Hey, folks. How's things? It's 2025 now, and we can start making new promises to break them later this year. Fun times ahead, I'd say. Anyway. In this post I want to talk about how Lost Songs made its way back into my top pile to work at. I know, I'm slow. I also keep getting things done, so speed isn't all that if you eventually get to see results. Point in case: a revision of LSotN is underway and making progress, to a degree where I'm setting up a little online game with friends to give it all another spin to see where it wobbles. Here's how I set up that campaign ...

this is a lose series, but here is Part 1 anyways.

The Plan

I've collected some ideas over the last months and looked at what I got as well as what needs doing. Nothing serious, just some preliminary scouting. As one would when getting back into a project that actually was on pause for some time. It never left my mind, but other things piled up to a degree that Lost Songs took a back seat, like, waaay back on the bus.

As soon as I felt confident enough to get something started, I set up a doscord server for it and invited the couple of people that could be convinced to give this a shot.

That the first thing: I love working this on discord. Lots of nice ways to organize the information for the campaign with the revision running in the background. And I can do it on the road easily, which is a huge plus.

It's amazing how much changed in the last 10 years in that regard. Nowadays we have AI to help with research (I basically use it like I used search engines when that was still a thing) and it is a blast. Quick, too. Also something that can be done anywhere easily (I'm falling in love with Grok right now). For instance, when I wrote the Tribe Generator for the game, a quick discussion about what would make a tribe helped me getting the numbers just right enough to hammer it into a table.

Good show.

Wouldn't use AI to write or design a game for me (because I actually enjoy doing those things!), but it offers great research and reasoning on all kinds of topics. It is, just as with the art, a great asset to have on hand.

The plan, then, is to revise the game as I prepare and then playtest the game, adding stuff as need be while I'm at it. Right now setting and tribe are done. Here's what I did so far.

The Setting

What you see here is the result of the revised Sandbox Generator. Can't show the thing itself yet, as it'd contain information the players are not yet privy to. This is basically what their characters can know:

"This is it. After years of wandering around, your elders decide the spot to settle down: a huge chasm between mountains, hills and forests. Uneven land that doesn't see a lot of sun, but fertile nonetheless. The elders say waterghosts carved the grooves into the valley here, leaving only the hard rock to stand guard above the rich streams coming down from the mountains. It is land suited for miners and artisans, hunters and gatherers, not farmers. Here is your fate. The new roots your tribe is destined to strike. But you are not alone in this valley. Two other tribes have arrived here. One, a strange folk with even stranger mores, is indifferent to you. The other, a tribe led by powerful women, is outright unfriendly, although not hostile. You will make a home here either way. This is where your songs begin."

Typical longhouse.

"IMMEDIATE SURROUNDINGS & LIVING

Water created the extensive chasm your tribe located in by eroding all the soft stone and leaving harder stones throughout the valley it created. It created a hugely complex and fertile biome full of little lakes and rivers, cliffsides and little waterfalls, moss and forest as well as natural caves. Your tribe settled on the west side of this area, directly on the foot of a huge mountain you call "Grey Man" (Graumann) because clouds kept hanging on his peak like grey hair throughout the summer you arrived here. Since all of this is not easily accessible, longhouses are spread all over the place and in the strangest places, the chief's great longhouse having the highest position on the western slope. All of it is connected with little trails, but some tribesmen even made stone steps and little wooden bridges here and there to have those homes better connected. Many homes expand into the mountain as well, partially using natural caverns, partially carving new rooms into soft stone."

"Established routes lead west up into the mountain where several mining operations dot the slope, east into the valley, mainly for hunting, and north towards the closest settlement that will trade with you, four days travel away."

"Your immediate neighbors are a strange people on the north border of this chasm. They are quite elusive, but what you found of them are wooden frog figures and weird markings. Some of your tribe have seen them in the distance, but they mostly just ignore you and you have no quarrels with them. They seem to have settled on the lake that is mostly hidden in thick fog and forms a natural border before the land grows from chasms into thickly forested hills further north."

"The other tribe is situated close to the south border of this area, just where the chasms transition into forested hills. What you know is that it is a tribe led by female warriors, but other then that no contact has been made. Rumors among your people say that they despise you for your lack of warriors, but you know nothing for certain.
Other than the Graumann to the west, this area is nested between fertile hills with beautiful woods and rivers as well as more high mountains to the southwest, the predominant of them called "King's Crown" (Königskrone") by your people. This is good land, rich and fertile."

The Tribe

This part needed some more rules and tools to allow for some variety (I'll share them later in this post). The sandbox has always been the first strong indicator what kind of people a group's tribe consists of. Why would they settle where they ended up settling? What kind of skills and trades would come with the territory? What opposition (as far as they are aware of it) are they willing to face? Stuff like that could easily be deduced from the hex they are dropped in and the immediate surroundings.

But I needed some more meat on that, mainly how their migration there went, what they gained and what they had to leave behind. It'd change, to a degree, their reasoning for staying where they ended up staying, but not in a bad way. Beyond that I wanted to have some soft numbers for the size of the tribe (ended up going with "families"). If anything, it gives a GM more to work with while being set up quite fast.

Here's what I shared with my players:

"So what's your tribe like? Well, the place they chose to stay, despite the other tribes settling there, already tells us a lot. They are accustomed to living in mountainous areas, so miners and smiths they should be as well as hunters and animal farmers. The blight that is Christianity has not yet reached your people, so they believe in a variation of the old gods and follow their traditions. Migration lost you the majority of your warriors, but despite that your elders feel confident about your fate in this chasm. You can draw from a rich history of sophisticated craftsmen and you have among your people some very capable weapon smiths and artisans."

"Where the Chief's Longhouse was build

Your holy men had seen the place where you were to hold the ritual in their dreams, just two days before your track came across it. It was held that same night, under a huge thunderstorm. The mountains in the east, it seemed, fought the mountains in the west in the sky. Thor was busy drumming that night. It had been at the peak of the ritual when a massive lighting strike hit the side of the Graumann, the short bright light dotted with the rocks it detonated from the mountainside. The next morning, at first sunlight, they found among the debris a huge shattered quartz, all glitzy and pink. The biggest piece build the foundation for the chief's longhouse right where it struck the ground, the smaller pieces had been distributed among the nobility and brought much honor to their houses. They called that night the Invitation of the Mountain, and it has always been regarded as a good omen."

"The place of that ritual is where your people hold official gatherings.  It is a stone platform floating over the valley and it offers a great view of the Graumann as well as the chief's majestic longhouse at the base of it. At the beginning it was not easy to get to the plateau, as it stands somewhat isolated. Now there is an ornate wooden bridge leading to it. Three holy sheep are held on that platform to keep the grass short."

"Other then the player characters' families, the tribe is 167 families strong. Around 120 of them have build their longhouses close to the chief's house, the rest is scattered all around, equally distributed towards mountain, the valley itself and along the trading route you established north."

Ideas like the ritual, the other two tribes close by and the trading route all spun naturally from tools used to set up the sandbox and the tribe. 

New Rules: The Tribe Generator

The revised Sandbox Generator still needs some more work, but what I can share today is the Tribe Generator. It might even be useful in other games. Either way, it'll tell you something about Lost Songs, so here we go.

Like with character creation, all it needs is a roll of 3d6. It'd be used right after completing the sandbox. Everything else follows from that. The individual results will give you:

TRIBE GENERATOR (3d6)

Your tribe is …

1 barely there (lowest column)
2 weak (lowest column)
3 quarreling (middle column)
4 desperate (middle column)
5 confident (high column)
6 strong (high column)

Your ancestors are …

1 primal (+10 families)
2 secluded (-10 families)
3 odd
4 honorable (+20 families)
5 noble (+30 families)
6 sophisticated (-10 families)

Your tribe lost …

1 the weak (-30 families)
2 the warriors (-20 families)
3 the royalty (-10 families)
4 spiritual leadership (+10 families)
5 wealth (-10 families)
6 history

The sum, now, will give you a base number of families that needs to be modified by the individual results:

             High   Middle   Low

3-5:          80        60        40
6-8:        140      120      100
9-12:      200      180      160
13-16:    230      220      210
17-18:    260      250      240

The sum also reduces the base number further. In the end, each player character adds one family to the result. Example:

"This tribe is (5/6/2) confident with sophisticated ancestry to build on, but lost their warriors on their migration to this valley."

That gives us a Base Number of 200 (high column) modified by -10 (for being sophisticated), -20 (for losing the warriors), and -13 (the sum itself), resulting in 167 families PLUS the number of players.

It's quick while offering lots of little details to work with and a rough estimate of how big a tribe actually is (a "family" would have an average of four people).

That's it for now

This is where we are at. Next is character creation and the final touches on the sandbox, as well as a calendar and elements for all the hexes ...

But about this we will talk another time. It'll be an interesting year in that regard, I think. I wonder how much my sensibilities changed since I last touched the game. And if I'm finally able to overcome the road blocks that made me shift my focus on other projects.

For now I can say I'm having fun with it. And I'm again and again surprised how much was already done. Anyway. More to come.

I wish you guys all the best for 2025!

Started writing a post about the state of the blog, didn't like where it was going. Twice. Too much doom and gloom. You know where the world's at, and I'm busy, too, so ... fuck it. Prime function of the blog is me talking about rpg stuff I have on my mind. That did connect with some sort of "scene" a couple of years back, but now I'm truly lost in the woods. I should embrace that and move on. If you encounter this post on your travels through the internet, I hope you'll sit down with me for a couple of minutes and lend me an ear. Maybe we'll chat a bit, too. Then we move on.

For today we'll have a little retrospective about how it all came together ... until it didn't. Enjoy!

Proper artwork?

So many words to talk about ... what again?

A lot of me writing here was about me finding my own voice in a thriving hobby space. Back when I started 12 years ago (and I was late to the party) the retro-clone movement was in full swing and all people did was sharing fantastic facets of what our hobby can be. Lots of fun, all around. And what a rabbit hole to jump into! So many small creators, lots of diy. Inspiring, all of it.

The OSR bitch fights came later, but not much later (although it always had the occasional flame wars).

Back then I tried a lot. And I wrote a lot, although more short pieces. 214 posts in the first three years alone. Looking back at it, I think I managed to find out a lot about myself over the years and how I play games. Enough to start designing and writing some of my own as well. This was always supposed to be a trial and error approach to game design (hence the title of the blog), so I would find an idea, play around with it, and put it aside for a while. Often promising some sort of follow up I wouldn't deliver.

Kinda "sounded great at the time" way of gamer ADD. But nothing stuck.

What started with exploring where to go, pretty definitely settled for "doing something with D&D no one thought about", mainly because the more fringe thinkers of the scene had the most inspiring stuff to begin with. They talked "world engines" and weird narrative constructs and non linear settings with lots of interesting twists to dive into.

All of it fed my D&D RC camapign rules. As a matter of fact, I tested and changed so much that one player actually threatened to leave the game if I kept adding and tinkering. Can't fault the guy. He'd been somewhere on the autism spectrum, and for him playing D&D with me was what for a cat is petting it the wrong way.

Anyway, so the blogging went on and gaming fell a bit behind. I'd still write about D&D now and again, but my focus shifted a bit towards the theoretical of it all.

I know the exact moment that changed: November 30th, 2014. Pretty much exactly 3 years into blogging.

The clip linked in that post changed the trajectory of the blog for good. The post directly after that already formulates the core idea that made Lost Songs of the Nibelungs. There is your spark, the idea that started it all: Charisma is not a good word for what it does in D&D.

With that, I seriously started dismantling D&D. Here's an attempt to replace most of the terms on an old school character D&D sheet with synonyms. See how that jives with you (and what a game using those terms would be like):

Only change terms, get a different game?

The ideas started coming, I kept on the ball, people started being enthusiastic about it and even left comments. Those were the days. Good times.

After a couple of months, talking LSotN looked a bit like this:

Along that, I started chewing through what kind of world this would be set in. I was burning fuel on all cylinders, so to say. And that ended up to be the main focus of a lot of my writing in the last 10 years, one way or another. As a matter of fact, just the other day my good friend Mark pointed out to me that every game design I did in the last 10 years was, in the end, about LSotN. Damn.

A complicated approach to game design ...

However, back then I was in no way, shape or form ready to write and publish a complete role-playing game.

Contrary to popular belief, it actually takes a lot to write a book and process it to a point where it can be published, even if you have (to accept) low standards. So if this were to be my opus magnum, I had ways to go to get it out there.

And development would hit walls, obviously. To this day it needs a system for magic that fits the game and that I'm happy with. Not for lack of trying, but I'm not there yet. Same goes for the GM side of the game. Although that has lots of working pieces, it'll need some more ideas incorporated to be where I'd like it to be.

Progress on that has been slow, but not zero. Which segues into another aspect of what I'm trying to do here: the more complex a problem appears to be, the more I tend to look for ways to explore it indirectly. Because sometimes the solution is found by exploring the opposite or only aspects of it. But that could lead to writing another entire game first.

Yeah.

And I'm not that fast to begin with.

So a lot on the blog looks like me shifting focus on something entirely different, like developing a lite rules system for a DungeonPunk setting, while truly exploring how complete a system on the GM side needs to be to create a sufficient and distinct gaming experience, like this a mission generator.

It's called Brawlers! now ...

And while I gain some insights in the process, I might go back to Lost Songs until I hit a wall again, only to start something new, covering a different angle altogether. 

Or find new walls to hit ...

I write about some of it and call it a blog. Haha.

When all is said and done, I ended up with lots of little ideas and concepts, some follow me unfinished to this day (The Goblintribe Generator, among others), some stand on their own very well (the Random Narrative Generator being the biggest one).

And then, all of a sudden ...

... I start something, and actually finish it. Although "sudden" is a bit of s stretch, as you might have guessed already. Anyway, first major publication happens May 2017 and is called Monkey Business. Not a game, but a game supplement for Labyrinth Lord. Still HUGE in scope, around 120 pages, offering enough ideas and tools to create a whole campaign, no less.

I started it as PWYW to see if that worked. Did so for 5 years and it didn't work, so now it costs what I think it's worth. It was downloaded roughly 500 times, but paid for only 50 times (yes, two short of making copper, after all those years).

I consider it a success, especially when taking into account that it was the first proper publication I got out there. Alas, it was more or less ignored by what the "OSR" was back then. Bit of a bummer. But I got some reports from people playing it, and all of them had a blast. 

The bigger picture was, that I got to play with some DM tools in general. Some of Lost Songs made it into the book (a variant of the Random Terrain Generator, for instance), some of what I tried there will make it into Lost Songs. Eventually.

Another aspect was learning a bit more about publishing using Scribus and inkscape. 

At that point I thought things would take up some speed, too, and I'd keep pushing modules out there. Yet again, I found rabbit holes to fall into. Wanted to write a more contemporary module with the working name "Robo-Hitler". A grindhouse shlockfest about shooting historical Nazis that use (alien?) tech for their nefarious plots ...

But the game I wanted to use for it, I couldn't use (the designer basically said, he has different plans and I shouldn't), so that opened a can of worms, because now I needed a set of rules. I thought I'd go and use my D&D house rules, make a LL supplement out of it and have it with the module. So I started digging into that before starting with the module.

Meanwhile LL fell into decline and the OSR stopped being what it had been. Things shifted, as they always would, given time enough. And I gave it plenty of time.

*sigh* ... never mind. [source]

So that supplement for the weird sixties ended up being a complete book ... that I'm still writing (150 pages in, the end is nigh). Robo Hitler has even seen play, with all the maps being conceptualized and some wild ideas to get this done.

It just didn't happen in a vacuum. Not only did I start working on (at least) four more modules, some of those would also need a be67 fantasy supplement before they can see publication. I have that in pieces (27 classes, original magic system ...), but it needs to be written and layouted, of course.

All the while I kept playtesting and developing Lost Songs. Eventually I'd hit the final wall (magic just would not manifest) and I shifted focus to yet another game: ORWELL. It was about a lot I had on my mind at the time, and also something completely different. An original set of rules, from start to end (although parts of Lost Songs would find its way into this as well).

That game, however, I would get done. It was even more fringe than Lost Songs will ever be, but it is complete ... and opened up even more strands of ideas and concepts to follow up on (see the "Would You Play That?"-Series here on the blog).

Every now and then I get an idea for (the now called) Brawlers as well, and that game ALSO has seen some writing. It also gave me ideas for at least FOUR more games featuring aspects of the rules written for it. Rebellion was one of those, and fell out of my hands completely by accident.

It was a set of rules that occured to me over night, and gave me a great opportunity to play around with Midjourney for a bit.

I know, it's crazy. When all is said and done, I might have around 30 projects in my WIP folders, done to one degree or another (some only concepts, some with writing, some have even seen playtesting ...)

Eventually, I had to get back to LSotN

All of the above somehow feeds into Lost Songs, one way or another. And I have the blog to prove it. Ha. But where's that game at?

Well.

I never finished thinking about it, but also didn't get a chance to work on it again. But I got to read Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson last year (2023) and it hit me right in the feels. That book reads like a session report of Lost Songs of the Nibelungs, and I'm not even kidding. It's EXACTLY what the game is about and how it actually plays.

Recommended reading ...

 Got me thinking again, soon I started talking about it again, even made some notes ... and finally got an idea how magic might work, which will have implications on the GM section, but that was to be expected.

My good friend Mark also keeps pestering me about finishing it. And while I started a shit load of projects, he might be right that it is time to tackle this beast again. I'd have to see what I got and where I need to go with it. Maybe write the whole thing from scratch? Because ...

Because I've come some way since I last touched LSotN. Not only because the last four years sucked HARD and did not go by without taking a toll. No, I think my outlook overall changed quite some bit. Or rather, I'm a bit further down the road I wanted to take while the road ALSO changed. Although I'm still somewhat lost, I feel I have a better grasp at what this game is supposed to be.

Either way, I'm ready to get back into playtesting again. Time to put some more energy into this beast

What about EVERYTHING ELSE?

I know, loaded question. I'm talking projects, not state of worldly affairs ... I got a review for ORWELL, but it's not a good one. Guy didn't read it in depth, then said it was too convoluted ... I mean, I get it, for it to be content it needs to be processed fast, and ORWELL definitely needs some digestion, which runs counter to that. He says as much (and he wanted to like it).

In the end, I feel the review ended up being somewhat unfair but well intended. I mean him no harm, after all it got some eyes on the book, and we are not done talking about it (I think?), so his "3 of 5, satisfactory" is fine.

And he gets the setting mostly right, so there is that.

However, it makes you wonder how one can review a game that hasn't even been played, because playing it might at least make sure that its read deeply enough to use it.

You wanna get a free look at the book and some words on it, too (with the caveats I offered above), go and see it here. James might end up giving it a run at his virtual table. Not holding my breath here, but if it were to happen, I'd very much looking forward to it. He might end up liking it after all. Either way, I'd accept his final word on it even if his result doesn't change.

I also got a chance to do a Q&A about the game over at The Hardboiled GMshoe's Office. It was done via their discord server Randomworlds TTRPG Chatroom, which is all kinds of fun and well worth checking out!

Other than that, I keep trucking. some things in the works, might actually get something new finished soon. Playtests for Angry Little Aliens VERSUS King Arthur have been VERY promising, but to make that a book is still some work. And I'm already chewing on something new ... We'll see.

As far as the blog is concerned, I'll make this a series about rediscovering Lost Songs of the Nibelungs, but I might have a couple of other ideas worth following up (rules for immortals in be67/BASIC, for instance). It happens when it happens, but it will happen :)

Also:

 

Hello, friends and neighbors. I hope the year is treating you fine so far! As it happens, I got busy again and managed to get another little game. This time, another first with my little publishing endeavor, a game not written and designed by me, but by my good friend Mark van Vlack. I did editing and layout, eddy Punk added a couple of scenarios ... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Lets talk about it!

Get it on OBS!

A game, written by a friend

Mark is a well seasoned game designer. He's doing it for years now. Decades, even. And it shows whenever he tackles a new project or revises one of his numerous old games, which seems to happen every other month. Thing is, he doesn't really have any interest in getting them published "properly". The odd pdf or PoD here and there, but all very much the "I needed to have this in some form for my own table, so I might as well share it"-kind of approach.

I love talking games with this guy. Always insightful and seeing something I might have missed in my designs. I think it is fair to say that we inspired each other for several ideas that made their ways into our games here and there. It is that healthy and productive exchange you'd always like to have with your peers.

Anyway, I've been dabbling with this publishing thingy for some time now, and we've talked a couple of times about me publishing some of his. We did come close once, when I edited and layouted his role-playing game Phase Abandon. It is a game you can get for free on OBS right now, if you are interested to find out how this guy ticks. PA is anotehr great game of his I can only recommend. Saw lots of play-testing, too!

Which leads to another thing: his friends love his games. Check out his discord, if you don't believe me.

Anyway, he's a good egg and I'm happy to call him a friend. 

Minimus Ludus - All the Worlds, Pocket-Sized!

As for the publishing gig, just the other day he told me that he wrote a very small game for the Bachelor party of one of his friends. The challenge he gave himself was to make it a complete game with no more than 1000 words (I belive ... no more than two pages A5, anyhow). AND HE DID IT!

If you read this blog, you might be aware that I'm not really into lite role-playing games. Or rather, in how they are marketed in our little niche of the hobby. They take shortcuts by assuming an experienced gamemaster, but often don't own up to it, claiming instead it's "how the game was supposed to be played", which is, on the face of it, bullshit. Of course.

But they do have their perks, obviously. For one, they are easily expanded on. Preparation, if you know what you are doing, is easy as fuck. Just a couple of pages to read, ready to go soon after. For big groups, or for people with no huge amount of time to play, right on the money. IF the GM knows what he's doing and all you want to do is small one-shots or very short campaigns.

I saw over the years a couple of games I actually admired for their short and concise approach to role-playing games, Macchiato Monsters being one of them, for instance. There is an art to writing a short rpg that actually works.

Minimus Ludus is such a game, in my opinion.

I'll tell you why, too: The role of the dice in this game is minimal, but not insignificant. It is not so much about how high your roll is (although that factors in, too), but instead about what you can summon as aid to your roll that makes the game click. Those elements you may summon are all narrative in nature, but convey bonuses if applied.

That means, if you play to the elements of the story and setting you are playing in, it does the two-punch of making the setting come alive AND results in a better result. There's also a meta-currency element to it where GM and players can trade story elements.

I really like that (maybe for obvious reasons?). So characters come, for instance, with a weakness and the GM can exploit that, but it costs the GM as well to o so, the benefit for the player being, that they get a Token they can burn later for a benefit ... 

Behold the character sheet!

Another aspect I like is how it is conceptualized to be expanded on by the setting you use it for. There is a very abstract but highly functioning core that is easily altered to fit all kinds of settings. There's even a meta story how all those worlds (or "Pockets", how he calls it) connect.

The game came with five settings already written by Mark. When we agreed that this will be the first game of his published under my label, Eddy Punk added three takes of his to the fold.

That's EIGHT SETTINGS out of the gate before you even have to come up with your own (for which the game actually also provides guidelines!). I don't have to tell you: that's a lot of gaming right there, even if you are not into ALL the scenarios.

That's not Star Wars. Not at all.

Lets get lost on an island!

Anyway. We talked about it and agreed, I did editing and layout, and now you can buy Mark and me a coffee by purchasing this on the OBS flavor of your choice.

In return you will get a fun little game that does a lot of heavy lifting with a very light engine. Something you can take for a spin when there's not enough time to play something a bit more complex.

I really like it and I'm happy to have this game as part of my portfolio. And I hope you guys will check it out!

It will bring you some joy, I'm sure of it.

What else is new?

With Minimus Ludus out of the gate, the next big project is the pdf for ORWELL ... It needs a couple of small mistakes taken care of as well as bookmarks and hyperlinks, but then the pdf will be ready for public consumption. The PoD gets a little facelift as well, while we are at it.

While that's happening, I'll keep on writing Angry Little Aliens VERSUS King Arthur. That turned out to be a fun project and it's very well doable in the couple of months ... so I'm confident that it will see the light of day soon!

Other than that? I rediscovered my love for all the small publications out there and want to spend more time with reading what piled up on my desk ... digitally and PoD both. We'll see how far I'll get with that, but if I do so, I will talk about it here on the blog.

Beyond that ... who knows. There's a little game I plan to write for Halloween this year. That has a very high chance of happening. And there is at least one supplement for ORWELL I can see myself tackling this year, most of all because I love the premise of it (read about it here, if you haven't already).

More on that soon, I guess.

And then there's also the big projects like Brawlers! and be67 that should see some work done this year. I had high hopes to get be67 done in 2024. It's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath ... On the other hand, the stuff I want to do with be67 doesn't allow for much more delay. It is piling up here and at some point I have to get things done to start new things.

Also: Lost Songs of the Nibelungs will get some love this year. I already reactivated the old group of play-testers, now I have to sit down and see where that game's at. It would be rad as hell to have that fully conceptualized until the end of the year. I have an idea or two that will be talked about here on the blog as well this year.

So there is, if I may say so, lots to look forward to here on the blog and as far as publications go. I'll keep pushing, because what else is there to do?

If you have any ideas what else should happen here on the blog, or even if you are interested in the status of any of th odd things I've talked about here on the last couple of years, feel free to drop a comment! No one ever does, recently.

Other then that, I'd like to close this post with a little mantra I've learned about a couple of weeks ago, Ho'oponopono (a great article about it can be found here). It really had a positive impact on my life, and I feel we all need something like this right now (or always, actually), so here you go:

I'm sorry!

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you ...

Yeah, lets do one of those and get the 20 posts for the year ... Actually, a lot has happened and is happening that is worth talking about that, so I thought I'd share. 

Publications

20 posts here on the blog in 2021 is not a bad number. To begin with, it's doubling what I managed to get done in 2020! I aim to be even more productive in 2022. The main problem I see is that I don't seem to be part of any particular rpg scene or movement right now. Nothing that'd lead to some sort of traffic anyway. I mean, I'm trucking on, of course. If I get the urge to write something, I aim to do so ... I just have to get a strong theme going, I guess, and see where the dice fall.

That is to say, this blog is not dead yet, but it needs another focus. I don't think I have said everything I can say about rpg theory, but a lot of that is going into other publications, so I need something else happening here. I have some vague ideas. We'll see.

Ø2\\'3|| - Role-Playing in a Dystopian Future

As far as tracktion goes, this still has some ways to go. However, it was to be expected. I'm only starting to be known as anything resembling a publisher, game designer and author, so why should people bother? I aim to get this into some hands next year. Maybe I can get a bit of a buzz going if some reviewers actually review it. It'll take time, but that's totally fine. The quality stands for itself (you can go and check out a free preview of the book here).

Other than that, I found it motivating to get something done to a degree that a print publication is justified. It's just nice to hold the book in hands now and see it all come together on the printed page. It's actually a bit addicting and I will keep doing that.

So what else is cooking?

In the works (I'm slow, that's why!)

First things first: I should stop announcing specific dates. Not that anyone ever contacted me and said "Jens, this was supposed to be out 3 months ago! Bad, bad publisher ...". No. It seems of no consequence other than getting published later. However, I constantly get it wrong, so I should be more careful about this stuff.

So for the first quarter of 2022 I plan the pdf releases of 2 products. First be67:

be67 - A D&D Retroclone Mutant

 

A collection of my D&D house rules and a complete game set in the Weird Sixties powered by Labyrinth Lord/BX, HackMaster 4e, The Arduin Grimoir and some original designs. Basically Urban Fantasy as a sixties grindhouse movie.

I will have to redo that cover, I think. The script is already 71 pages strong (A5), which should roughly be two thirds of the whole thing, making good progress so far. Artwork is in production and it will see proper editing again. this will be a blast and I'm looking forward to having all the house rules finally revised and in a nice little booklet (a PoD version should follow this year).

The second book will be "Reflected Digressions":

A collection of posts I wrote here on the blog. I've already done the collection and sorting. This will need a proper layout, work I haven't started yet, but I'll keep it light and classic ... The pdf at least should be easily enough done. Roughly 300 pages A5, mainly writing, almost no artwork and I'll do some light editing. Another nice little book I'll be happy to have (the blessings of PoD, my friends).

Now that'd be roughly the first quarter. Depending on how fast all the pieces come together, I'll have a third publication in the works for either the third or the fourth quarter of 2022, and that would be THE RISE OF ROBO-HITLER:

Obviously later now ...

I'm about to wrap up the play-testing on this one (this was SO MUCH FUN in 2021!) and the whole bunker complex is mapped out and stocked. Still needs the artwork and writing. To be totally fair, this might not see the light of day until Christmas 2022, but also pdf and PoD when it happens.

TRoRH made be67 a necessity as its the rules I'd ideally have people use to play this (although it will be compatible with LL and MF as well as all the other retroclones and BX).

As I said above, I'll keep doing stuff with the blog. What exactly will be the main focus in the future remains to be seen. Still posts about game design, maybe I should do some posts about world building, burt somehow I never managed to keep those going ... 

What else?

Monkey Business, my first major publication, is the gift that keeps giving. It now has four 5-Star ratings (one being a very nice review by Eric over at Sword & Stitchery) and a very enthusiatic 3-Star review and close to 500 downloads.

I'd love to do a revision and expansion of Monkey Business with a proper PoD attached and updated for be67. I've shared this mock-up the other day. I'd love to see that happen in 2022, maybe as a kickstarter:

Either way, you should check that action out, if you haven't already. It's a blast and the level of crazy gonzo role-playing you can expect for TRoRH.

Beyond that I have a couple o f ideas I might start working on next year. What of that might actually also see some form of announcement in 2022 is depending on too many factors to tell right now. I'm working on at least 3 other role-playing games at the moment:

• Lost Songs of the Nibelungs (needs a complete revision and some more playtesting)
  
• HäXar (so far only concepts and some minor designs ... might be testing ground for some rules I still need for LSotN)
  
• The Grind (most vague, but some strong elements already developed and written about, will be a card based rpg)
  

I should do more with ORWELL (or at least the system it runs) and I have a couple of fun ideas for modules I want to write for be67 (fantasy).

So you see, I'll keep myself quite busy and with luck I'll get some nice things published as well. I hope you guys will be along for the ride!

What's left but memes?

I wish all you guys reading this all the best for the next year. May the dice be with you, and all that. Spread love and good vibes, if you can. The world needs all it can get of that right now. I'll do my best as well in that regard.

For now I'll close with my favorite pictures, memes and gifs here on the blog from the last 10 years (all referenced properly where they occur here on the blog). 

Because, why the fuck not.

HackMaster 4e

HackMaster 4e

That was the face of a TPK, my friends.

Harry Potter stole this ...

DIY ethos

Extreme Ironing (I kid you not ...)

HackMaster 4e

The Bard