Community Resources

Other Resource Lists
Recommended Blogs
Archived Blogs
Notable Essays
Software
Videos
Podcasts
Making Stuff

You can’t have adventure games without other people. That’s as true for making the games as it is for playing them. If I hadn’t connected with this vibrant community of dedicated hobbyists back in 2011, Papers & Pencils would have been a passing fancy that never lasted beyond its first few months. I want to do all I can to help more people connect to these wonderful people, and the tools they’ve produced to make everyone’s games better. This page is not a comprehensive list of those tools. I lack the skills and the inclination to attempt that. Here is collected what I believe is useful and interesting. A living document, meant to be updated frequently. If there’s anything I missed that ought to be on here, let me know!

The one ironclad rule of this list is that I don’t want to spread the influence of abusive people. No matter how great their work may be, allowing them into our community is poison. Their presence will keep other voices away. Voices which, in aggregate, will certainly produce more and better work than any group of bad actors ever could. If you have evidence that anyone on this is abusive, or has publicly espoused hateful or reactionary ideas, please let me know so they can be removed from it.

Other Resource Lists

I’m far from the first person to put together a list of resources. Rather than try to duplicate what others have done, here are links to all the other collections I know of. I cannot personally vouch for all the contents of these lists, but there is a ton of good stuff here.

Recommended Blogs

Note: If one of these bloggers uses their platform to espouse hateful or reactionary views, please let me know. I do not knowingly link to people who’ve done that.

Archived Blogs

Notable Essays

Software

  • D&D Web Apps by Ramanan S. of Save vs. Total Party Kill. Includes a variety of character generators, an automated version of the LotFP Summon Spell, Random Carcosa, and a Random Dungeon with X Rooms.
  • Last Gasp Generators by Logan Knight. INcludes the Choose Your Own Generator, Seventh Order of the Random Generator, and NPC Birthing Sacs.
  • Free Web Apps by Alex Schroeder. Includes Gridmapper, Character Sheet Generator, Face Generator, Text mapper, Hex Describe, Traveller Subsector Mapper, UWP Generator, Name Generator, and the Campaign Wiki.
  • Wizdrawn Generators, drawing on the work of numerous creators. A wide variety of useful generators, including various map generators. Organization is a bit wonky. Be sure to explore around a bit!
  • OSR Search. A custom google search that allows you to search an index of OSR blogs.
  • Obsidian Portal campaign management wiki.
  • Real Time Board online whiteboard. Helpful for running online games.
  • OSR Random Generator A collection of several generators, automated by Derik B.

Videos

Podcasts

Making Stuff