I am Staff at DrachenFest US and have just made it home. Ask me anything about it

I love games like Shadowdark, but I'm interested in stuff that isn't so heavy. What would you consider the hallmarks of a hopepunk game and good examples of them?

I haven't been posting a lot lately, so here's my hot take. Steal adventure ideas from terrible old school short stories. They have better hooks than good stories.

This morning I'm thinking about this guy I used to roleplay with on the White Wolf Exalted digichat servers. Actual STs there could be sporadic, so we started just doing these little scenes in tea houses and coffee shops. Our characters arguing was some of the best cozy RP I've ever had.

The bad part of my brain makes me want to play new characters constantly, just to prove i can.

There is yet another article going around lamenting the lack of danger and challenge in modern rpgs. The OSR movement exists and even DnD has a bunch of optional rules to make it more dangerous. Every article like this is the author admitting how little they know about ttrpgs as a whole.

Splitting the party is fine, actually. I love scenarios that require PCs to make tough choices with timers where splitting up is the only option. Then, a combination of dramatic cuts back and forth, as well as just using initiative order to manage it, is a lot of fun.

My #1 monster from any game ever is Cranium Rats

@kolford.bsky.social I'm in the very early stages of organizing a free form in the Atlanta area,I have a friend in ATL helping me with venues, if you would be interested in talking to her

A friend active in kink spaces when I described larp safety mechanics: "Oh, it's just a series of CNC scenes?" I mean, No, but also yes

A weakness I have when designing scenarios is creating compelling social plots. I can generally improv that sort of thing if the players are giving me something to work with, but creating it out of nothing is tough.

Concord Olympus was such a magical event for me. It was all the things I love about the Secrets and Powers larp style, without the toxic issues of old Vamp larp. Part of this is the focus on player safety and calibration, and part was the amazing players cast in all of the roles.

@doctorhardcloud.bsky.social What's up, Doc?

Great, actually! I got to roleplay and facilitate in a cool venue in NYC

The game I was so nervous about is Concord Olympus by Drowning Moon Studios. It's a neo noir pervasive larp in NYC remaining the Greek gods. It's the first time I'm Fascilitating this sort of game. I'm sitting in on the various faction workshops, and I'm learning a lot.

This weekend, I'm working a larp in NYC, and I'm insanely nervous. On top of that, I'm flying out of Atlanta, and that's going as well as you can expect.

A whole bunch of people just followed me, so here's intros: I run ttrpgs and larp, occasionally professionally. I have done a small bit of ttrpg publishing I'm left leaning, but don't talk about politics a lot here.

@symatt.bsky.social What did you think about Black Star?

I have an aversion to learning how to use programs like Roll20 because it doesn't suit my heavily improv style of GMing. Are there good ways to use these systems that would be a better fit?

In the last few years, I've started running some boxed adventures. I had never touched them for almost 20 years of running games. My greatest learning from them is that none of them start with what we think of as a standard game.

An interesting problem in OSR games is teaching players that combat is not its own reward. I almost had a TPK because they couldn't understand that failure was an option, so they just kept trying to slog through the battle

This meme reminds me of one of my rules of running a game. NPCs should almost never talk to each other on screen. Always put a PC between two NPCs discussions or actions, if it is at all reasonable.

Last night, I ran the Shadowdark adventure "The Wavestone Monolith" It's a deadly, fun crawl through an evil temple. 3 PCs died, but they found a Wish spell and resurrected everyone. However, due to some poor wording, they managed to turn all of them into Storm Giants with no memories.

We need more games where we can play over the top angsty half demon / half angel motorcycle samurai on a quest for vengeance that may consume them.

You need both! If you have just clues, you get a sort of splatter of mysterious puzzle-stuff that is too hard to solve. If you only have leads then you go round in circles never discovering anything. 6/

I'm working on a Shadowdark one shot: Intelligent carnivorous wasps have taken over an asylum and are kidnapping and experimenting on locals, trying to cure them of infirmity and disease. But they are really bad at it. Also something something wasp nests inside the undead former staff.

DND TTRPG Hello friends, Need help planning out your adventure? See this birds structure for where to get inspiration AND what to do with those excellent ideas living in your head rent-free! youtu.be/wP6qJEVQoAk?...

I'm writing a 5e adventure for a paid gig, and it inspired an adventure that's too complicated for me to write The PCs play classic DND villains who have come together to stop a massive Far Realm incursion that would destroy chunks of the Prime Material I would love playing this, hate writing it.

I'm looking at adapting Year Zero for Clownpocalype. Does anyone have experience with it?

Because I'm writing Clownpocalypse, I'm studying ttrpg game design again. I'm reminded of my least favorite and ubiquitous design choice. "Number get big" This is especially offensive when you could just divide all the numbers in your game by 5 or 10, and it would be exactly the same.

Tonight, my son and I are learning Shadowdark

#TTRPG folks, who’s the NPC your table decided to cling onto so they ended up with a larger role than originally planned? My Witchlight table took a shining to my take on Nikolas Midnight, and now he’s a semi-key character (although that campaign is kind of on hold for now so…).

Nice to see @evilgeniusgames.bsky.social follow when our team directly refused to cover the games. EGG is an unethical shit show pursuing profits over people. Since @rascalnews.bsky.social has real journalists on staff they’ve already covered it here www.rascal.news/rpg-publishe...

I'm seeing things that make it look like Zak S is moving into OSR spaces. There's so many receipts out there about his cartoonishly monstrous actions that I'm not automatically sharing them here. He's got loyal fans and is very sue happy.

Another tip I remembered as I was eating breakfast was to use the names and personalities of people from your high school as easy to remember NPCs. Coworkers are excellent choices as well.

The best GMing advice I've learned is to lean into the fiction and not the rolls. Give players as much information as you can and then if they describe an action that's remotely reasonable, they just do it. Rolls should be reserved for risk.

Tonight, I got to have a great conversation with the Creative Director of DrachenFest US about design philosophies for Limbus moving forward. I'm so proud to get to be the lead for such an important part of the game.

A Facebook memory brought back my 3 years as a Organizational Storyteller for the Underground Theater larp org. I made so many mistakes, but I'm proud of all I accomplished. It gave me contacts and opportunities that have helped me tremendously since then. It also gave me 5 years of burnout. 😀

As a carpenter, I think of skills as Apprentice, Journeymen, and Master. I'm a Journeyman in game running. I have a style, and I know enough to know if what I did worked. But I'm an Apprentice at game design. What helped you level up at design?

Hi Barbie(barian)! 🗡️

For a long time when running games, I wanted to have these massive world saving scenarios. Now, I'm more interested in scenarios about smaller, personal goals. Goals that permit failure and loss, so that the triumphs are meaningful.

I've done some "Campaign in a Weekend" gigs and I love the intensity and joy of completing a Campaign that fast. There's something magical in running game for an enthusiastic group all weekend.

I haven't been able to crack the nut of running online games. I'm kinda bouncing off the complication of running whatever the game system is through the lens of the VTT system. My style of GMing uses lots of hastily sketched maps and improvised scenes.

Early bird tickets for DrachenFest US just went live (June 23rd to June 29th, 2025 - Cooper's Lake, Pennsylvania ) If you're curious about attending, I'm always happy to chat! I cannot recommend this event enough!

At a local con, instead of prepping a series of adventures to run, I brought a roll of paper and markers. The various groups of players would tell me details and problems, and I would improv an adventure based on that. I'm going to see how long I can keep this going. Welcome to Ian's Ford!

We need voice talent for an upcoming crowdfunder video at Rowan, Rook, and Decard! We're looking for a... - Feminine voice - American accent - (optional) vocal fry We are an inclusive company and would particularly like to platform transgender and/or transfemme voice actresses for this project.

I just started playing in a Black Star game and I love the initiative system. Players and GM alternate, and the Players collectively chose which of them acts when in the initiative order. Turns can be very dynamic as you tactically switch up who's acting to meet the current situation.