delvecandles

[delvecandles]

i cannot fucking believe brennan lee mulligan said this about a thing i helped write

[delvecandles]

Itch.io Creators’ Day Sale

Hello!

The itch creators’ day sale runs from midnight to midnight on Friday (tomorrow as of this writing). During this time, creators on itch get all the money you pay for their games, instead of itch taking a slice!

Wild stuff! You should definitely support the creators you love during this time.

If you’ve been eyeing my games, they’re marked down, and I have a bundle that gets you a slightly lower price than if you bought them both separately!

What do you get in these games?

Love Will Still Remain is a game for 2-4 players about love, loss, change, and connection. It is inspired by Brandi Carlile’s The Firewatcher’s Daughter.

Participants play as a group of people who have encountered each other throughout the course of their lives. They find themselves all together once again after some time apart. Throughout the game, they reflect on their lives and especially their relationships with one another, good and bad, and trace the paths that have led them to the current day.

Get it here!

Thaumaturge, P.I. is a solo journaling game. You play the game by yourself, writing down the answers to the questions posed and your actions as you investigate the mystery. You are in control of where the story goes - you interpret the prompts.

You play as a magical teen detective at a prestigious school. Choose from multiple cases, explore locations, and solve the mystery!

Get it here!

I’d really love it if you checked out my stuff! My other works include:

The Beefcake Playbook for Thirsty Sword Lesbians (based on Gideon Nav)

The Corpsewright Playbook for Thirsty Sword Lesbians (based on Harrowhark Nonagesimus)

The Dueling Patrons for the 5e Warlock

The Winder, a post for the Wildsea RPG

Tarot Suit Vector Stamps

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This is a great idea!

Holding A Mini-Con Online For Your Friends, or How To Learn A Lot of TTRPGs at Once

In November of 2020, nobody I knew was leaving their house to go eat turkeys with their family. We wanted to protect the ones we loved, but that left us with a whole lot of nothing to do where usually there was... something. Thus, the TRPG (Tabletop fRiendsgiving Potluck Games) was born!

You can do something like this too! Because chances are, your friends all know at least one game system to teach it to everyone else. And some of these systems don't take long to prep or run at all. In this post, I'll talk about how we do it and why it's a great idea if you and your friends are looking to learn more ttrpgs.

I have a private Discord Server called the Demonweb Shitpit, which is where I playtest everything I self publish. It's a very chill, invitation-only place that is reserved for friends. It doesn't have a code of conduct or anything like that; this isn't a community I'm managing. It's just a perpetual virtual house party. I wanted to wake up and head to the virtual fridge for breakfast and find two people standing in the virtual kitchen yelling about probability distribution, and that's what the Shitpit is. During the early days of the Pandemic, I really wanted to make life easier for everyone at that party.

The rules of the potluck are simple: everyone brings a game (or an event, like hosting a talk or panel) to play. That's what a potluck is. We've done this for three years now, and it is always a blast. I've played so many games I never would have otherwise: If It Hadn't Been for Cotton-Eyed Joe. Kids on Brooms. Blue Rose. Big Motherfucking Crab Truckers.

Here's how we do it:

Gather a group of interested people in one place. Discord works the best, because it has A/V built in for running games. You could also probably use a Facebook Event page or similar if you wanted.

Figure out a time people are available. You can set this over a long weekend (our first year, it was Thanksgiving Weekend) or on certain days of the week over the course of a month (One year it was "weekends during November).

Let everybody bring something to the Potluck. This doesn't necessarily mean that every one of these games is going to happen. You always need more players than you do games. But it is a potluck, and volunteering is part of the price.

Gather this information using a Google Form or similar: what are you bringing, what do people need to participate, when would you be available to facilitate, etc.

Get everyone to vote on which things they are most interested in trying out. Now you know which things are popular and which things might not shake out.

Make a calendar (Google Calendar or a Notion Database work great) of events and let people sign up for them. I usually let people sign up via informal poll on Discord:

After that, we make threads in the Discord channel for each game, and the folks running or facilitating coordinate things like how to prep for the game, safety tools, and content warnings.

Usually at the end of a potluck session, where I'd normally do something like Stars and Wishes, we have a talkback session. We talk about the system moreso than the session itself, give our impressions on it, and highlight moments or mechanics we really liked. It helps with learning a system if you can name one or two things you liked about it after the session is over.

What Games To Bring?

You are probably not going to want to bring a big, involved game with big, involved character creation to the potluck. If you really want to, check to see if the game has a quickstart with premade characters and simplified rules. Also, since you are introducing a game to folks who likely have never played it, multiply your estimated time to run the session by 1.5 at least. GMless games work really well, especially if there is little to no character creation, or character creation is an explicit part of play.

If you're going to run a potluck with your friends but need a starting point for games to bring, here's a quick list of games that might work well:

i'm sorry did you say street magic - worldbuilding, GMless fun

Stealing the Throne - you make your characters *during* play, which means you get to play right away

The Ground Itself - worldbuilding and GMless, a delight

Everyone Is John - VERY simple to learn!

Cozy Town - The best Stardewlike in my opinion

Paranormal Inc - GMless mystery game, where you draw clues and build the story together!

Heart: Quickstart - Dungeon Crawling, Underground City, premade characters

Orbital Blues Quickstart - Premade characters, You're Poor And In Space, Easy to Read & Run

Why Are We Doing This?

Our Potluck is one of the events I look forward to every year, and it's so easy and fun to get started. Also, if you're the kind of person who needs to play something in order to get a good feel for it, this is a really good opportunity. And scheduling to run a game for your friends is a great motivator to learn it. My friends and I are all in this together, and I don't want to let them down, so I prepare a kickass session and show up to their sessions. BOOM, now my horizons have expanded exponentially.

Including the talkback or any space to reflect on the game helps cement in our minds what we liked and didn't like about a system. And in future design conversations, we now have a shared vocabulary of all the Potluck games we've played together. When we talk about something, I'll go, "Remember that time in Blue Rose when you looked around and saw the set pieces?" and the folks who were playing will know what I mean and know what I'm getting at, and what experiences I'm trying to capture in our new project.

It's also just fun! Make fun memories with your friends and step out of your comfort zones. That's what it's all about baby!

[delvecandles]

As a big sci fi nerd at heart AND someone who has been making mixtapes for myself and others since the time we had to actually USE cassette tapes, I am BEYOND EXCITED for this new game launch!!!

The game is designed by J, one of the immensely talented DMs of the Planet Arcana podcast, which is a tightly-edited, retrofuturistic, tarot-themed audio drama built on a 5e framework!

J is a thoughtful and powerful storyteller as well as an amazing musician (in addition to DMing they compose all of the amazing Planet Arcana music that makes the show SUCH an audio treat to listen to!) and I have no doubt this, their debut game about trying to communicate with aliens through tarot and song, is going to be phenomenal!

Y'all check it out!! And if you're not already listening to Planet Arcana, y'all check that out too!! It's so good and deserves all the listeners in the universe!

CONTACT is a storytelling game about alien communication through tarot and song 🛸

if you like

making playlists with your friends

finding patterns and meanings in songs you've heard hundreds of times

stories about alien first contact

then CONTACT is for you!

Contact is crowdfunding February 7th-24th. Sign up for updates so you don't miss it!

[delvecandles]

Well, this looks absolutely delightful!

Waffles for Esther - A Solo Mystery Journaling Game of Small Town Hijinks!

Are you ready for a coffee caper?  A sherbet soirée?  Do you want to tango with a small-town troubled by treacherous tea times?  Don’t waffle on your decisions, the order is getting cold, and so is the case!

Start your investigation!

[delvecandles]

Ill Met by Moonlight is a 1-2 player game inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Choose between playing Titania or Oberon, and relive the halcyon days of your courtship to reveal your inner truth – and heal your love.

This game needs no dice, just an old copy of Midsummer Night’s Dream, a big black marker, and the will to tear pages out of your book >:)

Another 2023 Patreon exclusive!

[delvecandles]

These are gorgeous!

Undertow

Port to starboard and over the side, pulled into the undertow.

this slush pour was an experiment gone right! makes me want to do more water-inspired designs. the cap faces are always so COOL so, i'm oversharing with this one

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I haven't talked about the new project I'm working on here yet...

So here's a teaser. More info about my next solo journaling game coming soon!

[delvecandles]

Build a mega dungeon, one room a day.

This is a free design journal for #dungeon23, first suggested by Sean Mccoy. A challenge to build a mega dungeon (or world!) over the course of a year, one room at a time.

We are considering building a Mega Grove for Banda’s Grove with the community. 52 fragments in total converged at the Grove, each one containing 7 locations, encounters, or adventure hooks.

To help the ttrpg community with this new challenge, we decided to create and release the Dungeon 23 Design Journal for free on itchio.

A minimalist journal containing:

1 calendar tracker

Full Spread dot graph pages

365 room/area design pages

Multi Formats Available!

A5 Portrait - Perfect making your own booklets.

A4 Portrait - Print them off and put them in a 3 ring binder.

A4 Landscape - Pretty awesome format, in our opinion.

Larger inner margins setup for wire-o and 3-ring binders.

Minimalist design for easy printing!

What will you make?

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Want to make some messed up plants and animals in your ttrpgs? There are plenty of games out there that will help.

Games mentioned:

🌿 Exquisite Biome

🌿 Overgrown

🌿 Exclusion Zone Botanist

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more cover art for next year’s patreon exclusive games :3

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We handcraft immersive candles for D&D and other TTRPG players who want an extra spark of inspiration during game sessions! Our scents are thoughtfully designed and custom blended to evoke various settings or moods encountered during roleplaying adventures.

Our candles are made with 100% soy wax and fragrances free of phthalates and parabens for a clean burning experience. Available in highly portable 6oz tins and big, bold, and beautiful 16oz tins.

Delve. Because Adventure Awaits!

[delvecandles]

Reblogging because I am in that (presumably? hopefully?) very small population of folks who have read the Left Behind series and have now crossed over to the dark realm of TTPRGs, and this legitimately sounds like a fascinating and terrifying premise for a journaling game! And I'm certain there's folks out there looking for just such an experience.

(I doubt I could ever play it because of lingering trauma surrounding evangelical apocalyptic wishful thinking, but anyone without that emotional baggage should check it out!)

TTRPG designers: what is one game you've made that you think hasn't gotten enough attention compared to your other games, or that you wish more people would know about and try?

I'll reblog with my own answer later, but I wanna hear yours first!

[delvecandles]

Do you want to try your hand at making a sticker game? Join #TheStickerJam! You have until the end of February to submit a project that involves using stickers!

This isn't ranked, so consider joining the fun!

[delvecandles]

This seems like a super fun and creative way to use discord to play a TTRPG. Would love to play it sometime.

This Discord Has Ghosts In It

It doesn't get talked about enough, but This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a rad example of how you can adapt game design to your surroundings.

Basically, This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a digital larp. It's Phasmophobia played by chat. Your group creates a discord server to function as a haunted house, then you all explore it, building new 'rooms' out of channels as you go.

Some players take the roles of ghosts, and are muted but can affect the environment in the haunted house.

Other players take the roles of explorers, and can talk, but the ghosts are all listening.

Discord wasn't built to be gamified this way, but that doesn't matter.

As long as you can guarantee consistent behavior from a thing, you can build mechanics off of it.

Anything in your environment can be turned into a game.

And in this particular case, it's a really good one!

The mechanics lend themselves well to the kinds of pacing, limited communication, and untrustworthy setting that any good ghost story needs.

[delvecandles]

Well, this looks super cool!

The Stygian Library is a procedural dungeon for the extra-dimensional space between libraries, where all knowledge can be found.

The Library is filled with all kinds of cool rooms, including the Dissection Theater, Ink Vats, and Paper Beehive.

Inhuman librarians roam the halls, belonging to one of 5 different orders depicted by the color of their robe.

There are also a couple character classes: the Mummified Sage and the Neurovore.

It's designed for all Old School RPGs (including D&D) and is suitable for characters at any level.

Here's my video about the book.

Here's where you can find the book!

[delvecandles]

Tips on finding folks who'll give generous thoughtful feedback, and on ensuring a diversity of playtesters (not only across marginalisations, but experience levels etc).

Feedback and a robust set of playtesters are so important to my game design process. Playtesting is an absolute joy for me, while being an incredible way to grow as a designer.

So! Tips on finding your playtesters! Warning, I apparently went into full geek mode in this post, so proceed at your own risk.

Clarify what's essential for your core playtest group.

This differs per designer so I'll give you what's essential for me and why. Reading through this, I invite you to consider what makes you go "ah, me too!", "hmmm, nah", "oooh kinda" and create your own list of what's essential from your responses. I recommend keeping it to three things!

Relatively high experience with ttrpgs. I learned long ago that I enjoy designing complex and interesting experiences for my players. There is an argument to be made that complex games with a strong structure are actually great for those new to the hobby. I've seen folks point out that the "rules lite" and "simple" ttrpgs only really make sense to seasoned players. That being said, my games do ask for a high level of engagement, for players to be intuitive and creative on the fly. Also, players who have more experience across different games provide the most useful feedback for my process. Otherwise, and I hate to say it, the feedback tends to feel like "Getting A Lot Of Boss Baby Vibes From This".

Places story and character before mechanics. This makes it easier for me to keep tweaking the mechanics and play structure to encourage placing story and character first. I take note of what cool things my players did during a playtest, and later I'll try to codify that into a mechanic that's open to interpretation. I have a harder time with play testers who look too closely at the mechanics and feel constricted by them! But this can go too far: I don't get great feedback from folks who are comfortable ignoring a game and its mechanics almost entirely, and just free play the entire time. If they can't engage with my game then I can't work on its design. So finding that balance is key! Folks who help focus on the story and character potential contained in or bursting forth from my mechanics is super helpful.

Understands the kind of game I want to make. This is the most important one. The cool thing about indie games is you can and SHOULD go hard in expressing your gaming philosophy, while highlighting themes from your lived experience. I am not interested in creating a generic system that can play "any" experience. In my mind, that just means I've catered to the mainstream expectation of what a TTRPG is, which is influenced and structured by the dominant creative voice: cis-het, white, and male. Playtesters who understand, or are at least open to, the kind of games I make are essential. My games often dive into queer and post-colonial themes: found family, emotional exploration, a focus on relationships, generational responsibility and pain, a personal definition of freedom, among others. This is not because I am consciously writing about these things: I am simply writing what I know. And what I know is being a queer Filipino. Does that mean I need playtesters who are only queer and Filipino? No, absolutely not. But playtesters who don't force a mainstream/heteronormative/cis/white perspective through feedback is essential.

Find a community that is made up of players who embody what's essential for you

Do you absolutely need to engage with a community? No, you can put together a group of friends and playtest with each other, sure! In fact that's what I do now. But most of these people I met through an online community!

My own experiences with putting together groups just wasn't as enriching compared to becoming part of a community. TTRPGs shine the most when they're played with people who can engage with each other meaningfully, and communities provide that energy in abundance.

Your best bet is to find this community online. And I mean community community. The general open social spaces like Twitter, hashtags "communities", Tumblr, un-modded Discord servers, these are not communities. They are social spaces made up of several folks who just happen to have the same hobby.

Instead seek out online spaces that are cared for, that have a group of active members who ensure safety and expression, who put marginalized voices first. I know these spaces are few. But every time I have drifted from them to seek out playtesters elsewhere, I have been disappointed 90% of the time. You may have more luck than I do tho!

You can find this group in person, but indie ttrpgs flourish online. It's just easier to find people, usually across different time zones and all around the globe, who are interested in playing indie games.

Prioritize players over designers

So, I say this as someone who enjoys playtesting and engaging with designers. Let me explain what I mean.

This is a very personal thing, but my design and tastes prioritize play over theory. My design philosophy grows and evolves through the act of play. I design from a place of intuition and instinct, and only see what I was doing in hindsight. It's a grounded and dirty creative process. The hindsight sharpens instinct, and the process starts all over again.

I tend to get better feedback from folks who will say things like "well, I only just play, I'm not a designer", or from other designers who prioritize play as much as I do.

In my experience, the feedback I get that comes from a purely theoretical place, just doesn't vibe with me or offer anything I can act on. I'll think we're talking about the same thing, and it turns out, we absolutely weren't! It made the feedback and conversation frustrating.

Games designed from "pure" theory tend to be unfun for me to play or engage with. (this opens a whole new conversation about the value of games that aren't designed played, and I do cherish their value, but that's outside of my playtesting advice!)

If your design process and enjoyment is different from mine, then heck yes friend, go find your people and make beautiful games together!

When something works, stick with it.

My playtesting process has grown and changed over the years, and I've settled on a very simple process that offers the best feedback for my design.

I have two core playtesters (shout out to Josh of @ostrichmonkey-games and Sherri Stewart), and a rotating huge group of players (who mostly came from one online community, but a whole bunch are folks I met online and support my games).

My core playtesters embody the essentials: Josh and Sherri have a lot of experience with ttrpgs (that differ from each other), they place story and character before mechanics, and they understand the kind of games I want to make (better than I do, I would dare say).

For each game I playtest, I'll pick 1-2 more players from the open group who bring something else I need. Sometimes it'll be "I need someone relatively new to ttrpgs" or "I need someone who loves the magical girl genre as much as I do" or "I need someone who doesn't know what the heck the magical girl genre is".

It can be as hyper specific as "I think my game would break and become unfun with someone who takes their time and maybe overthinks a little bit, who talks it out for a long time with players. I'm going to see if I can tweak the game to be more accommodating to this playstyle."

There you go! Playtesting is my favorite part of the game design process and I'm always happy to talk about it. I hope this is helpful!