The feed of updates to Sam Sorensen
The evening of Saturday, June 27th, 2026, some friends and I—including Walid from Dead Letters and ty from OVER/UNDER —are running a megagame version of Diplomacy, which we call Super-Diplomacy. The game runs for four hours for thirty-five players at boshi’s place. The doors open at 5:00 p.m., orientation and tutorial starts at 5:30 p.m., and the game starts at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are $20. You can…
In October 2021, the popular tabletop RPG actual play channel Legends of Avantris began releasing episodes of their “ Edge of Midnight” Dungeons & Dragons horror campaign series, with the first season of nineteen episodes concluding in May, 2022. A mini-season of four episodes released in February, 2024, followed by a second season of nine episodes running from April to July, 2024. At time of…
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Previous design diaries: Entry #1 , Entry #2 , Entry #3 , Entry #4 . Today’s design diary is a little bit different, a little more topical-news-update than let-me-share-my-process. (If you’re here on an archaeological design dig, this may be less helpful.) But, nonetheless—onwards! Cataphracts HQ Discord Server I…
Markdown doesn’t play so nice with text formatting stuff. You can read the clearer original Google Docs version here. What was the last book, article, or essay you read that was, by sentence count, composed of mostly bullet points? That is, a piece where the number of sentences begun by or contained within a bullet point outnumbered the sentences without, the “ regular sentences.” I can’t think of…
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Previous design diaries: Entry #1 , Entry #2 , Entry #3 . After many months away—and with OVER/UNDER in the middle—I return to the siege. In the time since the last design diary, many new Cataphracts games have sprung up! I know of at least four or five that have run to completion, another six or seven currently…
Late in 2024, I started a big list on my phone of new words I encountered that I didn’t know, with short definitions for each. This is that list, to date. ABOMINATE : loathe; despise. ABSTEMIOUS : not indulgent; temperate, ascetic. ACAJOU : the wood of certain timber trees (mahogany), or another name for cashews. ACANTHUS : spiny-leafed Mediterranean plant. ACCOUCHEUR : obstetrician; one who helps…
Development editing occurs while the manuscript is still being written. Compared with line and copy editing, which focus on the sentence-by-sentence questions, development editing focuses on higher-level questions of structure, form, and content. 1. No Questions, No Suggestions Many setting guides feature open-ended questions without extant answers. Here’s a made-up example: Deep within the…
When I sit down to read a new RPG book or play at a new RPG table, I’ve got three questions in mind. Basically all of my behavior at the table is downstream of these three and their answers. I. Is my goal to solve problems, or to tell a good story? Both of these are a little reductive in their phrasing, but bear with me. Problem-solving is about winning, or trying to win. Striving. Struggling.…
“Album of Tournaments and Parades in Nuremburg,” courtesy of my beloved Met Every other year, tradition obligates the Grand Duchess of the Thassoloche to call Saint Hunegund’s Tourney, named for Saint-Queen Hunegund the Headtaker, the Thassoloche’s legendary founder who lived some seven centuries ago. According to the oldest Thassoloche epics, Hunegund defeated a thousand evil knights, each more…
Remove instances of here from location descriptions—it’s obvious you’re describing the location already. Instead of “ A hobgoblin hammers iron here,” write “ A hobgoblin hammers iron on an anvil.” For the same reason, remove instances of this in description entries. If you must reference the entry’s subject, use “ the.” Instead of “ Smoke fills this room,” write “ Smoke fills the room,” or better…
You can now join the Discord server and read the rules . Starting on October 14th, as a part of Mothership Month 2025 —the annual group-crowdfunding campaign and general season of celebration for Mothership, everyone’s favorite sci-fi horror indie darling—I will be running another large-scale real-time play-by-post wargame, a take on my existing wargame Cataphracts . This new game will run for…
Tagged by blark as a part of Stella’s relay . A shroud of fine silver maille, the fringes tarnished by time. Fine golden rings pick out scripture, written in ecclesiastic script: “ Heaven keep me, for this one is weak; Heaven keep me, for this one is guilty; Heaven keep me, for this one is lost.” Orthodox churches celebrate Saint Svorada’s feast on March 19th: for her faith, a pagan king condemned…
When they step into moonlight, those bearing the lycanthrope’s curse transform into wolves. Magicians can learn magic spells from ancient books written in forgotten tongues. Reciting the commandments causes ghosts to flee. Those who learn a secret word in the tongue of angels may cast spells. Gravity exists as it does on Earth. Dreams dreamt while under the influence of the proneira mushrooms show…
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Previous design diaries: Entry #1 , Entry #2 . Running Cataphracts is sort of like having a large pet that lives on the internet. It’s a joyous, loud, confused, sometimes aggravating, sometimes amazing creature I am both required and privileged to tend to every single day. Some days, this is a burden, an annoyance,…
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Since my first design diary entry , quite a few people have reached out to me asking about how to run their own. It’s really exciting! It’s very gratifying to see so many people excited and interested in running their own games based on my silly little wargame. That in mind, I thought this time I’d focus more on my…
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. About two months ago, I reread several series on military historian Bret Devereaux’s blog, ACOUP : analyses of Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith , breakdowns of pre-modern command and pre-modern logistics , and, of course, a post simply titled “ How Fast Do Armies Move?” . I’m a fan of Devereaux’s—he writes in that…
My roommate ty asks an important question of each game he plays. The question first emerged, I believe, during hours-long sessions of mid- to heavy-weight board games ( Oath, Twilight Imperium, the big crunchy League of Legends board game, several unusual David Sirlin titles), many of which were a struggle in one way or another. The question is this: “ How hard is it to do a cool move in this…
Remove instances of “ to be” verbs: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, and been. Instead of “ The goblin is dancing,” write “ The goblin dances.” In most cases, this also includes the added benefit of changing the passive voice into the active voice. In cases like “ The goblin is wet,” instead say “ Water drips down the goblin,” or simply “ The wet goblin…” Remove instances of “ to have” verbs:…
Ten years ago, Steven Soderbergh released an unusual cut of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark: he put the entire film in black and white, then removed all the audio and replaced it with Trent Reznor’s soundtrack to The Social Network. I watched this cut of Raiders for the first time only recently, and it struck me. It’s like watching the most exciting 1940s action movie ever made set to…
A question: you ever try to run a campaign with a city in it? Not just a town or settlement or fort, but a proper city, one with an actual street map and whole neighborhoods and thousands of people living within the walls? I certainly have, many times. It’s hard! It’s really hard. I live in New York—one of the biggest cities in the world—and the complexity of the streets and the depth of the city…
Hello again! Sorry it’s been so long—life’s been busy. You can read previous session reports here: #1 , #2 , #3 , #4 , #5 , and #6 . This report comprises some eleven sessions. 8th Day of the Month of the Imperium Today, two convenient new recruits appeared: Zit, Fighter 1; a goblin burglar. Khib II , Fighter 1: another goblin burglar (no relation, of course, to Khib I). The two goblins headed…
About four years ago, my friend and longtime collaborator nuclearobelisk and I made a campaign guide for running a West Marches-style game, specifically for 5e. At the the time, we were game development students in college, seniors about to graduate. I’d been running a campaign that she played in (one of about a dozen players) for close to two years. We ran a Kickstarter and raised about $25,000,…
In 5th grade, my first year of middle school, I joined the Dungeons & Dragons club. My first GM was my art teacher, Mr. Bennett. We played some odd hybrid of 3e and 3.5e, running through what I discovered only recently was, I think, an adventure by Harley Stroh— Tower of the Black Pearl . It lasted about three sessions. In the months after, I tried playing some loose games with my friends and our…
Hello again! You can read previous session reports here: #1 , #2 , #3 , #4 , and #5 . 2nd Day of the Month of the Imperium Today, the party consists of: The Eldest Orphan of Forsaken for Eternity by Birth, Fighter 4; mohawked noble with aristocrat’s boots, a miser’s flute, a necklace of fireballs, and a ghostly right leg to match Sōt’s left. Sōt III , Butcher of Bugs, Roller of Rugs, Squandering…
Does the MDA Framework Apply to Tabletop RPGs? No, it doesn’t. I’d argue it doesn’t even apply to videogames. Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics is a self-professed formalist approach, a “ framework,” to games created by Robin Hunicke , Marc LeBlanc , and Robert Zubek , three videogame developers; Zubek also teaches game design at Northwestern. Since its publication in 2004, MDA has been quite…
We’re back! You can read previous session reports here: #1 , #2 , #3 , and #4 . This is a particularly long one, since I’ve been so late on writing these—this covers some seven sessions. 20th Day of the Month of Grief Today, our party consists of: The Eldest Orphan of Forsaken for Eternity, Fighter 3; a mohawk-sporting, shockingly clean noble, dressed in aristocrat’s boots. He carries a necklace…
On Monday, my Mothership adventure Time After Time released. I started working on it in the winter of 2021, during grad school; I Kickstarted it in February 2022 for ZiMo ’ 22, which I also helped organize. It was supposed to release December 2022. I rebooted the project almost from scratch in late the summer of 2022 (when it was about three-quarters done), taking it from the intended 36 pages to…
Something I’ve noticed: it takes about five sessions to get a campaign going. That means five sessions, in a row, with everybody showing up, meeting at your weekly time. This plays out across multiple levels. Logistically, five sessions are enough that they’re starting to become a habit, an assumed default rather than an exception to carve out for. After five sessions, if somebody misses a session…
In tabletop RPG books, dice are correctly notated as “ 1d6,” that is, [quantity of dice]d[die size]. 1d20, 6d6, 3d8, and so on—all correct. Much as the serial comma is the Oxford comma, in this case the quantified 1d6 becomes the New York 1d6. Compare: “ roll 1d6” (correct) vs “ roll d6” (incorrect) vs “ roll a d6” (incorrect). “ 1d6 goblins” (correct) vs “ d6 goblins” (incorrect). “ longswords…
It’s been a minute! Read reports #1 , #2 , and #3 of my ongoing open-table megadungeon campaign project, working-titled “ Pandemonium.” 13th Day of the Month of Grief Our party consists of: Sōt III , Butcher of Bugs, Roller of Rugs, Fighter 3; a haggard knight missing his left ear, clad in bone mail-and-plate, wielding Righty, his unmagical but very notched longsword. Old Iron Grip, Magic-User 2;…
Recently, I started an open-table megadungeon campaign using a megadungeon I’m working on, working-titled “ Pandemonium.” Here are reports #1 and #2 . 9th Day of the Month of Grief Our party consists of: Sōt III , Butcher of Bugs, Fighter 2; a scraggly, haggard knight missing his left ear, clad in mail-and-plate made from bone, wielding Righty, his unmagical but heavily-notched longsword. Erasmus…