The Explorateur’s one year review.

After a year of curating monthly design links, it's time to reflect on how The Explorateur's been doing. Personally, I've had a lot of fun making it. I started the project last year as an excuse to get more involved, exercise my curiosity, and put a little distance between myself and the algorithms. So far, so good.

But what about the numbers? How is The Explorateur doing as a newsletter?

Explorers' Loot

• Affinity Studio First Impressions. Affinity's Adobe-killer, the Affinity Studio, is free, chock full of features, and powered by Canva. It's basically Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher under one roof. But is it good?
• Dare to Play it Straight. I love the genre mashup, but this month I pulled out my soapbox and asked, "Do we need more Cthulhu in this? What do we gain from supernatural mashups, and more importantly, what do we lose?"
• The Weekly Scroll: Self-Promo. Ryan and I talked about how to promote your work and build an audience without losing your identity in the process. We shared actionable advice, real-world examples, and a parade of role models.
• Between Two Cairns: Warped Beyond Recognition. After years of being a rabid fan, I finally got to guest star on my favorite linguistics, folklore, Bobby McElver podcast. It's a long one. We talk design, play culture, and Mothership.

Quests & Rumors

Game jams, contests, and opportunities. Drop me a line on Bluesky.

• The Bloggies are coming! I'm hosting this year's Thunderdome for blogs. Submissions open in January. Voting starts in February. In the mean time, start bookmarking your favorite blogs—the celebration's about to begin.
• Puzzle Dungeon Jam. My favorite kind of dungeon. It's not just packed with puzzles, the dungeon is the puzzle. If you liked the APPX N jam from July, you have to participate in this one. Jam ends December 15th.
• Mausritter Month Companion Jam. While the official BackerKit event is underway, the swords-and-whiskers game is inviting everyone to participate via Itch. I highly recommend this jam. It ends December the 11th.
• Blog Bandwagon: Merry Hexmas. Bloggers and Pontificators, Prismatic Wasteland brings you another Blog Bandwagon. This time, you're filling a Rankin Bass-inspired hex in a Winter-themed hex crawl. Ends Dec 25th.
• TTRPG Bookmark Jam. Participants are given two weeks to create a TTRPG or TTRPG-related bookmark. It's harder than it sounds! Jam ends December 14th.
• The Onegeon Manifesto. 2025 has been the year of manifestos. This one by Cats Have No Lord, challenges designers to make singular rooms interesting enough to slot onto other dungeons. The jam ends December 3oth.
• Enter the Zungeon. Bash together a quick dungeon. This long-running jam is getting close to the finish line, but you still have plenty of time. Check out the Zungeon Manifesto for inspiration. Jam ends December 30th.

Reviews & Critique

Critique and examinations of tabletop rpgs, adventures, and more.

• The Boxed RPG Special! by Quinns Quest. Video. Quinns is back with a parade of rpgs that blend physical components and space with innovative mechanics and concepts. It's a good one!
• HEXplore It: Fun-Like Experiences and Shadows in the Cave by Coins and Scrolls. "A few days ago, a board game gave me a peculiar sensation... the horrible feeling that this is a fun-like experience."
• The Tomb of the Serpent Kings by One Man and His Dice. "The dungeon that kills your assumptions... Every corridor, every room, every encounter is built to test, and break, a different modern gaming habit. It's a curriculum."
• Mörk Borg First Impressions by Anto Icarus Games. Video. "I love this tabletop rpg, but I'll never run it." This is a fun, well-made video that showcases how Mörk Borg's visual style is not for everyone. A channel to keep an eye on!
• Space Gits by Save Vs Total Party Kill. "Drunk-ass orks being drunk asses." That's Space Gits. One-part dexterity game and three-parts absurdism. Mixed, drunk, then booted. Color me interested.
• Vaults of Volokarnos by Beau Rancort. No one gets into the nitty-gritty details like Beau Rancourt. If you like information architecture and old-school dungeon design—you'll probably like this dissection.
• The Chaos Crier #1 by Rlyeh Reviews. The first issue of the Chaos Crier (#0) was a slim but dense addition to The Merry Mushmen's Black Sword Hack. This latest issue? A zine with the heft of an encyclopedia.
• The Pretty Good Dark by Indie Game Reading Club. Coriolis: The Great Dark is another beautiful book from Free League, but this review cuts to the quick—what kind of game is it to someone who plays a lot of games?

Exhibits & Best-iary

The spotlight section of the newsletter full of great mechanics and projects.

• 🗺️ Mapping the Blogosphere by Elmcat. This is a monumental work. An interactive graph of the rpg blogging ecosystem dating all the way back to 2003. I'm delighted Explorers Design is one of the more share-heavy blogs.
• Inventory Tetris (Mausritter) w/ Quinns by Dice Exploder. Podcast. Sam D and Quinns "blow up" Mausritter's inventory mechanics and pick them apart. If you're inspired or interested in Mausritter's system, this is a great listen.
• We Need to Talk about Swedish TTRPGS by Weird Place. Video. This won't be surprising to hear, but Swedish rpgs (Mörk Borg, Vaesen, etc.) have taken over. What is surprising is the history that got us here.
• Pocket-sized Powder Kegs by Mindstorm. How do you pack an adventure with interactivity? How do you give non-location adventures the same positive energy as good location based ones? This formula's perfect to me.
• Stepladder Tables by Rise Up Comus. Another table with memory. We'll never have enough, but this one is particularly compact. A great fit for systems with similar form factor and design sensibilities.
• More Flux Dungeon Thoughts by Dice Goblin. Back in 2017, Nick LS introduced people to the idea of Flux Space in Dungeons. This post takes that idea and runs with it.

Theory & Advice

Design tools, resources, theory, and advice for rpg designers from rpg designers.

• The OSR Onion by The Dododecahedron. This is the single best definition of the OSR I've read. It's the first time I've seen other OSR definitions compiled together and compared to other play cultures like storygames.
• How to Write a Module: An Incoherent Play-by-play by Idle Cartulary. Don't let Nova fool you with this "incoherent" nonsense. This is a very good look into her design process, which is all about structure and editing.
• How to Replicate Over/Under by Valeria Loves. The infamous mega game and LARP is over. If you missed it, I have bad news, there won't be a sequel. But if you have the hubris to run your own, keep reading...
• Obstacles Support Exploration by All Dead Generations. Another great post from Gus L drawing a distinction between certain "obstacles" and lairs, puzzles, and traps (and why the distinction matters).
• Information Architecture in The Castle Automatic by Rise Up Comus. A shorty but a goody. His Majesty the Worm's newest addition is following some time-tested best practices in keying and structure.
• Rules Are About Control by The Weeping Stag. Now this is what I call a theory post. How do I know? Because it features Michael Foucault. Was I delighted? Frightened? Confused? Naturally.
• Cognitive Load in Tabletop RPG Design by Chubby Funster. Video. This is a short clip, only 5 minutes long, but it illuminates the importance of monitoring the cognitive load rules put on the GMs and players.
• Making the Bonsai Diary Better for Retailers by Sticky Doodler. Lots of great advice in here for getting your products into retail stores and (more importantly) getting them out of there. I appreciate the links and templates!
• How I Write Adventures by OSR Rocks! A process post that distills lessons from other great blogs and tightens it down like a magnifying glass on Golem Productions' big questions when designing their old-school adventures.

Inspiring & Non-roleplaying

Design tools, theory, and inspiration from the world beyond tabletop rpgs.

• Fair (and Fairy) Cake-Cutting in Pacts by Skeleton Code Machine. Skelly explores how the "I cut. You choose." mechanic in Pacts combines with area control to create tough choices and meaningful decisions.
• Game Design is Simple, Actually by Ralph Koster. "A twelve-step program for understanding game design." Spoiler: It's not simple, but it can be broken down into simple parts.
• Merging Ancient and Modern, An Interview w/ Mujunsha Inc by More Games Please. I've been a fan of Ross Connell's work for years, and now he's interviewing board artists and designers. This one's great.
• 23 of the Best Book Covers for Fall 2025 by Print Mag. The secret to a good book cover (at least for novels) is a combination of theme, color, type, illustration, and—sometimes—subversion.
• Ten Classic Client Disasters and How to Prevent Them by True Grit Texture Supply. Part II of the Disaster Artist series is here, and it's all too familiar. If you're a freelancer, I strongly recommend reading.
• Consumer Packaged Goods Directory. Resource. This is a fantastic website for looking at packaging design. It's got everything from common grocery items to pharmaceuticals and more.
• The Game UI Database. Resource. If you're the kind of person who wants to know the fonts in your favorite video game—I've got good news. Someone's made a database just for that.
• Digitized Vatican Archives. Resource. This project tracks all the manuscripts being digitized and added to the The Vatican Libraries. Lots of illuminated manuscripts, early diagrams, and even music sheets.

Design Archive

Old articles, famous and the overlooked, resurrected from the dead.

• Defining Story Games by Ars Ludi. I figure this is a good pairing with The OSR Onion. "In a story game, a player's ability to affect what happens in the game is not dependent on their character's fictional ability to do those things."
• Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character by Nordic Larp. For a lot of roleplaying game designers, "Bleed" is a bad word. This article covers the concept (and it's value) from the LARP perspective.

Missed the last issue? Read it here.

The Explorateur: Issue #13

Monthly design jams, critique, theory, and inspiration for tabletop rpg designers by rpg designers. Vetted. Looted. Curated.

Explorers DesignClayton Notestine

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