Message – RPGaDAY 2025 Day 4 – update In RPGaDay 2025 Day 4, I responded to "Message" by talking about how difficult it is to communicate long-distance without telephones. This is an update after a reader reminded me of sempahore and other signals at a distance.

In #RPGaDay2025 Day 4, I responded to "Message" by talking about how difficult it is to communicate long-distance without telephones. This is an update after a reader reminded me of semaphore and other signals at a distance.

#RPGaDay2025 - 22 - Ally It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts. Today's prompt is **Ally**. The text below is from the sign up for **Revelation** , our Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark based convention, but it's repeated through the others. > _Revelation is part of a diverse, inclusive and welcoming community. We are committed to providing a welcoming experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neurotype, physical appearance, body, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language or religion._ > _In games, Discord and Facebook, be mindful of words and consequences. Opinions and discussions should be done in a spirit of support, kindness and inclusivity. Be positive and supportive of others._ > _Everyone participating in the event - including the Discord server and Facebook group - is required to abide by this code of conduct and the Harrassment and Inappropriate Conduct Policy._ One of the non-negotiable aspects of how we've shaped the Garricons is that they should be inclusive and safe spaces for anyone who wants to play roleplaying games. There've been a variety of tools we've used for that from Graham's opening speech, through tagging on scenarios as a content warning, to a harassment and inappropriate behaviour policy. They're the aspect of the conventions that cause the most noise. We're often challenged to be better and also why we need this. The latter is easier to respond to, as we've had examples of issues where issues have happened and have been dealt with quietly in the background by the con team. They aren't examples we're going to discuss, but in every case they caused deliberation and a lot of thought. Challenges to be better are good too, but sometimes it can be hard, as the discussions get quite emotive and people sometimes get personal if you test or explore around why they have a particular request and how it would work in practice. My hope is that we continue to get better and to act as an ally to those who need it, creating a safe space around our love of sharing stories and adventures together even when the rest of the world seems to be getting increasingly divisive. 22 August 2025

Blog - #RPGaDay2025 - 22 - Ally

TL;DR: Long delayed post about trying to ensure our #ttrpg conventions are open and inclusive spaces.

delta-pavonis.blogspot.com/2025/08/rpgaday2025-22-a...

#RPGaDay2025 - 14 - Mystery It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts. Today's prompt is **Mystery**. My favourite roleplaying scenarios involve mysteries, no matter what the genre is. If you gave me the choice between trying to solve a case, or understand the horrors lurking behind an event, I'm all in. This is because it plays to my own nature in real life. Professionally, I am often involved in root cause investigations and analysis, and the mystery format really engages the same part of my brain. I start to try to pull data together and find the links and connections, and love it. The example above is from the Eternal Lies campaign which became so big that I couldn't maintain this kind of mapping. I know my natural tendencies enough that I'll either play a character that would naturally think this way or I'll act as the custodian of the clues for the party as a whole. I do get frustrated with poorly written mysteries where the authors haven't pulled the interconnections together clearly. If you're writing - or running - a scenario in this space, you really should understand how everything fits together. The diagram above shows me doing this for _The Hunt for Sabre IV_ , an adventure from **Mysteries on Arcturus Station** for **Traveller**. I had to do this or clues get lost in the pages of text, and I think you need them to be to hand if you're GMing a scenario. You don't need to use specialist software for this; there's plenty of ways to approach this. I used the free version of Miro for the first diagram, and Scapple (£19 as I write this) for the second. The lowest diagram is a Microsoft PowerPoint organisation chart turned into a clue map for the **Delta Green** scenario _The New Age_. Of course, you can do this manually. The page above is my handwritten notes on my reMarkable that show the adventure structure, links to clues, handouts and NPCs as a top level reference for one of the _Shadows of Atlantis_ campaign scenarios for **Achtung! Cthulhu**. Structure is really important in mystery scenarios. The Alexandrian has a great example of how to do this with the 3-clue rule, which I recommend reading even if you haven't liked at it before. Mapping a scenario lets you see the weaknesses in the design. In the _Shadows of Atlantis_ scenario above, I ended up adding an additional clue to connect parts, however not everything could be addressed with this. In some cases I had to use 'the boffins back at HQ have studied the material and concluded this'. **City of Mist** has some great advice on scenario design for mysteries (then has so many scenarios that you don't really need to do it!). Cases have multiple locations which are interlinked on an iceberg map. This doesn't go as far as I have in the handwritten example, but once it's linked to the very clear design for scenarios, it makes it simple to read and use at the table. There's an example page from the introductory scenario _Shark Tank_ above. Yellow boxes call out clues, links to other locations are underlined and NPCs/dangers have bold text. If you are running the campaign that the game has, there are other clues highlighted in red that will come into play for other scenarios in the campaign arcs. It's important to remember that clues don't have to explain, the merely need to be trail of breadcrumbs deeper into what is happening. It took us a lot of sessions in _Eternal Lies_ to work out what was actually going on, and I think that some of it we only truly understood at the end. That was fantastic; it felt like we were groping around the edges with clues we were trying to connect. Anyway, back to mystery. I love the use of mystery scenarios, and they need structure. I think that'll do for this entry. 14 August 2025

Blog - #RPGaDay2025 - 14 - Mystery

TL;DR: A long delayed finalisation of a post on mystery adventures and their structure.

#ttrpg

delta-pavonis.blogspot.com/2025/08/rpgaday2025-14-m...

We did it! We finished #RPGaDay2025! It's time now to gaze upon Day 31: REWARD

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

Go ahead: get yourself one of six villains. Got some backstory, some worldbuilding, some stat blocks, some art, some DM info, you name it. Go get it!

#dnd #osr #d&d #diy #ttrpg

Nearly done now! Day 30 is EXPERIENCE.

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

Nalathraxx returns for his final ploy. He wants to make a deal. Will you sacrifice what you know, what you have become, for a boon?

#dnd #d&d #RPGaDay2025

Day 29 of #RPGaDay2025 is CONNECT, and to help you out next time you need a hand figuring out a way to heist the duke's jewels or break out of prison or destroy a particularly durable troll, well...

You've got a guy for that.

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

#dnd #d&d #osr #diy

#RPGaDay2025 - 20 - Enter It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts. Today's prompt is **Enter**. Both as a GM and a player, I always love that moment before you commit to a course of action, especially when it potentially puts the characters at risk. The doorway at the entrance to Moria in Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring" was the element that immediately sprang to mind when I thought about this prompt, but these little moments repeat throughout fiction and throughout roleplaying sessions. When playing **Eternal Lies** I can remember every time we chose to **enter** deeper into the mystery, there was a moment of fear. Our characters felt so small against the threat. But once we were committed, it was all about doing and responding. You push off the edge and the energy takes you forward. Kind of how I found abseiling when I tried it. Of course, it can go wrong; when we played **Worldbreaker** for Pelgrane Press' **The EsoTerrorist** , we had a moment when we had to **enter** a town with a major Ebola outbreak. The level of procrastination and hesitation from the players was amazing. None of us wanted to risk exposing our characters, with whom we'd developed a great attachment, to the possibility of such a horrific ending. Fighting the supernatural and its minions was fine, but risking being eaten alive by a superbug just caused us to flat out stall, causing the GM a lot of frustration until we finally talked ourselves into the whole thing! There's definitely something to be said for making sure your adventures have plenty of chances for the players to choose whether they want to go deeper. This week's **Jägermeister** session had such a moment. The Bounty Hunters could have chosen to have taken a smaller bounty which would meant that they turned a small profit but avoided the potential of landing on a world that had been destroyed with weapons of mass destruction and becoming involved in solving a terrorist plot. They had a serious discussion about it and I was prepared for the campaign to end there, but fortunately, they wanted to go further. I think it was mostly wrapped in the meta decision of wanting to know how the plot plays out and knowing that they'd effectively wrap the planned campaign if they didn't **enter** into the next part. The decision to **enter** , is a moment of choice. Make it meaningful where you can. A threshold to be crossed. 6 September 2025 (although posted on for the correct RPGaDay date)

#RPGaDay2025 - 20 - Enter (catchup mode)

TL;DR: Thoughts on making the choice to enter the next part of a #ttrpg adventure significant, a threshold to be crossed.

delta-pavonis.blogspot.com/2025/08/rpgaday2025-20-e...

The final days of #RPGADAY2025 are at hand at last. Today is Day 28: SUSPENSE! And it's freshman year all over again:

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

I made you a mixtape. Remember Chemistry class with Mr. Garford? Please don't cheat on me with Greg while I'm away at camp. HAGS. :)

#RPGaDAY2025 Interesting posts 3 I used the prompts to make a game handout, but that hasn’t been revealed in game yet, hence why I’ve not shared it yet. Meanwhile, the event has ended and it seems like there was more people sharin…

I have caught up with the end of another fun #RPGaDay. Some more fun and interesting posts for this year’s #RPGaDay2025. 🙂
I used the prompts to make a game handout, but that hasn’t been revealed in game yet, hence why I’ve not shared it yet. 😀
batjutsu.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/r...

Yesterday I wrote about Day 26: NEMESIS, and how a rival adventuring party can push your players to undertake foolhardy risks and savor the rewards a little more sweetly.

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

#rpgaday2025

@ Autocratik's #RPGaDay2025, here is our Mr. Sterling's response for #RPGaDay2025Day -1 #gaming #ttrpg

Patron.

So when we began this journey last month, I missed a day. So since retconjuration is the flavor of the modern age, let's pretend I didn't and invert time a bit for this one.

I GM For You Building Stories Together

So few RPG folks left on Twitter that I had 5 of the 10 Top posts on #rpgaday2025 for a few days :) I’m still playing lots of games “new” and old. Currently writing my own Solo/Co-op Framework (system agnostic) which I’m calling “Augmented Imagination” and playtesting it with “Beyond the Wall”

RPG a DAY: Day 31 – Reward The final reward of RPGaDAY2025 isn’t treasure or XP – it’s community, reflection, and the joy of creating stories together. Thanks to everyone who joined in. See you next year.

Day 31: REWARD. Not treasure, not XP – the real reward is the people we play with, the stories we share, and the chance to look back at the journey. Thanks to everyone who took part in #RPGaDAY2025. See you next year!

RPGaDAY2025 – Behind The Wall Posts about RPGaDAY2025 written by Stefan

I started my new blog right around the time of #RPGaDay2025, which was a great way to get back into writing about #TTRPG topics.

Here's everything I had to say on the various topics each day. Let me know what you think.

behindthewallgames.com/tag/rpgaday2...

RPGaDAY2025 After Action Report – TardisCaptain's Blog of Holding

My after-action report for the #RPGaDAY2025 Challenge. I did a lot of talking about various #TTRPG topics. I felt good about my #RPGaDAY entries.

tardiscaptain.com/2025/09/02/r...

Day 25 of #RPGADAY2025 is CHALLENGE, so naturally I wrote up four jerks guarding bridges and the challenges they will pose for your plucky adventurers:

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

I didn't realize how much posting about #RPGaDay2025 had become part of my daily routine.

#RPGaDay2025 - 31 Reward Again, we can look at this diegetically (considering the rewards that characters get in the game), or non-diegetically (the rewards that...

...and we're done. #RPG #TTRPG #RPGaDay2025
vulpinoid.blogspot.com/2025/09/rpga...

Best of RPGaDAY2025 The RPGaDAY2025 challenge ended yesterday. I thought I’d put together a quick list of some of my favorite entries. Maybe not a “best” list, just some of the entries in #RPGaDAY202…

Best of RPGaDAY2025

Some of the highlights of the recent RPGaDAY2025 challenge:

polyhedralnonsense.com/2025/09/01/b...

#RPGaDAY2025, #Ttrpg

#RPGaDay2025 - 30 Experience Experience points, development of characters… or the experience we get from playing a great session of a game. I remember my first few T...

What is experience? What is an experience? #TTRPG #RPG #RPGaDay2025
vulpinoid.blogspot.com/2025/09/rpga...

I used Spindlewheel and the #RPGaDay2025 prompts to write a story in 31 posts, one each day in August! And now you can read the whole thing without wrestling bloosky's threading www.foggyoutline.com/lobsterpots

#RPGaDAY2025 launches on August 1st #RPGaDAY2025 starts on August 1st and while many people take it one day at a time through the month, many of you share responses in ways that take some preparation time. Here are the prompts to get…

More on #RPGaDAY2025 here: #ttrpg castingshadowsblog.com/2025/07/07/r...

Get more from Wandering DMs on Patreon creating insightful discussions about old school D&D and tableto

On the Wandering DMs Discord, one of our patrons wrote us a thought-provoking post every day in August, roughly 1,000-words daily, as part of #RPGaDAY2025. We have absolutely the best patrons. And we love having new folks join us! #dnd www.patreon.com/wanderingdms

a photo of a black & white puzzle on a black plastic folding table with its black box. The box features an image of the completed puzzle. The puzzle is complete next to the box. The puzzle's image is a D&D map drawn by Dyson Logos.

This gimmick was my favorite of #RPGaDay2025. The idea came to me right away and @dysonlogos.bsky.social was very kind to let me borrow his art for a silly experiment.

I learned a lot about puzzles from doing this post, please go read it!

And now we're caught up, with Day 24 of #RPGaDay2025. Remember, I started late.

Today's post is REVEAL and it's brought to you by @dysonlogos.bsky.social and the evil megacorporation known as Walmart.

When #d&d #dnd puzzles get literal:

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/09/rpga...

Fittingly, yesterday's post was RECENT, Day 23 of #RPGaDay2025.

25 headlines of breaking news from back in town, changing up the circumstances that greet the party the next time they make it back to their favorite village. Pick and choose!

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/08/rpga...

#RPGaDay2025 Day 22: ALLY.

Just some thoughts on the importance of allies in the dungeon. How to make friends, influence demihumans, and make a plan to kill everyone you meet - later. For now, we need them. For now...

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/08/rpga...

Day 21 brings us to UNEXPECTED in #RPGaDay2025.

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/08/rpga...

Six ways to upend the status quo a bit in your #dnd game, when things become a little too routine for your liking or the players get too comfortable with their route from town to dungeon and back again.

#RPGaDay2025 Day 20 is ENTER.

In a world of ancients, where cities are built on top of cities on top of cities on top of cities, where kingdoms rise and fall and elves can count the centuries, entrances to the strata of dungeons should be plentiful!

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/08/rpga...

Day 19 of #RPGaDay2025 was Destiny!

dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/08/rpga...

In which I complain about The Chosen One and opine that it's strictly the delusion of NPCs in my games.