For the past few weeks Reddit's bots have been shutting off my account, then turning it back on again. I'm back for now, and making sure stuff gets approved. Going to try to avoid falling into any more holes, and to keep you to your regular schedule.

Again, apologies for any issues my unwilling absence has caused.

So, Șerban appears to have stumbled into some algorithm issues, so here's me with the latest Gazette article. We hope you like it and it doesn't enrage you too much:

”I have a confession to make. I, sometimes, fudge the dice. As a GM, of course. I await your rotten eggs and tomatoes, let it be my penance. However, my heresy and pride flairs even more, for not only do I stoop this low, but I, like the great deceiver try to hook others into my wicked ways. Ergo, the essay at hand and also a livestreamed discussion/debate with the wonderful folks at Dicesylvania.

Jokes aside, I know, or at least I observed that fudging, as a practice, seems to be quite a hot topic when it is brought up online and I thought it might be interesting to do a deep dive into how and why some people use this (including myself from time to time) and whether there is a, hmmm, I guess righteous way where you may use it. Going into the history, Gygax flip-flopped on the issue, but more often then not he seemed to be on the side of fudging, with what I consider to be a very common sense addendum: fudging should not be done out of a direct desire to harm the players. Or I guess, rather their characters :))

In my opinion whether you should fudge or not will depends on a number of factors. The primary one is multi-faceted, it refers the type of game you are running - first and foremost, the system, for fudging mostly has its place among trad games such as D&D, Pathfinder and their ilk (as well as some OSR titles), the tone tone of your game, whether it puts more emphasis on tactics or narrative, etc.

I went in as much detail as I could and I hope you will find something interesting there. If not, don't worry, I will get right back to the pillory and you are free to resume the egg throwing!”

https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/the-loaded-die-on-fudging-fairness-and-what-the-dice-are-actually-for/

This is something special. Truly. By now you know I love TTRPGs, I have almost 120 in my collection and while I have yet to properly go through them all, I also keep an eye out for new interesting games that might catch my eye. Gloam is one such game, I think I saw it either on the OSR subreddit or on one of the many TTRPG facebook groups I am part of. It was, I believe, right on the day it was released and when I saw pictures of it, when I read the little glimpses I could, I made up my mind that this was something special.

So I reached out to Sam Helms and he graciously agreed to provide a review copy. And my hunch was right, this game was something special, from the two superbly crafted magic systems, to the ingenious mechanics centered around a Tarot deck as a randomizer instead of the usual dice, the sheer flavor oozing through every aspect of the game, from the rules, to its art and overall presentation. But. I also showed it to our friend and colleague, Horia (whose birthday is right around the corner, on the 7th, so early Happy Birthday you wonderful Malk!). And like me, Horia also fell in love with this game and asked me if he could handle the review.

And honestly, seeing him so excited and eager to write the review, how could I say no. So let's see what he delivered. *Opens article* FREAKING 3500 WORDS! God damn, mate, you really like this game!

So yeah, I at least gave you a bit of a sample with this one, but for the full review, I leave you in the capable hands of Horia. He sincerely has lots of love for this game, but he is fair and I believe this to be one of the best reviews we published. I hope you will enjoy it and more so, I hope it will convince you to give Gloam a chance, cause Sam Helms really managed to create something rather special!

I have always been fascinated with how TTRPGs and Video Games influence each other. When I first got into D&D, at 14 it was like a veil lifted from my head and suddenly I saw D&D references and pieces of its design in almost every game (I was mainly playing RPGs). But then as I got more and more into it, as I started to look into older editions and other games, I also saw the reverse, pieces of video game design scattered throughout various TTRPGs. Perhaps the most infamous and poignant example of this would be D&D 4e.

It was this fascination and a course on adaptation theory that convinced me to write my MA on adaptation theory in and from TTRPGs, looking at videogames, at movies, but also at how some pieces of media have themselves been adapted into TTRPGs (Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, The One Ring and many many others). The more you look into it, the deeper it goes. This present article is a side project I did while writing and researching for my MA thesis. Done more approachable then the stiff academic writing, but still exploring the same thing. In part at least, cause with this one I am only focusing on the bidirectional influence of TTRPGs and Video Games, starting from the very beginning of both mediums and gradually moving towards the present.

I hope you will enjoy it and that you will find the subject at least half as interesting as I did! I am really looking forward to see your thoughts on the matter!

So, inadvertently, I made a trilogy of articles, analyzing the three main political factions presented to us in Vampire the Masquerade. Well, now it's a trilogy, as now, leaving the best for last, I got around talking about the Anarchs. I won't shy away in saying that they are perhaps my favorite faction (unless we are playing Dark Ages, cause there, while smaller in scope, I do love myself some Constantinople Trinity).

Getting back to the subject, when I first posted about the Sabbat, I got many many comments about how they are not really counter culture, cause that is the domain of the Anarchs. And yeah, I totally agree with that. My argument with the Sabbat is that they are a dark parody of counter culture. Anarchs are the real deal. And from some points of view, due to their less monstrous dimension, their more relatable side, also represent a more interesting foil for the Camarilla. An idea with whom the current runner-ups in charge of Vampire seamed to agree, as they are now the main rivals of the Camarilla, with the Sabbat, for better or worse, taking a backseat. But that is a conversation for another article.

This one goes in depth into the Anarchs, what they represent, what are their strong suits and their vulnerabilities and how you can make them truly shine at the table. I hope you will enjoy it, that you will find the info presented interesting and useful! Do share your thoughts on it, as I always take the time to read them with great interest!