I've been here a while and, to be honest, my original pinned post is a touch outdated at this point. I've made a tonne of stuff since then, for a start.
So, hi! I'm Daniel (he/they) an indie TTRPG designer. I've made 7 original games to date, as well as several supplements for D&D 5e and some that are system agnostic.
I'm based in the UK, am interested in pretty much anything TTRPG-related (and adjacent areas, too), and love to hear about the awesome stuff people are designing! Seriously, there are so many talented people on this website.
I'm a member of UK TIN (UK Tabletop Industry Network), and cannot recommend having a bunch of people to talk to about TTRPG design with enough (if you're UK based, go join the TIN discord!). I'd love to discuss design and people's games here, too!
Right, on to my games! I'm only going to put my original games on this post (for the pretence of brevity), but I'll put links to my itch.io and DriveThruRPG above the cut if you want to check out everything I've made. For the rest, delve below the divide!
Let the games begin!
A one page, card-based game about struggling to prepare for and survive the coming revolution, as the advisors of the current ruler. Backstabbing not required by highly suggested. Pay-what-you-want.
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
A little one page solo game about pushing a boulder up a hill. One more try. Maybe this time you'll reach the top. Pay-what-you-want.
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
Who doesn't want to make a monster? Another one page game, in which you and friends dissect hated documents to create glorious life. Mind the angry mob, looks like you've upset the villagers... (Pay-what-you-want.)
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
A game based on Caltrop Core in which players delve into the cursed fragments of the old world, within the temples the Old Gods left behind. You might explore a twisted mirror of a city street, a school or even a space station. Use the power of your mutations and curses to overcome the odds and emerge alive. Paid, but with community copies available on itch.io.
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
Do you have days where the world just doesn't want you to reach your destination? That's what this one page solo game is about. Made after a discussion about getting to UKGE with UK TIN. Pay-what-you-want.
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
A solo, card-based game about climbing a mountain and learning who you are as you climb. Begin with a bare-bones character and learn who you're playing as you overcome obstacles and ascend ever higher. Not everyone will make it to the top. Everyone has a journey worth making. Paid, but with community copies available on itch.io.
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
A one page minigame for solving complex puzzles, for instance lockpicking, hacking or creating a precise chemical. Uses codebreaker-type mechanics with scaling difficulty. Pay-what-you-want.
Get it on itch.io
Get it on DriveThruRPG
Thats all for now folks! I'll add new games when I create them! I've always got a bunch in progress, as is the game designer's dilemma...
THE NEW AND IMPROVED INCASEOFGRACE.COM IS NOW LIVE!
Rebuilt from the ground up!
Much prettier, more navigable, more accessible, and more me!
I spent a few months on this and I'm very happy with how it's turned out! Even sharpened my JS to create a fancy interactive gallery! Only art back to 2025 is present, as it's a Lot of work to properly tag and set up a block for every image-- I'll be backfilling older stuff over time!
Lair of Grace Gittel Lewis (incaseofgrace). This is a centralized home for all of my art, TTRPGs, writing, and myriad other projects!
The Catalogue is a system-agnostic collection of 13 of the most despicable companies ever, designed for sci-fi or dystopian future settings, created by 4 excellent designers, and also me!
This project could not have happened without collaboration: @dericbindel, @in-case-of-grace, @crackerjackalopegames, and Not Writing Games absolutely nailed it with some truly EVIL companies!
I love this game! =D Let me share some that haven't come up yet:
Against the Odds is my current PbtA of choice- heroic fantasy where the choice to take a life comes with real consequences? Yes please!
The two Luka Brave games I'm most excited for aren't released yet, but he has a free and comforting solo game called bagel, lox, golem talks, set in a magical shtetl.
Oru Games has the most beautiful worldbuilding game rooted in te ao MÄori- Whakawhitinga! I watched an excellent stream of this one last Kiwi RPG Week (and managed to win a free copy in the process!)
I will yell about Spencer Campbell's (Gila RPGs) RUNE until the end of the earth - a solo game inspired by souls-like games, with a really neat and clean tactical gameplay style combined with some nice pointcrawl.
i'm sorry did you say street magic by Caro Asercion continues to be one of my favourite games of all time - build a city filled with marvels, strange characters and massive change with your friends, all without touching a die or randomiser. Even better, this one is basically pick-up-and-play, with no GM requirement. (I would also recommend Exquisite Biome, but I'm trying to keep to one game per designer.)
For my third pick, I've gotta shout out Locus by CobblePath Games, though I haven't had a chance to play it yet. It's a horror game designed to evoke the Silent Hill-esque feeling of the environment specifically tormenting these particular characters, and it has some really innovative mechanics.
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 youāve been interested in my stuff, you can have it!
I can finally talk about it because it's finally released! Introducing Five Minutes, Not 5e! The first entry is discussing Shadow / Giant with @psychhound!
But what is Five Minutes, Not 5e?
Five Minutes, Not 5e is a project I started as part of Chimera Hearts, aiming to bring attention to lesser-known TTRPGs through brief, to-the-point interviews with their designers. Each interview has the same five questions, chosen to convey the key information for new players. Designers can also elaborate with custom questions in Beyond Five Minutes, the sister series.
Here's the Beyond Five Minutes episode for Shadow / Giant:
Entries come with transcripts and are placed in playlists as a kind of "tagging system". My aim is to build a collection of these entries, to easily explain game concepts to unfamiliar players. My aim is to release these at a sustainable pace, building the catalogue over time. I've got a few more lined up, with one already recorded, so keep an eye out!
If you're a designer and are interested in taking part, please fill out this google form! I'd love to talk to more people about their games!
If you want to get involved in this or similar projects, check out Chimera Hearts! There's plenty great discussion over on the discord, as well as projects being proposed!
A network for people who care about TTRPGs.
(Also, if you want to support the project, I do have a patreon.)
If you're heading to UKGE and looking for a variety of indie TTRPGs across a wide range of genres and playstyles, swing by our stand (3-510)! While you're there, why not ask about Stamp Quest 2026?
Map courtesy of @jogbrogzin.bsky.social | https://www.jogbrogzin.com/
One thing that makes me kinda sad is seeing people who feel like TTRPGs just aren't for them because they bounced off of some element that is clearly just a symptom of them trying out D&D5e. Like people who have had a hard time with learning the rules would probably do well with any system where the rule formatting and play culture around learning them aren't a mess. One friend of mine didn't like waiting a long time for turns to come up in combat, not even knowing that many games don't even use a turn-based structure.
A lot of D&D5e defenders on here like to claim that asking someone to learn a new system is "gatekeeping" somehow, but I'd argue that acting like one game is emblematic of the entire medium to the exclusion of people who don't click with that one game is way more meaningfully a form of gatekeeping, even if it's fully unintentional.
I strongly believe that not all RPGs are gonna appeal to everyone, but there is an RPG out there for everyone, and I just hope that people who haven't clicked with the most common option to be introduced to can find something that works for them.
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, Telltaleās 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.
A "collaborative" game wherein you all live on the back of a huge monster, but some among you wish to see it dead while others want to nurse it back to health. I love hidden role games and I thought this was a really interesting way to bring hidden roles into TTRPG.
I made a post a long while back about what advice you would give to new designers. My opinions have changed somewhat on what I think beginners should start with (I originally talked about probability) but I thought it might be useful to provide some resources for designers, new and established, that I've come across or been told about. Any additions to these in reblogs are much appreciated!
This is going to be a long post, so I'll continue beneath the cut.
SRDs
So, you have an idea for a type of game you want to play, and you've decided you want to make it yourself. Fantastic! The problem is, you're not sure where to start. That's where System Reference Documents (SRDs) can come in handy. There are a lot of games out there, and a lot of mechanical systems designed for those games. Using one of these as a basis can massively accelerate and smooth the process of designing your game. I came across a database of a bunch of SRDs (including the licenses you should adhere to when using them) a while back, I think from someone mentioning it on Tumblr or Discord.
SRDs Database
Probability
So, you have a basic system but want to tweak it to work better with the vision you have for the game. If you're using dice, this is where you might want to consider probability. Not every game needs this step, but it's worth checking that the numbers tell the story you're trying to tell with your game. For this, I'll link the site I did in that first post, AnyDice. It allows you to do a lot of mathematical calculations using dice, and see the probability distribution that results for each. There's documentation that explains how to use it, though it does take practice.
AnyDice
Playtesting
So you've written the rules of your game and want to playtest it but can't convince any of your friends to give it a try. Enter Quest Check. Quest Check is a website created by Trekiros for connecting potential playtesters to designers. I can't speak to how effective it is (I've yet to use it myself) but it's great that a resource like it exists. There's a video he made about the site, and the site can be found here:
Quest Check
Graphic Design and Art
Game is written and tested? You can publish it as-is, or you can make it look cool with graphics and design. This is by no means an essential step, but is useful if you want to get eyes on it. I've got a few links for this. First off, design principles:
Design Cheatsheet
Secondly, art. I would encourage budding designers to avoid AI imagery. You'll be surprised how good you can make your game look with only shapes and lines, even if you aren't confident in your own artistic ability. As another option, public domain art is plentiful, and is fairly easy to find! I've compiled a few links to compilations of public domain art sources here (be sure to check the filters to ensure it's public domain):
Public Domain Sources 1
Public Domain Sources 2
You can also make use of free stock image sites like Pexels or Pixabay (Pixabay can filter by vector graphics, but has recently become much more clogged with AI imagery, though you can filter out most of it, providing it's tagged correctly).
Pexels
Pixabay
Fonts
Turns out I've collected a lot of resources. When publishing, it's important to bear in mind what you use has to be licensed for commercial use if you plan to sell your game. One place this can slip through is fonts. Enter, my saviour (and eternal time sink), Google Fonts. The Open Font License (OFL) has minimal restrictions for what you can do with it, and most fonts here are available under it:
Google Fonts
Publishing
So, game is designed, written, and formatted. Publishing time! There are two places that I go to to publish my work: itch.io and DriveThruRPG. For beginners I would recommend itch - there's less hoops to jump through and you take a much better cut of what you sell your games for, but DriveThruRPG has its own merits (@theresattrpgforthat made great posts here and here for discovering games on each). Itch in particular has regular game jams to take part in to inspire new games. I'll link both sites:
itch.io
DriveThruRPG
Finally, a bunch of other links I wasn't sure where to put, along with a very brief summary of what they are.
Affinity Suite, the programs I use for all my layout and designing. Has an up-front cost to buy but no subscriptions, and has a month-long free trial for each.
Affinity Suite
A database of designers to be inspired by or work with. Bear in mind that people should be paid for their work and their time should be respected.
Designer Directory
An absolute behemoth list of resources for TTRPG creators:
Massive Resources List
A site to make mockups of products, should you decide to go that route:
Mockup Selection
A guide to making published documents accessible to those with visual impairments:
Visual Impairment Guidelines
A post from @theresattrpgforthat about newsletters:
Newsletter Post
Rascal News, a great place to hear about what's going on in the wider TTRPG world:
Rascal News
Lastly, two UK-specific links for those based here, like me:
A list of conventions in the UK & Ireland:
Convention List
A link to the UK Tabletop Industry Network (@uktabletopindustrynetwork) Discord where you can chat with fellow UK-based designers:
TIN Discord
That's all I've got! Feel free to reblog if you have more stuff people might find useful (I almost certainly will be)!
I've massively expanded this collection! At a rough estimate, I'd say there's over double the amount of resources in the updated blog post on my website!
A compiled list of links to resources useful for creating your own TTRPGs. Based on the lists I posted previously on Tumblr and Bluesky, as
Look, I'm not gonna tell anybody else how to do their business, but I will observe that it's less than optimal how many folks in my extended circles I see excitedly announcing that their new indie tabletop RPG is out and completely failing to specify where to obtain it.
I fully recognise that this is your gig, not mine; however, supposing purely for the sake of argument that you are hoping this undertaking will provide a supplementary income stream, it's probably not optimal if I have to play Sherlock Fucking Holmes to figure out how to give you money for it.
For the past 3 & 1/2 years, I've been providing weekly ttrpg recommendations for folks, and I've been happy to do so! However, I've found myself in a new stage of life recently that has dramatically reduced my free time. Ultimately, this is a good thing, but it also means that right now, I need to re-focus what little free time I have towards personal projects and time spent with friends.
I really enjoy providing recommendations for folks, and I hope to do so in the future - in fact, if everything goes as I expect, I should be flipping through my archives again in September later this year. But until then, There's A TTRPG For That will be put on a reduced posting schedule.
What this means:
I'm not accepting any recommendation requests or review requests for the duration of my hiatus.
I will be re-posting old recommendation posts for the duration of my hiatus.
I have a Library Masterpost for the curious
There are one or two things that I may still release in the next 5 months or so, either because I agreed to them before going on hiatus or because I had the time & motivation to write about something.
Thank you so much everyone for the love and appreciation that has been sent my way over the past 3 years. I hope to see y'all again in September!
- Mint
Getting geared up to host this again this year!!! Excited! Will probably post some ask games or other opportunities to talk about ur ocs and games leading up to it!
To start offā what new-to-you games have you tried since last year?
