Building Bonds, Testing Trust, and Sandbaggers – oh my! Part 2
Posted by Runeslinger on March 14, 2026 · Leave a Comment
This is the second in what might become a series which uses the episodes of a beloved cold war spy series called The Sandbaggers to dig into the genre from an RPG perspective and specific mechanisms from RPGs such as Delta Green and World War Cthulhu.
Filed under Preparation and Preparedness, The Blog, Themes and Intentions · Tagged with cold war rpg, covert action rpg, Delta Green, espionage RPG, roleplaying, roleplaying games, RPG, running games, The Sandbaggers, World War Cthulhu
Bonds, Trust, and Sandbaggers – Oh, my! Part 1
Posted by Runeslinger on March 11, 2026 · 2 Comments
This is the first in what might become a series of posts about episodes of the cold war spy series The Sandbaggers and how the events and relationships in the series can highlight and give nuance to our understanding of mechanisms within great RPGs like Delta Green and World War Cthulhu: Cold War~
Filed under The Blog, Preparation and Preparedness, Themes and Intentions, Running Games, Playing in Games · Tagged with BRP, Chaosium, Delta Green, espionage RPG, Games, roleplaying, roleplaying games, RPG, running games, The Sandbaggers, ttrpg, World War Cthulhu
The Silent Majority
Posted by Runeslinger on December 14, 2025 · 10 Comments
When I reflect on this blog and what my projects under the name of Runeslinger are, it is inescapable to conclude that in the beginning, these endeavors were rooted in an effort to maintain a conversation with the dead.
Filed under Actual Play, Preparation and Preparedness, The Blog, The Gamers, Themes and Intentions · Tagged with Games, gaming, GM Advice, older gamers, roleplaying, roleplaying games, RPG, RPG Player Advice, running games, ttrpg
Lucifer’s Lexicon: On RPG Concepts and Terms~
Posted by Runeslinger on April 28, 2025 · 4 Comments
No Ambrose Bierces were harmed in the making of this post.
The bones of this post actually date back to the launch of this blog in May of 2010 though the content is much older. I had a few conflicting ideas about the blog in those days as it was inspired by the loss of my friend Tom (a genius) and the sense of dismay it sparked to know that there would be no more talks about games, life, or onion soup with him, and to know that a person like that was gone from the world. Worse, all the conversations we had had about gaming were now only the version in my memory – and of the two of us, he liked and got along with people much better than I do.
Filed under Actual Play, Casting the Shadows, Playing in Games, Preparation and Preparedness, Running Games, Technical Questions, The Blog, Themes and Intentions · Tagged with Games, gaming, roleplaying, roleplaying games, RPG, running games, ttrpg
RPGs: not just happy accidents
Posted by Runeslinger on March 14, 2025 · 1 Comment
Often, in our zeal to define the nature of RPGs, gamers can get caught up in those specifics and forget about – or worse deride – those enjoyably investigating some other part or parts of the elephant.
Filed under Actual Play, Playing in Games, Running Games, Technical Questions, The Blog, The Gamers · Tagged with Games, gaming, roleplaying, roleplaying games, RPG, RPG Theory, runeslinger, running games, ttrpg







