As it's halloween, I want to talk about the first thing I ever published!
I've been designing tabletop stuff for years, primarily for D&D 5e, though not exclusively. I just never published any of it. It wasn't good enough, you know? I suspect a lot of aspiring designers can get behind that sentiment.
Anyway, at this point I was playing in a semi-regular game of, you guessed it, D&D 5e. However, our halloween session had a problem - we wouldn't have everyone, so we couldn't play the campaign. Talk of a oneshot sprang up. Dread was suggested - it was easy, designed for oneshot play, and required minimal prep.
I'd seen Dread played on Oxventure a few times and loved the idea, so I volunteered to run it. I wrote that oneshot on the most scrappy piece of lined paper you ever did see. I might still have it somewhere - if I find it I'll reblog this with a picture. I did not expect it to be good. I did not expect the amount of tension as the tower grew taller and taller. I definitely did not expect the amount of praise I got for my scrappy oneshot. It got me thinking.
Over the next few days I drew up a sketch of the areas the group had explored and sent it to the group. Over the next few months, scrappy piece of lined paper in front of me, I began to type it up, format it. I was in no hurry, this was just for fun.
That was 2022. I published The Depths in April 2023. Since then I've published 17 more games and supplements. If you're looking for a sign to take the leap and publish something, consider this your sign. It's great fun, and the barrier to entry is much, much lower than you think.
All this to say - go make things! You won't regret it!
(If you want to get The Depths, or any of my other system-agnostic horror oneshots, they're all on sale for a few more days. You can also get one of them, Sleepwalking, at whatever price you choose at any point.)
