Prismatic Wasteland

Blog Preview: Dumpster Deep Dive (You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge Prep Example)

Dumpster Deep Dive: You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge Prep Example

So you probably celebrate this or that nation’s independence from this or that other nation (trivial), but do you celebrate the day the entire world was freed from the tyranny of the to-hit roll? On May 17, 2010, the blog B/X Blackrazor wrote the declaration of independence from rol...

AI and Empty Art

Have I already posted this one? I hope not.

AI and Empty Art

Humans create art because at some level we need to and always have. We spend all of our lives trapped in the solitary confinement that is our skulls, a solipsistic nightmare if you let it become one. But art, experiencing art to a smaller degree, but really creating art (which requires experiencing the art of others—it’s all a conversation and always has been), it’s a chance to sha...

Blog Preview: Remember Books? They’re Back, In Blog Form

I wrote this for the Knock Kickstarter, which ends soon, so this one will be a "preview" for much less time than other postlings.

There has never been a better time to stock up on Knock, the favorite “magazine” (magazine being either a lie or mistranslation from the original français, as the issues of Knock are clearly books). Knock #5 is currently funding, ...

New Release: Prismatic Wisdom

Howdy! I have a new book out, published by Games Omnivorous (if you've never heard of them, they put out extremely high quality physical products) called Prismatic Wisdom. I'll save you the hard sell since you're my patrons and instead, as way of thanks, offer you a PDF free of charge. Keep it under your hats, as I'm not sure if I can just give this out willy nilly. I also updated the Patron Digital Li...

Blog Preview: Divine Magic Works in Mysterious Ways

This one will likely be posted to the blog sooner than the many others that are currently in the queue because some bloggers and I are thinking of doing a bunch of posts during the upcoming conclave:

Divine Magic Works in Mysterious Ways

I don’t like clerics and never really have. Primarily, I have never liked the strange brand of polytheistic assumed setting that D&D has (though not at the outset, as explained by Delta [of D&D Hotspot fame) in 2025-04-29 02:16:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Blog Preview: All Along the Clocktower

Thought of this one while pushing the stroller around the neighborhood.

All Along the Clocktower

When E.G. Gygax commanded that all must keep strict time records lest their play not be meaningful, there wasn’t much guidance for exactly how strict time records should be kept, which was great. A gauntlet was thrown but with no prescribed method whereby said gauntlet could be picked back up, it led to a flourishing of time tracking methods across the medium....

Blog Preview: Killable Peoples

Another little blog post, this time inspired a bit by a recent Between Two Cairns episode.

Killable Peoples

In some of the first adventures for D&D, there were certain people who were fair game to kill. If you come across a goblin or an orc, you simply murder them first and ask questions never. Nowadays, we moderns find this a bit grotesque. You’re killing orcs, a sentient group of people, for what reason exactly? Because they’re orcs, of course! Th...

Blog Preview: Moonlight Glitters upon Weregild

Closer to fiction that any blogpost I've written to date, but just had a stray idea I wanted to get out of my head. I bet Goblin Punch could've really taken an idea like this to the next level, but I can't measure myself agains the standards of a Goblin Punch.

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Moonlight Glitters upon Weregild

In some corners of the known world, people barter with lives as readily as they trade any other commodity. When a murderer in these lands kills a fellow, they ar...

March Update: 34 preview pages of collectible monster TTRPG and more

My parental leave has ended, and I am back to my real-world job. The domestic economy teeters on the brink of collapse, and my various bosses want to wring as much value out of me, a wet dishrag of labor, as they can before the bottom falls out. It is thus with a heavy soul that I report I haven't written...anything?! this entire past month.

However, the wheels set in motion in the before-times continue to chug-chug-chug-along. I'll update you...

Blog Preview: I’d Rather Be a Mouse Than an Elf

Another one! Sometimes I watch a movie and wanna write a few hundred words about it.

I’d Rather Be a Mouse Than an Elf

[Hodag RPG, you can stop reading now]

I recently watched Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty, which is based on The Borrowers, a series of children’s books about tiny people who live beneath your floorboards and pilfer your excess sugarcubes and tissues. The movie had its flaws but the fantasy of being tiny has always appealed to me ever since I ...

Blog Preview: Playing Dodgeball in Plate Armor

Some explanations about how to make heavy armor feel different than just being good at dodging attacks.

Playing Dodgeball in Plate Armor

What even is armor class in D&D? Imagine two characters: one is the most dexterous rogue who ever picked a pocket wearing studded leather armor, the other is a brawny paladin with muscle for brains wearing 55 pounds of chain mail armor and carrying a steel shield. Imagine yourself swinging a sword at either of these archetypa...

Blog Preview: Control Weather Should Not Be a Spell

An argument about a spell I find underwhelming and a whole-ass character class. The level progression table didn't format correctly in Patreon, so you can check the google doc if you need that.

Control Weather Should Not Be a Spell

Control Weather should be a whole field of magic. Before I convince you, the jury of my peers, beyond any reasonable doubt that the Control Weather spell must be convicted, let’s examine both the earliest instance of the spell ...

Blog Preview: You Don’t Need a Game System Before You Play

So I ran a "Calvinball" style campaign recently and it is high time I talk about it and all the wacky rules the group came up with.

You Don’t Need a Game System Before You Play: The Calvinball Experiment 

In the final three months of 2024, I ran something of a thought experiment disguised as a game among a handful of player in my Discord server. It was inspired, as these things so often are, by a facebook screenshot that somehow made its way to me, adrift o...

Prismatic Wasteland WIP as of 1/22/25

Been a while since I've shown off WIP of Prismatic Wasteland. I am still chugging along to releasing the full Beta sometime this year (hopefully July), so this document is still VERY messy and not at all fully playable. But there are some ideas in here. About 23k words, still a lot of ideas to move over from the v0.4 version and a lot of extra stuff to write for the beta to be ready to go.

Sharing the Spotlight is Insufficient

Really quick post for next week probably about a simple GM technique:

I don’t often write advice for running games not because I don’t consider myself especially adroit at the practice but because when I am a referee I enter a flow state that feels most similar to how a spirit would take me over when I would perform theatre or extemporaneous debate. It’s almost out-of-body but it’s more that my internal monologue dissipates entirely and instinct takes over. Some people can teach...

Blog Preview: Monster, Maiden, Madonna, Medusa

As a forward, voting has begun for the Gameable category in this year's Bloggies! One of my posts (Overloading the Random Encounter Table) is nominated and I would appreciate your vote today and each of the following 4 (phew) days! This year's Bloggies are being hosted here: https://sachagoat.blot.im/

But also, here is another blog post cooked up on a snow day. If blogs were paid things and not just stuff I fired from my...

Patreon Exclusive: 2024 Prismatic Retrospective

2024 Prismatic Retrospective

Year-end retrospectives are a rare blogging mismatch in that they are important for the blogger to write but typically of little interest to readers. However, the real blogging sickos (I count myself in that grouping) do gobble these types of things up with interest. So here I basically lay bare my analytics on everything from the past year just for my most dedicated sickos, my beloved Patrons, as a thank you for your support in 2024.

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2025 Is the Year of the Beta

My first post of the new year is ready:

2025 Is the Year of the Beta

Did you know that every baby you’ve met recently is an alpha? Unfortunately for zoomers, that is the official name of the generation slightly younger than them who will mock them mercilessly for affections we won’t know are uncool for at least another decade. But that changes this year because whatever secret council of deranged lunatic wizards who makes the arbitrary decision as to when one generation ends a...

WIP Rules: Negotiating

Was discussing social interaction rules in the discord server and came up with my take that will go in Prismatic Wasteland's beta rules. Might as well share it separately now, although you'll see it in the next update for PW.