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After a few years of writing this blog, I have accumulated a rather unreasonable number of posts about roleplaying games. Reviews and recommendations, practical advice drawn from more than thirty years of running games, and the my oh-so-profound thoughts on why roleplaying is such a peculiar, fascinating, and occasionally exasperating activity.

If the blog were named after Nyarlathotep, imposing order on the chaos would be a questionable endeavour. But NyOrlandhotep is a far more complex entity, being made of both Order and Chaos. Still, the chronological archive is not particularly helpful if you are interested in a specific subject, so here is a guide. This is not a list of every post.

You can start with Ten Tips to Improve Your Call of Cthulhu Games for practical advice, Convergence: Reviewing and Improving the Best Scenario Ever for an example of how I approach scenario criticism, or The Divide if you want to know what I think roleplaying actually is. You may not agree with me. That is perfectly fine; I don't always agree with myself either.

The art of gamemastering

I am interested in the GM's role in creating a fictional world that players can inhabit: a world that reacts to their decisions, resists them when it should, and does not rearrange itself to guarantee the GM's favourite dramatic conclusion. You may not write plots, but there is a great deal of art in choosing what happens next, keeping the game moving, improvising, and noticing when the players are engaged or losing interest.

• How to GM: Lessons Learned with the Best Campaign Ever — the lessons I drew from running Masks of Nyarlathotep three times, particularly about agency, consequences, and choosing dramatic developments without deciding outcomes.
• The Game Master Is Neither a God nor a Judge — on the limits of the GM's authority, and the difference between consequences and punishment.
• Being the GM Is a Privilege — on what makes running games worthwhile.
• Running Great RPG Campaigns with No Plan: Lessons from Vampire and Running a Great RPG Campaign Without Preparation — two articles on improvisation and the surprising things that can happen when you stop planning the story in advance.
• The Case Against Session 0 (or Just Start Playing) — an argument that is probably not going to make me particularly popular.
• Keep Your Mechanics Out of My Drama! — why I prefer dramatic situations to arise from the fiction and the players' choices, rather than from rules attempting to manufacture drama.

Designing better RPG mysteries

Mysteries are among my favourite things to run, and I have spent a rather excessive amount of time thinking about how to make them work at the table.

The easiest entry point is Designing Better RPG Mysteries: A Guide to the Series, which links the individual essays in order. For those interested in particular parts:

• Part 1: Horror Mysteries and Crime Mysteries — the fundamental distinction and why it matters in an RPG.
• Part 2: Horror Mysteries — developing dread and dramatic revelations.
• Part 3: The Enclosed Crime Mystery — the problem of creating a genuine mystery that players can investigate and solve.
• Pacing, Drama, and Resolution — making an investigation work as an experience at the table.
• The Fall of the Maestro — a worked crime-mystery example.
• A Worked Horror Scenario Example — the companion exercise in horror mystery design.

I have also written about improvising mysteries, aka juggling knives while blindfolded, except the players keep handing you more knives.

Horror, the Mythos, and the pleasures of being terrified

Call of Cthulhu was my introduction to Lovecraftian horror and changed my understanding of what roleplaying could do. I still think horror games offer possibilities for atmosphere, philosophical exploration, and dramatic intensity that are too often sacrificed to formulaic plots or an overreliance on familiar monsters. They also need not be solemn, humourless, or devoid of action.

• Cosmic Horror Is Not (Just) About Meaninglessness — on what makes cosmic horror interesting beyond the usual slogans.
• What Makes a Horror Setting Work? — why some settings invite horror and others struggle to sustain it.
• Create Tension and Drama in Horror RPG Combat — on violence as an immersive, frightening event rather than a tactical minigame.
• The Myth of Avoiding Combat in Horror RPGs — why horror does not require everyone to spend the entire game running away.
• Masks of Nyarlathotep: Reconciling Cosmic Horror and Pulp Adventure — on two modes of play that can coexist rather better than their reputations suggest.
• The Two-Headed Serpent — my enthusiasm for a campaign that demonstrates just how wonderfully outrageous and sophisticated pulp Cthulhu can be.

What roleplaying is, and why I care about it

Not all my articles are about making games run better. Some are about what we are actually doing when we roleplay, how this differs from collaborating on a story, and why the experience can matter so much to us.

• The Divide: Roleplaying vs Storytelling and the Need for a GM — one of my central arguments about inhabiting a character in a world rather than deliberately constructing a plot.
• Why Story Games Leave Me Cold(er) — a more personal explanation of the distinction.
• We Need RPGs Not Made for Gamers — on assumptions that seem obvious within the hobby but may not serve the experience particularly well.
• How RPGs Gave Me Hope — a rather more personal account of what this strange hobby has given me.
• Rolling Across Divides: RPGs Against the Spiral — roleplaying and our relationships with other people.

Reviews, recommendations, and scenario surgery

I review scenarios and games largely from the perspective of someone who intends to run them.

• Call of Cthulhu Scenario Recommendations — a useful place to start if you are looking for something to run.
• Vaesen Published Scenarios: Roundup Review — a practical survey of published Vaesen adventures.
• Convergence: Reviewing and Improving the Best Scenario Ever — one of my favourite scenarios, what makes it excellent, and how I changed it at my table.
• The Order of the Stone and No Time to Scream — two Call of Cthulhu reviews that illustrate what I expect from official scenario writing.
• The Sutra of Pale Leaves — a scenario collection whose metaphysics interested me more than its individual adventures.
• Swords of the Serpentine: Why I Absolutely Love This Mess and Degenesis Is Really Good — enthusiasm is at least as important to this blog as criticism.
• Battle of the Cthulhus: Trail vs Call — comparing two approaches to investigative Lovecraftian gaming.

Campaigns, remixes, and my own scenarios

Some posts concern games I have actually run or material I have written myself. I find it useful to explain not only what I did, but why I did it, including the ideas that worked, the things that surprised me, and the occasional disaster. This is, after all, a hobby in which the players have an annoying habit of doing things that never occurred to the GM.

• Running Masks of Nyarlathotep: Tips and Advice — practical advice from extensive experience running the campaign.
• Berlin: The Wicked City Remix — Part 1 — the beginning of my four-part account of turning the material into a connected campaign.
• Tatters of the King (NyOr Remix) — my reworking of a campaign I admired but wanted to take in a somewhat different direction.
• How I Wrote Bad Tidings — the long and slightly unlikely journey of a scenario from fiction to the gaming table.
• How I Made Kane's Tone — another look at the ideas behind one of my scenarios.

There are many more articles in the archive, and I continue to add to it whenever I have something worth writing about. If you have a particular interest, I hope this guide helps you find your way around. And if you disagree with something I have written, do say so. Some of my most interesting learnings have come from trying to explain exactly why I disagree with someone else.