u/APurplePerson

I just spent two weeks manually copying and pasting all the content from my 200-page rulebook onto a website. You might not want to give away your content for free, and that's understandable, but if you want your content to be maximally accessible to new players, or even a subset of it as an SRD-like thing, I'm here to tell you that it's not that bad. It's not that tedious. You could probably use an AI tool, but I think those cost money (among other costs), or require some programming knowledge. And there are benefits to doing it the good ol' fashioned brute-force way.

• It forces you to review your content in a new light. I found tons of mistakes and easy improvements, little and a few big. It especially forces you to think hard about your rules structure, since that becomes the site map.
• It forces you to commit. Because now, if you make revisions, you don't just have to update your PDF on itchio, you have to update the site too. It's not that hard to do if you need to do it, but the added friction has helped me make final decisions.
• It's something you can do late at night when you're too tired to be fully productive on your work, instead of doomscrolling.

This is actually the second time I've done this. I released the first version of my game in 2023 on both a website and PDF. Since then, I've been working on a big second-edition update for the PDF, and have been absolutely dreading updating the site to match. But it was fine! I used Google Sites for the website, and used Google Docs for my rulebook, so it mercifully preserved a lot of the formatting (but not all of it). I am sure there are wiki-like markdown sites out there you could use instead if you have not sold your soul to the goog like I have.

I do have some experience with web design, but I don't know how to do anything with javascript (and google sites doesn't even let you use CSS anyway). Here's the site: https://www.whenskyandsea.com/ Ask me anything!

This is not technically a Zelda game—it's based on Phoenician mythology and takes place on a fantasy version of the planet Jupiter, not Hyrule—but it's 100% inspired by my love of Zelda and my obsession with the series' game design.

I just released a second edition ruleset—it's free on both RPG Trader and Itchio.

The game takes place on floating islands (which I swear I thought of before Tears of the Kingdom revealed its setting!) and features four fantastical origins—humans, an empire of animal headed people, golem amnesiacs, and "dreamshaped" people from a Chaos realm.

What specifically inspired me to start making this game was the 2017 Breaking Conventions with Breath of the Wild GDC presentation. My endless speculation about what the next Zelda game after BotW would look (along with, probably, mild psychosis after becoming a new parent) led me to just make my own thing.

Now I love D&D, exploring dungeons, and grid-based tactical combat—in part because D&D is so evocative of classic Zelda games—but that presentation made me wonder what an "open-air" TTRPG would look like, with more focus on player freedom and "multiplicative gameplay."

So instead of enclosed "dungeons" segmented by rooms as the assumed unit of adventure, my game features small floating islands as the core structure and assumes heroes can go anywhere and explore their areas in any order. There's an emphasis on "group efforts" where players combine their actions to tackle challenges. Overall it's about as crunchy as D&D—there's a fair bit of resource tracking, and it's not really a "narrative" game like Powered by the Apocalypse or Blades in the Dark—but it's designed around theater-of-the-mind rather than rigid grid-based play, and I think it feels much more fluid and freeform to play.

I know this is shameless self-promotion but please feel free to ask me anything—I'd love to hear what you think, or just talk about Zelda game design and how the new quick select item menu on the OoT remake isn't actually that bad....

Thank you for taking a look!

I don't mean the same exact style of Breath of the Wild. BotW looked pretty different from Wind Waker. But they both use cel-shading and I think they are more successful for it.

I'm not going to shit on the OoT remake art style here. The environments look good. More importantly, I don't envy the task of translating N64 games to modern visual fidelity. I imagine they tried cel-shading graphics and decided against it. The style does look like it maintains something essential of the original game, which I reckon is important.

But man does it look plastic-y. And so do most games, which I hate. Grand Theft Auto 6 looks plastic-y to me, and because its style is ultra-realistic, the whole thing just gives me the creeps because of the Uncanny Valley effect.

I see people on the internet are saying "OoT looks AI," which I don't think is true, but I think plasticy graphics (and CGI in movies) look "fake" in the same way that AI looks fake.

Cel-shading embraces the videogame medium, with its animations and interactivity often leading to absurdity, in a way that photorealism, or even fantastical-but-highly-detailed-style, doesn't. Nintendo explained why they went with this style for BotW in this famous developer session—because it makes it "easy to lie"—it helps them balance gameplay fluidity and playability vs. in-game reality, like how swinging an axe on a tree trunk makes it poof into a bundle of wood instead of triggering some tedious canned animation or cutscene.

I would like to see a new style for the next game because BotW was styled specifically within the context of the Wii U technical specs and I'm interested to see what they do with more visual fidelity.

Edit: I feel like folks are underestimating the diversity of 2-D animated styles. which is really all "cel-shading" means. Compare, for example, Looney Tunes to Rick and Morty, or Berserk to Spirited Away, or even within just 2-D Disney movies, Sleeping Beauty to Aladdin. "Cel-shading" is not itself an art style.

It's been over three years since Tears of the Kingdom came out.

The first trailer for "the sequel to Breath of the Wild" came out in 2019, less than three years after BotW came out.

It's time, folks.

The Ocarina of Time remake is a red herring. It is not the once-every-five-years A-team Zelda game. I'm sure they'll talk about OoT, and they'll talk about the Zelda movie, and some merchandising stuff. But the main course is going to be a new game.

(edit: by main course i mean it's going to be the most exciting thing, not how much time it will take up. i imagine most of the direct duration will be about oot.)

Why is it going to be rad? Tears of the Kingdom was a deeply conservative game. For all its technical innovations and ambitions, it stuck extremely closely to the BotW formula—shrines, koroks, 4 abilities, terminal dungeons. Surely they had plenty of ideas that didn't fit in this formula—or into the Switch's paltry technical specs.

I don't think the new game is going to stick to the BotW formula, and I don't think it's going to regress to the Link to the Past formula either. I think Nintendo has had over a decade to dream big and we're about to see what they have in store.

Edit: and before you say, "Who cares what you think? You're just some loser on the internet." I am in fact a great prophet of Zelda. I predicted the existence of the Depths, and I named the nature of the Magic Meter. Ignore my prognostications at your peril.

Edit 2: I WAS DECEIVED BY GANONDORF. may nayru have mercy on me.

Ahoy! I've been working on this TTRPG for six years as a side hobby. After more than 30 playtests with 50+ internet strangers, I've just published the second edition rulebook for free (itchio | RPG Trader), and I'd be honored to hear your thoughts.

The game is an original system and setting. It's heavily inspired by Phoenician mythology and other bronze-age cultures and myths like the Odyssey (I have not yet seen the movie), but it's set on the "Skysea," actually a far-future version of the planet Jupiter. The game revolves around exploring small floating islands, which serve as self-contained "levels" for session adventures in the same way "dungeons" do in lots of other games.

The system uses step dice for actions, sort of like Savage Worlds. You have four action dice, and they're arranged like a compass rose alongside with four attributes. The better your attributes, the bigger the "neighboring" action dice. Also, those attributes are dynamic—you can spend them to empower your actions, foes can reduce them by inflicting damage, and they serve as your defenses against foes' corresponding actions.

It's a little crunchy with resource-tracking, but the numbers are small and straighforward, and the game is designed to be played theater-of-the-mind. I hope it's easy for newcomers to pick up and learn, or at least easier than D&D.

I badly need to finish my GM book and get my quickstart adventure in order—I know those are pretty important missing pieces of the experience—but I'd love to hear what you think of the rulebook. I'm an editor by trade, so please don't hold back—every nitpick is appreciated!

^(Note: I don't use AI for anything. All the art is commissioned by two delightful human artists, with the exception of the goofy charcoal drawings, which are my own poor attempts at artwork.)

Ahoy! I just released the second edition core rulebook for When Sky & Sea Were Not Named (itchio | RPG Trader) a free heroic fantasy game inspired by Phoenician mythology and contemporary myths and legends like the Odyssey and the Old Testament.

It's a totally original system and setting, a bit less crunchy than 5E, and designed around theater-of-the-mind gameplay. The game takes place in realm of floating islands called the Skysea (actually a far-future planet Jupiter). These islands serve as units of adventure, as self-contained places for heroes to explore during a session, much like "dungeons" in other fantasy games.

Your hero belongs to one of four origins:

• Kananites resemble ordinary humans (inspired by the historical Canaanites/Phoenicians), and travel the Skysea in hot-air balloons and skyships.
• Mazrians hail from a once-powerful empire (inspired by ancient Egypt), and have the heads of animals.
• Shinarians are golem amnesiacs from a lost kingdom (inspired by Mesopotamia) who transfered their souls into clay bodies.
• The Zordin are nomads (inspired by the Sea People) who been mutated by the Chaos realm of the Skysea into fantastical forms.

Six callings (basically classes) anchor your hero's abilities:

• Champions are straightforwrad masters of melee battle.
• Wanderers can tell "stories" they've heard to reveal truths about the world.
• Masterminds can spring "strategems" that they had planned all along.
• Messengers can call the wind and learn to wield the fluid magic of flame, storm, and names.
• Sorcerers can wield dark and light magic, controlling the physical forces of gravity and light.
• Arbiters can literally see souls as clearly as people's faces, and can cast spells to shape soulstuff.

There's also 40 types of lore—culturally-derived knowledge of the Atlatl, Ballooning, Crafting, Death, and so on. You start with 2 types and can learn more by collecting revelations from NPCs who might teach you, or reading secrets in texts you find.

Finally, all characters have ideals which they can invoke to push themselves to succeed in the face of failure. "In the name of glory, I will not miss this jump-attack!"

I've been working on this game for six years as a hobby; I released the first edition three years ago, and this new edition reflects everything I've learned from over 30 one-shot playtests with ~50 internet strangers, plus an extended campaign. I'll be releasing a Guide for Guides soon with plenty of sample adventures, best practices and creatures.

I'd be honored to hear what you think (especially if you have critical feedback—no nitpick is too nitpicky!)

^(Note on AI: I don't use it for anything. Artwork credit:) Sansiia

Ahoy! I'm the creator of When Sky & Sea Were Not Named, a (free!) tabletop RPG inspired by ancient Phoenician mythology, the Odyssey, the Old Testament, and other myths from late Bronze Age. The game takes place in a realm of floating islands drifting through the Skysea (actually a science-fantasy version of the planet Jupiter).

The Skysea has no bottom. Islands drift upon the Sea of Clouds, buoyed aloft by magnetism, fluid mechanics, and magic, and people travel between them in hot-air balloons and skyships.

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Perhaps you are one such traveler, plying the tradewinds on a cramped balloon gondola or pulling oars on a skyskiff. But the once-predictable winds have become strange and turbulent. The Skysea's far-flung floating islands are not where they should be. No other ships or balloons crest the horizon for days. You are lost. You are running low on supplies. And you can't escape a sinking feeling, a dark fate, that something is gazing up at you from below the Sea of Clouds, calling for you, grasping at you . . .

. . . and then, in one instant, a vast, booming sound—wohm, wohm, wohm—and your hearts feel pulled down from your chest. You are forced down to your knees in the creaking, plummeting gondola or deck. Dimly you can see the Sea of Clouds itself being pulled down around you, the clouds spiraling into a funnel like so much fluid circling a drain—and within a second, darkness.

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Every skysailor knows that beneath the Sea of Clouds is a realm of unspeakable terrors—endless gray mist that devolves into storm and utter darkness, gradually condensing into the Sea of Death. Monsters lurk below the clouds—the spawn of Yom, the god of Chaos, who takes many forms and wears many "faces". It is said that Yom's truest forms resemble enormous worms or serpents.

And legends tell of the lost kingdom of Shinar, a once-powerful civilization whose denizens transferred their souls into clay statues, becoming immortal golems. Hundreds of years ago, their deathless kingdom suddenly sunk beneath the clouds, where it is said to float upon the Sea of Death to this day. No one knows why their kingdom fell or what happened to the powerful magic that animated these golems . . .

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Yom the Cnidarian is one of the most ancient and inscrutable "faces" of Yom. The Cnidarian takes the form of jellyfish and corals and often strings its bodies together into larger colonial organisms.

Through symbiosis or parasitism, the Cnidarian somehow merged with the remnants of Shinarians. The golems' clay faces and their residual soulstuff joined with the Cnidarian, helping expand its power and size.

• Medusas are the smallest spawn of Yom the Cnidarian—jellyfish with a Shinarian head affixed to their undersides. The gaze of this head can wither even the most stalwart hero.
• The hydra is more powerful, a six-tentacled monsters with a thick “tail” it uses to wiggle and flop around nightmarishly. It has adorned your appendages with seven severed Shinarian heads that gaze in every direction.
• The siren, sometimes called the "Finger of Yom," is vast colony of jellyfishlike creatures connected in a long string, each individual as specialized as an organ in a single body, all pulsing and writhing to the rhythm of a heartbreakingly-beautiful song, a form of soul-magic emitted from its smiling Shinarian head. This creature sometimes rises above the cloudtops at night, its softly-luminescent form rising up like a coiling, endless serpent, and lures sailors into its long, coiling, venomous tentacles.

But some appendages of Yom the Cnidarian do not need to rise above the clouds to hunt.

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Darkness—then a tremendous crash. Your gondola or ship shatters against a stone surface. Somehow, you have survived. As your eyes adjust to the moist darkness, you see five dim pillars rising in one direction—jointed, like fingers. A soft, pulsing light is everywhere.

You have crashed upon the vast palm of the Hand of Yom. The fingers are composed of Shinarian ruins, encrusted with coral. In the center of the palm is a black mouth, the source of the dark magic that pulls down its prey from above the clouds.

The stone form ends at the wrist, where it becomes a vast string of colonial jellyfish that extends endlessly into the darkness. Who knows where it ends . . . or what else is connected to this vast being . . .

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When Sky & Sea Were Not Named is available on itchio or RPG Trader. A Guide for Guides is coming soon! If you check it out, don't be a stranger—I'd be honored to hear what you think, and I'd love to host a session for new players.

First illustration commissioned by Sansiia. The two charcoal illustrations are by yours truly.

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Ahoy, strangers! I'm the creator of When Sky & Sea Were Not Named, a fantasy game inspired by ancient Phoenician mythology and other bronze age cultures, and the "open-air" gameplay of the new Zelda games.

I'll be running a one-shot adventure called Formless and Void, which is more or less the name of the mystery and danger that awaits you on Kituan.

• When: Sunday, July 26, 8:00am PST (11:00am EST, 4:00pm GMT). The session will last 3-4 hours.
• Where: Theater of the mind (Discord audio)
• Who: LGBTQ+ friendly, 18+ (content will be PG-13, but I'm old)

What: The system is "medium-crunch"—I think it's a little easier to learn and faster to play than D&D. The tone is heroic, fast-paced, a little dark, a little goofy.

You can read more about the game and find a free public beta on RPG Trader or itchio. I'll share a slightly updated version of the rulebook for this session. But no need to know the rules before we play; I'll explain as we go. You can make your own hero or use a pregen.

The other players in the session so far have a mix of experience playing the game. We have a pretty chill community, and new folks are always welcome!

Interested? Have questions? Comment here or find me on Discord—I'm apurpleperson.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14BHx6gk8qD5tGcAw3VUs3jsdjADA6fsJhTpUE8LG62U/edit?usp=sharing

I'd be honored to hear what y'all think—initial impression, what it suggests about the game's complexity, or does anything just look bad or weird.

I have probably spent more time working on my game's hero sheet than on the rules themselves. I've finally beaten it into a shape I'm happy with—the "compass rose" of action dice (Compel/Maneuver/Move/Brace) and attributes (Spirit/Awareness/Grace/Strength) is one of the game's more unique features. Here's how they relate:

Characteristic	Components
Maneuver Die	Awareness + Grace
Compel Die	Spirit + Awareness
Brace Die	Strength + Spirit
Move Die	Grace + Strength
Weight	Strength +/-1
Life	Spirit + Strength + Weight

The game is called When Sky & Sea Were Not Named—it's inspired by ancient Phoenician mythology with a healthy dose of Zelda. The art is all commissioned from a real human artist who goes by Sansiia. I am planning make a printer-friendly version of the sheet once everything's final-final.