Ian Howard

Promo graphic for my Zine Layout Special - white and red text over blue banners and blue/gold marbled background. You: game designer making a zine. Me: pro who will lay out your zine. $300 flat rate, up to 48 pages. Includes: cover setup, print & digital files, print troubleshooting. No nazis, no AI. Contact: n.d.paoletta@gmail.com

Zine month is going strong - have YOU thought about layout yet? If you're not going DIY, I'm happy to help with my zine layout special!
🔥 $300 for up to 48 pages
🤝 includes cover setup and print troubleshooting
🚫 no AI, no nazis
📣 get in touch: n.d.paoletta@gmail.com or www.ndpdesign.com/contact

Tabletop Diversity Foundation iTDF

Applications are open for the IGDN 2026 Diversity Scholarship by the iTDF: itdf.games

We have 4 spots for marginalized and underrepresented designers to receive mentorship plus $1000 USD no-strings-attached scholarship!

Apply before March 17th, 2026: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

2026 ARC TTRPG Mentoring Program Expression of Interest Thanks for filling out this form, we can't wait to learn about you and your creativity! This expression of interest form will be open until March. All applicants will hear back on the outcome of their...

Hello all! If you're an Australia-based ttrpg designer looking for support to finish your first ttrpg, then have j got good news for you:

🎲 The ARC TTRPG Mentor Program is back for 2026! 🎲

We have 4 mentee spots open, so follow the link to submit your EOI!

forms.gle/DgVQNrGuxVrF...

ive had a cluster of opportunities lately to Intensely Talk Design with a decent number of TTRPG designers & one really lovely general community norm that i deeeeply appreciate is the habit of wearing references on sleeves & openly tying the work being produced now to the work that influenced it

The sneakiest scam I got was one supposedly from KS staff. Good news: I’d been paired with a crowdfunding mentor to help me boost my campaign!

I might have fallen for it.. except that the mentor in question is my boss. 😆 Apparently people regularly pretend to be him to run this kind of scam!

2/2

YUP. Lots of scammers out there trying to prey on desperate creators. I’m *still* getting scam emails about the Kickstarter I launched in November of last year, offering help with marketing, fulfillment, or anything else they can try to hook me with. Be super careful!

1/2

One of my goals for this year is to spend less on games.

Looking over what’s already launched for ZiMo, and knowing there’s still 25 days to go… I think I’m going to have a hard time meeting that goal. There’s just too many cool people making too many cool things!

A stack of printed zines with the heading of "Press Pot Games' mini handmade TTRPG zine anthology bundle" in large white letters.

Next Tuesday, I am launching a 7-day campaign for a collection of four handmade #TTRPG zines.

These are all small-form, one-page, 8-fold, no-staple zines with full games in them.

I'll explain the four zines in this thread.

Thanks for sharing.

See more here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/tra...

Do you have a recommendation for a solo RPG that’s easy to pack and play on a plane? I have a long flight coming up and need a few. I’ll post your pics and my thoughts in an upcoming issue of The Soloist.

#solorpg #ttrpg #thesoloist

Coming soon: The Daily Weather Challenge yourself to create the perfect forecast using each day’s unique conditions. Play every day!

With this incoming storm, we have a FREE game to keep you busy! The Daily Weather is a little solo game about aligning the weather with a new puzzle each day. We released the PNP / PCIO files at our Kickstarter preview page and the response has been wild.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/239...

Is today the day that I go through my list of Discord servers and just leave every single one that I haven’t checked in multiple years?

No. But what a day that will be when it finally comes!

Slightly diminish an RPG:

- Shadowtrot
- For the Regent
- The Quiet Season
- Kerfuffle
- Rushhome

I don’t have anything ready at the moment, but I’d be happy to take a raincheck and give something a read this week!

As a game creator it’s part of my mission to make games that connect people in community with one another, creating memories and cementing relationships.

In truth choosing joy, community, and play *is* a radical idea in this day and age.

Taking account of that power and using it is revolutionary.

IGA 2025 Game Submissions Open, includes the IGA logo of a fist holding up a dice.

The 2025 Indie Groundbreaker Awards are here! Have you published a LARP, table top RPG, card, board, or other analog game in 2025? We want to see it!

Submit yours today: forms.gle/Jgnu7Ev5BnkU...

Visit www.igdnonline.com/groundbreakers for more details. Submissions close on January 31st.

Logo for the 2026 Cardboard Edison Award

It’s time! SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2026 CARDBOARD EDISON AWARD ARE OPEN! Board game designers, show us what you’ve been working on! Deadline is January 31: cardboardedison.com/award

Display rack showing various games by Junk Food Games

Hey #MAGfest folks!

I'll be at the MITS hall all weekend during MAGfest with some tiny indie ttrpgs!

In addition to selling my games, I'll be demoing Moon Rings and playtesting a new game!

Come say hi!

Aw, that’s fantastic to hear! I hope you both have a wonderful time with it (whenever you get around to playing).

These bookcases make me wish I had a much better way to display my RPG collection — and I always love seeing a copy of Here We Used to Fly on someone’s shelf!

Ever wanted to design a solo rpg? I can probably offer some advice. This is just how I like to design.

A key design point is tension. The player should be trying to do something, but the game should work against their goals and giving them meaningful choices.

Tactical Breach Wizards was the best game I played all year and it wasn’t even close. The writing is phenomenal: it’s difficult for a video game to be both genuinely funny and genuinely heartbreaking, yet somehow TBW pulls it off flawlessly. And it’s backed by very solid tactical puzzle gameplay.

YES!

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES!

Sock Puppets by A Smouldering Lighthouse Make puppets. Ruin a perfectly good puppet show.

Also, if you don’t already own a copy of Sock Puppets, your RPG collection is simply incomplete. It’s truly one of the most inventive games I’ve ever played, as weirdly charming as it is charmingly weird. Buy it right now! NOW!

a-smouldering-lighthouse.itch.io/sock-puppets

It’s a fantastic game, and we put together a great crew with some amazing puppets, but watching @kurtrefling.bsky.social play a puppet, who’s playing a puppeteer, who’s operating a *second* puppet was absolutely priceless.

That’ll be one of my favorite gaming memories of all time, let alone 2025.

As one of the KS rewards for Sock Puppets — a LARP where you make and operate actual puppets — the inimitable @kurtrefling.bsky.social offered the chance for backers to play a game with Herman, the puppet Kurt built to hype the game.

So what game did I pick? SOCK PUPPETS.

You’ve already got some awesome people to choose from, but this sounds rad and I’d definitely be interested!

This thread is chock-full of great writing advice!

One I’ll add from my own experience: You don’t have to write it down to write it. I workshop a lot of sentences while I’m doing chores or thinking about other things. They rarely make it to the page intact, but I still get better from the practice.

Restocked!

Necromancer Heretic is a solo journaling game about a void sorcerer trying to bring their lover back from the dead.

Content Warning: violence, death, and blood.

www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Necrom...

I've been thinking about how to organize a silent/solo game meetup for a while. At a library? Somewhere else? I love the idea of playing solo ttrpg games together.

The idea is not unlike silentbook.club but the logistics, as with all things, can be complicated.

Any experiences to share?

High Tide High Tide is a compact 2-player strategy game that comes with a travel-friendly storage bag—perfect for beach trips, café tables, or cozy game nights. Each round, players stack and shift tiles, aiming...

For no reason whatsoever, gonna remind that you can support your local trans girl by buying my games directly from my lovely publishers!

High Tide www.underdoggames.com/products/hig...

Phantasmic buttonshygames.com/products/pha...