Ben Rosenbloom's Boring Machine

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!

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

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 .

Welcome back to another Archive Delve! Today I'm looking at Boletus , a weird fantasy adventure / setting rpg, by Andrew of  Prey Species  ( who also runs a cool blog )!

I'm working my way through more games of crowdfunds past. Today, I'm looking at Venture & Dungeon (which are  technically two different games, but bundled together).

I'm back to take a look at another game that's been sitting on my shelf for years and years! Today I'll be reading through World Champ Game Co.'s A Guide To Casting Phantoms In The Revolution .

Welcome back to another archive delve! Well, kind of - the text I'm reading today is close to the top of my pile! After securing my personal pan pizza, I think I want to shake up the format a little bit, and mix in some recent releases with the older stuff, maybe meet in the middle kind of Memento-style. I might switch up the title scheme! But for now Archive Delve will be specifically for stuff I crowdfunded, and hopefully I'll publish some other reviews of other stuff I'm reading, just for fun.  Today, we're reading Inscrutable Cities , by Julian K. Jarboe, and published by Possum Creek Games! I'm a fan of PCG's other stuff, like  Wanderhome  and Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast (they have a bigger, cool catalogue, but those two are the standouts to me). Inscrutable  is obviously riffing off of Calvino's Invisible Cities , which I also  quite enjoy, so I have high hopes. Let's delve!

This past week featured some classic TTRPG discourse - notable not just for the eternal recurrence of topic, but that the leading luminary in the actual play/streaming space (Brennan Lee Mulligan) seemed to be wading in. I've largely stopped paying as much attention to this debate (in no small part because it's usually localized to Twitter, which I don't enjoy being on) but I do think it's fun to think, read, and talk about. I'm inching closer to writing the first part of that manifesto I've been threatening, and even if I recover my faculties and divert from that  particular madness, I think it would at least be fun to write something about it. At the very least, I think it would be fun to make my friends read it. Anyway, that's part of why I missed my usual window for a weekly delve, and why I think I'm reaching for something that advertises itself as philosophical. Today I'm reading Jesse Burneko's Dungeons & Dilemmas !

Another week, another archive delve! Today I'm taking a look at The Curse of the House of Rookwood  by Brian Bình and Michael Addison.

I'm nearing the end of the zines I'd highlighted for this first round of archive delving! Right now my plan is to finish up a few more, and then get to other blogging. Today, I'm reading Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 .

I'm back with another quick delve into the archive! More of a heroic jaunt, really. Today I'm reading through Our Queen Crumbles , by Jason Brown.

I'm back for another delve into the archive! I've been wrapped up with writing for NEW BLOOD and Daybreak on the Battlefield, as well as scheduling playtests, which has been eating up my ttrpg energy. But I've saved up enough to do a quick little read-through of Moonsailors , an offering from ZineQuest 2.

My weekly cycle was broken by illness, but I'm back at it again! This week I'm reading Barrow Keep: Den of Spies , an OSR-ish module from 2020. I read this a while back, but bounced off of it - in the intervening years, I've read, listened to, and played a lot more games and modules, including in the OSR vein, so I want to see if I can make better progress. Plus, it's got a Bathtub Review , which I put off reading because I didn't want it to influence my own, and I want to finally get to read it (Nova's reviews are fun and insightful, and one of the blogs that inspired me to start my own).

This time, I'm taking a look at Salt in Wounds , which is very nearly the first tabletop related thing I ever crowdfunded. I'm gearing up to run a fantasy module which is entirely different and not at all related, but it got me in the mood to read some more fantasy stuff. I tried breaking my once-a-week pattern, but it wound up being way too long. Skip to the end if you want just the tl;dr review.

In light of upcoming ZineQuest '24, I thought it would be fun to dig through some of my more zine-like treasures. So up today is Mouth Brood , from Amanda Lee Franck and Games Omnivorous. I splurged for the physical copy of this little module for reasons I don't quite remember, although it probably has to do with the Annihilation -esque vibe it gives off, and the delightful illustration of fungi on the cover. Technically outside of my goal of going through my crowdfunding pile, but it's too cool to pass up. Let's delve!

Time for a little more archival work! Today I'll be reading through Winter Harvest ! It's been awfully cold this past week, and I've been thinking about wintertime, and this is another game from some of my earlier kickstarter purchases. This is one I do  remember reading through - but I don't remember any content! The blurb puts me in mind of what I think of as a spate of cozy games, coinciding with and following Wanderhome's emergence onto the scene (even though I think Wanderhome doesn't neatly fit "cozy", or is doing something different with coziness). But that's a different game for a different time! Let's get feasting.

Perhaps you, like I, have backed a tabletop RPG or other product on any of the variety of crowdfunding websites. Or maybe you've bought one of the intimidatingly large bundles of games for a good cause. It's possible you've heard a cool game featured on an actual play podcast or stream or video series, and wanted to pick it up. And of course, you try to follow the trends and check out interesting new releases. Well, I don't know about you - but if you are  in such a position, having bought many more games than you've read (and read many more games than you've played), you might find yourself considering, like I have, what to do with such a vast treasure. Richard Kelly has provided me with one possible answer - save the world. Or at least, a library. Heroic Archivist is a game in which you accrue points by reading through your backlog of games, and potentially earn more points by rating and reviewing. These points can then be spent in a little dice battle again...