Blog Posts
Valiant Horizon post-itchfund-launch devlog #1: Diceless, Roll for Magnitude, and Roll for Success
August 3, 2023
This post is about the various mechanical choices made in Valiant Horizon at a very high level. I group these into three categories: Diceless mechanics (stuff that works), Roll for Magnitude mechanics (stuff that works but you roll to see how much), and Roll for Success mechanics (stuff that works if a roll goes your way).
Diceless
The simplest kind of mechanic. This is what Assets, Exhausting Assets, and Burdens are:
...Second backer class is here! Meet the Assassin!
August 1, 2023
First backer class is here! Meet the Adept!
July 28, 2023
Adapting Machinations of Court and Frame to a VN-ish format
July 2, 2023
For @liananana's Narrat Jam 2, I'm poking my ideas for a political, intrigue-based mecha game that cares deeply about ties between people with power into a little linear VN storyline. A TTRPG designed for PVP troupe-level play is pretty different from a story following one person! So I'm gonna think out loud about what I'm changing and why.
Ah no I'm writing another dicelessness article by accident oh god help
Off the bat, one of the technological aspects I ran into is that Narrat is very particular about skill rolls. They're binary in nature, you have to define how they work up front, and you don't get the roll value on a check, just pass/fail.
...ANOINTED v0.2 is out, I made a tutorial for it, and I want to talk about it.
June 22, 2023
So ANOINTED just got a big update. Part of that is that I added a Tutorial region! I wanna talk about it.
The region
ANOINTED's premise is that you are an immortal warrior (an Anointed) who has been locked away for years following ages of glory, intrigue, war, and disillusionment. When you emerge, you have no memories, but are called/drawn/etc to return to the side of the (long dead) king to whom all Anointed are beholden by ritual bond.
...v0.2 release!
June 22, 2023
Machinations of Court and Frame pre-production notes: Noble Houses and their Agents
June 20, 2023
I don't have an actual cover for this one yet so for now you get a screencap from the SRD title. This one's still at pretty high level. But I did some of that high level work and I wanna talk about it!
Speaking of the SRD, this is the third Total//Effect game I initially proposed/outlined/etc on the Total//Effect SRD. My general (self)-pitch was:
...As promised, the compilation is (finally) here!
June 14, 2023
(Read the original on itch here!)
TTRPG Quarterbacking part 2: Solutions, kind of? Mostly vague ideas about solutions.
June 5, 2023
Somehow this one didn’t make the great cohost migration! I’ve converted and back-dated it appropriately, and lightly touched up a header or two, but otherwise it’s intact. - Binary, Sep 22, 2025
So I outlined the problem (as it is) in part 1. This is the part where I think out loud about what to do about it as a designer.
Foreword #
I’m going to put this as the first thing because it can’t be stressed enough and because I don’t really want to hear about how this isn’t an issue at anyone’s specific table or whatever because that’s not the point. Communicate with your players. If someone’s doing it a little too much you can probably just ask them to cut it out and they probably will. Folks are generally pretty reasonable.