An Ashcan edition is now available for free download, if anyone would like to take a look
What are you working on right now?
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I am working on Paris Gondo - The Life-Saving Magic of Inventorying.
The Elevator Pitch
a storytelling GM-less game for 3 to 6 players, designed to be played in a few hours with polyhedral dice and no preparation. This game is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to encumbrance rules and tropes commonly found in our beloved dungeon-crawling tabletop roleplaying games…
…through the lens of contemporary wellbeing influencers, thanks to the fictional character of Paris Gondo.
Why you’re excited about it
Well, it is the first-ever game that I am designing and trying to publish.
Also, I will attend (virtually) Origins for the first time to run many sessions of this game which is exciting and a bit scary too.
What your hopes are in relation to it
I hope that I’ll continue to find people willing to try it and that the game will inspire enthusiasm with more of them (I already ran 10 sessions).
Beyond that, I hope to publish a Quickstart PDF ahead of Dragonmeet at the end of the year and then a year later to launch a Kickstarter campaign.
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I’d like to introduce my current project: Agents in the Sky
The elevator pitch
Agents in the Sky is about specialized agents on world-wide missions with an airborne base-station (like in Agents of SHIELD).
Why you’re excited about it
It’s building on ideas I’ve been developing for over 6 years, including feedback by numerous playtesters and several game designers. It brings together all of my favorite ways of playing.
It comes in two flavors:
- Simple Play: rules-light spy action for i.e. one-shots.
- Deep Play: GM-less campaign-play with addition of relationship drama and character development.
There is also a designated subsystem for investigative plots.
What your hopes are in relation to it
The Simple Play variation should be very accessible and fun.
Especially the Deep Play style brings together Jeepform/Freeform style GMless indie play and deeper, open-ended campaign play. I haven’t seen anything like this and would like the world to experience it.
My wish is that a lot of people play it, love it and hack the hell out of it.
Here is a sneak preview of the Google Online Play Aids.
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I’ve made an OSR-cloneish thingy - The Bad-Ass Basic RPG
ELEVATOR PITCH
I wanted to make a game that uses the familiar rules structure of BX/BECMI but instead of leaning into the traditional OSR exploration/wealth acquisition structure, make something that focuses more on epic/heroic adventure.
The thing I love most about OSR rulesets isn’t morale or xp for gold or resource management. It’s the simplicity, speed, and the “you can do anything” openness created by the paucity of rules. I wanted a game with those aspects that was focused more on saving villages than scouring ruins for treasure.
I wanted something that could contain all the rules you need in a few printed handouts (inspired by PbtA games); something that doesn’t require confronting new players with thick rule books full of options. “Here’s your character sheet - make these two choices and roll your stats”…that’s what I was going for.
I also got rid of some setting assumptions being part of the core rules that I think can end up being problematic - namely race and religion. Not that those things don’t have a place in some fantasy settings, but I don’t think they should be required/assumed.
WHY I’M EXCITED ABOUT IT
I like it. It’s what I’m using to run OSR material. It’s the closest thing to “my ideal version of D&D” that’s out there.
HOPES?
That someone else out there gets use/enjoyment out of it. It’s free, and its functional. In an ideal world, the next time I see a thread somewhere about, “What OSR clone/system should I use?” somebody mentions this as an option and I get my ego stroked.
Anyway, check it out 
2 Likes
I’m currently cooking something up for the Eclectic Bastionland Game Jam
Elevator Pitch: Gonna not spill the beans on that yet.
Why I’m Excited About It: It looks like I’m actually gonna finish a thing for a change.
Hopes: That people will find it fun and be able to use it 
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MERCHANT IN RED ZONE
The elevator pitch: OSR space adventure where Hornblower-in-space meets Rogue Trader meets Heavy Metal comics.
Why you’re excited about it: It started out as an idea of some sort of forgotten French comic book space adventure now getting an RPG adaptation. So I made a cover and started writing.
And it is pretty pleasurable thing to write. The very lose concept lets me write what interests me in the moment. And I’m selling a beta through DriveThruRPG, it comes with an invitation to join my group on Facebook to vote on what I should write next. I get a very direct feedback loop with the customers/fans.
I took Knave as a base for the further development as I did for Kuf two years ago. A quick and easy way to get a solid base, now I can add subsystems and extend the mechanics and setting more or less at random and it will still be mostly playable. I haven’t played a single session of it myself, but I have gotten a couple of play reports already.
What your hopes are in relation to it: To sell 90 copies. To play a campaign of five or more sessions online. To buy pretty art to decorate the pages.
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Checkpoint Midnight
The elevator pitch: Supernatural operatives running high-stakes missions and juggling loyalties in the shadows of Cold War Vienna.
Why you’re excited about it: It’s a PbtA game with a really specific premise and setting (The Third Man meets Hellboy/BPRD!) that has sparked a lot of imaginative engagement from playtesters. I love getting to build my own take on historical urban fantasy (with spycraft as its distinctive flavor) and I like focusing on weirder folkloric sources—no vampires or Cthulhu here, but you can play as a rusalka assassin or a gorgon racketeer or a matagot masterthief.
What your hopes are in relation to it: I’ve gotten some interest from publishers, so I am hoping to seal the deal and see this published and distributed as a physical game book that gets some traction in the indie scene.
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PTA: Independent Productions
The elevator pitch: GMless hack and expansion of Primetime Adventures 3rd edition.
Why you’re excited about it: it takes one of my favourite storygames and cuts out the most underwhelming part of it - largely disengaged and passive role of the Producer - while making a few extra adjustments and adding a handful of neat features, like Episode Themes or scenes focusing on side characters and Issues of the setting.
In the first 4 sessions of playtesting it’s been engaging for all participants (including those who GM rarely or not at all).
What your hopes are in relation to it: reach a handful of people with it and either peak or rekindle their interest in PTA while, hopefully, improving their experience with the game through my hack.
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My Friend and I
Elevator Pitch: My Friend and I is a game of asymmetrical buddy stories, where a mundane person and a powerful being must team up to accomplish something incredible.
What I’m excited about: Pulling from stories as varied as The Iron Giant, Pokémon, Dr. Who, Persona, or His Dark Materials, the structure focuses on the tension in their relationship and less on external tensions. The game explores how two very different people react when forced into the same situations.
What I hope to get out of it: This game is getting published, even if I have to do all the publishing myself. Probably going to use this as Kickstarter practice if we get that far.
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Sounds neat! I started on a Iron Giant / Encounters of a 3rd Kind / ET / Arrival / The Day the Earth Stood Still game last year before I put it on hold. My game was more focused on how the Us vs. Them dynamic changes when individuals from both sides meet one on one. I think this is a great source of relatively untapped source of rpgs.
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Strange Days
The elevator pitch: Small town, weird mystery, and character melodrama. Essentially, stories tied together by a mystery where the real importance is the characters. Inspired by Life is Strange, Night in the Woods, Twin Peaks, Riverdale, Sharp Objects, etc.
Why you’re excited about it: I’ve seen lots of games try to tackle this genre, but none focus on what I like most about these stories. Monsterhearts can do this, but not for stories that aren’t about monsters or teenagers. Monster of the Week can do small town/weird mystery, but it’s about fighting the monsters, whereas I’m more interested in the surreal horror you can’t fight. Other horror games can capture that element of the story, but I don’t want to restrict these types of stories to horror-only. Several GM-less story games tackle similar themes, but aren’t built for campaign play.
Strange Days is focused on providing (1) small town dynamics, where characters must live under the knowledge that they are always watched and people have opinions of them, (2) character (melo)drama, where the emotional focus is about the complex relationship webs between our player characters, and (3) a surreal mystery, gradually built collaboratively, that ties a supernatural horror to a “real-world” incident.
What your hopes are in relation to it: I see a lot of interest in emulating these kinds of stories for campaign play, but everything skews either too much towards horror or too much towards fighting the monsters. I hope people can play short campaigns about their characters, with the mystery and horror mostly serving to further those character relationships and dynamics.
I’m still in the early phases, but I have a version that I think can undergo some playtesting, so I’m looking forward to getting into that in the next few months.
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Initial writing and initial layout for Convocation Prime, my Pokémon-like Anima Prime hack, is complete.
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I’ve been working on a Storytelling/Roleplay framework for around a year now called ACTS.
The elevator pitch: A group of players and their GM The Maestro create a setting and characters together and play out a story over 3 sessions (ACTS). Gameplay is simple, fast, and allows for a lot of creativity.
Why you’re excited about it: Its the first game i have put serious effort into designing! It Brings a really theatrical flair to roleplay and allows for a lot of player freedom. I wanted to try to make something that would be easy to pick up and play for GM’s and players who want to tell short stories in a variety of settings and Genre’s.
What your hopes are in relation to it: I’m not really sure. Right now i’m finishing it up to be ready for a small play test for when my friends can meet in person again. I would like to see it used to play some unique and fun horror games.
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I´m working on a narrative, GM-less roleplaying game inspired by Thomas Manns novel “The Magic Mountain”.
Elevator pitch: You play a character with tuberculosis (or pretending to have tuberculosis) at the beginning of the 20th century. You´re character is a patient in a noble, swiss mountain sanatorium, trying to get back his health, interacting with other affluent patients, doctors, staff and residents. Over time it becomes evident, that something exerts a dominating influence on the patients. Once arrived, it is not easy to leave the place.
Why I´m excited about it: In the novel, time is increasingly slipping through the fingers of the protagonists. I hope to make for something similar in my game. My theme is the bare “time is passing” - nevertheless, I´m aiming for a game experience of impotence that is interesting to cope with.
What are my hopes in relation to it: The game lasts perhaps 3 through 7 sessions. I´ve found a group for a playing test. Next step: Playing a complete game and writing a game report. Let´s see, what will happen.
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I’m doing game design by bounty for the game Marchand en Zone Rouge, a sci-fi Knave hack. Every time someone buys it I write another 300 words. People vote on what I should write next in a Facebook group. But after an initial 35 sales or so the stream dried up. So now it is on hold, waiting for another sale.
I got bored waiting, so I took the Kuf M/77 cover that I had made up a year ago but never wrote a word for, and started writing a game to go with it. So far it’s pretty much just the rule books for Gnostic horror RPG Kuf pasted into the relevant sections of the cyberpunk game Cyber M/77, to make some sort of future horror game mashup.
I’ll tidy up the mix, replace some examples with ones more fitting the new setting and so on, and call it a day.
Elevator pitch: Kuf M/77 is an RPG of recycled material from my previous games. Where I’m going for Gnostic horror like KULT, mixed with the dark 80s future of Cyberpunk 2020, played with OSR rules like Knave.
Why I’m excited about it: I like cyberpunk. I like writing games. The cover sparks joy in me.
What are my hopes in relation to it: To get it done some day. To write short form cyberpunk fiction. Maybe to run a campaign for my home group. If I publish, that it sells enough to break even if I buy some art to go with it.
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A friend and I have been working on a game for the 2020 Folklore Jam that, now we’ve done a couple of playtests, I’m pretty happy with.
The elevator pitch: This game turns a nice walk with your friends into the story of a group going to take part in an old community rite.
Why you’re excited about it: It is simple to pick up and in our playtests it has created some fun stories. I feel as though it could reach outside of the traditional story game audience if it got the opportunity.
What your hopes are in relation to it: I’d love to see some people involved in landscape writing pick up in it, I think it could be a lot of fun for families or groups of friends who like to go hiking together. Given that it’s based on a series of question cards, I’m tempted to try making it into a simple mobile app, which would be easily done and might give it the opportunity to reach a lot more people.
Edited to add: We got it finished, you can now play The Hallowed Walk - I’m very proud of the thing we have created, it’s fun and easy to pick up and makes going for a walk into a different kind of experience.
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Finally getting back to some writing and edits for Dark Well since workshopping it at a couple of conventions in 2019.
Elevator Pitch: Science-Fantasy Conspiracy Thriller Tabletop RPG
Why I’m Excited About It: The feedback from both Forge Midwest and Metatopia was great. The edits feel helpful in making it a better game to run.
Hopes: To share my current ugly version with people to review for high-level feedback; to run the game a lot more to validate what’s working and what’s not.
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I’ve been working on Mavite for a while now…it was born as homemade class with gameish mechanics for one of my sessions. Almost 2 years later, it’s steadily taking form
The elevator pitch: Players are some of the very rare sorcerers in a post-apocalyptic world where magic is bound to every creature. Think of mix of rare bender Avatar, dangerous Pokemon, non-barren-and-non-technology Mad Max.
Why you’re excited about it: It handles magic in a really free-form way;
level up is element-based, so the more you use a element, the better you are at it;
level up unlock news uses or new elements, that no one at the table can pick again;
inevitably the magic will try to corrupt and twist your body and nature
What your hopes are in relation to it: I really hope people enjoy it because i’m definitely enjoying making it
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I’m working on the first official sourcebook for Cryptomancer and working on getting Reclaimer into a finished product before I relaunch the Kickstarter.
The elevator pitch: The TL;DR on Reclaimer is that it’s basically Eco-Halo or Eco-Destiny, where you’re fighting Musk/Bezos oligarchs trying to trash the Earth and usurp it’s last resources (and last chance at preventing climate apocalypse) before fleeing to space in a generation ship for the 1%. I launched it a while back and despite being pretty sweet (IMHO), it dealt with a number of PR disasters including an artist who erroneously thought (edited) images on Instragram were public domain as well as an extremely cynical attack I’d rather not get into here. I ultimately had to cancel it (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2089483951/reclaimer/posts/2658346) but I’m super stoked it’s going to come roaring back.
Why you’re excited about it: I think Reclaimer has a ton of innovations, thanks to stealing the best mechanics (and adapting or ignoring the worst mechanics) of my previous work. But more importantly, as a PDF-only product, me and my partners on this project are really trying to push the envelope in terms of what’s possible with an Interactive PDF and a focus on online play. We’re really hoping to legitimately change how people interface with tabletop RPGs. Lofty, yeah, but whatever… nothing to lose by trying (other than backers or whatever). We’re also excited to subvert the tried-and-true “gamer genre” of military science fiction to create a sense of interest and urgency regarding environmental issues.
What your hopes are in relation to it: At this point in my RPG design journey, really all I can hope for as that people like (or dislike) Reclaimer for what it is, and not demand that I defend a strawman of what it’s not. Basically, the game is definitely not a practical guide to contemporary environmental resistance by any means. It’s firmly of the “military science fiction” genre, and while the players play specialists fighting for an organization that does biome healing, carbon sequestration, managing permaculture farms, and resuscitating near-extinct species, that’s not what they players do. Don’t get me wrong… I’d totally play a game about all those things. It’s just not the game we’re making, that’s all.
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