Good Monday, Gamer!
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” — Pablo Picasso
April has been a game breaker! From tornadoes and weather, to travel and other IRL events, busting up a regular game schedule. I did get to hang out with my brother and his family in Ohio this weekend. Talked about what we are playing at the table and in our bands. So here’s a scatter of notes, thoughts, and stuff!
Cortex Opens the Door (Again)
There’s a new development around Cortex Prime—a community licensing program announced by Dire Wolf Digital and administered by Cortex designer Cam Banks!! (Go Cam!!!) Contact Rusty Sellsword at [email protected] for inquiries!
Cortex Prime lives in that space between toolkit and philosophy. It’s less “here’s the game” and more “here’s how to build the game you actually want.” Licensing has always been the friction point. But this shift suggests a future where Cortex becomes more like Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark—a system people iterate on publicly, remix, and build communities around! I’m here for that!
OPP...yeah, you know me!
We missed a Monday session of Spell & Blade, but Sean Nittner dropped a write-up of Session One—complete with GM notes from Stras. I’m always interested in how other GMs mark up their prep. Not the polished blog version—the working document. The scratches, the underlines, the “if they zig, this might happen” scribbles. I think that’s where the real magic lives, where I compare it with how I do things, and techniques I might steal!!
I’m firmly in the camp of prep sessions. Not scripting outcomes, not plotting arcs—but building enough structure that when the table swerves (and it will), I’ve got something to jump from.Prep is constraint. Constraint is fuel. Without it, I find improvisation drifts and gets bonkers.
It also keeps me honest. No quiet rewrites. No behind-the-screen 3-card monte. The situation is the situation, and we play to find out what happens.There’s a discipline to that, and I think players feel it.
Stras’s notes are a good reminder—prep isn’t about scripting outcomes, it’s about building something you can push against at the table.
What stands out:
Questions: The page opens with prompts (What’s the arena? Who’s the champion?), not exposition. It leaves room to discover things in play.
Specific anchors. A few vivid details (Skyglass Arena, VADRA, the bard announcer) do most of the work. The rest stays loose.
Rumors as direction. Not lore dumps—just hooks that point somewhere and invite action.
Right page = pressure. Encounters, travel twists, set pieces. Not a plot, just a menu of things that can happen.
I dig it, structure enough to stay grounded without steering outcomes. These notes don’t tell you what happens, but they make sure something always can.
Netrunner, Nostalgia, and UI Loops
I’ve been playing a lot of Solo Netrunner Online lately.
Partly nostalgia. Mostly research.
I’m deep in the UI/UX layer of my own Netrunner-inspired deckbuilder, Zero Day Bandits, and there’s no substitute for just playing the damn game!!
Netrunner still works for me. All the mechanics, the layout, the tension between hidden and revealed information, the pacing of runs—it’s all working for me.The website does a pretty solid job managing the game state, and it looks like it uses the new cards from Null Signal
Origins, Games on Demand, and the Lodging 🤷🏾♂️
I’m contemplating going to Origins Game Fair this year...Specifically, running games at Games on Demand.Everything about it is a strong yes.Run games. Meet people. Catch up with old friends.
And then there’s cold water of lodging logistics, hurdles, and ...I’m prolly just getting old and cranky.
ICYMI
Judd’s post about a favorite page from World of Dungeons.You’re prolly already reading the Indie RPG NewsletterAnd you’ve already listened to the latest Muses of Play: Powered by The Bakers, pt 2. with Sarah Doom and I.