#ttrpg devlog

[arsene-inc]

The Park Manager

The Park Manager, or PM, is the gm equivalent of this game. Fairly classic. And then I got into the layout and thought " Hey this spread is nice, I will use it for the start of the park manager section". Except it only had the top half. And I thought it was kinda empty. But I had nothing to put there. I did not want to start with the gm rules already. And I remember my little in-game introduction. And wrote, automatic, no thoughts, head full of words. This is the result. And it changed the Park Manager forever.

[in-case-of-grace]

TTRPG Devlog: Qet and Inaccessible Names

I've been boiling a thought in the back of my mind lately, in regards to Naming Things in Fiction.

Newer folk may not know this, but my longest running creative endeavour has been Qet; a dark fantasy eldritch horror setting with inspiration from various Mesoamerican cultures and histories. It's a worldbuilding project, narrative setting, and TTRPG-- relegated to the backburner for over a year now. I needed a break.

Herein lies my problem: Qet's "common" equivalent language is a conlang inspired by Nahuatl.

English-first speakers, particularly fellow Americans, struggle a LOT with Nahuatl and anything similar to it. I'm American so my audience would...include a lot of Americans. Naturally a lot of the friends I'd want to run the game for are also American.

People struggle to read a lot of the proper nouns in Qet. An early first draft campaign took place in the deep caverns of Tchaoxlik, and the players were given Zykeutuezyl-- little light-emitting lizards-- as their primary source of light, to care for.

The bottomless lake Chluetichlon is significant in the lore, the Coulqepluex are a major ethnicity, and Qeplueoytz are shape-shifting monsters entire campaigns could center around. I've more examples, but you get the idea by now, I'm sure.

Part of Qet's inception was me noticing that US/UK fantasy overwhelmingly takes inspiration from European cultures, and That Sucks! There's so much more in the world, for one-- and this is fantasy! I want to see UNIQUE worlds that aren't just England But With Magic. Qet was my first worldbuilding project, and at the time I began, I had yet to develop the ability to just...make new stuff off the dome.

So I needed a solid inspiration from the real world as a starting point, and I chose something I thought was severely underrepresented: Mesoamerica. There is no 1:1 "this is the Maya but they're blue" or "here's the Olmec but they're birds" type stuff in Qet, rather, there's bits and bobs spread amongst original cultures and the world they live in. Corn is a staple food. The climate is hot and humid with a lot of shared flora from the real world Mesoamerican region-- but more differentiated fauna. One culture wears Aztec-inspired capes but live in Pueblo-inspired adobe homes. Polished obsidian mirrors play into eldritch magic. Some cultures sit and sleep on reed mats. One regional religion is a blend of the Aztec faith and Catholicism. Alongside these and many other bits of inspiration, the trade language of the world is Qetlec, which is inspired by Nahuatl.

I quite like a lot of the Qetlec names and words I've come up with over the years. I find several to be particularly satisfying to say! But I do have to admit that I, myself, had to train and practice to pronounce my own conlang. It may be second nature after years of working with it, but I often run into the dreaded "sbah...sbshs...uh...however you say it" or blatant word-butchering from new readers. It's an accessibility problem, after a certain point.

When I think of naming in fictional settings I return time and time again to what I believe to be a shining example of strong, accessible naming: Destiny.

Everything players need to know has a simple name that's typically just straight up English, no matter how alien. The Eliksni? Well that's a difficult name for some, so to players they're just...called "The Fallen." Other alien groups are simply titled: The Cabal, The Vex (who are actually made of radiolarian fluid-- another difficult name), and The Hive.

When they do concoct unique names for things, they do so in a way that should be easy to pronounce for their primarily English speaking audience. Fikrul. Mithrax. Oryx. Savathun is probably the most difficult one and that still seems fairly easy for players to pick up on.

Sometimes Destiny takes proper nouns from existing languages on Earth, but does so in the same manner-- sticking either to words English spakers already know or could feasibly pronounce with ease. Rasputin. Osiris. Ahamkara.

Destiny's player-facing setting is one that is crafted to be accessible. They're careful with their names. It's in the weird background lore that things may get complicated from time to time-- where it's not essential for players to be able to pronounce everything.

Qetlec isn't the only conlang in Qet, there are several others, but I'm less worried about them. It's reasonable to expect that English readers can pronounce Lhehd names like Hanviehl, Ahndel Veha, and Linnh; Tolech names like Mochog, Romtol, and Kupuch; or Auroullott names like Beuttep, Tteunor, and Auroboll.

Eldritch names are fine to be a bit difficult, I think, but I ride the line with those too-- Ul'jvot, Gaegoed, Kub-glorrha. Yaesheuhnahl is right at the edge but, it is a god made of 3 separate entities (Yaesh, Euhn, and Ahl) so I think it's not totally unreasonable.

It's Qetlec in specific that I think causes problems, which is a really big shame because I think it adds a lot to the world's flavor. But it includes a lot of sounds that aren't readily apparent, with things like "x" actually being pronounced "sh" or tight consonant/vowel pairings unfamiliar to the English reader like "ytz" "zyk" and "qeu." Hell, even beyond pairings-- the letters q, y, and z aren't super common in English! (Y is common at the *ends* of words but not at the start.)

I've tried some halfway measures here and there. I include pronunciation tooltips on every word I think folk may have difficulty with-- but that's only really doable on a webpage. In recent years, anything I added that I thought might be difficult to pronounce included an English alternative name. Gaiwej: Whispering Mouth. Asdeom: Adaptive Flesh. Zeloutihue: Lunatic of Lliaq. P'qur: The Labyrinth of Gods.

You get the idea.

I think it did work in making things more accessible, but it did bother me a little that this made the titles of each article much, much longer. It did make for names that were easier to remember, and, crucially-- look up. It was a bit of a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution.

However, while this might work for a setting presented in a wiki format-- it doesn't work for a book or TTRPG. If you find yourself in a canyon and spot something in the distance you wish to warn your comrades of-- are you really going to shout "everyone look out for the Asdeom: Adaptive Flesh?" No. You're going to pick one or the other-- "Asdeom" or "Adaptive Flesh."

If your comrades have internalized only one of the two names, especially the one opposite what you called out-- they might be confused. We solved one problem only to create a new one! The easier solution is to simply have one, memorable-- and pronounceable-- name.

And that's where I'm stuck, I suppose. I'm attached to the many unpronouncible names of Qet and I know I must do away with them. I need to make new rules that limit how many syllables they may have, and cut out sounds that are difficult for English speakers.

Part of me thinks I need to start entirely from scratch on Qetlec instead of just reworking what's there. That I'm going to be too blinded by familiarity to spot all the problem areas, or too attached to change key nouns. Is "Zeloutihue" totally fine and pronounceable for the average English speaker? I can't tell! I'm lost in the sauce here!

If words like zykeutuezyl and olxlikliz are totally easy for me by now, how can I judge everything else fairly?

This is all to say, hey, think about this from the start. Don't make my mistakes and end up in this pit with me-- if you want your project to be accessible to your intended audience, consider the language(s) they might speak. What sounds are they familiar with? Could they feasibly pronounce all the important terminology in your work?

I'd love to hear folks' thoughts on this, what do you think? What would you do in my situation? What good or bad examples of accessible conlang have you come across? How have your own projects approached conlangs and names?

[yetwepersist]

YET WE PERSIST.

Welcome to the first clumsy little post on what is bound to be a clumsy little developer's log. Glad to have you here.

So I'm AdderTwist, and I've been developing the first parts of Yet We Persist for a year: refining ideas, building mechanics, playtesting the skeleton of it.

It's time to start chatting about it!

I first pitched the idea March 2025, and was given a mentorship through the Australian Roleplay Community. That gave me 6 months to work on getting the scaffolding up before PAX Australia. (I got married in the middle and lost about a month to that, whoops.)

Once PAX Australia rolled around, I rolled out a very barebones version of the prologue, and it was received with a lot of enthusiasm from the people who tried it out. Bolstered by the warm reception, I've been plugging away at refinements and fleshing things out.

As I work on this game more, I've realised that I need to record my thoughts - what is and isn't working, the things people might be interested in... so here's a little pitch:

Yet We Persist is a pen and paper RPG, set in a nebulous, uncertain future, where strange weather patterns and inexplicable powers change the way people interact with the outside world. Characters start in communities reliant on their neighbouring areas and people for resource trade, and survival is dictated by fair barter, trade, goodwill and favours rather than by material or capital means.

Your job is to solve problems and conflicts. There's a heavy emphasis on decisions, compromises, puzzles and harm mitigation.

The world is much changed, but people are still people.

May your path be easy, and may you be welcome where you tread.

-- AdderTwist.

[hypothetical-karma]

Clutch Devlog #34: Changing Combat and Maneuvers

Maneuvers are no longer something unique to individual PCs bought with XP. Now they're either something every character can do, or for a select few changed into Edges. Furthermore, performing maneuvers no longer requires a contested roll between the attack PC and an enemy combatant. Instead when performing a maneuver, the PC's weapon's dice are replaced by their combat dice. Which is more than like to be less than the damage dice of the weapon. If the attack hits, the maneuver is successful.

[arsene-inc]

TTRPG Inspirations

There are 3 games that served as major inspirations for Where the magic never ends? . Let me present them and their influences

Hunt by Spencer Campbell

Of course this one hits the list, it is where i took the system. Hunt is the first Lumen game from GilaRPGs to go diceless. A sort of Lumen 1.5. After 2 years of not slaying the NaGaDeMon (game jam), I decided to not create the system but do a hack instead. And this game was in my mind a lot by in autumn 2023. Along the way, I made it more pacific, taking inspiration for the players moves in the monsters moves from Lumen games' bestiaries. But the core, the diceless, 3 ressources management system is in there. Now that Lumen 2.0 games are available, I may revise some of the design to adapt it.

Here we used to fly by Kurt Refling & Ian Howard

Well the cover should give an inkling for what I took there... This is a game about theme park, about childhood memories when the park was active and adult visiting the abandoned parc the night before it is destroyed. I love theme parks. This is where the abandoned theme park and childhood wonder come from.

The Happiest Apocalypse on Earth by Christopher Grey

The other major inspiration for the theme. A game where animatronics are alive, snow white is a vampire, costumes aren't costumes, ice cubes from the ice where Dagon is imprisoned make people go tentacles and danger wonder lurks everywhere. Also Disney songs references! Yeah! The concept here is "What if Disneyland was controlled by Cthulhu?" Also I really wanted to just copy paste the park creation part.

As for the "answer a question with a narrative effect to activate a move" thing... I honestly don't remember where i found this idea...

You can find my game here on itch :

Where the magic never ends? by Arsene-Inc

A game about the power of abandoned theme parks and the Coaster Mages who seek it out

[arsene-inc]

Bestiary secrets

So I recently added a sort of bestiary for the game.

Now i know I am not yet good at layout, hence why I used a template, because i am not at a Triangle Agency level (though I stole some ideas). But I like what I have done on the Meeting Point section of my game. There were thoughts behind some thing. Answers hidden inside the layout and not the text itself. Maybe an influence by the ... what's this trope name again...Interface spoiler?

There were internal consistent rules that went into writing this section.

There is a reason for which beings have a Visions ( not a trivial name). There is a reason why some have more than one paragraph of text for their description. Some words are hidden. Alignment may matter.

Find the game and delve into its secrets here :

Where the magic never ends? by Arsene-Inc

A game about the power of abandoned theme parks and the Coaster Mages who seek it out

[yetwepersist]

Inspiration is a fickle thing. (1/2)

When I started writing Yet We Persist, I had a nebulous, swirling sort of mentality surrounding it. Disability is either ignored or solved, the majority of the time, in the majority of media that isn't centred entirely around The Disability Itself.

What you get is 1: pity-porn; 2: inspiration-porn; or 3: 'floating wheelchair dilemma'. Let's look at the problems before we look at my approach to them. (This is a two-post issue, expect more soon.)

Buckle in, folks.

1: So you have the obvious, shameless Pity Porn angle. Obviously, I hate this. I hate when disability is some massive, miserable thing: when a person's entire life becomes a parade of self-pity. It's not that it's entirely unrealistic when you first acquire - or come to terms with - your life as Disabled. But then life goes on, you find things you can still do, and you immerse yourself. It doesn't make things perfectly the same, but it also doesn't occupy every waking moment. It becomes just part of the tapestry of experience.

2: On the opposite side, you have Inspiration Porn. That's the term for when you're overcoming the odds and living the most incredible, exceptional life in the world, against all odds, proving that Even A Cripple Can Do It. This isn't about people succeeding and living good lives, it's about making people who aren't disabled more comfortable, more content, more sure that the world doesn't have to change to accommodate different needs. It's about proving that we're still human enough to deserve rights.

3: And then there's the third, and the one I see most often these days. The Floating Wheelchair Dilemma. I'm giving this more space, as it's far more nuanced (in my opinion as a certified cripple).

This isn't quite deliberate, but it does have the effect of well-intentioned people considering it representation. So... when I talk about this, I'm talking about floating wheelchairs in fantasy or science fiction settings, but I'm also talking about prostheses that work identically to a natural limb; I'm talking about Daredevil's sonic 'vision' that allows him to navigate perfectly; I'm talking about (sorry, Star Trek fans) Geordie LaForge's visor in Next Gen. None of these things in a vacuum is bad, exactly, but they paint a false picture - one where disability isn't just catered to but is actively redundant... if you're wealthy or lucky enough.

But what happens to the Waterdeep resident with a spinal cord injury and no money? Does the government provide a mechanical spider wheelchair for them, to get over those cobbles? What happens when you have to visit the powerful wizard and he's up 300 steps in the top of a tower? What happens, mercy forbid, when you have to get food from the market by yourself?

The answer is simple: it doesn't matter because you're not a main character.

Some media addresses it in passing: all disabilities that require wheelchairs are curable (or possibly abort-able, though that's between the lines) in the Star Trek universe, but on a singular episode, they have to get the schematics for a specific person's specific wheelchair. Because the replicators don't have a schematic for this, and nobody is equipped to deal with it. Nobody knows how to take care of an ailing, aging, or Disabled body, because none of those issues are relevant to any characters in this story.

In these stories, we've grown past Disability. It's not that it's not disabling, it's not that it's catered to, it just... doesn't exist, except on the very, VERY rare margins, and that's where the 'magic' happens, the sudden leaps in necessity that find a way to look past the real world and imagine a world where nobody is truly disabled by their accessibility needs, even though we have elderly and ailing characters. Even when medicine is admitted to be flawed, no illness ever leaves its mark, except cosmetically.

There are examples, though, of it done with more thought, more care. Coyote & Crow, the Indigipunk setting by Kenna Alexander, explicitly talks about concepts of disability - not in huge detail, but it does mention that governments fund prostheses, magnetic-risen mobility aids. It does explicitly mention that within this culture, people do not hide their disabilities. It explicitly mentions cultural biases, e.g. the idea that hiding a prosthesis to look more 'realistic' is seen as distasteful and somewhat disrespectful. I don't consider Coyote & Crow to be a perfect example of disability representation by any means, but it tries to be earnestly open to the discussion, and it tries to express that attitudes towards disability aren't about curing, or hiding, or inspiration porn, or pity porn - they're accommodated. And it fits within the communal care of Coyote & Crow's setting: people's basic needs are met, wherever there is enough to meet them; money is a mechanic but not for food or shelter, nor for prostheses and mobility aids and medicine.

Yet We Persist is different again.

Disability, and its existence in so many people, is central to this game - baked into the character creation engine; baked into the society; baked into a living, breathing world. It is not only accommodated, it is accepted, worked within.

You don't have to be exceptional, or pitied, or just-as-abled-with-your-aids, as the people around you. You just have to be part of community, and you will be cared for, and you will contribute, and you have the same inherent worth as all other people.

In Yet We Persist, the likelihood is that you will have some form of disability, detriment, or challenge.

Because, for all we deny it, disability is the most common state of human people. Not always major, not always visible, but... almost always there. Maybe from birth, or from injury, or from age, it is there.

More on Yet We Persist's approach in part 2.

Good luck, and may you be welcome where you tread.

- AdderTwist.

[arsene-inc]

Progress on the new Meeting Point section of my game. Separated into Guests, Park Members and Outsiders. Here are your encounters!

Guests :

Urban Explorers

Animals

The Vagabond

Park Members:

Mascot

Ghosts

Memories

Animatronics

Plants

Ride Animals

Coaster Dragon

Outsiders :

Fair Beings

The Curator

Rust Witch

To help the Park Manager, each will have a description and moves but that's not all.

Some will have visions, examples to choose from.

A lot will also give ideas for what may happen when a Coaster Mage hit 0 Health confronted to these. Like I said in the book, when magic is involved, there is so much more than death as a consequence.

Find my game about magical abandoned theme parks and the Coaster Mages seeking their powers here.