Note: If you just want to check out the Bloggie-nominated posts, scroll to the “Who are the Bloggies?” section at the bottom.

What are the Bloggies?

Awards for some of the best OSR/Post-OSR blog posts to come out in 2022. There will be five awards: Best Theory Blogpost, Best Gameable Blogpost, Best Advice Blogpost, Best Review Blogpost, and, the biggest one, Best Blogpost.

Why are the Bloggies?

Blogs are worth celebrating. As Ben Milton of Questing Beast fame pointed out earlier this year, blogs are the heart of the OSR. No one starts a blog for fame or money (of if they do, that strategy is questionable), but that doesn’t mean bloggers eschew acclaim. At the very least, this is a way to celebrate 64 excellent blog posts from the last year, and maybe get them in front of people who did not read them the first time. It may also just highlight blogging as something cool and worth doing. If you are on the fence about starting a TTRPG blog in 2023, you should do it!

How are the Bloggies?

I attempted the most fair methodology available to my limited resources. I started by taking all of the nearly 400 blog posts that were listed in the monthly The Glatisant newsletter, which is probably one of the largest and most consistent aggregators of the top blog posts of the year. This was the initial bar: if a blog post was notable to get a shout out from The Glatisant, it was considered. However, ~400 posts is a bit unwieldy, so I wanted it to narrow it down to a still-sizable 64 posts. To do that, I sent a poll to about 50 TTRPG bloggers that I am in conversation with. If you want to impugn my methodology, this is probably what you should target, but I hoped that 50ish bloggers is enough to not feel like it is the blogging-Illuminati behind this operation. My goal was to get people who are really active in the blogging scene and have hopefully read many if not most of the ~400 initial posts to both narrow them down and help me pick seeding for the bracket. But I did NOT want the blogging-Illuminati to have the final say. So the final 64 will be narrowed down by the voting public, the Twitter hoi polloi. It isn’t perfect, but this is about blogs. Imperfection is a feature, not a bug, of blogging.

There are also a couple caveats: (1) I looked at blog posts from December 2021 to November 2022, because I did most of this work in the month of December 2022; (2) No one blog was allowed to be nominated more than once in a category, except the Reviews category, which was limited to 3 appearances. This exception is due to the prevalence of blogs dedicated to just reviews. Honestly, it would be great to see even more review-based blogs, so I think this exception is good (of course I do, it is my exception!).

When are the Bloggies?

Right now! Voting will happen on Twitter on the following days (I will link the voting threads as I post them):

January 3: Round of 64 Voting

Voting Thread: Theory Category

Voting Thread: Gameable Category

Voting Thread: Advice Category

Voting Thread: Reviews Category

January 4: Round of 32 Voting

January 5: Round of 16 Voting

January 6: Quarterfinals

January 9: Finals

Who are the Bloggies?

Theory Category

🥇 (1) D&D’s Obsession with Taxonomy, from Zedeck Siew’s Writing Hours

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(16) Replay’s Value: A Case for Replaying Adventures, from Orbital Crypt

(8) The OSR Should Die, from Traverse Fantasy

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(9) Drunken incompetent regional magnates: the purpose of aristocracies, from Against The Wicked City

(5) Blorb Principles, from Idiom Drottning (NOTE: Disqualified after round one, as it was published in 2020)

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(12) A Thorough Look at Skill Challenges (Part 1: the Rules), from A Knight at the Opera

(4) What Even Is a “Procedure”?, from Prismatic Wasteland

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(13) In The OSR There Are Two Poles: OSR-V the Revival (Preservation) vs. OSR-N the Renaissance (Principles), from I Cast Light

(6) F**ck-You Design, from To Distant Lands

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(11) Matrix Campaign Structure, from Mindstorm

🥈 (3) hexcrawls ARE pathcrawls, from Permanent Cranial Damage

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(14) The Dream Aesthetics Dilemma, from Mazirian’s Garden

(7) Down With The 6 Mile Hex! A Modest Proposal, from Silverarm Press

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(10) c o z y, from Rise Up Comus

🥉 (2) Proceduralism, from All Dead Generations

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(15) On RPG Play-styles, Part 3: Classic Playstyle versus Trad Playstyle versus OSR?, from Lich Van Winkel

Gameable Category

🥇 (1) Nested Monster Hit Dice, from Mindstorm

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(16) Mautbek, a starting town for OSR games, from It’s Always Sunny in Castle Greyhawk

(8) The Wall, from Vaults of Vaarn

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(9) ANIMA: MOSAIC Strict Spirit Magic, from Alone in the Labyrinth

(5) GRENDEL MENDEL: Using Punnett Squares for Monster Design, from I Cast Light

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(12) The Great Chain Ontology, from Throne of Salt

(4) The Masquerade Grid, for VtM, from Cavegirl’s Game Stuff

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🥉 (13) GOBLINS GOBLINS GOBLINS, from False Machine

(6) I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again, from Prismatic Wasteland

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(11) d20 Orbs, from Goblin Punch

(3) Fast Travel & Watch-Keeping Procedure, from Traverse Fantasy

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🥈 (14) Getting Rid of Dogfights, from Failure Tolerated

(7) Computer Hacking in RPGs, from A Knight at the Opera

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(10) Small Gods and Stone Soup: Deities made for Dungeon Crawling, from Orbital Crypt

(2) RPG Blogs as Fantasy Taverns, from Rise Up Comus

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(15) A Hundred Clues & Tells for the Tersely Detailed Trap, from d4 Caltrops

Advice Category

🥈 (1) Hexcrawl Checklist: Part One, from Prismatic Wasteland

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(16) The Joy of Exploration, from Alex Schroeder

(8) Problems, from Bastionland

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(9) Some Thoughts on Intrigue, from Trilemma Adventures

🥉 (5) My Process, from Mazirian’s Garden

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(12) 03 TOMB WITH EIGHT SKELETONS: Layering For Dynamic Encounters, from I Cast Light

(4) Wizards HATE Her! How to Play D&D for Free, from Traverse Fantasy

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(13) Damage to dilemma, the diceless way, from Dreaming Dragonslayer

(6) 15 (more) cheap tricks, from Rise Up Comus

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(11) How to Make Combat Spicy, from A Knight at the Opera

🥉 (3) Adding Congruency to Anti Canon Worldbuilding, from Mindstorm

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(14) A Web of Hooks: Quest Connections in a Sandbox Megadungeon Region, from Silverarm Press

(7) Time, Gear & Skill: A Different Approach To Skill Checks, from Dice Goblin

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(10) Time Travel Tips for GMs, from Coins and Scrolls

🥇 (2) Prep Tools, Not Adventures, from Papers and Pencils

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(15) Western Wilds: An Expedition into the West Marches, from The Indie Game Reading Club

Reviews Category

🥈 (1) Folie a Deux - Holy Mountain Shaker, from Bones of Contention

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(16) Mazes: A Review, from The Halfling’s Hoard

(8) Review: The Elusive Shift, from Grumpy Wizard

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(9) Fun and Challenges, from Grognardia

(5) Tomb Robbers Of The Crystal Frontier - Review, from The Cosmic Orrery

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(12) Review: Wolves Upon the Coast, from Caput Caprae

(4) Cryptic Signals - A Book of Beasts, Monsters & Treasure, Volume 2: Monsters &, from Bones of Contention

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(13) Demon Bone Sarcophagus: Some Thoughts, from Worldbuilding and Woolgathering

(6) Grave Trespass - Where the Wheat Grows Tall, from Bones of Contention

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🥉 (11) Karth Taught me to Love Mothership, from Technical Grimoire

(3) Non-licensed not!Tolkien games, from Rise Up Comus

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(14) Friday Fantasy: Strict Time Records Must Be Kept, from Reviews from R’lyeh

(7) Review: Mothership Wardens Guide, from Save Vs. Total Party Kill

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(10) Review: The Gardens of Ynn & The Stygian Library, from The Alexandrian

🥇 (2) Enough Dweeb Adventures, from A Knight at the Opera

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(15) A Draconic Autopsy, from Refereeing and Reflection