u/forthesect

How's it going everybody!?

Last month I made a post about starting a weekly/monthly rpg discussion group. I've observed that trying to make everyone talk about the same game kills other groups, so I opened discussion to whatever rpg related thing(s) everyone had been up to lately!

It went okay on this sub, and pretty good on r/ttrpg, so the post I'm making there might be a bit more active. Still, here's last month's post here. https://www.reddit.com/r/myrpg/comments/1w6or3b/weeklymonthly_open_bookclub_discussion/

I think I'm gonna start making a post the first Friday of every month!

I encourage everyone to check out the activity or even respond to comments on last months post, and say what you've been up to or are excited about in RPGs this month in comments here.

Last time I started things off with a comment that separated what I played, designed, and looked into into separate paragraphs/sections, and some other people used that format as well, but its all up to you!

Feedback on how to do the posts moving forward is welcome as well!

Have fun!

First off, if you've purchased the bundle, and there are games you are interested in you haven't downloaded... DOWNLOAD THEM!

Pretty sure you will lose access to things you haven't downloaded after the bundle ends, PWYW bundles are kind of weird on itch.

Second, here's the bundle in case you haven't had a chance to check it out or want to spread the link around before its too late https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

Finally... closing out at around 379 purchases (not including freebies I believe) and $2,362 in donations, this project has far exceeded my goals in most ways.

I put a lot of work into putting this project together, and to set my expectations I set two benchmarks for the minimum that would need to happen for me to consider it "worth it".

Either

1 Hitting the 1,000$ donation goal, something I thought would be very achievable and in the end it was, we hit the goal within two weeks. Now we have more than double the goal.

Or

2 More than doubling the downloads of my game This Town Ain't Big Enough (and using that as a benchmark for other creators' getting some at least). My game now has 200 views and 178 downloads (a total based on both files), and and either pdf has more than double downloads than both before the bundle.

As you can see, we hit both fairly easily! The bundle has been decently successful!

But at the same time didn't exactly go well enough to change the status of the bookclub or probably any of the games in the bundle dramatically. I mean if a decent portion of the people that have downloaded our games have/will play and like them sure, but theres no real way to know that.

The more pressing issue for me is that there didn't appear to be a lot of discussion of the bundle, or games in it. Thats been a problem for the sub since the beginning, and seems to carry across scheduled RPG discussion groups even in vastly bigger communities. I gave prompting more general discussion a shot here and r/TTRPG you can check out the post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TTRPG/comments/1w6pkox/is_anyone_interested_in_a_regular_discussion_of/

Not a ton of commenter to commenter interaction, but it did something, and I'm gonna try again. Linking back to the first post to remind people to interact with past responses.

As it stands, there's probably only so much room for growth while still sticking to a limited indie selection. You need numbers and bigger games to have them act as passive advertisements when anyone looks at their page and sees the bundle, and to get featured by itch or media outlets, and I'm not very enthusiastic about casting a wider net with entries.

It might help participants, but they could also be proactive about searching out and joining existing big charity bundles and achieve the same effect.

Theres a lot of changes I can make that might help things, at least in terms of tracking, switching to fully paid so games stay in users libraries (I think I'll go to at least tiered, with at cost games taking like $5 to unlock or something just for the heck of it) and I know directly the number of people that got it, having higher quality standards for entries in the hopes that will generate more buzz from users, moving from charity to splitting revenue so people that submit games get something out of it and I can see how far the games and bookclub themselves can carry the concept of the bundle and having less restrictions on how the bundle can be set up, moving off itch for various reasons, but in the end I doubt any of them would have significant effect.

There are about two ways to get traction on the internet.

Have something that gets a huge wave of attention from various sources due to only semi predictable factors, or building up interest, community, and brand recognition slowly over time. the more you do the second, the higher chance you have of randomly chancing on the first.

I was hoping that the bundle could be a case of the first at least a little, but that didn't end up even close to happening, there was just no coverage or discussion except for the tiny amount I could get through cold messaging influencers I looked up.

So basically, no matter what I change about the bundle, the result will be the same, maybe a bit better through the second method, building on the success of the first bundle.

In other words, I think I'm gonna do everything pretty much the same as the first bundle for the second one, its easier and I doubt there would be significant improvement from any change. There is though, one major caveat:

It looks like itch has majorly changed how you set up bundles in a way that could make things dramatically easier. I'll have to confirm this with them, but if its true that should make the amount of work necessary to set this stuff up way less, and give us room to try other things on the side.

That's about it! Thanks again for all your help, and I hope this was as engaging an adventure for you as it has been for me!

https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibilit

At 360 donations totaling $2200 and who knows how many more free downloads, we've come a long way! Especially for a bundle mostly composed of individual little known passion projects!

Thank you so much for making our goals into reality! But, we can still go even further! If you know any person or community that's into rpgs, nows the time to give them heads up! It's the last chance to pick up $100 of stellar RPGs at a discount!

Edit: title should say HERE not THERE 🤦

Hey all! I've been trying to run a rpg bookclub subreddit for indie games for a while, cause I love hearing and talking about cool games people haven't heard of, but promoting any sort of structured discussion about rpgs honestly seems pretty difficult.

I've noticed that even and more popular communities like r/RPG or the indie RPG discord, scheduled RPG discussion groups tend to die out.

One of the obvious reasons for this is that picking out a specific game for everyone to look at and or play, can just be a really hard sell in a hobby where everyone is already playing, running, or even designing other games all while holding down jobs and having active personal lives.

So in an attempt to meet people where they're at, and mimic book club subreddits where multiple books are discussed at the same time, instead of talking about a specific game, I wanna try everyone just talking about what they've been designing, playing, or reading in the RPG space in the comments of a single post!

I wanna encourage everyone to try it on this post! Even if you only have a sentence worth of text to say, something like I ran a session of my shadow dark campaign as a standalone comment can be more than enough to prompt discussion.

If enough people do this and ask questions about other people's comments that interest them, we should be able to spark a bit of a Lively if unfocused conversation about RPG's!

If it works I'll do this regularly! Be sure to check in after a week or so to see all the comments 🤞 on this post! I'll get things started.

Hey all I've been thinking of starting up the book club again but instead of picking out a specific game, we all just talk about the things we've been playing, running, reading, and designing or are just excited to see more of in the comments of this post.

I'll comment first to get the ball rolling, and if you want to chime in with what you've been doing or ask me questions, please comment on the post as well! Even a single sentence will do! The discussion in the comments should be changing and evolving throughout the week or month, so be sure to check back in! 

Here's a more detailed explanation on my current thoughts on the book club, But feel free to skip it and just get to talking about your RPG life over the last week or month.

______________________________________________________________________________

The charity bundle has been pretty successful all things considered, but it still hasn't quite prompted discussion of the games in the bundle very much. 

So before we start up our next bundle, which will have some changes I'm sure (at the very least I'm looking to increase the standards for the level of polish submissions have to have slightly), we're gonna try to start the book club up again for a bit. While I do want to give the traditional format another try while the sub is little more active, highlighting one of the projects that are posted about on the subreddit for all of us to look at, I've noticed that even and more popular communities like our/RPG or the indie RPG discord, scheduled RPG discussion groups tend to die out.

One of the obvious reasons for this is that picking out a specific game for everyone to look out and or play, can just be a really hard  sell in a hobby where everyone is already playing, running, or even designing other games all while booking jobs and having active personal lives. So in an attempt to meet people where they're at, and mimic other sub book clubs where multiple books are discussed at the same time, instead of talking about a specific game each book club period, we're gonna try everyone just talking about what they've been designing, playing, or reading in the RPG space in the comments of a single post.

I encourage everyone to try this even if you only have a sentence worth of text to say,   something like I ran a session of my shadow dark campaign as a standalone comment can be more than enough to prompt discussion.

If enough people do this and ask questions about other people's comments that interest them, We should be able to spark a bit of a Lively if unfocused conversation about RPG's every time I make A book club post. A lot of the details of this idea like whether it will be weekly, biweekly, or monthly are still up in the air, so questions or suggestions are encouraged!

Not something I'm set on or anything, I just figured since I'm gonna be there and since probably some other RPG people are gonna be there, we should see if we want to do anything related to the book club or just have a chance to chat in person.

There's also the option to reserve a space to meet up as a community, but honestly I think our group is a bit too small to have enough people willing to meet up for that, if a bunch of people are Interested in meeting up though, I'll think about that too.

I've posted about our bundle here before, but there is only about 20 days left before the bundle closes and with your help we've been able to raise over $2000 in that time!

Thanks for everything we couldn't have done it without support from RPG communities across Reddit! If you haven't heard about the bundle before here's a link https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

45 projects, pay what you want with all proceeds going to Dots RPG project, you can learn more about them on the bundle page. If you have seen it before I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out this quick six question survey https://s.surveyplanet.com/ycynwnb4

To close this out I think we'll do something I haven't done before, and list all the games and their creators natively right here on this post!

Full system core books: (ranging a max of 200 or more pages...)

Chains of Gaelia: Video game inspired gothic fantasy with rich lore, where choice of weapon impacts moveset as much as class. Submitted by Chains of Gaelia on itch.

Oceania 2084: Narrative asymmetric Orwellian game, players act out the day to day of secret rebels while GM acts as big brother. Submitted by Jocher Games on itch.

Against the Odds: Heroic fantasy pbta, where being a hero means non-lethal and selfless acts, or succumbing to corruption. Submitted by Helena Real on itch.

Simple D100 Fantasy: Setting agnostic, what it says on the tin, with some interesting twists on d100 resolution mechanics. Submitted by Vidargavia on itch.

Occult Barcelona: Occult investigations, with simple 1-3d6 rolls for checks, a well rounded list of unique spells and gm tools. Submitted by ElBuenTocino on itch.

Dice and Glory: A crunchy agnostic scifi/fantasy system with progression largely determined by selected skills rather than class. Submitted by RangerGamesPublishing on itch.

Fated seas: An rpg where classes have card decks that are added to over time, fairly comprehensive demo, see free cards on site.  Submitted by Squid Vicious on itch.

Simpler systems: (to a minimum of 2)

OTAIDOKAN: Samurai inspired system, players attempt to determine the new shogun, progression dictates status plus skills.  Submitted by Warbriel on itch. 

Dreadful nights: Horror system aimed at true beginners, d6 t roll under 1 of 3 stats, there is a sanity mechanic.  Submitted by Casey Wolfe on itch.

Spooky cats: A family friendly themed version of Dreadful Nights. Submitted by Casey Wolfe on itch.

Rise of the Giga Mechs: Players are mech pilots in an academy, then the game transitions to full on war with stat changes. Submitted by Warbriel on itch. 

Tool kit and supplements: (In the middle of the core range)

Fate accessibility toolkit: Fate compatible tools for accessibility, a well known system, but with an accessibility focus! Submitted by evilhat on itch.

Clutch Decisions: A tool for GM's to randomly generate road paths, and how those curves and hazards impact chases. Submitted by Ka1ikasan on itch.

Arvan: land of dragons: A supplement for dice and glory. Submitted by RangerGamesPublishing on itch.

Shattered skies: a system agnostic setting of floating islands and political intrigue, perhaps the most visually polished project. Submitted by Barakiel the Archangel on itch.

lore:

Welcome to Acro Prime-The night life: An in character summary of hot spots in a dystopian city, for prosperon or any sci-fi system. Submitted by No Lime Light Productions on itch.

Tales From Beyond: a collection of short stories set in the world of chains of Gaelia. Submitted by Chains of Gaelia on itch.

Mini campaigns and one shots: (around 30-2 pages)

Pillars What Remains: Post magical apocalypse, players act as aspects of a single courier traveling the Gm's mind bending waste. Submitted by NightDangerGames on itch.

Not Today Wasteland: Mutants travel the waste in search of a mysterious oracle, GM uses tables to generate their degeneration. Submitted by Ruggero ZC on itch.

Carte Diem: A group of low life's conduct a heist, making bets with playing card suits and tokens, the gm calls the shots. Submitted by Ruggero ZC on itch.

The fish heist: Penguins attempt to steal fish from greedy humans, resell them at village, skills=die size, Maori inspiration. Submitted by Goose and Grimoire on itch.

H is for Hellmo: framework for episodic adventures freeing a town from familiar, otherworldly monsters, beware the word of the day. Submitted by GiantBrain on itch.

Meat frames: Create a human character, then play as the external robot that pilots it, swap humans and explore the implications. Submitted by Mark Wallace on itch.

Your Magic GPA Isn't Gonna Save Itself: sneak into school, draw cards and fill mana pool to use magic, lose health to discard. Submitted by ElBuenTocino on itch.

Double 0: Hyper competent spies use black jack mechanics and their signature gadgets to thwart villains. Submitted by Fyn & Games on itch.

Out to Lunch: A guide for how to run a session of secretly sinister bureaucratic inconvenience in any campaign. Submitted by Dan Cook on itch.

We are The Land: Play spirits, fae, or monsters attempting to defend a sacred place from human interlopers. Submitted by Rat In A Suit on itch.

Rolling skill:

This Town Ain't Big Enough: Players create gunslingers, quickdraw roll, far and fast, then vote on the losers rp style and repeat. Submitted by jobclassttrpg on itch.

Critical triggers: Cyberpunk mercenaries flick dice toward a hit zone, 1s add to a tower in its center, disaster if it falls, Gm run. Submitted by Pusheeneiro on itch.

Structured/minimal prep necesesary oneshots:

Escape from the Horde: A one shot for a unique OSR system, that introduces rules as needed, players are imprisoned by "goblins". Submitted by Andonome on itch.

Cult of The Cave Crickets: OSR, explore a cave infested by fungus of another world and the insects it mutates, rescue researchers. Submitted by Dark Star Adventures on itch.

Dies Festi Matrum: 5e adventure through another world during a festival celebrating mothers, players face three trials. Submitted by DnDNekom on itch.

Dies Festi Matrum legacy version: an earlier draft before the adventure was finished, might be fun to see how things develop. Submitted by DnDNekomo on itch.

Solo: (30-1 pagers)

The Final Days of Macabee Hayes: A town has vanished from memory, create a map and opportunities to write why, firelights. Submitted by Finley Jinley on itch.

Peak Calm: A cozy hexcrawler, a forester explores and restores a run down park, set your own goals and play as long as you like. Submitted by Ka1ikasan on itch.

Voidwards: the void has invaded reality once more, discover a hex crawl expanse of realities, end voidwards, restore walls, firelights. Submitted by Chubby Crow Games on itch.

Tales From the Loom: in depth class based fantasy rpg with tracks for progression and a theme of twisting fate, option party rules. Submitted by Wyrdo GM on itch.

Ice Snow and the Quest for salvation: An expedition ship becomes trapped in the ice, roll for random events on the survival treck. Submitted by Rat In A Suit on itch.

irl:

LMNL: just as you are about to sleep and dream, ask yourself questions and follow a set pattern of answers to weave a story. Submitted by abbax on itch.

Pareidolia: The Evil Eye: see something that looks like a face? It's a mimic, perform actions in a specific exorcism style to break curse. Submitted by Jules Ampere on itch.

Questing: Plan your week like a game, quests and collectables, if a quest proves hard, make it a boss and give it health as you chip it. Submitted by Jules Ampere on itch.

Micro games: (1 to 2 pagers, each could fit on one, LMNL too)

TCA Loopbreaker: A 36 word game where checks are card based, repeat from the beginning with same cards each failure. Submitted by dairykillsme on itch.

Spellify: A 24 word fantasy rpg, respond to all problems with randomized spells made of two words from tables, cute and cozy. Submitted by Pusheeneiro on itch.

Samsara: A 24 word game to teach Samara, cycle of death/birth, roll karma and journal till death, reincarnate accordingly repeat. Submitted by Ewen Macalister on itch.

Dodecahedron: A game that fits on a bookmark, d12 decides all including weather and time, play out a section of a book if you like. Submitted by STS_Gamer on itch.

A while ago I posted asking for submissions to a charity bundle on the sub, we got some entries in the bundle from here, and then I did a couple more posts updating everyone about the progress of the bundle.

Well there is only about 20 days left before the bundle closes, but with your help we've been able to raise over $2000 in that time!

Thanks for everything we couldn't have done it without support from RPG communities across Reddit! If you haven't heard about the bundle before here's a link https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

45 projects, pay what you want with all proceeds going to Dots RPG project, you can learn more about them on the bundle page. If you have seen it before I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out this quick six question survey https://s.surveyplanet.com/ycynwnb4

To close this out I think we'll do something I haven't done before, and list all the games and their creators natively right here on this post!

Full system core books: (ranging a max of 200 or more pages...)

Chains of Gaelia: Video game inspired gothic fantasy with rich lore, where choice of weapon impacts moveset as much as class. Submitted by Chains of Gaelia on itch.

Oceania 2084: Narrative asymmetric Orwellian game, players act out the day to day of secret rebels while GM acts as big brother. Submitted by Jocher Games on itch.

Against the Odds: Heroic fantasy pbta, where being a hero means non-lethal and selfless acts, or succumbing to corruption. Submitted by Helena Real on itch.

Simple D100 Fantasy: Setting agnostic, what it says on the tin, with some interesting twists on d100 resolution mechanics. Submitted by Vidargavia on itch.

Occult Barcelona: Occult investigations, with simple 1-3d6 rolls for checks, a well rounded list of unique spells and gm tools. Submitted by ElBuenTocino on itch.

Dice and Glory: A crunchy agnostic scifi/fantasy system with progression largely determined by selected skills rather than class. Submitted by RangerGamesPublishing on itch.

Fated seas: An rpg where classes have card decks that are added to over time, fairly comprehensive demo, see free cards on site.  Submitted by Squid Vicious on itch.

Simpler systems: (to a minimum of 2)

OTAIDOKAN: Samurai inspired system, players attempt to determine the new shogun, progression dictates status plus skills.  Submitted by Warbriel on itch. 

Dreadful nights: Horror system aimed at true beginners, d6 t roll under 1 of 3 stats, there is a sanity mechanic.  Submitted by Casey Wolfe on itch.

Spooky cats: A family friendly themed version of Dreadful Nights. Submitted by Casey Wolfe on itch.

Rise of the Giga Mechs: Players are mech pilots in an academy, then the game transitions to full on war with stat changes. Submitted by Warbriel on itch. 

Tool kit and supplements: (In the middle of the core range)

Fate accessibility toolkit: Fate compatible tools for accessibility, a well known system, but with an accessibility focus! Submitted by evilhat on itch.

Clutch Decisions: A tool for GM's to randomly generate road paths, and how those curves and hazards impact chases. Submitted by Ka1ikasan on itch.

Arvan: land of dragons: A supplement for dice and glory. Submitted by RangerGamesPublishing on itch.

Shattered skies: a system agnostic setting of floating islands and political intrigue, perhaps the most visually polished project. Submitted by Barakiel the Archangel on itch.

lore:

Welcome to Acro Prime-The night life: An in character summary of hot spots in a dystopian city, for prosperon or any sci-fi system. Submitted by No Lime Light Productions on itch.

Tales From Beyond: a collection of short stories set in the world of chains of Gaelia. Submitted by Chains of Gaelia on itch.

Mini campaigns and one shots: (around 30-2 pages)

Pillars What Remains: Post magical apocalypse, players act as aspects of a single courier traveling the Gm's mind bending waste. Submitted by NightDangerGames on itch.

Not Today Wasteland: Mutants travel the waste in search of a mysterious oracle, GM uses tables to generate their degeneration. Submitted by Ruggero ZC on itch.

Carte Diem: A group of low life's conduct a heist, making bets with playing card suits and tokens, the gm calls the shots. Submitted by Ruggero ZC on itch.

The fish heist: Penguins attempt to steal fish from greedy humans, resell them at village, skills=die size, Maori inspiration. Submitted by Goose and Grimoire on itch.

H is for Hellmo: framework for episodic adventures freeing a town from familiar, otherworldly monsters, beware the word of the day. Submitted by GiantBrain on itch.

Meat frames: Create a human character, then play as the external robot that pilots it, swap humans and explore the implications. Submitted by Mark Wallace on itch.

Your Magic GPA Isn't Gonna Save Itself: sneak into school, draw cards and fill mana pool to use magic, lose health to discard. Submitted by ElBuenTocino on itch.

Double 0: Hyper competent spies use black jack mechanics and their signature gadgets to thwart villains. Submitted by Fyn & Games on itch.

Out to Lunch: A guide for how to run a session of secretly sinister bureaucratic inconvenience in any campaign. Submitted by Dan Cook on itch.

We are The Land: Play spirits, fae, or monsters attempting to defend a sacred place from human interlopers. Submitted by Rat In A Suit on itch.

Rolling skill:

This Town Ain't Big Enough: Players create gunslingers, quickdraw roll, far and fast, then vote on the losers rp style and repeat. Submitted by jobclassttrpg on itch.

Critical triggers: Cyberpunk mercenaries flick dice toward a hit zone, 1s add to a tower in its center, disaster if it falls, Gm run. Submitted by Pusheeneiro on itch.

Structured/minimal prep necesesary oneshots:

Escape from the Horde: A one shot for a unique OSR system, that introduces rules as needed, players are imprisoned by "goblins". Submitted by Andonome on itch.

Cult of The Cave Crickets: OSR, explore a cave infested by fungus of another world and the insects it mutates, rescue researchers. Submitted by Dark Star Adventures on itch.

Dies Festi Matrum: 5e adventure through another world during a festival celebrating mothers, players face three trials. Submitted by DnDNekom on itch.

Dies Festi Matrum legacy version: an earlier draft before the adventure was finished, might be fun to see how things develop. Submitted by DnDNekomo on itch.

Solo: (30-1 pagers)

The Final Days of Macabee Hayes: A town has vanished from memory, create a map and opportunities to write why, firelights. Submitted by Finley Jinley on itch.

Peak Calm: A cozy hexcrawler, a forester explores and restores a run down park, set your own goals and play as long as you like. Submitted by Ka1ikasan on itch.

Voidwards: the void has invaded reality once more, discover a hex crawl expanse of realities, end voidwards, restore walls, firelights. Submitted by Chubby Crow Games on itch.

Tales From the Loom: in depth class based fantasy rpg with tracks for progression and a theme of twisting fate, option party rules. Submitted by Wyrdo GM on itch.

Ice Snow and the Quest for salvation: An expedition ship becomes trapped in the ice, roll for random events on the survival treck. Submitted by Rat In A Suit on itch.

irl:

LMNL: just as you are about to sleep and dream, ask yourself questions and follow a set pattern of answers to weave a story. Submitted by abbax on itch.

Pareidolia: The Evil Eye: see something that looks like a face? It's a mimic, perform actions in a specific exorcism style to break curse. Submitted by Jules Ampere on itch.

Questing: Plan your week like a game, quests and collectables, if a quest proves hard, make it a boss and give it health as you chip it. Submitted by Jules Ampere on itch.

Micro games: (1 to 2 pagers, each could fit on one, LMNL too)

TCA Loopbreaker: A 36 word game where checks are card based, repeat from the beginning with same cards each failure. Submitted by dairykillsme on itch.

Spellify: A 24 word fantasy rpg, respond to all problems with randomized spells made of two words from tables, cute and cozy. Submitted by Pusheeneiro on itch.

Samsara: A 24 word game to teach Samara, cycle of death/birth, roll karma and journal till death, reincarnate accordingly repeat. Submitted by Ewen Macalister on itch.

Dodecahedron: A game that fits on a bookmark, d12 decides all including weather and time, play out a section of a book if you like. Submitted by STS_Gamer on itch.

A while ago I posted asking for submissions to a charity bundle on the sub, we got some entries in the bundle from here, and then I did a couple more posts updating everyone about the progress of the bundle.

Well there is only about 20 days left before the bundle closes, but with your help we've been able to raise over $2000 in that time!

Thanks for everything we couldn't have done it without support from RPG communities across Reddit! If you haven't heard about the bundle before here's a link https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

45 projects, pay what you want with all proceeds going to Dots RPG project, you can learn more about them on the bundle page. If you have seen it before I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out this quick six question survey https://s.surveyplanet.com/ycynwnb4

To close this out I think we'll do something I haven't done before, and list all the games and their creators natively right here on this post!

Full system core books: (ranging a max of 200 or more pages...)

Chains of Gaelia: Video game inspired gothic fantasy with rich lore, where choice of weapon impacts moveset as much as class. Submitted by Chains of Gaelia on itch.

Oceania 2084: Narrative asymmetric Orwellian game, players act out the day to day of secret rebels while GM acts as big brother. Submitted by Jocher Games on itch.

Against the Odds: Heroic fantasy pbta, where being a hero means non-lethal and selfless acts, or succumbing to corruption. Submitted by Helena Real on itch.

Simple D100 Fantasy: Setting agnostic, what it says on the tin, with some interesting twists on d100 resolution mechanics. Submitted by Vidargavia on itch.

Occult Barcelona: Occult investigations, with simple 1-3d6 rolls for checks, a well rounded list of unique spells and gm tools. Submitted by ElBuenTocino on itch.

Dice and Glory: A crunchy agnostic scifi/fantasy system with progression largely determined by selected skills rather than class. Submitted by RangerGamesPublishing on itch.

Fated seas: An rpg where classes have card decks that are added to over time, fairly comprehensive demo, see free cards on site.  Submitted by Squid Vicious on itch.

Simpler systems: (to a minimum of 2)

OTAIDOKAN: Samurai inspired system, players attempt to determine the new shogun, progression dictates status plus skills.  Submitted by Warbriel on itch. 

Dreadful nights: Horror system aimed at true beginners, d6 t roll under 1 of 3 stats, there is a sanity mechanic.  Submitted by Casey Wolfe on itch.

Spooky cats: A family friendly themed version of Dreadful Nights. Submitted by Casey Wolfe on itch.

Rise of the Giga Mechs: Players are mech pilots in an academy, then the game transitions to full on war with stat changes. Submitted by Warbriel on itch. 

Tool kit and supplements: (In the middle of the core range)

Fate accessibility toolkit: Fate compatible tools for accessibility, a well known system, but with an accessibility focus! Submitted by evilhat on itch.

Clutch Decisions: A tool for GM's to randomly generate road paths, and how those curves and hazards impact chases. Submitted by Ka1ikasan on itch.

Arvan: land of dragons: A supplement for dice and glory. Submitted by RangerGamesPublishing on itch.

Shattered skies: a system agnostic setting of floating islands and political intrigue, perhaps the most visually polished project. Submitted by Barakiel the Archangel on itch.

lore:

Welcome to Acro Prime-The night life: An in character summary of hot spots in a dystopian city, for prosperon or any sci-fi system. Submitted by No Lime Light Productions on itch.

Tales From Beyond: a collection of short stories set in the world of chains of Gaelia. Submitted by Chains of Gaelia on itch.

Mini campaigns and one shots: (around 30-2 pages)

Pillars What Remains: Post magical apocalypse, players act as aspects of a single courier traveling the Gm's mind bending waste. Submitted by NightDangerGames on itch.

Not Today Wasteland: Mutants travel the waste in search of a mysterious oracle, GM uses tables to generate their degeneration. Submitted by Ruggero ZC on itch.

Carte Diem: A group of low life's conduct a heist, making bets with playing card suits and tokens, the gm calls the shots. Submitted by Ruggero ZC on itch.

The fish heist: Penguins attempt to steal fish from greedy humans, resell them at village, skills=die size, Maori inspiration. Submitted by Goose and Grimoire on itch.

H is for Hellmo: framework for episodic adventures freeing a town from familiar, otherworldly monsters, beware the word of the day. Submitted by GiantBrain on itch.

Meat frames: Create a human character, then play as the external robot that pilots it, swap humans and explore the implications. Submitted by Mark Wallace on itch.

Your Magic GPA Isn't Gonna Save Itself: sneak into school, draw cards and fill mana pool to use magic, lose health to discard. Submitted by ElBuenTocino on itch.

Double 0: Hyper competent spies use black jack mechanics and their signature gadgets to thwart villains. Submitted by Fyn & Games on itch.

Out to Lunch: A guide for how to run a session of secretly sinister bureaucratic inconvenience in any campaign. Submitted by Dan Cook on itch.

We are The Land: Play spirits, fae, or monsters attempting to defend a sacred place from human interlopers. Submitted by Rat In A Suit on itch.

Rolling skill:

This Town Ain't Big Enough: Players create gunslingers, quickdraw roll, far and fast, then vote on the losers rp style and repeat. Submitted by jobclassttrpg on itch.

Critical triggers: Cyberpunk mercenaries flick dice toward a hit zone, 1s add to a tower in its center, disaster if it falls, Gm run. Submitted by Pusheeneiro on itch.

Structured/minimal prep necesesary oneshots:

Escape from the Horde: A one shot for a unique OSR system, that introduces rules as needed, players are imprisoned by "goblins". Submitted by Andonome on itch.

Cult of The Cave Crickets: OSR, explore a cave infested by fungus of another world and the insects it mutates, rescue researchers. Submitted by Dark Star Adventures on itch.

Dies Festi Matrum: 5e adventure through another world during a festival celebrating mothers, players face three trials. Submitted by DnDNekom on itch.

Dies Festi Matrum legacy version: an earlier draft before the adventure was finished, might be fun to see how things develop. Submitted by DnDNekomo on itch.

Solo: (30-1 pagers)

The Final Days of Macabee Hayes: A town has vanished from memory, create a map and opportunities to write why, firelights. Submitted by Finley Jinley on itch.

Peak Calm: A cozy hexcrawler, a forester explores and restores a run down park, set your own goals and play as long as you like. Submitted by Ka1ikasan on itch.

Voidwards: the void has invaded reality once more, discover a hex crawl expanse of realities, end voidwards, restore walls, firelights. Submitted by Chubby Crow Games on itch.

Tales From the Loom: in depth class based fantasy rpg with tracks for progression and a theme of twisting fate, option party rules. Submitted by Wyrdo GM on itch.

Ice Snow and the Quest for salvation: An expedition ship becomes trapped in the ice, roll for random events on the survival treck. Submitted by Rat In A Suit on itch.

irl:

LMNL: just as you are about to sleep and dream, ask yourself questions and follow a set pattern of answers to weave a story. Submitted by abbax on itch.

Pareidolia: The Evil Eye: see something that looks like a face? It's a mimic, perform actions in a specific exorcism style to break curse. Submitted by Jules Ampere on itch.

Questing: Plan your week like a game, quests and collectables, if a quest proves hard, make it a boss and give it health as you chip it. Submitted by Jules Ampere on itch.

Micro games: (1 to 2 pagers, each could fit on one, LMNL too)

TCA Loopbreaker: A 36 word game where checks are card based, repeat from the beginning with same cards each failure. Submitted by dairykillsme on itch.

Spellify: A 24 word fantasy rpg, respond to all problems with randomized spells made of two words from tables, cute and cozy. Submitted by Pusheeneiro on itch.

Samsara: A 24 word game to teach Samara, cycle of death/birth, roll karma and journal till death, reincarnate accordingly repeat. Submitted by Ewen Macalister on itch.

Dodecahedron: A game that fits on a bookmark, d12 decides all including weather and time, play out a section of a book if you like. Submitted by STS_Gamer on itch.

If you haven't seen the charity bundle before check it out https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw 45 rpg projects entirely pay what you want mostly sourced from this sub! Donations go to DOTS an accessibility! charity!

But most of you probably have seen it at this point. It's been a long journey, from gathering and vetting submissions in a jam, to contacting charities, to transferring the games to a bundle and promoting it once it was open, we even got the YouTuber DianaOfTheRose to make some social media posts about it!

And none of it would be possible with the years of game submissions and interactions in our book club in this community! Thank you for helping raise $2000 dollars for charity, which 23 days left of the bundle being open!

If you haven't checked the bundle out yet please do! whether you can donate or not, more people playing passion project RPGS like ours is always appreciated, and once you have check out this survey! https://s.surveyplanet.com/ycynwnb4

If you have any ideas what to do for our next bundle, feel free to mention it there, or leave a comment not this post. Thanks again!

Here is the draft! Fill it out if you want and tell me what you think! I've never really done one of these before so I'm sure I've missed some things!

Thanks for all the support as always! I plan to try and give it one last big round of promotion once we hit $2000 so you'll hear more from me then! Here's the bundle https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

Here's a list of the awards!

https://bsky.app/profile/ennie-awards.bsky.social

My main take away is... I don't know most of these!

Good for dagger heart though, I've run that, it's fairly solid.

It's too bad Thieves of the Tome didn't win anything, for those who don't know, that's a previous bookclub winner and by the creator of TCA Loopbreaker, a game in our bundle.

I also think it's kind of a shame for the same games to win a bunch of different awards or their different supplements to win.

What are your thoughts on the engines in general?

Hello! I decided to make a bit of a guide on character creation since I think it's one of the parts of playing RPG's that I can confidently say I'm pretty good at. 

Originally I was thinking I was gonna make it a guide specifically for beginners, cause I think beginner friendly RPG spaces can be pretty hard to find, especially with some of the most commonly asked questions being treated as unwanted, and I wanna make sure our sub is friendly for that.

Plus a lot of guides really overwhelm you with information on all the good things you can do for whatever aspect of RPG's is being discussed, and I feel it's a bit better to just stick to the important bits for newcomers and let them feel out the rest as the go. Instead of having it all sitting in their heads at the same time as they're trying to actually develop the skill of doing the thing in the first place. 

It would be like yelling everything you know about riding a bike at someone trying to develop the balance for riding a bike without training wheels, instead of just telling them that peddling quickly at first is one of the most important parts of getting a bike started without it falling over. 

But because how one GM (game master) would want a beginner to create a character for their campaign, can be so wildly different from another, it can be hard to make something universal. Most of the advice I give might not be relevant for GM that wants to walk someone through the process of character creation entirely for example, and a more hands off GM's might not walk a beginner through it, but still want more input on a character a beginner is creating in ways that I can't necessarily predict. So while this guide might help you brainstorm a bit if you're a beginner, you might not be able to follow it entirely.

If you are a beginner looking at this, keep in mind that my first character was a little lizard guy named scab who magically gained the powers of a cleric while out bug collecting.

He was a cleric because the group needed to spellcaster and that was the one I liked. In the GM's setting clerics gained their powers through these sort of bug like creatures connected to their god, and I like bugs and didn't wanna have to learn about the settings gods so I decided he just got bit while bug collecting. 

He was a lizard because I thought kobolds being playable in DND was hilarious but they didn't exist in the GM setting, so I just went with these little lizard things, and his name was scab because it sounded kind of lizardy.

I didn't have any sort of voice for him at first, just narrating what he did or said (Scab buys a beer, scab says they went over there, ect) rather than really role-playing it, then just went with a slightly higher pitched version of my voice later. I just had him do whatever I wanted or thought would be funny as long as it didn't harm any of the other characters or upset the players.

Everybody loved him, I had a brief romantic entanglement with a flesh tree, intentionally failed to save for a curse that would make a dead evil wizards laugh play in my head for eternity, and occasionally slaughtered hordes of enemies or otherwise saved the day, and I still play him in casual or short campaigns when I don't feel like coming up with a full character.

So you really don't need anything fancy, and hopefully your GM will walk you through most of it. Don't think too hard about it if you don't want to.

This discussion of how different GM's might have different levels of involvement brings us to the first step of creating a character for pretty much any circumstance.

Talk to your GM. 

There's a few reasons for this.

One, like I said GM's might want to be involved in the creation process at various points and it's good to know when so that you can work with them.

Two, knowing about the campaign tone and world can really help with designing a character that will fit into it, which will make Role-playing easier for you and running events easier for the GM, and just give you ideas for the character you wanna create in general.

Finally three the GM has the ultimate authority on whether or not you will be allowed to use the character you create in their campaign, and checking in with them at the beginning, or throughout the process of character creation, can ensure the character you create is one they will accept without having to make changes you are not happy with, or even scraping the character entirely to create a new one.

A lot of of this information might seem a bit obvious to veterans, but something that might not come as naturally, and something that is generally a key part of my character creation process, is getting information from the GM about the world and how to use that to help create your character.

If you're lucky a lot of that will be covered in the session 0 (An initial session that happens before the campaign begins to allow players to learn about or have input on the content of the campaign) but maybe the focus is on something else for session 0, you have to miss it for whatever reason, or the GM just didn't do one.

The first important thing is to make sure you know whether GM has any specifications from your character. This can be anything from a certain backstory element all characters in the campaign are supposed to have, like all characters being criminals for a campaign about a bunch of people repressed by society evading the law having to come together to save the world, to a specific way of generating stats when you roll such as re-rolling any die that comes up as a one, To if you were supposed to create your character with the GM individually or as a group.

Once you know these requirements, you can ask the GM if you can modify any of them that you do not wish to follow. For example playing someone that is falsely accused of a crime instead of an actual criminal for the campaign theme. That could potentially fit the reason behind the criminal requirement in this case, without literally complying It in with it. The answer may be no, but any GM that is upset with you asking is probably not worth playing with anyway. Don't worry about being a bother, ultimately character creation is the only part of being a player where I would advocate for you to be a bit selfish. RPG's are a group hobby so it is generally good to be thinking about how your actions, both of your character and the way you talk in general, will affect everyone else in the campaign

It's still good to think about this for character creation, but ultimately what you want should come first whenever possible. Your character is your character, the part of the game you have the most control of, and that will always affect you more than anyone else in the campaign.

In an RPG it is important to be patient and acknowledge there are some things that you do not necessarily like that you will have to support or at least accept In order to not hinder the enjoyment of other players. Even when you're not in a turn based moment in the gameplay, sometimes you will still have to so to speak “wait your turn” to get to the part you most enjoy. One of those things that you do not enjoy cannot be your own character, as that is a part of the game that will stick with you at all times no matter what, and you cannot simply wait to allow other players to get what they want for a moment. Your enjoyment must come first.

Once you know you have Learned the GM's expectations and tried to compromise on the ones that you dislike, it's good to learn more about the setting and tone of the campaign.

Of course the GM can't decide the tone entirely, a lot of that will depend on how the players end up acting, But you could at least ask if the game was intended to be more serious or casual and/or lighthearted. That should keep you from making a character that immediately clashes with the events surrounding them and the attitudes of the NPCs. A character constantly cracking jokes or just inherently silly will be a problem In a grim world unless you take specific considerations to make it work like that lightheartedness being an act of rebellion against the circumstances they were placed him.

You might get more specific or genre based cues like the world being cartoonish or a horror or mystery theme. For the latter two, having a character that isn't afraid of anything or one that blindly approaches everything head on and can't contribute to more slow paced investigative moments would hurt the campaign.

That may sound like it contradicts the selfishness advice, but ultimately having a character that does not clash with the campaign tone, is for your enjoyment. If you think you will not enjoy playing a character that fits in with the tone, it is probably better to forego the campaign entirely. While this may seem like extreme advice, particularly in a hobby like RPG's with some amount of effort or tediousness is expected amongst the fun, joining a campaign you will have to struggle through from the get go even for a time, rarely works out for anyone in the end.

The phrase no DND Is better than bad DND applies even to other games and even when the game being bad for you may be temporary.

Finally it's good to find out about the setting itself. This is important both so that you don't include an element in your character that does not make sense in the setting, and so that you have more material to come up with ideas for your character and there's a higher chance of those ideas fitting seamlessly in the world the GM has created.

That first one can be tricky.

When you ask about the setting of a GM's game they might refer back to the game setting, say the forgotten realms in DND, or Gallerian in Pathfinder and say that it's pretty much just that, or any sort of basic fantasy or sci-fi ideas will work.

This is a lie.

OK so not a lie really, but pretty much every GM out there will modify the game setting at least a little or not know about or like some of the more obscure lore. It's even more tough if they just say that any genre convention will work cause that gives you nothing to go off of and you don't know what will actually be allowed.

Maybe you base your character on one city in the setting provided by the game or obscure plane/dimension, only to find it doesn't exist in the GMS version of things. Maybe you sort of lost with the general fantasy suggestion and just pick your character having a strong connection to dragons, only to find out in your GM's world the dragons are completely different than what you were expecting.

And in some systems, like DND with certain sub classes, character options might have lore baked in. Even if your DM says But they're allowing every character option from the book, that doesn't mean they're keeping anything aside from the literal rules around that option, meaning you can run into trouble even basing the story of your character around the story of an ability that you know they are allowed to have. Say an option in the book says that you can blind your opponents with fairy magic. That may be an allowed ability for you to have, even in a campaign where fairies don't exist, blindsiding you if you try to create a character's story around that ability.

It's always important to talk to your GM before starting character creation, and maybe check in again whenever you have a question, but if you encounter a case like this you are going to have to check in with your GM every time you make a decision about your character that does not directly related to the rules, because you have no idea what actually fits in the world their creating.

Don't worry about bothering them, like I said it's important to be a little bit selfish for character creation, maybe even try to see if you can get them to compromise on certain world elements that conflict with your concept, though I’m getting a little ahead of myself, we have to actually come up with a concept first. If they didn't want you asking them a bunch of questions about what would and wouldn't work in your world, they should've given you more information in the first place.

Plus plenty of GMS that aren't super forthcoming about their world, just don't have most of it written down, or aren't sure what of their writing would have spoilers or not, and just really aren't sure what exactly to provide you with how to do so outside of a conversational setting. They might actually appreciate your questions in that case.

 If a GM instead provides you a bunch of information about the world things will be a lot easier.

Either way now that you know about the GM's expectations the tone of the campaign and some of the world setting, you have more than enough to begin the next steps.

Anything you do next can happen in any sort of order really. Talking to the GM first is important so that you can keep their expectations and the tone and setting of the campaign in mind, if you don't you might end up having to redo things, but aside from the rules of character creation for the system you're playing, You can pretty much do whatever whenever as long as you keep that stuff in mind.

I usually start with one thing that interests me. And maybe collect a couple more from there. Lets call those the first building blocks.

It could be a class or race I really wanna play, or it could be a "alignment",  Or fictional character archetype I like from destined hero to fast talking journalist, but generally I go with some detail of the setting I'm interested in or excited by.

I'll go into some the past characters I've made with this process a bit later but for now I think I'll do one from scratch.

Let's say I'm making a character for that campaign where everyone in the party is a criminal.

I'd start with what kind of crimes I'd like for my character to be involved in, The ones I'd like to role-play to an extent. I have an interest in scams, but I wouldn't really want to be playing a character that was just trying to scam people constantly either. Forgery is kind of an interesting thing not necessarily as much art forgery to me but the forging of currency. I don't really know anything about it, but there's a lot of fun questions about value involved and something just inherently attractive about the idea of trying to literally print money.

So someone who forges money. That's a start.

It may not be what I land on in the end. I also kind of like the idea of being just a sort of thuggish bruiser. Maybe one with a sort of hidden soft side like he likes to bake or write poetry. That's a classic. A lot of my ideas end up focusing on some sort of twist or contrast, but I wouldn't say that's really part of the process for me.

Assuming I haven't picked a class already, if I'm playing a new system I probably look at class first cause that's what I'm most excited about off the bat, I'd pick one now. The class will be a sort of extension of the current set of blocks probably, more like the grout I’m pouring on to connect it to the next one than an entirely different stone. These connective elements can come easier and easier the more bricks you have, it becomes sort of a stream of Consciousness, with the occasional dam that slows things down or branching tributaries that briefly sprout off from the flow, taking things in another direction before dieing down if you decide to scrap that direction.

In class based systems, it can be a little different in a system where you can pick from a list of abilities more freeform, class is going to have a big impact on the kind of things your character can do, and how they would've learned those things, and even the power source for their abilities or other story segments depending on the system. If I was Super interested in what I was writing I might delay picking a class a bit longer, but right now I just have two sort of criminal ideas so I don't really have a stream of consciousness going for that yet.

It's a criminal based campaign, just picking rogue thief would be boring to me, which is not to say I wouldn't, I'd just need a pretty good reason to. Again contrast isn't really officially a part of my process but following my interest is and I tend to be more interested in things that don't necessarily present themselves as the obvious choice. If you make a wall out of all red bricks of the same style, it's not a super interesting one to look at in the end. Try to throw in some modern's with the classics, or some blues with the reds.

Still I do go with what seems to make sense. The bruiser would be some kind of fighting close combat base class, the forger one with some kind of ability to make things. If I was doing a straight up thief there's a solid chance I would maybe just go for the obvious class for it and try to find my interesting elements elsewhere, but for these characters it's not of much benefit anyway.

After class I could think of backstory or background if there's a literal category for it in the system, but I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet, I still don't have a ton of good ideas.

Looking at race for the next building block instead, let's assume this is for a fantasy system. I'm more interested in the forger so I'll focus on that for now. Maybe I could pick based on which class would be more useful to the party If they've picked their classes already, but what I want is more important, and there's a decent number of systems you could be a forger decently well as any class as long as you compensated with skills or feats or what have you.

Aside from the forgery I want them to blend in, I want them to be able to easily use the currency that they forge, even if that's not necessarily the standard for those forgers that sell their product rather than just creating it for personal use on small scale.

Humans are good at blending in, but that doesn't give me a lot to go off and I already have so little. I could try some kind of Shapeshifter for maximum blending in potential, that could be kind of fun.

Another thing to think about is why they feel the need to have personal use forgeries, especially if they make enough money off of it to simply use normal currency for their personal endeavors. It goes back to the idea for me of simply being able to print money whenever you need it being attractive, the sort of thrill of being able to pay for things for free. I'm getting sort of a haughty feeling for the character now, maybe born out of a time of having a little money and pride being the only thing they could hold onto, maybe not. Either way I actually think an elf fits a bit better now. They wear pride well.

Or I could do both. They appear to be a high born elf, but are actually a changeling, once an urchin, that has developed their forgery to attain wealth and put on the guise of nobility out of jealousy, maybe even admiration.

You could say the race and hautiness contrast with the mid class criminality of a forger (its not exactly art forgery or large scale smuggling), but I wouldn’t say thats precisely true. Its simply important that the blocks look good sitting next to each other, that one supports and holds up another, and I do like the combination, do understand how one brought me to another, holds it up in my chain of reasoning.

I don’t know how I feel about the “urchin" bit, again its a bit to basic for a criminal/rogueish campaign for me, and I’m not sure if elf or elf/changeling is better yet, but either way thinking about backstory brings is to the next block.

I'm not sure if I want them to have Gone through a long time of struggle or poverty, Just have spent most of their life with less than they wanted. Either way I don't want them to have been born into money. The insecurity prompted vanity being something more of a learned coping mechanism then upbringing holds more interest. Of course, they could've been brought up by a generous rich family that fell on hard times as a result, but something occurred to me as I thought about them going through a long time of struggle.

A long time, for an elf, is quite a long time indeed.

Thinking about what it must be like to be in need for all of your childhood, maybe even longer, and for your childhood, even if your physical and mental age was equivalent to a human adult, to last at least 100 years.

What exactly is it to be a poor elf for most of your life? Is it a result of being amongst human society? Or are there elf slums, or are elf children without families never adopted and simply let to fend for themselves amongst their noble neighbors riches? The sort of fixation on money I picture my character having, If not the coins themselves the importance of wealth, Is itself almost more dwarfish than elvish, going by stereotypes, and would make any imitation of elvish nobility specifically fall slightly flat.

 I think that's a good start and does a good job of showing off some of the process I use. It's obviously unfinished, I haven't even given them a name though I don't spend too much time on that, But there's a good bit of detail already. Some characters I do a lot less maybe not much more than a basic personality, but this one I had so little to go off of just the idea of a criminal fantasy campaign that I had to fill in a lot of the blanks.

If I was going to use it I would really have to nail down what aspect of elf poverty I wanted to focus on whether it would be elvish society or the emotions amongst human society for hundreds of years, of how one would even remain without much income for so long, and if it was elvish society I would focus on, I would have to consult with the GM. If they said what I was writing didn't fit with how elves in their world treated each other, but I asked and the sort of high elf prejudice that you might see in most fantasy sources was fine, I would try and argue that it would make sense for there to be a sub set or single country or even just a city of elves that functioned the way I described.

I'd like to have more on how my elf would actually act with other people and members of the party, that's normally what I focus on over backstory, but like I said it's a bit tough when you don't have anything to work with.

I think I've made more interesting characters before. One that's effectively an alternative version of the Minotaur that deadolous befriended and raised when he was confined to the labyrinth, of armor mounted cannons did they used to escape. Sweet and confused but with a hidden primal streak and childish obsession with explosions. The cannon mounted armor came first, then minotaurs cause I like them and they are big and beefy, everything else after.

A nuclear submarine... soldier? That was sort of a pastiche of the kind of crazy fisherman you might find in one of love crafts works. He believed anything supernatural happening was somehow the product of radiation/giant mutated bees (it's like pollen, but evereeeeybodies allergic!!!). He came from trying to think of what would fit in with a modern call of Cthulhu campaign and looking at the potential jobs you could have for that.

A "White Knight" ranger who was influenced by fairytales and the power of dreams to believe he was an actual knight, trying to "fix" a goddess of revenge, violence, and malice with a tragic backstory who would visit murderers. He became a ranger after wandering the woods lost for years, and was a bit off. Kept trying to find moral ways to murder people to get a chance to meet "his lady". That started with looking at the settings gods.

You might notice that a lot of these characters don't really have room for parents in their backstory. Parents can be hugely influential on a character and how you write them, but it's one of the less interesting things to me, and I don't really want to have to work in them or even other NPC's, so most of my characters weren't raised by their parents beyond their early years.

Well, thats about all the advice I know how to give. Hope it helps!

Thanks again for all your support! I'm super proud to be a part of our community, and we've still got over month to raise funds! https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

Edit: alright! We've reached the end of the period I'm going to be sure active here. Not that many people are asking questions anyway though, so feel free to keep commenting and I'll probably respond at some point.

Hello! I go by forthesect most places. 

I've been an amateur rpg designer for about 4 years, longer than I've been a gm by at least a couple weeks funnily enough, and I’ve been running a free rpg bookclub subreddit for most of that time. I’ve seen tons of really cool games of all different types and sizes!

Varied size type and genre, 1 to 200+ pages, fantasy/scifi to historical fiction, solo to full party with a gm, and some rarer or even unique stuff like full a table controlling one character, games where the way you roll dice matters as much as the number, toolkits for generating random roads and hazards, and a game where you perform irl actions throughout the day to exorcise objects that look like faces!

Its really made me love the indie/amateur rpg scene!

So I organized a pwyw collection of some of the most unique and well developed submissions I’ve seen to show of how creative and passionate ultra small studios, or even hobbyists like me can be!

I also got and vetted more submissions by making posts asking for them on other subreddits, and some from Bluesky. 

We decided to donate any proceeds to charity, and DOTS RPG Project, a charity that  promotes accessibility in rpgs, agreed to work with us! They make braille dice, run spaces and panels at pax, develop alt text for various publishers, and are designing tools to help designers make their pdfs more accessible.

We launched on June 24th, and within two weeks hit our $1000 goal! That may not seem like a lot, however, we managed to get this far with the bundle being available for free, containing just 45 projects, and all our games being pretty underground except for maybe a fate accessibility toolkit. No donation matching, and no press coverage!

It gets less attention, but the limited scope is part of why I wanted to organize the bundle. I’m hoping the smaller (than other charity bundles) handpicked selection will encourage people to really check out as many of the games as they can!

I’m happy to take questions on anything from the ideas behind the bundle and process of organizing and sharing it, to some the work DOTS does, to the games in the bundle, which I’ve looked through thoroughly excluding some supplements/add ons, to what I’ve had for breakfast this morning! There might be some things I can’t answer, but no question is in bad form. 

Here’s a link to the bundle if you want to see it for yourself! https://itch.io/b/3605/indie-charity-bundle-for-accessibility-in-ttrpgs-pwyw

Theres a full list of all the games in the description, each with a 1 or 2 sentence summary! I’ll be here from about 930 a.m. to 930 p.m., maybe not active the whole time. I have some wrist issues, and might switch to speech to text at some point, so apologies in advance if my capitalization and grammar starts to suffer.

I talked about this a bit ago. It may be a temporary measure, but I want to keep things alive while the bookclub is on hiatus! The sub is now open to general rpg discussion, with a focus on being open and friendly toward beginners new ideas!

In terms of the bundle, I've emailed some people to try and get more coverage, but no response. I've done about all I can unless something big happens, hopefully donations keep coming in!

Soon I hope to start making some posts about rpgs for beginners, and mess with the flairs a bit!

Wooooo hooooooo! Sort of comes at an awkward time since I'm trying to figure out the best way to move the sub forward now (see this post if you missed it https://www.reddit.com/r/myrpg/comments/1urdiod/weve\_reached\_our\_1000\_goal\_on\_the\_charity\_bundle/)

But this is pretty great news! Not exactly surprising, I expected the bundle to get us a bit more attention, but welcome nonetheless!

Any ideas on how to celebrate?