Gamers Esoteric

Thursday, August 13, 2026

Prompt #13 for #RPGaDay2026

Strain

Now this is an interesting topic for discussion.

Overall, I never want to cause any kind of strain on my players. Real life is a thing, and I understand and respect the limitations it places on others. As for any game that I GM, player characters are definitely up for the various tests I put them through. I mean, what’s the point if you don’t test the limits of a fictional character? Obviously there are limits, but I’m not a GM who is out to TPK or punish my players.

As for my own TTRPG, strain is kind of implied since it is partially a survival horror. My playtesters understand that and are honestly itching to test the limitations of the world I’m building. Since the game is designed in a way that resembles an extraction shooter, for lack of a better term, if a player’s character dies they can just reroll and join the next expedition.

Obviously I don’t want characters dying to anything and everything, but I do need players to strain their characters at times. Given that this game is still very fresh in development, I ask my players to test things, ensure that actions work, methods flow, and that gameplay is seamless. At least as much as possible within my abilities. After each session, I ask for suggestions, and we often discuss the best options to try during the next playtest.

I think the next set of expeditions they venture out on will be a good example of strain. That's where the abilities will come into play. Sadly, I had to postpone my playtest sessions for this entire month because of some real-life events (good ones!) that ended up consuming several weekends. Like, I had to completely redo my monthly events over in my Discord. Also, middle and end of August tends to get hectic for some people due to classes starting up and having to adjust to new schedules.

I guess balancing the time needed for TTRPG sessions with everything else life throws at us is the real strain. It’s worth it, though.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Prompt #12 for #RPGaDay2026

Loss

As a TTRPG player, I've never really encountered anything that deemed an emotional reaction for the loss of something in the fictional world. As a GM, it's even more apparent. What I can discuss, though, is the loss of progress in developing anything.

When I created a game for one of my classes that dealt with AI and the game Connect 4, I learned my lesson the hard way. I had the game saved, and I thought it was saved elsewhere too — on CDs, on other hard drives. After I switched from Visual Studio 10 to Visual Studio 16, I did something really stupid. It was so stupid, I ruined my game. I couldn't revert it, either. I spent years looking for the original, and I still haven't found it. It was a really good demonstration of deep search, always ensuring it chose the best possible move. I won the semester competition with it and didn't have to take the final for that class. I miss it a lot. I've found bits and pieces of it while searching through old folders, but nothing like the entire project.

That loss is exactly why I do so many things with a project when it comes to saving. When I was going through university for my BA in Game Design and Development, I encountered a lot of issues. Not with the curriculum or the assignments, but with my computer itself. That was probably the first time I ever learned to make back-ups of your back-ups. You might think I'm joking about this, but let me tell you, I'm not. This is where I learned about versioning from my professors.

I've got versions of my game and pretty much anything I work on that deals with programming. Each has a format similar to v1.0, where the 1 changes with every major rework or milestone hit, while the 0 tends to be minor fixes. To accompany this, I keep a changelog where everything that changed gets written down. There have been points in time where I've misplaced a version or a changelog, mostly when cleaning up disc space (I like to keep it tidy, and sometimes I get lazy). After a while, I chuck everything into a zipped folder and write it to a CD. Yes, I know, I still have a CD burner. Crazy, but I'm paranoid and don't trust my computer wholeheartedly. I've also compiled milestones into a zipped folder on my NAS, and current projects that are getting active work get backed up to a USB.

You might think this is overkill, and it might seem like it, but I've encountered real losses in projects I've worked on — the Connect 4 game being the biggest one.

Loss is a funny thing, though. It got me to version my projects, make back-ups of my back-ups, and to never take things for granted on a computer. It made me a better game developer. Maybe that's the closest I get to an emotional loss in this hobby — losing the making, not the world.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Prompt #11 for #RPGaDay2026

Tact

I'll be honest right here and now: I lack this trait as a person. There are times where I understand that I should say or do something about a difficult situation, so I do my best at applying tact, but most of the time I think it comes across as awkward. This post isn't about that though. It should be about my lens as a game developer, developing my TTRPG.

One of my core rules at any table is to leave the other life behind. That probably sounds a little harsh, but it is essentially the same as "leave your baggage at the door". When you come to a table of mine, I don't want you to bring those worries into that fictional world. The entire point of a game table is to get lost in another world, having fun with others while playing a game. If you're bringing a plethora of snags while trying to figure out the best course of action for something in-game, then maybe you should sit that one out.

I'm all for listening to people and their problems. Most of the time I won't remember them because I've got ADHD, but I do know that just having someone to talk to about life's worries is a great thing. Thankfully I've never had to address this kind of situation at a table. There were a few instances where a player exerted their main-character-syndrome onto the table, but I just called them out on it. I don't have time to beat around the bush for things like that. My players are adults and I expect them to act like one — so if they need to excuse themselves for a session or more, that's okay. I know that life isn't fair nor easy, and that it can get very hard pretty quickly.

Practice more tact. I know I need to, and I'm working on it slowly.

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Monday, August 10, 2026

Prompt #10 for #RPGaDay2026

Secret

This is going to be a good one to talk about. Secrets are something everyone has, whether they want to admit it or not. In turn, I'm keeping a lot of my game's lore, mechanics, math, aesthetics, dynamics, etc. under lock and key, so to speak. I wouldn't say it's paranoia that's driving me to keep so much secret, rather it's more that I want the mystery and surprise saved for much later.

Right now, I'm openly talking about some aspects of my game, like creatures, some of the mechanics behind building FoundryVTT modules, and how I'm approaching things with my knowledge of game design. I think I've even mentioned a few classes in a couple of posts by now. There's still a lot I haven't talked about — some of it because it's being held for later, and some because I simply haven't worked it out yet. For example, I haven't said much about the classes beyond the fact that I have 27 of them, 3 archetypes that encompass 9 classes each, and a canonical pipeline that helps my playtesters figure out which class they want to play. I haven't shared that last piece because it's literally built to kick off the character creation process. Closer to reveal time, it'll definitely be out there — there are still some parts I need to iron out since I've changed a few things.

My bestiary obviously isn't much of a secret. I've been sharing my creature creations every week across all sorts of platforms. There's a lot of lore in them I don't share though, like the mechanical math breakdowns and other underlying details. If you're a Patron of mine, you do get some access to the skills and abilities, mostly for discussion and, eventually, incorporating some loose math. The only place you can really get a feel for it is in the game itself. I'm pretty open with my playtesters about what I'm working on, since they're literally my feedback loop. Most of my creatures haven't been field-tested yet — my newest expeditions are the first real test beds for some of them. The previous expedition was more about ironing out the basics: character codices, environment-related things like floor triggers that reveal hidden locations, and the loot system. Most of that gets discussed in my Dev Logs, so be sure to read those when I publish them.

I'm pretty much an open book about a lot of things in my life, and REDACTED isn't really any different. It might look like a lot is kept secret from the general public, but really it's more that I'm building it from the ground up and there's still a lot of work to do. Once I've got more expeditions logged, more playtesters in the fray, and more creatures added to the world, the secrets will start revealing themselves.

I've got 20 weeks left to go to share more creatures in which then, and only then, will REDACTED start to unravel.

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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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