Matthew Andre

Coming soon: The Thunder Perfect Mind An Occult Action Thriller Tabletop RPG

Get this occult action thriller ttRPG for 1-7 people. Perfect if you enjoy playing powerful undead revenants embroiled in breakneck action, interpersonal drama, and occult investigation. Soundtrack by @mollynoise.bsky.social and human-made art by @stregawolf.art. Jump in now for early bird deals!

1 more now till 900!

channel your inner caveman

either by writing that way in the first place, or smashing what you wrote previously into little bits with a big rock

it's genuinely a core part of the fascist worldview that a nebulous 'warrior willpower', which only fascists have and which their enemies always completely lack, can literally overcome material reality. defeat can only come from lack of determination.

this is because they are morons

Can't find any Roberto Bolaño in my city!

What a shame. I want to read 2666 in a nice big hardcover

Great post!

Dominant mechanics are taking a picture of an old statue surrounded by birds, but when you hit the shutter button a bird takes a huge shit.

Even though you meant for the birds to be in the photo, that bird taking a shit is all you're gonna see, and all anyone will comment on.

How to Deliver your Game Copy to a Layout Designer - Graftbound Make layout design faster, more efficient, and less prone to mistakes with tips for TTRPG writers on delivering your manuscript to your layout designer.

New Blog Post! I (Emily) wanted to put down some tips for those of you who are hiring layout designers to layout your games.

Thanks to the Explorer's Design discord also for their thoughts.

Unfortunate situation from many different angles. Hope everybody involved can come out with what they're owed, and this can be a learning experience for the people who should have known better.

It doesn't have to be questions about other party members, but those tend to jumpstart inter-party RP. Asking questions about all sorts of different things can be really helpful. How they feel in the cold, how they feel about an NPC, do they present themselves in a certain way, etc.

Sometimes it's an issue of feeling uncomfortable RPing inconsequential stuff with another player if the rest of the party never engages; like I'm wasting their time.

If the GM asked me "so (PC) just did this, how does (your PC) feel about that?" I feel like I've been given the spotlight to speak.

Something I've personally found is that if a group isn't immediately jumping into roleplay, they are extremely unlikely to ever grow into doing it all that much more; especially inter-party roleplay.

I found asking questions about how characters felt about something recent can help a lot.

Cover for the WYRM TTRPG. A large stone wall has a glowing doorway. An armored fantasy character carrying a torch is walking through the doorway. At the top of the image is the word " WYRM "

A whole lot of WYRM coming your way next week.

Core rules, starting adventure, starting sandbox hexcrawl. All PWYW.

Plus a game jam to help build up the WYRM community. Feed the WYRM!

itch.io/jam/wyrm-jam

All of that starts on Tuesday morning.

Updated the Comprehensive Guide to TTRPG Art Commissioning & Licensing with a new sample contract for direct commissioning <3 if you haven't seen the guide yet and work with artists in the space, its never been a better time to give it a look and share it around.

A banner image that says, "Return to the world of Coyote & Crow and explore the mysteries and horror of Ahu Tiiko." It shows two 3d renders of books, one with a small silhouette of a person walking in a deep forest, using primarily black and red covers. The other is a solid black cover with a broken red line running down the middle.

Ahu Tiiko is coming to retail! If you review roleplaying games and would like a free advance copy, please use this form to request one. We are only shipping to the US and CA.
Please use this link: forms.gle/1KS1VHCpvBzF...
#ttrpg #rpg #tabletop #NativeSky #games

I'M ON IT CAPTAIN 🫡

lots of very good stuff here!

You're not trying too hard if you're succeeding

This causes a loop of fantasy fans in ttrpgs, because non-fantasy fans typically stay away from D&D, thus ttrpgs in general; never knowing the medium holds way more.

More fantasy fans coming into the medium through D&D generally make more fantasy games once they realize D&D kinda sucks.

There are hundreds of really great ttrpgs that aren't fantasy, many of which have a fairly large semblence of popularity in the medium, and several have been around since the 80s.

Unfortunately, ttrpgs are also maybe the only medium where a single products (D&D) has 90% of the marketshare.

This is absolutely the truth. Many OSR games and many PBTA/FITD games have the same core values and GM/player advice. The schism between these communities is primarily held up by bad actors in both camps.

Social mechanics are the crowd shouting prompts at an improv group. They are a limitation, but limitation is incredibly useful in a live setting where you need to be ON at any moment. Limitation in game design should be there to remove the possibilities that do not build toward the desired outcomes.

Live roleplay is not too much like writing, as it has to be done quick. When coming up with a story quick, it really helps to have direction and prompts. Social mechanics in ttrpgs should be specific in theme and direction, so they can give the group who playing the game their desired experience.

Many people hold this opinion, or the opposite ("my table will finally roleplay if I run a game with social mechanics!"), and they're both missing the point.

Social mechanics aren't for the people who don't roleplay. They're for the people that ALREADY ROLEPLAY. They act like writing prompts.

I would proclaim that pbta games with moves that know a mixed success is, by far, the most common outcome, but do not give direct consequences in their moves are under-developed.

Each move in pbta is a minigame. They need to be fully developed and fun on their own or the game is a failure.

This means a fully-fledged stress mechanic where the game explicitly tells the GM what consequences increase stress.

This is an armor/hp/danger system that explicitly tells the GM when these things are moved as a consequence.

This is an explicit timer system that is directed to move as consequence

I partially agree with this and partially disagree. I've found it feels best when success is as common as mixed success.

However, constant mixed rolls can be fine when the game has a proper system built around generating consequences. This is NOT a list of potential consequences.

I will say, however, with my experience in games with mixed success, I have found that it generally feels best when players are just as likely to get a full success as a partial success.

Additionally, every single game with partial successes should have a way to bank consequences & spend later.

As somebody who plays as much Fitd/PBTA as OSR, I truly do not understand the problem people have with partial success (unless they're playing bad pbta/fitd games I stay away from).

Remember, we only roll when the player is doing something dangerous. If we make the player roll, we know the danger.

If we only have this one existence, it behooves us to make it as good as possible for as many as we can

The reverse dungeon crawl must become a more popular concept. It's absolutely killer!