Prompt #31 for #RPGaDay2026

Edge

Final blog post for this endeavor!  

I started this year with the mindset of getting something done — laying out milestones and goals — and then at some point I decided I would participate in Blaugust for my game. Back in July, I came across the #RPGaDay2026 prompt and figured that would be a great launch pad for my Blaugust goal.  I'm glad I chose to combine the two, because it really gave my entire game project a sense of edge.  I've been leaning on the older definition —to move gradually, carefully, or furtively in a particular direction.  Which is a little on the nose, honestly.  But being careful and gradual isn't the same as stopped.  This has been my passion project since 2010.  I'm not going to walk away from it now.

Even though I haven't been staying exactly on target for some things, I feel like I'm still doing great.  Sure, I've been falling behind on my weekly bestiary entries for these past two weeks, but there's reasons.  Life has been pretty busy for me lately — some real-life things I can't fully get into, plus the community events I run monthly, and the TTRPG play sessions eat two evenings a week on its own.  That is a lot to balance.  There's still a few goals and two milestones I'm aiming to reach before the end of the year.  Everything has been set back, but I haven't canceled anything.  It's just a very complicated edge, with a lot of pieces moving it along gradually.  I'm not disappearing after this month, either.  Updates just won't be daily.  There's still a bunch of sessions to plan, maps and expeditions to build, FoundryVTT fixes, creatures to make and balance, player skills to tune, the list goes on.  I've been doing monthly dev logs; I might start sprinkling in smaller micro dev logs between them.  We shall see.

August turned out to be a heavy month for blog posts and game dev talk.  It pushed me out of my shell a bit, talking about the game I'm building.  I don't know if it landed with anyone and I'm not going to go chasing any results.  But thanks for reading, if you did. 

Links:

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #30 for #RPGaDay2026

Pride

I'm sure, with every game dev out there, that having pride in a game that you made being out there in the public eye is a great moment.  Maybe you didn't make it completely by yourself, like more in a team environment, but nonetheless, there's still that sense of "I did that." 

Every single post I've made this month gave me pride in myself and my game.  Sitting down, typing out a blog about a game I'm developing in the spare time I've got means a lot.  It means a lot to me as well, knowing that there's at least a few people out there reading my ramblings and musings about my journey.  

I know that once this month is over, I won't be posting daily about the game using single word prompts as inspiration, but I definitely will be talking about it more.  Originally, I was doing monthly dev logs here on this site as a semi log and mind dump of what I've been up to.  After this month, I think I'll be doing more than just that.  I've gotten a new sense of purpose, I guess, to sit down and type out what I've been up to, what I'm planning on doing, pretty much anything and everything.  Sure, I might end up still pouring all of that into a monthly dev log blog post, but the smaller blips might be more worth doing for my own sanity. 

Have pride in what you've done.  I know I've got pride with mine. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #29 for #RPGaDay2026

Labour

I think there's a lot of gamers out there who could say they do some things due to a fandom.  Whether it be commission work for art, guide writing for the public, cosplay, spreading the word about the game, etc, there's a point in time it could be called a labour of love.  I've personally partaken in a few of these, such as game guide writing for the games I genuinely enjoy, convincing others to try games I've spent considerable time playing, and crafting.  Both Warframe and Guild Wars 1 and 2 consume a lot of my game time, and I've made written guides (a few video ones, too) for others to use.  I try to make the guides as concise as possible, documenting my experiences for them so that it closely resembles what others may encounter.  That takes a considerable amount of time and effort on my part, not because I need to, but because I want to.  Heck, I've even 3D printed a Lex Prime (painted and assembled), 3D printed a CL4P-TP unit and put the audio in it for reasons (I adore the little robot, okay?), a Guild Wars 2 commander tag, and even have huge cardboard pieces behind my room door for an Eternity.  These are my projects because I genuinely adore the crap out of these games.

But this isn't what I've been talking about for these past twenty-eight days.  I've been talking about my own game and the journey I've been on.  It brought me out of my post graduate slump of making games.  True, it's been almost ten years since I completed that degree, but over that time, I've always dabbled in this game here and there, writing notes and ideas down on various pieces of paper.  Eight months later, I've gotten a better idea of what I'm wanting and where I'm going.  I've closed my Ko-fi shop down for the past two weeks while I redesign my PDFs that people can get for $1 USD.  Then there's the editing of my previous posts over on Patreon and maybe Ko-fi (not sure about Ko-fi yet since those posts are generally solid and have stayed consistent).  I originally didn't want to do any of this, but since I've got bigger plans for next year, I figured I should set my templates and standards for that.  I'm usually one that likes to leave things as they are, showing the progression of my posts, but for Patreon and Ko-fi, I can't let it go.  I need to redo them.  The substance will still be there, just properly formatted into a standardized template that I've established.  In total there are twenty-four posts per platform, so that is going to take a lot of time and effort to clean up.  It's going to be worth it in the end, well for me anyways.

As for the remainder of this year, I've got like eighteen weeks left, meaning I've got 18 more creatures to create and share.  My sketch artist (my sister) had to back out of this project due to real life circumstances.  This setback leaves me without that nice addition to my posts.  I really don't want to go down the route of using AI for the sketches, so I'll probably dust off my drawing tablet and have a go at them.  My original goal was to have sketches and maybe some actual illustrations done by the end of the year, but due to losing my sister in this, that most likely won't happen.  I'll still have creatures done and I'll start cataloguing them for a future release, just not when I originally hoped for.  Next year has a new compendium on top of my bestiary, so that's exciting for me.  I plan to have my TTRPG far more progressed than it is now by December.  Thankfully September is almost here and I can go back to getting my playtesters to try things out, test out my modules and gameplay.  My creatures are itching to see what my playtesters come up with, as am I.

This game is my labour of love.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 
• Game Guides (Cheshire Gaming) 

 

Prompt #28 for #RPGaDay2026

Devotion

Okay, this is going to be a tough word to discuss, mostly because I'm not sure how to approach this or where to go with it.  I know in more well-established TTRPGs, there's usually a class or two that have some sort of devotion that entails their entire identity.  For my game world, I don't really have this because it kind of is just...weird...I guess.  

I have a total of twenty-seven classes, of which four have something that could be considered slightly related to "devotion".  Without giving out names (might change them later): there is one who negotiates pacts/debts with spirits, but that is more of a transactional situation; another houses/contains unresolved spirits as a custodian, so this is more like an explicit duty or even co-habitation and not exactly reverence; then there's the "custodial power" class which sees protection as a sacred duty, but this is more directed at guardians/allies/ground things and not a deity; and finally there is the class where it actually has a sense of "devotion" as a possible source of an emotional rupture that releases a mechanic.  Other than these four classes, there's nothing that comes to mind for devotion to anything.

Which brings me to the next topic.  So this year has been my starting year for actually sitting down and getting the work started for my game.  I have my Bestiary 52 goal that is still going strong, albeit I haven't posted publicly over on Mastodon my daily posts about my creatures but Patreon and Ko-fi have been keeping the pace.  I did post this week's and last week's creature entry late, but as I've mentioned countless of times already, I've been super busy with something unrelated to my game that is taking higher priority right now.  Next year is going to be a bit more involved, I hope.  I will continue my Bestiary 52 project, but I might roll it back into a bi-monthly or monthly post (so 12 or 24 creatures would be my yearly target).  To replace it, I plan on introducing another compendium project that goes hand-in-hand with everything so far: a Theogony.  Without giving out too much info, mostly because I haven't gone too far into it, my world will be dealing with deities and sorts.  I figured I should probably create something to contain all of the things.

There's a lot to my world, this is obvious.  I've got devotion to making it a reality for me and others to experience.  The road ahead is still just starting for me. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #27 for #RPGaDay2026

Hunger

I could talk about hunger in my game, such as making sure my players have food and drink to prevent starvation and dehydration, but I'm not sure if I will actually develop that fully.  It really isn't a high priority on my list of things to do, let alone I'm not sure if it would be worth it.  There's games I've played before where simple life sustenance got really annoying really fast.  I would be out there, running around gathering materials or beating up baddies, just to get a notification that my character was starving or dying of thirst, thus breaking my immersion.  

On the flip side, I do feel like in order to really get into a world, things that relate to hunger and thirst are kind of needed.  That extra milestone that really hammers home the thought process of actually being there, in that world.  A group of players could be tiptoeing past a Warmth-Seeker or even a Rotbringer, when someone's stomach growls and triggers the awareness of the wyrm.  Wouldn't that be a fun event?  Right now, I have food items in one of my vendor's wares.  Since my game operates on expeditions, the players go out on an adventure, return to the central hub, sell their wares, buy things, fix items, then next expedition.  I don't plan on these expeditions to take in-game weeks to complete, but definitely a few days.  

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to handle this mechanic.  I could have a bit more lore-driven situations where the players sit down, have a meal while planning out their expedition while also getting to know each other.  There is also the possibility that they just auto-consume when a day passes and the game just factors that in.  I guess when I get to that point in my game dev journey for this world, I'll have a better idea of how to combat hunger.  There's always a chance to feed a wyrm.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #26 for #RPGaDay2026

Regret

I have a poster of Darth Vader in my room that I never fully opened.  It is titled Regrets that I got from Gamestop with those store rewards before I left USA.  Every day, I see it when I walk in here, ready to do my work one way or another.  It sits on a shelf, next to my Spawn figures, still in the plastic wrap from the mail.  That was ten years ago and I don't plan on ever opening it.

What does this have to do with my game?  It reminds me to not have regrets in life.  I've been through a lot, including a car accident that almost took my life.  That was a wake-up call that life is too short, even more so if you live it with regrets.  No one can make the game I see except me.  If I don't start it, no one will.  This year alone has been full of fun, exciting times for me and this game.  I've got a solid foundation on my local FoundryVTT,  making modules and testing things out.  The five playtesters that have been helping me test things out and providing feedback have been fantastic.  My creativity with my weekly creatures has keep flowing, although last week was a bit weird and this week might follow suit (I've got a major real life thing going on right now which is eating into my time creating those creatures, but after this week that should be back to normal).  Heck, even this month's Blaugust and the #RPGaDay2026 has gotten me motivated to talk about it daily, even when the word prompt was hard.

If I don't make my game, it would be a shame if the world didn't experience it, and that would be a regret.

 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #25 for #RPGaDay2026

Familiarity

I think the word for today's entry is fairly easy to discuss.  Obviously I'm familiar with my game world, but I'm pretty sure most people will be to a point.  Since it is based off of the world in the past, the divergent aspect of that world would strike familiar tones with people — generic buildings, roadways, structures, vehicles, just overall settings.  It isn't set in a "traditional fantasy" setting like the infamous "you all met in a tavern".  My playtesters all met each other informally while they were responding to a bounty board, in which the target NPC was actually trapped inside a mall (a real one, from my hometown — obscure enough that you've probably never heard of it, but it's got a familiarity to me that I like leaning on), too scared to leave due to the Porcelain Seer that was doing it's thing (if you want the full writeup, it's got its own entry — https://www.patreon.com/ches_ge/posts/week-22-monster-159885442).  Next expedition is going to be a little bit similar.  I don't expect my players to be familiar with one another, but I do hope they instill a sense of familiarity amongst themselves as the game progresses.  

As I continue down this rabbit hole of mine, I really hope that I can bring forth some really cool things that other people can become familiar with, even if it is trying to kill them.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #24 for #RPGaDay2026

Distance

I can say my game is a bit of a distance from our reality.  True, the solid base of it is based off of the real world that we all live in, but in the lore there was an incident that happened which essentially changed the world from what we have now.  There's things that exist that we don't have now, either from the past or the future.  That's one measurement of distance, but not the only one I want to talk about.

When I had originally created this game idea, I was told that I couldn't base it off of real places; that cities were copyrighted.  That didn't stop me from working on the idea.  I wanted to work on something that I could associate a distance with.  Turns out, those people were wrong.  Obviously there's some parts of a city that you can't just blatantly recreate, like sculptures or trademarked logos or even the city name, but overall if I wanted to recreate a city I was familiar with, I can.  In doing so, it gives me a point of reference for events and layouts of things that are encountered in the various expeditions.  I mean, the reality of our world right now and the fictional world of my game would change all of those things.  I want to know the distance to provide my players with on how far they need to run away from the nasty creature that is hunting them.  

Take a real stretch of a road I know, such as Prospect Avenue.  I know where one of the bookstores were, the path it took from that place to the mall.  That distance is about 1 kilometer, so more than enough for them to look at utilizing the various buildings that are along the way provide escape options or maybe even a better advantage to fight.  Now my players have a better idea of what they are working with when I can provide them solid descriptions of what they see in the vicinity.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

 

Prompt #23 for #RPGaDay2026

Fortune

I know I'm not the only one who wishes for fame and fortune of some type, although I'd rather not have the fame that goes down in history as a bad idea.  The only type of fame I want is to be recognized as the creator of my game.  That's it.  You know, like someone mentions a game or an idea or a comic or literally anything, and a name is tied to it.  That kind of fame is what I want.  If I get it, cool, if not, also cool.  What I don't want is the sense of obscurity.  I'm putting my world out there, little by little, in hopes that it resonates with others.  It doesn't have to cater to the masses, just has to find those like me.  

As for the fortune aspect, as well as the word for today's prompt, that is a bit more of a weird take.   I'm fortunate to have the support from my community in my pursuit of game dev.  I'm also fortunate to have an understanding and supportive husband.  I know I'm not going to make it big with my game, so that kind of fortune isn't happening, and I'm okay with that.

There's a popular saying that "fortune favors the brave," and I feel like that resonates with me the most.  I'm willing to take risks and share my game world before it's even remotely completed.  There have been so many word prompts this month that had me dive into my very being, and I'm honestly not deterred by any of it.  I know there's a lot to my game and I have a long way to go.  A final saying that goes along with the word for today: the fortunes of war.  This is essentially saying that there will be unpredictable events during a war.  The war might be myself, but I know it's worth fighting for. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #22 for #RPGaDay2026

Grit

I guess one could say I have some grit about my game.  It took me a long time to convince myself that it's okay to talk about my game along its journey.  I figured most people wouldn't find my experience interesting or engaging enough to read, let alone interact.  But none of that matters in the end.  I'm chronicling this journey for myself, and for whoever does want to read about it.  

Making a game isn't easy.  I remember my professors driving home the fact that good games take a lot of time and effort, especially if you're doing it alone.  There's a lot to do, and I'm willing to put in the work.  Right now, I'm building the core foundation of mechanics.  Seriously, without my playtesters I would still be in the very beginning stages of this project.  

That grit got tested a couple sessions back.  I had built the market vendor module, and it worked fine for me as the GM —made sense in my head, it ran smooth when I interacted with it myself, everything.  But once the players got their hands on it, it fell apart.  It turned into a chaotic mess, and I started losing track of everything happening at the table.  I walked away with pages of notes and a lot of feedback.  Most of it I've already fixed.  There's still a handful of things left, but nothing game-breaking, at least not yet.

I probably won't be done with the core foundation until the end of the year, maybe in the first quarter of next year, and I am perfectly okay with this.  I want this game to be exactly as I see it in my head.  My bestiary is kind of a supplement that keeps me going, and hopefully resonates with others who aren't running as playtesters.  I've temporarily closed my Ko-fi shop for the weekend while I revamp my PDFs.  They were originally a temporary look anyway, but now I have a much better concept of how I want those to look.  I aim to reopen the shop on Monday.

I'm willing to put in the time and effort for my game.  I have a pretty strong resolve, and maybe a little courage, to keep talking about it to the world — even if it is to a small few. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #21 for #RPGaDay2026

Charity

This word is a hard one to discuss.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering; benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity; a gift for public benevolent purposes; lenient judgment of others.  I'm going to be honest right here and now that this post is probably going to be more like word-vomit because I have absolutely no idea how to even tackle this, haha.

Yesterday's post was about "promise", in which I mentioned that I don't rely on Patreon and Ko-fi solely for the monetary exploitation of others.  Those platforms are more for providing a gateway for people to become involved with my game, joining my community, and even partake in feedback for creatures.  I never wanted to be viewed as a "charity case" for my passion project, and I refuse to have that happen now.  

I am genuinely a person who likes to help others, regardless of any return.  It hurts at times, but it is what it is.  I've been in the dark recesses of humanity, and I rarely judge others because I've had to make decisions I wasn't proud of.  Some aren't as bad as what others have experienced, but for me it was pretty awful.  I won't go into the details, since that could be a plethora of situations listed, but I've made it out of those dark places and am doing much better now.  There are people in my community who are battling their own monsters, and sometimes they just want someone to listen to them.  Thankfully, having ADHD can be a bonus.  Sometimes I don't retain a damn word they say past that conversation, but then there are times I remember a lot and just kind of dismiss it, shoving it back down into the filing cabinet of theirs.  

My game kind of reflects this part of me.  Depending on what kind of interaction an NPC or even a creature has with a player, it could change a lot of future situations.  I believe I touched on this in another post earlier in this month, but if a player chooses to be nice to an NPC, that NPC could influence interactions with other NPCs.  If a player chooses to be nasty, then obvious repercussions are on their way.  Another example is the Calamivox Ingratus interaction that both parties were involved with.  Both befriended one, and I can't wait to see what they say once they realize that being charitable to it was a great decision.

In the end, charity goes both ways in my game.  Players can be good or bad, and they'll have to deal with their choices later on.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #20 for #RPGaDay2026

Promise

Okay this is a good word for today's post.  As many gamers have come to know, promises made by big game companies can be a hit or miss.  I can think of two video games right now that fell short on their promises: No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077.  For No Man's Sky, that game was epic in falling short of everything they had shown the audience.   We were shown true multiplayer, cool fleet battles, various wildlife ai, and the various planetary physics in showcases that led up to the release date.  Once that day came, all we had was a really minimal deliverable.  What we got was nowhere near the expectation.  For me, personally, I was really interested in the procedurally generated planets but my experience was mid at best.  Yeah, they were cool but it became very repetitive very quickly and I noticed how assets were reused in some of the most uncreative ways possible.  I never played Cyberpunk 2077 but a lot of my friends were upset about the initial release of it.  Every week, more complaints about what they were expecting versus what they were sold.  Thankfully, both No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 earned their brownie points back through years of fixing their games.  

As for TTRPGs, I haven't personally had any interaction with any that fell short on broken promises.  I'm not saying there haven't been any, because I'm pretty sure there have been a decent amount.  Let me explain.  A lot of TTRPGs in the past decade have been crowdfunded.  One of my many reasons why I will never put REDACTED up on a crowdfunding site such as Kickstarter is because of the reputation games have there.  I've seen so many video games and RPGs and TTRPGs gain a lot of support and traction, just to see it all come crashing down on the supporters.  I like mech kind of things and two of the ones that caught my interest were Mekton Zero and Robotech RPG Tactics.  Thankfully, I was broke at those times and couldn't support them but I did follow their progress.  Needless to say, promises were broken and it hurt the supporters.  I don't want to be like that.

Which is where I'm at now.  This is going to make me sound like an absolute lunatic but here I go.  This game of mine is a passion.  It's been with me since 2010 and I'm now working on making it a reality.  I'm not going to stop working on it, even when times get tough.  Right now, I've got milestones and goals to reach.  Real life is a thing and I am only one person.  I've got my fantastic playtesters, running my expeditions and giving me solid feedback.  I've also got support sites like Patreon and Ko-fi, which I know usually get side-eyed as money grabbing platforms.  That isn't how I use them.  On Patreon, anyone who pledges is actually part of making something for my world.  It isn't an empty promise, because I give back in the form of the game itself.  This is either a creature they designed/inspired or an NPC.  Ko-fi is more about giving supporters a usable creature for their own games.  There isn't a lot of math involved yet, since I'm still working that part out, but they get a lot of info on the creature, like attacks and stuff, so I guess it's more like a template right now.  And there's a milestone on Ko-fi too, for anyone who's just nice enough to donate and support without needing anything back.  Every week is a new creature for my world.  This week has been falling a bit short because I'm redesigning my deliverables and I might have to bite the bullet and post the older formats.  This game is being tested as a TTRPG first, working out all the issues and the kinks.  Eventually, it will be a video game.  If I haven't quit on this since 2010, I'm not going to quit now.  I want to share my world with others.  This is my promise.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #19 for #RPGaDay2026

Desire

Okay this post is going to hit some spots for me.  I believe every game developer ever has wanted their game to "make it big".  That desire to get your name out there and recognizable is a big dream.  I'm no different from this, but I also know that I have a long way to go before I really gain any sort of traction.  There's goals and milestones I've set for myself and I'm slowly checking those boxes.

I think the next goal of mine is to start creating more "presence" in what I've been doing.  I created a BRB screen on my Twitch which provides snippets of lore for my game.  If anyone actually pays attention to that is a whole other thing.  Every week, I change the creature part to reflect the weekly creature.  There's also the call-to-action (CTA) that is running on my main overlay.  It's just a simple Ko-fi and Patreon rotation image, so nothing super fancy.  Once I get further down the dev pipeline, I'll be sharing more information about the expeditions my playtesters are experiencing.  

I'm not a pushy person in any sort of way, which hurts me in the long run.  There's people out there who constantly talk about their projects, their social media, etc. and I just can't get myself to do it.  Blaugust, this year, has been the most active I've been on blogging, talking about my game, posting over on Mastodon, and copy/pasting the Links section below.  I guess it's just a part of me that doesn't want to be seen as "annoying" or "begging" for attention.  Mentally, it works yet it doesn't.  I know that I need to put myself out there more but at the same time, I'm fighting myself from becoming "one of those people".  

This brings up one of the reasons why I'm participating in Blaugust and #RPGaDay2026: get my content out there.  I'm hoping that by the end of this month, I'm a bit more active in participating in the blogging community, showing signs of life on Mastodon, and just working on my game in general.  Well, the game part is always going to happen, but maybe a bit more motivation to get it done.  Hell, I even enabled RSS feed on this website two weeks ago.  I didn't know it was off.  Might be too late to get it picked up for Blaugust but the fact I have one now means a lot to me.

Desire is great to have, but you have to put forth the effort in order to achieve the goal. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

 

Prompt #18 for #RPGaDay2026

Directness

There are times, as a GM, I wish my players followed the directness of the route literally in front of them.  But then again, it wouldn't create such memorable moments.  I spoke of a scenario a few days back about creating a map with MS Paint.  That was a great session.  I've been trying to up my game a bit since then because at times, it feels like I'm trying to herd cats.  This is all in good fun, mind you.  I use to command zergs in World vs World in Guild Wars 2 back in the day. That was definitely herding cats!

My playtesters are very diverse in their thought processes.  Some are trying to think outside the box, others are definitely inside it.  There are times where I've had to place an enemy token on the board just to prevent them from going down a wrong path.  Even then, they killed it or some how skirted around its presence.  Truly amazing at how things just...happen...even with high threat ratings.  I'm wondering if they'll do similar things for the next expedition, knowing that the enemies there are bit more vicious.  Well, some of the more menacing ones are.

As I develop my game further, I'm probably going to start reducing my directness as the developer/GM.  Most if not all sessions thus far have been me telling my players what I did, what I need them to test, get feedback, and then play a bit.  The more refined I get things done, the less information and feedback it'll probably require.  I can say one thing though: I have a path for my game and I'm doing everything that I can to get the results I want. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #17 for #RPGaDay2026

Intensity

Some might say my game has an intensity when it comes to situations in expeditions.  I don't know for sure, since my playtesters haven't actually come across an expedition where they were faced with some sort of strained choice.  There were a few close calls, one being a Digosfrag and the other a Porcelain Seer.  One group killed the Digosfrag outright, while the other convinced it that they weren't a viable host.  As for the Porcelain Seer, it never escalated far enough to trigger that fight.  I honestly cannot wait to see what happens next month for their next expedition.  There's a lot I have planned, but I need to introduce it in spurts.  If I don't, I can get overwhelmed with feedback and confuse my playtesters.  

As for me personally, I can really let my intensity go when someone asks me about my game.  I get like that for any of my projects.  When someone asks me about my progress with painting mini figures, how my programming for a PoE2 application is going, my crochet or sewing hobbies, my smart furby idea, or even my real life Calamivox Ingratus project — I get pretty passionate about sharing.  Hell, even when someone stops by my streams and mentions something that I'm really into, I'll share things in my room.  Usual culprit of that is anything Spawn or Alice in Wonderland related.  Sometimes I think my intensity scares people off.  That's okay.

I'm pretty sure that as my playtesters go forth into the darkness, they're going to have questions about the world.  I'm ready to give those answers. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

Prompt #16 for #RPGaDay2026

Composure

Composure is something that I tend to have a great sense of during both gameplay and development.  I'm one of those people who thrive off of controlled chaos, so when my players are panicking, I'm smiling on the sidelines.  There are GMs out there who aim to punish or hurt their players, even going to the extent of a TPK, but I'm not one of them.  The reason I'm smiling is because I enjoy seeing the gears turn, the troubleshooting chats shared between them, and the reasoning they come up with.  Seriously, sometimes they get really creative and it impresses the hell out of me.  In fact, sometimes they come up with wild ideas that derail most if not all of my prepped plans.  During my first homebrew campaign with my current group (utilizing D&D 3.0/3.5 rules), they were really adamant about going down one particular route.  I didn't have the map prepared at all because I honestly expected them to pass it by, go back to town for preparation, THEN go back out and get to that map.  No, they didn't do any of that.  In fact, they bypassed a lot of things and immediately went straight for it.  I had to MS Paint the images on the fly, and they gave me a good ribbing for it for months on end.  To this day they still mention it from time to time, generally when I'm discussing my progress in preparing sessions.  If I didn't have my composure set for that session, I would never have been able to continue it.

As for a game dev perspective, I'm usually cool as a cucumber.  When I work on my modules and systems in FoundryVTT, I get to see my playtesters' honest reactions to what I've created.  If something doesn't work like intended (which does happen), I try my best to fix it right then and there.  Sometimes that doesn't fix the problem, which then turns into an issue I need to solve.  Active testing of what I'm building is genuinely one of the finer things in life.  

Keeping your composure during the best of times and worst of times can be rewarding. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #15 for #RPGaDay2026

Endurance 

There are a few different angles I could take on this one.  

The simplest is just the endurance of sitting down every day and typing about my game dev journey for my TTRPG.  It's definitely more than I'm use to, but it isn't something I'm regretting.  If anything, it's given me more motivation to keep working on it, even if there isn't a whole lot I'm willing to share right now.  I'm pretty sure I'll keep writing about my game even after Blaugust and #RPGaDay2026 have run their course.  Maybe it won't be a daily thing, but more frequent than the monthly summations.  

Looking at endurance through my playtesters' lens is probably a bit easier to break down.  Since the game is so new in development, I feel like my players and I can really push the envelope on endurance, both in-game and out of game.  In-game would be like abilities, sense of progress, losses and gains  — the usual stuff that shows up in a typical session.  Out of game, it's more like "hey, who's got time constraints this month" or even "I'm thinking of holding the game sessions on these dates at these times, can everyone make it?".  A great example is actually from this month of August.  I had originally scheduled both groups on the 8th and 9th.  Then something amazing came up later in August (the 22nd and 23rd) that meant rearranging events across my whole community.  After shifting dates around, I ended up having to cancel my game sessions completely, moving them to the beginning of September.  I'm not mad about it — if anything, it gives me more time to iron out issues, implement new things, and slack off a little.  Scheduling TTRPG sessions has been an endurance trial since the dawn of the hobby.  

Speaking of the dev process itself, my endurance has held up pretty well so far.  I could push myself harder, but I don't want to miss deadlines, milestones, or forget key things I've got planned.  I already stretch myself pretty thin between running a small community, streaming, content creation (blog posts, Mastodon stuff, weekly creature creations, etc), real life maintenance, and self-care.  Since I've got ADHD, I tend to thrive a bit on living on the edge, but I do need to take breaks and switch focus from time to time.  For example, I've had my TTRPG on the back burner for the past couple of weeks.  I've been working on Byte Vortex posts, improving my stream, and setting up community events (ARK:SE has a big boss fight event coming up next week and we are sooooo unprepared).  On top of that, I do amigurumi commissions for clients on Sundays at my market venue, and both this month and last have been mostly restocking after a wave of purchases.  None of this means I've stopped working on my TTRPG, though.  I still create a new creature every Monday and I still post five times a week over on Mastodon about them.  In the back of my mind, I'm working through how to tackle the current issues and fold in the new features.  Next week will probably be when I get back into dev work proper. 

Having a sense of endurance is essential in today's game dev environment.  I'd say even more so when you're an indi dev juggling this and many other things that life demands at the same time.   

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #14 for #RPGaDay2026

Regard

This is a tough one to talk about from my game dev lens on my TTRPG.  By definition, regard can either be attention to or concern for something, or to consider or think of in a specified way.  In regards (not intentional here but it works!) to my game world, it isn't really hard to keep my focus set in a specific way.  I think I briefly mentioned in another post that I actually see my game world with my imagination.  While going out on real life excursions, there are things I take note of that provide me inspiration — building architecture, how vehicles park here in CDMX (way different from parking lots in the USA), parks and gardens, clothing, shopping carts, toys, etc.  Everything is just absorbed into my memory and kind of stored for later use, I guess.  

There are times where I create a scene in my head, then begin translating that into a two-dimensional board, then sit back and pore through my endless memory catalogues of stuff.  I know the previous expeditions that my playtesters ran through weren't exactly detail-oriented.  They didn't need to be.  What I was wanting to build and test at the time wasn't really about the finer details in the setting.  The next expeditions will be a little more detailed, but still not really complete for aesthetic purposes.  I need to start working on the abilities of my playtesters and wrap up the previous issues.  None of that needs a full-blown board to get that immersion.  In the future yes — but for now, no.

My creatures, on the other hand, are a bit more involved.  I see my creatures in my mind — pretty sure I've talked about this before as well.  My imagination provides me enough to see these creations almost as real as real-life things.  That's why my bestiary entries have a lot of detail in them.  My public posts don't really give a whole lot of those details, because I want it partially kept as a secret until much later.  If you've stopped by my Ko-fi or Patreon, you might have noticed that some entries have sketches and some don't.  I've asked my sister to provide sketches of my creatures, but she lives a pretty busy life and doesn't have a lot of time to dedicate to my game.  So when I create a critter, I just put a TBA image in place, and when she gets around to giving me the sketches, I replace them.  It isn't ideal, but real life is a thing and I have to consider her time in a specific way.  

Creating my world to share with others takes a lot of time and effort.  I spend a lot of moments thinking about how I can make my playtesters and future players experience my world the way I see it.  

This is my regard. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

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.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

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.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch