Storythreads

Games, tools, ideas & thoughts around telling stories storythreads.itch.io

[story-threads]

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Squire demo (introduction, since Tumblr can't handle my five-star runtime)

Still would like to get this in a more presentable format with cheerful music and visuals etc. but sat down and just did the damn thing with my cheap frickin' headphone mic because it wasn't working out to keep hoping I'd somehow make a good audio setup some weekend.

Hopefully it sounds listenable enough for a demo!

(I think about these demo characters too much since I played the game that I transcribed for this script over a year ago. Godspeed, Jennet.)

[story-threads]

working on my game about the world during the time during an RPG when the chosen hero is in an enchanted sleep during a timeskip and no one else can kill the evil warlord so everyone else just has to deal. really torn between

Every player character playbook is intentionally a feminine RPG supporting character theme (The Farmgirl, The Princess, The Diva, etc.), you can play them as whatever kind of character/gender you want but it's intentionally calling on the idea of "what if all the cute girls that the game assumes the male player character will crush on got together and had secret adventures and relationships" which feels very fun and queer to write. Partly I do think it would be fun to have a default all-girl party a la Sailor Moon but I truly think you could play a boy Farmgirl and that it would be awesome and it would be a different vibe than if I named it Farmer or Farmboy.

Or: opening up the character creation so that you could theoretically play any kind of character including those that would be monsters in the "actual game" like skeleton warriors or dino-men, opening up questions about why the chosen hero kills them on sight and who is Good which is very fun to write about for different reasons

Now theoretically could do both of those but in my experience it's hard to get a big group of people together. It's hard to have the feeling from option A of "all the girls are getting together" if there's only 3-4 people playing and one or two of them are playing love interests and one or two of them are playing dino-men. And of course the easiest option here is that you can absolutely be a Dino Diva. But if I'm true to the premise that basically remakes the world so that Dinos are no longer monsters but had at least some dialogue options so that the Hero knew one of them before he went into the timeskip.

I think what I'm kind of settling into is one where every player has a main role-playing Girl Type and also can create and pick up NPCs to play, and hopefully that brings some weirdness into play.

As I've been putting this together I'm vaguely falling into a rhythm of writing moves as Power/Responsibility/Risk where Responsibility is a roleplay condition that has to be met in order to use or reuse the power, and Risk is how it goes wrong if it goes wrong. But I'm not actually feeling a place for dice yet. It may be from listening to so much Realis but I am kind of thinking in terms of tokens. I've never done a straight up hack of another system but I think I will read up on No Dice No Masters because I like a lot of it.

[space-stegosaurus]

Hey any game people I would appreciate feedback on this, I just don’t have anyone to check in with. I got a very nice comment and question about whether it was ok to adapt the system I made for my in-playtesting game (storythreads.itch.io/squire, make a sad knight sidekick today).

My immediate reaction is yes of course, some of the coolest developments in games come from hacks and adaptations and I’d love to see someone play with these mechanics that I’ve been alone with for so long.

I think I’m overthinking it, but are there downsides? I know it’s a long shot to ever get published but I don’t want to immediately shoot myself in the foot if giving this kind of permission messes with copyright stuff. Is this what creative commons is for? I don’t really know how any part of that works; I’ve done some reading but I just don’t know enough about the creative scene to know what kind of crediting is normal to ask for. If anyone has examples of how credit works for this kind of thing I’d appreciate that as well.

[imjustanothergirlinasweate-deac]

mutuals I'd like to be quiet with

[mothsplaining]

why is every tutorial a video. these days. can a bitch have some plain text and a photo

[hideback]

Cicada, Stages of Conventionalization

Hugo Froelich, Keramic Studio Magazine, 1905

[space-stegosaurus]

I had an “oh, that’s funny” thought so I shared with a friend that I had realized that by my game definitions, a grad student could be a squire if their professor (knight) worked with finicky and expensive equipment (horse) since they were working in academia (a violent, self replicating system panoplied in idealism) and after a pause I got back “I’m going to be honest, I thought that was fully the intention.”

anyway play squire! explore my various traumas and failed hopes which are apparently fully visible in the text!

[story-threads]

There’s a lot of important places to put your money including The Bank but if you’ve been thinking about throwing a couple bucks at a game, itch is waiving their fees (which is like 30% of all payments) for today (Nov 28) so now’s a good time if you want creators to get the bulk of the funds.

Storythreads - itch.io

[space-stegosaurus]

I think I'm just going to have to embrace having a very sketchy style and go with it. This is Jennet, from a demo game of Squire I put together and am still working on getting into audiovisual form. I'm calling this done except maybe all the bits of bad erasing I'm noticing. realized 80% of the way through that I needed a black background after drawing on white so this got... interesting but whatever, I kind of like how it adds some weirdness to it. very glad to have found Krita software, I was trying to use GIMP and I just couldn't get a handle on it and this seems more intuitive for me.

[in-case-of-grace]

Introducing PAGERS: a single page TTRPG book club!

There's an art to the single page TTRPG that can often go unseen. How do you fit an engaging experience into just 1 mere page? How do you explain potentially complex mechanics with a constraint like this? What of layout, art, and graphic design?

With so many amazing single-page TTRPGs out there, your potential favorites may be waiting around hidden corners. From classic dungeon crawlers, one-size-fits-all mini-systems, and experimental single-mechanic games, to thoughtful journaling games, story games, and experimental art games— there's so much to love!

The goal of PAGERS is to explore and enjoy these wonderful games together, to find new games you may have missed, to be inspired, and to discuss just what makes for an engaging tabletop game.

For now, we're aiming to play a new game once a month, with open nominations and voting to pick each of them! We'll be starting nominations for our first game shortly!

This book club is adults only because it's Just Easier To Manage, so if you're an adult— take a page, and join our discord here!

[in-case-of-grace]

We're currently nominating games for this month! Join us!

[ratinasuitproductions]

Like most of my projects, my latest TTRPG, "The Grand Melee", contains a collection of royalty-free art. Here's a collage showcasing the art I used.

Get The Grand Melee here

The Grand Melee by Rat In A Suit

A one-page TTRPG of knights, glory, and steel.

[story-threads]

I bet it seems like I forgot about making an intro video for squire and I haven’t! it’s wildly frustrating that it’s JULY and I have a script and a plan and I haven’t had time to actually sit down and do it!

[story-threads]

From lo-fi mechs to little witches, and "ancient horrors beyond imagining", here are six up-and-coming Solo TRPGs to play in 2025

Grab a pen and get into some thought-provoking journaling games while you wait for summer.

I’M FLIPPING OUT I JUST SAW THIS

Thanks so much for the recommendation! This is so nice! I just realized this happened!

Honestly this is such a nice review and I really appreciate it, I’ve gotten swamped with work and fallen behind on game stuff and it’s such a boost to realize people have read it and found it intriguing!

Please check out the other recs as well!

[space-stegosaurus]

[space-stegosaurus]

[story-threads]

thank you to person who left a comment/review on my game! I apologize that I can only write in essays and I’ve been starving to talk about this game for years with anyone! I promise I tried to edit it down.

the solution is obvious. everyone leave me more comment/reviews so I can practice writing replies more like a regular cool human writer

Squire by Storythreads

One player TTRPG, tellings stories about a squire apprenticed to a knight

[256colormode]

[story-threads]

looking for public domain art of mechs is basically impossible but in the process of looking found: this thing.

(thanks to LOC's public domain collections: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rosenwald.0007.1 Valturio, Roberto, 1405-1475. De re militari.)