The Teetering Pile
The other day my wife asked me if I was afraid to be alone with my own thoughts. I’d been talking about not wanting to begin working around the house without my headphones. I don’t like silence, even when I go to bed I prefer to have music to focus on as I fall asleep. I’d never really thought about it before it’s just something I’ve had always done. It’s one of those habits you develop over time without really stopping to put any thought into why you’re so dedicated to it.
Whenever there is nothing to focus on and my mind is left to wander it doesn’t wander so much as start cataloguing the long list of things I have never finished. Each game, mechanic, story, and homebrew another thing atop a teetering pile of things I might never do. Instead I keep adding more and more to it and every moment of silence is a moment spent staring up at it waiting for it to topple over. Each addition meaning that much more work is needed to get through it all.
The obvious answer would be to sit down and start writing, start pulling things from the pile and getting them done. But sitting down to work means staring down the wobbly pile once more. It always feel like like a solution and more like jumping to the final steps of exposure therapy. However, it’s become clear that there is no other option than to begin working at it. For anyone reading this it probably seems like I am putting this post up as a way to excuse the inevitable frequency decline of my output. Maybe it’s a bit of that but I think it’s really just about writing it down somewhere just to get it out, to get it off the pile.
I posted on BlueSky about how crazy it is the OSR writers seem to output so much content. I received a great response sharing their blog post about about blogging (blogception!). They also recommended I get a small physical book to jot things down in. That book is now sitting on my nightstand and already has a few pages filled.
It seems like a good first step might be talking about the pile. Here’s what’s on it:
BREAK!! Adventure - This is my current sweetheart game. I ran an adventure of it that went really well. I think it would be fun to convert into a full pdf and share with the community.
PolyMon - A kid-friendly monster catching TTRPG built on the 9th Level Games Polymorph system. I would like to finish this, get some more art, and get it up on drivethrurpg and pdf and print.
GoZep Rally - A board game I’ve been sitting on for a while. Each player takes control of a team of goblins building and manning a zeppelin as they race through random terrain events and shoot each other trying to get to the finish first. It uses elevation in stead of health and it’s a no-knockout game so even if you crash you’re not out of the game.
30 Days of Mork Borg Book - I have Mork Borg content on my site for free. I would like to finish getting art done for it all and put it into a book for Kickstarter.
Voidfarers BRP - A TTRPG based on an in progress novel by my dear friend HerRareTales. This is a skills-based heroic space-fantasy game where custom ships and weapons can be built and magic is done on the fly with a simple system. It was submitted for the Basic Roleplaying Design Contest but did not make it through. It’s already 87 pages long, I don’t think it would take much to get it into playtest state and start pushing towards an actual release.
Voidfarers PbtA - A Powered by the Apocalypse version of the game. The universe is dying and there seems to be no way to stop it. It focuses on sci-fi tropes with playbooks that are doomed to perish. The question to be answered is how your characters will deal with that truth.
Lil Folk War - A travel war game focused on positioning and elevation. Choose an army based on American folk classics for kids like wolves, pigs, and sheep. Each army has only a handful of units and the battle areas are fold-out cards so you can play anywhere.
Hero City Defense Force Go - A One-Punch / My Hero Academia / Marvel inspired game where you play as spoof super heroes protecting a city from monsters. Monsters are drawn from a deck to destroy buildings and kill bystanders. You’ll need to take them down while there are still people watching to get the currency needed to by new powers. Powers are bought from a shared pool for all heroes. The trick is that the same resource you buy powers with is how you win the game. Can you get enough before you face a monster too strong to take down or do you focus on getting stronger so that you can beat whatever comes along?
5e Content Zine - I have homebrew 5e species and classes that I want to update, get art for, and get into a zine or something.
