Just going to run down some of the latest stuff by way of keeping in touch. Big thanks to those who've been corresponding with me lately; pl...| rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com
A few days ago I did two unusual things, simultaneously. One, I ran a deliberate horror RPG, and two, I did it on one of those "Actual Play" video podcasts, where everyone can see just how much I've let my beard explode into crazy-drifter-man mode. My beard looks like I'm preparing to product-test the Column B item in a Stephen Colbert "Meanwhile" intro.| Rolltop Indigo
Well, it wouldn't do to let the whole of 2024 pass without a blog post on record, so I'll take this opportunity to look back over this year. It's been a rough one in many ways, but, as always, there are some nice things to note, too.| Rolltop Indigo
We're almost out of 2023!| Rolltop Indigo
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It’s time for another dip into the RPG Lexicon, where I| Rolltop Indigo
Hammondal is pure game-design (with bursts of writing) at this stage, so it's harder to blog about in some ways since there's less to look at, and a lot more abstraction, and lists, and abstractions of lists and lists of abstractions (really; I do that).| Rolltop Indigo
Sometimes, Cumberland Games & Diversions makes games. Sometimes, it's more about the diversions. I take it as a good sign that my silly moods are returning now and then. 😅| Rolltop Indigo
I'm clearly confused by how Blogger works. I tried restoring another stack of articles I'd taken down, and Blogger posted them as all-new articles, which wasn't the intention.| Rolltop Indigo
Correspondent Diederik Van Arkel made a request for more | Rolltop Indigo
Today I want to ramble about two closely-related decisions in RPG design, both relating to Hammondal.| Rolltop Indigo
This evening I've been so saddened by the state of the world (and our own failing country in particular) that I worked on fonts.| Rolltop Indigo
If you are (so-called) "pro-life," you're a piece of shit.| Rolltop Indigo
I've built my life around love, food, and roleplaying games.| Rolltop Indigo
I have Strong Opinions on matters of fantasy cartography. No shock, I know! One of those opinions is that you should never draw to fit the paper. The way I fight that tendency (because it can be really hard not to) is I do a lot of preliminary work on a much, much larger canvas than the target output.| Rolltop Indigo
This isn't normally a musing-about-Star-Trek sort of blog, but I've been enjoying the heck out of Star Trek lately, and last week's episode of Strange New Worlds was a new version of an old favorite, so that's got me musing. Spoilers ahead.| Rolltop Indigo
The whole point of this blog-post is to mark that I've finally got all of Hammondal's street-names in place on the master map. There are, at final count, 195 named streets (there are even more named alleyways and closes and other storied passages, but finishing all that labeling is still a big deal to me) 😄| Rolltop Indigo
I wake up each morning excited about Hammondal. I'm working on it constantly (or as constantly as asthma permits, lately) and it gives me that noisy popcorn brain where the elements are enjoying their teeny little explosions, bouncing and colliding and combining ...| Rolltop Indigo
Cumberland Games is participating in the TTRPGs for Reproductive Rights bundle on itch, and it's a very, very, very large bundle (nearly 300 items) for five bucks (or more, if you've got more to give). It's got some adventures, some settings, some resources, a lot of creative oddities, some journaling and other solitaire games. It's a lot, and it's for a vital cause.| Rolltop Indigo
The early, heady, research-heavy phase of an RPG project is, to me, the beginning of a rollercoaster ride. During that phase, I cram my eyeballs full of historical research, classic RPG works, genre research, fiddly real-world stuff like evaporation and waste from cisterns, the nature of long-term road maintenance, the precise conditions for fog, the chemistry of a peat bog, the many uses of wax, and brick. The nature of a handful of world religions, folkloric traditions, spiritual belief sys...| Rolltop Indigo
The main "poster" map of Hammondal is complete. It'll still evolve as the book progresses, of course, but it's nice to see it all together ... or even pointedly dissected.| Rolltop Indigo
The Hammondal poster townmap is nearly done. What's preventing it from being declared a "complete draft" is boats. I've done multiple passes at "populating" the city's harbor and other waterlines with ships and boats, and each one has fallen short of my standards in one way or another. I'll keep poking at it between fontwork and other stuff. I hope to begin some of the building interior maps over the next week, and I'm excited for those! The obligatory spray of development snapshots follows, ...| Rolltop Indigo
It's easy to preview maps in progress, and writing in progress, but the actual design in progress is such a ghost of a thing ... But I'll try:| Rolltop Indigo
The short version of the story is that there was no surgery after all, because they wouldn't let Sandra enter the building with me, so I said no thanks.| Rolltop Indigo
I'm going under for surgery in about 12 hours so that means 12 hours of wide-awake brain-shrieking anxiety and terror 😐| Rolltop Indigo
The Blue Room Blog: RPGs, Fantasy Cartography, Cooking, Fonts, Stuff.| rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com
Would-be reader Jeff Bernstein, from the inbox today: Hello. I'm reading an essay on convention game session design and the...| rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com