Making a Zine Accessible to the Incarcerated

Okay, fair warning, I am going to go a bit out of character here and speak my mind on a topic that isn't gaming. I keep my blog apolitical because getting involved in discussions of the Political with strangers on the Internet is exhausting, fruitless, and these days attracts bullshit gestapo behaviour from illiberal assholes on both sides of the spectrum. 

Shortly after I made Drakken in 2022 I was approached by an organization in California that was dedicated to promote literacy in prisons. Apparently, Dungeons & Dragons was their most requested reading material from inmates at the time. D&D being expensive as it was at the time was simply not possible, but the potential benefits of TTRPGs for inmates was too good to pass up. They were hoping that I would be willing to let them, for a modest fee, distribute Drakken, remixed a bit to meet their requirements.

I told them they could have it for free.

Channeling My Inner 10-Year-Old

My last two articles (pt. 1, pt. 2) covered the creating of a cozy campaign I had intended for my family for slow and rainy days. It was a response to the spell that the game Stardew Valley seemed to have over my wife and kids.

Personally I am quite proud of the creation, and thought it could be a lot of fun. But, sadly, its reception was, at best, lukewarm. Serves me right for jumping into a project before getting the buy in, I suppose.

So I asked my kids what they wanted in a role-playing game, and the best answer I got was "I want to do awesome stuff!"

"What kind of awesome stuff?" I asked.

"You know! Awesome!" was sadly as far as the answers got. 

So, I sat down and thought about what my kids seem to think is "awesome."

The Journal of Agatha Fizzyflask -- My Cozy Campaign Experiment (pt.2)

Created using HiDream I1 fast

In my last post I described how I created a tool that let me create a series of magical maladies, their cures, and adventure locations where the important ingredients to those cures would be found.

(I decided to skip the poisons in the end, because the material I already had was more than enough for what I needed.)

The next step was to put it all together! I envisioned a campaign where a few strangers to the Dommar valley would be stopping as their caravan waits for a rock-slide to be cleared from one of the passes through the mountains, and find themselves suddenly called to action to help on the basis that they are bored strangers, intelligent, and literate. The local witch, a she-gnome named Agatha is missing, and one of the villagers has come down with a perilous case of Frostbite Fever. They can't wait for Agatha any longer, so they beg the PCs to read Agatha's book and help them make the cure.

And this would be the core basis for the campaign. The PCs encounter some peril in the village that one of Agatha's cures or potions could resolve, and so the PCs find themselves replacing Agatha as the village herbalist, alchemist, and witch... at least until they can learn of her fate.

The Journal of Agatha Fizzyflask -- My Cozy Campaign Experiment (pt.1)

Stardew Valley is © Concerned Ape Games

My wife has been playing Stardew Valley a lot this summer; a game where you play a young person who has just inherited a farm in a fantastical world that sits at something like 1980s technology. It's what the video game industry, and more recently the TTRPG industry refer to as a "Cozy Game." Meaning it is focused on a small area, the stakes for success are failure are small: you might save a community, but the world is in no danger, and the relationships you build with the characters in the community is very much the focus.

Cozy games are not my cup of tea at all, but the game has sort of cast a spell over the rest of my family. My boys are excited to hear what has gone on in the farm and see the strange new fantasy farm animals and the useful item that my wife's avatar brings up from the dungeon. 

Well, if you want to run a good scenario the key is to figure out what your audience likes, and I got the feeling that something like Stardew Valley might make an appealing draw for a few weeks as we ease back into the school year.

So I sat down and asked myself "How can I make this interesting for me, so that I can get myself into the game enough to make it interesting to them?" 

 As I sat and pondered, my mind drifted to a concept that I have been spending a lot of time considering lately: the idea of prep as play.

My Summer was Full of Games

 I realize I haven't posted on here in a hell of a long time! My Summer was a glorious mix of in-real-life and in-game adventures.

Brier Island North lighhouse,
taken from the deck of the Mega Nova

IRL I took a family roadtrip that put nearly 3,000km on the Mazda, and along the way I attended art festivals, live concerts, joyous family functions, long days on the beach, and a whale watching tour where I got to see nine individual humpback whales and a few minke whales.

I also produced a pile of episodes of my solo RPG podcast Swords Against Madness, following my heroes getting themselves in pretty deep in their gonzo sword-and-planet weirdness, played in Swords & Wizardry.

It wasn't my only solo-gaming time spent. I took a couple of days of lazy relaxing to play through a massive chunk of Jason Sholtis' Operation Unfathomable and Odious Uplands, and had an absolute blast! 

These modules are the best example of making 1st level awesome that I have ever had the pleasure to experience. I have both a review upcoming and possible a few bonus episodes of Swords Against Madness summarizing my playthrough... with all of the running and screaming involved.

Help Me Buck the AI Monkey

 

When I created Swords Against Madness, I wasn't expecting a big hit. I figured that my own LSD-soaked imitation on Tale of the Manticore with immortal space barbarians and killer robots might garner an audience of 20... including my friends and family.

I sure as hell didn't expect it to have over 500 regular listeners and thousands of downloads. I am astounded, amazed, blessed, and humbled by the response  to my show.

Now I want to make it into an eve higher-quality, weirder, wilder, trippier project than before.And the first step to that is to ditch one of its weakest points: the AI-generated music.

500 Posts!

 I've been writing this blog for five years now, and I am proud to say I have finally hit my 500th post!

I haven't had the time I would like for it lately, but for all the right reasons:

Welcome to the Deathtrap has inspired me to write a number roleplaying games from full OSR clones, to OSR-compatible games with their own Dark Fantasy setting and mechanics, to my own unique 2d6 Weird West system, to a one-page horror game.

I also have published a number of short OSR modules, and I am working towards a full-sized campaign setting. 

W2tDT has attracted some friends who share my passion for D&D, it's history, and it's potential, allowing me to participate in many campaigns both short and long.

I have created 2 ttrpg short podcasts for friends and ongoing solo actual play podcast with over 500 regular listeners. Not to mention a complete 41-episode science fantasy audio drama inspired in part by the Gonzo gaming aesthetic I have come to love since starting the blog.

I have all of you to thank for carrying me through the lockdown, through the transitions involved with becoming a work-at-home dad, and through a life-altering central nervous system injury and learning to live with a disability.

I want to thank you all and hope that this blog will still be seeing the off update in another five years.