#runninggames — Public Fediverse posts

From a certain point of view… On RPGs.

What if, for the sake of discussion, everything that you believe to be true about roleplaying games were true, but let's also note that that "you" is not the singular, but the plural. We can rightfully expect, I think, for the sum of all those perspectives to seem chaotic. Of course, not all that each of us believes to be true about RPGs really is true, but a lot is - at least, from a certain point of view. However, despite this, there is a pervasive view that "we don't know what RPGs are," […]

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2026/09/01/from-a-certain-point-of-view-on-rpgs/

Bonds, Trust, and Sandbaggers – Oh, my! Part 1

This is the first in what might become a series of posts about episodes of the cold war spy series The Sandbaggers and how the events and relationships in the series can highlight and give nuance to our understanding of mechanisms within great RPGs like Delta Green and World War Cthulhu: Cold War~

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2026/03/11/bonds-trust-and-sandbaggers-oh-my-part-1/

Lucifer’s Lexicon: On RPG Concepts and Terms~

No Ambrose Bierces were harmed in the making of this post. The bones of this post actually date back to the launch of this blog in May of 2010 though the content is much older. I had a few conflicting ideas about the blog in those days as it was inspired by the loss of my friend Tom (a genius) and the sense of dismay it sparked to know that there would be no more talks about games, life, or onion soup with him, and to know that a person like that was gone from the world. Worse, all the conversations we had had about gaming were now only the version in my memory - and of the two of us, he liked and got along with people much better than I do.

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2025/04/28/lucifers-lexicon-on-rpg-concepts-and-terms/

On Immersion and Engagement in RPG Play

To help explore the topic of what can be meant in general, and what we specifically mean in a given example when we wax eloquent about immersion, I like to separate things into two defined experiences, that of immersion, and that of engagement. Immersion can suffice on its own, but as usual, the more things a word applies to the more ways it can subtly interfere with communication.

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2023/11/12/on-immersion-and-engagement-in-rpg-play/

Let the beats fall where they may…

I have been struggling to write a certain post since I started this blog. This is a run at it, but probably won’t be it. Bits and pieces of the theme have crept out here and there in other posts, but simply what I want to write about is this: There is much more to a good story than getting your tropes in a row and hitting the right beats. What is born of books, but is not a book? Stories are not books. Stories are not cinema. Stories are not the media in which they are contained, nor […]

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2012/08/08/let-the-beats-fall-where-they-may/

Come Strange Eons, even Cthulhu Campaigns may last

There are a lot of factors working against the Keeper who hopes to have a long-term campaign. Classic scenarios and printed campaigns only serve to highlight this by clearly delineating a set period of time, range of scenes, and tasks to accomplish before one could be said to have reached 'the end.' Venerable heavy hitters like Masks of Nyarlathotep, and Shadows of Yog-Sothoth take such a heavy toll on sanity and life that only the most pessimistic GM could predict it, and few groups can come […]

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2010/07/19/running-cthulhu-campaigns-longterm/