One-Page RPG Jam
and a Lost Bay character generation video
It’s that time of year again! Time for the One-Page RPG Jam! If you have ever thought about making your own TTRPG, but did not know where to start, here is your chance to dive in. Our beloved Substack mogul/TTRPG designer/animated skeleton
has even put together a wonderful primer on designing just such a game, which will walk you through each step in the process.Inside
One Page RPG Jam 2024
Character Generation for The Lost Bay RPG
Foul fulfillment (99%) complete
One-Page RPG Jam 2024
A mainstay of the Itch.io TTRPG creator community, the One-Page RPG Jam 2024 is live now! As of this writing, there have already been over 100 entries to the jam, many of which are solo games. Last year saw 607 entries, including two from yours truly: Sneaky Witches (a 1- or 2-witch hexcrawl) and Wherefore (an absolutely ridiculous 2-actor game of revisionist theatre).
From this year’s entries, the one that caught my eye for a first play is Digital Nightmares by Uncharted. It’s a solo rogue-like with a cyberpunk/hacker vibe that requires only 2d6 and the included map and tokens.
I’ll be sure to mention other solo games that pop up and catch my attention over the next few weeks of the jam, and comment on any ideas that come from playing through them. Already I’ve can see a way to incorporate the random map generation and repeated play-throughs of Digital Nightmares into a module I’ve been slowly working away at for The Lost Bay.
For the jam, I’ve got a game that’s in the play-testing phase. It’s essentially a war-game in its current state in order to test out a combat mechanism, but if people like it, I can see this being at the core of a larger, tactical-combat-focused TTRPG.
Auctōrātus is a 1- or 2-gladiator game of mechs vs. monsters.
You are a volunteer in the gladiator games, here for the money and the glory. You will pilot your mech in a series of increasingly dangerous fights against vicious monsters. After each battle, you will make repairs and upgrades to your mech so you can complete the 6-battle gauntlet and be crowned champion of the games.
The central mechanism of the game is a rondel/mancala mechanism, inspired by a recent post over at the ENNIE-nominated Skeleton Code Machine. You build your mech with six components (such as weapons, shields, and thrusters). These components are represented in the segments of the rondel:
You start with a Level 1 Heat Sink, which gives you 12 charges to power your components. Each turn, you will be performing two actions: either moving or activating components. Each component has an activation effect, and each activation effect scales with the number of charges on the component when it is activated.
Taking damage to a Shield Component pushes charges to the Heat Sink, which can be recovered by activating your Heat Sink as one of your actions on your turn. However, if you don’t have any charged shields, taking damage removes charges from your charged components. These charges cannot be recovered during the fight, so you slowly lose the ability to keep your mech fighting.
If this sounds interesting, follow my on Itch.io page to get notified when the game is released (sometime in the next week or two). I’ll probably announce it in a future issue of Ink & Dice as well.
Character Generation for The Lost Bay RPG
If you have been reading Ink & Dice for a while, you have probably heard me mention The Lost Bay RPG by
. This is a game that I am very excited about, and one that I have been writing modules for over the last year.I was recently part of a video showcasing the character creation process for The Lost Bay, along with
and . We had a great time rolling up some characters and generating backstories for them.In October, The Lost Bay Discord server will be hosting their first digital convention, All Flesh Is Surplus. As part of the convention, I have a new module, A Night on Rose Hill, that I will be releasing. It is an adventure for one character (either solo or 1:1 with a GM), and is built as a post-death adventure, great if the PC in your solo game met an untimely end, but you don’t want the story to end yet.
I am also in the process of the early work on a compendium of solo games for The Lost Bay. This book will contain 3-4 solo adventures that can be played individually or strung together into a campaign. More info coming soon!
Foul fulfillment (99%) complete
And we did it! Thank you to everyone that backed or boosted the Foul Kickstarter campaign. All of the physical zines have been shipped, save for a couple of backers that have not yet completed the BackerKit survey.
If you missed the campaign and want to get your hands on this beautiful zine, I have copies available in my shop, they are now available at Indie Press Revolution, and they will be at GenCon at Booth 1457 with Creature Curation! If the PDF is enough for your needs, it’s over on Itch.io and DTRPG.
Fair warning: while the risograph covers are not “Kickstarter exclusive,” future reprints of Foul will probably NOT have them, and instead will have a digitally printed cover like the rest of my products. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, and it will still be a great module, but if you’ve got your eye on the book the way it is now, don’t wait too long.
Thank you!
That’s it for now. I’m diving back into big stompy robot land to balance some of these monsters’ stats. Thanks for reading!
—MAH
Maybe the rondel can handle the kind of spaceship battle I’m interested in
Thanks for the mention/link!!!