Idle Cartulary

  • Bathtub Review: Isle of Hex

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath. Continue reading

  • The Frost-wreathed Heart: A Dungeon Larp

    I just dropped a committee larp for the Hour or Less Jam. It’s called the Frost-wreathed Heart, after the evil presence that has brought all the characters to this moment. What’s a committee larp? Basically a game where the content of the gameplay is the discussion around a specific topic, and your characters all have Continue reading

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  • Bathtub Review: A Perfect Wife

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath. Continue reading

  • Bathtub Review: Mouth Brood

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath. Continue reading

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  • Got no game: Should your module be system agnostic?

    A lot of people ask questions like “should I write a module as system-agnostic, or for a popular system?” or “if I write a module for an unpopular system like X, will nobody read my module?”. I’m about as deep in the module game as you can be, so I thought I’d talk about what Continue reading

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  • Bathtub Review: Wonderland

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath. Continue reading

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  • Bathtub Review: Fever Swamp

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath. Continue reading

  • An Ennie Nomination!

    Hi, everyone! So Playful Void has been nominated for an Ennie this year. You probably know this is a pretty big deal, if you’re deep enough into the hobby to be reading this humble blog. I’m really proud to have been nominated, but of course, I’d love to win: Please vote for me! My pitch: Continue reading

  • Zungeon Zunday: Council of Invisible Eagles

    In 2025 I’m reviewing zungeon zines. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques, just like Bathtub Reviews, but they’ll be a little briefer. The goal here is a little different: I want to spotlight what a craft-based, just-do-it approach to module writing can do. Council of Invisible Eagles is a 3 page dungeon for Old Continue reading

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  • Don’t wait to create, don’t wait to learn

    A prominent game designer recently said in a Dice Exploder thread, that breaking down design paradigms before you design games is self-limiting and unproductive. This was interpreted by many as “you don’t need to read or play a lot of games before you start designing games”, which is both true and not true. I thought Continue reading

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Recent Posts

Threshold of Evil – Dungeon Regular

Dungeon Regular is a show about modules, adventures and dungeons. I’m Nova, also known as Idle Cartulary and I’m reading through Dungeon magazine, one module at a time, picking a few favourite things in that adventure module, and talking about them. On this episode I talk about Threshold of Evil, in Issue #10, March 1988! You can find my famous Bathtub Reviews at my blog, https://playfulvoid.game.blog/, you can buy my supplements for elfgames and Mothership at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/, check out my game Advanced Fantasy Dungeons at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/advanced-fantasy-dungeons and you can support Dungeon Regular on Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/idlecartulary.
  1. Threshold of Evil
  2. Secrets of the Towers
  3. Monsterquest
  4. They Also Serve
  5. The Artisan’s Tomb

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