Panoptikontraband: hiding in plain sight

A blog about whatever, but mostly about tabletop role-playing games.

  • Gothcon day one

    I spent all thursday painting minis, so I could run my bluecoats scenario. I had fun, the people playing had fun, it was a great success all around. Our room also had two stargrave scenarios, chain of command, flames of war, and people playing blood bowl and just hanging out. I’ll post the rules for…

  • Another glorious day in the corps

    I had a couple of days to prepare to run a game for some 20 hours for 3 or 4 people, and I chose to run Destroyer of worlds from Free League for their Alien system. This is something as unusual on this blog as a review of something I’ve actually gamemastered, so I’ll just…

  • Review: Duelist

    This is not a review of the old M:tG magazine, even if that that would have been a pretty fun thing to write, just going through old price lists, and “best decks of necro summer” and stuff like that. This is a review of Duelist, which I got in a bundle a while ago and…

  • Dice

    I love dice. This does not make me an outlier in the ttrpg-sphere, if I understand my social media feeds and meme collection correctly. I also have too many dice. I bet I haven’t even used a whole bunch of them. Bought them, threw them in the box/sack/cabinet and there they are, deteriorating, maybe losing…

  • About 20 years late

    I should have started blogging when it was popular. Or, no, scratch that. I shouldn’t, because then I was young and cared about strange stuff, like being popular and doing things that other people like. Now I’m old and just write about whatever. It feels good. I do feel bad on missing out on a…

  • Symphony of enchanted lands

    Right, I know that some people don’t like having music when they play, but those people are wrong so let’s just ignore them. This part of the blog could be called something like “Best game session albums of all time (40+ edition) but I chose to go with album titles for each post instead, because…

  • Games that I bought in 2023 and didn’t play. Yet.

    First off, I’ve probably bought some bundles, but those won’t be listed here because that would feel like cheating, and no-one likes a cheater. Ryuutama First off, this game is gorgeous. The quality of the book is just amazing, thick pages, colorful art, and just the right size. I like a book that feels right.…

  • Playability or realism?

    An eternal debate, right? Well, maybe not, but I bet some people talk about it a lot. And honestly, there is only one answer, unless you have wet dreams about excel spreadsheets. Playability wins over realism every time, the story takes precedence over “is this possible?” every time. Unless, again, you want to get bogged…

  • Cities part 2

    I just started working my way through Max Gladstones pretty excellent craft series, and what really pulls me in is how the cities are living, breathing beings that play a part in the plot. This post might have spoilers. In three parts dead, as well as in two serpents rise, the city is in peril,…

  • Cities are for capital pt 1 – violence

    Cities are a common place in a lot of roleplaying games, but what is actually the point of cities? I’d say that it differes a lot depending on what sort of world we are playing in. A feudal city does not have the same purpuse as a cyberpunk city, just as a modern city is…

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