Disclaimer: This will be a shorter write-up this month as I’m jam packed with projects, most of them are in the middle (so less to show off/discuss), and I have to get back to them! Also, this is a bit of a rambley write-up this month due to my hectic mental state!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about creating new systems versus creating new adventures, especially so with various end of the year recognition going around and seeing what kind of things in the TTRPG space get the most attention. Systems are almost always the biggest sellers and what get the most people talking, but adventures are what actually bring those systems to life on the table (and at a point, many adventures can be played in any number of systems so the specifics there become irrelevant to many of the best designed adventures).
I think a lot of the reason systems attract such focus from players is that they exist, especially at first, almost entirely within an endless possibility space whereas adventures are limited in our mind by their core concept.
I’m looking at a copy of Mausritter on my desk in front of me (a book I haven’t read yet), and it feels like it could contain huge swaths of possibility: tiny animal adventurers in a big fantasy world! Anything could be out there! Will we try to infiltrate a wizard’s tower in search of mystical cheese or fight off a massive owl attack on our nest? Do we need to migrate our families to a new nook in a woods across the river, or is there something new crawling up from deep below the earth?
Adventures on the other hand start limited because they are inherently just one (or a few, at most) of those possibilites I listed above. Yet the best adventures are focused on getting players to the table and actually engaging with a system far better than any system itself typically is so it’s an odd mental back-and-forth between the exciting possibility and the reality of playing the game. Actually playing and helping others do the same are the most exciting aspects of TTRPGs to me, but it’s that possibility space that sells copies, gets folks homebrewing, and more. I’d even argue that one of the primary appeals of more traditional systems like 5e is their possibility space — most people spend more time and energy on that then on the actual game.
Because I’m working to make MCGW into a sustainable, long-term job for myself, I have to keep in mind those market realities, but I also know that I didn’t make the jump to full-time to do work I’m not passionate about, and largely, I’m not passionate about systems, especially not when you get into the microgranularity between many games going for very similar experiences. I’m passionate about creating worlds, characters, places and unique circumstances for players to explore and to write them in such a way that aids GMs in bringing those elements to life at the table as easily as possible.
I am planning on Tacticians of Ahm becoming my One System. It feels unique enough to justify its existence alongside the rest of the games out there (it isn’t just another B/X house ruleset, for example), and it’s something I am passionate about supporting well into the future with adventures, supplements, etc. — the actual meat-and-potatoes of TTRPGS. Beyond that, I’ll work to create captivating adventures for whatever systems are exciting to me (or that I like generally and are solidly in vogue enough to get a lot of potential folks to grab my adventure).
In the end, I know that adventures/supplements are where my heart truly lies, and it’s where I think the most value is found for the most players so it’s certainly where I’m focusing overall, but I wonder how we as a “community” (a word I don’t love using because really I don’t think there is a true, large-scale TTRPG community, but moreso a collection of dozens or hundreds of small communities/tables) can shift some of our attention away from systems as the primary objects of value in the space and balance the scales a bit more in the favor of adventures.
NEW RELEASE
I recently released a new postcard game inspired by Andor and other tales of rebellion against an overwhelming oppressor! It’s a two-page, postcard-sized game designed for ~90 minute sessions that takes less than 10 minutes to learn! Collaboratively decide on your setting, the form of your oppression, the state of your rebellion and then make your rebels and strike back against the enemy! Your stats focus on why and how you do things, rather than what you do - giving an insight into the emotions and drive of the characters. Just $2 USD!
Get it on Itch.io HERE or DriveThruRPG HERE!
SHIRTS!
I’ve got SHIRTS now! Since unveiling the MCGW logo designed by Lone Archivist, I’ve had people asking me for shirts, and I finally got around to making them. I just got my test prints of them in, and they look and feel killer. You can grab them in two different designs RIGHT HERE.
If these do well enough, I have plans to add a few more designs in the future for both releases and including some cool one-off designs like the long lost MCGW logo!
MISSIVE EXCLUSIVE
Lophin - Part 2 is here with expanded location information and adventure seeds on either side of the interior gatefold spread. Grab the full resolution version HERE.
Part 3 will bring the back spread of the pamphlet with NPCs and items (as well as the front cover too). It’s my first time doing a gatefold so the design aspects are still a bit up in the air in my mind!
What do you want to see fleshed out further? An escalating timeline? NPC interactions? Adventure seeds for elsewhere on the planet?
MORE COOL STUFF!
My new adventure, The Tomb of Mother Vix, is included as a stretch goal for Guild: Sword and Magick for Hire by Disaster Tourism, a wonderful fantasy dungeon-delving game and framework for building your own world and setting on. It’s kickstarting RIGHT NOW with just 3 days left. We need less than $800 to get an additional zine including my adventure (and adventures from a load of other great folks) for ALL BACKERS. It’s a great deal, a rad game, and I’m really proud of this adventure!
You can back it HERE.
Speaking Of Guild, The Weekly Scroll recently had the game’s creator on to play through my adventure, The Tomb of Mother Vix. Spoilers for the adventure of course, but I had a blast seeing how this crew navigated the challenges hidden deep in the tomb of the Matriarch Everlasting.
I was on Read the Fucking Manual discussing Edge of the Empire - a game that several of us have really enjoyed in the past but going back to the book itself was really surprising (in some not so good ways)!
If you haven’t heard, a lot of folks are talking Sean McCoy’s recent challenge (dubbed #Dungeon23 around the web) and are working to build a megadungeon, megastation, megahexcrawl, etc. over 365 days. I started a bit early on mine because I couldn’t wait, but there’s still time to join the fun!
I have no idea if I’ll stick with this or if it will end up as something I pretty up and publish one day, but it’s definitely something I’ll be plugging away at a bit at a time every day for the next while. I haven’t created many fantasy dungeons (much less a megadungeon) so I’m using it as a learning opportunity and as a good excuse to research the classic dungeons in the space. Follow the Twitter thread above for my daily updates!
Al Smith and Evlyn Moreau recently put out a new Mothership pamphlet adventure! Check it out!
The Newsletter Ring (put together by Iko of The Lost Bay Studio) is about shedding light on some other great newsletters in the TTRPG space. My recommendation for this month is Sam Leigh’s BBG Digest! Sam made Anamnesis, does tremendous TikToks about indie TTRPGs and recently went over some upcoming projects, one of which I’m very excited about:
A multiplayer game about exploring and cataloging strange, eerie spaces. It’s primarily inspired by The Backrooms and Annihilation, and it’s definitely going to be my largest game yet. I’m extremely excited about this one - I think it’s the most fun I’ve had designing a game. Also, it uses a dictionary to play!
Check out Sam’s newsletter HERE!
That’s it for this month! 2023 will be MeatCastle GameWare’s biggest year yet and I’m excited to get to work on my next two big personal projects: Tacticians of Ahm and A Home in the Dark (for Mothership 1e)!
More on those next month (and beyond)!
— Christian
Power to people who find a lot of excitement in designing their own systems, but I really love a good adventure. Part of me wishes there was some kind of mythical TTRPG Rosetta Stone to make converting an adventure into your system of choice a snap -- it would make it so easy to focus less on whatever system/community/brand you're working with and more on just Getting Stuff Out There.