Frost and sun have been greeting me in turn each morning, and I’m just about clinging onto my New Year’s Resolutions, so it must be almost the end of January. I have lots of interesting things to share this month so let’s dive right in!
The latest goings on
Solo but Not Alone 3 Bundle
Entering its third year, the Solo But Not Alone 3 bundle once again brings together a huge amount of solo games (149!!!) into one bundle to raise money for Jasper’s Game Day, a wonderful charity working on education on mental health and suicide prevention.
I’ve added my game Lost Post to the bundle and there are loads of fantastic games in there, so I recommend checking it out and helping support a good cause.
Edits continue on Mycelium
If you don’t remember, Mycelium is an adventure location for Mausritter I’m working on set in a back garden overrun by mushrooms and fairies. I’m still editing it after a successful playtest which is taking a while because editing is my least favourite part of making stuff. If I could bang out a perfect version first time, I absolutely would but, alas, I’m only human so I have to reread all the bad things I wrote to make them a bit better. Insert general chuntering1 here.
However, I did have a great time running the playtest which culminated in a mushroom man being blown up to 3x his normal size and bearing down on the brave mice in a not too dissimilar fashion to the Stay Puffed marshmallow man in Ghostbusters. A good time was had by all!
The basic location and characters all run smoothly, so once editing is done it’ll be time for art and layout (my favourite part, partially because it is after the aforesaid editing). Hopefully this time next month I’ll have some pretty artwork and silly drawings of mice to show off alongside a finished module!
A d20 table of Mice Presents
Speaking of mice, I also took part in the Winter Has Come Mausritter game jam hosted by ManaRampMatt, which is all about creating winter-themed work for Mausritter. I wrote up a table of d20 Mice Presents so brave mice can partake in winter festivities after a day of adventuring. It was an utterly frivolous and fun project, and I intend to do more like it.
ZiMo 2023
Finally, Zine Month is coming up! Dubbed Zinequest over on Kickstarter, or ZiMo on other crowdfunding sites, February is a busy month for many creators including me as I cover various projects up for crowdfunding.
Zine Month is an event where TTRPG creators crowdfund new projects. It is a great event for new designers to fund their creations for the first time, and the (roughly defined) ‘zine’2 means a lot of smaller projects can get the support they need for art, editing, layout, fulfilment, and of course allow the creators to be paid properly for their time.
This year I am very excited to be working with Crowdfundr on their Tabletop Nonstop event. This is Crowdfundr’s spotlight event celebrating indie creators and their projects. Crowdfunded is sponsoring me to make videos that highlight the TTRPG crowdfundr projects of my choice.
From Crowdfundr:
Crowdfundr is the creator-friendly crowdfunding platform. It’s free to use, offers multiple ways to fund your project, and directly invests in its users’ success with spotlight initiatives like this one and resources like the Creator Hub.
Throughout Zine Month I’m going to be making videos about projects I’m excited about so you can all learn about them.
These will all be published on my tiktok, youtube, twitter, tumblr, and instagram. If you want to search for them, they’ll all have the tag #TabletopNonstop.
Review: Inspireisles
One of the games I took at this month was Inspireisles by Hatchling Games. They were kind enough to send me a PDF copy to take a look at, but I promptly went out and bought the physical copy because it is so pretty.
Here is the short video I put up on tiktok about it which covers the basics:
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I mentioned in the video that I think Inspireisles would be a great option for teens getting into fantasy TTRPGS. In fact, as more players are trying to branch out from DnD (especially given the recent kerfuffle with the OGL), I think it could be a good alternative starting game for many players. It has fun lore, simple to learn mechanics, and lots of support and examples of play, which should help new players get started quickly.
Of course, it is always important to remember that the more you know about a subject, the more you forget what it was like to be a beginner. A game that seems easy to learn to someone who has already read 50 other ttrpgs might be quite hard for a new comer. It’s one of the reasons I often don’t recommend DnD to beginners; “go out and buy or borrower 1-3 books and learn a load of rules and maths” feels rather overwhelming for your first ever game.
Nowadays when I introduce new people to games, I try to find a genre or theme they are interested in and match a game to their interests. That way they can fall back on genre tropes and just tell me what they want to do, rather than grapple immediately with loads of rules.
So, to profile a new player who would like Inspireisles: they might want a mixture of exploration, helping others, and options to fight the 'baddies’ (in this case trolls, fae, and dragons). They might be fans of shows like Avatar the Last Airbender, and want to use the elemental ‘shaping’ (magical sign language) in a similar way. They might also enjoy British fantasy like the Chronicles of Narnia (the characters can enter the world of the Inspirisles, gain experience on their quests, and then return home and find they are teenagers again) and enjoy learning about the folktales of Britain and Ireland. And they may or may not be interested in learning British or American sign language. Even if they aren’t, Inspireisles makes it fun to learn and makes repetition and practice part of the game by offering mechanical incentives to use your signs, so you learn as you play. So far I have learnt the alphabet (useful) and how to say ‘dragon’ (less useful, more fun.)
Until next time…
Till next month, I hope your games are fulfilling, your characters are as happy as the drama allows, and your months thoroughly zined!
If you want to keep up to date with various goings on, you can follow me on the internet here: twitter, tiktok, tumblr, instagram, youtube
Chuntering - a british term for grumbling
ZiMo zines tend to be staple/saddle stitched, with limited colours, and are usually shorter projects. This definition has expanded since its first creation, and now tends to just mean smaller games, usually from designers creating their first, or one of their first physical products.
I’m in love with the Mice Presents. What a fantastic little project!