Epistolary Richard
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epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Epistolary Richard
@epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
210 followers 370 following 370 posts
(h/h) '24 ttrpg What's Hot Year in Review see https://therpgpipeline.blogspot.com
My '25 ZineQuest Teen Noir ttrpg see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1591846918/teen-noir-ttrpg-2e-zinequest
(indie ttrpg organiser, designer, former Warhammer novelist)
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epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Inside Out just hits differently once you've had kids. All I'm saying.
Joy from the movie Inside Out weepa as she cradles some of Riley's forgotten memories
November 15, 2025 at 8:05 AM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Tell me that you don't understand the fundamentals of a character without telling me you don't understand the fundamentals of a character
Front cover of the Wednesday Addams colouring book
July 21, 2025 at 3:43 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
For next regen, the Doctor splits into two beings both of whom are the Doctor and are both get on each other's nerves and are utterly codependent.

And Bill Bailey is the first companion
Shot from tv series Black Books of Dylan Moran and Tamsin Greig
June 16, 2025 at 1:07 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
So, turns out that D&D minis really add something to vintage editions of Cluedo.
A 50 year old edition of the board game Cluedo with the original weapons but with modern brightly coloured plastic miniatures from a D&D board game
April 16, 2025 at 8:48 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Gotta hand it to the Simpsons, their prediction was only a few years too early and a rank higher.
Screenshot from The Simpsons showing Homerton revealing two presidential candidates as secretly aliens
February 13, 2025 at 5:37 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
There are 5 players, but one last character to create. This mystery involves the disappearance of one of their peers, so they need to be created as well. The object is a hoodie. Their noir tone is lust. Hoodie is cool, but secretive, implicated in petty crime, but infamous as a school lothario.
19/
Drawing of trees and a river where the negative shape appears as the outline of a person
February 8, 2025 at 11:36 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Bike: they’re the school athletic champion. They do have a bike but it’s nowhere near as expensive. They’ve had a history of violent alteractions which has been excused because of their physical ability. They like to think of themselves as a rebel but are actually cosseted by the school.
18/
Black and white drawing of a teen looking aggressive
February 8, 2025 at 11:19 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Milkshake: they’re one of the rich kids in the town, used to getting the things they want. Affable and desirable on the surface but with a history of controlling relationships, perhaps stemming from their own relationship with their parents.
16/
Black and white drawing of a teen looking unconcerned
February 8, 2025 at 11:10 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Acoustic guitar: they’ve been raised in a very religious household and lack confidence amongst others of their age. They have a beautiful singing voice and are a confident performer, yet feel they have nothing else about themselves.
14/
Black and white drawing of a teen looking anxious
February 8, 2025 at 11:03 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
They also roll lust as their noir tone. They are again smart, but a bit more aware than academic. They have younger siblings that they helped raise. They’ve suffered from injury or illness which gave them a spinal deformity. Maybe this has stopped them dating, but not stopped them lusting.
12/
Black and white drawing of a teen looking anxious
February 8, 2025 at 10:55 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Players will come up with names, but I’ll just call them by their object for clarity: Highlighter, a bit younger than their friends because they were moved ahead in school. Little money, but an academic high flyer who’s hoping to get a scholarship out of the town. Has a crush they struggle with.
10/
Black and white drawing of a teen looking anxious
February 8, 2025 at 10:47 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
These are just possibilities as yet. Nothing is set until a player puts it into the game. So onto characters, each player thinks of objects to inspire their character. In this case, I’ve already chosen them: a fast bike, a highlighter, an anglepoise lamp, a chocolate milkshake, an acoustic guitar.8/
a fast bike, a highlighter, an anglepoise lamp, a chocolate milkshake, an acoustic guitar
February 8, 2025 at 10:36 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Each game starts with the community, by default a town. You can use an existing setting, but we’ll be creating one from scratch. There aren’t rules as to how to decide a specific geographic location, I’m picking a US town in the Mountain West area, what’s important is the code of silence.
Drawing of a small industrial town near pine trees and a river
February 8, 2025 at 10:14 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
We are 3 backers away from 40 and £200, which bear no relevance in the grander scheme of things but are BIG and ROUND. If you are interested in backing but have questions or concerns then ask away and let's see if we can hit those big, round numbers
www.kickstarter.com/projects/159...
Screenshot of Teen Noir TTRPG Kickstarter page showing 37 pledges totalling £186 with 7 hours to go
February 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
"My other tonal influence was the Spike Lee movie Summer of Sam... It conveys a lot of mob mentality, hysteria and the paranoia that can develop against those with a different lifestyle."
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you'd point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you'll love Teen Noir?” My interest in the teen noir genre started with Veronica Mars, but while I enjoyed the whole show I was always most intrigued by the darker episodes which weren't just resolved by the police dragging the offender away or Veronica exposing their machinations to turn the school against them. I've seen other works in the teen noir genre such as the excellent Donnie Darko, Brick and Heathers, and others such as The Rules of Attraction and Election, but the concept of bringing it together with an emergent mystery came to me through the first season of Riverdale. Riverdale ended up such a bizarre show, and even the first season was riddled with anodyne or problematic content, but I was taken along with the ride around the emerging mystery of what had happened to Jason Blossom and the concept of a sudden tragedy and how it impacts and reveals secrets amongst teenage friends who'd known each other for their whole lives. My other tonal influence was the Spike Lee movie Summer of Sam which includes a group of friends becoming convinced that one of their own is the killer known as Son of Sam. It conveys a lot of mob mentality, hysteria and the paranoia that can develop within communities against those with a different lifestyle. Part of the teen experience is trying to work out your own identity and the pressures to conform with a community or rebel and place yourself outside of its protection.
February 6, 2025 at 4:42 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
'What I love about Swords Without Master is its empowerment of the players... There are not a lot of games where a player will start off a scene describing their hero hanging by their fingertips off a rope bridge while a troll overhead starts to take a swing at them, but a player in SwM will!"
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental? Teen Noir is a Game Without Master, meaning that it uses Epidiah Ravachol's revolutionary ttrpg Swords Without Master as its engine. What I love about SwM is its empowerment of the players and how that gives them permission to get to the excitement right from the start. There are not a lot of games where a player will start off a scene describing their hero hanging by their fingertips off a rope bridge while a troll overhead starts to take a swing at them, but a player in Swords Without Master will! With a challenging genre like teen noir, I definitely want that player empowerment. These stories are downward spirals where the characters can do terrible things to each other, but with the help of the SwM engine the players stay in control and can support each other as it goes. The other game I want to call out is Ribbon Drive and its life path system. In that each PC can explore two different ways their lives can go after the game end and through the course of the game can close off one or both. That really struck a chord with me to use playing teenagers who are making potentially life changing decisions sometimes pretty much on gut feel. Finally I should acknowledge other ttrpg deaign work in the emergent mystery field such as Lovecraftesque and Apocalypse by Moonlight. While I'm putting my own spin on them using SwM I'm certainly building on the shoulders of others.
February 6, 2025 at 4:30 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
"Then the teens' lives are upended by some kind of tragedy to which they're all connected (the starting suggestion is that one of their group goes missing and is found dead). The facade of the community is torn away and the teens become suspects and start to be excluded from the community.'
What story or experience do you want people to get from Teen Noir? The basics are that you play a group of teenage friends who have grown up together in the same community. This community has a code of silence though, something that happens here no one is allowed to talk about. Then the teens' lives are upended by some kind of tragedy to which they're all connected (the starting suggestion is that one of their group goes missing and is found dead). The facade of the community is torn away and the teens become suspects and start to be excluded from the community. One by one the teens' secrets are revealed until the community's code of silence is broken and the truth is revealed. One of teens will bear the most guilt, one will take the fall. Occasionally, they may even be the same person.
February 6, 2025 at 4:18 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
"I'm doing this second edition for two reasons: one to add some artwork from the awesome Aviv Or, second to completely overhaul the rule-set to make it easier to play online and incorporate improvements in ttrpg design, especially around mysteries, since the first edition."
Tell me about your campaign - what's it for and what's your favourite bit? This campaign is for a self-contained ttrpg called Teen Noir. It's actually for it's 2nd edition. I wrote the original Teen Noir many years ago primarily as a design exercise. I put the 'ashcan' version of it up on sale and, without any promotion or marketing on my side, it proved to be a consistent seller. Players, including myself, are curious about this genre. The rules however were written during a time when most gaming was face-to-face and involved a particular card mechanic which was difficult to use online. I'm doing this second edition for two reasons: one to add some artwork from the awesome Aviv Or, second to completely overhaul the rule-set to make it easier to play online and incorporate improvements in ttrpg design, especially around mysteries, since the first edition.
February 6, 2025 at 4:07 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
In my long term, probably never do it, creative pile I want to do a cosy train scheduling game called The Good Controller where you try to run an efficient railway and try to develop your engines and keep them happy - I think I'll need to put this kind of picture behind an adult lock though
Illustration from the Railway series showing two engines fearfully waiting to be taken apart with a blowtorch.
February 6, 2025 at 1:29 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
Delighted to have @floaker.bsky.social as the first fellow #ZineMonth creator to back at the #ZineSwap level! I am really looking forward to the launch of their ttrpg Mum's Chums. Go check it out!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/flo...
Screencap of a kickstarter pledge level detailing ZineSwap where other ZineMonth creators can 'swap' zines.
February 1, 2025 at 2:06 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
This is the pledge level for fellow #ZineMonth creators
Image showing backer level for ZineSwap intended for other ZineMonth creators
January 31, 2025 at 12:05 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
And, damn my soul, here's something on GenAI and ttrpgs as well because somebody had to write it and I wasn't going to let it be ChatGPT (text in alt)

Next thread, I will talk about some games
Generative AI has been a buzzy term for this year across a lot of disciplines. GenAI is a blanket term for types of AI that generate something new including those based on Large Language Models (LLMs) like Chat GPT as well as diffusion models that can create images based on text prompts. Big Tech is all-in on GenAI and Venture Capitalists are chasing hot GenAI startups with even greater fervour than they chased crypto start-ups a few years before. GenAI has found its way into a lot of different areas of life including now being mandated in some people’s work and the TTRPG space is no exception and I’d like to talk through some of those impacts. Just as a side-note however I’m not going to talk here about the ecological impact of the broad implementation of GenAI here. But if you weren’t already then please know that it does have one and should go learn about it. I’d like to split the impacts into the personal level, what I’m going to call the table level, which is impacts to how people play ttrpgs and then the business level which is where money is more involved. TTRPGs as a hobby is pretty well decentralised. While there are big companies and big games, no group is dependent on them to be able to play their game. We don’t have to worry about centrally run servers like MMORPGers do or the factory line production and shipment of specific game pieces for board games or even the creation of new content like the book industry. One ttrpg can last a lifetime. Each table is quite self-reliant and so how one table plays can be very different from another. So in terms of GenAI, at that table level, it really comes down to each individual as to extent that they want to use generic chatbots to write elements of a campaign or contents of a dungeon or brainstorm new characters or create AI images to for PCs or NPCs. For some people that stuff, that creation is part of the fun of the game; for other people it’s not. A different use I’ve read about is someone who used AI to tak…
January 30, 2025 at 10:23 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
I noted the move of indie ttrpg hobbyists to well... here... (text in alt)
From the 2000s, while indie TTRPG folk have always been, well, independent as to their digital space, it’s often been useful to have a central touchpoint (a town square if you like) where you can actually find people. A lot of that was originally based around a couple of key forums, then Google Plus gained favour thanks to its better timeline controls and its integration with Hangouts. When Plus was shut down for non-commercial use, Twitter became that place kind of by default because that’s where a lot of people already had networks. But with its transformation to X and the recent US election, a bunch of indie TTRPG folk have moved onto BlueSky (with its Starter Packs functionality especially assisting folk to quickly create networks).
January 30, 2025 at 10:23 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
@starshinescribbles.bsky.social contributed a piece on an area of growth in ttrpg design (text in alt)
2024 was defined by growth. This year, I've had the pleasure of seeing loads of new creators enter the industry, be they releasing their first games or becoming part of the game design community. 2024 has also seen creators stretch the medium of TTRPGs in new ways, crafting new and unique mechanics or making games about themes and topics that have not been covered before. This is especially obvious in the solo game space, as 2024 has been blessed with a massive number of memorable and creative games that use the medium to tackle a vast number of topics, from personal struggles to global crises. For example, The Rock Limpet" by RobotFrancis used the solo game format to explore the often messy nature of political revolutions and their ensuing fallout. While Magikya Studios' I Don't Speak French, But They Do!" used puppetry and ventriloquism to discuss communication barriers and how they can be overcome. Even outside the solo game space, 2024 was packed with highly creative titles that pushed the medium in new directions. For example, Deep Dark Games's A Perfect Rock" used gathered rocks and sci-fi worldbuilding to get players thinking about environmental issues and the need to protect Earth's climate. The year has also seen many TTRPGs incorporate props and LARP-inspired elements, adding to player immersion and making games more accessible. This includes games like glitterbandemissary's Roadtrip Radio," which uses real-world radio stations and player position to recreate the feeling of an old-school road trip, and Chuck & Noodles" by Kurt Refling and Kathleen Hartin, which uses two walkie-talkies to drop players into the middle of a moving story about the pain of growing up. If nothing else, 2024 proves that the TTRPG industry never sits still. It is constantly growing, changing, and evolving.
January 30, 2025 at 10:23 PM
epistolaryrichard.bsky.social
@sharangbiswas.bsky.social contributed what was helping him get through the year (text in alt)
For last year’s Year in Review, my thoughts dwelled on resistance and rebellion. Well, it’s been an exhausting year politically, so this time, I thought I’d focus on something both more personal, and a little lighter in tone. Playing Jack Harrison’s ENNIE-award-winning KORIKO: A MAGICAL YEAR has been has been my favourite game experience this year. I’m playing it somewhat unusually; rather than as a solo journalling game, I’m playing it with a friend, the two of us discussing and co-writing each entry. I confess that most journalling RPGs don’t work for me. Possibly because I make worlds and stories for a living, the act of playing one of these games tends to feel like work, leaving me exhausted. Having another person present has transformed the experience entirely. The social, co-creative aspect of RPGs rises to the top, and I’ve found that I can write pages upon pages in longhand without growing tired. We’ve filled 50 journal pages already (okay disclaimer, they’re quite sticker-filled), and we’re only halfway through the game! Of course, the game’s own merits more than contribute to the enjoyment I’m getting out of it. From the excellent instructions about housekeeping and journal organisation, to the guided manner in which new characters are introduced and incorporated, to the wonderfully inspirational prompts each accompanied by a metered rhyming couplet, to the font and colour choices—so much care and thought has gone into the game’s design. The dice and tarot mechanics are offbeat too, together creating a wonderful structure for storytelling. It helps that the themes of learning and growing up, as well as the Ghibli-inspired story frame of trainee witch in a new city, appeal to me immensely. I don’t really know how to end this note, so I’ll just leave you with a couple of the game’s rhymes. Maybe they’ll transport you somewhere inspirational too? reeking sigil, monstrous mane, mouthy goblin, spectral flames. mystic pickles, haunted breads, talking teddie…
January 30, 2025 at 10:23 PM