Frank Mitchell's Blog

Virgil Finlay’s “Space Patrol”

Welcome to my blog!

Since 2004 I’ve used this site to host ideas and game mechanics related to tabletop role-playing games, works of short (or not so short) fiction, and on occasion small software projects. Most of the older stuff has been added back to this site, but a few items (notably incomplete software projects) are still inaccessible.

The blog proper contains off-the-cuff ideas and short-short fiction, while the menu above contains distinct sections with more substantial content.

Technical note: This blog is implemented as static pages, generated from Markdown source using Hugo. Templates are based on the XMIN theme by Yihui Xie.

Planet icon courtesy of Icons8.

Planet Icon

Most Recently Updated Pages
Posted Modified Page
2024-02-21 2024-03-13 Dwarfs for Low Magic 5e
2023-09-23 2024-03-12 The Stellar Alliance: Warp Ships
2023-09-23 2024-03-12 The Stellar Alliance: Quantum Rules
2023-09-07 2024-03-12 The Stellar Alliance: Ships of Alliance Space (Quantum)
2024-02-15 2024-03-07 House Rules for D&D 5e
2024-02-15 2024-03-07 Low Magic D&D 5e
2024-02-21 2024-03-06 Eldren for Low Magic 5e
2023-06-08 2024-03-06 In Praise of Tunnels & Trolls
2024-02-28 2024-02-28 Toward a Ritual Magic System, Part 3: Lore Redux and Ritual Procedure
2023-10-17 2024-02-27 The Adventurers’ Guild
2024-01-15 2024-02-22 Luck Points
2023-12-22 2024-02-21 House Rules for Nimble 5e
2024-02-20 2024-02-20 Nonhuman Ancestries for Low Magic 5e
2024-02-20 2024-02-20 Cultures for Low Magic 5e
2024-02-17 2024-02-17 Toward a Ritual Magic System, Part 2: Essence and Lore
2024-02-12 2024-02-12 D&D Mundane Class Character Generation
2024-02-08 2024-02-08 Unwritten Games
2024-02-04 2024-02-07 Gridless Movement
2023-05-23 2024-02-02 A World of Qi: Notes
2023-05-13 2024-02-02 A World of Qi
2024-01-26 2024-01-28 Nimble Monsters
2024-01-11 2024-01-11 The Ecstasy of Gold: Money in RPGs
2023-12-19 2023-12-19 Character Generation in Nimble 5e
2023-12-08 2023-12-08 D&D YouTube Roundup 5: Alignment, West Marches, and Online
2023-12-08 2023-12-08 The War of Sun and Light
2023-12-08 2023-12-08 The Artificer’s Tale
2023-11-13 2023-11-13 The Gygax 75 Challenge Part 2: Region
2023-11-02 2023-11-02 D&D YouTube Roundup 4: Magic Numbers, Rules Light, Nimble
2023-10-29 2023-10-29 D&D YouTube Roundup 3: 5e Hardcore Mode, Folk vs. Official, Math
2023-10-27 2023-10-27 The Grimdark Age
2023-10-27 2023-10-27 D&D YouTube Roundup 2: Deathbringer RPG, Grimdark, Clerics
2023-10-24 2023-10-24 D&D YouTube Roundup: DCC Review, Faster Combat, and More
2023-10-19 2023-10-19 On Classic D&D
2023-06-06 2023-10-04 The Stellar Alliance: Warp Ships in Mini-Six
2023-09-30 2023-09-30 The Gygax 75 Challenge Part 1: Concept
2023-06-02 2023-09-28 The Stellar Alliance: Mini-Six Rules
2022-12-15 2023-09-20 Star Trek: The Speeches
2023-06-11 2023-09-18 Mini Six Bare Knuckle Edition (v. 0.7 RC1)
2023-06-09 2023-09-15 Cepheus Quantum
2023-09-07 2023-09-10 Into the Unknown Character Generation
2023-09-05 2023-09-08 D&D 5 Hard Mode Alignment
2023-09-04 2023-09-04 The Frankenverse in D&D 5: Chess Pieces in the Cosmic Struggle
2023-09-02 2023-09-02 The Frankenverse in D&D 5: The Planes
2023-09-01 2023-09-01 The Frankenverse in D&D 5: Old School Alignments
2023-08-29 2023-08-29 Alignment Hard Mode
2023-08-25 2023-08-25 D&D 5 Character Generation
2023-08-23 2023-08-23 DCC RPG Character Generation
2023-02-04 2023-08-15 Future(?) Project List
2023-04-12 2023-07-25 ELTN in C (Work in Progress)
2023-03-16 2023-07-25 CTable
2023-03-31 2023-07-21 CodePoint
2023-04-12 2023-07-21 JSON in C
2023-07-21 2023-07-21 Shadow Vale: The Setting
2023-07-21 2023-07-21 The Frankenverse
2023-07-21 2023-07-21 The Elf Game Again, And What Comes Next
2023-07-12 2023-07-20 TPP (Work in Progress)
2023-07-16 2023-07-16 XTIDL (Work In Progress)
2023-07-12 2023-07-16 TypeLib (Work In Progress)
2023-03-21 2023-07-16 Exported Objects (Work In Progress)
2023-03-16 2023-07-14 CPort (Work In Progress)
2023-07-12 2023-07-13 Lua-CSP (Work in Progress)
2023-07-12 2023-07-13 luaenv (Work in Progress)
2018-10-13 2023-07-06 Elf System Basic Rules (Pre-Alpha)
2023-06-13 2023-07-01 OpenQuest: Other Magic
2023-06-13 2023-07-01 OpenQuest: Metered Thaums (a.k.a. Limited Mana)
2023-07-01 2023-07-01 A Non-Review of the Vaesen RPG
2023-07-01 2023-07-01 A Non-Review of the Mutant Year Zero RPG
2023-06-28 2023-06-28 D100 Opposed Rolls
2023-06-26 2023-06-26 OpenQuest: Keep It Simple …
2023-06-26 2023-06-26 OpenQuest: Toward A Ritual Magic System
2023-06-06 2023-06-20 OpenQuest: The Midlands
2023-06-02 2023-06-20 OpenQuest: The Polar Continent
2023-05-29 2023-06-20 OpenQuest: Rekindling the Flame
2018-10-13 2023-06-20 Elf System Basic Rules, 3d6 Version (Pre Alpha)
2023-06-12 2023-06-15 Tunnels & Trolls House Rules
2023-06-12 2023-06-12 A Non-Review of Tunnels & Trolls
2023-05-30 2023-06-09 The Stellar Alliance: Background
2023-05-30 2023-06-08 The Stellar Alliance: Fleets of the Alliance
2023-05-30 2023-06-08 The Stellar Alliance: Technology
2023-06-02 2023-06-07 The Stellar Alliance: The Away Team
2023-06-06 2023-06-06 Tech Levels: A Comparison
2019-09-11 2023-05-26 Magic in RuneQuest and Its Descendants
2023-03-10 2023-05-25 Tiny Project List
2023-02-15 2023-04-13 JSONPP: JSON Pull Parser (Work in Progress)
2023-01-26 2023-04-12 A Specification of the ELTN File Format (v0.5)
2023-04-12 2023-04-12 ELTN For Lua (Work in Progress)
2023-04-12 2023-04-12 ELTN Pull Parser
2021-06-13 2023-04-06 Cepheus Atom
2006-04-14 2023-04-04 Comparative Character Generation, Part 1: Generic, Lightweight Systems
2019-10-05 2023-04-04 Writing RPGs is Hard, Part 3: Dice Pools
2019-09-11 2023-04-03 Writing RPGs is Hard, Part 1
2023-02-06 2023-03-31 A (Revised) Report on SLAN: Scheme List-Atom Notation
2023-03-28 2023-03-28 Faster Than Light Communications
2020-03-14 2023-03-28 Year Zero Engine OGL SRD
2020-09-24 2023-03-26 Synthetics in Coriolis
2023-01-15 2023-03-25 Star Trek: The Qegh Dynasty
2023-03-23 2023-03-23 In Which I Rant About Intellectualism
2009-02-08 2023-03-22 Resume
2009-02-08 2023-03-22 Resume, Long Version
2023-03-20 2023-03-20 CSymbol
2019-12-19 2023-03-18 Year Zero Probabilities Redux
2019-12-12 2023-03-18 Year Zero Probabilities
2023-03-17 2023-03-17 Statiki (Work in Progress)
2023-03-17 2023-03-17 M-String
2023-03-16 2023-03-16 CConv
2023-03-14 2023-03-14 Music Videos 6
2023-03-07 2023-03-07 Relearning Python #2: duplicate-files.py
2023-03-07 2023-03-07 duplicate-files.py - 2023-03-07
2023-03-07 2023-03-07 duplicate-files.rb - 2023-03-07
2023-03-03 2023-03-03 Relearning Python #1: Python At Last
2023-03-03 2023-03-03 duplicate-files.py - 2023-03-02
2023-03-03 2023-03-03 duplicate-files.rb - 2023-03-02
2023-02-25 2023-02-25 duplicate-files.rb - 2023-02-25
2023-02-23 2023-02-23 Star Trek: The Gorn Ship
2023-02-11 2023-02-11 The Estimator (Work in Progress)
2023-02-11 2023-02-11 FM Cache (Work in Progress)
2023-02-09 2023-02-09 Relearning Python #1/2: Ch-ch-ch-changes
2022-11-26 2023-02-09 Relearning Python #0: Introduction
2023-02-09 2023-02-09 Music Videos 5
2023-02-07 2023-02-07 duplicate-files.rb - 2023-02-07
2023-01-29 2023-01-29 Contact
2023-01-29 2023-01-29 Star Trek Head Canon Roundup
2023-01-22 2023-01-22 Adventures in Java, or, a ‘Three Hour’ Tour
2023-01-20 2023-01-20 Original D&D Elf Revised
2018-04-03 2023-01-17 Black Panther Redux
2018-03-12 2023-01-17 A Non-Review of Black Panther
2023-01-17 2023-01-17 Music Videos 4
2023-01-16 2023-01-16 Music Videos 3 (C)
2023-01-16 2023-01-16 Music Videos 3 (B)
2023-01-16 2023-01-16 Music Videos 3 (A)
2023-01-13 2023-01-13 Star Trek: The Other Klingon Classes
2022-12-26 2022-12-26 Star Trek: The Gorn Continuity
2022-12-04 2022-12-04 Music Videos 2
2022-12-01 2022-12-01 Trek and Canon
2022-11-30 2022-11-30 Music Videos
2022-11-26 2022-11-26 duplicate-files.rb - 2022-11-26
2022-11-25 2022-11-25 My Christmas List
2022-11-21 2022-11-21 Trek-Nature
2022-11-18 2022-11-18 What’s a Non-Review?
2017-12-28 2022-11-18 The Apparatus of Talamira, A History
2016-09-01 2022-11-18 Magic Item: The Apparatus of Talamira
2017-07-05 2022-11-18 Magic Items: The Trinkets of Talamira
2022-11-12 2022-11-12 Twilight 2000 Dice
2022-11-11 2022-11-11 Update (2022-11-11)
2022-09-20 2022-09-20 Still Alive
2022-09-20 2022-09-20 Dice Pools Explored
2022-09-18 2022-09-18 I Have Opinions About Comics, Part 1
2022-09-17 2022-09-17 Dice Pools Revisited
2022-07-05 2022-07-05 Shadow Vale: Alternate Rules
2022-06-17 2022-06-17 Shadow Vale: The System
2022-06-08 2022-06-08 Writing RPGs is Hard, Part 4: I’m Borrowing Not Stealing
2021-07-07 2021-07-07 Update (2021-07-07)
2021-07-01 2021-07-07 The Fantasy Trip
2021-06-15 2021-07-07 Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e
2021-06-07 2021-07-07 Character Generation in Year Zero Engine RPGs
2021-07-05 2021-07-05 The Not So Good Republic
2021-07-02 2021-07-02 Update (2021-07-02)
2021-07-02 2021-07-02 A Note on Dates
2021-06-29 2021-06-29 The Less Evil Empire
2021-06-22 2021-06-22 A Space Opera Setting
2021-06-14 2021-06-14 Orclands Revisited
2021-06-04 2021-06-04 More Coriolis Ships
2021-06-03 2021-06-03 Vaesen Character Generation
2013-12-28 2021-05-19 Numenera Stream-of-Consciousness Quasi-Review
2014-11-14 2021-05-17 A Space Opera Recursion for The Strange
2015-01-27 2021-05-17 Minimalist d20
2012-01-19 2021-05-17 My House, My Rules
2011-09-28 2021-05-17 The Uncounted Worlds
2021-05-17 2021-05-17 Old RPG-related Essays Incoming
2021-05-17 2021-05-17 Alignment Redux
2021-05-17 2021-05-17 Update (2021-05-17)
2020-10-11 2020-10-11 Languages in RPGs: Why?
2020-10-11 2020-10-11 Languages in RPGs: Written Languages
2020-10-09 2020-10-09 Languages in RPGs: The ‘Understand Languages’ Test
2020-10-08 2020-10-08 Languages in RPGs: Language Groups
2020-09-24 2020-10-07 Robots in Coriolis
2020-09-24 2020-09-24 A Non-Review of the Coriolis RPG
2020-09-20 2020-09-20 Coriolis Portals
2020-09-16 2020-09-16 Coriolis Ship Generation
2020-09-14 2020-09-14 Coriolis Character Generation
2020-09-14 2020-09-14 Yet More Year Zero, Again
2009-04-29 2020-09-11 The Dominion of Man
2010-02-11 2020-09-11 A Tellurian Primer
2017-05-23 2020-09-11 Astral RPG Essential Rules v0.1
2020-09-10 2020-09-10 Life on Theta Priori
2020-03-28 2020-03-30 Why an SRD, Again?
2020-03-24 2020-03-24 Goblins and Kobolds and Trolls, Oh My
2020-03-24 2020-03-24 Lost Cities
2011-06-24 2020-03-19 Constructs in BRP (2011 version)
2020-03-17 2020-03-17 An Elf Not Off The Shelf
2020-03-16 2020-03-16 On Converting the Year Zero Engine SRD into HTML
2020-03-12 2020-03-12 Blog Facelift Complete
2020-03-05 2020-03-05 Blog Facelift: Real Soon Now
2020-03-02 2020-03-02 Blog Facelift Progress
2020-02-12 2020-02-12 Why an SRD?
2020-02-11 2020-02-11 Yet More Year Zero
2020-02-02 2020-02-02 One RPG, Many Genres?
2020-01-08 2020-01-08 Vaesen Alpha Comments
2019-12-31 2019-12-31 Alien RPG Dice Table
2019-12-21 2019-12-21 Knives Out
2019-12-21 2019-12-21 Blog Facelift Underway
2019-12-12 2019-12-12 A Non-Review of Fria Ligan’s Alien RPG
2019-12-12 2019-12-12 Vaesen Rules Preview
2019-10-25 2019-10-25 Big Companies Suck
2019-10-10 2019-10-10 She-Ra Season 4
2019-09-18 2019-09-18 FICTION: Bunker Bomb
2019-09-16 2019-09-16 To Hugo or Not to Hugo
2019-09-16 2019-09-16 About Paranormality
2019-09-15 2019-09-15 About Astral
2019-09-13 2019-09-13 Writing RPGs is Hard, Part 2: Combat Rounds and the M x N Problem
2019-09-11 2019-09-13 Magic in d100 Games
2019-09-09 2019-09-09 Why Are Drow Dark?
2019-09-08 2019-09-08 Game Fanatic’s Log, Addendum 2019-09-08
2019-09-02 2019-09-02 Quick(?) Update 2019-09-02
2019-06-03 2019-06-03 Progress Report 2
2019-05-17 2019-05-17 Random Youtube Vids
2019-05-10 2019-05-10 Giant Steps
2019-04-28 2019-04-28 All Dwarves Reconsidered
2019-04-17 2019-04-17 Captain Marvel Second Viewing
2019-04-13 2019-04-13 Unwanted Software Thoughts Syndrome
2019-04-09 2019-04-09 DC Super Hero Girls Rebooted
2019-03-28 2019-03-28 What, me update?
2019-03-26 2019-03-26 Progress on ELTN
2019-03-22 2019-03-22 G+ Roundup 2: We Have To Talk About Brexit
2019-03-22 2019-03-22 G+ Roundup 1: Links about Software and Such
2019-02-08 2019-02-08 Agents of A.X.E.
2019-02-07 2019-02-07 In Defense of Cosmic Horror
2019-01-30 2019-01-30 Barbarians of Lemuria Playtest
2019-01-23 2019-01-23 About Barbarians of Lemuria
2019-01-07 2019-01-07 Troika Playtest
2018-12-18 2018-12-18 RPG Design Diary 1
2018-12-18 2018-12-18 Space Ship Habitat
2018-12-11 2018-12-11 ‘The Only RPG Book I Need’
2018-10-16 2018-10-16 Too Many Thoughts
2018-10-16 2018-10-16 So Much G+ …
2018-10-14 2018-10-14 Livejournal Live
2018-10-10 2018-10-10 Negative Waves
2018-10-09 2018-10-09 Here We Are
2016-11-01 2016-11-01 The Coins of Ys
2014-11-24 2014-11-24 A Questionable Review of The Strange Bestiary
2014-05-26 2014-05-26 Setting Idea: Sixgun and Planet
2014-01-09 2014-01-09 Rules as Interfaces Redux
2014-01-08 2014-01-08 Rules as Interfaces
2012-05-17 2012-05-17 Alignment: Heresy and a Reformation
2012-04-19 2012-04-19 The Chromatic Kingdoms
2012-04-19 2012-04-19 A Traveler and an Emperor
2011-12-28 2011-12-28 New time-waster
2011-05-31 2011-05-31 Time Travel and Keyboard Cat
2011-05-14 2011-05-14 A Tale of Two Games
2011-04-11 2011-04-11 In Memoriam - Elisabeth Sladen, 1948-2011
2010-09-16 2010-09-16 Comparative Character Generation, Part 6: The Last Roundup
2010-02-02 2010-02-02 The Time Lord Problem
2010-02-02 2010-02-02 Comparative Character Generation, Part 5: New Year, New Games
2009-05-13 2009-05-13 Comparative Character Generation, Part 4: Let’s Make Some Characters, Already!
2009-04-11 2009-04-11 Comparative Character Generation, Part 3: Same Crap, Different Year
2009-04-10 2009-04-10 Orclands Session 2: Mar 1
2009-03-20 2009-03-20 Orclands Session 1: Feb 15
2009-02-25 2009-02-25 The Orc Lands: An Introduction
2007-01-08 2007-01-08 The Invaders
2007-01-08 2007-01-08 All Right, Who Started the Apocalypse?
2006-11-26 2006-11-26 Comparative Character Generation, Part 2: An Overview of d20 Systems
2006-10-04 2006-10-04 A Story for Amy’s Dad
2006-09-21 2006-09-23 Gods and Religions in RPGs
2006-07-07 2006-07-07 Immortal Characters in RPGs
2006-04-14 2006-04-14 hq-prob-table.rb
2006-04-14 2006-04-14 HeroQuest Simple Contest Probabilities of Success
2004-12-26 2004-12-26 … And The American Way