Failure Tolerated is a blog by Sean McCoy, co-founder of Tuesday Knight Games, co-designer of Two Rooms and a Boom, and designer of Mothership. He used to do a weekly podcast about boardgaming, and occasionally writes horror fiction. You can support this blog by donating here.
Why Setting High Stakes Matters
Stop Worrying About Layout Software
Can We Make This An Image? Designing Better Tables
A Small Rant About Investigation in RPGs
January 16, 2025 - Writing rooms in pairs
December 10, 2024 - Why we did Mothership Month
February 28, 2024 - Stretch Goals Are Haggling
February 27, 2024 - The Insufficiency of Language
February 23, 2024 - When are you ready to crowdfund?
February 15, 2024 - The Bottom Line
February 7, 2024 - Add it to the Key
January 18, 2024 - Environmental Horror Design
November 30, 2023 - High Level Shortcuts
November 19, 2023 - Prep isn’t play
November 9, 2023 - Megadungeons are Anti-Product
November 6, 2023 - Dragons are the Encounter
October 29, 2023 - Hex map encounter levels
October 27, 2023 - My favorite problems
October 23, 2023 - Luke Gearing on Into the Megadungeon
October 7, 2022 - Thinking about Safety Tools in RPGs
June 22, 2022 - Getting Rid of Dogfights
June 6, 2022 - The First Line of Every Edition of Dungeons & Dragons
June 4, 2022 - James Maliszewski: The Tékumel Interview
May 31, 2022 - What I’m Working On
May 8, 2021 - Violent Encounters
August 4, 2020 - Leveling Down
August 1, 2020 - Heating Up
July 8, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 07: Anatomy of Bad Session
June 24, 2020 - Learning to Crawl
May 27, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 06: Session Report [Mothership]
May 13, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 05: Session Report [Mothership]
May 6, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 04: Session Report [Mothership]
April 14, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 03: Session Report [Mothership]
April 1, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 02: Session Report [Mothership]
March 17, 2020 - Gradient Descent Dive 01: Session Report [Mothership]
December 16, 2019 - Mawbreakers, Resource Management, and Combat Centric Gaming
October 31, 2019 - A Crash Course on Marketing Your Indie RPG
August 26, 2019 - Getting Better At RPG Twitter
August 6, 2019 - Where Do We Go From Here?
July 19, 2019 - Mothership, the ENnies, and A Pound of Flesh
March 16, 2019 - Eleven Questions about Layout in RPGs
February 26, 2019 - Mawbreakers: A Weird WW2 Para-shooter RPG
January 27, 2019 - Building Custom Backgrounds for Mothership
January 23, 2019 - My First Shootout
January 21, 2019 - Stop Worrying About Layout Software
January 20, 2019 - Painless Character Creation for a Painful Game
January 14, 2019 - Why Setting High Stakes Matters
December 27, 2018 - How to Create a Criminal
December 17, 2018 - Rey Burtnolds Debriefing Communicades: Session Archive [Mothership]
December 13, 2018 - A Small Rant about Investigation in RPGs
December 7, 2018 - Better Crits for Mothership
December 6, 2018 - Carousing & Stress in Mothership
November 9, 2018 - Critical Hit Tables for Mothership
October 12, 2018 - The End of G+ and an OSR Guide For The Perplexed
August 31, 2018 - Divine Right: Minaria as a D&D Setting
August 22, 2018 - Yanovich’s Inauguration: Session Report [Insurgency]
August 14, 2018 - Prisoners of Hecate Balaam: Session Report [Mothership]
August 7, 2018 - Notes from Gen Con 2018
July 29, 2018 - How We Designed Dead Planet
July 10, 2018 - Screaming on the Alexis: Session Report [Mothership]
June 22, 2018 - Mothership PDF Now On DriveThruRPG
June 5, 2018 - Fire in Hyperspace: Session Report [Mothership]
May 15, 2018 - Escape from Banquo IV: Session Report [Mothership]
May 8, 2018 - Build a Dungeon, Level Up
May 1, 2018 - Crash Landing on Banquo IV: Session Report [Mothership]
April 23, 2018 - Can We Make This an Image? Designing Better Tables
April 17, 2018 - The Connecticut Job: Session Report [Heist]
April 8, 2018 - Mothership: Ship Creation Sheet
March 27, 2018 - Lessons I Learned Designing the Mothership Character Sheet
March 21, 2018 - The Golden Barge: Session Report [LotFP]
March 7, 2018 - Brendan’s Twenty Rules Questions
March 5, 2018 - The Hall of Sweet Mourning
March 1, 2018 - Designing Heartbreaker, My Tactical Card Game
February 26, 2018 - Urban Geomorphs for Cyberpunk Games
February 25, 2018 - Equipment As Prestige Classes
February 24, 2018 - Designing a Character Sheet for Castlevania
February 22, 2018 - Node Based Dungeon Design in Fighting Fantasy
February 21, 2018 - Simple Poison Rules for Old School Games
February 20, 2018 - My House Rules for Weapons in OD&D
February 14, 2018 - From Fighting Fantasy to Troika!
January 23, 2018 - I’ve Got Some Art in Megadungeon Issue 2
January 8, 2018 - Heist: A Smash & Grab RPG
December 21, 2017 - Isaac’s Basement
December 19, 2017 - Battletech: HPS-222 HOPSCOTCH
December 18, 2017 - Battletech: FAL-5A FALSTAFF
December 14, 2017 - What Do The Monsters Want?
December 13, 2017 - d20 Quick Cleric Religions
December 11, 2017 - Running a Siege Against the Keep on the Borderlands
December 5, 2017 - Building Better Magical Components
December 4, 2017 - My Infatuation with 2D Maps
December 1, 2017 - What Are the Guards Doing?
November 28, 2017 - How to Make Treasure Interesting
September 11, 2017 - B/X/R/X: Ape, White
September 7, 2017 - B/X/R/X: Acolyte
September 4, 2017 - B/X/R/X: Remixing the Best Monster Manual
August 22, 2017 - The First Time We Played Mothership
August 21, 2017 - Mistakes We Made at Gen Con 50
July 7, 2017 - My ENnies 2018 Judge Application
June 26, 2017 - Top 20 Twitter Bots for D&D
June 6, 2017 - Survive, Solve, or Save: Pick Two
May 19, 2017 - Removing Agency in Horror Games
April 17, 2017 - A Primer on Publishing Boardgames
March 10, 2017 - Why Buc-ee’s Made Their Bathrooms Their Core Business Offering
February 24, 2017 - Why We Tolerate Failure
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