2cp

One-and-a-half years later... Look, I thought I might become a blogger... It didn't happen. I published 3 posts on my in-development game Glint , and then it evolved so dramatically - through playtesting - that I realized the format of piecemealing the rules out over time wasn't going to be effective. So what? I'm not a blogger! But maybe I made a game that someone will steal something from. Here is  Glint . Enjoy! Ok, Ok... A little more preamble. What is in that PDF is not a marketable package. That's why it's free. It's missing treasure tables, it's missing a bestiary, there's no starting adventure, there's no attached setting. What you are getting is Character Creation, Advancement, Inventory, Combat, Magic, and light procedures for Dungeon Crawling and Wilderness Exploration. In its current iteration, the game resides within the Odd-like family, but you'll find inspirations from all across the indie-rpg sphere. I wouldn't be surprised if...

Hi all, I'm writing a devlog for combat in Glint, but work has picked up a bit, delaying its publishing. To not lose my meager blogging momentum, I thought I would share some quick practical advice about a topic that's been on my mind. Transitioning to Online Games At the beginning of 2024, my group transitioned to playing sessions online. It wasn't all bad, some information is easier to present and organize in a digital space. However, one thing that I immediately missed was the after-session table talk. When a session ended in person, there would often be a 10 minute period as we packed up and walked out the door when we would just talk. Seems simple, but it gave us a small window of time to process the events of the session in an informal setting. When we moved online, we lost that time. Sometimes, everyone was off the call within a minute of the session ending. As a GM, I came to realize that these, now missing, informal moments were invaluable to my understanding of wh...

Perception BAD! Persuasion BAD! Ah yes, Ability Checks. One of the more divisive TTRPG battlefields. Many a forum poster has been conscripted into the conflict... and the battle rages on... Perhaps one of the most defining concepts within the OSR is that when you limit the scope of Ability Checks, you draw out a greater level of engagement with the fiction from your players. I am a defender of this idea, though I do believe that GM-ing is more art than science, and that every table needs to find its own balance with regards to the types of problems that can be 'roll-ed' away. However, today I'm going to skip past the 'when' and 'why' of Ability Checks. Plenty of good theory out there... Rather, the point of this devlog is 'how' this resolution mechanic works in Glint . The How... In Glint , there are 4 attributes, Might, Dexterity, Mind, and Luck. Attribute scores begin at 1, and can increase up to 5. When an ability check is called for, a target num...

From humble beginnings... Oh yeah, baby! That is my, pretty scuffed, very first attempt to create an analog Inventory system using Tetris-like pieces to represent items in the PC's inventory. I know that the character sheet in the picture is too clean, but I swear we did play this way for a couple of weeks. That picture is about a year old, and you know what? I'm actually still developing this approach as part of my WIP game Glint !  About a month later and after many, many hours spent printing, cutting, and gluing those little item pieces together... My group was forced to move online... and those are hours I'll just never get back... By that time, the game had evolved. Here's a picture from about 4 months ago of a character sheet, now hosted on Google Sheets.  Finally, not that you really needed it, the character sheet today! Continuing to evolve... So! What have I learned from a year of managing inventory in this way? I'm glad you asked! Slots vs Blocks: Round 1 ...

Dear reader, For the past year I have been developing my own OSR-influenced dungeon crawling heartbreaker. As is tradition!  Well, I awoke yesterday morning to the clarion call of one W.F. Smith , beckoning the forever closet tinkerers to try tinkering in the light of day (or at least in the dim glow of a Discord server). I looked at all the drafts of my game and thought, why not? It's called  Glint . The game is in playtesting, with large chunks of the rules receiving semi-regular revisions and tweaks. But the bones are, more or less, locked in. I've been testing it with my home group for the past 5-ish months, and I am ready to start sharing the ideas that have gone into its creation with anyone who cares to listen. If that turns out to be an audience of none, then so be it, this can just be a public journal. Maybe, something that I write will inspire someone else to create, just as the things that I've read in the OSR Blogosphere have inspired me to do so. I'm not qu...