Ben Torell
@bentorell.com
Tabletop enthusiast and general giga-nerd.
TTRPG blog: https://gordianblade.com/
Itch Store: https://gordianblade.itch.io/
TTRPG blog: https://gordianblade.com/
Itch Store: https://gordianblade.itch.io/
Pinned
Ben Torell
@bentorell.com
· Nov 19
Hello new followers! I suppose I owe you an intro:
My name is Ben, I'm from Atlanta, and I enjoy posting about Tabletop RPGs and the general nerd stuff I'm into at the moment. These days I've been tinkering with my new homelab and working on several TTRPG projects from campaign prep to publishing.
My name is Ben, I'm from Atlanta, and I enjoy posting about Tabletop RPGs and the general nerd stuff I'm into at the moment. These days I've been tinkering with my new homelab and working on several TTRPG projects from campaign prep to publishing.
hundred dollar idea: gachapon machine that gives you new d&d characters
October 12, 2025 at 6:48 PM
hundred dollar idea: gachapon machine that gives you new d&d characters
Absolute cinema this morning with Telegram spammers
June 20, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Absolute cinema this morning with Telegram spammers
Just uploaded a fun #ttrpg side project: Printable Trait and Role cards for FIST: Ultra by @claymorerpgs.bsky.social:
gordianblade.itch.io/fist-ultra-p...
These cards help my players make new characters in a snap, as easy as drawing 1 Role and 2 Trait cards and you're good to go!
gordianblade.itch.io/fist-ultra-p...
These cards help my players make new characters in a snap, as easy as drawing 1 Role and 2 Trait cards and you're good to go!
Printable Trait and Role Cards for FIST: Ultra by Gordian Blade
Printable cards for quick and easy FIST: Ultra character creation
gordianblade.itch.io
June 10, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Just uploaded a fun #ttrpg side project: Printable Trait and Role cards for FIST: Ultra by @claymorerpgs.bsky.social:
gordianblade.itch.io/fist-ultra-p...
These cards help my players make new characters in a snap, as easy as drawing 1 Role and 2 Trait cards and you're good to go!
gordianblade.itch.io/fist-ultra-p...
These cards help my players make new characters in a snap, as easy as drawing 1 Role and 2 Trait cards and you're good to go!
Reposted by Ben Torell
Ugh I’m getting so many of these
April 22, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Ugh I’m getting so many of these
So uhhhhhhh anybody know a good wedding planner around Atlanta
April 11, 2025 at 12:42 AM
So uhhhhhhh anybody know a good wedding planner around Atlanta
Ok, doodling on a tablet is very fun...
March 1, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Ok, doodling on a tablet is very fun...
Reposted by Ben Torell
I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to cancel my Adobe subscription.
February 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to cancel my Adobe subscription.
#OSR #TTRPG Folks: What modules would you say nail both vibes (evocative, imaginative, inspiring) and usability (concise, well-structured, easy to reference)?
I'll start: Valley of Flowers has immaculate tone and is packed with incredible ideas while being well-written and designed. S-tier module!
I'll start: Valley of Flowers has immaculate tone and is packed with incredible ideas while being well-written and designed. S-tier module!
February 27, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Great video from @techconnectify.bsky.social about pushing back against algorithmic content curation. It's definitely been something I've bee feeling more strongly lately, moving back towards blogs and RSS instead of relying on big tech to do it all for me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJp...
Algorithms are breaking how we think
YouTube video by Technology Connections
www.youtube.com
February 23, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Great video from @techconnectify.bsky.social about pushing back against algorithmic content curation. It's definitely been something I've bee feeling more strongly lately, moving back towards blogs and RSS instead of relying on big tech to do it all for me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJp...
Look, I'm super in favor of de-Googling, and I've been using alternative search engines like Duck Duck Go and Brave through Firefox for a while, but... they are still not as good as Google as a search engine. Too many times I have to swap to Google to get a result the others won't give me.
February 20, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Look, I'm super in favor of de-Googling, and I've been using alternative search engines like Duck Duck Go and Brave through Firefox for a while, but... they are still not as good as Google as a search engine. Too many times I have to swap to Google to get a result the others won't give me.
Hyped for the Liminal Horror Deluxe campaign -- such a great and easy go-to modern horror system.
Liminal Horror Winter Giveaway
Enter to win a bundle of LH goodies by March 2nd
Multiple ways to enter:
- follow: liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe
- Bsky: Repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Bsky: Quote repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Substack: Follow the Goblin Archives Substack goblinarchives.substack.com
Enter to win a bundle of LH goodies by March 2nd
Multiple ways to enter:
- follow: liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe
- Bsky: Repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Bsky: Quote repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Substack: Follow the Goblin Archives Substack goblinarchives.substack.com
February 19, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Hyped for the Liminal Horror Deluxe campaign -- such a great and easy go-to modern horror system.
Reposted by Ben Torell
Liminal Horror Winter Giveaway
Enter to win a bundle of LH goodies by March 2nd
Multiple ways to enter:
- follow: liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe
- Bsky: Repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Bsky: Quote repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Substack: Follow the Goblin Archives Substack goblinarchives.substack.com
Enter to win a bundle of LH goodies by March 2nd
Multiple ways to enter:
- follow: liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe
- Bsky: Repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Bsky: Quote repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Substack: Follow the Goblin Archives Substack goblinarchives.substack.com
February 16, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Liminal Horror Winter Giveaway
Enter to win a bundle of LH goodies by March 2nd
Multiple ways to enter:
- follow: liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe
- Bsky: Repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Bsky: Quote repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Substack: Follow the Goblin Archives Substack goblinarchives.substack.com
Enter to win a bundle of LH goodies by March 2nd
Multiple ways to enter:
- follow: liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe
- Bsky: Repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Bsky: Quote repost the Giveaway on bsky
- Substack: Follow the Goblin Archives Substack goblinarchives.substack.com
Reposted by Ben Torell
Checking out the lancer rpg one shot game jam, tons of cool stuff in here: itch.io/jam/lancer-o...
Submissions to LANCER One-Shot Module Jam
itch.io
February 13, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Checking out the lancer rpg one shot game jam, tons of cool stuff in here: itch.io/jam/lancer-o...
time to add elmo to the blocked word lists
February 4, 2025 at 10:59 PM
time to add elmo to the blocked word lists
Dammit. I want to run an RPG campaign in the Android universe and I don't want to use Shadow of the Beanstalk/Genesys, so I'm nerd-sniping myself into writing a Cities Without Number + Stars Without Number mashup
February 4, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Dammit. I want to run an RPG campaign in the Android universe and I don't want to use Shadow of the Beanstalk/Genesys, so I'm nerd-sniping myself into writing a Cities Without Number + Stars Without Number mashup
I'm really glad I took the time to learn good typography and layout lessons while writing The Demon of Dogwater Gulch. It has helped me in my day-to-day life, even at work, improving basically all my written communication. Information design is for more than RPGs and technical manuals!
January 30, 2025 at 9:06 PM
I'm really glad I took the time to learn good typography and layout lessons while writing The Demon of Dogwater Gulch. It has helped me in my day-to-day life, even at work, improving basically all my written communication. Information design is for more than RPGs and technical manuals!
Very glad I moved my main blog to a self-hosted Ghost site. There's really no other viable option. As long as you're hosting on someone else's dime, you're going to be beholden to them.
Substack comes out in favor of Elon. read.substack.com/p/the-fight-...
The fight for free speech in 2025 and beyond
On Substack’s ongoing commitment to freedom of the press
read.substack.com
January 29, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Very glad I moved my main blog to a self-hosted Ghost site. There's really no other viable option. As long as you're hosting on someone else's dime, you're going to be beholden to them.
My tests of the 14b Qwen distill of Deepseek R1 are going great, nothing to see here
January 28, 2025 at 7:33 PM
My tests of the 14b Qwen distill of Deepseek R1 are going great, nothing to see here
I'm very excited to run His Majesty the Worm on Thursday but this is the second game in a row that I've run that seems wildly difficult to run as a one-shot. I feel like 80% of my prep has been making reference material and pregens when I'd really rather my prep just be limited to the adventure.
January 28, 2025 at 6:39 PM
I'm very excited to run His Majesty the Worm on Thursday but this is the second game in a row that I've run that seems wildly difficult to run as a one-shot. I feel like 80% of my prep has been making reference material and pregens when I'd really rather my prep just be limited to the adventure.
(Spoilers for Tomb of Golden Ghosts from His Majesty the Worm)
Having fun playing with a new IRL GM setup, getting ready to run His Majesty the Worm. I'm tickled by the idea of using a three-ring binder as a GM screen of sorts, without creating too large of a barrier between myself and the players.
Having fun playing with a new IRL GM setup, getting ready to run His Majesty the Worm. I'm tickled by the idea of using a three-ring binder as a GM screen of sorts, without creating too large of a barrier between myself and the players.
January 27, 2025 at 4:28 PM
(Spoilers for Tomb of Golden Ghosts from His Majesty the Worm)
Having fun playing with a new IRL GM setup, getting ready to run His Majesty the Worm. I'm tickled by the idea of using a three-ring binder as a GM screen of sorts, without creating too large of a barrier between myself and the players.
Having fun playing with a new IRL GM setup, getting ready to run His Majesty the Worm. I'm tickled by the idea of using a three-ring binder as a GM screen of sorts, without creating too large of a barrier between myself and the players.
Prepping for a one-shot of His Majesty The Worm last night, doing some "goldfishing" of the Meatgrinder table, just drawing new encounters with each dungeon turn and imagining player reactions. I was struck by how much of the dungeon resides on the encounter table, maybe more than the map key?
January 22, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Prepping for a one-shot of His Majesty The Worm last night, doing some "goldfishing" of the Meatgrinder table, just drawing new encounters with each dungeon turn and imagining player reactions. I was struck by how much of the dungeon resides on the encounter table, maybe more than the map key?
Got a pair of notifications today saying that Grimwild was release, and a new game called Glumdark just launched on Kickstarter. NSR TTRPGs really have a vibe, don't they
I'm just gonna name my game Cave Losers
I'm just gonna name my game Cave Losers
January 22, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Got a pair of notifications today saying that Grimwild was release, and a new game called Glumdark just launched on Kickstarter. NSR TTRPGs really have a vibe, don't they
I'm just gonna name my game Cave Losers
I'm just gonna name my game Cave Losers