Reveries

  • What do critics owe us?

    A few things recently happened in the discourse that raised the question, “what do critics owe us?”, in various forums across the TTRPG space. I have a response, but to understand it we must meander through a few other points first. Please, bear with me. I started reviewing modules and games largely selfishly, for two Continue reading

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  • 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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  • 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

  • Sharky! Now crowdfunding!

    My new module Sharky is funding for Zinequest right now! Please, support it! Sharky is a fantasy roleplaying adventure module written for Old School Essentials or other, similar, fantasy roleplaying games for low-level adventurers. In it, your heroes (or rogues) will travel into an undersea cave complex, to investigate a beast that is wreaking havok Continue reading

  • The Idle Cartulary Awards for Excellence in Elfgames 2024

    This is the second year I’ve decided to post Novies, but rather than struggle to create novelty categories every year, I’m going to keep it simple. From 2024 (or so), I’m going to pick my favourite things, judging for innovation and how influential it was to me. However many runners up I want, because spread Continue reading

  • Dungeon Regular: Feedback Reachout

    Ok, so I’m thinking about Dungeon Regular, and how it’s a minisode format of about 5 minutes. I’ve got some listeners, but not bucketloads. I’m wondering if this micro content would be better suited to Tiktok or Instagram, to be honest, but I’m not sure how much of the elfgame dungeon design crowd doomscroll on Continue reading

  • Thoughts on module writing

    I reread Curse of Mizzling Grove today (available digitally, and in print soon), and I was surprised by how good it was. I don’t know about you, but often forget how to repeat my successes, so I thought I might make some notes of my learnings from the project. Big picture: I realised reading through Continue reading

  • Dice Exploder Guest…me!

    Hey! Dice Exploder is a great podcast full of design interest and people being excited. It’s great stuff! I’m on there repping the DIY elf game scene this week! We talk about Lorn Song of the Bachelor, the Isle, Rumour Tables and random tables more generally! Check it out here! I can’t figure out how Continue reading

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  • The Curse of Mizzling Grove

    My kickstarter for Zinequest: the Curse of Mizzling Grove is now live! Check it out here! I’m really proud of this one! I’m holding myself back a little compared to all my other projects, and so this is a constrained, 20 room dungeon and its immediate surrounds, laid out clearly with a one location per Continue reading

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  • Jaquaysing

    Anne wrote this post about the background on the use of the word Jacquaysing: Xandering is slandering. It collects a lot of evidence of bad faith acting of the author of the term “Xandering”, and reflects strongly how I feel about the term. I’d encourage you all read it. Thanks, Anne. Idle Cartulary Playful Void 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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