One of my personal game design white whales is an OSR game that takes the modern roguelike "core advancement schema is constrained to single runs, plus some sort of auxiliary metaprogression based on rewards for completing runs" and cross-breeds it with the "dungeons are mythic underworlds/fragments of other worlds/living creatures parasitising our reality" conceit that some contemporary OSR games go for to produce a game where the core rules furnish robust character creation procedures but simply have no concept of advancement, incremental or otherwise, and then each individual adventure module has its own context-specific advancement schema which is only effective inside that particular dungeon, and goes away outside of it.
e.g., one dungeon might allow characters to advance by progressively enbodying mythic archetypes to produce something resembling a conventional class-and-level system, save that the "character classes" are specific to that dungeon, and a different dungeon which nominally has the same advancement schema would have a totally different set of playbooks; another might have fully randomised advancement in which player characters acquire weird body-horror mutations that grant mildly game-breaking super powers with no ability to influence which ones they get; and a third might have wholly extrinsic advancement based on acquiring golf-bags full of magic items with oddly specific functions. In each case, progression through the relevant advancement schema would be extremely rapid, such that exploring its full gamut in the span of a single adventure module is feasible, and player characters would "reset to level 1" once that module is complete.
However – and this is the keystone of the entire exercise – we're explicitly not obliging GMs to basically design a whole new game every time they want to roll their own adventure module, because 90% of the text would consist of a long list of modular pieces of advancement schemas which can be plugged together like Lego bricks to produce whatever the dungeon at hand uses, tied together with some sort of monstrous set of Big Stupid Tables which enable advancement schemas to be randomly generated, with the GM's only obligatory responsibility being to invent an aesthetic for the dungeon which justifies these particular elements coming together in this particular configuration.
On Call, the werewolf Dispatching game, IS LIVE! It’s a GM + 1-2 player game where you are not allowed to shift during the full moon phase (the day before, the day of and the day after the full moon) because you have to be On Call in case anything goes wrong with your fellow werewolves or their families!
There’s great news about this game! It’s fully written. So the moment the campaign funds, all eligible backers will get it and a playtest form! I’m just doing this so I can fund an editor, two artist and a layout designer!
In On Call, you play as a werewolf who can’t shift during the full moon cycle (night before, during and after the full moon). Instead you an
Thank You!
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On Call PDF
This pledge gets you the On Call PDF, which will be formatted to allow you to print this at home!
Revealed Universe Bundle
On Call is a part of the Revealed Universe, set in a world where the monsters thought to belong to fairytales and horror movies are real and have revealed themselves to the world. I have TWO other games also set in this world:
HuntRPG
YOU'RE AN AGENT
And you're on the hunt. Travel across the United States hunting down rogues, vampires that have decided the laws of society no longer apply to them and spend their days killing and devouring citizens, both the living and undead. Put an end to your fellow vampires, either by killing them or turning them over to your agency - likely for experimentation.
YOU'RE A ROGUE
And you're being hunted. Two things drive you: an all-consuming blinding hot thirst and staying alive and free. Traveling across the United States, leaving scores of bodies in your wake, your life is a constant chase; towards your next victim, away from your inevitable doom.
HuntRPG is a game of cat and mouse, or vampire and vampire. This solo journaling RPG has you chronicling your time as both an agent and a rogue while dealing with the intensities of both positions and the general hardships of being "immortal."
The Gift
For many werewolves, lycanthropy is a gift. Something that is passed down through your family or to others you deem worthy or needy.
The Gift is a solo journaling RPG where you chronicle your experience of being bitten by a werewolf, the week leading up to the full moon, and your first time shifting.
This pledge level gives you the On Call, HuntRPG and The Gift PDFs.
On Call - Free Session (One Player)
I am a professional GM and I want to run this game for you! With this pledge you get all previous pledges plus me running the game for you!
On Call - Free Session (Two Players)
I am a professional GM and I want to run this game for you! With this pledge you get all previous pledges plus me running the game for you and a friend!
I know you've made posts about play styles and stuff like that in the past. I'm curious if seeing the founding cast at a table with a different DM and more players for a now somewhat extensive period of time has changed anything about how you understand them as players?
Hi anon,
A little bit. A lot of this post is going to be just repetition of many things I've said elsewhere, with some revision and recanting of a few things I've probably said previously, for the following reason:
Campaigns 1 and 2 are, and I've said this before, ultimately similar in general structure. The cast made characters and Matt made a story (and to some extent, a world) that fit and supported those concepts and allowed them to develop. Campaign 1 had a much looser concept of the world and much more directed story that was custom made to those characters because they could set the direction of the world, whereas Campaign 2 was the opposite - while the initial character creation provided a great deal of the lore of Wildemount, the story was then much more player-directed. But structurally they're not that different and most preference for one over the other is just a matter of what personally floats your boat. Additionally, Campaign 1 represents "character you make for your first D&D character/archetype you are broadly drawn to" and Campaign 2 represents "character you make when you feel more confident and are interested in branching out." So all of that means that when I talked about the cast as players based on C1 and C2, I stand by most of that.
Campaigns 3 and 4 are both ultimately quite different in structure, and the choices the players made in character creation are also different as a result. Campaign 3 had very little direction in character creation, and I think much of the cast tried to do something they had not done before whether or not it was really in their range - which is understandable, but it means that it's harder to tell if this is what they enjoy playing or if it was more of an experiment. The story meanwhile wasn't really about these characters nor was it very well nor clearly constructed and so their arcs and the story arcs faltered to an extent, and the most you can really say is how the cast manages in that situation. Campaign 4 meanwhile has a very specific and realized world from the start, and we know there was a pretty extensive character creation process, which is to say, some people are going to fall back to what they know they like, some people are going to branch out, but everyone was given fairly clear direction and presumably the knowledge that any character arc should be tied to certain, if not plot points, at least themes.
So because you have three very different scenarios, and with the addition of a new GM, then I think you end up with some very high level understanding, but a lot of what I said about the cast based on C1 and C2 no longer applies or at least does not universally apply.
This is a lot of preamble to say the following:
Liam and Travis both often deal with themes of loss and family; Liam is more likely to also deal with themes of community whereas Travis tends more towards someone who has recently lost or left a community. Both have a good sense of narrative and mechanics, and are pretty much able to adapt to whatever the GM throws at them including if the GM is having an off day or uh. campaign (and indeed, of the C4 table, Liam, Travis, Aabria, Luis, and Matt as a player are the people I'd say are my top 5 all-arounders in terms of narrative, improv, mechanics, RP, and willingness to embrace difficulty and be decisive. They are not necessarily the top 5 at the table in every single one of those options but there is nothing that is a weakness). They are doing well playing off Brennan; they did well playing off Matt.
Ashley (also - much of this applies to Robbie as well but he is not founding cast, but Robbie and Ashley occupy a similar space for me) deals in a similar thematic space. She is not quite as strong on mechanics or hard decisions in the moment but is easily one of the top actors.
Laura is not dissimilar in terms of being very strong on the acting front and I think the difference between GMs is most noticeable for her because I think Brennan's much more hands-on style in which there is more direction is very helpful to her; by her own admission, she wants reassurance that she is making the right call. I do think Matt likes to give individuals very big choices to make on their own (think: Saundor, Artagan, and the entire plot of C3 for Laura), and I think Laura does better if either there's a great deal of buildup that helps her come to an answer; or if this becomes a more group effort, and I think Brennan may have realized that or just runs a game where that is more built in to his style.
Sam is not the strongest on mechanics always but he is also quite strong on RP and I'd say he's got a very good story sense. I also think one of Sam's strengths is that he's unafraid of failure. None of this is really new information with Brennan though imo. (That's also true with Ashley tbh - still doing great! not much new info).
Marisha would actually be up there with Liam and Travis on many accounts - definitely a strong mechanical player and improviser - and her weakness is that she can get very mistrustful of pretty straightforward information which can as a result in going on wild tangents. This to be fair has always been present from the very start (Keyleth mistrusting Kima; Beau eventually landed on the right answers but there were some wild missteps along the way) and I think the other note I'd give is that while I personally have a lot of issues with this tendency (1. my general attitude towards something in D&D being "off" is "well, the story is more fun if I push the big red button than if I avoid it, so who cares and 2. I hate conspiratorial thinking just, as a rule) it's not automatically bad (the Kima scene ended up being great) but it does become a bit more immediately obvious in a campaign where the DM has something very specific in mind, as it does in C4. Also, if you have this tendency I think you need to lean into it with either very high intuition or very high intelligence characters which then lets you frame it as someone reading a valid hunch or theory but in the wrong direction (as with Marisha in real life thinking Matt was doing something sketchy when he was setting up his proposal to her - she had a good hunch! He was hiding something! It was a proposal plan). If the character in question has neither it just looks like someone rambling absolute nonsense for no reason.
Finally, I'll keep the note on Taliesin short because I think this has come up a lot in criticism of Bolaire from me or others but there is a reason why I think a lot of people who had had their critiques in the past but never something quite as solidified have really started to voice them, and it is that Taliesin always kind of tries to subvert things, and between Percy ultimately ending up pretty classically D&D, Molly dying, Caduceus being a last minute replacement, and C3 being a mess, it was kind of uh. masked. until now. Anyway "this character is kind of an asshole and doesn't really need to change; peep my custom subclass!" is not an idea that in my opinion you can do more than once or maybe twice without it wearing thin because it's just not a very good story. But I think more generally Taliesin doesn't really trust the DM, and also doesn't have great story sense. This was much less of a problem with Matt, who has a much lighter hand on the reins than Brennan, but I do want to make it clear that is what was happening. It was not that Matt was reining Taliesin in (that is more what Brennan is doing, actually); it's that it was harder to run into a wall with Matt because there is much more space and flexibility. When Matt went into hardass mode - which tended to benefit much of the rest of the cast, honestly - Taliesin had the same issues as we're seeing in campaign 4. It's just, when that's the whole campaign, it becomes much easier to see.
So, new idea for a ttrpg, incredibly underbaked.
The game is centered around establishing truths about the narrative, and paying those truths off.
Each person is playing a character in a story, and the game part of it is this, "the GM introduces a thematic element, maybe even multiple thematic elements that the party has to pay off."
So, each player can set up truths in the world. These truths would be divided into different chategories.
Weather physical "I have a gun!"
personal "my past is tragic"
weaknesses, such as "I'm a horrible shot"
Thematic "this is a love story" (these can also be genre, age rating, etc)
the idea is, rolls don't actually determine weather or not you succeed, but weather or not you can successfully establish these elements. Eg, rolling yes and gives you "Yes, I'm establishing that I have a gun, and that I "
and later, you, or other players, can help you establish those truths "quick, you friend, shoot him with your gun!"
and then later, you could pay something off "Im gonna shoot the villain while they are monologing by using my gun!"
but, different tasks the party may want to acomplish in the narrative, would have different narrative weights to them. The highest you can get it 4.
that means to accomplish that task, you would need to payoff atleast one from each chategory.
shooting the big bad evil guy, may only be accomplished, if we are paying four truths, such as.
Physcially "I have a gun"
Emotionally "Im decisive."
Flaw "Im impatient"
and thematically "Justice must be reached"
Which means, I would need to have established, and reinforced, those 4 things throughout the whole of the narrative.
if i was developing it out, it would have some sort of metacurrency situation, that would allow you to like, subvert pre-established things or automatically develop things or whatever else.
My thought it would be "coins" which turns a d4 chart of "yes/no. and/but." into just "yes and/but"
and which can be spend to try and subvert/deepen themes and stuff, and details and whatever else.
Cis women of ttrpg world? Loved the one with trans women, but gods did it make me realize I know very few cis ones.
More Women in TTRPGs.
Hello friend!
For folks who are curious, I did a bit of a deep dive into the many and wondrous ways trans women have influenced the tabletop roleplaying scene a year or so ago.
This one was something that I needed a minute to think about, because there are a lot of folks in the ttrpg world who probably either look like cis women or identified as cis women at one point, but have since then come out as nonbinary or trans-masc. (It turns out being allowed to play with gender in a safe space makes it easier to change it. Who knew?)
There are some designers who, if you had asked me just two or three years ago, might have made it onto this list. So I should probably put in a caveat for this list - all of the designers that I'm listing here identify, to my knowledge, as women. That may change!
Jeeyon Shim.
Shim is a California-based designer who recieved the Diana Jones Emerging Designer award in 2021 for Field Guide To Memory, a connected path game she designed alongside Shing Yin Kor. She describes her games as eclectic and transformative, endeavoring to create connections between those who play them and the world around them. I recommend checking out her game Have I Been Good?, a two-player letter-writing larp between a human and a dog. It is a meaningful day-long ritual in which you embody the feelings of a creature who sees you as an immortal.
You can also check out Shim's latest game, The Longest Rest on Indiegogo. It's a fantasy-horror game about trying to escape a hungry tavern that is bigger on the inside.
Pam Punzalan
Pam Punzalan is a Filipina-Canadian designer based in Ontario. She's contributed to an impressive list of works both inside and outside of D&D, but the games that have her name front and centre include Navathem's End, a PbtA game about trying to stop the apocalypse, as well as The Dagger Isles, a supplement for Blades in the Dark that focuses on a new setting in the Blades universe, drawing from southeastern cultures.
For more of Pam's personal work, as well as a list of the pieces they have contributed to, check out their Itch.io page.
Alex Roberts
Alex Roberts is the genius behind Star Crossed, the game about really, really wanting to when you really, really can't. It's a hack of Dread but takes the horror game and turns it on its head by using a block tower instead! Alex has also designed For the Queen, the game about escorting a queen on a voyage where she will inevitably be attacked. You'll pull prompt cards that flesh out your relationship with her as you play, until you decide whether or not to defend her in the end.
Alex describes her play as one that focuses on care, connection, psychological death and mechanical elegance. While the two games I've listed are the most popular, you might also want to check out her patreon to learn about what else she's cooking up!
Meguey Baker.
One half of Lumpley Games, Meguey Baker is the mother of Apocalypse World, the game that started the entire Powered by the Apocalypse movement.
I'm personally drawn to their game Under Hollow Hills, which comes from the same house of design, but focuses on the circus as a whole, rather than the arcs of individual characters.
You can check out Lumpley Games on Itch.io for their entire library of work. You can also check out the Kickstarter version of PsiRun Second Edition, which Meguey is crowdfunding soon!
Meghan Cross
Meghan is a queer, neurodivergent creator based in New England, and creates GM-less & solo ttrpgs, as well as features on various podcasts, including Protean City Comics and Party of One. She's half of the brains behind HUNT(er/ed0, a duet game about hunting a monster and being hunted. Will you kill your opponent or flee? It's a great game for tense interactions and heightened drama.
Meghan is also the creator of Sanctuary & Sentinel, a solo game in which you play as a guardian of a sacred place. I'm also a big fan of Meghan's games Weeds in the Waste and Project Benthos, both of which can be found on her Itch.io page.
Storybrewers
Vee & Hayley are the duet behind the publishing company Storybrewers, who brought to us game such as Good Society, inspired by the stories of Jane Austen, and Fight With Spirit, a game that pulls from various sports anime. The games written by Storybrewers feel like they pull deeply from the passion for the genres in which they write, and the website describes their style as "games with narrative heart."
Cassi Mothwin.
Cassi Mothwin is the author of Carved by the Garden, a solo folk horror game about someone's last days in the haunted woods, as well as Tangled Blessings, a solo/duet game about the culmination of four years' of schooling at a magical academy.
If you like horror, Cassi is your gal. She does a great job of weaving beauty into the macabre, evoking horror not just in her games, but also in works such as The Wassailing of Claus Manor, and Triangle Agency.
Now for some rapid-fire additions:
Audrey Stolze, also known as LadyTabletop, host of Alone at the Table, freelance ttrpg contributor, and designer of various small games, which can be found here.
Amanda / imatrex co-creates Sprigs and Kindling, a free Carved from Brindlewood anthology with works from various writers, as well as RUIN, an anthology of TROPHY one-shots.
shawk games is a GM & underrated game designer, whose top games in my opinion are Beanie Brigade, Cryptid Conductor and Christ Heist. Seriously, Check Out Her Shit.
gothHoblin, also known as Emma Grier, is a New Zealand designer currently based in the UK; who has many beautiful games, but the one I'm most attached to his her Caltrop Core game Space Taxi.
Agatha Cheng is the co-creator and co-host of Asians Represent, a podcast that talks about Asian Representation in the gaming scene, as well as the writer & game designer of Deadly Society, a murder mystery supplement for Good Society. She's also the co-creator for the game Hearts of Wulin.
Plotbunny Games is a Germany-based publisher and design shop run by Andrea Rick, also known as Curious Cat on Itch. She publishes German version of other games, but she also writes her own!
Navi Drake is one half of A Couple of Drakes, a design duo who made bestellers like Hedge, A Court of Blades and Dead Belt.
Becky Annison, of Black Armada Games is half of the creative team and the primary author of Bite Marks, a game of werewolf dynamics, and Wreck this Deck, a solo card game about demon summoning.
@pidj is an Australian game designer and creator of The Station, a gm-less world-building game centred around a train station, as well as my personal favourite, The Sun's Ransom, a game about doomed vampires saving a dying sun.
Me! MintRabbit! I'm a cis woman - or at least I was the last time I checked! You can check out my stuff here.
Anyways, that's just a short list! I hope you find some great games through these designers!
If you like what I do and want to leave a tip, you can check out my Ko-Fi! Tips are always appreciated. <3
people be like, no one has ever suffered like Mack! he never wins!
may I direct these people to my cursed son Bedard whose glass shoulders and mismanagement of wing support have soured his narrative significantly. not trying to doom….but like people are saying, if anyone needs to be loved - it’s Connor B.
i have been thinking this! this exact thought has actually occurred to me multiple times as the news of bedsy’s latest (😭) shoulder injury and subsequent surgery dropped. it’s genuinely soooo so so sad to me that he’s going to be out for at least 4 months (mid-nov iirc), i did see 6+ months floating around on twitter but at least he has top tier rehab environment/resources 😭 please.. i do not want him to end up actually “injury prone” 😭💔
i’m not exactly sure why but i’m not a huge fan of the “can he be loved” narrative that has really intensified/solidified lately around mack.. like yes, it’s crushing to not win gold at the olympics, go to men’s worlds to try and redeem hockey for his beloved canada, and get eliminated once again as the 19yo captain of the team… yes, he wins every individual award but his teams can’t reach the peak where it (arguably) matters most….. hmmmm…….
like i think it’s honestly lowkey connor mcdavid stolen valor to me (cmd is VERY “can he be loved” to me like i’ve shed real tears i’ve prayed to the hockey gods to spare him his latest bout of suffering for that man lol) and also i think it’s another instance of this ongoing trend of fandom broadly generalizing and thus flattening mack (and usually will and willmack’s dynamic) in a way that allows it to be quickly & easily consumed without much deeper thought and certainly not exploration, tiktok edit style. i understand if someone thinks this take is pretentious, but that characterization richness is genuinely what makes fandom fun for me and it saddens me to see it dwindling away.. and i just don’t think of mack as that tragic, divinely tormented figurehead type!! like. he hasn’t actually suffered that much imo!! his team is viewed as a prime example of a rebuilding team around the league, they’ve placed the crown atop his teenaged head to inherit hockey canada as sid’s hand-picked protege, he has a strength & conditioning wizard for a father and a broad network of professional athletes / access to resources that not even other young guys coming into the league may have even in this very insular, intertwined hockey world…… like. he’s fine!!!! at least kyle davidson isn’t his gm!!!!
maybe it comes from a place of me missing sharksblr/fandom from rookie season, where it was bright and sunny and exciting from the sheer possibilities of the future.. but i still hold all of that optimism and more for mack’s career & growth as a player, leader, and person.. so i don’t really see him as a maligned tormented type.. for me personally!!!! i’m not against the overall concept and would totally read some future fic set 10+ years out where his career did fall in some cmd-like arc, where his individual excellence could not overcome the inadequacy of the front office & supporting cast, how that impacts the wm romantic dynamic, etc etc. but that’s just not how i see mack today in july 2026. so yeah!
The Griffon's Saddlebag: Book Three and Four are coming to Kickstarter on September 1st! The 𝙣𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙙 illustrated and game-ready items work seamlessly with either version of 5th Edition (5e or 5.5e), and have been vetted by players like you to help ensure consistency and balance. Follow the campaign now at 𝙨𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙗.𝙖𝙜/𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙙𝙜𝙚! As with previous installments, these books come with an array of GM- and Player-focused options to help further enrich your worlds: - 48 playtested subclasses (4 per core class, 2 per book) - 3 playable races/species - 28 campaign-agnostic settings (and well over a hundred new statblocks to accompany them) —EXTRA REWARDS— 𝙇𝙚𝙙𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙋𝙡𝙪𝙨 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝘾𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙨: Look forward to digital integration of the books with your support using the Saddlebag's custom and convenient compendium, The Ledger+. Your pledge will allow you to access these items and search, sort, and save them on the fly across your devices, and even create curated loot tables with your collections! 𝙄𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙍𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙨: Easily track and reference your magical treasure with item cards for these new books, as well as fresh reprints of older ones! This release recollects and packages these cards into all-included boxes, which features a delightful Saddlebag physical design and a built-in index inside the integrated magnetic lid! 𝙉𝙀𝙒! 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝘽𝙤𝙭 𝘽𝙤𝙣𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙨: New with this release are bonus accessories per box of cards, which are based on the box's associated book! That means that your Book One cards will have different rewards than those from Book Four's box! Inside each box you'll find: - 4 postcards featuring new art from the book's various settings - 1 enameled pin - 1 iron-on patch - 1 high quality sticker 𝙉𝙀𝙒 𝙞𝙣 𝙋𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙩—𝙂𝙧𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚: The digital-only and acclaimed griffon bestiary from the second book's Kickstarter is coming to print: with even more griffons! This exclusive reward comes for free to those who pledge for both the new books and their associated cards! Thank you so much for your support! Follow along, and see you in September!
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✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for as little as $3 a month!
