Month / January 2026

by guyeatsfood

Do I Actually Like the OSR?

Two things happened concurrently to me that have ended up being about the same thing, how I feel about OSR play:

I’m prepping Mythic Bastionland, to run for the first time (hopefully on channel) and it occurs to me that the game has rules for combat – and not much else. Outside of combat, there are lots of procedures – for the hexcrawl, for the omens, for task resolution – but even Saves aren’t really skill checks. It occurs to me that many of my favourite games have combat rules and very little else (Marvel Heroic, Feng Shui, 13th Age….) – and maybe Mythic Bastionland is like this.

I’m listening to Between Two Cairns and the hosts talk about how OSR play is an entirely different schema of play to D&D5e play, just like story-games are, and we should maybe be more up-front about it – as they analyse a blog post from Sam Sorensen about his Three-Question Taxonomy. It makes me think I might have run Mork Borg wrong, even though I (and my players) seemed to have a good time, and wonder if it matters. I’ve run Pirate Borg on YouTube with a player-authored montage in it – was that a mistake?

And thinking about  the two together, maybe I actually do like OSR play. I just haven’t realised it yet.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

The Ultimate One-Shot Sci-Fi TTPRG? – Review: Stay Frosty (Remastered)

Stay Frosty is a sci-fi OSR-ish game of shooting aliens from Casey Garske. Originally self-published, it’s been remastered and published (through kickstarter) by Melsonian Arts Council. You can get it here from Drivethrurpg, and doubtless there are places to source print copies after the kickstarter. I backed it because I’d heard lots about it (mainly from Tom on the Fear of a Black Dragon podcast) and was intrigued. I’ve since run both scenarios in the book as one-shots; as with all my reviews, this is play-informed.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Play These Games! 5 TTRPGs You Haven’t Heard Of

As we creep towards the end of the year (Patreon supporters) or look bright-eyed at the possibilities of 2026 before us, I’ve been looking back at my “games played” spreadsheet. I could talk a lot about my most played games (The One Ring, then D&D), or some of the other TTRPG fun I’ve had, but everyone knows about lots of these games. 

There is, I can guarantee you, more going on in the hobby than you know about, so I thought I’d highlight five games I played for the first time in 2025 that you probably haven’t heard of, and deserve more attention. I’ve put these in chronological order of when I played them – these are all fantastic games.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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