@madjay.bsky.social
Plays Games Fearlessly. Often pretends with Strangers. A Game designer. WIP: Lifted: Indomitable. Catch me on www.patreon.com/madjayzero and playfearless.substack.com #ttrpg
Alright, The Play Fearless Greatest Crits zine is live!!
I’ve been writing Play Fearless for years.
This is the part I wanted for my coffee table.
If you’ve ever pulled something from this work into your own games, I’d love your support.
You know what to do!
#ttrpg
Hey in the run up to the crowdfunding campaign for Cold City and Hot War, (Both games are now out in PDF) I sat down with @malcolmcraig.bsky.social to chat about the upcoming new edition. You can watch (or listen) to all of the parts in one go: youtu.be/Hds6fbPzvJE #coldcity
04.02.2026 17:08 — 👍 19 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 4
This is one of those weeks where a bunch of small, separate things quietly click into place.
None of it is flashy on its own. Taken together, though, it feels like momentum—and I’ll take that kind of Monday every Monday.
Good Monday, Gamer!
open.substack.com/pub/playfear... #ttrpg
Send in the Zines!!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/mad...
We are live on Patreon. 2026 is the year of Diceology Rerolled and also me (Play Fearless) moving away from Substack.
www.patreon.com/posts/muses-...
A little something-something I’ve been working on with the most awesome @scorchadoom.bsky.social Creativity in the TTRPG space. Should be going live today, it’s been a while since I did any podcast work, a brotha’s a bit rusty!
30.01.2026 18:30 — 👍 11 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 0
Secret KC: Winter's Last Dance - Warm Rooms, Slow Vibes & Quiet Intentions! www.secretkc.com/p/the-big-th...
29.01.2026 19:36 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Someone ran the experiment anyway.
It worked.
It can’t be shut down.
Occult infrastructure.
Leaking systems.
Bad assumptions baked into reality.
Good Monday, Gamer. You Don’t Know Jack
open.substack.com/pub/playfear...
#ttrpg
just submitted two of my games, Birth of the Resistance Age (which is about fighting an authoritarian regime) and Imp of the Perverse (which is about ending the threat of monsters in your community), it’s not much but something’s better than nothing!
abolish ice, all power to MN.
Behind the scenes of my weekly Monster of the Week campaign in an Occulted Kansas City. Practical prep, player-led discovery, table presence, and why I don’t stat baddies until I must.
Friday Field Notes: Occulted KC. open.substack.com/pub/playfear...
Roll for Origin: Supers TTRPG History: Ep. 6 Godlike & Wild Talents
In this ep @madjay.bsky.social and I cover Godlike, the WW2 supers game that leans into realism and consistency. Second Wild Talents, which can follow that first game's history or be recast into a generic supers RPG.
#ttrpg
Your best NPCs aren’t planned.
For me, they’re often player consequences.
A failed roll created Bennie.
Three sessions later, he’s an emergent antagonist with ambitions.
I wrote about letting the table grow your villains vs forcing them.
Good Monday, Gamers!!
open.substack.com/pub/playfear...
2025 by the numbers.
Not the games I bought or meant to play.
The ones that actually hit the table — plus what readers told me they need most right now, a check-in on play, people, and what really mattered.
What counted most at your table this year?
open.substack.com/pub/playfear...
🎷 Start Strong. Stay Out Late. 🍽️ Dive into Kansas City Restaurant Week (Jan 9–18) with prix-fixe menus & jazz vibes. Discover the best spots to start & end your night. Book early, stay late! More details: www.secretkc.com/p/start-stro... #KCRestaurantWeek #SecretKC
08.01.2026 17:29 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
First Monday of 2026.
No resolutions. No “must-play” list. Just a new IRL Monster of the Week table.
Wrote this week’s Monday Musing about starting the year with play instead of promises.
What are you carrying into your 2026 games?
open.substack.com/pub/playfear... #ttrpg
🎉 Happy New Year!! 🎉 Dive into 2026 with SecretKC's guide to KC's best nights out! From First Fridays to jazz lounges, let's celebrate all month long. Check out the full scoop: www.secretkc.com/p/happy-new-... #KCnights #FirstFriday
02.01.2026 18:03 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Like most years, my ambitions far exceeded my calendar. Some games hit the table. Some lived in notebooks. Here's what worked—and my one secret weird trick for campaigns that actually get played.
🎲 Good Monday, Gamers!
open.substack.com/pub/playfear...
Legitimately the single best FPS campaign ever made.
If you've never played it, get it.
Make a Bond movie casual
Live and let Dance!
Last two Mondays of the year are easy to skip.
But I’m still here — coffee in hand, Bolognese sauce simmering, writing words...
open.substack.com/pub/playfear... #ttrpgs
Mad love to game-icons.net. I cannot tell you how much time they have saved me. I'm a hexslinger, not a pixel artist, Jim.
21.12.2025 14:27 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Dogs walked, coffee brewed. back to discovering the shape of this cyber-hacker deckbuilder thing. Night club system nodes at the top, card 'deck' at the bottom. Thinking about card resolution mechanics, turn structure, stealing from Netrunner and SR:Crossfire until I figure it out. #indiegamedev
21.12.2025 14:25 — 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
🎷✨ Winter Date Night Vibes in KC! Cozy up in igloos, sip holiday cocktails, and enjoy live jazz. Perfect for a magical night out. Naughty or nice, see you at the bar! More info: www.secretkc.com/p/winter-dat... #KansasCity
18.12.2025 18:18 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
My friends! The Apocalypse World 3rd Ed kickstarter ends on Friday night. We launched with a Q&A on Reddit and I think we'd like to wrap up with a Q&A here.
Ask me anything! Ask @megueyb.bsky.social anything too!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...
It might be nothing.
But it doesn’t feel like nothing.
This week’s Monday Musing is about:
🎲 LFG IRL
🕰️ Scheduling is the real end-boss
📚 William Gibson’s Jackpot trilogy
⚡️ dumb random inspiration
Scheduling: weekly, bi-weekly, or sporadic?
Good Monday, Gamer!
open.substack.com/pub/playfear...
Day 14
When the first babe was born glowing, the world changed. We didn’t know, at first. We, who dug in the ruins of What Was, daring monsters & each other. Lilah Blackthorn said it could live, and we would watch to see what would follow.
What followed was more. So many more.
#AW3rd #ttrpg #pbta
Dumb, stupid, random Inspiration. Comes at you like a train when it's ready. Gets you off track from the thing you doing, the thing you need to be working on. Got ya all wide-eyed, how didn't we see it before?!
Happy Saturday. Me, coffee, fresh field notebook, riding this bullet train.
Knights Errant playing Mythic Bastionland PIC: Fortified bridge from Spain
Looking back fondly on the Horde Knight and the Vulture Knight with @newmadras.bsky.social and @madjay.bsky.social, whose young knights were violent jocks from the jump, having just defeated the Ogre...
youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7c-...
Easy Sunday morning. Working my Advent coffee calendar and 'discovering the shape of fun' in a prototype for a deckbuilder game that should already exist. Discovering things you can do with a digital card deck that you can not or wouldn't do with a physical one, like destroying a card! 👀🤬
#indiedev
Reminder applications for our yearly turn-based games festival, Steam sale, & showcase are open now until Dec 12th.
412 games submitted so far, hope to see even more #IndieDev / #GameDev applying over the weekend.
Gaming content creators, we have visibility + keys for you too, check it out!
