More Fuyuko Matsui

There was a question about the art in my last post. It was by Fuyuko Matsui. Here's more:

We Feed on the Flesh of Referees and Ghosts

Behind the screen I sometimes pretend to do things while a neglected part of my mind thinks up something to say. I have to remember so I write it down on green graph paper. Players feed on my nerves or sometimes sleepwalk. Referees are exposed like children who don't know what all the words mean yet. You can be gentle or you can pick at their giddy flesh to see how deep their dreams go. Do you really know what the teeth of a monster feel like? Did you hear that you can see stars in the glossy gall extracted from the splijossum of an ancient space wizard?

Paizo Spanks Hasbro: Pathfinder Continues to Outsell D&D

There is no question or ambiguity. Pathfinder is now consistently outselling Dungeons and Dragons. ICv2 just releaed RPG sales ranks for Summer 2011:

Top 5 Roleplaying Games – Summer 2011
	Title	Publisher
1	Pathfinder	Paizo Publishing
2	Dungeons & Dragons	Wizards of the Coast
3	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Fantasy Flight Games
4	Dragon Age	Green Ronin Publishing
5	Shadowrun	Catalyst Game Labs

This follows on the heels of identical results from the previous quarter:

Top 5 Roleplaying Games – Q2 2011
	Title	Publisher
1	Pathfinder	Paizo Publishing
2	Dungeons & Dragons	Wizards of the Coast
3	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Fantasy Flight Games
4	Dragon Age	Green Ronin Publishing
5	Shadowrun	Catalyst Game Labs

Early Timeline of OSR Blogging

A cursory browsing of blogs reveals the first appearances of old-school gameblogging before 2009:

Feb 2004 - Jeff's Gameblog
Feb 2005 - Mythmere's Musings
Mar 2007 - Delta's D&D Hotspot
May 2007 - Adventures in Gaming
Jan 2008 - The Schizonomicon (became Grognardia)
Feb 2008 - Sham's Grog n' Blog
Mar 2008 - How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less (blog dates back to 2006)
Mar 2008 - Strange Magic

<- DEATH OF GYGAX ->

Apr 2008 - Alex Schroeder's Wiki
May 2008 - LotFP: RPG
May 2008 - The Tao of D&D
June 2008 - Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog
July 2008 - Sword +1
Aug 2008 - The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope
Sep 2008 - Back in '81
Oct 2008 - Bat in the Attic
Oct 2008 - Uhluht'c Awakens
Dec 2008 - A Rust Monster Ate My Sword
Dec 2008 - Troll and Flame
Dec 2008 - The Other Side

Let me know if you can think of any other pre-2009 old school gameblogs.

I don't know why I am compelled to undertake these tedious blogometric exercises. I think it reflects some sort of personality disorder I have.

Hiatus, Not Fizzle... Maybe a Trickle?

At a Halloween party last weekend someone was asking about my blog. I said I hadn't really been keeping up with it lately. Why not? Says I "Well, I'm going up for tenure this Fall, you see, and I've been pretty busy trying to get nice research articles out to hammer down my case. Well I got my tenure review file in and things look good, so now I'm hoping that I'll have a little more time for gaming related stuff. I'm still pretty busy, so don't expect a flood of posts, but hopefully something more than nothing..."

Along with the blog my campaigns have pretty much been on hiatus since summer. I'm calling it a hiatus, not a fizzle...

The Penelion campaign reached a nice chapter-closing point when the party made it to the top of the cloud mine and met the renegade alchemist who was obsessed with eating cumulonimbical crystals and playing organ music for the translucent cloud beasts. The party gained access to a floating wooden cube maintained by the alchemist. Because of all the babies us players are having it's hard to see this group of players getting together again on a regular basis for quite some time. I don't want this campaign to fizzle. I like it. So maybe it's time to think about recruiting a few other players...?

The World Oranj campaign also reached a nice chapter-close before one of the key players moved to Taiwan. The party made it to the hanging ceramic city of Wiggin's Drop. Maybe I'll tell you more about it some time.

Here's hoping that in the next few months a little more cyclopeatronicism will start trickling out...

Rients, Maliszewski, and Early OSR Blogging

As is probably the case for a lot of you out there, Jeff's Gameblog and Grognardia are the first blogs I ever read that focused on old school D&D. I still love both of these blogs - they just keep going and going and going and are filled with a lot of great content. They are also supposedly two of the oldest gameblogs on the block and I don't think anyone would argue the fact that they've played an important role in shaping our collective view of the Old School Renaissance.

To better understand the origin of OSR blogging a while back I did some archive snooping to see how Jeff Rients and James Maliszewski (of Jeff's Gameblog and Grognardia, respectively) originally got into writing about old school gaming.

It turns out that Grognardia grew out of a LiveJournal blog called "The Schizonomicon: Musings of a Sleep Deprived Dad". Maliszewski started writing this blog in 2002 and it was initially filled with posts about very personal non-gaming issues. Starting around 2006 a significant amount of gaming content started popping up but it was almost all about modern RPGs and/or Maliszewski's creative projects (e.g. Thousand Suns).

It was January 10, 2008 when, as far as my skimming reveals, Maliszewski made his first post dedicated to Original D&D. It was two sentences long and titled "Things I Learned From OD&D". This post was rapidly followed by a succession of OD&D-related posts including the classic "Kill the Cleric":

"Lest anyone think my respect for gaming tradition prevents my being an iconoclast when warranted, I offer you this: D&D would be better off without the cleric.... If, as I contend, D&D is primarily a game of pulp fantasy and if you want, as I do, to see it return to its roots in a powerful way, there's really no choice. The cleric must go."

By March 2008 Maliszewski had started Grognardia to focus on OD&D-related material and The Schizonomican was shuttered by October. In sum, it appears that the seeds of Grognardia were planted in early 2008 and really only grew into a dedicated blog in mid-2008.

Now let's look at the origin of Jeff's Gameblog. Rients started blogging on February 25, 2004 on tripod.com. From day one his blog was called Jeff's Gameblog and was completely devoted to gaming. On his first day of blogging Rients is talking about 80s RPGs including D&D Expert Set, Call of Cthulhu, and Heroes Unlimited. As far as I can tell this is the first glimmer of retro-RPG consciousness in the blogosphere (please correct me if I'm wrong).

If there's anything I can discern about the evolution of Jeff's Gameblog over the last 7+ years it's that the early exclusive focus on games gradually expanded to include more general retro pop/geek-culture material, especially 1980s stuff.

So what does this all mean? Probably not much, but I do think Jeff Rients deserves a ton of credit for being one of the true founders of OSR blogging. Probably the first, in fact... by a long shot...

Sneak Peek: Erol Otus' Island Town

This summer I played in an AD&D game run by Erol Otus at the North Texas RPG Con. Erol has always been one of my favorite fantasy illustrators and the Fantasy Arts Enterprises gaming supplements he published in 1979 (Necronomican, Booty and the Beasts) are some of my favorite gaming materials ever. Period.

Well it turns out the Erol is an exceptionally great DM. As great as you would hope if you're a fan of his art style. Playing with him is like walking into one of his weirdest and most whimsical paintings. For me the experience was like being in gaming heaven, really. Erol even has a homemade screen covered with his art (that's Tavis Allison peeking over Erol's arm, by the way):

The eight-hour session we played in was a test run of Erol's new module Island Town. All players are descendents of a shipwrecked crew of humans, dwarves, and halflings living on an isolated island. You can play any of these races, or you can play a hybrid called a "Moojongi" and choose which body parts you want ascribe to which pedigree! We all started at Level 0 and began the game by harvesting Hazu bulbs in the lower levels of the islands. You see, young residents of the island have to prove their worthiness to ascend to the breeding chambers in the upper island by spending several seasons making fermented Hazu cakes. This manifests as a series of competitive semi-strategic dice rolling games between teams of players. The whole process was so beautifully and poetically described by Erol in terms of the ancient traditions of blade wielding, injecting, and cake rolling - it's hard to describe the creative genius of the whole thing.

Erol explains some nitty gritty: "Here on Island Town a "0" level gets but 2D6 per stat.  You will add 1D6 per stat for each significant encounter/achievement/discovery becoming 1st level after each stat reaches 3D6.  Normally citizens achieve a 1D6 addition to a stat. after the yearly Hazu Harvest thus becoming 1st level 6 years into the 10 year stint of harvesting duties. "

This is a great mechanic. As a reward for achieving various tasks (harvesting, etc.) the 0 level characters get to roll an extra 1d6 for the stat of their choice. Once each stat gets up to 3d6 you become Level 1.

A lot happened in the session. After the Hazu harvest we opted to go fishing, at which time we encountered a Vacucmber right out of Booty and the Beasts! We also interacted with some of the elders of Island Town, had a mysterious nighttime encounter with a Rubber Face - one of the original island inhabitants, and went on a quest for sea shells in the worm infested caverns beneath the island. This was one of the most creative roleplaying sessions I've ever played in.

Erol, being the super cool guy he is, handed out drafts of the Island Town module to each of the players after the game. He is planning on making a formal release of the module at NTRPGN Con in 2012. Be sure to get a copy when it's released! Here are a few teaser snapshots of my playtest copy:

A Perfect "Retroclone"?

Jimm Johnson, propietor of the Contemptible Cube of Quazar, passed along a copy of his home campaign D&D rulebook to me:

This thing is beautiful. It's exactly what I wish I had the time to do for my own game. It is a lovely single-booklet distillation of classic D&D. It has everything players need to know, all tailored specifically for Jimm's Planet Eris campaign setting. I wish I had the same thing to hand out to players in my own games. It's a perfect way to summarize core rules, house rules, and lay out new campaign-specific classes, spells, items, etc. It's also great if, like me, most of your players aren't gamers who own their own rulebooks.

Best of all, the cover doesn't beat around the bush. It's DUNGEONS & DRAGONS dude!

I love the idea of personalized "retroclones" at every table. We all make our own houserules no matter what edition or clone we play, so why use a retroclone that is simply a collection of some other DM's houserules? DIY like Jimm. Each gaming group could have its own perfect "retroclone".

The art in Jimm's book is fantastic. It is reminiscent of OD&D and just oozes fear, whimsey, and pure dungeon mojo. Yes, I love the OD&D art style - it looks exactly like something you'd see scrawled in an explorer's notebook. It's as far away from Final Fantasy and Easley as you can get while still being representational.

You can download a PDF of Jimm's rules HERE.

TrES-2b: Dark Planet

Hi! I've been out of town on vacation for a few weeks which explains the crickets chirping on my blog. I've got a couple substantive posts brewing, but in the meantime enjoy this new release from NASA concerning the creepiest planet yet discovered:

"Planet TrES-2b reflects back less than one percent of the light it receives, making it darker than any known planet or moon, darker even than coal. Jupiter-sized TrES-2b orbits extremely close to a sun-like star 750 light years away, and was discovered producing slight eclipses in 2006 using the modest 10-cm telescopes of the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES). The alien world's strange darkness, however, was only uncovered recently by observations indicating its slight reflective glow by the Earth-orbiting Kepler satellite. An artist's drawing of planet is below, complete with unsubstantiated speculation on possible moons. Reasons for TrES-2b's darkness remain unknown and are an active topic of research."

SoCal Minicon 4 - Photos and Recap

 DM Telecanter cackles as player misfortune manifests in a tower of Jenga blocks.

Ha ha! A great weekend! SoCal Minicon 4 was damn awesome. It was twice as big as last year and everyone I talked to said they had a blast and want to come back in 2012. We had a few people this year fly in from back east and the midwest, which amazes me.

The first game I played in, on Saturday morning, was Steve Perrin's SPQR game. SPQR = Steve Perrin's Quest Rules - it's essentially Steve's house version of Runequest. The table was full of great players. For the first ~45 minutes or so Steve explained the historical background of his imaginary continent with the aid of large and heart achingly lovely hand drawn maps. It was great. I love grand introductions to sessions when they're done right. The adventure was an overland journey to locate a wizard's tower and I played a naive, claustrophobic, agoraphobic farm lad on his first foray. I spent a few pleasing hours in the game, which included a battle against three manticores who were trying to eat the party's horses. Sadly I had to drop out of the game early and leave the minicon for the day because of a family matter. I hear the group made it to the tower before dinner time. Nice work!
 
On Sunday morning I played in Telecanter's fine fine Swords & Wizardry session. If you read his blog (and you should) you know he is prone to frequent strokes of creative genius. This tendency of his was well on display in the session. The set up was that the party members were all infected by The Red Plague while staying in an inn, and so were inclined to set off together to the Redoubt of the Red Wizards to find a cure. The Red Wizards were reputed to have created the plague perhaps ~100 years earlier, you see. A sticky bit was that the plague causes infected souls to become hypersensitive to stress and anxiety. So sensitive, in fact, that if a victim is pushed too much she will go berserk. The brilliant game mechanic for this fragile state of sanity was Jenga. Whenever violence or other major stress happened in the session a player would have to draw out a Jenga block. Clockwise around the table the draws went. Every melee round. Every curse uttered. Every gasp of frustration from a player. We all knew if the blocks fell the party would go insane and all would be lost. BRILLIANT FUN! We spent much of the session acting like a bunch of plague-ridden Marcel Marceaus in a freezing cold invisible dungeon being attacked by crawling bones, ticks, and hoodoo stranglers, so there was lots of Jenga action. Of course we got a firehose in the face of all kinds of other creative telecanterian strokes, some of which I recognized from his blog writing. Clerics drawing bones (dominoes) for prayers, apologizing assailants, weird homespun ensorcellments. Halfway through the game Mobad declared aloud that it was the weirdest dungeon he's ever played in. A beautiful game, great fun, a privilege to play. (We won, too!)

For the Sunday afternoon session I ran a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Because a couple of the players had previously played in my Orccon Asteroid Crypts of the Xylbocx Starcult game I decided to make this session a direct continuation of that adventure. I'm a bit conflicted about how much I want to talk about the content of the session. I might like to run it again for another group so I don't want to give too much away. The location the players explored was the CACODAEMON TRANSLUCENT PLANETOID. This thing is a great spherical cyst of a few miles in diameter bearing a giant luminescent cacodaemon embryo at its center, much like a small sun lighting a small hollow world. On the inside shell of the cyst were some localities settled by various interests for various reasons. The adventuring party eventually ended up spending much of the session exploring the Cacodaemon Cyst Yolk Mine where hobbit miners drain and condense embryonic blood of the cacaodaemon from the gelatinous white yolk. (The cacodaemon yolk forms a small mountain range on the inside shell of the cyst.) I was privileged to have a group a super fun players and I want to thank them all for playing in my game. I am flattered that Telecanter wrote up a short recap of the session HERE.

There were many other sessions besides the three I was involved in. Here are pictures to prove it! (Many of these pictures were taken by Chainsaw, as credited).

Chillaxin' between killing imaginary monsters and purloining imaginary gold pieces. (R-L): Shaman, Grodog, Anna. (Photo: Chainsaw)

T. Foster's game. (CW from L): jallison, Cimmerian, Wheggi, Bedivere, Anna, T. Foster, Shaman (standing), grodog. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Steve Perrin's game. (CW from bottom left): Deanna (blue shirt), Cyclopeatron, Steve, grodog, Marcus, Telecanter. (Photo: Chainsaw)

 Perrin's game: (L-R): grodog, Marcus, Telecanter, Cyclopeatron's nose. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Perrin's game.

Joseph Goodman running Dungeon Crawl Classics. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Grodog running Castle Greyhawk.

Telecanter's game: (CW from bottom left): socalcanuck, William, Telecanter, Marcus, St. Yossarian, Summerisle, Mobad (black hat).

Old School Hack at SoCal Minicon!

Just a few updates on this weekend's Minicon in Anaheim:

1. Nick had to drop his Saturday evening Stormbringer game due to work obligations.

2. Kirin Robinson is stepping in to run a Saturday night session of his Old School Hack game! This is a Red Box-inspired D&D retroclone that looks pretty awesome. Sign up now!

3. A seat has opened up in Steve Perrin's Saturday morning game.

4. A handful of seats are open for the Sunday games run by Grodog, Telecanter, and Bedivere.

If you want to RSVP for a game please email me through my blogger profile!

See you soon!

Southern California Minicon This Weekend! (UPDATES)

I'm getting pumped for the 4th Annual SoCal Minicon this weekend in Anaheim!

Click here to view the up-to-date SCHEDULE and PLAYER RSVPs.

Click HERE for various event details and directions.

UPDATE (July 27):

Nick can't make it due to work issues. Therefore:
(1) The Saturday Stormbringer game is cancelled.
(2)  A seat has opened in Steve Perrin's Saturday game

There are still a number of player slots open on Sunday July 31:

Allan Grohe (Grodog), an authority on the Greyhawk setting, is flying out from Kansas for the minicon. On Sunday morning he will be running an AD&D Greyhawk session. There is still one seat open for this game.

Telecanter is running a morning Swords & Wizardry session. There are still two seats available.

Greg (Bedivere) is running an afternoon AD&D game of his Puzzle Tower, for which four seats are still available.

EMAIL ME THROUGH MY PROFILE if you want to RSVP!

See you this weekend!

boiling blood

MU. About to go first level...

3d6 Ability Checks in 1977 (Underworld Oracle #1)

I rely heavily on d6 ability checks in my games. I like them because I can adjust the number of dice rolled to reflect the difficulty of a check, yet the rolls still maintain a bell-curved probability (SEE HERE for my previous description of this approach).

To be honest with you, I don't recall where I first heard about this method, but I think I initially read about it in an online forum a long time ago. At conventions I've seen a few other people use the method, but it doesn't seem to be common. Chris Kutalik mentioned that Rob Kuntz uses this method in his games, which got me to wondering how long this method has been around.

Well, now I know the answer is at least 34 years. I was browsing through some issues of the 70s U.K. fanzine Underworld Oracle the other night and I noticed in the first issue, from 1977, that there is a 3d6 Intelligence check described. Specifically, it is called for as a defense against a PC viewing an Apparition. I also recall seeing similar checks in later issues of UO as well.

Great! So d6 ability checks officially get the Old School Stamp of Approval and I won't have to worry about tearing up my OSR membership card anymore. Whew...

Here's the evidence:

YEAH! Found My 20+ Year Old Bag-O-Dice!

Over the last few weekends I've been helping my momma clear out her storage units in preparation for a big move. Some of the stuff I found included:

A bottle of human teeth
Two pistols
A sweet Witco owl
WWII Army Survival kit
1000+ NASA stock photos
A couple bags of human hair
A huge collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards
A 2-foot long slide rule in a belt scabbard
Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman! board game
My old dice bag!

Lords of light! I've been looking for this dice bag for years! My sweet momma made that little drawstring baggie for me when I was 9 or 10 years old. I lost track of the bag when I stopped playing RPGs in the late 80s, and subsequently built up another collection of dice which I use today. Here's what I found inside that old blue baggie:

This collection of dice has been frozen in time since the early/mid-1980s. They are mostly either TSR Dragon Dice or GameScience dice. A few observations and memories:

• That blue Dragon Dice d20 on top was my main rollah back in the day. It was the only d20 I had that actually went all the way up to 20.

• Most of my other d20s were Zocchi / GameScience dice that went to 0-9 twice, but they had a little "." or "+" next to some of the numbers to signify 11-20.

• No pip d6s. I liked the ones with the numbers - especially that groovy green one. I thought that spherical d6 was cool (got it in a trade), but I never used it.

• No d4s, although I distinctly remeber having a well-worn Carolina-blue Dragon Dice d4 and a yellow Holmes Basic Set d4. I guess they escaped from the bag along the way.

• Those blue and red d10s were from a separate Dragon Dice percentile set.

• That light red d6 was from an early printing (i.e. included dungeon geomorphs instead of Module B1) Holmes Basic Set I still have.

TSR's 1993 Wildspace Video Trailer: Spelljammer VHS Game!

Joethelawyer just posted the link to this. I found it to be so utterly amazing I just had to share it with you, my dear readers.

Apparently Wildspace was supposed to be a Spelljammer-based video game "cartridge". It seems that "cartridge" in this case meant VHS tape. Does anyone know anything more about this apparently abandoned venture?

 

UPDATE: Here's a picture of the Wildspace prototype game (from BGG - thanks to ze bulette for pointing this out!):

D&D is Totally Realistic. Example One.

Check out this article in today's N.Y. Times.

The sealed vaults under the 16th century Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala have yielded a major hall of GP, as described in these article excerpts:

"A court-ordered search of vaults beneath a south Indian temple has unearthed gold, jewels and statues worth an estimated $22 billion, government officials said Monday... Searchers have found bags of gold coins, diamonds and other jewels and solid-gold statues of gods and goddesses. On Monday, searchers started to unseal “Section B” of the vaults, a large space that was expected to reveal another sizable collection, said P. T. Chacko, the spokesman for the chief minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy."

The temple looks suitably awesome too. It even has a "Cloak Room" at the entrance!

1903 Alice in Wonderland Movie

Like peeping into another dimension. The Cheshire Cat part is very weird...

Pictures of New Pathfinder Minis Released

Pictures of the four prepainted miniatures representing the pregenerated characters in the new Pathfinder Beginner Box have been released. The detail on these prepaints is absolutely stunning. Unfortunately the anime-influenced stylings of the minis are not much to my personal liking. Wizards that look like steroid-injecting professional wrestlers just don't quite fit into my world. I'll stick to my old lead for now... I dig magic users with pointy hats, thieves with lanterns, and hobbits with hash pipes.

Pathfinder Minis:

Old school Grenadier wizards with magic beards and cool hats (from DnDLead.com):

What Real Clerical Spell Scrolls Look Like. Ge'ez and Amharic Examples.

Here are some fascinating examples of real Ge'ez clerical scrolls from Ethiopia. They are currently on display at Elizabeth Street Fine Arts gallery in New York City. The gallery website has pictures and descriptions of several scrolls dating to the 19th century, although some extant scrolls date back to the 16th century. Most of the scrolls described on the website contain multiple spells related to protection and healing. It's striking to me how many of these spells are recognizable from our favorite fantasy roleplaying games. It's also interesting how many Ge'ez spells fit onto a single scroll.

Historical background from the website:

So called “Magic Scrolls” are long rolls of parchment, illuminated by talismanic and figurative images and texts, usually in Ge’ez (Ethiopian liturgical language), of protective prayers, invocations of secret names of God, or sometimes demons. They are produced and used for varied purposes, healing, protection from spells, exorcisms etc. Scrolls are referred to as “ya’ branna kitab”, “written on skin” in Amharic, “asmat” or “names” in Ge’ez or “ta’lsam”, “talisman” in Tigrinya.

Scrolls are made for a specific individual by  “dabtara” (an unordained “priest” who studied scriptures, singing and poetry, a practitioner of traditional medicine, magician) and are carried and used by that person extensively. They rarely survive through a few generations of use. The oldest known scroll is recently dated to16th century, while majority of great surviving scrolls date between late 18th to early 20th century, as do the scrolls in this exhibit.

Here are some magic scroll pictures. More thorough details, which I paraphrase here, are available at the original website:

Tigre magic scroll. Three sets of incantations: (1) "The Prayer or Legend of Susenyos, used for the protection of children and infants from illness, followed by an invocation of magical names for the protection of the scroll owner from demons.", (2) "prayers for protection from the demon Shätolay, blacksmiths, buda, etc.", (3) prayers against rheumatism and stomach ache.

Magic scroll contains: (1) Prayer of Susenyos, (2) Prayer for the “expulsion” of disease and the demon Shotalay", (3) prayer against the evil eye, (4) prayer against rheumatism and sciatica, (5) prayers against haemorrhage, (5) another prayer against demon Shotalay, (6) prayer against Zar Wellaj.

Gorgon scroll of Wälättä-Gabriel contains: (1) An invocation against unclean spirits, (2) prayer of saint Susenyos for keeping away sickness from babies sucking the breast of their mothers, story of Susenyos killing Werzelya, (3) names of God against Shotelay (4) names of God said by Mary against devils. ‘Yosamer, Armosadekél…’, (5) speech of Moses against barya, devils, people of Legion, (6) prayer of Susenyos, (7) prayer against belly pain, (8) prayer against side pain, (9) prayer for undoing bewitching, (10) prayer against the eye of Mejer and Tegrida, (11) prayer against the Evil eye, (12) salutation to Fanuel expeller of devils.

Fastest Growing OSR Blogs of April and May: GAIA GAMMA and GROGNARDIA

Here's a ranked list of 245 old schoolish roleplaying blogs ranked by the number of followers they gained between April 1st and June 6th. I rank blogs using this system - as opposed to raw follower number - in order to determine which blogs are "hottest" without being biased by how long a blog has been around. My main motivation for making this list is to highlight the blogs that are currently attracting the most reader attention regardless of the blogs' age. Out of respect, I DO NOT list blogs with zero or negative growth.

My usual blogometric caveats apply: (1) This list only has blogger.com blogs because follower numbers are not publicly available for WordPress blogs. (2) Yes, I know some blogs are missing. If I am following your RPG blog as of today it should be in the next ranking. If your blog is not on my list and you want to be included, please email me the link through my profile. If I made a mistake please let me know - I am not consciously trying to exclude anyone.

Tied for first we have Grognardia and newcomer Gaia Gamma! I assume that I don't need to describe Grognardia to anyone - it's consistently one of the biggest, fastest growing, and most influential blogs in town. Gaia Gamma, on the other hand, is a new blog focused primarily on creative content related to propietor Thomas Biskup's post-apocalyptic RPG design. Fans of games like Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha should love this blog. Great great stuff!

In second place we have another newcomer: Grognardling! This blog is all about straight up old school D&D and is remarkable because it is one of the few blogs written by a younger gamer who didn't actually grow up playing the game.

In third place is Strange Magic, one of a very small number of blogs focusing on Weird West gaming. This blog features frequent well written posts and lots of cool YouTube links. Nice work, Stuart!

In fourth and fifth place we have the venerable and widely-read blogs Playing D&D With Porn Stars and LotFP: RPG, respectively, which, like Grognardia, need no introduction.

Here's the whole list. You can link to any blog by clicking on its name:

Blog Name	6-Jun	1-Apr	Change
Gaia Gamma	76	0	76
GROGNARDIA	924	848	76
Grognardling	65	3	62
Strange Magic	116	55	61
Playing D&D With Porn Stars	737	684	53
LotFP: RPG	420	371	49
The Yaqqothl Grimoire	120	77	43
Risus Monkey	190	150	40
The Other Side blog	193	153	40
From the Sorcerer's Skull	213	174	39
Jeffs Gameblog	486	448	38
ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog	299	263	36
Mythmere's Blog	151	115	36
AVENTURAS EN LA MARCA DEL ESTE	537	502	35
B/X BLACKRAZOR	300	265	35
Rather Gamey	127	92	35
Roles, Rules, and Rolls	112	77	35
aldeboran	144	111	33
There's Dungeons Down Under	121	91	30
Underworld Kingdom	79	49	30
Hack & Slash	129	100	29
The Underdark Gazette	293	264	29
Cyclopeatron	282	254	28
A Paladin In Citadel	291	264	27
Hill Cantons	186	161	25
ix	96	71	25
The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms	134	109	25
Zombiecowboy's Game Blog	25	0	25
Dark Horse Game Design	102	77	25
Axe & Hammer	169	145	24
OEF	187	163	24
The Gallery: Russ Nicholson	198	174	24
The Jovial Priest	71	47	24
Beyond the Black Gate	347	324	23
I SEE LEAD PEOPLE	224	201	23
Rended Press	56	33	23
Skull Crushing For Great Justice	51	29	22
Ramblings of a Great Khan	53	32	21
Dreams in the Lich House	131	111	20
Dungeons and Digressions	250	230	20
Telecanter's Receding Rules	170	150	20
In Places Deep	127	108	19
Rule of the Dice	151	132	19
The Tao of D&D	199	180	19
Gothridge Manor	208	190	18
Aeons & Augauries	143	126	17
Blood of Prokopius	64	47	17
Dangerous Brian: A Gamers Blog	60	43	17
For A Fistful Of Coppers	71	54	17
Sword+1	79	62	17
The Dump Stat	75	58	17
THE LAND OF NOD	173	156	17
The Lands of Ara	122	105	17
Zalchis	37	20	17
Tower of Zenopus	49	33	16
Age of Ravens	65	49	16
Delta's D&D Hotspot	123	107	16
Gaming All Over The Place	74	58	16
Old School Heretic	92	76	16
The City of Iron	76	60	16
Carjacked Seraphim	104	89	15
destination unknown	196	181	15
Green Skeleton Gaming Guild	137	122	15
The RPG Corner	188	173	15
Vaults of Nagoh	101	86	15
A Field Guide To Doomsday	48	34	14
Asshat Paladins	68	54	14
Bat in the Attic	210	196	14
Digital Orc: Fantasy, Horror, and Sci Fi in Ro...	52	38	14
Gibbering Mouther	14	0	14
Lord of the Green Dragons	286	272	14
Places to Go, People to Be	56	42	14
Tower of the Archmage	95	81	14
Discourse and Dragons	121	108	13
netherwerks	50	37	13
Redwald RPG	67	54	13
Tenkar's Tavern	124	111	13
The Grumpy Old Troll	77	64	13
Trollish Delver	62	49	13
A Pack of Gnolls	48	36	12
Akratic Wizardry	194	182	12
Havards Blackmoor Blog	131	119	12
SWORD & SHIELD	68	56	12
The Metal Earth	90	78	12
The Old School Renaissance Group	37	25	12
The XP Experience	22	10	12
What a horrible night to have a curse...	122	110	12
A Wizard in a bottle	55	44	11
Grimmhaus	91	80	11
Ostensible Cat	88	77	11
People them with Monsters	44	33	11
The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope	246	235	11
The Wasted Lands	92	81	11
The Weirdlands of Xhuul	58	47	11
Warriors of the Red Planet	100	89	11
A Dungeon Master's Tale	60	50	10
Fabled Lands	105	95	10
FightingFantasist	100	90	10
Gorgonmilk	96	86	10
HUGE RUINED PILE	164	154	10
of Pedantry	28	18	10
Quickly, Quietly, Carefully	45	35	10
Sham's Grog 'n Blog	139	129	10
Shouting Into The Void	63	53	10
Swords Against the Outer Dark	226	216	10
The Contemptible Cube of Quazar	60	50	10
The Omnipotent Eye	76	66	10
Beyond the Wall	56	47	9
Drawings & Dragons	70	61	9
HeroPress	169	160	9
In Like Flynn	68	59	9
Newschool RPG	9	0	9
Old School Psionics	35	26	9
PLANET ALGOL	136	127	9
Savage Swords of Athanor	85	76	9
Servitor Ludi	17	8	9
Symptoms of Radness	58	49	9
Tales from the Flaming Faggot	85	76	9
Temple of Baalzebul	10	1	9
The Incredible Fétide Grigou Rôliste Show	19	10	9
The Lair of the Evil DM	181	172	9
The Realm of Zhu	42	33	9
The Savage AfterWorld	143	134	9
Attack Plan R	30	22	8
Cimorra	16	8	8
Dungeonskull Mountain	103	95	8
ENCOUNTER	47	39	8
How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less	152	144	8
No School Like The Old School	41	33	8
Superhero Necromancer	63	55	8
The Geek Set	10	2	8
The Polyhedral Dicebag	40	32	8
The Tales of Kaelaross	9	1	8
The Warlock's Home Brew	133	125	8
Uhluht'c Awakens	111	103	8
A Hamsterish Hoard of Dungeons and Dragons	103	96	7
Château des sortilèges	71	64	7
chirine's workbench	58	51	7
GAMMA WORLD WAR!	7	0	7
Grevious-Injury	29	22	7
Greyhawk Grognard	209	202	7
Henchman Abuse	48	41	7
Mike's Amazing RPG Fun Pad	37	30	7
Sickly Purple Death Ray	110	103	7
Sorcery & Super Science!	87	80	7
tengoldpiecegems	17	10	7
Trollsmyth	213	206	7
World of Wonder	130	123	7
"It's okay; Gary sent us."	123	117	6
Back in '81	125	119	6
Bloody 20s	25	19	6
Lawful Indifferent	65	59	6
New Fish In An Old School	26	20	6
Ode to Black Dougal	150	144	6
Old Guard Gaming Accoutrements	154	148	6
Professor Pope	47	41	6
Stocking The Dungeon	33	27	6
The Book of Worlds	71	65	6
Appendix N	54	49	5
Blog on the Borderlands	15	10	5
Fame & Fortune	49	44	5
Hexer & Helden	5	0	5
Magician's Manse	63	58	5
No Signal!	34	29	5
Riskail	34	29	5
roleplay-geek	29	24	5
Rustfoot	53	48	5
SANDBOX EMPIRE	83	78	5
Some King's Kent	38	33	5
Teleleli	37	32	5
Tempora Mutantur	28	23	5
The Blog That Time Forgot	112	107	5
The Grand Tapestry	148	143	5
Troll and Flame	99	94	5
Unfrozen caveman dice-chucker	25	20	5
Warning - Mutagenic Substance	85	80	5
"The Troll Ate My Homework"	59	55	4
A Rust Monster Ate My Sword...	180	176	4
ADnD Grognard	40	36	4
American Barbarica	63	59	4
Back to the Dungeon!	66	62	4
Cimmerian Chronicles	25	21	4
Coffee swillin' analog gamer	40	36	4
Crawdads and Dragons	66	62	4
I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow	132	128	4
My Dice Are Older Than You	28	24	4
Starting Over With The OSR	4	0	4
Tankards & Broadswords	133	129	4
The Grumpy Celt	34	30	4
The Library: Retro and Classic Fantasy Games	58	54	4
The Vorpal Spork	36	32	4
THE WHEEL OF SAMSARA	57	53	4
Unofficial Games	56	52	4
Apprentice Of Old School	12	9	3
BigDungeon	33	30	3
Bugbears for Breakfast	32	29	3
Carto Cacography	71	68	3
Daddy Grognard	145	142	3
EXONAUTS!	78	75	3
Jasoomian Dreams	69	66	3
Joethelawyer's Wondrous Imaginings	128	125	3
Lances to Lasers - A gaming blog	17	14	3
Lasgunpacker	15	12	3
Maximum Rock & Role Playing	56	53	3
Monsters and Manuals	206	203	3
MORE&BIGGER LOOT!	29	26	3
Oubliette Magazine	51	48	3
Reviews from R'lyeh	67	64	3
Rocket-Propelled Game	18	15	3
Saturday Night Sandbox	44	41	3
Save Vs. Poison	92	89	3
Swords of Abandon	44	41	3
The Lost Continent	32	29	3
The Moldy Vale	41	38	3
The Paradigm Traveler	14	11	3
There's a Bugbear in my Kitchen!	54	51	3
Year of the Dungeon	67	64	3
Beacon	17	15	2
Castle Dragonscar	59	57	2
El RagnaBlog	40	38	2
Embrace the Dungeon!	22	20	2
Forever Free Games	29	27	2
Forgotten Runes	67	65	2
Inspired Mythos	14	12	2
SAVE OR DIE!	44	42	2
TEMPLE OF DEMOGORGON	147	145	2
Terminal Space	68	66	2
The Blue Gnoll	11	9	2
The Evil GM	18	16	2
The Geek Gazette	30	28	2
Zero XP Adventures	17	15	2
Antediluvian Printworks	29	28	1
Back Screen Pass - A DM's Secrets	50	49	1
Black Hole Diaries	49	48	1
Coasters, Castles, Combustion	12	11	1
Countdown to Game Time	47	46	1
DUNGEON ADVENTURES	27	26	1
gnotions	26	25	1
Iron Rationales	32	31	1
Kingdoms in Trevail	27	26	1
Like Being Read To From Dictionaries	56	55	1
Middenmurk	48	47	1
Over the Misty Mountains	25	24	1
Spell Card!	42	41	1
Sword and Board	73	72	1
The Frothy Friar	63	62	1