Congratulations to winners and nominees of the 2025 Indie Groundbreaker Awards: GOTY: Little Wolves Most Innovative: SPINE Best Rules: Looking Presentable Writing: Digital Angel Art: Thieves of the Tome Setting: We Wander Beneath Radiant Lights Graphic Design: What Should We Have Tomorrow

"Memes percolate up from the bottom, from people with no agenda but to describe their world, their feelings. This is how progress happens. When wild memes stop mating, everything starts to die. Our thinking runs dry, our imaginations atrophy, culture starts spinning in circles." - Adbusters #38

Just used the word “community” to refer to a ttrpg community … I’m a rebel. 😜

no idea who this guy is but this is an interesting take minutes.substack.com/p/on-grindslop

I've just published the first essay in the design series for Violent Delights: a chess-based RPG about Romeo and Juliet. It's about abstract board games and how we read into them. It also touches on Takuma Okada's Chess: Two Kingdoms.

A troll's ridiculous marketing plan is still a marketing plan by a troll. Don't feed the trolls.

Picked up a copy of this as reference material for Planet Raygun. Also: Looking for an artist or two who love these kinds of mid-mod landscapes and interiors for some setting art for the game.

Fantastic example of how thinking outside of binaries helps find the right design solution. It’s not so much IF Sam should use pregens or not, but HOW MUCH of the character should be pregen to achieve the game’s goals.

The cover on that David Moore album … 😍

We are 4 days left with the #FormulaInfiniti @backerkit.com and we are only $1,500 away from our next stretch goal featuring The Wanderer solo rules adapted for F-Infiniti by @moreblueberries.bsky.social and there's more @plusoneexp.bsky.social has in store for you www.backerkit.com/c/projects/p...

Banger post! The things we've been learning writing CfB mysteries can help shape more trad mystery scenarios & systems too. And this covers a bunch of that.

Hi crowdfunders! Please please please don’t lock shipping info until you are physically and logistically ready to ship. When someone moves they may have dozens of things to update addresses on. Having to reach out directly on those is a drag at a stressful time.

The only reason to not have a favorite is that there are just too many giant pterosaurs to choose from.

Final hours of the final game in the core Brindleverse trilogy ... Some very cool shit going on in here.

It is a challenge to game designers to make "misses" as fun as successes. Side Note: This is why I hate "Be a fan of the player characters" with zero further elaboration. Or one sentence, often a variation on "this doesn't mean let them win but give them challenges!" Bro why are we here.

The writer/designer’s contribution to “the conversation” is crucial as well. There are environments where bad things are just bad, regardless of the table’s perspective.

We’re currently working on our Secret Stretch Goal, a Brindlewood Bay crossover mystery called Estate of Affairs! The Murder Mavens investigate a murder mystery; the Latchkeys are behind the scenes of the filming of that episode of Brindlewood Bay! www.kickstarter.com/projects/gau...

We’re still trying to hit some stretch goals in the final days of the Public Access campaign, but we’ve hit already a LOT. (Go stack go.) One of them: Babaelcroak.

Few years ago I made a little edit of The Simpsons but it's the horror movie Skinamarink

Yessssss, yessssssssssss ….

With Public Access closing up its successful Kickstarter campaign, I’m going to dive in to my biggest contribution to the original game … the deep-campaign mystery Convergence. Book your reservations, pack your bags, and let’s vacation someplace we definitely shouldn't …

Is E.T. the REM of movie characters? That little dweeb was everywhere to a degree that young people don’t realize and old people have forgotten.

I wrote up a few tips for writing modules. I hope folks find it interesting! I might add to it over time. newschoolrevolution.com/module-writi...

Me: What if a blood cult made up of ostensible cult leaders as an exploration of the sycophancy of oligarchy and how it ostracizes the working class due to its own fears of inadequacy and rejection? Also me: What if a frog in a suit that eats dead bodies?

Final Stretch Goals Revealed! www.kickstarter.com/projects/gau...

The Public Access crowdfunding campaign is approaching $400k … and one of its coolest stretch goals: The Degoya County White Pages.

Cool spin on Orbital Blues for Orbital Blues Month, which I have been told is NOT an April Fools Joke.

If you happen to see this in the next 30 minutes and haven't backed RUIN, consider yourself in the world's fastest Trophy Dark incursion.

Back it in print over the next day, and you’ll get this plus a stack of other Trophy Dark and Gold incursions from a bunch of the original Trophy team and its community creators and players.

My incursion for this is complete: You’ll attempt to sever the head of a revered statue in order to claim its depicted saint’s actual, preserved arm kept inside. It’s also not an actual saint, but the Trophyverse’s version of a Lost Cause hero … a fantasy of a failed and now burning empire.

So, if the #PublicAccess Kickstarter hits $375k then my Lost Transmission, The Chef's Table, is added to Signals from the Other Side AND if we hit 5000 backers, then @kierongillen.bsky.social writes an S&M nun mystery for PA. Sounds like a win-win www.kickstarter.com/projects/gau...

I accidentally invented a card game. And I think it's actually good.

live your life so that unlike me, you are not immediately able to identify this as being by Montague Summers, fake priest, likely pedophile, and general Weird Guy.

For all my folk horror weirdos, The Last Sacrifice apparently slid onto Shudder. Extremely vibey documentary about the inspirations behind Wicker Man.

When at PAX East, visit the Tourist Hole. Or the Plus One EXP booth.

Another reminder: more consistent text length.

Been following along COME ON IN and have a solid pitch for supplemental material? Love vampires in TTRPGs and want to show off your skills? Finalizing stretch goals for the crowdfunder of COME ON IN. I'm taking pitches for a few spots to fill in our line up. Deets here: forms.gle/XBYXyKDyxcsv...

12 days left and we're closing in slowly but surely on our last stretch goal. Back this project if you love Trophy and you want a slew of new one-shot incursions for Trophy Dark and Trophy Gold to play with your friends or at conventions! The forest still hungers...

Portion of a drawing for Dreamkand RPG. I will be revising this a bit #ttrpg #dreamlands dreamrpg.com

The nicest article about JPEG compression, by @sophielwang.bsky.social The moment there are color stats involved, I’m in. It’s so well done it makes me think we need some kind of online library where articles like this get preserved. www.sophielwang.com/blog/jpeg

BEWARE THE FALSE DICHOTOMY BEING ESTABLISHED IN THE DISCOURSE. Yes, please read that as me screaming at the top of my lungs.

#PhantomsFriday The Drowned Man's Ghost Tries to Claim a New Victim for the Sea, Thorvald Niss [1842-1905] Skagens Museum, Skagen, Denmark #TheVictorianBookoftheDead

Art.

The art on this rips and it’s a placeholder. WTF?

In these crazy, fucked up times, I’m reminded that living with Louie Dog is the only way to stay sane.

Gonna echo @notalawyer.bsky.social and say: Give me a candidate who even acts like they’re aware of this, and you’re halfway to my vote. www.nbcnews.com/tech/securit...

I deeply agree that I want more people from the RPG world working with mainstream publishers. I don't want to frame it as something people can just decide to to. Working with a large corporation is always a situation where the artist has very little control over what happens.

Public Access is coming to Kickstarter on March 17th! We’re aiming for 5000 followers before launch. Help us out by following and re-posting! www.kickstarter.com/projects/gau...

“Everyone is just trying to figure their shit out.” The thing to always keep in mind online.