Happy MÖRKTOBER to one and all! Every day in October, people are making dark and weird things for MÖRK BORG, CY_BORG, and other BORG-adjacent games. I encourage you to check out the #MÖRKTOBER tag on your favorite social media platform to witness the chaos. Tenebrous can help you make things of your own!

Last week we explored antagonistic game design and games that use frustration as a core element. This week we are looking at an old game, but one that still has important applications today: bingo!

A long history of lotteries

I would imagine most of you already know what bingo is and how to play it, but the history of the game is interesting enough that it deserves at least a mention.

The roots of the game go back to the Italian lotto with records of lotteries going back to at least the 15th century. Keno, another lotto-like game, goes back to a much earlier time. According to legend, the game was invented in China over 2,000 years ago during the Han Dynasty.1

In the early 1900s, a similar game was played in the United States. Hugh J. Ward is credited with inventing the game near Pittsburgh, publishing a rulebook for it. Edwin S. Lowe (of Yahtzee fame) was, however, the one who gave it the name of bingo.2

There are a few stories around how the game became known as bingo. The most popular of these tales is that Lowe saw people playing Ward’s game using dried beans to mark the spaces on their tickets and calling the game beano. A friend of Lowe’s accidentally exclaimed BINGO! instead of BEANO! upon winning, and the name stuck.3 Is this true or apocryphal? Who knows.4

Either way, the game was massively popular (particularly as a fundraiser) and electronic bingo systems were being developed by the 1970s.

Classic bingo cards and winning

A typical bingo card has a 5x5 grid of numbers, usually with values from 1 to 75. The vertical columns are labeled B, I, N, G, O. The center space is a “free space” and considered automatically filled in or claimed.

Random numbers are called out and players stamp their cards if they have a match. Stamp a complete row, column, or diagonal and you win the game.5

Not being much of a bingo player myself, I only recently learned that the number ranges are tied to the columns. For example, the B column will have numbers 1-15 while the I column will have 16-30 and so on. The O column has the highest values from 61-75. According to “The Bingo Paradox” (Benjamin, et al., Math Horizons, 2017), this arrangement means that a horizontal line is almost twice as likely as a vertical line win.6

Bingo is simple and completely random. There is no player agency or strategic skill involved.7 While it certainly taps into some of the kinds of fun, it’s hardly in the same class as most of the games discussed here at Skeleton Code Machine.

Bingo as a game mechanism

If we broaden the definition of bingo a little, we can use it as a game mechanism within other more complex games. Removing the need for a rigidly defined bingo card, we can instead say that a bingo mechanism involves selecting items at random and players marking off (or somehow otherwise noting) those items on their individual player boards.8

Generating random things (numbers, token values, etc.) and marking them off is a core mechanism of roll-and-write games, one of the more popular genres of late. A game like Cartographers (Adan, 2019) might not look like bingo at all, but there are elements of bingo in its design.9

Using bingo cards in TTRPGs

I think bingo mechanisms are a good fit for TTRPGs.

In “I’m not the traitor. Trust me.” (2024), I talked about how I used secret background cards when running a game of Mothership. After players had created their characters, but before we began, I handed out secret background cards to each player with the following rules:

1. I created four secret background cards for the three players. So one card will not be used in the game.

2. Players could not read all the cards ahead of time.

3. The cards are distributed (one to each player) secretly. Neither the GM nor the players knows who received which card. Nor does anyone know which card was left out (i.e. the extra card).

4. Each player may choose if they want to use the card as a secret background or not. Their choice is kept secret.

The cards ranged from “You are an android.” (“You will do anything and everything to hide the fact that you are an android.”) to “You are a xeno worshiper” (“You are secretly obsessed with alien life. You are driven to come face-to-face with some form of alien life.”).

It worked great and helped drive the narrative roleplaying in the game.10

But I think it could be even better by using bingo!

Bingo identities

My version of secret identities simply had a role (“You hate all androids.”), a short background (“Androids killed your loved ones.”), and a trait (“You won’t kill a friendly android on purpose, but you’d be fine with them being killed.”). They also had a mechanical impact, changing a stat or modifying a specific save type.

Instead, I’d love to try making bingo cards for each secret identity. The corporate mole might be able to mark off a square if they capture/collect an alien creature that can be used for R&D purposes. The xeno worshiper might have squares for seeing an alien, creating a shrine, or coming face-to-face with an alien.

The items on the bingo card perform double duty, acting as both goals to achieve and potential prompts for how to play their character. It could be a menu of things to try (or at least think about) without mandating the use of any items at all.

Coming up with 25 of these for each role seems like a bit much. Reducing it to a 3x3 or 4x4 grid would make it more reasonable.

Then if that player achieves a row, column, or diagonal win, they could get some sort of bonus or in-game effect. This meta-goal of achieving Bingo! is what separates this method from simply using a checklist or similar list of achievements.

Similar ideas about bingo in TTRPGs

I am, of course, not the first person to have such an idea.

A Reddit user created a Dungeons & Dragons session bingo card for each of their players using a full 25-square grid. It included items like: “Someone rolls a Nature skill check”, “Someone is invisible”, and “Someone rolls minimum damage”. There are also some meta items like “All the players show up late”.

Another Reddit post discusses using bingo cards as a system to level up characters. Approaches include random words (“witches”) that can be marked off when encountered, or using character goals and motivations. The character-goals idea is much closer to my suggestion for secret bingo identities above.

Roleplaying Tips shared an RPG Bingo card that included various cliches to mark off while playing. These were mostly meta items like “The GM laughs at a roll they make.” or “Someone is rolling dice on a smartphone.”

The Bingo Style Experience Points idea at Githyanki Diaspora is one of the most developed versions, including a downloadable example PDF bingo card.11 Items are thematic and/or narrative and include things like “Thwarted a rival.” and “Recovered ancient lost treasure.”12 The particularly interesting part of this mechanism is that the GM only fills in the center 9 squares of the 5x5 (25-square) grid. The players and group then decide what to put in the remaining blank squares, adding things they’d like to see in the game. Players level up when they complete a row, column, or diagonal.

A model for TTRPG bingo cards

The above are just a few examples of the countless ones that exist online. I’ve found that the bingo cards usually can be grouped as follows:

• Individual motivations: Each player has a bingo card tied to their specific character in the game. Items are directly tied to narrative motivations and goals for that character.

• Group achievements: Rather than at an individual level, the card exists at an adventure or campaign level. Goals and motivations apply to the adventuring party as a whole and may include special locations or quest features.

• Narrative elements: For both individual and group cards, the items are sometimes exclusively focused on in-game thematic items. The items are things which happen in the world of the game.

• Meta elements: Many times the items are related to things that happen in the real world, rather than in the world of the game. The item could be that a player says something amusing or someone does a specific thing.

I’m a big fan of quadrant charts, and this grouping naturally lends itself to that. All TTRPG bingo cards therefore exist somewhere on two axes: Individual vs. Group and Narrative vs. Meta.

Thinking about TTRPG bingo cards this way allows us to design new ones in the style that most suits our needs. You could have individual-meta cards or group-narrative cards. More importantly, you can have cards anywhere in between.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• More than just regular bingo: Bingo (the traditional) game is fun for many people, but might have limited utility in the world of modern game design. If we broaden the scope and definition of the bingo mechanism, however, it becomes a useful tool in our design toolbox.

• Direct applications in TTRPGs: I’m not the first to think of using bingo cards in TTRPGs and that’s a great indication that there’s something here worth investigating. Whether it’s at the individual or party level in a game, the bingo card mechanism can help new players come up with ideas on how to engage with the game.13 It can also add a new and interesting way to interact with systems for even more experienced players.

• Many ways to play bingo: I tried to include a few key examples of how others have thought about adding bingo mechanisms into their games. This article does not provide an exhaustive list of such ideas. Instead, I’ve tried to provide a useful model that can be used to make the system that works best for you.

What do you think? Where have you seen bingo mechanisms in use in either TTRPGs or board games? Would you welcome such a thing in your next TTRPG session?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Don’t forget that your 4-issue Tumulus subscription does not auto-renew! Watch for your blue final issue notice and then resubscribe at the EP Shop. All new orders in October also receive a free MÖRKTOBER sticker while supplies last. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Tumulus Issue 8 is shipping now! Rounding out two years of publication, this issue is all about dead malls, abandoned arcades, roguelikes, soulslikes, and more. This new issue ships right away with new 4-issue subscriptions.1 And don’t forget you might need to renew if you are already a subscriber!2 They don’t auto-renew by design!

And now on to this week’s topic: antagonistic game design.

Use & Regret, a short-answer exam

I recently discovered Use & Regret, a fascinating little game by Stargazer Sasha.3

It is structured as a written exam using two pieces of paper and a six-sided die. There are almost no thematic elements in the game, although one could argue that the entire game is a thematic element. It’s eleven pages of Roboto Mono with some terse instructions on how to play, followed by the exam questions.

You are instructed to set a timer for 60 minutes and then start.4

The game begins (Major Task 0) by drawing three labels. Labels are boxes (containing words, numbers or other things) and they are the core mechanism of the game. The first three labels you’ll create include a label with your name, a label with one word, and an empty label.

There are 33 sequential Major Tasks to complete in the allotted time.

One has you create a Penalty Grid on the other sheet of paper to record each time you hesitate or think back to an earlier decision in the game. Too many penalties and you are disqualified, ending the game.

Other Major Tasks might have you roll the die for a random minor task like creating a new label, modifying an existing one, or destroying labels. A particularly nasty one has you cross out the label you love the most. Other Major Tasks change the rules of the game, adding crowns to labels or introducing a new subsystem using triangles.5

The rules and complexity begin to build up by about Major Task 12 or so. At least for me, it became increasingly hard to quickly complete each task without hesitating or thinking back to earlier choices (both of which would incur a penalty).

I don’t want to spoil the rest of the tasks or game, as I think it’s best going in with as little information as possible. I can, however, say that it was a very frustrating process and may have triggered some ancient school test anxiety that was lingering somewhere in my memory.6

And yet it was also… fun? I think?7

At the very least, it made me want to “win” even though I’m not really sure “winning” means much in this game. I was fully engaged!

Antagonistic game design

It is notable that the Use & Regret description includes this warning:

“This game is an experiment in antagonistic game design. Please take breaks or stop playing if you feel unsafe.”

What is antagonistic game design? Doesn’t sound fun, right?

Stefano Gualeni explores this concept in “Antagonistic Game Design: The Author as Player” published in Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture.8 In the most simple terms, antagonistic game design seeks to create games that are meant to frustrate and provoke their players. Rather than relying on pleasure and the different kinds of fun to create player engagement, these games create engagement another way. They establish the game’s designer as an “imagined persona” who is the “off-putting and often sadistic (implied) author behind the work.”

Antagonistic games can be “adversarial to the players, derisive of their efforts, or outright cruel to them.” This is a deliberate action and choice on the part of the designer.

The paper uses Syobon No Action, a side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. clone, as an example of an antagonistic game:

“Soon, however, Syobon No Action subverts this initial impression, disrupting the player’s sense of familiarity through the introduction of behaviours and challenges that not only diverge sharply from those in Super Mario Bros. but also exhibit internal inconsistency. An in-game course of action that has proven effective or desirable may suddenly become ineffective in new gameplay situations, or even lead to the character’s death.”9

Syobon No Action switches what works for the player with little or no warning. Character death is, at times, unavoidable. The author of the game changes the rules as the player plays the game, making exceptions and subverting assumptions. Gualeni goes as far as to say the game is “akin to a playable prank at the expense of the player” and an “infuriating experience that relies on mockery and deception.”

Other examples in the paper include Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2017) and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (2022). The example from The Stanley Parable is particularly antagonistic: You must press a button periodically to prevent a cardboard baby from falling into a fire. You must do this for four actual hours.

We’ll discuss why anyone would want to play such a game, but first we need discuss the author as the player.

The author as player

To be truly considered an antagonistic game, Gualeni argues, the author must become an implied adversary in the game. Note, however, that not all cases where the author of the game becomes a player in the game are antagonistic designs.

Gualeni breaks this “author as player” phenomena into three distinct categories:

1. Relinquishing the clinical gaze: The designer abandons “their disenchanted professional stance towards the game, and return to it with a playful attitude.” The author of the game engages with their game in a way that is different than playtesting. Given enough time and distance, they can play the game as a normal player would.

2. Officiating an RPG session: The designer takes on the role of one or more characters (e.g. NPCs) in the game. This should be familiar to anyone who has played a TTRPG where the GM is very much a player in the game.

3. Projecting antagonistic intentions: The game manifests “the authors’ intention to tease and frustrate the players.”

It is this third category that is perhaps the most subtle and most important for antagonistic game design.

It exists when the author becomes the adversary and causes the player to view the designer of the game as the enemy to be defeated rather than just the in-game final boss.

To me, Use & Regret is the clearest example of this. It perfectly combines the frustrations of antagonistic design with the “author as player” adversary.

Beating the game means defeating the author of the game.

Why do we play antagonistic games?

Why would anyone want to create a game that is intentionally mocking, deceptive, or cruel? Or, perhaps more curiously, why would anyone want to play such a game?

There are, of course, the usual gamer motivations that apply. Some players enjoy hard fun and want to prove their mastery of a game. Other players respond to social motivations like getting into the secret Getting Over It chat room that is only accessible after reaching the top of the mountain. Pride can factor into it as well.

Those aren’t particularly interesting answers to the question. There is something more to it than that.

And I don’t think that Gualeni is arguing that players enjoy the suffering and frustration of antagonistically designed games — at least not directly. Instead, the argument seems to be that (for a certain kind of person), the very idea that the author is being antagonistic is enough to trigger the player to want to beat the game. Gualeni calls this “sticking it to the (implied) man” in the paper.

I must admit, I found myself doing that in Use & Regret. I knew it was designed in a way to be frustrating and hard going in, so I immediately positioned myself as an adversary of the author of the game. When they said, “write a word in a label” I wrote “A WORD” in the label. Ha! Take that!

But of course, that is exactly what the author of the game would want me to do.

This is what separates antagonistic game design from simply games that are very difficult. They tap into a different kind of motivation — one that isn’t simple as the the ones we find in Bartle’s Taxonomy. It is a mixture of opposition, defiance, and perhaps a quest for validation as a player. It is what Gualeni calls “resentment-fueled determination and ingenuity.”10

I hate this game, but I’m not going to let it win.

It’s not for everyone, but antagonistic game design is a fascinating topic for inspiration and development.11

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Elements of antagonistic game design: Based on my interpretation, three common antagonistic design elements must be considered: (1) an implied adversarial author as player, (2) deliberate frustration of the player (e.g. obstruction, deception, punishment, etc.), and (3) an opportunity for player agency to respond in opposition and defiance of the author’s antagonistic intents.

• Player motivations are complex: While we can try to boil them down into a simple quadrant diagram or a more complicated matrix, no model is going to capture everything. While the paper referenced above doesn’t make me want to run out to play more antagonistic games, I love that it tugs at something new and different. It showed me a motivation that I didn’t previously have the words to describe.

• Abusive game design: Somewhere beyond antagonistic game design exists abusive game design. Wilson and Sicart describe this concept in “Now It’s Personal: On Abusive Game Design” where games engage in physical abuse, unfair design, lying to the player, aesthetic abuse, and social abuse.12 That is an entirely different thing.

What do you think? Have you played (and enjoyed?!) a game built on antagonistic design? Is this a useful design pattern or more of an academic exercise?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Last week we looked at how everything is auction. This week we are powering up space engines and trying to escape the DEMON SHIP! It’s a small, solo skirmish game from Black Site Studios with a particularly interesting health/action system called Pulse Rate.

But first…

Kind words for Dark Mall

Saw the nicest Bluesky post from Almost Bedtime Theater recently about Tumulus Issue 8:

“For solo RPG club today I played Dark Mall, a liminal dead mall crawl in this issue of TUMULUS. I survived gathering video evidence of the Whistler, the Mall Walker, and the Balloon Cloud before barely escaping! And I love the included exercises that get you thinking about ways to improve the game.”

I can’t explain how exciting it is to hear that people are playing the games inside each issue of Tumulus. Even better, however, is that the included exercises are getting people to ponder how they might improve the “incomplete by design” games.

Just a post that really brightened an otherwise not-so-bright day, and I wanted to share. Thank you!

Get Tumulus!

I’ve had it with these demons on this ship!

In Demon Ship (Malev Da Shinobi, 2023) you are the last survivor on a demon-infested spaceship. You have three objectives: Restore power. Start the evacuation sequence. Escape the ship.

Successfully performing those tasks won’t be easy because (of course) the ship’s self-destruct countdown will begin during the Escape state — six rounds and game over.

The game is played on a 6x6 grid. Each square on the grid is a “space” and distances are measured in spaces. There are line-of-sight rules, as it might be blocked by walls or demons.

During the Room Phase, you roll to see which room you’ll enter. The rulebook has a list of rooms, contents, and alternate layouts. Then you’ll roll dice to spawn some demons into the room. With the room configured, you’ll be ready to explore and shoot some demons in the face.

That’s not a full rules explanation, but I think it gives you enough info for us to dig into how the Pulse Rate damage system works in Demon Ship. It’s one of the parts of the game that really stood out as a particularly clever design.

Can you feel your heart pounding?

Pulse Rate is a dice pool system that Demon Ship uses to create an effective game arc of increasing action.

Here’s how the Demon Ship rulebook describes it (p. 14):

“Pulse Rate is the driving mechanic for Demon Ship, functioning as an indication of the Survivor’s health, and how much action that is going to take place during the turn. Thematically it’s the heart rate of the Survivor and it will fluctuate when they suffer damage and replace fresh bits of protective armor.”

You start with a Pulse Rate of 3 which means you have three six-sided dice (3d6) in your pool. After each Room Phase (described above), you’ll have a Wits Phase.

In the Wits Phase you roll your Pulse Rate dice and take actions. How you roll determines if you (as the Survivor) or the demons will be taking actions. Results of 4+ can be spent to take player actions while results of 1-3 will cause the demons to take actions. For example, you roll 1, 4, and 6. You would get two actions (4 & 6) and the demons will get one action (1).1

Taking damage as dice

Demon Ship doesn’t have the player (directly) track hit points or health for their character. Instead, any incoming damage to the player that isn’t evaded or dodged increases the Pulse Rate. Each damage point taken increases their Pulse Rate by one.

When you start the game with a Pulse Rate of 3, it’s just three dice rolled for actions. As you take more damage, that number increases and more dice are rolled. There is an upper cap to the Pulse Rate: At a Pulse Rate of 7, the Survivor dies “a gruesome death” and the game ends.

This process continues until the Survivor dies or successfully escapes the room via the designated exit space, at which point a new Room Phase begins.

Unlike a traditional hit point (HP) system, the Pulse Rate would appear to limit garbage time in the game. If the player were simply counting down HP, they might reach a point where (with sufficiently low HP) they know they are going to die. It becomes impossible to make it out of the room, but the game would still be going. In Demon Ship, however, the damage applied to the player increases the action. They get even more chances to take actions, and more chances for incoming demon attacks.

The action escalates and rarely decreases, creating a cinematic “go out with a bang” type of feel to the game.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Additive vs. subtractive damage: In many games, damage is subtractive. It takes things away from the player, makes them move slower, and prevents them from taking more actions. Demon Ship flips that and damage means more player actions, although it might be more demon actions.

• Solo skirmish games: I used some minis from Alone (Crespi & Silva, 2019) and a crude, hand-drawn map for Demon Ship, but check out Witty’s Demon Ship Playthrough on YouTube to see how it looks fully painted with nice terrain. The flexibility of skirmish games to be played with simple or complex components is really interesting and a strength of the genre.

• The alien-infested spaceship genre: I know the “escape the alien-infested ship” thing has been done many times, but I never seem to get tired of it. Even with the same rough outline, each game seems to make it feel different. Consider Demon Ship, Nemesis (Kwapiński, 2018), The Wretched (Bissette, 2020), Alone, and the Alien RPG. Sure, they have some thematic similarities, but they each have something that makes them special.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Tumulus Issue 8 is here.

Tumulus Issue 8 is shipping out to subscribers around the world!

Tumulus is a quarterly collection of analog gaming inspiration, tools, design theory, and playable content from Skeleton Code Machine. Each issue has a new theme. Design exercises are included so your reading is hands-on.

But don’t take my word for it. Here are some recent reviews posted on Reddit:

“Tumulus is great, it’s like an expanded/curated and nicely printed version of Skeleton Code Machine, so you could read a few articles from the newsletter to see if it’s up your alley. If you like what you see there, you’ll probably enjoy it in print!” — bicyclingbear

“Assignments designed to get you thinking about the content and creating, like “incomplete by design” games with exercises focused on about how they could be improved and questions added to the previously posted SCM articles.” — FaileasDhan

Each issue is creative, thought-provoking, and worthy of a place on your shelf.

Get Tumulus!

What’s inside this issue?

The theme of Tumulus Issue 8 is “Insert coin to continue.” and is focused on how video games have influenced tabletop games, both TTRPGs and board games. It also includes a healthy dose of dead mall and abandoned arcade liminal nostalgia.

In The Lasting Influence of Rogue (p. 7), you can read about the history of rogue-like games from the earliest ones to their modern-day descendants like Slay the Spire and Hades. The lines between rogue-like (with a ‘k’) and rogue-lite (with an ‘t’) get blurry!

Bonfires, Lamps, and Sites of Grace (p. 17) examines Dark Souls and its sizable impact on game design and trends. Gila RPG’s RUNE is explored in this context, along with a short interview with creator Spencer Campbell.

Like Issue 7, this issue has two playable games. The first is Reload last save? (p. 27), designed and contributed by Chris at Junk Food Games. I always love Chris’ approach to both mechanical creativity and storytelling, and this one is no exception. He captures the soulslike genre in pencil-and-paper form.

The Builder feature this quarter is Make Your Own Dead Mall (p. 36) that you can then use to run a dead mall crawl with Dark Mall (p. 38) — a zero-combat Dark Fort hack. The game is “incomplete by design” with exercises at the end to improve it.

Each issue has a D6+D6 (p. 32) with two sets of things to spark your imagination. In this issue, I had way too much fun making some cursed arcade games and dead mall shops. Chris from Junk Food Games made a tie-in to his contributed game!

Finally, in Everybody Loves a Winner (p. 51), Greg Loring-Albright (Ahoy, Keep the Faith) shares a method for designing multi-victor games. It’s a trickier design problem than you might think!

Free Massive Damage bookmark

Tumulus Issue 8 ships with a free Massive Damage bookmark.

A boss monster that fits in your pocket? A giant robot vampire lord that helps mark your book page while reading? Sort of both...

Inspired by Giant Enemy Crab! at Skeleton Code Machine and Boss Fights at Exeunt Omnes. Roll 3d6 to generate a boss type, special move, and environment.1

Created for the TTRPG Bookmark Jam 2025.

Pick your issues with ordering

Please select your issues when subscribing. Tumulus 08 “Insert coin to continue.” is the current issue and will ship immediately. Tumulus 09 is the next one and will ship December 2026.

If you start a new subscription, your first issue will ship out right away if you select the current issue. Subsequent issues will be mailed to you once per quarter. No matter when you subscribe, you’ll always receive four issues.

Resubscribing? No problem! Just select the issues you want to ensure you don’t get a duplicate issue. Remember that subscriptions don’t auto-renew by design. You’ll need to resubscribe to receive four more issues.2

I need to resub!

As always, if you have any questions about your order or need to update your address, please send an email to games@exeunt.press.

Back issues are available!

Not ready to subscribe just yet? A limited number of back issues are available at full list price. New issues are added after the next one has shipped.

Upcoming issues

Curious what’s coming up in future issues? Here are the themes for the next three:

• Issue 09. “Ponder the orb.” (December 2026)

  • Wizards, magic, spellcasting, crystal balls, classic fantasy

• Issue 10. “Get in the mech.” (March 2027)

  • Mecha, skirmish games, pilots, kaiju, heat, navigation

• Issue 11. “Find the spots light can’t reach.” (June 2027)

  • Murder mysteries, hidden information, deduction, emergent narratives

What do you think? Which upcoming issue sounds the most interesting?

Issue titles and covers are subject to change, but that’s the plan! Images above are mockups. Issues 1 through 8 are printed and in stock.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Check out a copy of Tumulus 8 (about arcade games) sitting on an arcade game in Manda’s photo on Bluesky.

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

I’ve mentioned Modern Art (Knizia, 1992) many times here at Skeleton Code Machine, but I’ve never actually covered it in detail. It’s a fascinating and deceptively simple game that is based on auctions. Let’s explore the five types of auctions from Modern Art.

Even if you aren’t making an auction game, it’s important to understand the various types as a designer. Sometimes they show up in unexpected places!

Modern Art

In classic Knizia style, Modern Art isn’t particularly mechanically complex, but it presents players with extremely tough decisions. In the game, players “take on the role of a museum that is trying to buy and sell paintings at the best price.”

Over the course of four rounds, paintings go up for auction and are purchased by players. The paintings are then sold based on the current value of that artist’s works. Ideally, you purchase low and sell high. It is, however, entirely possible to purchase a painting and end up losing money on the sale.

The value of the paintings (based on the artist) changes each round. The more an artist’s work is purchased, the more valuable it becomes. The top three selling artists are worth 30, 20, and 10 respectively. The bottom selling of the four will be worth nothing that round.

There’s some fun market stuff going on in the game, but for now, let’s look carefully at the types of auction mechanisms used.

The five types of auctions

Modern Art includes five types of auctions. The type of auction (e.g. open, hidden, etc.) is determined by a symbol on the painting card played that round.

The game has a few general rules for auction to avoid weird edge cases:

• All bids must be in units of $1.1

• You can’t bid less than or equal to another player.

• You can’t bid money you don’t have.

• If no player bids, the auctioneer gets the painting for free.

The last rule in particular is critical. This ensures that there’s always incentive to bid, otherwise the player who happens to be the auctioneer that round gets a free painting.

With those general rules in place, here are the auction mechanisms.

Type 1: Open Auction

All players (including the auctioneer) can bid in any order. This is the kind of auction you often see in movies and on television, with people shouting out increasingly higher bids in a chaotic manner.2 The auctioneer keeps track of the bids and does the “Going once! Going twice! Sold to the lady in the green hat!” thing.

Type 2: One Offer Auction

Bids are presented in order, one player at a time, moving clockwise around the table. Everyone gets a single chance to place an offer or pass. All new bids must be higher than previous bids. The auctioneer always gets the final bid and a chance to win the painting.

Type 3: Hidden Auction

All players (including the auctioneer) make a single, secret bid.3 This is usually done by placing money tokens in closed hands and then all revealing at the same time. It is possible to pass by not putting any tokens into your hand. Highest bid wins. In the case of a tie, the person sitting closest (clockwise) to the auctioneer wins.

Type 4: Fixed Price Auction

The auctioneer chooses and announces a fixed price for the painting. Then, moving clockwise, each player can choose to either (A) purchase the painting at that price or (B) pass. If a player purchases the painting, the auction ends. If no players choose to purchase, the auctioneer must purchase it at the original fixed price.4

Type 5: Double Auction

I’m not sure this one really counts as another type of auction mechanism, but the Modern Art rulebook lists it as a separate type. In the double auction, the auctioneer can choose to put a second painting up for sale with the first. They both use the auction mechanism of the second painting.5 The winner of the auction claims both paintings.

Auctions in non-auction games

While Modern Art is an explicitly economic game (i.e. you are thematically buying and selling paintings), auctions show up in many types of games. It’s a good exercise to learn the various auction types and try to spot them when playing games.

I’ve written about Dutch auctions at length previously, as they are used in games like Pax Renaissance: Second Edition (Eklund & Eklund, 2021), Pax Pamir: Second Edition (Wehrle, 2019), and Canvas (Chin & Nerger, 2021). In all three examples, cards accumulate coins on them, effectively lowering their cost to purchase. In a twist on the standard Dutch auction model, prices can be discounted so far that they go negative (i.e. you gain money by making the purchase).

In Rising Sun (Lang, 2019), a hidden auction mechanism is used to resolve zero-luck combat. Everyone places their bids for the various actions behind a screen and reveals at the same time. It’s fast, easy to resolve, and involves a fair bit of bluffing. Another interesting twist is that the winning player must give all the coins they spent to the losing players.

In all of these games, you might not immediately think “we are conducting an auction” but, mechanically, that’s exactly what is happening.6

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Auctions are everywhere: Try to spot auctions and bidding in the games you play over the next few weeks or months. I think you’ll be surprised at how often they show up. Especially when you realize that many (all?) area control games are really just bidding games in disguise.

• Many types of auctions: There are about 33 types of auctions listed at Wikipedia and many described at BGG. The five from Modern Art are a good place to start, but there are many interesting variations. Just keep the mental demand in mind when considering the more complex types.

• Dr. Knizia rarely misses: While they may not be my all-time favorite games, I will never turn down the chance to try a new Knizia game. His designs are always fascinating, filled with tough choices, and leave me feeling inspired. If you haven’t played many Reiner Knizia games, I highly recommend you do.

What do you think? Do you enjoy auction and bidding mechanisms in games? What are some of your favorite examples?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Tumulus Issue 8 “Insert coin to continue.” is all about dead malls, abandoned arcades, and the influence of video games on tabletop game design — roguelike and soulslike included. Subscribe to Tumulus to get yours!

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Last week we looked at rolling and locking games like Yahtzee. This week, you’ll need to indulge me as I went down quite the rabbit hole recently. What started as reading about trick-taking games led to reading combinatorial game theory and the game of Nim.1 While Nim is a mathematically solved game, it’s exactly the kind of game I think we should be aware of.

Let’s take a look at how to play a basic game of Nim and the lesson it holds for tabletop game designers.

How to play Nim

There are countless variations of Nim, but here is perhaps the most simple and widespread way to play:

1. There are multiple rows of sticks or piles (heaps) of tokens. The number of groups varies but it is often 3-4 total groups. The number of starting objects in each group can be any number as well. Here’s an example:

   1. Pile A: ⬤ ⬤ ⬤ ⬤ ⬤

   2. Pile B: ⬤ ⬤ ⬤

   3. Pile C: ⬤ ⬤

2. On a player’s turn, they can take any number of tokens from any one of the piles. They can’t take from more than one pile in the same turn. You could take any number from 1-5 tokens from Pile A in the example above.

3. This repeats until someone takes the last token.

4. The player that takes the last token wins.2

In an extreme example of play, Alice is the first player and takes all the tokens in Pile A. Bob takes all the tokens in Pile B. Alice takes the remaining tokens in Pile C and wins the game. In practice, you could take any number of tokens on your turn.

We can also imagine simplified versions of this game to illustrate how it works:

• Single pile, one token: The first player always takes the token and the second player always loses.

• Two piles, one token in each: The first player takes one of the piles. The second player takes the other pile. The first player always loses.

These versions don’t have much interesting player agency. The winner is determined by player order and nothing more!

But what if we increased the number of choices presented to the player each turn?

Increasing the decision space

With one token in each pile, the players only have a single choice on their turn: take the available token or not. It’s a Hobson’s Choice — take the token available or don’t play the game.

Adding tokens retains the same underlying gameplay, but increases the decision space of the game. Consider the following two examples:

• Single pile, three tokens: The first player can take 1, 2, or 3 tokens on their turn. If they take 1, there are 2 tokens left for the second player, leaving them with the choice of taking 1 or 2 tokens.

• Two piles, three tokens in each: The first player can now choose to take 1, 2, or 3 tokens from either of the two piles. This is a much larger decision space. The second player will also have a larger decision space on their turn.

Now imagine the classic “matchstick game” version of Nim where there are four rows of matchsticks. The rows contain 1, 3, 5, and 7 items. Same game, but a vastly larger starting decision space, albeit a decreasing one as the game continues.

Impartial games

The notable thing about Nim is that it is an impartial game with perfect information.

Impartial games (using the combinatorial game theory definition) is one in which a player’s available moves depends only on the current game state — the position of the pieces in the game.3 The players are fully equivalent and have the same options. The only difference between them is which of the two players went first.

In addition, both players have perfect information, meaning nothing is hidden and both players can see all of the information in the game.

Finally, the outcomes of the game for each player are the same: either to win or to lose.

Chess is not an impartial game because each player has their own pieces (black and white) which restrict which pieces they can move.4 Checkers is similarly not an impartial game. Other games introduce dice rolling, card draws, and asymmetric powers that may prevent them from being an impartial game.

Commercially successful impartial games are hard to find, or at least have been difficult for me to find. Babylon (reimplemented as Soluna) by Bruno Faidutti was one of the few I identified by a well-known designer.5 Most examples are made as mathematical curiosities instead of packaged games.

The Sprague–Grundy theorem

Even though everything is pointcrawl, not everything is Nim.

Nim is special because it is a two-player, impartial game with perfect information.6 That said, every two-player, normal-play, impartial game with perfect information can be theoretically reduced to the same behavior as a single-pile game of Nim.7

That’s what the Sprague–Grundy theorem states, as alluded to in the intro to one of the articles about it:

“In any game between two opponents playing alternately, in which the legality of moves is not governed by chance, it is intuitively clear that there must be some best method of playing; and if both play correctly the result of the game is determined by the initial position.”8

Specifically, the theorem means that every impartial game can be reduced to a single-pile game of Nim. It doesn’t matter if your Nim variant has one pile or thirty piles. It doesn’t matter if there are two tokens in each pile or a hundred tokens in each pile. The game can be reduced to a single number — the size of the pile in an equivalent single-pile game of Nim.9

This number is known as the Grundy value or nim-value of the impartial game.

The actual method of calculating the Grundy value for an impartial game is beyond what I can cover here. It uses methods like bitwise XOR sums that are fairly complicated.

The point is that just like some game mechanisms are probabilistically equivalent, impartial games can be reduced to equivalent games of single-pile Nim. We can increase the decision space, add more piles, more tokens, but the outcome largely depends on the initial position and which player goes first.

The lesson of Nim

We just went on a mathematical tour of Nim, impartial games, and the Sprague–Grundy theorem — admittedly a lot to take in.10

So what’s the point here?11 For me, it reiterates that mechanical complexity is different from the actual strategic complexity of the game.

You can have normal-play, impartial games with rows of matchsticks, piles of stones, or even stacks of quarters but at some level they can all be analyzed with Sprague–Grundy theorem. At a theoretical level, they are all reducible to a Grundy number as a single-pile game of Nim.12

Similarly, you can add more tokens, create larger decision spaces, and apply ever more mechanical complexity to a game, and yet not make it more strategically dense. The decisions might be more plentiful, but no more interesting.

To me, in a very roundabout way, the lesson of my trip down the Nim rabbit hole is that it is the core behavior of the game that is key, not all the bits around that core.13

Create a minimum viable product (MVP) version of your game.14 Find the core and playtest it hard before adding significant complexity.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Nim games are interesting: There are so many variations on the basic game of Nim, many of which are quite fun. Sprouts has players drawing curved lines to connect dots on a sheet of paper. Grundy’s game splits stacks of quarters. Even though they are “solved” games, I’d still like to try them!

• Yes, math is hard: Sure, combinatorial game theory is complex and most of us have neither the time nor desire to understand the mathematics behind it in detail. That doesn’t mean we can’t read about it and learn lessons from it. It’s such an interesting field of research!

• Applications in other games: I usually try to come up with some ways to apply the week’s topic in board games and TTRPGs. While I’m not sure I’d recommend dropping Nim directly into your design, I do think there’s something interesting there. I’ll continue to think about it, even if it is just retaining the “take a number of things away from a group” as a possible mechanism.

What do you think? Are there lessons to be learned from studying Nim? Can you think of other impartial games?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. MÖRKTOBER is coming! The prompt preview is available now. Get ready to make 31 days of dark and weird things starting October 1. 🎃

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Last week we looked at how Reiner Knizia’s simple game of Goal could be adapted for use in other games. This week we are looking at another simple game with a lot of potential: Yahtzee!

Yacht and Yahtzee

Most people agree that Yahtzee is derived from a public domain dice-sequence game called Yacht which dates back to at least 1938. If you’ve ever played Yahtzee, you’ll immediately find Yacht to be familiar:

1. Roll five six-sided dice (5d6).

2. Choose which of the dice to keep and which to reroll.

3. Reroll the dice you want to reroll.

4. Again, choose dice to keep and reroll.

5. Reroll the dice you want to reroll.

6. Score the dice by choosing scoring categories based on values and combinations (e.g. three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, straight, etc.)

Each scoring category may only be used once per game. It is possible to score zero points on your turn. The game ends after 12 rounds and the player with the highest score wins.

Yahtzee is the commercialized and trademarked version originally produced by Milton Bradley which is now part of Hasbro.1 The differences are mostly in how scoring works and the various bonuses awarded.

Generala, Yatzy, and other variants

The history of Yahtzee is fairly complicated with many different variants and similar games. I won’t try to determine which version came first here, but it is worth noting some similar games:

• Generala: A game for 2+ players from Latin America. Players roll five dice, decide which to keep, and reroll the others. Maximum of 3 rolls per turn. Players gain points from specific values (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), straights, full houses, and four-of-a-kind. The Generala (all dice have the same value) is worth 50 points the first time and 100 points the second time.

• Yatzy: This Scandinavian version can be played solo or with others. Same as the others with rolling five dice, keeping some, and rerolling others. Maximum of 3 rolls per turn (i.e. 1 initial roll + 2 rerolls). You must log a score each round.2 Maximum possible score is 374.

• Crag: A faster version of Yahtzee played over 13 rounds. Roll three dice instead of five. You only get one reroll rather than two. Each scoring category (e.g. three-of-a-kind, low straight, high straight, etc.) can only be used once per game. Maximum score is 244.

The list of similar traditional games is long, but they all involve rolling dice with optional rerolling of some or all of the dice. It is the scoring and other rules in which most of the variation happens.

Modern examples

There are many modern board games that use a Yahtzee-style mechanism in their gameplay. Dice Throne (Chatellier, Hein, et al., 2018) and King of Tokyo (Garfield, 2011) are perhaps two of the most well-known board game examples.3 Players roll dice, try to get specific combinations, and can reroll dice in additional attempts.

In Dice Throne, you are rolling five dice with two optional rerolls to match offensive and defensive abilities on your player board. The dice define which actions you can take.

In King of Tokyo, you roll six dice with two rerolls. The goal is to get a mix of victory points, energy, attacks, and healing on the dice. Energy can be spent to purchase cards. Attacks damage other players and healing restores your health.

Re-rolling and locking

In the traditional game examples above, any set-aside dice can be rerolled during any attempt. Just because you kept a die from the first roll doesn’t mean you can’t reroll it during a later attempt. Dice are never locked.

Modern games have introduced the concept of locking dice when you keep them. This means that once you decide to keep a die, it is locked. It may not be rerolled during a later attempt.

To Court the King (Lehmann, 2006) is a good example of dice locking.4 You roll three dice and must then set aside at least one of them. Any remaining dice may be rerolled. You must again set aside at least one and can reroll the others. This continues until all dice have been set aside.

Elder Sign (Launius & Wilson, 2011) also uses a form of dice locking. You roll six dice and can use some of the dice to complete a task on an adventure card. Once those dice are voluntarily used to complete the task, they may not be rerolled or used again while resolving that adventure card. They are locked and unavailable.

Conditional locking

Escape: The Curse of the Temple (Østby, 2012) is a cooperative real-time game that uses dice rolling as the core mechanism. Players simultaneously roll custom dice to gain symbols that allow them to take actions.

Like Yahtzee, players can roll and reroll their dice to achieve the combinations they want. They can even put aside some dice and choose to not reroll some of them. Unlike Yahtzee, however, any time a black mask symbol is rolled, that die becomes temporarily locked. Black masks can’t be rerolled and must be put aside. This shrinks the player’s dice pool and makes it hard to get the symbol they want.

The only way to get the black mask dice back is to roll a golden mask. A golden mask “breaks the spell” on up to two black masks and those dice go back into the player’s pool. Players can also use their golden masks to help other players regain their dice.

This is an interesting example of conditional locking where the dice are out of play but only temporarily. Other game conditions allow those dice to be unlocked and brought back into play.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Yahtzee-style mechanisms: Once you become familiar with Yahtzee-style mechanisms, you’ll begin to see them everywhere. It’s a popular mechanism that shows up in a lot of games — and for good reason. Rolling dice with limited rerolls is a great way to mitigate luck.

• Rolling and locking: Traditional Yahtzee allows for any dice (even those set aside) to be rerolled later. Forcing the player to lock one die each attempt can create a tighter and more interesting decision space. I also think locking any dice that are (optionally) set aside would be a fun mechanism.

• Conditional locking: If you don’t mind additional rule complexity, it can be interesting to allow for conditional locking of dice. Dice are temporarily locked and unlocked depending on actions and the game state. You could also have mechanisms to allow for dice to be added to or removed from the player’s dice pool during the attempts.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite game that uses a Yahtzee-style mechanism? I’m curious if you’ve seen rolling and locking used in TTRPGs as well. I wasn’t able to find many examples of it.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

If you missed them, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my Making Better Maps series that was recently posted. They will change how you think about game maps.

This week we are looking at a little Knizia example game that I can’t get out of my head ever since I read about it.

Cards and dice with Dr. Knizia

I’ve written before about Reiner Knizia and why you need to know who he is before. He’s best known for his over 700 published board game designs, most of which feature simple rules, hard choices, and not much theme. He is lesser known, perhaps, for his game design books — one of which I recently picked up.

New Tactical Games with Dice and Cards (Knizia, 1990) is a book of playable game rules, all of which use basic coins, dice, and playing cards. It is so playable that the book even has its own entry on BGG as a board game.

Each game has rules, some variants, suggestions, and sometimes a guide to strategy. It’s wonderful for inspiration and to see how the “Doctor of Board Games” thinks about game design. Importantly, most are so mechanically simple that they could be adapted and dropped into a TTRPG fairly easily.

It’s the first game in the book that has really captured my imagination: Goal.

A soccer game with cards

Goal (p. 12) is a quick card game for 2 or more players, meant to be played in about 15 minutes. It requires a simple game board, a standard poker deck, and 1 chip or token.

The game simulates a soccer game, taking place over two halves. The player with the most goals at the end wins. Here’s how each half works:

1. Each player receives 13 cards of the same suit Ace through King.

2. The ball (token) is placed at the center of the board.

3. Each player then simultaneously reveals one of their cards from their hand. The higher card wins and moves the ball one space toward the opponent’s goal. Nothing happens on a tie.

4. The revealed cards are discarded face-down and may not be used again that half.

5. If the ball makes it to a goal, a point is scored.

Hands are reset at the end of the “half” when all cards have been played.

If the power of each card were simply the rank, it wouldn’t be that interesting of a game. The twist is that there’s a little more to which card beats another.

Aces and spot cards

Instead of a simple “aces low” ranking where power increases with rank from ace up to king, Knizia uses the following:

1. Higher spot cards (2 through 10) beat lower ones, as expected

2. Face cards (jack through king) beat all spot cards

3. Higher face cards beat lower ones based on rank (jack, queen, king)

4. Aces beat all face cards but lose to all spot cards

The first three points above are pretty standard in simple card games like War. The fourth point about the ace is what makes the game interesting. Knizia explains this in the game tactics (p. 15):

“The Ace has exceptional position compared to the other cards. As long as you have your Ace, your opponent will be plagued with uncertainty — especially in critical situations in front of the goal: you could use the Ace against his face cards. If he tries to beat your Ace with a spot card, you could surprise him with an even higher spot or a face card.”

If you have your ace in your hand, your opponent is never quite sure what to do. They could, of course, play spot cards to handle your ace, but they need to be certain you are actually playing an ace. On the other hand, you only have one ace. Play it too early, and you’ll be at the mercy of your opponent.

It’s a game of card counting, trying to beat each of your opponent’s cards with the least amount of “overkill.” As Knizia notes, “To beat a 4 with a King is a costly victory, as your opponent will save important resources for later.”

Sometimes it makes sense to intentionally lose a round just to force your opponent to waste a high-value card on a relatively low value one of your own.

Adapting for other kinds of games

Knizia’s suggestions for additional rules and variants are all sports themed: card abilities based on player positions and turning the game into a tennis match. They are interesting, but I keep wondering how this could be turned into a different style of game. More than just swapping out the (very light) theme, how could we turn this core mechanism into something?

A few thoughts come to mind:

• A larger map: The soccer board has a center point (start) and two field spots on each side. There’s a goal on each side as well for a total of 6 spaces.1 What if we had a lot more spaces? Could we play this on a hexcrawl map or pointcrawl map?

• Terrain-based effects: The suggested special powers include nullifying movement that round or moving the ball two spaces instead of one. I do like the idea of certain abilities only being triggered if the card is used when the token is in a specific location on the board. Combined with the above, we could have cards that are more powerful based on terrain (water, land, etc.) or specific locations (wizard tower).

• Slower pace: If the simultaneous card reveal were just part of a larger game, the pace could be slowed way down. It might happen only once per larger round, acting as a tempo control for the game.

• Acquire cards: In the base rules, each player receives their full set of 13 cards at the start of the game. What if you only received some of those cards and had to choose to earn additional cards in some other manner? Deciding when and which cards to gain becomes an interesting decision, especially if one could acquire more than one of a rank. This would probably only work with the “slower pace” variant above.

• Solo mode: While I’m not sure it would work, the opponent cards could certainly be drawn off the top of their deck at random. This would allow the game to be played solo, but greatly reduces the strategic decisions. It becomes almost purely a card-counting game. It might result in garbage time if not handled carefully.

That’s five mechanical changes that I think would take this small soccer game and turn it into part of something larger. They mostly ignore re-theming, which would be just as important. Are the cards spells for dueling wizards? Are they apps used by a hacker breaking into a corpo server?

As I’m most familiar with MÖRK BORG, I could see a use for this as the Calendar of Nechrubel is advanced in the game. There could be a chance to play a card vs. the GM each time a new Misery is triggered that results in some larger impact on the game world.2 Being able to earn cards through adventures during a campaign would feel significant, knowing you’ll need them later. Alternatively, the players could gain all their cards at the start and watch them dwindle as each is used.

Either way, it could be a fun method players can use to postpone the inevitable in-game apocalypse.

Simple games for big inspiration

While I think the best way to gain game design inspiration is to just play as many different games as you can, there is something special about very simple games. They allow me to focus on just a tiny aspect of mechanisms and wonder how it could be used.

In this case, Goal is basically two players flipping up cards at the same time and the higher one wins. The change to aces shows, however, how tiny twists in rank can have large strategic impacts. The tight board space makes me wonder how it would work with a large board. It’s fun to take each little aspect of this game and think about how to invert it (e.g. earn cards instead of starting with them).

As an exercise this week, pick a simple card game or dice game. Think about how you could use an isolated mechanism from it in a novel way, or how to invert some part of it to make it more interesting.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Reiner Knizia never fails to inspire: I often say that while Knizia games aren’t always my favorites of all time, I always enjoy trying a new one. I always feel inspired, learn something new, or otherwise just increase my appreciation for his designs.

• Simple games as a base: At least here in the United States, you can’t copyright game mechanisms. Finding a simple or traditional game and using it as a base for a new design is a good way to get started. I’ve found that by the end, the original inspiration is often no longer recognizable.

• Inverting concepts to generate new ideas: As with the ideas for adapting Goal into a larger game above, think about how you can invert mechanisms. If something uses a tiny, symmetric board, think about how it would be different with a large, asymmetric one. If a game uses a lot of cards, what would it look like if it had half as many cards?

What do you think? Could you think of a way to integrate the Goal game (or some variant of it) into a TTRPG? Have you seen something like this in a game you’ve played?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Be a weird little mushroom. You know you want to. 🍄🍄🍄

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

This is Part 2 of a multi-part series on making better maps by thinking about them as graphs and data, based on a talk I gave at Harrisburg University in March 2026.

Last time we built a better vocabulary for discussing maps: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. The goal of this second part of the talk was to practice converting game maps into graphs so we can see the data hidden within.

The Exclusion Zone shortcut

Let’s look at two different maps and see if we can identify the elements we discussed in Part 1 of this series. Take a moment to review that article before we begin!

Exclusion Zone Botanist (by Exeunt Press) is a solo drawing and journaling hexcrawl game set in a dark and mutating forest. You are a botanist assigned to explore Exclusion Zone (EZ), document the strange flora, and get out before you become part of the forest. It’s a push-your-luck game where the “best” plants are in the deepest area (Area 6), but the deeper you go, the more risk there is of being corrupted.

Eleventh Beast (also by Exeunt Press) uses a different kind of map — a pointcrawl map of London with eight named locations and fixed ways to travel between them. Rumors are randomly spawned at the locations and you, as the Hunter, must move around to collect and verify them. Eventually the Beast appears and triggers the conclusion of the game.

Let’s try an exercise using what we learned in Part 1.

📝 Exercise 1: Answer the following questions for both the Exclusion Zone Botanist hexcrawl map and the Eleventh Beast pointcrawl map:

1. Which elements are included? Paths, edges, districts, nodes, landmarks?

2. What is good about each map?

3. What are some potential problems with the maps?

Done?

Let’s proceed!

The maps work well for the games as designed. While working on an expanded map for Exclusion Zone Botanist: Epsilon, however, I noticed that expanding the hexcrawl map led to a potential issue. For reference, the map has concentric Area Rings with the primary objective being to reach the centermost ring and get back out.

Everything is (still) pointcrawl.

It’s the problem I explained in detail in Everything is Pointcrawl: A rational player, assuming limited time and resources, will take the shortest path from their starting location to the goal.

This means that given an exploration-focused hex map of sufficiently large size but with almost no pre-determined terrain or points of interest, the player will skip most of the hexes.1 They will take the shortest path to the goal and then take the same shortest path on the way back out. The large hexcrawl map then becomes, in effect, a pointcrawl map with just two nodes.

📝 Exercise 2: Let’s try the same exercise as above with the expanded hexcrawl map shown above. Can you identify edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks on this map? Which ones are missing? How does that impact the potential gameplay?

Even with the concentric Area Rings on the map (shown in red) the shortcut through the EZ will still exist. Players may very well ignore a large part of the map.

Translating hexcrawls to pointcrawls

We can actually look at hexcrawl maps as pointcrawl maps. As shown above, a hexcrawl is really just a pointcrawl where every node has 6 connections (paths) to adjacent nodes.

By expressing this map as a pointcrawl, we can both identify and resolve some of the potential issues noted above.2 Consider this revised map:

There are fewer nodes with fewer paths connecting them. This immediately constrains movement and makes each route feel different. In addition, we can add multiple entry/exit points, making the starting location matter. And finally, we can overlay the concentric Area Rings to create districts that impact gameplay.

This ability to look at a map and view it as a pointcrawl is a key step in viewing maps as data. We are going to try this with some examples and exercises, but first we need a quick definition!

Wait. It’s all graphs?

Whereas I’ve been calling maps made of nodes connected by paths “pointcrawl” maps, they could more precisely be called graphs:

“In discrete mathematics, particularly in graph theory, a graph is a structure consisting of a set of objects where some pairs of the objects are in some sense “related”. The objects are represented by abstractions called vertices (also called nodes or points) and each of the related pairs of vertices is called an edge (also called link or line).”3

You can see this illustrated clearly in my early notes from the Ratsail prototype where I sketched out the connections between the various islands.4 I drew the map as a pointcrawl (undirected graph) and then applied an island theme to it.

If you were to make a box around each island, it becomes clear that it is still just nodes connected by paths (where paths are to adjacent boxes). There are faint blue lines in the image above showing this.

So if every map is really a graph in disguise, can we convert every map into an equivalent graph? Well, we can certainly try!

Converting maps into graphs

Above is the classic example I always use in the game design classes I teach at public libraries. I show the Risk map expressed as a graph to illustrate theme vs. mechanisms. Risk wouldn’t be nearly as fun as an abstract, themeless game conducted on an undirected graph, but it would be mechanically equivalent.5 It is, therefore, a good introductory example of converting maps into graphs.

A slightly trickier example is the map of Cy (the main city) from CY_BORG. The map, as shown in the core rulebook, is extremely stylized and (presumably) not intended to be used as a pointcrawl map. If we take adjacency as paths and districts as nodes, we can, however, convert it into a graph.

The same can be done for the Blood Rage map as shown above. Immediately, the importance of the fjords (marked “F” and shown in blue) and Yggdrasil (center) becomes obvious. It also shows how the map is more symmetrical than you might first expect.

The Root map is almost a graph as displayed in the finished product, but we can simplify it further. The image above shows the game map on the left and color-coded graph equivalent on the right. It becomes more clear how important that red node on the left is (i.e. the one with 5 connections).

Most maps can be reduced to or represented as graphs — a network of nodes connected by lines.

Now you try it!

Dune: War for Arrakis has a large, thematic map made up of multiple adjacent zones. There are different terrain types, landmarks, and edges that block paths. The map is too large for a quick map-to-graph exercise, so let’s zoom in on just part of it. I find it’s helpful to mark each area with a dot to get started.

📝 Exercise 3: As a hands-on exercise, try to convert this fragment of the Dune: War for Arrakis map into a graph. Each area will be a node. Consider adjacent nodes as connected paths. Label the nodes where appropriate and note the terrain type.

Got it?

Okay, then here’s what it might look like as a graph:

Granted, this is less pretty than the original, but it shows the underlying data of the map. For example, Arakeen stands out as being better connected than Carthag, as it has four connections rather than three. Rimwall West (which can be destroyed in the game) is particularly well connected.

Practice turning maps into graphs

The ability to look at a map and quickly turn it into a graph is a skill that can be practiced and developed. You can use almost any map that you have handy — dungeon maps, board game maps, anything.

I’ve found the maps from area control games like Rising Sun, El Grande, and Rumble Nation to be particularly good examples. The nodes, connections, edges, paths, and landmarks are obscured by the art and design. Converting these maps into graphs immediately shows the key locations and reveals potential strategies.

📝 Exercise 4: Give it a try! Look up the maps for each of the three games above online. Grab a pencil and paper and convert each one into a graph. How does the graph version of the map change your view of it? Where are the key nodes with the most connections? How would seeing the map as a graph change your strategy?

The other parts

As noted above, this series is based on a talk I gave at Harrisburg University on making better maps. Part 1 was about building a better vocabulary to discuss maps, and Part 2 (this one) was practicing converting maps into graphs.

I covered two other topics with exercises in the class:

• Four methods for better maps: Using maps (e.g. The Caverns of Thracia) by Jennell Jaquays as examples, we covered multiple entrances/exits, loops and hubs, discontinuous levels, and secret paths. Many of these concepts are illustrated in Map Crow’s video on how to fix your dungeon.

• Five room dungeons: We then used Johnn Four’s Five Room Dungeon model to quickly generate small dungeon maps.6 After adding a boss using Massive Damage, we then analyzed the maps as graphs and improved them using the four methods above. You’d be surprised at how fun the maps became in just one or two iterative design cycles!

We ended the class with a discussion of the Counter-Strike Dust II (de_dust2) map created by David Johnston in 2001. It is a masterwork — combining paths, edges, nodes, districts, and landmarks in interesting ways.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Everything is pointcrawl: As I jokingly claimed in the title of Everything is Pointcrawl, almost all maps can be expressed as pointcrawls. This is because, as we saw in Part 1 of this series, maps store data about the relationships of paths, nodes, landmarks, edges, and districts to each other. If graphs are simply a visual representation of the relationship of objects to each other, it makes sense that most maps can be turned into graphs.

• Convert and analyze: It can be hard to dissect and analyze a game map in its fully produced form with art and theme applied. By converting game maps to graphs, we can see the underlying information and data contained within the map. We can then analyze and improve the map.

• Practicing skills: By practicing the skill of converting maps into graphs, we can get better at it. Eventually, it will be almost impossible to look at a map without seeing the underlying data as a graph. Having this ability will allow you to make better maps.

What do you think? How did you do on converting maps into graphs? Can you think of a map that would be particularly tricky to convert? If so, leave it in the comments below!

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on making better maps by thinking about them as graphs and data, based on a talk I gave at Harrisburg University in March 2026.1

The goal of this first part of the talk was to give everyone an improved vocabulary for discussing maps during the rest of the hands-on session.

Draw a map of your neighborhood

This week’s article is going to be hands on. Go grab a pencil and paper. I’ll wait here until you get back.

Done? Ready? OK.

Draw a map of your neighborhood on the paper from memory.2 Don’t use your phone, online maps, or outside reference material. Just do it completely from memory.

Include as much detail and location information as you can. I’m not going to give you any other instructions or specific requirements than that. Just pretend that you are going to hand this map to someone else. Think about whether they would be able to walk to your house without using GPS?

Got your map done? If so, we shall continue!

Cognitive vs. physical maps

If you did the exercise above, you just made a map!

The map already existed, however, inside your head. That’s how you were able to draw it on a piece of paper without looking up other information first. What you used was the cognitive map in your head. By drawing it on paper, you converted that cognitive map into a physical map.3

Edward Tolman introduced the concept of cognitive maps in the 1940s based on his work with rats in mazes. His rats were able to learn the layout of the maze and could choose the correct path even when placed in different parts of the maze. The rats were able to determine the path to the food, not just perform simple “always turn right” behavior.

This allows us to talk about two kinds of maps: cognitive maps vs. physical maps. It doesn’t, however, really tell us what a map is.

But what even is a map?

So it turns out we all have these invisible maps in our heads, and rats do too. With a pencil or pen, we can export these maps from our heads to create physical objects. We can then use those objects to communicate map data to others. Pretty cool.

But what even is a map?

Let’s say I draw a circle on a sheet of paper and label it Paris. Is that a map? I would think most people would say, no, it is not a map. It’s just a circle and a city name on a piece of paper.

Perhaps a map is about relationships. If I add a second city to the map now the two points are expressed in relation to one another. They aren’t touching. At least on this paper, they are shown sort of diagonally separated. Is that a map?

Taking this a step further, we can add multiple cities to the paper: Paris, Rouen, Reims, Troyes, and Orléans. We can also connect them by lines and indicate the approximate distance between the actual cities in kilometers. Certainly this is starting to feel more like a map.

Finally, if we overlay this on a detailed view of France with other cities, bodies of water, roads, terrain, and more, we now have something that almost everyone would agree is a map!

This illustrates how there’s a bit of a blurry line between “map” and “not a map”. It also shows that the relationships between the items on the map are important.

A better vocabulary for maps

Although not a strict definition, it would appear that a key element of a map is showing the relationships of places. It is not sufficient to simply have a dot that says Paris. It is the addition of relative distances, directions, sizes, and shapes that makes something feel more like a map.

This idea of relationships is core to Kevin Lynch’s study on how people create mental maps of cities.4 In The Image of the City (1960) he says:

“At every instant, there is more than the eye can see, more than the ear can hear, a setting or a view waiting to be explored. Nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of past experiences. Washington Street set in a farmer’s field might look like the shopping street in the heart of Boston, and yet it would seem utterly different. Every citizen has had long associations with some part of his city, and his image is soaked in memories and meanings.”

He then goes on to delineate five specific qualities or features that people use to create these relational maps of their surroundings. Let’s look at each one in order because they have broad applications in game design.

1. Paths

Paths are the channels where people move. They are the streets, walkways, subway lines, and canals. They are the way most people experience the city and how they build their cognitive maps. Examples: Broadway in NYC, The Thames Path in London, train routes in Ticket to Ride, and Whiterun’s main street in Skyrim.

2. Edges

Edges are the linear boundaries that are not paths. They are walls, shorelines, or borders that exist between districts. They often define where logical spaces begin and end. Examples: The Berlin Wall, the waterfront edge of Manhattan, the coastline border in Catan, impassable mountain ranges in video games, borders between regions in El Grande.

3. Districts

Districts are sections of the city with distinct, recognizable character. You can enter, pass through, and exit these sections. They are identifiable from the inside and/or the outside. Unlike edges which are almost always physical barriers, districts often have indistinct borders with no clear, physical dividing lines. Examples: Little Italy in NYC, The French Quarter in New Orleans, biomes in Minecraft, regions in Risk or Blood Rage.

4. Nodes

Nodes are focal points that act as junctions, hubs, plazas. They are concentrated centers of activity that people can travel through. They can be easily identified because they are often the intersections where paths meet. Examples: Times Square, Grand Central Station, a historic town square, intersections of routes in Ticket to Ride.

5. Landmarks

Landmarks are external points of reference that people use to orient themselves while in a city. They are distinctive builds, signs, features, or other notable objects. You don’t enter a landmark like you would a district. Instead the key feature of a landmark is that it breaks up the continuous line of other features. Lynch notes this in The Image of the City (p. 101):

“The essential characteristic of a viable landmark, on the other hand, is its singularity, its contrast with its context or background. It may be a tower silhouetted over low roofs, flowers against a stone wall, a bright surface in a drab street, a church among stores, a projection in a continuous facade.”

Examples: Empire State Building, a large mountain peak, the World Tree Yggdrasil in Valheim, a tall building in the distance in DayZ.

Looking at our maps again

Take another look at the map you made when we started. Which of Lynch’s five features did you include? Did you skip any of them? Did you draw the paths or landmarks first? Are the edges and districts shown?

Update your map, but this time while thinking carefully about the five types of features: Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks. Add at least one of each type.

Think about how adding each of these elements improves the map. Consider how adding them allows someone to create a better cognitive map of your neighborhood.

Building blocks for the designer

Of course, you may have added some elements to your map that don’t neatly fit into one of these five categories. Like most models, this one isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.5 Lynch notes this in The Image of the City (p. 109):

“The five elements — path, edge, district, node, and landmark — must be considered simply as convenient empirical categories, within and around which it has been possible to group a mass of information. To the extent that they are useful, they will act as building blocks for the designer. Having mastered their characteristics, he will have the task of organizing a whole which will be sensed sequentially, whose parts will be perceived only in context.”

Much like how learning the different kinds of fun can help us move away from simply saying, “This game is fun.” and get us closer to explaining why a game is fun, Lynch’s city features give a better vocabulary for talking about maps.

Like he says above, the paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks become the building blocks we can use to create better maps. In this case, better being defined as more conducive to players creating mental maps.

Maps as data

Maps are a way to represent spatial relationships, and Lynch’s elements give designers a useful vocabulary when discussing those relationships.

Once we realize that we have cognitive maps in our head, that they are all made of a set of core building blocks, and that we can export these maps to paper to communicate them, maps become a lot less mysterious. We can now think of maps as data whether they are in our heads, scribbled on a sheet of paper, or printed in a TTRPG adventure.

Consider the classic Dungeons & Dragons map above.6 Can you identify examples of each of the five elements?

It is important that players of both TTRPGs and board games can create cognitive maps of the game world. As we improve our maps with loops, multiple levels, and distinct areas, they need to be able to have a mental map rather than constantly referencing a physical map.

In the next part

I want to thank Nicolas Oueijan for his GDC talk called Stop Getting Lost: Make Cognitive Maps, Not Levels. Watching the video of his talk introduced me to Kevin Lynch’s work, gave me the neighborhood map exercise, and permanently changed how I think about games. I strongly encourage you to check it out.

In the next part, we will begin to think about maps as graphs — a topic we’ve already mentioned in Everything is Pointcrawl. Watch for it next week!

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Vocabulary changes how you think: Smarter people than me have discussed this as a philosophical principle, but I do agree that having the words for things allows you to think about them in new ways.7 By learning the kinds of fun, we can have meaningful discussions about the enjoyment derived from games. By learning the elements of maps, we can develop a deeper understanding of map design.

• Building blocks of maps: Although not a perfect model, Lynch’s five elements of path, edge, district, node, and landmark are incredibly useful. They allow us to analyze existing maps, breaking them into their component pieces. They also allow us to take those blocks and construct something new.

• Maps as data: One might think of a map as “a piece of paper with a picture of an area on it.” They’d be sort of right, of course. Thinking about maps as data structures that exist in our heads and can be exported to paper is, perhaps, a more useful way of thinking about them. Combined with thinking about them as graphs (as we’ll see in the next part), it can become a powerful design tool.

What do you think? How’d you do on creating a map of your neighborhood? Did you include all of Lynch’s five elements? Which ones did you miss on your first attempt? Let me know in the comments below.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

You are a mushroom.

You don’t move. You don’t speak. You simply grow, observe, and wait. Seasons come and go.

You might even be eaten, but that’s okay.

You’ll grow back.

It’s just nice to be a mushroom for a while.

Amigurumi mushroom crochet pattern inside! See below!

A mushroom journaling game

I’m happy to announce a new game from Exeunt Press!

In We are Mushrooms, you begin the game by deciding what sort of mushroom you’d like to be: shape, size, color, notable feature, edibility, and name. You make a map and situate yourself within the forest. Each round you’ll observe (and journal) what you see and grow larger.

Thieves, knights, monks, animals, and others will pass through your forest clearing, each leaving their mark.1 One might bury a box only to have another dig it up later. A fox will create a burrow and raise pups. Shrines are created and destroyed. You might even be picked by the herbalist or eaten by a deer.

I want to be a mushroom.

Grow and spread

Each round of the game you’ll have a chance to grow. Some forest visitors may cause your growth to decrease (e.g. if they eat you), but don’t worry too much about being picked or eaten. Most of your mushroom structure is safely underground. You’ll just take a short break and then grow right back.

If you ever reach your maximum growth value (three dice stacked, each at their maximum value), you will disperse your spores and spread to nearby areas. When that happens, you’ll choose two adjacent locations on the map and draw your mushroom in them.2 Then you’ll reset your growth and begin the cycle again.

Eventually winter will arrive.

For a mushroom, that simply means waiting and reflecting on your time in the forest as the game comes to a peaceful conclusion.

A solo game to play together

Can you play this solo game with others? Yes!

Some parts of the experience can be shared. All players start and end the game at the same time. When rolling for an encounter, all players (i.e. mushrooms) will experience that same event. How players react to and imagine events, however, will be an individual experience for each player.

Rules are included for a Head Mushroom to facilitate and coordinate the game.

The goal is to provide a framework where any number of players can have a shared activity and yet feel comfortable exploring their own creativity and imagination.

Make your own lil’ mushroom friend

We are Mushrooms includes a crochet pattern for “Cocoa the Mushroom” custom designed for the game by Ceylon Crochet. Photos and step-by-step instructions guide you through the process, including recommended colors.3

I couldn’t be happier with the design. He’s adorable!

Print + PDF included

When you order We are Mushrooms via the Exeunt Press Shop, you’ll get both the print version (perfect-bound, A5, approx. 88 pages) and the digital PDF.4 Your order will include a printed slip when it ships containing a download key redeemable at itch.io.5

If you’d prefer to get just the PDF by itself, that is also available.

Print + PDF Bundle

A quiet game of observation

We are Mushrooms is, in some ways, the spiritual successor to You are a Muffin.

It is the same relaxed and cozy experience of careful observation and reflection. It is made to be played by yourself but also, however, made to be played with others. It is explicitly both a solo game and a multiplayer game.

Now more than ever, there is value in solo roleplaying as an exercise in analog creativity. In a world inundated by screens and driven by algorithms, it can be nice to spend some quiet time with pen and paper. It might be even nicer to spend that quiet time together.

Whether you choose to play this game by yourself or with others, have fun being a mushroom… if only for a little while.

Get it now at the Exeunt Press Shop. Use code IMAFUNGI for 10% off your order.

– E.P. 💀

Subscribe now

It is no secret that I look forward to Unknown Dungeon’s One-Page RPG Jam every year. To me, the jam has always been a great example of how people can create fun, innovative games in small spaces at low/no cost. This year is no exception, with almost 200 submissions with about 12 days to go.

This week I want to look at six one-page RPGs that were submitted to the jam, explore what makes them interesting, and maybe inspire you to make your own.1 The first two are my own creations, and the other four are from others.

All of them can provide design inspiration to make your own one-page RPG! Not sure where to start? Roll 1d6 and start there!

1. The Walden Paradox

You are Henry David Thoreau. It’s 1846 and you are living simply and deliberately at the cabin you built at Walden Pond. Visitors keep showing up, however, who seem overly interested in your personal details. While you came to observe nature, you are the one being observed like an exhibit in a zoo as time itself begins to unravel.

Like Eleventh Beast and Exclusion Zone Botanist, which began as one-page games, I wanted The Walden Paradox to have a tight, clear core game loop. Each cycle you greet a new visitor, check for time paradoxes, and update your journal.

My hope is that The Walden Paradox evokes the same feeling as watching an old episode of The Twilight Zone or reading a story in Weird Tales: the slow realization of a more subtle kind of horror.

The Walden Paradox

2. Wizard Fuel Duel

During a recent run I got the phrase “fuel duel” stuck in my head. That somehow turned into Wizard Fuel Duel, a very silly two-player wizard battle game. And thus was born my second jam entry.

Although I usually prefer increasing decision spaces, Wizard Fuel Duel uses ever-shrinking ones. Each player begins with 6 face-up cards in front of them, representing their wizard fuel and ability to cast spells. You then take turns rolling 3d6, choosing two dice to be the Action and Essence of your attack and the remaining die to be your rival’s card that you are targeting. Drain your opponent’s ace card and they can no longer use the Summon action or the Undead essence.

We had fun during the playtest with this one as you eventually are forced into combinations such as Ignite Animal (“I pull a frog from my pocket. It bursts into flames as I throw it at you!”) and Infuse Object (“I fill your pants with poison.”).2

Wizard Fuel Duel

3. SELVES

I love games that blend real world aspects into the world of the game. SELVES is “a deeply human field journal RPG” by What Else that does just that. It’s a game about people watching that can be done anywhere you might be able to “observe respectfully.”3

You’ll observe one of 1d6 aspects of the stranger: Movement, Posture, Material, Mark, Expression, or Habit. This part is objective and based on what you can directly observe. Then you’ll use a depth crawl mechanism to imagine a story about them, eventually creating a core truth and a reminder for the future (outside of the game).

4. Creature Comforts

Can you help dungeon monsters find love? In Creature Comforts by Roman Hyacinth, you are a dungeon matchmaker “specializing in the misunderstood.” You’ll meet a new client (with longings and insecurities), set them up on a date, and see how it goes.

It’s a good example of how a game with little (or no) player agency can make you feel something and create a fun gaming experience. I’ve discussed before how not all games need player agency (in the mechanical sense).

I’m just rolling dice, but I am emotionally invested in my blundering skeleton who always dreamed of living with a partner. How did their first date (in the treasure vault) go with a gelatinous cube who’s worried about their food allergy?!

5. FRINK!

You are a FRINK! — a monster made of parts and pieces. Each player is one of those pieces, such as an arm, leg, or head.4 The head issues commands to the body, which may or may not follow the orders. The system of tests, challenges, and attacks is all based on d6 dice pools with advantage/disadvantage.

The included “Homecoming” adventure has 7 areas packed with weird and evocative details, all laid out in a format reminiscent of the “Rotblack Sludge” adventure in the MÖRK BORG core rulebook. Descriptions are terse and keywords are bolded. There’s even a list of D6 Wandering Encounters.

The One-Page RPG Jam always has a lot of solo journaling game submissions because they naturally lend themselves to the constrained format. This year also has quite a few duel (or duet) games that support two players. FRINK! is, however, a stand-alone TTRPG with resolution mechanisms and a fully stocked dungeon. It’s a good example of how an entire game can fit into a one-page trifold brochure.

6. I Got Reincarnated in a Magical World and Must Use my Art Skills, Empathy, and this Box of Old Magazines to Convince People I’m a Witch!

In I Got Reincarnated… (with charming isekai-style title), you’ll be cutting up old magazines and photos and creating cards with scissors, glue, and other crafting materials — not unlike Jerry’s deck of cards.

After an unfortunate bookmobile accident, you are transported to a world of elves and magic. You are now a witch, and you’ll need to start acting like one. Roll dice on the D8 Problem Generator and craft a card to solve their problem. At the end, you’ll use the cards to tell the Queen of the Land what will happen in the future.

I love how the artifacts of play are the point in this game, and the mechanisms are the way to facilitate that.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Many kinds of one-page RPGs: I appreciate that Unknown Dungeon’s One-Page RPG Jam doesn’t get hung up on strict definitions. All sorts of games are submitted that blur the line between board game and TTRPG. There are traditional RPGs with a GM, solo journaling games, drawing games, collaborative storytelling, combat, exploration, and other more mechanical games. It’s the wide variety of submissions that I find so compelling about the jam.

• Practice analyzing games: I chose the games above because they each demonstrate some aspect of game design.5 Taking a moment to look hard at a game, to think about the core game loop, and to find one really interesting bit is a skill that can be practiced and developed. After a while, it becomes hard not to do it!

• There’s still time to make your own: By the time you are reading this, there are probably about 10-12 days left to make your own one-page RPG to submit to the jam. I’ve posted a big list of resources to help you do that, including sources for free public domain art. I strongly encourage you to give it a try!

Did you make a one-page game for this year’s jam? Are you working on one with one eye on the looming deadline? I want to hear about it! Please share/promote your one-page game in the comments. Give us the pitch and include a link. (Note: This is for the 2026 jam only!)

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Get We are Mushrooms (Print + PDF) in the shop! Be the mushroom you’ve always wanted to be. Skeleton Code Machine readers can use code IMAFUNGI for 10% off your order. Offer expires August 7, 2026. 🍄

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

If you’ve ever run a tabletop roleplaying game, you’ve probably had to decide what is in a room or area. The adventurers kick open the door to a new dungeon room. You need to tell them what they see inside: Is there a monster waiting there patiently for someone to fight? An NPC to chat with? A trap attached to the door? Or an empty room?

This isn’t just a topic for GMs running TTRPGs. Solo RPG players often need to imagine what they find in a given room. Solo game designers often want to stock the dungeon for their players and need inspiration for map/level design.

This week I want to look at a few existing dungeon stocking systems and then propose one of my own. Not because I think mine is amazingly novel, but because I want to share what I’ve settled on after reading many different options.

Classic dungeon stocking tables

It can be useful to start at the beginning and look at how dungeons were stocked in early versions of Dungeons & Dragons. I happen to have three versions of the Dungeon Master’s Guide available to review, so let’s start with those first:

1. Advanced D&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1979)

I checked my copy of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide (1979) to see how Gary Gygax et al. proposed to stock dungeons.1 Appendix A (p. 169) covers Random Dungeon Generation and includes starting map areas, periodic checks, doors, special passages, rooms shapes, and number of exits. The tables focus on making a random dungeon map and placing treasure in the rooms.

Table V. F. Chamber or Room Contents (d20) contains, however, a high-level list of what one might find in a dungeon room grouped into six categories:

1. Empty

2. Monster only

3. Monster and treasure

4. Special or stairs

5. Trick/trap

6. Treasure

There are, of course, separate tables to use for monsters, treasures, and traps.

2. D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2000)

The inclusion of a section on dungeon construction continues into the 3rd edition version of the Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide (2000). In Chapter 4: Adventures there is a section on Random Dungeons (p. 118). Table 4-9: Door Types contains an impressive D100 list of wooden, stone, and iron doors.2 Table 4-10: Room Contents is, however, the one I find most interesting. It’s a d100 list of things to find when opening the door to a new room: 01-50 are related to monsters, 51-79 are features including treasure and traps, 80-81 are treasure, 82 is a trap, and 83-100 are nothing. Compressing this list we see:

1. Monsters

2. Feature (items, trinkets, and other furnishings)

3. Hidden treasure (with or without a trap)

4. Trap (without monster or treasure)

5. Nothing (empty room)

Although rearranged, this is similar in many ways to the 1979 Chamber or Room Contents table. This general style will continue into the 5th edition as well.

3. D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

The 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014) expands the appendix from the 1979 version as Appendix A: Random Dungeons (p. 290). Starting areas, passages, and doors are all there, although the door types are trimmed down to a mere d20 list.

There is a “Stocking a Dungeon” subsection in Appendix A that includes a discussion of chamber purpose based on the adventure environment. There are individual d20 tables for many types of environments such as Death Trap, Lair, Maze, Mine, and Planar Gate. The d100 Dungeon Chamber Contents table (p. 296) is the one that looks most familiar:

1. Monsters

2. Hazard

3. Obstacle

4. Trap

5. Trick

6. Empty room

It’s notable that many of these results are a mix of more than one type. Even some of the “empty room” results also contain treasure or hazards which, to me, would make them decidedly not empty.

What’s also notable is the inclusion of Hazard and Obstacle as distinct types of room contents. The book provides a short list of example hazards: molds, slimes, spiderwebs, and fungus. Obstacles are also detailed in a separate d20 table including an antilife aura, blade barriers, cave-ins, flooding, lava, fire, and poisonous gas.3

Hazards, in this context, are dangers that exist in uninhabited areas and could be cleared out. Obstacles are anything that blocks progression through the dungeon and often can’t permanently cleared. For example, a chasm or lava flow will remain in place even if the adventurers figure out a way to traverse it.

Even more stocking methods

In researching the various dungeon stocking methods and models available, I came across quite a few modern ones. Many of these are from the indie TTRPG communities, using the D&D tables as inspiration and making them their own.

I couldn’t possibly cover them all, but there are four that are important to mention:

4. Cairn 2e Dungeon Die Drop Table

The Cairn RPG Warden’s Guide is a helpful online resource not just for running that specific game but also as a general reference in game design.4 The Dungeon Seeds section contains the Dungeon Die Drop Table that uses a simple 1d6 roll and the following four categories:

1. Monster (dangerous creatures)

2. Lore (clues, mysteries, lessons)

3. Special (obstacles, puzzles, challenges)

4. Trap (dangerous and hidden devices)

By rolling the dice on the dungeon map, the location of the dice indicates where the rooms are and the result (face value) indicates what is in the room.

It is the Lore option that is particularly interesting in this system:

“Lore rooms should build on the theme of the dungeon, provide a valuable lesson, or connect the characters with an NPC or Faction. They might create a dilemma that unites the party or puts them at odds with their mission. At a minimum, these rooms act as a curiosity, adding something memorable to the experience beyond danger and puzzle-solving.”

I like that this reinforces the addition of explicitly narrative-advancing things in the dungeon. Not everything needs to be a trap to disarm or something to hit with a sword.

5. Necropraxis Hazard System v0.3

The Hazard System by NecroPraxis is one of the top results that comes up when looking for various dungeon stocking methods:

“The six-sided hazard die deploys threats, manages resources such as light, and keeps time. It is the engine that drives gameplay forward, ensuring that choices have consequences while minimizing bookkeeping.”

The list departs from the “monster, treasure, trap” model used in the earlier D&D Dungeon Master’s Guides and uses slightly more abstract language:

1. Setback (encounter or disaster)

2. Fatigue (reduce or consume resources)

3. Expiration (clear a condition)

4. Locality (advance or shift the state of something)

5. Percept (clues and foreshadowing)

6. Advantage (recovery or free turn)

This list is highly versatile in how it can be used and implemented. The Hazard System page gives examples of interpreting the results in wilderness settings, dungeon exploration, or even using it to drive combat turns. Where some dungeon stocking lists can feel constrained to classic “monsters in a dungeon” settings, this one feels broad enough to use almost anywhere. It has applications far beyond simply stocking rooms in a dungeon.

I also appreciate the ordering of the list. Higher rolls are better than lower rolls, which makes it easier for me to mentally internalize the results.

6. Liminal Horror Voidcrawl Procedure

Liminal Horror is a “rules-lite survival horror roleplaying game about normal characters and their struggles against the things that go bump in the night.” It’s a survival-horror TTRPG that usually uses a modern setting rather than medieval dungeons. While not explicitly a “dungeon stocking” table, the Voidcrawl Procedure (p. 28) included in the Liminal Horror Investigators Guide has connections to the topic.

A voidcrawl is a “turn-based system for Liminal Horror sessions that creates a procedure for exploring the dark and neglected spaces where those touched by the abyss reside. It uses an overloaded encounter die to inform what happens next and bring the focus on the narrative.”

A d20 is rolled once per turn to determine what happens next based on the following 8 categories:

1. Dire Omen (foreshadowing changes)

2. Encounter (could be a monster)

3. Horror (increase stress)

4. Setback (hazard or resource depletion)

5. Locality (environment change)

6. Clue (hint or warning)

7. Free (nothing or temporary effect clears)

8. Regroup (regain health or resources)

This system isn’t made for classic dungeon crawls, and yet I think it could be used to stock a dungeon. It’s abstracted concepts much like the Hazard System above. In fact, they share the concept of locality being a change in environment or state of something.5 The Clue and Percept items are similar too.

I like that the voidcrawl list contains an explicit Regroup type — a safe room that serves to replenish resources, gives players a tiny break, and rest. It’s exceedingly rare, only happening on a roll of 20, making it feel special. I’m not sure I’ve seen something like this in many other dungeon stocking models.

7. Murkdice Dungeon Stocking Overhaul

The final list I want to mention is the Murkdice Dungeon Stocking Overhaul. Based on both the classic D&D and the Cairn 2e procedures above, it uses a d6 roll like the Hazard System.6

1. NPC (monsters, factions, etc.)

2. Information (clues, hints, warnings)

3. Hazard (traps and environmental hazards)

4. Opportunity (treasure, supplies, safety, hidden shortcuts)

This is similar to some of the other systems mentioned above. There is a Information category that aligns with the Clue, Percept, and Lore categories used elsewhere. Hazards are specifically called out.

GMs using this system can (and should) include more than one type of item in a given room. For example, a room might have two pieces of information and a hazard.

Opportunities are given their own group which I quite like. This includes treasure, supplies, and safety. It’s similar to the Liminal Horror Regroup if taken alone or a bit riskier if combined with a hazard.

THORCS!

I’m interested in stocking dungeons for use in solo games. Reading countless discussions and blogs about the various ways to do this has been enlightening. As is to be expected, however, I am left wanting a system that takes my favorite parts from all of them.

Thus was born THORCS! — our eighth and final system of this survey.7

THORCS! is yet another dungeon stocking system.8 My goal was to make it flexible enough for use in any setting and yet specific enough that the results were useful. It has six categories:

1. Threat: Unavoidable, direct threats to life and limb. This includes monsters but also always-hostile NPCs. Combat encounters would go here. After defeat, threats are cleared from the room. You push through the webs into the room and are attacked by giant spiders.

2. Hazard: Environmental obstacles that may cause injury or other physical barriers. Hazards are explicitly non-combat encounters that can not be avoided. They remain in place and probably can’t be cleared. A mass of animated roots cover the floor, blocking the path to the next chamber.

3. Opportunity: A potential benefit that required a test or challenge, but is completely optional. Opportunities are about risk and reward, remaining in place until the adventurers interact with them. (I love a push your luck mechanism.) Valuable herbs are growing high up on the cave wall, requiring a dangerous climb to collect them.

4. Resource: Loot! These are valuables, supplies, boons, and other good stuff with low or no risk. Unlike Safe rooms (below) these are not located in areas where the adventurers can rest. Once collected, the resource is removed from the room. You find the corpse of an adventurer with backpack filled with gear.

5. Complication: This is the opposite of Resource rooms (above). Something bad happens, but it is non-combat and non-hazard. Complications increase terror, slow progress, consume resources, or reveal omens. These are almost always one-time events. Something moves through the underbrush and your torch flickers out.

6. Safe: Take a breather. Safe rooms allow adventurers to rest, recover stamina, and heal. Unlike Resource rooms, these areas are truly safe and come with zero risk. The safe rooms remain safe even after the adventurers leave. There is a hot spring here, emitting soothing vapors.

None of these categories are new, and hopefully you can see the inspiration from all of the dungeon stocking systems above.9 Splitting Hazards and Opportunities out like Murkdice is a key feature, leaning more into the risk involved in the opportunities. Liminal Horror’s Setback and Regroup are the inspiration for Complications and Safe rooms. Building this list helped me formalize what each of these terms meant to me, and how I could (should) use them in games.

Although lore, clues, and information are not explicitly addressed in THORCS!, they could be rolled into the Resource category. Information is sometimes more valuable than silver coins or a fancy dagger. Therefore, I didn’t feel the need to include it as a separate category. Also, this keeps the list to just six items, making it easy to use with d6 dice.

Rolling and ranges

I didn’t assign dice values to the items. Instead they can be adjusted as necessary to fit a given probability distribution. For example, rolling 1d6 on THORCS! gives a flat (equal) distribution. For more differentiation between the types, a 2d6 could be used with assigned ranges:

• 2-3: Threat

• 4-5: Hazard

• 6-9: Opportunity

• 10: Resource

• 11: Complication

• 12: Safe

The range above would keep Threats and Safe rooms rare because the results will cluster around 7 vs. 2 or 12. Which categories show up the most often depends on the game, setting, and desired kind of fun.

For the player or for the designer?

Why would I bother making another dungeon stocking system?

For me, this comes from working on two upcoming solo dungeon crawl games. In both games, I want to include large lists of pre-made rooms. Rather than having the player make multiple rolls to figure out what is in the room, I’d like them to be able to just roll once (maybe twice) and get a fully stocked chamber.

As I started to write out a list of 50+ rooms, I noticed they were naturally falling into a few categories: monsters, hazards, and so on. That is what led me down the path of researching dungeon stocking tables, and realizing that many people have already solved this problem.10

I wouldn’t expect THORCS! to be a player-facing tool. Instead, it is an internal development framework that I can use when stocking chambers or creating encounters for solo games. It acts as both a reminder to include all of the various types but also a source of inspiration if I get stuck.

If it’s helpful for me, I thought it might be helpful for you too!

Conclusion

We looked at 8 different dungeon stocking systems:

1. Advanced D&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1979)

2. D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2000)

3. D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

4. Cairn 2e Dungeon Die Drop Table

5. Necropraxis Hazard System v0.3

6. Liminal Horror Voidcrawl Procedure11

7. Murkdice Dungeon Stocking Overhaul

8. THORCS!

Some things to think about:

• Dungeon stocking systems: There are countless ways to stock dungeon rooms dating back to the very beginning of TTRPGs. There is no right or wrong way to accomplish the task. I recommend reading many different systems and picking the one that works best for you.

• Specific or abstract: A dungeon stocking system can be very specific, indicating a “monster” is in a room. The system can also be abstract, simply indicating that there is a “threat” present. I used to prefer highly specific tables, but lately I’ve come to appreciate ones that are more abstract and flexible.

• It’s OK to reinvent the wheel: Creating THORCS! did more than just give me a framework for generating game content. The process of putting it together helped me think about what an encounter should be, what kinds of areas should be present, and what I would want in a dungeon crawl. It’s OK to reinvent the wheel when you want to learn more about wheels and the wheel making process.12

What do you think? Do you have a favorite dungeon stocking table that you use? Would THORCS! be helpful to you when generating a dungeon?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

The jam is upon us!

Unknown Dungeon’s One-Page RPG Jam 2026 is happening right now.1 It runs from July 12 through August 16, 2026, giving you more than 25 days to make a weird little game to submit to it.

It’s a perfect time to go through the submissions from previous jam years and get some inspiration. This week we are looking at one from last year’s jam called One Hundred Rats Devour a Tavern. It has a fun theme, tight core game loop, and uses an interesting way to generate a map.

One Hundred Rats Devour a Tavern

One Hundred Rats Devour a Tavern is written by B. Lee, J. Lee, and N. Robina. It is published by The Ravensridge Press.2 The hook is simple and effective:

“You are a sentient swarm of vengeful rats. For too long have your kind been trapped, kicked, poisoned and killed. It’s time to fight back. This tavern has been unkind to your kin, but now it’s time for revenge. Cause havoc and repel the foul humans.”3

Rather than the player assuming the role of a single entity or character, they instead play as a group of characters. Each game has the player rolling up five new rats, each with a name (Potato), trait (baby-faced), and habit (scurries).

The core game loop involves choosing the next available room of the tavern and checking for obstacles and threats. Obstacles could be something falling over or the humans launching a counter-attack. Threats are trickier and apply de-buffs.

Your rats can then take turns attempting to beat obstacles or reduce the threats by rolling dice. It’s a harsh system where rolling a 1-3 results in not only failure but the death of a rat. My poor baby-faced Potato died in the first room while trying to reduce the threat of “delicious smells” coming from somewhere in the tavern.

The rats must be fed with available food (or starve and die), and then the process continues. The goal is to conquer each room of the tavern and “burn it all to the ground.”

Making a map with dice

I found the process for making the tavern map to be particularly interesting. Not only because it was quick and easy, but also because it could be explained in the very tight space of a one-page RPG.

After rolling 12d6, they are placed on the table following some specific rules:

1. A new die must be placed adjacent to a die with the nearest number of pips.

2. Dice with 1 pip are placed last and can’t be placed adjacent to another die with just 1 pip.

3. If a die can’t be placed, it is removed from the game.

Each die placed in this way represents a room in the tavern. For example, 1s are entrances and 5s are kitchens. Four dice are added after the random ones to ensure that there are at least two entrances, one kitchen, and one larder. The full tavern map, therefore, has 16 rooms at the start of the game.

Generating dungeon maps

I’ve written about the challenges of generating dungeon maps before, including methods that involve rolling dice. Dark Fort is a good example where you roll for the room contents, shape, and number of exists.4 It’s an easy method that is quick to use.

In that article, I also looked at card-driven rooms, card grid exploration, and custom tiles (e.g. geomorphs). Each has its own pros and cons.

The dice method in One Hundred Rats Devour a Tavern avoid many of the cons listed:

• It doesn’t require custom components (e.g. tiles or special dice).

• It avoids excessive dice rolling.

• Dead ends are unlikely.

The immediate problem I thought of was if you don’t roll any 1s, there would be no entrance. That was easily handled by the included rule where four dice are held back and set to specific values (1, 1, 5, 6).

The simple placement rules ensure that the highest value rooms are toward the center of the tavern while lower value (and therefore lower risk) ones are toward the edges.5

I’m not sure if this dice-based map generating system is inspired by another game, but it’s the first time I’ve seen something like this. It’s quite interesting!

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Generating maps: Having the player create a dungeon map is a tricky task. While it increases replayability, it also increases the risk of burdensome mechanisms or suboptimal (broken) maps. The method above seems to be a good solution.

• Core game loop: One thing I appreciate about One-Page RPGs is that it forces designers to be clear and explicit about their game’s core game loop. The game is distilled down to its essence on a single sheet of paper. It can, however, be expanded later — as is being done with One Thousand Rats Devour a City.

• Playing as many characters: I’ve been fascinated by TTRPGs where you play as a group or team of characters rather than a single one. Playing as a swarm of rats (many of whom will die quickly) is a good example.

What do you think? Have you seen this map-making method used in other games?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Unknown Dungeon’s One-Page RPG Jam 2026 is underway! The annual game jam has participants creating roleplaying games on a single sheet of paper. I’m a big fan of this event and encourage you to check it out. In fact, I wrote an entire Make Your Own One-Page RPG guide to make it easier for people to participate.1

Submissions are open from July 12, 2026 through August 16, 2026. More than enough time to come up with an idea and create something!

So this week, we are looking at how to pack a lot of content into a very small space — an important skill when making a one-page roleplaying game.

The classic random tables

In the roleplaying game world, a random table is a list of items with each item associated with a number of a die. This could be a single column of items or it could be a more complex table with multiple columns.2

The Locations and Events tables from Cybermetal 2012 (Adam Vass) shown above are examples of simple, D10 random tables. You roll a ten-sided die and get a single result. The Name/Handle table allows you to roll twice on it to get an independent name and independent handle that could be combined for a single NPC.

Take, for example, this D100 Critical Failure Table from Privateers & Gentlemen (Williams, 1982). Per the rules, if a character fumbles a strike (“he’s done something clumsy or foolish that has done harm to his cause”), the player must make an additional roll to see if a critical failure has occurred. If it has, the player must roll on the table:

Note that when rolling D100 (i.e. two ten-sided percentile dice), there is a flat or even distribution of all possible values. The table groups some of the results to create an uneven distribution. There’s a 10% chance that the character falls. There’s only a 1% chance that the character hits themself for maximum possible damage.

The D20 Hit Location and Wounds Table works in a similar way. Results between 1 and 6 cause the near leg to be hit while results of 19 or 20 are a headshot.

D66 random tables

I’ve written about how to use D66 random tables, but they are worth mentioning here again. They take the pyramid-shaped probability distribution of rolling 2d6 and turn it into a flat distribution. All of the 36 possible results have an equal probability of being rolled. The number of options can also be reduced by grouping the results of one die. You can see many examples of this in Wyrm (Feral Indie Studios), including the Trait tables (above).

As you can see in the image, there are 9 Boons, 12 Scars, and 18 Mutations. This is achieved by grouping either one or both of the dice to yield the right number of options.

In a very small space, many options are given ranging from Superstitious Sellsword to Writhing Limbs. This method would work well in a one-page RPG, especially if you don’t want the full 36 options of a regular D66 table.

Combinatorial random tables

The third type of table is the one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It’s different than the others because it actually uses multiple tables to generate one thing, rather than one large table.3

An example can be seen at the beginning of Eleventh Beast (above).

The player rolls 1d8 three times to generate the two parts of the beast’s name and the location. Roll 1-4-3 would yield The Black Goat of Moorgate while 6-5-7 would yield The Bone Worm of Southwark. The advantage of such a table is that it creates 512 beast combinations in a small space.

A similar method is used when generating the person recounting rumors of the beast. This time with three d6 rolls, the player generates a First Name, Last Name, and source of the rumor. This yields 216 different options in a very tight space:

The “Make Your Own Dragon” generator in the latest issue of Tumulus uses this method. You roll a d6 six times to determine the various aspects of your dragon: Form, Breath, Vulnerability, Scale, Lair, and Desire. With six possible outcomes and all rolls being independent, there are 46,656 different dragons that could be rolled using that generator. And yet it all easily fits onto a single A5 page.

Using combinatorial tables

I can think of quite a few ways that multiple, small tables could be used to create a large variety of end products.

• Magic spells: Two lists can be used to make a wide variety of spells. The first (A) is a list of action verbs (e.g. banish, summon, wither, shift) and the second (B) is a list of nouns (e.g. cloud, person, undead, frog). When combined (A+B) they generate spells that immediately sound interesting (“Banish Undead” or “Summon Frog”).

• Rumors: As noted in ADVENTURE! Make Your Own Adventure, MÖRK BORG adventures often make use of rumors and lies. Multiple tables could be used to generate a wide variety of rumors. Combine the rumor source (A), subject (B), and veracity or truthfulness (C).

• Quests: Adventure hooks or quests could be made by combining the objective (A), location (B), reward (C), and obstacle (D).

• Planets: If you need some random planets, combine the size (A), atmosphere (B), terrain (C), weather (D), and special feature (E). Just six items on each of the five tables would mean there are 7,776 different planets.

There is, of course, a downside to this method. The individual tables need to be truly independent. Any item from List A needs to be able to be sensibly combined with List B or List C. This means that each item on the lists must be chosen carefully and in the context of the other lists.

The other downside is that the results potentially leave more of the work to the player. If the combined words or features are not detailed enough, it means the player will need to fill in the narrative gaps. Sometimes that’s OK, but it can make playing the game harder for less experienced roleplaying game players.4

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Make weird games: If you’ve ever thought about making your own game, the One-Page RPG Jam is a great way to give it a try. The Make Your Own One-Page RPG guide breaks the whole project into little, achievable tasks that you can actually do. By the end, you’ll have a published game. Trust me, you’ll feel great!

• Pack a lot into a little space: If you have unlimited space, you don’t need to worry about how large your random tables are. If, however, you are making a smaller game, you’ll need to compress as much as you can in a tight space. Using modified D66 tables or combinatorial tables might help.

• Check the combined results: Using multiple, small tables to generate things for your RPG usually works well. It’s important to check, however, to ensure that all the results actually make sense. Test your tables before releasing them into the wild.

What do you think? Do these A+B+C tables have a special name or are they just yet another version of random tables?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Issue 07. Slay the dragon.

Tumulus Issue 7 is shipping out to subscribers around the world!

Tumulus is a quarterly collection of analog gaming inspiration, tools, design theory, and playable content from Skeleton Code Machine. Each issue has a theme such as “Do not trust robots.” or “Return to the sea.” Design exercises are included for you to try what you’ve learned.

Tumulus is creative, thought-provoking, and worthy of a place on your shelf.

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What’s inside this issue

The theme of Tumulus Issue 7 is “Slay the dragon.” and is focused on dragons big and small. It begins by asking the question: What is a dragon?

In Constructing Legendary Dragons (p. 7) you can read about the common elements of dragons and roll some dice to make your own. There are game design lessons to be learned from SPI’s 1981 Dragonslayer board game (p. 15).

This issue has two playable games. The first is Passive Aggressive Dragons in which you and an opponent competitively build a lair all while trying to force the other to leave (p. 29). The other is Kill the Worm — an adaptation of the classic Fox and Geese game with villagers battling the mythological Lambton Worm (p. 51).

The article about Precious Things (a game about cozy dragons collecting things) includes a three-question interview with designer Lucas Zellers.

Free Dragon Pages bookmark TTRPG

This issue of Tumulus is shipping with a free Dragon Pages bookmark game.

You are a knight on a quest to slay a dragon. Journey to its lair, discovering boons, banes, and omens along the way. But move swiftly, lest your supplies run out! The dragon awaits!

• Use any book you’d like along with a few six-sided dice.

• Watch for key words in the text.

• Words will add or subtract from the attack dice pool.

• Each real day that passes consumes your supplies.

Created by Exeunt Press for the TTRPG Bookmark Jam 2025.

Pick your issues when ordering

Please select your issues when subscribing. Tumulus 07 “Slay the dragon.” is the current issue and will ship immediately. Tumulus 08 is the next one and will ship September 2026.

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Back issues are available

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And good news! Tumulus Issue 01 “Do not trust robots.” is back in stock! Due to the number of requests I’ve received and the fact that its print run was smaller than the others, I did another printing of it. Grab Issue 01 as a back issue and get an art print of Ragdoll by Strega Wolf while supplies last.1

I don't trust robots.

Upcoming issues

Curious what’s coming up in future issues? Here are the themes for the next three:

• Issue 08. “Insert coin to continue.” (September 2026)

  • Exploring how video games can influence tabletop games

  • Includes printed Massive Damage TTRPG bookmark

• Issue 09. “Ponder the orb.” (December 2026)

  • Wizards, magic, spellcasting, crystal balls, classic fantasy

• Issue 10. “Get in the mech.” (March 2027)

  • Mecha, skirmish games, pilots, kaiju, heat, navigation

What do you think? Which issue sounds the most interesting?

Issue titles and covers are subject to change, but that’s the plan! Images above are mockups. Issues 1 through 7 are printed and in stock. The two TTRPG bookmarks are already printed and ready to be included.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2026 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

I was surprised at how many people at the ALA Game Jam panel last week read Skeleton Code Machine! A few people stopped by after it was done and shared some very kind words that I really appreciated. It reminded me that this newsletter grows organically by readers like you sharing it.1

So here’s my ask: If you’ve gotten something out of these weekly explorations of tabletop game mechanisms, share this article with one person you think would enjoy it too. (And if someone shared it with you — welcome! Skeleton Code Machine is free and comes out every Tuesday rain or shine. The best place to start is here!)

Done? Nice!

Now let’s dig into Sanctum — a storytelling game about dungeons that uses its inherent structure rather than detailed mechanisms.

A story about a dungeon

With writing and layout by James Pianka, Sanctum (PDF, Print) is a “no-prep, all-verbal storytelling game” for three players, although it can be played with anywhere from one to four players with some modifications.2

Over the course of three acts, players will create a story about a dungeon and the adventure that happens within it.3 Players take turns clockwise around the table, each one adding more detail to the current act:

• Act 1: Dungeon (site, prize, guardian)

• Act 2: Intruders (identity, motivation, preparation)

• Act 3: Adventure (approach, complication, resolution)

The first player’s task is to define where the dungeon is location or what it is (i.e. “the site). Dungeons aren’t just tunnels underground with stone floors and walls filled with skeletons and green slimes. It could be a cyberpunk corpo building, a pirate ship, or an alien fortress. The goal is to, as the game emphasizes, “stay high-level and archetypal, leaving room for development.”

Subsequent turns have players defining the prize (e.g. a chest of gold) and the guardian (e.g. a stone knight).4 Again, the point is to keep it broad and vague — not to provide overly detailed descriptions.

Expanding on the ideas of others

There’s no dice rolling, no combat results tables, and indeed very little mechanical structure in Sanctum. It’s a very simple game.

Where Sanctum has an interesting twist is that it structures the game so players expand on the ideas of others. After, for example, players have broadly defined the site, prize, and guardian of the dungeon in Act 1, players then take turns expanding those ideas.

They aren’t expanding their own features, however. Instead, they are expanding a feature defined by someone else: “Each player may then expand upon a feature they didn’t define — prioritizing features no player has expanded.”

One player says that the intruders (those who enter the dungeon) are goblin mages and they leave it at that. The next player says they are motivated by finding a relic to save their clan. The third player adds that the mages acquired a map, key, and magic skull to prepare for their adventure.

These are just a few aspects of the intruders. Each one is then expanded by another player, giving a background and names to the goblins or explaining the purpose of the skull.

Making storytelling more accessible

In my experience, many collaborative storytelling games have each person add a fully-defined “thing” to the game. They might add a whole building (and its history) to a city or create an entire monster with a full description. Particularly for those new to storytelling games or when playing with strangers, this can be a real challenge.

By having each player just add a very small piece of the story and keeping each piece intentionally broad, it reduces this burden on players.

Many times, it is easier to riff on someone else’s idea and expand it than create one of your own. Again, this reduces the potential stress of playing a very open-ended storytelling game.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Structure, not mechanisms: Sanctum could have employed more mechanisms to try to accomplish the same goal: dice-based turn order, cards, tokens, trackers. Instead it simply structures the game in a way that facilitates a certain kind of play — an important lesson that more mechanisms isn’t always the answer.5

• Three acts: Ensuring that your game has a game arc is critical. Sanctum makes it explicit and part of the game. It is quite literally divided into three acts.

• Simplicity in design: Sanctum is by no means a “big” game that will last for hours. The introduction says it should take “no more than 30 minutes,” although I can see it going longer that (in a good way). It’s a good example of how a simple game can still be fun and lead to an interesting, emergent story.

What do you think? Have you played a storytelling game like Sanctum before? If so, let me know in the comments.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

I was on the Why We Can’t Shut Up about Game Jams panel at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference & Exhibition in Chicago this week. Organized and hosted by Rebecca Strang, the panel focused on how libraries can integrate game jams into their programming:

This panel brings together librarians and game publishers to share their experience and ideas on hosting game design workshops at your library! From iterating on existing games to creating original ones, from board games to tabletop roleplaying games, from single-day events to a month-long event, come learn how play can foster creativity, facilitate community, and build connection with library resources and services.

I was one of the four people invited to be on the panel:

• Molly Porter, GameRT Meeple-at-Large, Branch Manager, Ascension Parish LIbrary at Dutchtown, Prairieville, LA

• Amber Sewell, GameRT Mage, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV

• Jeff Grisenthwaite, Game Designer

• John Mulligan, Game Designer, Exeunt Press

The room was full and everyone seemed to really enjoy the panel. So here are my responses to the first five questions, along with some Chicago pictures.

Q1. What is a game jam?

I’ve written about game jams before, but (to me) game jams have three common elements:

1. It’s a game development sprint.

2. There is a limited time period.

3. There is a specific theme, format, mechanism, or technology required.

How those three elements are defined and implemented can widely vary. A tabletop game jam might focus on a single game or system (e.g. Fallen RPG Jam) or on a broad genre of games (e.g. wargames in Postcards from the Front). The One-Page RPG Jam starting on July 12, 2026 requires that the submissions be playable RPGs and that each one fits on a single sheet of paper.1

Game jams can be ranked or not. I tend to prefer unranked game jams because I feel like the idea of having “winners and losers” (explicitly or tacitly) acts as a barrier to new creators giving it a try. When it’s just about making something for the sake of making something, I’ve found people are more likely to give it a try.

Q2. What is your experience with game jams?

My first experience with a game jam was the Tiny Tome Jam in 2021. I created and submitted Mammoth — a game about hunting and gathering in the Late Pleistocene age. It ended up being included in the printed Tiny Tome book and inspired me to continue with game design.

Since then, I’ve participated in quite a few game jams. One of the most recent was making The Trench Grub’s Thirst for last year’s Appendix N Jam. The one that is most dear to me, however, is the annual One-Page RPG Jam. It’s that one that inspired me to create Exclusion Zone Botanist, Eleventh Beast, and Caveat Emptor — three of the bestselling games from Exeunt Press.

I also ran a one-page RPG jam as part of a free class I taught at a public library. Using Make Your Own One-Page RPG, I taught a four-session, free class at one of my local public libraries. You can read summaries of each class: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4. We even ended the class with our own game jam where all the participants uploaded their games to itch.io.

In some ways, the MÖRKTOBER event I host each year is also like a game jam, albeit one that is chaotic and decentralized by design. It is focused on making things related to the MÖRK BORG TTRPG, and has a limited time period that runs from October 1 through October 31 each year.

I also keep threatening to run a game jam for Skeleton Code Machine readers too.

Q3. What challenges have you had with game jams?

For me, the first challenge would be to run a game jam in a single workshop session. When I run classes at public libraries, I never know who is going to show up. Some participants might have a lot of experience and may have even designed a game before. Other participants may have little to no gaming experience. To make a program that is fun and engaging for everyone, I’ve broken it into multiple sessions to ensure no one is left behind.

The second, perhaps most common challenge, is convincing people they can make a game! It takes a lot of encouragement. Showing examples of small games that are a little rough around the edges really helps.

Connected to that is the third challenge, which is to break the large task of “making a game” into smaller, achievable tasks. When I ran the game jam at the library, we did each step of the process together. We decided who our game would be for, we each chose a theme, we each explored possible mechanisms together, and so on. By ensuring we did each little step together, by the end, everyone had a game.

The final challenge is promoting the event. This requires a large amount of work and effort, usually on the part of the library staff. I talk about how and when to promote the event at length in the “How to run a tabletop game design workshop at your library” I presented for the Indiana State Library.

Q4. What tips do you have for running game jams?

My experience with game jams has been largely with TTRPGS and with public libraries. Given that, here are some of my tips:

• Help people choose a theme for their game. This is the hardest part, so don’t make them struggle with a blank page. Use the Theme-O-Matic.

• Encourage people to use an existing framework or SRD like Lasers & Feelings or Wretched & Alone. There’s no need to start from scratch.

• There are freely available art assets and icons to use. Share places where everyone can grab public domain art to use.

• Leverage local board game groups. Contact your library’s board game club, your friendly local game store, Unpub, and Break My Game. This helps with the promotion challenge noted above.

Q5. What’s your favorite story related to a game jam?

A few of the creators in the Make Your Own One-Page RPG public library class not only made their first games, but sold them at a game store’s local developer day. This really made the class seem worthwhile, not because of the sale, but because attendees went from zero to published game in just four sessions. They created something new, wonderful, and something they were proud to share with the gaming community.

I can’t think of a better conclusion to the class than that.

Visiting Chicago

I have to share that this was my first visit to Chicago and I had such a wonderful time. Sightseeing included Cloud Gate (the bean), The Art Institute of Chicago (as seen in Ferris Bueller), eating deep dish pizza, and having my first Chicago-style hot dog.2

Thank you so much to Rebecca Strang for setting up the panel and for inviting me. I had an absolute blast both during my day at the conference and visiting the city in general. I hope to visit again soon!

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Libraries are amazing: It was inspiring and energizing just to be around that many people who love libraries, many of whom have dedicated their entire lives to supporting libraries. Check out the work that the ALA does.

• You should participate in a game jam: They are good for the soul. Creating something feels great. Actually finishing a project (even a small one) can be so satisfying. Make weird games!

• Consider running a game jam: This is obviously a lot more work and not for everyone, but you should at least think about it. Check out the interview with Chris about his recent Lean Green Zine Jam.

Have thoughts on game jams? Leave a comment below! Also, vote in this week’s poll.

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

This week we are exploring how Black Rose Wars: Rebirth uses an action queue system to turn combat and conflict into a tricky puzzle to solve.

But first…

I’ll be at the ALA Annual Conference this week in Chicago! Come to the GameRT Mage’s Program: Creativity, Community, and Connection: Why We Can’t Shut Up about Game Jams:

This panel brings together librarians and game publishers to share their experience and ideas on hosting game design workshops at your library! From iterating on existing games to creating original ones, from board games to tabletop roleplaying games, from single-day events to a month-long event, come learn how play can foster creativity, facilitate community, and build connection with library resources and services.

This is only the second time I’ve ever been on a panel, and I’m very excited for it!1 If you’ll be there, please let me know in the comments!

Now, on to the battle for the power of the Black Rose!

Fighting to rebuild the Lodge

Black Rose Wars: Rebirth (Colletti, Fonseca, et al., 2023) is fantasy combat strategy game with a setting that is a little bit confusing. There’s a powerful Black Rose entity that controls the Lodge and all of its rooms. It was destroyed in the past and now mages are competing to rebuild the rooms. Or something like that:

Every player represents a Mage in this struggle to prove themselves as the true beholder of the Black Rose’s power. The mages will program spells to their board and execute them in turn order. Those spells may disable other mages spells, arm traps, arm powerful defensive moves, deal damage, or summon otherworldly beasts.

The game is played on a large, modular, hex grid of tiles. Each tile represents a room in the lodge such as the Armory, Observatory, Garden, and Pleasures Room. All tiles begin on their destroyed side. Throughout the game, players will place Instability Cubes in the available slots in each room. Once full, that tile can be flipped and victory points are gained.

Players (mages) will also be battling each other while attempting to rebuild the rooms via traps, summoned creatures (“evocations”), spells, and direct attacks. There is, however, no player elimination. If your mage ever receives damage equal to their Health Value, they are simply returned to their starting room and begin again. The player who applied the most damage that resulted in the defeat receives victory points.

There’s a lot going on in this game, and it’s far too much to explain in this article. The part I want to focus on is how players program their spells for use each round.

Schools of magic

There is an element of deck building in Black Rose Wars: Rebirth. Each round, players draw two cards from their deck and add two cards from various Schools of Magic including Agony, Alchemy, Hex, Nightmare, Shamanic, and Technomancy. Players end up with a mix of cards from the school, each card with its own ability. Some act as traps (triggered by a specific action by another player) and others are direct attacks that deal damage. Some add an Instability Cube to a room (to rebuild it) and others nullify incoming spells.

During the Study and Preparation phases, players are drawing and selecting which cards they want to be able to play in the upcoming round. Players can only select 4 spell cards to ready and the others will remain in their hand.

The interesting twist is that the spells must be put into an action queue before players begin taking turns.

Spell programming

Black Rose Wars: Rebirth uses a batch action queue system for spells. Players choose 4 spells to ready and place them on their board in order. One slot is a Quick Spell and can be used out of order. The other three must be used in order: Slot 1, then Slot 2, then Slot 3 last.

During the action phase, each mage performs one or two actions in turn order. The first player might activate/prime a trap spell and then move two hexes to activate a room’s ability. The next player might use a spell to add Instability Cubes to a room and not use their second action. This continues around the table until all players have exhausted all of their actions.

The trick is that you programmed your actions before everyone started moving around and taking actions. You may have thought that one of your rivals would be in range, but now they decided to move to the other side of the map. Even worse, you might think you could deal the final two damage to a mage only to have someone else steal the kill right out from under you. It’s also possible that you end up being defeated earlier than expected and sent back to your room to start over.

The Quick Spell slot helps mitigate this because it can be used at any time during your turn. The other spells, however, must be used in the order you arranged them.

Setting traps

Trap spells are one of the most interesting uses of this batch action queue mechanism.

First, trap cards must be activated. The spell programming order still applies here, so if your trap is last in the queue, it won’t be activated until all other spells are used first.

Second, a trap card has a triggering condition that must be met: “An Evocation is defeated or removed” or “Another mage enters a Red or Yellow room.” If the condition is met, the trap fires and its effects are resolved.

Of course, the effects of a triggered trap might trigger someone else’s active trap which might even trigger yet another trap. It gets a little complicated at times, but it’s one of the most memorable parts of the game when it happens.

A different kind of tactical play

In many strategy games, you choose your actions and you execute them during your turn. Certainly you are reacting to other players, but usually you can change your mind on which action you are about to take.

Batch action queue (programming) systems like Black Rose Wars: Rebirth create a different kind of feel. You lay out your plan and then hope for the best. Your tactical changes during the action phase aren’t which card to play, but instead where to move (if moving) and who to target (if attacking). It’s a mix of pre-made decisions and tactical control that leads to everyone taking unexpected (and yet still fulfilling) turns.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Action queues are cool: While I’m absolutely awful at playing the birds in Root (Wehrle, 2018), action queues and action programming are fascinating mechanisms.2 Take a look at Mechs vs. Minions (Cantrell, Ernst, et al., 2016) for more inspiration.

• Mitigated chaos can be fun: I’m not sure the spell programming system would be nearly as fun if not for the Quick Slot and the fact that players get two general purpose “physical actions” each turn. The action queue is a key part of the game, but it is mitigated to allow some flexibility.

• Laying traps feels great: I found one of the most satisfying parts of the game to be activating a trap and then quietly waiting for someone to trigger it — just hoping they attack me or activate a certain type of room. The fact that they can start a chain reaction of traps makes it that much better. I’d love to see this sort of thing in other games.

What do you think? Have you seen action queues or programming in other games? I’m particularly interested in TTRPG examples, so please share in the comments!

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press

Tumulus 07 “Slay the dragon.” has shipped to all subscribers. If you are a subscriber, you should have received a shipping notification. Check your spam folder if you haven’t seen it yet. Also, Tumulus 06 “Hammer a nail in the coffin” copies are now available as back issues.

This week, the emperor has died and there’s a battle for power! Hidden Leaders can show us how tug of war mechanisms are perfect for games of influence vs. control.

Following the death of the emperor…

In Hidden Leaders (Stocker, Markus Müller, et al., 2022) the emperor has died and the kingdom has descended into turmoil:

The island of Oshra is in turmoil. Following the death of the Emperor, the conflict between the Hill Tribes and the Imperial Army escalated. While the Water People try to maintain balance between the old rivals, the Undead aim to escalate the war. All hope rests on the six children of the Emperor: Who of them will claim the throne?

Players become one of six Leaders who are each aligned with two of the four factions: Hill (green), Army (red), Water (blue), and Undead (black). During the game they will influence the power of the Hill and Army factions which will result in victory for one of the four factions.

The game is one of influence vs. control, a concept I’ve been playing with in the upcoming Proxwar Zero game I’m working on.1

Only players who are aligned with the winning faction can win the game.

If multiple players have the correct alignment, there are tiebreakers to determine a winner of the game.

Adding heroes to your party

Hidden Leaders uses a double tug of war mechanism to track the power of the competing Hill and Army factions. They are represented by green and red tokens respectively on a board with 12 linear spaces.2 They both begin the game in the 4th space from the left.

On your turn, you play 1 hero card from your hand face up in front of you. These face up cards are called your party. Then you move either the Hill or Army faction token the indicated amount (either left or right) as indicated by the played card.

For example, the Battle Connoisseur card moves the Hill faction marker 1 to the right while the Spirited Shaman moves both the Hill and Army factions 1 to the left each. Other cards base the movement on number of cards discarded or give the player a choice, like the “-2 Army and/or -2 Hill” of the Furious Frog card.3

Many cards also have other effects that trigger when played like taking extra cards or turning cards face down (hide) or face up (reveal).4

The game ends when any player has a certain number of face-up heroes in their party. This end game trigger number ranges from 5-8 heroes depending on player count.

A tug of war with an end zone

While one might expect that whichever token (Hill or Army) is closest to an end would determine the strongest faction, Hidden Leaders does add an interesting twist. The board is 12 spaces, but the final four spaces (i.e. spaces 9-12) are marked as Undead. This creates a special “end zone” on the right side of the board. All the other spaces (i.e. spaces 1-8) are the same.

There are only two markers on the board but four possible factions. This means there are multiple outcomes for the tokens:

1. Undead win if both the red and green markers end up in the Undead end zone at the end of the game (spaces 9-12).

2. Water wins if the red and green spaces are next to each other.

3. Army wins if the red marker is 2+ spaces ahead of the Hill marker.

4. Hill wins if the green marker is 2+ spaces ahead of the Army marker.

I think this is the most interesting part of the game. It creates a four-way tug of war which is not something that is easily represented in board games.5

Carefully influencing factions

Remember that each Leader is allied with two of the four factions based on the card you drew at the start of the game.

Let’s say your leader is allied with Water and Undead. You would win the game if either: (a) both red and green markers end in the far right Undead zone, or (b) both markers end up next to each other. During the game you don’t necessarily care where the markers are, but you want them near each other. Failing that, you’ll want to boost the power of both as much as possible to get them into the Undead zone.

On the other hand, if your Leader is allied with Army and Water, you’ll want to boost the power of Army (red) when you can. If you increase it too far, however, it’ll end up in the Undead zone and you’ll run the risk of Undead coming out on top. So you want it to be high, but not too high. Also, to win with Water you’ll want the green marker to be nearby, but that increases the risk of it surpassing red.

It creates a good mix of wanting to boost the power of your favored faction and the need to not push it too far.

Games of influence

I’ve written before about games that use influence of factions rather than direct control. The King is Dead: Second Edition (Sylvester, 2020) is my favorite example of this genre because the design is so clean and elegant. It has a two-sentence rule that captures the core conceit of the game:

Whenever you take an action you will summon a follower to your court, increasing your influence with one of the factions. Each follower you take will solidify your claim to be that faction’s preferred ruler, but will weaken their ability to win power struggles.

Every action strengthens your position with a faction while, at the same time, weakening that faction’s position on the map. It makes every choice in the game painful (in a good way).

The Pax games such as Pax Renaissance: 2nd Edition (Eklund & Eklund, 2021) and Pax Pamir: Second Edition (Wehrle, 2019) are the other prime examples. Imperial 2030 (Gerdts, 2009) takes Risk and changes it into a game of influence.

In the above examples, no one player controls the pieces on the map. Players do not “have a color” as in many games.6

It’s a tough concept to wrap your head around the first time you encounter it, but a concept that I’ve really grown to love.

Conclusion

Some things to think about:

• Tug of war: Think about using tug of war mechanisms in your games. They don’t necessarily require a board as in Hidden Leaders. Tollund uses two piles of tokens and no board, but it is still essentially a solo tug of war.

• Bidding and market games: Games of influence are essentially bidding and market manipulation games. You are trying to increase the stock value of your preferred faction while owning the most shares of it. I haven’t played many cube rails or 18XX games, but I wonder if they would have a similar feel.

• Try an influence game: I really think anyone interested in tabletop game design should try an influence vs. control game at least once. It really changed how I think about game design, and it might spark your creativity in unexpected ways.

What do you think? Which influence vs. control games are your favorite? Have you seen multi-direction tug of war games before?

— E.P. 💀

P.S. Want more in-depth and playable Skeleton Code Machine content? Subscribe to Tumulus and get four quarterly, print-only issues packed with game design inspiration at 33% off list price. Limited back issues available. 🩻

Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. Subscribe to TUMULUS to get more design inspiration. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.

Skeleton Code Machine and TUMULUS are written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. TUMULUS and Skeleton Code Machine are Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press.

For comments or questions: games@exeunt.press