Too many board games top out at 4 players... Where's the love for my group of 5?

In love with this little game I grabbed from @molomoot.bsky.social at pax unplugged- exactly the sort of worldbuilding game I love! Uses the form factor in a really clever way, beautifully laid out, and really makes me think. #indierpg #ttrpg

Sometimes ya just get the itch to make a paper prototype. I think this siege defense game might have some legs... But will definitely need a lot of testing! #gamedesign #indiegame

Very glad I grabbed this at #paxunplugged this year! Absolutely full of great advice, structure, and inspiration for #ttrpg design.

So excited to read all the cool #indierpg books I grabbed at Unplugged! I always come out of a con so reinvigorated to work on random ideas I've set aside.

I broke my first rule of conventions at #paxunplugged and bought something immediately on the first day. In my defense I didn't know there was a new Cosmic Encounter expansion!

As much as I love tarot for symbolism the deck really shows its age. I think the distribution of themes is too rooted in its original cultural context and doesn't apply to the stories I want to tell in TTRPGs. But I do love interpretation... What oracle decks exist that could work better? #ttrpgs

It is amazing the difference the absolute minimum of layout work does to the experience of reading through this book! Now I just need to actually go learn Scribus or something... #indierpg #gamedev #ttrpgs

Decided to build 6-7 unique worlds for a world-hopping Armour Astir game I'm planning, and man it is fun to just worldbuild from scratch with Spindlewheel and the world tables I wrote for Far Lands. I'm trying to pull from different media touchstones for each and I'm really proud of some of em.

Doing a pass on Far Lands to cut down on how often I say "you may choose to" ...because it was 40+ times. Players can always choose not to follow the rules! The whole game is optional. It's much more succinct to have one reminder at the top and let the rules be rules. #indierpg #ttrpgs

Thinking about how to mechanically support anxious players in taking initiative to interject, to take bigger risks. Bcos I think a lot of games create the right feelings in the players but don't create the right kind of story. Maybe player and character motives have to diverge more to get both.

Just got my copy of Menagerie of Unbearable Things by @thebreadwyrm.bsky.social and wow, this is such an incredible source of inspiration and art for TTRPGs. Just an absolutely inspired piece of work.

Ran Dread for the first time today! Absolutely incredible experience. Setting up the players with rumors about other characters to get them to distrust one another right from the start was so fun! Sometimes a house is a guy. And his wife is a killer robot.

Cursed one-page RPG idea: These are the pools you can spend dice from to do stuff. Spend "spoons" as wild. Have a list of comfort activities that can refill pools or spoons. Earn extra resources by doing embarrassing stuff when one of your pools is empty. Would be tough to build respectfully...

Man, writing examples of play that demonstrate the relevant mechanics without feeling stilted is tough... I didn't expect to get so stuck on this part of the process! Really excited for the next round of playtests though!

Thinking about the template "the world is X but the people are Y." I've always enjoyed "the world is serious but the people are silly," but it can be co evocative with stuff like: "the world is torn but the people are stitched." What other pairs of opposites work? What kind of world do they imply?

So excited to share the cover art for Far Lands! Far lands is a collaborative worldbuilding, map-making, and exploration game about a team of explorers venturing into an uncharted land. Let's see what lies beyond the edge of the map! Art by @arthur.baron-clement.com #indierpg #ttrpg #indie

Baba is tarrasque #D&D

Reading Slugblaster and Ironsworn: Starforged and they really have me thinking about what a game can be.

Ran a siege last session and the mini game worked really well! Each wall had a damage clock and had some dice representing enemy troops. I'd roll all of them and the highest would add damage to the clocks. Player actions could set the highest die to 1 or eliminate the lowest die after damage

Gencon ho! #gencon

Watching through Deep Space 9 solo after a watch where someone who'd seen it before skipped the bad episodes for us and I just know when I hit one I haven't seen before I'm in for a treat.

I've been seeing cards used in TTRPG design again recently. I wasn't a fan in the past bcos I don't want special hardware that can go out of print. But the idea of having a mix of cards for flavor (oracle cards, narrative prompts) vs cards for mechanics (ability, enemy, weapon cards) is interesting.

It's been a while since I've run a Far Lands playtest since I've been so focused on the text of the book and I feel like it's time... I need to recapture the vibes of the game in play. I think it's also time to start getting some page layout assets (dividers, borders, pop-outs, page textures, etc.)

120+ hrs into blue Prince and I still haven't found the bottom of this rabbit hole. Just reached the Atelier. I did have to look up hints for one or two of the more obtuse puzzles but man, this game just keeps blowing me away.

Playing a solo game for the purpose of creating an example of play for the book is such a strange exercise. How to make sure every feature of the game gets demonstrated in the right order, in a legible way, in a short time period? How important is the narrative vs demonstrating the rules?

It's interesting how in diceless games, the source of randomization is often the other players. The choices people make that you don't expect.

Shapes!

Thinking about the implications of letting each player declare that any one NPC is their rival and retroactively gain a backstory with that character, rather than asking players to come up with a rival at the start of a game. Because players already love to elevate the importance of random NPCs

Grabbed a copy of Masks of the Masks by @decovulous.bsky.social at PAX yesterday and I am *so* inspired by how cleanly it executes its themes through the rules and design. So excited to give it a try!

I think there's a lot of worldbuilding juice in starting large and recursively asking "how does this area / group differ from the average of the area/group that contains it?" Working on a little worldbuilding tool to explore this idea.

Idea: the Problem Deck. Write down all the recurring backstory problems, impending threats, and pc entanglements on index cards and shuffle them up. When you need quick inspiration at the table, draw one to see how the situation escalates, or plan a session by looking at the top three. #ttrpg

Had an idea for an interesting push-your-luck resolution mechanic... And then discovered there's an optimal strategy that just requires some tedious math. Definitely something I'll hold on to for later but definitely not a good design for play at the table!

Learning about politeness theory and the difference between "positive face" and "negative face" and can't help but think there's some interesting game mechanic buried in there...

Been playing Blue Prince... Instead of brain there is house.

Sad and shaken to hear about Greater Than Games... Spirit Island is my favorite game of all time. I really hope folks will still be able to discover and enjoy the game in some form!

Had a brilliant idea for the name of a game I have no idea how to write: "Don We Now our Gay Apparel: a holiday-themed dress-up LARP"

The goblin battle barrel: a huge barrel containing a dozen goblins, assorted crossbows, slingshots, and spears, a bunch of corks, a periscope, and whatever else they've grabbed. They can stick their legs out to run, with a periscope goblin for directions, or cork up the holes and just let it roll.

Building a character creation questionnaire and realized that I should add to a the section about goals about the most important things a character already has. I've been designing around what a character has to gain, but now I'm wondering: what do they have to *lose?*

From my notes, with no further context: - Journaling vs Journaling - Journaling as a Journal - Discuss using the journal as the "Journal."

Just finished Chants of Sennaar! Incredibly cool game. Made me think in some really cool ways. Gives me lots of ideas for rude RPG puzzles... I want some harder puzzles with fewer training wheels, but the vibes were really impeccable.

Doing a major revision of Far Lands and wow did I have a lot of repeated text. I didn't realize just how much I could trim just by reorganizing and consolidating sections. This next version is going to be so much more streamlined!

Had an idea for a solo journaling-style TTRPG but don't really know where to start with those. I've never actually played one and would love some good examples to take inspiration from! What are your favorites? #ttrpg #indiettrpg

The Bullet-Dodger Mocking up an idea for a little combat game that uses some ideas stolen from Diceomancer. This guy gets harder and harder to hit with guns the lower health he gets and the more of his allies you take down (demons gain Blood when their allies die) #ttrpgs

Thinking about the worldbuilding implications of "this world was not meant to have gods."

Very grateful to paperize.io for making it so easy to deploy a paper / TTS prototype from a spreadsheet!

@lingthusiasm.bsky.social have y'all done an episode on poetic feet and meters? I couldn't find one haha. Was thinking about words that have multiple pronunciations with different numbers of syllables and their use in poetry. Could be a fun topic! Love the podcast!

Noodling around with a game about defending a walled city from a siege. I really like this shape for a modular city: lake in the center, 6 city districts, 6 outskirts districts. River districts have to match with the river or ocean outskirts. Enemies come from the edges like space invaders.

Doing a revision of some of the poetic text in Far Lands and discovered that the names of tristllable feet are incredible

Finished up the last journal entry I had planned for Far Lands! Turns out the best cure for writers block on a game is to just play the game.