Shawn Tomkin

YouTube video by The Bad Spot Motives and Opportunities | Sundered Isles Part 17 | Solo RPG

Sundered Isles is back!

Time to upgrade the monkey.

youtu.be/6Q0kwZWlOmQ

YouTube video by The Bad Spot BIG CHANGES Coming To Ironsworn 2e? | Ironsworn Guyz | Podcast

Have you heard? There might be some pretty big changes coming down the pipe for Ironsworn 2e. Luckily for you, The Ironsworn Guyz are here to talk about what it all might mean.

Also mark my words, you'll all be screaming WITNESS ME! before you roll...

youtu.be/oPs2Kg2fEHo

WITNESSED!!

😍

Honestly, I don't hate it.

👀

True courage would be writing all mechanics as emojis.

🎲 ➕ ❤️

That's where I landed with Starforged. Bold and red when the terms first appeared, and in important contexts where I wanted them to stand out.

Does require a font with really good contrast between bold and regular. Or an extrabold variant.

Oh, yeah. I'm actually using small caps for a specific subset of terms (procedures that reference each other). I like it. But that means I can't use it more widely.

All right, TTRPG peeps. Capitalizing game terms. Yea or nay?

I've always tended not to capitalize, but my WIP has lots of diegetic terms for mechanical states. Such as having a Favored position, or facing a Setback. Bold or color is an option, but relying on formatting might make it less portable?

Predator Badlands is on streaming, and I really enjoyed giving it a rewatch. Just a fun time.

The arms race in TTRPG production values is really intimidating! And hard on my pocketbook as a fan. So many talented people making strikingly beautiful things.

A challenge for me going forward is to somehow meet a production value threshold — without sacrificing affordability and accessibility.

I was curious about what happened to that project, so I looked at their KS this morning. Their Kickstarter did decent numbers (£173K), but they've since basically ghosted backers.

Feed bad for those backers, but also enjoying a bit of schadenfreude that my little game actually exists.

Around the time I was wrapping up Starforged, a publisher announced a crowdfunded "Starforge" 5e sci-fi RPG. I reached out to them and basically said, "This sorta' seems bad for both of us," and got a very pissy "your little game doesn't matter" response. But they eventually changed names...

No plans. I still want to support SF as-is.

Thanks! That's very kind.

Was just flipping through the PDF a bit ago. Love the rules direction, and the writing has just the right amount of mirth.

This finale is gonna be wild!

Plenty of time. Like years.

Where I landed after tearing it down to the foundation (action rolls, progress tracks), and rebuilding with a focus on that core. The diegetic bits (such as effects and oracles for various actions) are modular extensions of the core.

Not saying it's gonna work 😉. But it's coming together.

Playing with TTRPG mechanics as information design for Ironsworn 2e. The game is shifting from moves to procedures, which leaves me focused on presenting those procedures in a visual, structured form. But also making them not hard to internalize.

Fun! But challenging.

Cover for the Science Fantasy TTRPG: Sundered Isles. A lady pirate walking along the side of a seafaring ship with the aid of a rope, has a metal arm with a sword held in that hand, and in the background the sea sprays and there is land in the distance with an orange sunset

New to the #SoloRPG List: Sundered Isles - Expansion for Ironsworn: Starforged from @shawntomkin.bsky.social
A seafaring expansion for the Ironsworn: Starforged tabletop roleplaying game.
CLICKY: solorpglist.com/search.php?i...

Some beautiful playsheets for Ironsworn: Starforged!

Likely happening via the community Discord, assuming no mass exodus because of the identity shenanigans. 🙄

Good progress on a direction for Ironsworn 2e (working name: Ironsworn Sagas) the past couple of weeks, which makes me certain it'll all fall apart in playtests.

Good luck!

I noped out pretty early. Shortly after I saw his list of list of industry professionals (every one of them D&D and OSR adjacent), and his first topic bemoaned the lack of content for the woefully underserved white guy audience. 🙄

Groupshot of the Plotweaver team with the Plotweaver symbol

Plotweaver is currently getting developed by a wonderful group of folks!

So, please read (and share!) below about the people making this awesome game 🧵

I'll probably be jumping into Nimble and Blades as well. I've got the original Nimble set, and it's very nice. And anything Evil Hat/Blades is sure to be quite good.

Other "big" ones I saw were the new edition for Numenera, and the Coyote & Crow expansion.