History

Your Worldbuilding Needs More Cows

Over my Spring Break, I went to Texas, and one of the places that I visited was the Fort Worth cattle Stockyards. It made me start thinking more about the cattle industry--of prime importance to the settlement of the American West, and something that I completely skipped over in my

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 3

Last week, we covered the initial victory of a revolution and subsequent dissolving of the bonds of unity. Subscribers were able to read how I applied the lessons about these phases to a revolution in my own homebrew world. As a reminder: this is not meant to be the only

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 2

Last week, we covered the first stages of the life cycle of a revolution, as the existing regime is destabilized, exposed, and ultimately, revolutionary forces are violently unleashed upon it. Subscribers were able to read how I applied the lessons about these phases to a revolution in my own homebrew

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Worldbuilding with Government Life Cycles

Life Cycle of a Revolution, Part 1

Back in March, I wrote about how several historical empires of the ancient and medieval worlds followed essentially the same arc in a two part series (you can check out part 1 and part 2). We can use that arc as a way to quickly build a history for a

Rethinking Fantasy

Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: Land Tenure for Commoners

This is part 2 of the most esoteric post I've ever written. Last week, we went over the rules that nobles had as part of their land ownership. What were the options for what a noble owed the king as a condition of their land ownership? Be sure

Rethinking Fantasy

Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: Land Tenure for the Nobility

Welcome to quite possibly the most esoteric post I've ever written. I recently went down a rabbit hole of research on what land ownership looked like in the late medieval period, ostensibly for worldbuilding purposes for my own game. Should this show up in most TTRPGs? Probably not,

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Supplements

Now Live: Worldbuilding Beverages

A shorter post this week, just to alert everyone to a new product. If you enjoyed my January series on the blog of Worldbuilding in Five Glasses, I encourage you to check out my new "Worldbuilding Beverages" on DriveThruRPG. It treads some of the same ground as my

GM Resources

What To Do During Downtime?

I've always loved the "home base" parts of games. When I played Knights of the Old Republic, I wanted more time aboard the Ebon Hawk. I wanted more space combat, something to do aboard ship. When I played Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, sailing around

GM Resources

How to Build a Mystery: Rumor Cards

Back in February, I ran a one-shot session of Vaesen and absolutely loved running it. As I start thinking about putting together a more complete campaign using the same system, I've been thinking about how to support designing more mysteries. While I think that the system provided a

Review

Review: Maple Island Massacre by Aaron Best

I stumbled upon a new solo RPG recently on Bluesky, and as readers of the blog know, I love solo games. You can check out all my solo RPG content here – I made a whole series for them because there are starting to be so many. Most of the previous

GM Resources

Talking About Talking: Languages in RPGs

I've been reading a lot of other RPG blogs about the way that they tackle the topic of languages in their game. Dungeonfruit began this iteration of the conversation about language, and Murkdice followed it up with a really great article as well. But something that Murkdice neglected

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History

The Imperial Life Cycle, Part 2

Last week, I wrote about the life cycle of an empire as described by Robin Pierson of History of Byzantium and Patricia Crone. The fact that both the Islamic Caliphate and the Roman Empire went through very similar cycles is an interesting historical quirk. It is a quirk that we

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History

The Imperial Life Cycle, Part 1

When I was sitting down and trying to brainstorm more blog post ideas, I thought to myself, "Lucas, you should really write something practical and player-focused, rather than more worldbuilding stuff. You've been doing reviews and interviews recently, why not write something super player-focused?" And then,

Interview

Interview: "Mappa Mundi" with Three Sails Studios

The past month or so has seen so many awesome TTRPG Kickstarters get launched. It is an awesome time for the indie RPG scene. One of the ones that I've been seeing the most press about and which shattered its Kickstarter goal is Mappa Mundi, the debut project

Review

Review: Ex Novo by Sharkbomb Games

I was originally going to save this review for a longer series on town-building and city-building, but given how many months I have been plugging this game on my socials and in my monthly roundup newsletters, I've been remiss on not just writing up my official review. Maybe

GM Resources

Flying with a Co-Pilot

💡There is one week left to back the Kickstarter that I wrote about last week. If you haven't backed the project yet and want access to a really fun RPG about legacy and how heroes are remembered, you should do that this week! Today, even! The post comes

Interview

Interview: "Designing PREQUEL" with Ethan Yen

I recently got the opportunity to playtest PREQUEL, a new collaborative worldbuilding RPG that makes a great introductory vignette before a new campaign. I absolutely loved playing PREQUEL. While there were a few balance issues that my group stumbled across because we were a smaller party than other playtest groups,

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Coffee and Tea

This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. This is part four of my "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This week, we'

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Liquor

This is part three of my "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. This week, we'

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Wine

This is part two of my "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. This week, we'

Worldbuilding in Five Glasses

Worldbuilding Beverages: Beer

This is part one of my new "Worldbuilding Beverages" series. Click here to see the whole series! This article may include affiliate links, which allows me to get a small portion of the price you pay, at no extra cost to you or the creator. One of the

First Year Reflections

New Years Resolutions

If you've missed the past few weeks, for the month of December, I'm reflecting on my first year in the TTRPG industry. Today's focus is the upcoming new year, and what I hope to accomplish in my second year. Goal #1: Bigger Products My

First Year Reflections

Articles of 2024

If you've missed the past few weeks, for the month of December, I'm reflecting on my first year in the TTRPG industry. Today's focus is on the articles that I wrote this year. I'll pull out some favorite highlights from the blog,

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First Year Reflections

Products that I Wrote in 2024

If you've missed the past few weeks, for the month of December, I'm reflecting on my first year in the TTRPG industry. Today's focus is on products I wrote, and how I feel that I grew over the course of the year; next week,

First Year Reflections

Article Stubs of 2024

The December 2024, end of my first year in the TTRPG industry reflections series continues! A lot of research goes into a lot of my articles, particularly the history ones, which means sometimes a topic gets completely abandoned after I've begun researching it. So, without further ado, here&