-white illustrations, crazily layered pages, handmade maps, zine-style-ness, and general rejection of clean or corporate aesthetics felt meaningfully loaded.

New on RPG Gazette: a deep dive into how the OSR aesthetic went from scrappy blog maps to full artpunk identity. From early zines to MÖRK BORG neon chaos, here is why the look became a movement.
#osr #ttrpg #morkborg #indierpg #rpgzines

The Tower Trembles: A Review of Icarus There is something deeply human about the wish to create something that lasts forever, and there is also something deeply human about the inevitability of watching it fall apart. Most role-playing games put you in the role of the hero destined to save the world, whereas Icarus instead asks the much more difficult, visceral question: what does it look like when we fail?

New review on RPG Gazette: Icarus, the collaborative game of building a city you know will fall. It is beautiful, tense, emotional and a fantastic tool for creating the history, factions and conflicts of any TTRPG campaign.
#IcarusRPG #ttrpg #collaborativestorytelling #rpgreview

Vampires and Faith: Theology of the Damned Faith and damnation have always been uneasy bedfellows. Having studied Catholic theology and religious studies prior to my deep dive into the gothic rabbit hole of Vampire: the Masquerade, I have always been intrigued by how the game flips belief upside down. The World of Darkness is not only about politics, blood, and monsters. It is also about faith, twisted, broken, yet still somehow existing, in creatures that should, by all rights, be beyond redemption.

New on RPG Gazette: Vampires and Faith: Theology of the Damned.
An exploration of how Vampire: the Masquerade turns religion inside out, from the Bahari’s sacred rebellion to Golconda’s quiet grace.
Faith, sin, and redemption in eternal darkness.

#vtm #worldofdarkness #ttrpg #vampirethemasquerade

The Shadowed Old Gods of Game Design: Remembering Holmes, Moldvay and Mentzer History tends to flatten itself. Nuance becomes nostalgia, multiplicity turns into myth. The history of tabletop role-playing games is no exception. And the history of tabletop role-playing games is no different, for its creation myth usually has has two names engraved in gold: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Rightful twin creators of Dungeons & Dragons, the legendary duo whose collaboration (and later discord) gave rise to everything else which followed.

New on RPG Gazette: The Shadowed Old Gods of Game Design. A look at the quieter architects of D&D - Holmes, Moldvay, and Mentzer - who shaped how we play, dream, and imagine. Forgotten by many, their work still defines the soul of the game.

#ttrpg #dnd #osr #rpghistory #rpgcommunity #roleplayinggam

Martial vs Magic from a Philosophical Perspective There is an ongoing disagreement in Dungeons & Dragons that simply will not die. It is older than "edition wars," older than OSR vs. NuSchool arguments, older than reddit threads, tweets, or theoretical videos debating the ills and praises of the Vancian Magic System. It was happening when people were writing essays about Gygax in zines, when convention tables were arguing over whether a longsword could block lightning bolt, and when "game balance" had not yet become a phrase, but rather was a gut feeling.

New article on RPG Gazette: Martial vs Magic in D&D was never about mechanics. It is about philosophy, fantasy identity, and what power actually means. Why the flamewar never dies, and why that tension is the soul of the game.

#ttrpg #dnd #osr #martialvsmagic #fantasyanalysis

“A beast I am, lest a beast I become.” Few lines capture Vampire: The Masquerade’s dark genius better. It’s not just about monsters—it’s about what happens when we realize the monster is us. My new article dives into the philosophy behind the fangs. #VtM #TTRPG #WorldOfDarkness

A Review of Troika! – Monty Python Meets Adventure Time… In Space? There are many strange RPGs out there, but very few that feel as joyously, gloriously crazy as Troika! by Daniel Sell. To me, this game is a little special not only because it is clever or original, but because it scratches an itch I have had since I was a kid. Its own particular brand of madness reminds me of two of my all-time favorite shows, …

I finally played Troika! and it’s as wild and wonderful as I hoped. 🌈✨ A surreal mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and pure absurdity that feels like Adventure Time crashed into Monty Python. Here’s my full review of this beautiful madness. 🎲 #TTRPG #Troika #OSR #IndieRPG

Dragons Without Dungeons: When D&D Forgot Its Own Name When you hear the term Dungeons & Dragons, it should feel a little raw and mythic. The creaking of a heavy wooden door opening, the scent of moist stone, the quiet, faint scratching of something that isn’t a rat (or you hope it isn’t). It’s a scene nestled firmly in pop culture, a party braving the underground with torches lighting their way.

Somewhere along the way, Dungeons & Dragons forgot its own name. 🕯️ The dragons got bigger, but the dungeons — the mystery, danger, and grit — slipped into the shadows. I wrote about why the crawl still matters, and why we should descend again. 🐉 #DnD #OSR #TTRPG #TheRPGGazette

Forget about Neo-Gothic, this is all about Neon-Gothic: Why Vampire: The Masquerade Is Still the Most 90s Game Ever Written There’s a certain kind of cool that is genuinely authentic, and cannot be faked. Call it the style that wears sunglasses indoors, quotes Nietzsche between puffs of a clove cigarette, and writes bad poetry about love and damnation at three AM. This is Vampire: The Masquerade - the most unapologetically 90s role-playing game ever written, and somehow, still cool, decades later.

Blood, neon and angst - In my opinion Vampire The Masquerade is the most 90s game ever written, and somehow also one of the coolest. From Anne Rice's romance to cyberpunk decay, it has made tragedy stylish and monsters all the more human. Read the full article today! #VTM #TheRPGGazette