Gloggies Nominations 2025

 This year, the Gloggies follow a democratic process, in which members of the community are called upon to nominate the posts that stuck with them and inspired them, for later voting and accolade.

I really appreciate the community events that come up in the GLoG server. Despite owning the server, I'm the author of very few of these events, and it's the work of civically-minded luminaries like Vivanter, or Hilander with his GLoGmas hosting, or Locheil with their GLaugust MCing, that make these events so vibrant.

To select my nominations, I scrolled through blog posts made so far this year and clicked on some of my favorites, the ones I kept thinking about since they were posted. If you read every blogpost in my glog server, you would be reading about three a day, and I know I ended up reading only a fraction of them. So as you are reminded of some of the best-appreciated blogposts, I'd recommend maybe looking at a post from someone you don't normally follow and commenting on their work. Certainly we have many great names who have come to grace the server who were not well-known a year ago.

Nominations

Best Dungeon Post: Alxin Lake Caravanaserai, by Locheil. This great scenario shows the strength of Eil's writing and her attention to detail. The whole thing fits together as a mystery, a dungeon, and a story on its own.

Best Class Post: The Ichabod, by TheFirstGokun. An example of his easy and evocative style, and a character type I would love to see explored in a campaign.

Honorable Mention: A trio of classes from Locheil's bespoke single-level cloak-and-sword class bandwagon. Vivanter's Academian (neat worldbuilding, full realization of concept), TheisticGilthoniel's Huguenot (charmingly direct translation of history), and The Spaniard, by SunderedWorldDM (needs no explanation). Bandwagons like this really show the strength of collective creativity, and I think these classes are better than the sum of their parts because of how they all eventually relate to each other.

Best Monster Post: The d666 Monster Generator, by Louis and Locheil. Really fun to play around with, and created some really cool creatures.

Best Rules Post: The 2 Arbitrary Beings Who Are Exes Table by Louis. There were a lot of one-neat-trick posts this year, and this one was my favorite.

Honorable Mention: Esprit, recorded here by Lexi. While this was a hallmark of Locheil's bandwagon, I think the mechanic itself is just rock-solid.

Best Lore Post: Arise, Ye Wretched by Occultronics. Her bombastic and vital Hex setting takes a lot of the footwork, creative energy, and enthusiasm that I previously associated with Josie's ancient settings and puts it in this whole other milieu that just works so well. Sometimes it feels like a more grounded and modern setting can trade off with storytelling possibilities, but this just doesn't feel like it's the case here. Seems really fun.

Honorable Mention: I'll Have You Die for This! by Locheil. A trademark wit shows his trademark wit.

Best Theory Post: Firearms in Dungeon Crawls, by G. R. Michael. Just spitting the facts. In the past, I've complimented Michael's settings sense of materiality, and this is a good example of the mastery of basic facts that makes a DM seem authoritative to the laity.

Best Non-Dungeon Adventure Post*: I made this category separate from the others because I didn't know where to put those adventures that weren't per se dungeons, and it felt weird to place them under Rules or Other. I nominate The Heart of Communication by Regalia. Great execution on concept and thematic consistency, and some really fun details. I love Wolphelia d’Ream, the literal wolf who is the fourth most eligible lady in the region.

Best Other Post: the Spiceomancy Trading Card Game, by TheFirstGokun. Not only impressive for the art put into it and the special touches, but for showing the power of imagination. You could keep clicking the generator until you owned every card, you could could neglect to delete cards you trade away. But that would suck and you don't do that.

Honorable Mention: Anybody Remember the Gallon Man? by Mergo-Kan. When I was making the first draft of my noms, I knew that the Craftsman was going to be my nomination for Other, and as I was scrolling through I made Anybody Remember the Gallon Man by honorable mention. Then I noticed that the Craftsman was actually from 2024, which meant that for the ten minutes or so before I remembered the card game, Gallon Man was my #1 choice for miscellaneous glog posts in 2025.