Funny moment last night at kids D&D: They raided a tomb in a graveyard, and several skeletons popped out. The party immediately set to work on them with axes and swords. After a little bit one of our youngest members asked "did these skeletons attack us first?" Me: "No" Kid: "....are we being evil?"

As a fun exercise I've turned some Helldivers 2 enemies into All-Out Apocalypse enemies. https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/design-exercise-helldivers-2-foes/

My largely unexamined hot take for 2026: point crawl while you're on the road, hexcrawl when you stray off the path.

Every once in a while I make the mistake of thinking "why don't I draw on the subway more?" Then I get on the subway and it's winter and everything is wet, I'm overburdened with backpack and coat, and there's only one available seat and it has Mystery Liquid on it, and EVERY seat smells like asses.

I've decided that this year I would like to run a minimum of two games a month. I want to end 2026 with at least 25 sessions under my belt. I'm slowly adding more people to my west marches game, and would like to run other stuff, too.

I'm late to the party I'm sure, but I've just discovered these exist and I want to put them on literally everything. My god they're delicious.

The vehicle stats! I like drawing crusty cars.

Happy new year, friends! Unhappy new year, foes!

I wrote a simple adventure outline for testing my vehicle combat rules for All Out Apocalypse and spent some time condensing them onto one page just for fun. I need to write all the vehicle stats still. (If you are a person with plans to test these rules with me soon, maybe don't read all the text)

Reading an article from my hometown newspaper and found this quote. Totoro WOULD say that!

My brother wrote a great post about sourcing royalty free art for your #ttrpg blogs and projects (so you don't have to use the plagiarism machine to produce images). Original post: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:eexoliry5g6muizr4umtvxur/post/3mb5z2d7rrc2x

My wife knows me well

👻

Having finished the Hobbit, we've moved onto LoTR as a bedtime story. We've reached Rivendell, and this time I gave Gloin a rolling Scottish accent (inconsistent from my treatment in the Hobbit). After a few pages of this my 8yr old says "I wonder why he sounds so different in this one."

A solo test session of my All-Out Apocalypse vehicular combat rules: https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/solo-all-out-apocalypse-vehicles-playtest-1/

I added some very silly dot-matrix printer edges to my AllOut Apocalypse rules post on my bearblog. I'd appreciate feedback on it, if the dots are distracting enough to make them not worth whatever thematic value they might add. https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/allout-apocalypse/

Wrote some vehicular combat rules for my AllOut Apocalypse game. If any mutuals want to playtest these with me sometime, lemme know! https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/allout-apocalypse-vehicles/

Today I had to give a software demo at work in front of a lot of colleagues from different offices. This quarter left me too busy to prepare a slide deck so I had to wing it and decided to basically treat it like a stand up comedy routine, cracking jokes and doing it all live I... think it went ok??

I'm so excited to have bandwidth for anything creative. Soon, I hope!

Hmm... It's 6:30pm. Do I drink a coffee now and burn the midnight oil, or take a melatonin in an hour and try to get into the office for 5:30 tomorrow...

The thing about having three monitors is that it makes you want to have four monitors.

I need to invest more time into this kids D&D game. I had decided to just wing everything so it's not a stress, but I'm finding that I'm getting flustered at the table trying to invent so much off the cuff. Now that I've established a few things I think I might start prepping some stuff in advance.

Help, gang. I put this off the edge of the map. The kids want to go here and tame dragons. I hadn't considered how to handle it. Advice would be appreciated!

Really fun #ttrpg session tonight. The outing was meant to be small (just exploring a hex) but I rolled an interesting random encounter. A pirate ghost fighting off some apes. The players got involved and nearly died as the ghost clung to them, wicking their life away begging silently for help.

I'm thinking I might solicit some folks from online (if we know each other IRL that's cool too) to test run my rules light Fallout knockoff ttrpg game. It would probably be something like 2-3 sessions online, on a Fri-Sat evening (EST). Not yet sure when but lemme know if I should reach out.

Solidarity with the trans community on this Trans Day of Remembrance, and every day ✊ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_Day_of_Remembrance #transrights #transdayofremembrance #transrightsarehumanrights

I don't have "too many tabs open." My tabs are flourishing. Healthy. Bountiful. The ecosystem is thriving.

At LONG last we return to the West Edmonton Mall for more solo AllOut Apocalypse adventures. #ttrpg #fallout https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/solo-all-out-apocalypse-session-4/

Saw a post on Reddit about how a magical girl OSR game could work. I'm not the person to write it but I do like the idea of a game where you play unprepared high school kids becoming emotional wrecks fighting monsters every week as they wrestle with their destinies, with a roll-under system.

After two weeks absent, kids D&D at the library resumes TONIGHT

You know you're an adult when you are on the road to your mom's place early Saturday morning to spend the weekend doing chores around her house.

I feel like there are signs. I feel like it could happen soon.

Hell yes! I had an introductory session for a new player to my west marches game that (in my opinion) went really well. He got into character, got into the setting, and really engaged with things immediately. Wanted to know from the other players who is out there to talk to, ally with, swindle, etc.

Stupid #ttrpg idea: Fast and the Furious meets BBC Village Life Dramas. You are racing cars and doing spy shit, but you have to stop for tea constantly. Your car runs on tea, for that matter. It's called 'Kettle To The Metal'

Oof, rough night last night. I hurt a rib yesterday that makes it painful to sleep. Woke in the night after rolling over in my sleep to sharp pain. My brain began catastrophizing, trying to decide if it was a widowmaker or cancer. Stupid brain.

Man, this one feels really important in a way that normally it doesn't. And it doesn't seem like it's just because I'm from Toronto so I'm seeing more of it. The whole timeline is going bananas.

The parents are all saying that this year in Toronto Halloween ends at 8pm ⚾

Had a swell evening hanging out with my dear ol pal @PeturssonDrew downtown. It's good and refreshing to walk and talk and drink coffee at night and watch silly stage performances.

Ugh, ADHD feels a bit like trying to balance on a big ball. If I strain and put in a ton of effort I can sometimes stay up there (read: focus) for a little while before falling off. But some days my balance is just off and I can't even get onto the damn thing.

My child very seriously telling me that a recent experience left quite an "indentation" on her. An "impression," I believe, is what she was trying to say.

While watching a video about gandalf's staff it got me thinking about magic foci. What if, in trying to cast a spell with a new, mundane item as a focus you initially have a really low chance, like 1-in-20. Maybe mechanically it's a huge penalty. Every time you succeed, that item gets a +1 bonus […]

WIP kiddo costume

I've dipped out of over/under. It is a really cool experience but also it started to feel like a second job. If I wasn't already busy and already ADHD as fuck, I'd have loved to stay and do more tattoos.

WIP kiddo costume

Making cool pauldrons for my kids Halloween costume

I felt useful at work today. Feels good, man. I like all my coworkers and I like when I can help make their jobs easier.

Well shit. I misread the calendar. My kid's field trip is NEXT week. I hope she's not feeling too disappointed today at school...

I'm trying to use LinkedIn a little bit just to remind people that I exist, and it's wild to see the feed there these days. It's a clean 50/50 split between "check out this dog shit AI thing I made" and "I don't believe in god but I believe in the devil and he's called ChatGPT."

Another weird tattoo I wrapped up during the weekend for #over/Under

I'm playing in that big Mothership game over on Discord and I've signed up with a tattoo parlour / cyberware clinic. It has been fun to take jobs and make real art in exchange for creds. If I can't make a living as an artist irl, maybe I can in pretend outer space!