Been getting more followers recently, so time for a pinned post!
I'm Josh and I make tabletop role-playing games and games related things. What sort of things, you may ask? Here's a quick sampler of some greatest hits;
Vibe Check: Enter the Inversion - a The World Ends With You inspired action-fashion game.
DEATHGRIND!!MEGASTRUCTURE - a post-human, brutalist, over-the-top game of delving through a massive galaxy spanning structure.
Fractal Romance - a surreal hangout where you explore the randomly generated Fractal Palace.
EXTRACAUSAL - a build-your-own supernatural conspiracy game. Inspired by everything from X-Files, Fringe, and Control.
Layers of Unreality - a procedurally driven crawl through the liminal spaces between reality for the game Liminal Horror.
Into the Riverlands - a system neutral fantasy setting full of spooky forests, god-fish, and more.
I've also contributed to a bunch of stuff like Gila RPG's Slayer's Almanac, KeganEXE's In Extremis: Season of Discovery, and Rae Nedjadi's Apocalypse Keys!
If you want to check all my stuff out, head on over to my itch.io page!
I like talking and writing about game design, and try to post about there here. I'm always open to questions about different elements of design and making your own ttrpgs!
You can check out some of my larger in-progress games in over here;
Okay, like, here I am going to inflict you with an image.
Now that you have Suffered The Image, this is the deal.
There's a bunch of TTRPGs in this bundle. They are free. You can get them with a click.
If you do, I would like you to review something on itchio.
I and a bunch of other designers all put games in this bundle in the hopes that it would get folks a little bit more visibility, feedback, community engagement, etc on a platform like itch.
It's very easy as a small designer to work on something, release it, and then hear nothing back ever. So we're trying to fight that trend by offering some sweet pay-what-you-want games.
Review Something! TTRPG Bundle: 32 items for $0.00
[video description: a screen recording of flipping pages, showing a few spreads from shadow / giant 2e. end VD]
shadow / giant 2e is coming to print !!!
Following in the legacy of Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired media such as The Mandalorian, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Birds of Prey, Logan, The Last of Us, Arcane, and more … Shadow / Giant is a tabletop RPG for two players eager to create their own wolf & cub story.
Their journey will be filled with dangers, outbursts, exploration, discovery, and entirely unexpected devotion. One player takes the role of the Shadow: a traumatized youth with powers unfit for their world. The other player is the Giant: an adult who swore they'd grown too jaded to ever care again, until the Shadow crashed into their life.
There are tales of somewhere they can go—a Safe Place, far away, where the Shadow will be protected. To make it there, the pair must outrun, outsmart, and outfight the Threat that's hot on their trail.
No matter the specifics of the Threat's sinister plans, they cannot be allowed to catch up and take the Shadow away. And they won't—not if the Giant can help it.
shadow / giant 2e is a 2 player TTRPG supporting games from 1 to ~12 sessions. it uses dice and playing cards, with alternate rules for rolling digitally or only using d6s. each session plays out for 2-4 hours
the two character playbooks - the shadow and the giant - are asymmetric. they have different core builds and different rolling mechanics
the giant uses a yahtzee-like mechanic: rolling and re-rolling pools of dice to try to make good combos. they always have to balance the potential for a better and rarer combo but risk total failure versus playing it safe and stacking up complications
the shadow, on the other hand, builds dice towers and knocks them down. they have to balance force and gentleness - leaving some dice stacked creates issues, but so does knocking them onto the floor. they compare their results against a sliding number representing their fantastical powers versus their natural youthful skills
the 60-page zine is full to the brim with examples, pick-lists, roll tables, and oracles that make GMfull play a breeze. you can carefully craft your world and characters or just roll for everything and jump right into play
accompanying players through the gamebook is The Narrator, a cosmic being whose sole purpose is to guide new Shadows and Giants on their journeys, along with a collection of absolutely gorgeous art by @prose-n-scripts (seriously, people can't stop raving about the art)
shadow / giant 2e was designed with accessibility in mind from start to finish:
the game is written and laid out to ease the cognitive load of learning and setting up a new game, as players can read each section out loud (or listen to it from a screenreader or future audiobook version) and follow the steps as they go. each section has summaries as well as visually distinct pick-lists and examples. even new ttrpg players should be able to jump into play within an hour of picking up the book
all the main text is in inclusive sans, and the pdf includes bookmarks and human-written image descriptions. the layout colors balance the need for contrast and any potential color blindness while remaining comfortable to look at on screens. the most-used oracles are at the very back of the book for easy reference
did i mention the amazing art by @prose-n-scripts ?
you can pre-order a print copy now from plus one experience!! the game drops in june of 2026 !!
Following in the legacy of Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired media such as The Mandalorian, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Birds of Prey, Logan, The
the digital zine will be sold from this page on my itch once it launches!!
I have seen a lot of city generators, dungeon generators, wilderness generators, but this is maybe the only building generator I've ever seen! I think it's very clever.
Smallest Salutations and welcome MintRabbit to the podcast! In part one of our interview, we ask Mint all about her playtest journey, her thoughts on the Forged in the Dark engine, and what this game’s past iterations played like! Listen in as we muse about our younger days and reflect on how childhood experiences inform the titular Child’s design. If you want to hear more, subscribe to our Micro Tier for part two of this interview!!
I cried a lot recording this (positive) but the good folks at Tiny Table did an excellent job of making me coherent. Thank you so much for playing my game!
My vampire Lumen ttrpg, Bloodthirst, currently sits at 29 pages! I expect it will end up somewhere in the mid 30s, so a very reasonable length.
Currently working on scenario blurbs for all four adversarial factions: The Ravenous, The Unbroken (both vampires), Vampire Hunters, and Witches. Lumen games are typically easy to pick up and run, but I think it's nice to give GMs small scenarios to help them establish a vibe and set the scene.
I'm running a one-shot tonight so it'll be interesting to see which of the six archetypes get picked up. So far the Mentalist, Spectre and Idol are being playtested in an ongoing game. Obviously the more data points the better but I'm hoping the Juggernaut, Sanguimancer or Sentinel get shown some love tonight.
(my personal prediction knowing this group is that we'll have a Juggernaut, Idol, Spectre and Sentinel.)
Harvest is a Folk Gothic diceless GMless RPG of tradition, necessity, and sacrifice, about a remote British island whose golden paradise only brutal ritual death will preserve
Harvest gives us laden orchards and barren fields; desperate fervour and doubts grown thick as weeds; calves born and pigs slaughtered; proud traditions, failing wealth, and hostile stares; juice-stained lips and dirt under nails; and always the questions echoing down through the generations: ‘Whose blood must be spilled to feed the land?’ and ‘Whose hand will hold the knife?’
In Harvest, each player chooses a member of the community to play—such as the established Old Name, the restless Young Blood, or the conflicted Homecomer. Together, you'll sketch the landscape of the island: its beauty and its terror. Across three escalating acts, you’ll explore the island’s buried secrets, succumb to community pressure and private desperation, and turn against each other.
Because the hard truth is this: one of you must die, hot blood soaking into the soil to feed the land. And one of you will wield the fatal knife. The only question is—who?
If you're a fan of historical British paganism and folklore, folk horror staples like The Wicker Man and Midsommar, or narratives about small town communities turning violent under as tension, pressure, and desperation mount, this game is for you.
One thing i forgot to mention at the end of my last video is that all my itchio games (except yccnafs) are pwyw now. Any money i get from itch will be donated. So if you’ve been interested in my stuff, you can have it!
help me make an irresponsible purchasing decision? reward me for my envious nature?
also as long as the sale is running (til the end of the month) i will answer ANY and EVERY sts or sts2 question im asked. wanna know what i think about ANY character, enemy, boss, card, and/or relic? this is your ONLY OPPORTUNITY
So I'm about to launch a new Kickstarter for Raccoon Sky Pirates, a TTRPG about chaos and trash.
I used to make a box set for this game. It was all black and white on copy paper, in a janky mailer box. It was beautiful.
It had a deck of 52 cards, a 12-sided raccoon die, a little rulebook, and 18 looseleaf sheets with characters and maps on them.
It let you play a whole misadventure in just 2 to 3 hours with no GM and up to six players. Which made it the perfect beer & pretzels game, not to mention a good gateway drug on-ramp for new RPGers.
But then I sold out of it, and people kept asking where they could find it, and that was kinda sad for lots of reasons. So I'm launching a Kickstarter where you can get it again.
But that's table stakes. The main show of the Kickstarter is a bigger, badder version of the game:
The Total Chaos Edition.
It has tons of components – most of them look like they were stolen from other games – so you can replay all you want without having to print new sheets. They add cool gameplay twists, they're built to last, and they're just fun to hold in your little raccoon mitts. Take a look:
Six raccoon dice, six custom bottle caps, three excessive & writable tabloid-size house maps by real live architects Brendan and Kate, 30 portrait cards by Robbi A Burns, 60 disaster cards with art by me and Strega Wolf Eden, hex tiles with art by Kata Kemi, and writable poker chips for all the loot you steal. And, like. A lot more. I dunno if you can zoom in on this photo, but. Things have gotten out of hand.
The Kickstarter's launching real soon! Like in just a few days. Depending when I last updated this post.
Raccoon Sky Pirates is hilarious you guys. Ask anyone who's played the original. You can still do a whole misadventure in just 2 to 3 hours with no GM. It runs smoother now. All the components make it easy to visualize your raccoons – or possums – and their frantic shenanigans.
If you ever wanted to live inside a raccoon meme, this is the game for you.
Sign up at raccoonskypirates.com to jump in on the first day, so you can get the early-bird discount.
soooooo excited to OFFICIALLY announce that shadow / giant 2e, the much improved & expanded second edition to my lone wolf & cub ttrpg, will be out for my First Ever Print Run in JUNE (like a week away!!!)
a 60 page zine with brand new bespoke mechanics, new character options, lots of oracles to support 2 player gmfull play, and so much Gorgeous art by @prose-n-scripts
if yall wanna be so nice and preorder it for my upcoming birthday you can do so through plus one experience :)
Following in the legacy of Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired media such as The Mandalorian, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Birds of Prey, Logan, The
My latest video is a setting analysis of Blades in the Dark! While I read Blades, I wondered why anyone would resort to a life of crime in a city filled with well-armed police and ravenous ghosts. By using a 19th century crime treatise, and some 21st century economics papers, I theorize about what compels Duskwallers to abandon their 9 to 5s.
I have a friend who insists that cover art is a game mechanic. I don't agree, but this cover almost makes me reconsider. It so flawlessly communicates what the game is about and gives me ideas of what I want to play in it without even opening the book.
ttrpg design blog @ostrichmonkey-games - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
