Reflections and Resolutions

Reflection on 2021

2021 was a hard year in many ways. It was the hardest year of teaching since I was new, it was the year my family got covid right in the middle of a move, and it was the first year in a while that I couldn't count on play elfgames with my friends every week. 

It was also the year that I started to create! I am really proud of what I accomplished this past year even if everything was deeply armature. Here is what I made

Just Some Bears in a Forest: My first published adventure created entirely in MS Paint for MS Paint TTRPG Jam. Basically this little hexcrawl takes the "just use bears" OSR catchphrase and spins it into a big goofy adventure. Every monster and NPC is a bear and they each have a unique system-semi-agnostic statblock. Just find what a bear is statted as in your D&D-ish game and modify it as directed!

I'm particularly proud of how goofy and fun this adventure turned out, I am convinced that it could be run in most OSR systems and any edition of D&D and be a blast! I am also proud of the art that I was able to accomplish in MS Paint without even a real mouse, just a touchpad. 

OH! AND IT WON! Ian Yusem awarded it "Most Charming" and sent me some short Mothership Adventures. (That I hope to run in 2022). 

Anyway JSBiaF wasn't, umm, successful. It's been downloaded less than 10 times despite being free. It's value has been as a learning experience.

Anyway, please go pick it up, run it, steal the random bear generator, and tell me if it actually works with your system of choice.

Road to the Dragon's Lair: Unlike JSBiaF I'm not sure if Road to the Dragon's Lair actually has any utility. I had read about Pocket Places Jam and watched a few tutorials for making pocket mods... and then I ended up finishing my grading with 40 minutes left in my planning period. (Unheard of!) 

So I decided to experiment with making a pocket mod. I folded and cut some paper, then I started feverishly drawing out the first things that came to mind in the red pen I was already using. It looked bad. 

So the next day I unfolded it, scanned it, made it black and white and copied it into MS Paint because I was already on the Paint train from my last project. From there I was able to morph it into something I like and I genuinely think that it came out looking pretty good!

Now... Could you actually use it at the table? I have no idea. It has no stats, no mechanics, and the ideas are all pretty general. Personally it's a bit more sparse than the types of resources that I like to use at my table... But it's also got some childish charm to it.

At some point I would love to expand it out into a full zine style adventure but I wonder if that would ruin it. 

WAY more people downloaded this one and it got some good ratings and comments. This surprised me because in my mind this is clearly the inferior product.

Can't Cantrip Cantrap: When Iko announced Scissors and Glue Jam I knew that I had to make something. Lost Bay was quickly becoming my favorite podcast and amateurish, messy rpg stuff was quickly becoming my niche.

Luckily I had some spells that I had been writing for a while. My goal had been to make spells with minimal or no mechanics but with diegetic limits and drawbacks similar to how the invisibility spell was portrayed in the Pixar movie Onward. 

So I printed them out, cut them up, and started gluing them to construction paper. I grabbed some art that I had saved from games or had made for other failed projects plus a couple images that I scribbled on sticky notes. Taped the whole thing together and BOOM, it was done.

This was easily my most successful project. I've had a couple reports of people using my spells in game, people online seem to always have positive feedback when I share it, and it has even made me $4 despite being pay what you want. That's the best feeling $4 I have ever made. 

I think it's success really comes down to the fact that lots of OSR folks are looking for more satisfying magic right now and while there are a lot of great bespoke OSR magic systems they all tend to be pretty serious or even downright disturbing (looking at you Book of Gaub) while these spells are clearly silly and fun.

Resolutions for 2022

1) I want to release at least five of these projects that I have started on.

• Moon in the Thunderous Descent - This should already be done. But it isn't. I have 14 days left in Random Adventure Jam so wish me luck!
  
• American Bullet Hell - My dark and gritty "no zombies or mutants" near-post-apocalypse system. Basically this is my attempt to explore and ultimately confront some of the far right ideology I was raised with and to process my complex feelings around survivalism and American gun culture.
• Confederates and Cannibals - My dark and gritty western game/setting that grew out of American Bullet Hell and into it's own thing. Another attempt to process some stuff... in this case my family history. Fun fact: I'm related to a real life cannibal.
• Grit, Gold, Goblins - My personal OSR hack that draws heavily on Knave, White Hack, and Glog but also tends to be a bit more complex than any one of those games. It seems to have a lot of convergent evolution with Errant.
• &n& - a collection of mosaic style rules for dungeon fantasy games with the idea that you could go through and select some options in each category to create your own unique version of the dungeon crawly dragon slayer game.
• Small Town Drama - a procedural "solo game" for generating small town adventuring locations complete with weird petty personal dramas between townsfolk but also maybe a cult or werewolf. 
• Lost Halls of the "Dwarven" Lords - These dwarven ruins were taken over by goblins who are pretending to be dwarves by wearing fake beards and speaking in bad Scottish accents. And now a party of dwarves is trying to take it back. Except that the ghosts of the old dwarven lords have actually come to love the goblins who do a great job of keeping the dwarven ways alive, and these new dwarves actually kind of suck. And that's where the party comes in.
• Island of the Pink City - a point crawl adventure inspired by the famous Denver restaurant Casa Bonita. A goofy, pulpy mashup of pirates, undead, cowboys, haunted mines, and gorillas. Maybe illustrated using craft paper and glue to match the aesthetics of the Casa Bonita South Park episode.

2) I want to post on this blog more. I have plans for a few series of posts and I would love to make at least two of those a reality.

• Adventure Reviews but focusing more on smaller adventures over the big names. One page dungeons and pamphlets and stuff. I want to include player feedback like that one Bones of Contention review
• Unexpected Appendix N - weird pieces of media that can inspire us or teach us about RPGs. First post is probably about Bluey because I have a toddler.
• Mechanics Shop - I had big plans for this and then it was harder than I thought. The post on Knave is, like 90% done but I am only 20% happy with it. I might need to switch formats.
• Theory Stuff - I have a lot of hot takes and I need to get them out. Similar stuff to my Mosaic Manifesto in some ways. I have an idea for a post about the terms homebrew, hack, rulings, rule of cool, rulings not rules etc.

Anyway I just want to put this into the world to hold me accountable. If anything sound especially interesting let me know and I will focus on those things first! (Or if you hate this stuff let me know and why so I can get gud or whatever)