Gamers Esoteric

Sunday, August 9, 2026

Prompt #9 for #RPGaDay2026

Privilege

Privileges in a TTRPG are strange. I've actually encountered a GM at a table once who had some weird vendetta against me. I'm not sure if she felt like I was expecting some kind of privilege because I was dating her friend, so she made it her top priority to ensure I didn't want to keep playing. Kind of funny, that one — because in the end, she was creating her own privilege against me.

There are countless times I've come across someone talking about a GM from hell, or fellow table-mates who decided they were going to take matters into their own hands. These are prime examples of people wielding privilege when, in the end, they're simply ruining the fun for everyone else around them. I think it's worth naming the split here: GM privilege tends to look like power-tripping, so using the position to control or punish rather than facilitate. Player privilege tends to look like spotlight-hogging, main-character syndrome, or needing every scene to revolve around them.

I aim to create a high-trust kind of setting, where I as the GM build the world and provide the information, then wait for my players to decide what to do with it. In practice, that means session zero isn't just a formality — it's where we actually talk through expectations, boundaries, and what everyone wants out of the game. It means if something's not landing, I'd rather someone tell me than quietly grit their teeth through it. That trust goes both ways, and it's what keeps the table from turning into the kind of horror stories I mentioned above.

That said, I have had a player in the past who seemed to partake in a subtle form of privilege. I could even call it main-character syndrome. That got shut down relatively quickly, and he hasn't returned for any further games.

Other than that, I haven't really encountered anyone at a table who expected privilege in a game. Most of my players have been really into the game at hand, wanting more lore and consistently providing feedback. I guess if anything, I have a sense of privilege because of my amazing playtesters. Maybe the only privilege worth having at a table is a good group.

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Saturday, August 8, 2026

Prompt #8 for #RPGaDay2026

Resolve

I think this is probably one of the better prompts I've encountered so far for #RPGaDay2026. My resolve, as a game developer, finally kicked in late last year. I graduated with a Bachelor's in Game Design and Development back in 2016 and haven't really done anything with it since. Yesterday's post touched on part of the reason I decided to pursue this TTRPG, but it goes a bit further than that. I really want to make this game. It's been with me for over 16 years, and I genuinely want to do it now. It's almost a need at this point.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what kicked it back into gear this time. Part of it was playtesters in my community asking me for another TTRPG campaign — I wanted to work on my own game instead, so I decided to combine the two. There's also the degree sitting there. I got a Bachelor's in Game Design and Development and haven't used it for much of anything since. I don't want to look back and feel like I wasted the time and money on it. And, well — yay games. I like making and playing them. So let me go over my resolve for 2026 and my game.

I originally started thinking about how to develop this game toward the end of 2025. I decided January would be the starting point for creating creatures for my bestiary. That's where the idea for Bestiary 52 came from — one creature a week, 52 weeks a year. It gets me creating a creature for my game, gets me incorporating them into my playtesters' games, and it gets me developing things. By March, I wanted my TTRPG actually running in FoundryVTT. I'd looked into making modules before and it seemed pretty easy. Turns out they're semi-easy but also hard to work out. I've been doing a decent job so far and have made a handful of modules on top of the core system. This will give me a solid framework to turn this TTRPG into a video game later down the road — get the bugs out, make things easy to grow later.

By June, I wanted to start being a bit more open about my game on various social media platforms, as well as start looking for more potential playtesters. Unfortunately, I got delayed a little and am just now getting around to it. I started my social media expansion back around July and started looking to others in my community to see if any new interest sparked. Alas, none — so the core group of five continues. I'm hoping by late October/early November I can start wrapping up a solid "preview" of my game. There won't be a published version for the rest of FoundryVTT to try, because honestly I'm just using it to test out my video game preview. If there was enough interest for a release, I might consider it — I don't know. By December, I'll have a solid preview of my creatures. I'm aiming for a decent collection of them, possibly for a future publication, but I have no idea if that'll even happen.

That core group of five has stuck with me through all of this, and I owe them a lot for it. This game wouldn't be nearly as far along without their willingness to test and give feedback.

That's been my resolve — not just a decision I made once, but one I've had to rebuild after years of letting it sit untouched.

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Friday, August 7, 2026

Prompt #7 for #RPGaDay2026

Mercy

Over the years, I've read some great stories about countless adventures from people who played a TTRPG — only to encounter a horrible GM. The ones who are merciless, who seem to aim to hurt and punish their own table. I can't fathom that kind of gameplay, but to each their own.

I'm a firm believer that actions have consequences, but I don't want to kill my players' characters because of a GM's power trip. That said, I'm not one to coddle my table either. My players have learned that if I say certain phrases — like "are you sure about that?" — or if I start giggling, the choice they just made has about a 50/50 shot of being a bad idea.

In my game world, every action carries some kind of consequence, great or small. If a player refuses to help someone in need, that choice matters later. Maybe that someone was the local merchant's daughter and once the merchant finds out his daughter went unhelped, he stops selling to that player.

A better example: befriending a Calamivox Ingratus. During the initial expedition, one player from each group extended a hand to a lone C. Ingratus, much to their teammates' dismay. A C. Ingratus is essentially a sentient, long Furby and yes, plenty of people would call that nightmare fuel. But it's also one of the best companions a player can find early in the game. Honestly, I expected one of the groups to attack it and escalate things into something far more hostile. Instead, both players chose compassion, and going forward, my players will learn that a C. Ingratus is worth befriending: show it kindness, and it returns the favor — finding hidden caches, safe corridors, and more. Mercy goes a long way in this game.

Just because my setting is post-apocalyptic/dark fantasy/survival horror doesn't mean I, as GM, am out to murder my whole table. Like the C. Ingratus, compassion and forgiveness can pay off down the road. You know, mercy.

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Thursday, August 6, 2026

Prompt #6 for #RPGaDay2026

Reach

Reach is something I'm sure all game developers want for their passion project. I'm no different. This game of mine has been with me since 2010, and it has slowly grown and evolved over the past 16 years. Only this year did I decide to actually put more effort into making it a reality, and I think I decided a little too late.

A few prompt entries back, the word was Charm, and I mentioned that I lack that — this ties into the same idea. To reach others, a developer needs some sort of network: friends, family, coworkers, etc. When I originally had the idea for REDACTED (name's a surprise for closer to release), I didn't have many friends, and none of my coworkers played games. Just the industry I was in at the time, so I wasn't expecting any miracles there. Fast forward to 2023, and I'd built a small community of like-minded friends who play the types of games I do. A handful of them turned out to be into TTRPGs and talked me into running a few campaigns for them — some hits, some misses, but enough to prove the group had staying power.

What stuck with me afterward was a residual feeling from one campaign in particular. My players kept bringing it up, even asking if we'd run something like it again. Towards the end of last year, I decided I should do something with that energy. I wanted to build my game, but I also wanted to keep playing with my friends — and I didn't have time for both. Then I remembered a lesson from my first Game Design class: if you want to make a good video game, test it as a board game first. That's when it clicked — build my game, but do it as a TTRPG with the friends I already had.

It made sense at the time, and it still makes sense 8 months later. I'm building a video game via a TTRPG with my friends as playtesters. Now I've decided to share that process on social media, hoping to reach more people who want to join in. The platforms I've picked to share my world are a hit or miss with the reach aspect.

Patreon contains part of the information for my weekly creature bestiary
Ko-fi contains the other part of the weekly creature bestiary
Itch.io is new and currently gets a crosspost of my Dev Logs from this website
Gamersesoteric.com is my main portfolio site, which is now repurposed to provide others a play-by-play for my game dev journey on REDACTED
Byte Vorex gets crossposts from the free part of my Patreon's weekly bestiary
Discord gets crossposts from my Ko-fi entries
Mastodon gets creatures blurbs for the weekly creature bestiary
Twitch has a subtle call to action graphic and a BRB screen that shares excerpts from my weekly creatures

Most of these platforms haven't given me much of a reach so far, but I kind of expected it. I've gained a few unknowns on Patreon, few interactions on Mastodon, way more hits on this website than I have in the past, and that's about it. I won't post to some places because either it's an experience I'm not willing to deal with (Reddit is a great example of this) or it has an audience that isn't for me (TikTok is also a great example of this). I'm not against others talking about my creations on those platforms, but I personally don't have the mindset to handle those platforms.

But reach, for me, isn't just about eyeballs. I'm not trying to build an audience — I'm trying to find people who want to help shape REDACTED with me. Every playtester, every person who comments on a bestiary entry with their own idea, is worth more than a hundred silent follows. That's part of why the low numbers don't discourage me as much as they probably should.

I'll admit I'm a little hesitant about opening my community up to the public — I did that once before and it didn't go well. Lessons were learned, and more safeguards are in place this time. Back when hate raiding was new and rampant on Twitch, I had my Discord link posted on my Twitch page. People with poor intentions joined my community, spammed a lot of bad things in numerous Discord channels, then harassed me in my voice channel. They then went after my Twitch chat itself, hate following me and calling me all sorts of things. I'm not new to harassment and bullying, but it did hurt all the same. I removed my Discord channel and won't give it out to anyone unless there has been a few solid interactions. If a join link does happen that I'm unaware of, which is perfectly fine and I encourage my community to invite their friends, there has to be someone who vets for them. Until they get that vetting, they have very limited access to everything.

Sixteen years is a long time to sit with an idea, and I've learned reach isn't something that happens in a single post or a single platform push. It's closer to what happened with that homebrew campaign — something people remember and come back to, months later, unprompted. That's the kind of reach I actually want: not a spike, but something that sticks.

So this is me, reaching out to the rest of the internet, looking for more people who want to join my world and the progress along the way.

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Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Prompt #5 for #RPGaDay2026

Burden

For today's word, I want to talk about the main theme, aka the gist, of my world.

Nobody in my world got the whole truth, and nobody gets power for free.

Something happened to our world. The once shared, singular version of reality broke, and it turned our world upside down. In the scramble that followed, people reached for whatever they thought would keep them alive and only through trial and error did they learn what those choices actually cost them.

One of my core mechanics is built entirely around that idea. It's a resource every player carries, and it's meant to be the thing that gets you through a fight you'd otherwise lose —for a price. Right now, at the table, my players are still in the "hey, this is cool, what does it do" phase. Not one of them has really pushed it far enough to find out what it costs yet. A binder in my group decided to bind a creature to her pants mid-session and nothing bad happened. A mediator talked a Digosfrag into just...leaving them alone. Both were very confident in their decisions because both were very low on stakes so far. That's on me though. I haven't finished tuning the abilities to explain what happens when someone leans too hard into it. This is exactly what the next expeditions are designed to do.

But the bestiary already knows what it looks like on the other side of that line. Take the Cockatrice Effigial from a few weeks back. Its petrification gaze only fires when it's cornered and completely out of options. It can't control when it happens, and every account of it happening shows the creature just as wrecked afterwards as whoever it hit. My players haven't gotten there yet. Their characters for sure will.

That's the burden this world runs on and it's coming for all of them eventually.

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Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Prompt #4 for #RPGaDay2026

Charm

When I saw today's #RPGaDay2026 prompt was charm, I laughed, scratched my head, and sat here thinking about it. You see, I'm not a very charming person in real life. I'm a very forgettable person with the personality of a rock. This prompt gave me some thinking to do from a game developer's perspective.

The longer I've worked on building my game, the more I've realized that charm and charisma aren't exactly the same thing, and that's an important distinction to make during game development — especially for a TTRPG like mine.

For a game developer, charm is the quality that makes someone want to keep poking at the world after the mechanics have already made sense. It's those strange details that stick around in your head after you've closed the computer down or left the gaming table. It could be the abandoned festival grounds where brass bells still ring in the wind, or the creature that watches the party leave and looks satisfied. That's charm to me and the world I'm creating.

Making my world feel believable, alive, even livable, is the goal. I'm chasing that every time I write a bestiary entry, plan the next expedition for my players, or design the maps they'll be playing on. Most of my creature designs come from what I call "waking dreams." If you've checked out any of them, you're probably going to ask if I'm okay. For me, these creatures feel almost as real as anything else when I encounter them. They're vivid, and they stick with me. Take the creature from a few bestiary entries back — it waits there, motionless until a player makes the first move. I take notes, write descriptions, build lore and situations that end up translating into the game world. Luckily I'm a horror fan, so most of these turn out cute or adorable to me somehow. Don't ask me to explain that one. If you've ever caught one of my streams and just chatted with me about my interests, you'd probably get it pretty quickly — there's even an old room tour video buried on one of my YouTube channels that gives a glimpse into it.

I want my game to feel like it existed before players arrived and that it keeps thriving after they leave. If it has any charm at all, it won't come from smooth dialogue or clever one-liners. It'll come from curiosity — that moment when a player connects two seemingly unrelated pieces of lore and realizes the world runs a lot deeper than they thought.  I've already watched this happen at the table — one player stopped mid-session just to ask how a piece of the world's lore actually worked. That kind of genuine curiosity is exactly what I'm chasing.

That's a kind of charm even a rock can aspire to.

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Monday, August 3, 2026

Prompt #3 for #RPGaDay2026

Poise

This word brings a fun topic to today's post. Poise deals with balance and equilibrium. As a game developer, this is one of the biggest focal points for my TTRPG — and honestly, for just about everything I do in general.

Technically I could roll straight out of yesterday's post about stature, since I was already dabbling into playtester classes there. But I won't. Instead I want to talk about how I'm approaching the whole balancing-abilities-without-breaking-things problem. Especially since I have between 7 and 9 abilities per class, and 27 classes total.

Yes, I know that's a lot of classes. But it makes sense, I promise.

I have three general categories I call "archetypes." Each one contains 9 classes, each unique in what it can do. I kind of hate games where you pick a class and get locked into one particular aspect of it, so this is my workaround. Look at World of Warcraft — why do I have to be stuck as Alliance if I want to roll a Night Elf? Why can't I roll a Troll Druid? (Yes, I played back before Cataclysm hit.) Same energy from Lineage 2, Black Desert Online, the list goes on. I don't like that feeling of constraint. So in my world, you pick what kind of class you want to play, and then find which archetype fits your style — or you flip it and start with the archetype and find your class from there. A good example is a Zerker, a Monk, and a Warrior. All three of them are in different archetypes, yet all three are mainly some form of melee or unarmed combat. The Zerker uses aether to summon weapons from their tattoos, the Monk uses traditional unarmed combat, while the Warrior uses technological enhancements to "level" the playing field.

That's the real reason behind 27 classes. In practice it's more like 9 classes with slight variances and similar results, each one reflected across all three archetypes. Because balancing.

Yesterday's post already had me admitting I haven't had much time to actually sit down and balance abilities within the classes. Once the next round of expeditions starts (this week, actually!) I'll be finessing that a lot more. Right now each class runs 7 to 9 abilities, split across different types: core, passive, risk, and some classes even have capstones. Thankfully I only have 5 playtesters right now and none of them overlap with each other. I do have a few clustered around the same archetype though, so that might make my life easier or harder. Not sure yet. I'll figure it out when it happens. I'm also fairly sure the ability-balancing process is going to end up as its own dev log eventually, especially since I'm building all of this into FoundryVTT to keep gameplay running smoothly and take some of the manual load off myself. Funny how the same instinct that keeps 27 classes from turning into 27 wildly unbalanced power fantasies is the same one keeping me upright the rest of the week.

Speaking of equilibrium — as a solo game developer, I have to pick and choose when, what, and where I do things. Outside of the game dev, I stream 4 hours a day, 4 times a week over on Twitch. Just celebrated 6 years, and I'm always chipping away at improving the setup and automation bit by bit. If you want the technical side of that (the actual implementation stuff) that lives over on Byte Vortex.

Then there's the dreaded household chores (yay, adulting), plant mom duties, dog mom duties, and then the hobbies.

Dear god, my hobbies are vast. I've had ADHD since I was a little kid, so if you know anything about hobbies and ADHD, you already know my struggle keeping equilibrium. I do amigurumi for my Sunday vending here in Mexico, plus sewing, robotics/electronics, modeling, reading, and writing/blogging — and I'm probably still forgetting a few. Finding poise across any of that is a fight with myself pretty much daily. I do my best, and that's about the best I can offer. I'm glad I've mostly learned how to live with myself and still get things done. Might not be on the schedule I'd like, but at least I've made peace with that.

This week especially is going to be a good example of poise: new expeditions kicking off, playtesters diving in to new territory, weekly schedules, the works. Poise isn't a nice idea anymore. It's the job and it's worth doing.

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