What’s an OSR game? is a solid overview of the shape of the space, plus it introduced me to Errant. Win-win
Rules Are A Cage (And I’m a Puppygirl) is one I find simultaneously frustrating (for the rules-are-essentially-subtractive take) and gratifying (for pointing to rules as vital play structure anyway)
Reading through a few more. This one already got knocked out in the first round of voting but I appreciate the way it outlines the strengths and weaknesses of a distinct mode of play. “AD&D-style” wouldn’t be my own first choice for a campaign, but this helps me get a better feel for it.
I did go over the 1HP Dragon one and I found it quite illuminating for OSR style of play.
Somehow, I ended checking the no–art version of Errant and I have the feeling that PbtA and FitD are just made of ruled procedures from OSR principles.
I think New School games can benefit quite a bit from this direction and some newly published games are already working on it, for instance His Majesty the Worm.
Another interesting one that went out in the first round on fragility
…but it actually gets me thinking about the concept of the “lusory attitude,” the idea that there’s a way to approach a game that allows the game to work. When I think about fragile rules in games, I think about “how does this game respond to playing to win.” This article takes a different angle on it, but i think they can be combined into the concept of “what lusory attitude does the game support” somehow
Cheering for Puppygirl to win the theory bracket EDIT:
The results for this bracket were pretty surprising for me. I think I’m going to try to read the Gameable nominees over the next few days so I can vote more consistently on them.
I’m still surprised Rules are a Cage (And I’m a Puppygirl) didn’t win the whole bracket. That article really rattled people in a positive way. I wrote The 1 HP Dragon and I think it won partly because it bridges OSR/FKR ideas with storygame/PBTA ideas. There’s a big audience there.
It’s also probably because I used The Bloggies as an excuse to talk about my recent playtests of The 1 HP Dragon, so I basically campaigned the whole way. I can’t wait to participate more in the discussions for Gameable guilt-free.
My system has dice (because I love those silly little math rocks too much), but I could see someone using cards or even a meta currency like what you see in Outside Belonging games.
Looking through the “Gameable” nominees. There’s some significant difference of scale between some of these entries, and I’m not sure how to evaluate a whole game jam
The Craftsman is clever in the way that small thought-experiment games are, but that almost makes it a better fit for the Theory category than the Gameable one
Looks like rumors and social mechanics were hot topics this year. There’s several posts on those here, plus one of the Theory medalists.
I can never seem to keep up with all the ttrpg blogs so I appreciate the Bloggies giving me an incentive to catch-up and read posts that I might have missed or re-read posts and be reminded of what I liked or found useful. I am excited that there is a debut blog category,too. Though I fear I am falling behind on keeping up with all the brackets!
Gameable has been a surprising category! Everything I’ve voted for has lost. I really liked the Dolemwood factions article and thought the Reputation Tables and OSR Social Resolution Procedures would get a lot further.
Craftsman didn’t do it for me. I think I’ve been spoiled on webpage puzzle/ARGs from the mid 2000s.
EDIT: 
