Ben Rosenbloom's Boring Machine

I just drilled into each of the four classes of Ways and Means, looking at each ability and trying to understand how they combine into the gestalt of a class in Heart, in an attempt to grapple with what is going on in Heart design and what makes that design work for me, or not work for me. As one last design exercise / attempt at fairness / victory lap, I'm taking the boring machine and drilling into the design of the Xanthous Zealot, the class I wrote in Heartsong #1 !

The fourth and final part of my design deep dive into the classes of Ways and Means! This entry concerns the Witness, a bard-alike who just loves to see all the other player characters accomplish their dreams. The goal for this project is to try to isolate the mechanical design from the thematic elements and analyze how the two inform each other, to see what works for me and what doesn't.

Part three of four in my deep dive into the class design in Ways and Means! Today's blog is on the Snail Pilgrim, a holy wanderer with the weight of a world on their back. The goal is to talk mostly about the mechanical design, with some reference to the thematic elements and how the two inform each other, to see what works for me and what doesn't.

Part two of four in my project to break down the design of the classes in Ways and Means! Today's is the Crawler, the ultimate dungeon delver as shaped by the Heart. The goal is to see if I can isolate the mechanical design from the thematic elements and analyze how the two inform each other, to see what works for me and what doesn't.

As I threatened in my big post on Ways and Means, I will be going through each of the four classes and talking about, line by line, what works for me and what doesn't. It's my hope to be fairly generous, but I don't make any claims towards objectivity. I'll be going through the list in order - first up is the Blightborn.

I'm back for another archive delve! I'm not digging too deeply through my pile - I'm reading Ways and Means , the (fairly) recent supplement for Heart: The City Beneath ! I took a quick glance through a few weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to really sit down and grapple with anything yet. I'm excited to read!

A whole half of the year has passed! TUMULUS comes out quarterly - there are two new ones on my to-read pile! I imagine you can see where this is going. Today, I'm delving into TUMULUS 6, the spring 2026 issue, titled Hammer a nail in the coffin .

I'm back with another readthrough of my rpg archives! It's a little bit of a stretch to say TUMULUS 5 is really "archival" reading - this is the winter 2025 issue! That's right now! (Or it was when I started writing this blogpost - the spring 2026 issue drops very soon I believe). I was gifted a year's subscription for the winter holidays (thank you Nate!), and got a chance to read it at the turn of the year. TUMULUS  is a quarterly magazine by Skeleton Code Machine. I don't have the back issues to compare to, but the copy tells us we can expect individual issues to run ~40-60 pages with illustration. The contents of those pages are a little variable, but the idea I get is that we can expect "game-stuff" in general - some theory, perhaps some reviews, maybe even some little games. The back of the issue has a full page ad for the magazine (more on this in just a moment), pitched as "quarterly inspiration, games, design ideas, and more." ...

Whale Roads   was released December 2025. It's a "zine" that's a phenomenal labor of love and (in my entirely biased opinion) an extremely cool compilation of play reports, GM asides, player notes, and game materials, from the year-long West Marches / open table game of Wolves Upon the Coast , by Luke Gearing, organized through the Ranged Touch discord server. I was one of 30+ players, I wound up serving as the table's "quartermaster," and I was one of a handful of editors who worked on assembling the final zine, so I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on my experience!

Adventure Calls took a break for April, so I thought I'd fill the time with another Archive Delve. Today I'll be talking about the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park rpg supplement!

I've been continuing to mess around writing for Heart (in fact, you can read some more of my design work in the 70-page fanzine , recently published, which includes really fun writing from a plethora of others), so today I'm back with a review of Bloodthirsty , by E.R.F. Jordan! 

I'm back with another month's worth of adventure! For March, we read A Pound of Flesh , the Mothership module by by Donn Stroud, Sean McCoy, and Luke Gearing, with illustrations by McCoy and Jan Buragay. The text has two primary modes; one for establishing the setting, and one for running the three scenarios in the setting. I think both valences of the text are really good! So, once again, I'll be digging a little into the text to talk about what works for me and what didn't.

For February, the Adventure Calls reading club read 50 Fathoms , a pulpy pirate-y pointcrawl / campaign setting for Savage Worlds. It's a big one! I wound up thinking a lot about the social fabric the text imagines.

For January (a month which, you might note, has already passed us by), the Adventure Calls reading club read Against the Cult of the Reptile God . I read it too! You can read other readers' thoughts here . Spoilers for the adventure follow! Content warnings for the module include mind control and sexual assault.

I'm back to read through Spine of Eternity: Everyone Wants to be a Star , a newly released pbta game, by Eva Terra.

Welcome back to another archive delve! Today I'm reading Sigmata: This Signal Kills Fascists .

This is entirely different from my usual ramblings - this post is meant to be a resource to talk about the latest ongoing Fallen London story,  Firmament ! I would have previously have used cohost for this (rip), but we make do with the blogging tools available. This current version recaps the story through Chapter 8.

Another day, another delve into the archive. Today I'm taking a look at Dokayt, an anthology of jewish ttrpgs.

Time for another delve! Hopefully without too much resistance (this is a joke about Heart's Delve procedure). Today, I'm reading the very-recent first-draft pdf release of Dagger in the Heart !

 It's time to go digging again! Today I'm reading through John Adamus's Noir World .