On adapting Keep on the Borderlands and the case for never running games as written #ttrpg https://tasker.land/2026/02/17/the-borderlands-unsettled/
-
Funnily enough, there seems to have been some long overdue discourse on this question in the last few days. For ages (primarily indie) designers have been trying to normalise the idea that it is somehow disrespectful to not run games as intended.
Boo fucking hoo.
I've known some of the people in my group for 20 years and I've been running games for over 30 years. I absolutely have a better handle on what is likely to work at my table than someone who hasn't even met me.
Obviously, if regular gamers get used to the idea that they can just reskin or kitbash rules they already own then they are less likely to spend money on another minute variation on games they already own, and where would the crowd-funding hashtags be if people decided they didn't need yet another D&D or PbtA variant?
Play and mess with games you already own. Stop spending money on #ttrpg materials you won't play, don't read, and most likely won't even take out of their packaging.
-
@Taskerland As always, a nice read but, as always, your broad historical assertions seem like you might be pulling everyone's leg.
Treating White Wolf (and Dragonlance, briefly) as a stand-in for "English-language" RPG history is approximately as sensible as making assertions about North American culinary trends based exclusively on several hundred visits to a Wendy's.
@SJohnRoss So you don't think that there was a broad design trend from the mid-to-late 1980s onwards towards narrower and more regimented adventure design?
Obviously I've completely failed to understand your complaints about low trust gaming.
-
Obviously, if regular gamers get used to the idea that they can just reskin or kitbash rules they already own then they are less likely to spend money on another minute variation on games they already own, and where would the crowd-funding hashtags be if people decided they didn't need yet another D&D or PbtA variant?
Play and mess with games you already own. Stop spending money on #ttrpg materials you won't play, don't read, and most likely won't even take out of their packaging.
@Taskerland Well now I'm trying to remember the most recent RPG thing I bought that had _packaging._
I'm literally not sure.
Maybe something in shrinkwrap in the early 2000s?
-
@SJohnRoss So you don't think that there was a broad design trend from the mid-to-late 1980s onwards towards narrower and more regimented adventure design?
Obviously I've completely failed to understand your complaints about low trust gaming.
@Taskerland I don't actually _have_ any complaints about low-trust gaming. But if I had any, I doubt they'd be less prone to misunderstanding than anything else I say on the matter.
And I think, of the dozens of adventure-design trends of the mid-to-late 1980s onwards, _some_ of them include narrower and more regimented designs for certain values of "regimented" and "narrower."
But many, including the dominant trends of entire game lines, do not.
-
Obviously, if regular gamers get used to the idea that they can just reskin or kitbash rules they already own then they are less likely to spend money on another minute variation on games they already own, and where would the crowd-funding hashtags be if people decided they didn't need yet another D&D or PbtA variant?
Play and mess with games you already own. Stop spending money on #ttrpg materials you won't play, don't read, and most likely won't even take out of their packaging.
@Taskerland And quite possibly the game tailored with your group in mind may suit them better than anything off-the-peg.
-
Obviously, if regular gamers get used to the idea that they can just reskin or kitbash rules they already own then they are less likely to spend money on another minute variation on games they already own, and where would the crowd-funding hashtags be if people decided they didn't need yet another D&D or PbtA variant?
Play and mess with games you already own. Stop spending money on #ttrpg materials you won't play, don't read, and most likely won't even take out of their packaging.
@Taskerland Leaving you bundles more money to spend on old paperstock on ebay to print props on.
I find it odd that there was ever a movement away from reskinning or kitbashing your own games. When we played in the 1980s that was de rigeur. It would have been unthinkable (outside of the btb D&D peeps) to play RPGs any other way.
-
@Taskerland And quite possibly the game tailored with your group in mind may suit them better than anything off-the-peg.
@RogerBW Exactly. Often for the simple reason that GM buy-in is a lot more consequential at the table than elegant design.
-
@Taskerland And quite possibly the game tailored with your group in mind may suit them better than anything off-the-peg.
@RogerBW @Taskerland "Tailored" is an excellent choice of terms in this context.
"GM-as-tailor" is something I really value from the player side of things (when I'm fortunate to have a GM who includes that in their sack of roles).
-
@RogerBW @Taskerland "Tailored" is an excellent choice of terms in this context.
"GM-as-tailor" is something I really value from the player side of things (when I'm fortunate to have a GM who includes that in their sack of roles).
@SJohnRoss @Taskerland I particularly use it to remind myself that I shouldn't expect to perform the whole process from bored sheep to well-dressed customer. I take cloth other people have made and adapt it to my purpose.
-
@Taskerland Leaving you bundles more money to spend on old paperstock on ebay to print props on.
I find it odd that there was ever a movement away from reskinning or kitbashing your own games. When we played in the 1980s that was de rigeur. It would have been unthinkable (outside of the btb D&D peeps) to play RPGs any other way.
@Printdevil I think it is a function of rpg social media being heavily parasocial and designers complaining.
They have even started using the term "casuals" to refer to people who aren't actively trying to monetise their hobbies.
Chef-Patron class consciousness in action.
-
On adapting Keep on the Borderlands and the case for never running games as written #ttrpg
https://tasker.land/2026/02/17/the-borderlands-unsettled/@Taskerland I think Keep on the Borderlands is narratively important in the development of gaming for many 80s players for all the reasons that you found voids in it. We found those, but the existence of npcs and their lives was quite compelling, so we filled in. It was for many people the first time we fleshed out a scenario to make it breath, to create the social ergs. Vectors of interaction. You can actually see it *should* be there but they had no language for it.
-
@Printdevil I think it is a function of rpg social media being heavily parasocial and designers complaining.
They have even started using the term "casuals" to refer to people who aren't actively trying to monetise their hobbies.
Chef-Patron class consciousness in action.
@Taskerland That's just viewing people like us as itinerants on the commons that need "fenced away"
It's worse than chef and patrons I feel.
-
@SJohnRoss @Taskerland I particularly use it to remind myself that I shouldn't expect to perform the whole process from bored sheep to well-dressed customer. I take cloth other people have made and adapt it to my purpose.
@RogerBW @Taskerland Yeah, I often do the same and it's a pretty joyful way to go about it.
Sometimes I do the sheep thing, too, but even then, I mix in some retailored works for variety.
-
@Printdevil I think it is a function of rpg social media being heavily parasocial and designers complaining.
They have even started using the term "casuals" to refer to people who aren't actively trying to monetise their hobbies.
Chef-Patron class consciousness in action.
@Taskerland I still think a huge tension in monetising gaming is caused by it being easy to give tips on "how to make better ceilings for your mega dungeon" than "how to deal with Derek who takes his socks and shoes off during the game"
The social contract of gaming is the important flex of it all, but also the hardest part to advise without sounding parental or patronising or both.
Or a psycho.
Which to be fair is probably my parental advice approach.
-
@Taskerland I still think a huge tension in monetising gaming is caused by it being easy to give tips on "how to make better ceilings for your mega dungeon" than "how to deal with Derek who takes his socks and shoes off during the game"
The social contract of gaming is the important flex of it all, but also the hardest part to advise without sounding parental or patronising or both.
Or a psycho.
Which to be fair is probably my parental advice approach.
@Printdevil I used to play with a guy who used to wander around without shoes or socks and he'd often ask to borrow a pencil and then spend the entire game rubbing it between his toes.
-
@Printdevil I used to play with a guy who used to wander around without shoes or socks and he'd often ask to borrow a pencil and then spend the entire game rubbing it between his toes.
@Taskerland See, very little of that in the youtube advice cycle.
-
@Taskerland See, very little of that in the youtube advice cycle.
@Printdevil That guy became a weird anti-fetish object for my best friend at the time. He used to just use the idea of what he might do to wind himself up.
He'd sit in silence, looking like a bulldog chewing on a wasp and I'd ask what was wrong and he'd say he was angry because he had imagined said weirdo sending him a photograph of his penis.
-
@Taskerland I think Keep on the Borderlands is narratively important in the development of gaming for many 80s players for all the reasons that you found voids in it. We found those, but the existence of npcs and their lives was quite compelling, so we filled in. It was for many people the first time we fleshed out a scenario to make it breath, to create the social ergs. Vectors of interaction. You can actually see it *should* be there but they had no language for it.
@Printdevil And it's interesting that it is a fruitful void whereas the lack of a town in Saltmarsh feels like doing someone else's homework and the lack of actual factions despite Hommlet gesturing towards them makes the adventure feel unfinished.
-
@Printdevil That guy became a weird anti-fetish object for my best friend at the time. He used to just use the idea of what he might do to wind himself up.
He'd sit in silence, looking like a bulldog chewing on a wasp and I'd ask what was wrong and he'd say he was angry because he had imagined said weirdo sending him a photograph of his penis.
@Taskerland Someone I used to play with used to make a weird chewing sound before he rolled dice then sucked air inbetween a gap in his teeth, before it slowly whistled out. Then he'd roll, and go back to speaking normally. Till the next time he had to roll a die.
He is now embedded in the support concrete pylons of a local bridge.
-
@Printdevil And it's interesting that it is a fruitful void whereas the lack of a town in Saltmarsh feels like doing someone else's homework and the lack of actual factions despite Hommlet gesturing towards them makes the adventure feel unfinished.
@Taskerland I think that reflects on the authors as well as the culture.
I always think Secret of Bone Hill was the point at which TSR reached where scenario design should have been going, gathering up the strands the good bits of KotB and the lower normalcy of Saltmarsh.
I just seem to be in a minority because people wanted "Ceilings of the Dwarven Claustrophobes, a ninety level dungeon of thoughtless massacre"
Which then ushered in WoD
