The Between is coming to BackerKit crowdfunding on September 24th!
I'll have a lot more to say about this campaign in the weeks to come, but for now: sign-up to be notified when the campaign is live, and please help spread the word!
Link in the following tweet!
Married gay people in red states: start getting all your paperwork together *now.* Children’s birth certificates, title to any property you jointly own, insurance policies, and so forth. See an estate planning attorney in order to make your relationship unassailable via contract.
Also: it’s horrifying to contemplate, but I think interracial married couples living in the Deep South should make sure their documents are in order, too. SCOTUS is moving us into some deeply troubling waters, and fast.
Everything feels like grift now. And not just online. Everyday interactions at hotels, coffee shops, wherever, feel like you’re being taken for a ride. Like the whole goal of commerce now is just to get away with as much as you can.
Look: you have to try Public Access. The team and I have created a TTRPG that is unlike *anything* out there. You’re going to have the time of your life, and then be like, “Holy shit, I didn’t know a roleplaying game could do *this.*”
GMs! Brag on yourself a little bit! What’s something you’re *really* good at when it comes to running a TTRPG?
For me, I’ll say it’s pacing and spotlight management. And I’m not just good at that—I’m one of the best, tbh.
Sound off!
(Art by Victor Maury)
A thing I hate about TTRPG discourse is how little of it is rooted in play. It’s always so theoretical or semantic. Your whole perspective changes when you actually play TTRPGs on a regular basis. And you’ll have less time to do discourse! Win-win.
I am once again begging TTRPG fans to invest in a nice iPad and use it for your game PDFs. You will save sooo much money over time, and wider spread use of PDFs over physical books creates a more sustainable space for small creators.
Brindlewood Bay was the first game I ever wrote, and it has been a life-changing success (and not just for me, btw). I was 42 when I wrote it.
You are never too old to pursue something you love.
The Silt Verses Roleplaying Game is here, so let's talk about it! What's it about, what's it like to play, and where is it headed in the future.
Thread!
If you are a TTRPG influencer looking to strike out beyond D&D, let me know and I’ll send you digital copies of any of our games: Brindlewood Bay, The Between, Trophy, Public Access, Hearts of Wulin. If you host games on a channel, I’m open to running one for your audience.
I’m always disappointed by how many people don’t consider the text of a TTRPG to be artistic expression. The illustrations are artistic expression, and the layout is artistic expression, but the actual words have to be sublimated into the safest, most unchallenging sensibilities.
Every now and then I think about making a TTRPG where you play the people in video games who go ahead of the heroes and light all those fucking candles and paint the handholds yellow.
I’ve already had four people tell me Public Access is the scariest TTRPG they’ve ever read. This pleases me very much!
The game should be out on
@DriveThruRPG
this week!
If you’re interested in doing an actual play or review of one of our games, drop me a line with your DriveThru email and I’ll send you free PDF copies. Brindlewood Bay, The Between, Public Access, The Silt Verses, or any of the Trophy line. I’m also happy to give interviews!
Brindlewood Bay won Gold at the ENnies! Best Electronic Book! Thanks so much to the judges, voters, and all the wonderful folk who have supported this game!
If my entire TTRPG career and philosophy could be boiled down to one sentence, it would be this: "You knowing things your character doesn't know is not only no big deal, it actually enhances gameplay."
Nothing drives me crazier than when someone says “I’m sorry to meta game” in a game I’m running. It’s a really recent phenomenon and absolutely one driven by the dominance of 5E culture.
And I *hate it so much*
Please know you are always free to “meta game” at my table.
A reminder that TTRPG Twitter is always mad about something. It’s impossible to keep up with all of it, and you’ll just drive yourself crazy trying to do so. The best thing to do is play TTRPGs and don’t worry about the drama. It’s a hard lesson to learn—trust me—but a handy one.
I’m looking for a lead artist on The Between, a TTRPG of monster hunters in Victorian-era London, inspired by Penny Dreadful and 19th century British horror classics.
Please RT (more details in the thread)
My eternal, least popular opinion: an iPad plus a good PDF reader is a fantastic investment for TTRPG fans. You will save a lot of money in the long run and encourage the creation of a much more sustainable indie segment that doesn’t always need to print books.
Today we kicked off our first proper actual play of the forthcoming
@TheSiltVerses
RPG. The actual play series is called A God Must Feed, and you can watch Part 1 at the link in the next tweet!
Reading The King in Yellow, which has such a mysterious, poetic, even beautiful approach to its cosmic horror, I find myself annoyed that our 2023 popular understanding of the subgenre is largely informed by the slick, cartoonish Fantasy Flight take.
If you are even slightly inclined to watch TTRPG sessions for entertainment, give Public Access: Signals from the Other Side a try. This is an outstanding AP—scary, great RP, characters you’ll fall in love with, and a terrific tutorial for all my games. Link in the next tweet!
Something I see a lot lately is people not really knowing how to get started on designing a TTRPG. We’ve given so much oxygen to the people who minimize the notion of game design in TTRPGs, that many people just getting started on their game idea don’t really know how.
Most indie TTRPG products will use Midjourney and other AI art within a year. Not our games, because we like working with artists, but I think it’s inevitable for the broader hobby. As soon as those programs can render a skeleton man or “weird little dude,” it’s over.
ENnies! I’m so very pleased that Brindlewood Bay was nominated for Best Electronic Book! Also very happy to see Trophy got noms for Best Rules, Best Game, and Product of the Year! Thanks so much to the judges and everyone who has supported our games!
A quick primer on PbtA: you talk back and forth with the GM for a little bit about what your character is doing. When your character does something that triggers a move, you read the rest of the move and do what it says. 1/
I’m turning 45 today and I feel great. I’m doing a job I love, discovering creative talents I never knew I had, and making good friends in the hobby that means so much to me.
The Between is now available on
@DriveThruRPG
!
The Between is a game about monster hunters in Victorian-era London. It’s inspired by Penny Dreadful and other gothic horror media, and uses the mystery system of Brindlewood Bay.
Please spread the word!
Today we announced Arkham Herald, a new game from The Gauntlet and
@sinister_beard
, coming to our Patreon and
@DriveThruRPG
in early 2023!
Arkham Herald is about investigative journalists in 1970s Arkham who uncover an occult conspiracy while chasing down crime stories. 1/
Five teens went missing in 1985. They were friends and frequent players of Xxaagreus, a rare arcade game by Vertex Electronica. Legend says that playing it makes you obsessed with death.
No one had seen a Xxaagreus cabinet in years, until one turned up a week ago in Deep Lake…
I’m still slightly amazed that so many people attempting to make a Souls-like TTRPG think the most important thing to emulate is the combat. It feels like such a misunderstanding of both Souls-like games and the narrative potential of tabletop roleplaying games.
I can say this because I wasn't the main writer on it (I just did the mechanical bits): The Silt Verses RPG is a fucking *masterpiece.* Full stop. Gabriel and the team made something truly special, unlike anything else in this hobby, and I can't wait for people to settle into it.
I am a former constitutional lawyer, and I’m telling you: SCOTUS abandoning Chevron deference is the most consequential thing the court has done in decades. It’s a seismic shift in how the federal government works, and the crowning achievement of conservative jurisprudence. 1/
I think I’m going to fulfill Trophy and Brindlewood Bay, and then get out of TTRPGs. This shit is too stressful, and you have to do *so much* as an individual creator. It’s like having 10 goddamn jobs and I’m just over it. Why does anyone want to do this?
A lot of Brindlewood Bay hate this week, lol. I don’t even bother to wade in anymore. My games are well-loved, get played all the time, and have helped me build a business where I get to move more and more of my friends into regular TTRPG work. That’s how I know I’m right.
I was once talking to a well-known TTRPG person, and they suggested that I got lucky with Brindlewood Bay, that anyone with that idea would have had success with it. I think about that conversation a lot. 1/
A little-discussed aspect of creating TTRPGs when you’re a small fry is that the publisher/creator/project manager (usually the same person) doesn’t get paid anything or they pay themselves dead last from whatever is left. 1/
I’m a lawyer. If I could make all Americans understand just one thing that I understand because of my training and background, it would be that corporations (and doctors ) work overtime to demonize litigiousness. The most famous incident of this is the McDonald’s hot coffee case.
I’ve been involved in criminal justice reform for a long time. For years, my job was to sue (and threaten to sue) cops in Texas. I’ve learned a lot about the thin blue line and the culture of self-preserving criminal behavior inside police departments.
1/
Gauntlet Publishing paid freelance TTRPG writers, editors, and artists $82,785.57 USD in the year 2020.
Some years ago, we committed that 50% or more of every dollar spent on freelancers would go to a woman or NB person. I’m proud to say we’ve done that every year (2020 was 59%)
The Brindlewood Bay Kickstarter campaign is LIVE!
If you have any questions, I’m hanging around answering them all day, so hit me in the replies!
Link to the campaign in the next tweet.
It’s wild to me that MCU execs didn’t realize that the play post-Endgame was to dial back the scope of the storytelling and then build back up to something cosmic in scale.
You don’t have to use AI art if you’re broke. You can: teach yourself to do art, work out a revenue sharing deal, find an artist who is willing to get paid post-crowdfunding, or do like I did and subsidize your publishing business with another job until it can support itself (1/)
I’m going to need you all to talk a little less about orcs and a little more about elderly women solving murder mysteries in a quaint New England town.
Since it’s Pride, you should know the founder of The Gauntlet, creator of Brindlewood Bay and The Between, ENnie-winning co-host of Fear of a Black Dragon, and creator of narrative tech that ends up in games you love is a proud, gay, Mexican-American man! 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
(It’s me, btw)
I know I keep going on about Public Access, but the team and I are doing something that *has not been done* in tabletop roleplaying games. That feeling of doing something totally new in your space is exhilarating from a creative standpoint.
(art by Corey Johnson)
Brindlewood Bay is coming to Kickstarter soon. I’m looking to give interviews and/or run the game for folks. If you have a podcast, blog, or stream and are interested in talking to me, please let me know! I set my own schedule, so I can make most times work.
Please RT
I frequently think about roleplaying games as a medium for entertainment distinct from films, books, etc., and how its particular strengths can be leveraged in game design. The mystery system for Brindlewood Bay is a direct result of this thinking. 1/
I can’t even begin to tell you how much The Silt Verses is the horror TTRPG of the year. It’s not even close. Gabriel and the team made something truly incredible and deeply disturbing. A modern TTRPG masterpiece. Go get it now on
@DriveThruRPG
Link in the next tweet!
I wish some TTRPG streamer would announce their plans to run DnD but the characters are all elderly women solving murder mysteries in an old New England whaling town so I can be like “BUT THERE’S ANOTHER GAME THAT DOES THAT STORY BETTER!”
I hate that Brindlewood Bay has had to go up against fucking Batman and Blade Runner, but honestly, the real tragedy is that I didn’t get my TTRPG mystery system out in the world a few years earlier.
The first Trophy books are landing in peoples’ mailboxes! This journey has been a long one, but I’m so happy with how these books turned out, and now our supporters get to enjoy them. 🖤💛💚
If you had told me my first game would raise over $100k in 24 hours, I wouldn’t have believed you. Now that it’s happened, I can’t begin to express how grateful I feel. Thanks so much for supporting this little game we love so much.
Onward to Day 2!
I have run 1800+ TTRPG sessions since 2013. 0 of those were 5E or Pathfinder. People are absolutely willing to try other games. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
This feels like a great day to remind everyone that you should take the time to play TTRPGs.
Reading them and creating them are worthwhile pursuits, but also play them. Publishing TTRPGs is my job and I still play four times a week. I never want to lose sight of why I love them
Public Access has been out long enough for campaigns to start reaching the Chromatic Desert. The Chromatic Desert is a particularly poignant and creepy campaign marker—in a game filled with them—but also deeply sad and uncanny. (It is also 100% me being on my bullshit, lol.) 1/
Sometimes the TTRPG industry is so deflating. I didn’t create The Between to be some big money maker, but I wish it wasn’t a total commercial flop. I’d like to think the market can support such a game, at least a little bit. But… it just doesn’t.
I’m going to need you all to talk a little less about Elon Musk and a little more about elderly women solving murder mysteries in a quaint New England town.
I’m looking for someone who can do a particular art style for Public Access, my game about a group of people investigating the mysteries around a creepy public access TV station.
Details in the thread. Help spreading the word is appreciated.
I don’t know, man: I just don’t think people should be using AI art in commercial products. When one of the bigger publishers in our space starts using it, it’s kind of a permission slip for everyone else to start doing it. Obviously, run your business however you want, I guess.
A year ago I thought I’d be dead by Christmas. But here I am. Put out my first game ever. Raised $210K on KS. Just finished the 3rd ep of a new podcast. Reached a big milestone on another. Managing several projects.
The world sucks right now, but I’m really glad to be here.
This controversy will be over in a day or two, but the blacklisting will last for *years* (if not forever). And many more people are going to just peace out of the industry altogether. It’s a very disappointing development all around. 1/
OSR people coming into my replies talking about how today’s SCOTUS decision wasn’t that bad, actually, get blocked, period. I’m not putting up with your nonsense today.
I’m a constitutional law attorney. I don’t normally talk shop on social media, but the events of the last few days make me want to highlight something that, in my experience, many Americans simply don’t understand: your constitutional rights are extremely fragile.
(Thread)
I have officially reached the end of my weight loss journey! I lost 115 lbs., went from a 42 waist to a 32 waist, and am just generally happier and more energetic!
I sometimes wish TTRPG companies would playtest less for "Does this game work on a mechanical level?" and more for "Does this game actually have a daring or interesting point of view?"
We’re hosting a writing contest for my analog horror game, Public Access! You can write a mystery and/or an Odyssey tape. There are prizes, but it’s mostly a chance to do something creative with a like-minded group of horror TTRPG fans. Links to follow. Please RT!
The hardest thing you can do as an indie creator in TTRPGs is to convince people to play your game once. To get them to keep playing it is a real triumph. It delights me to no end that there are many people on their third or fourth campaign of The Between at this point.
I’m enjoying working on the
@TheSiltVerses
RPG. We’re making a terrific game based on a fascinating world, but I’m also getting a chance to see how the team does on a licensed property. It’s good experience for the future, which I think will be a mix of licensed and original IP.