1d4 levels of greatness a ttrpg writer can achieve in america

1. giant centipede in the darkness:

Has published seven books. One on Lulu, two on their personal blog, and four "self-printed" via Mixam. Gets more hits on their blog weekly than has sold zines in five years and makes enough money off their zines to get drunk once a year. Will likely die alone of something easily treatable if they'd had money or motivation to go to a doctor. Will be forgotten in 20 years (while they are still alive) when they lose the ability to blog after getting second-degree burns on both hands while boiling potatoes at work, but will be rediscovered 60 years after their death. Their blog will be published as a hardcover in 2270 on Mars.

2. one dollar feeder fish:

Has been reviewed by Questing Beast and quit their adjunct teaching job because the cast of Critical Role was invited to speak at their college. Receives up to three e-mails a day from centipedes in the darkness wanting blurbs. Will not be forgotten easily even after they are dead and their books are out of print because of how easy it is to talk shit about them. Will then be forgotten very easily, completely, and forever a few days after I type this when there's someone easier to talk shit about. 

3. $9.99 petco gerbil:

Has won an Ennie and other major awards but is thought of by most critics, writers, and journalists as primarily a romance author. Makes enough money to not have a blog or their email addresses on the internet. Considered as "I really, really want to stay away from this person and their books" by people who like Mork Borg.

4. pony on a pony farm of a child billionaire:

Considered "important" and "serious" by most online reviewers and writers but are held back from further greatness by an inability to make a dungeon that conveys the tone of "I am very smart and this is serious." Held back also because they sometimes publish smaller zines, some of which don't even contain adventures; because some of their e-mail adresses can be found on the internet; and because they would never consider writing from the perspective of someone in a terrible event that they did not experience. 

looting the gobllin corpse

1. scrunchies
2. a slice of pizza

3. nothingness stones

4. virgin crud

5. poem eraser

6. hex ointment

7. fishnet stocking

8. the eyelash of a cyclops

9. a lemon

10. townes van zandt record

11. clamp

12. beautiful cinder block

13. mushrooms

14. troll doll

15. cigarettes

16. white peach tea

17. one glove

18. matches

19. a book titled "butterfly life decoded"

20. cyclops eyebrow ring

21. clarissa explains it all vhs

22. minotaur serotonin

23. seventy "give a shit" gels

24. black nail polish

25. avocado

26. flask of "joan of arc urine"

27. fake succulent

28. settlers of catan

29. eyelashes

30. pear

31. magic eight ball

32. richard turtle painting

33. packets of mayo

34. spike

35. mood hammer

36. crystal

37. virtual pet (hungry [disrepectfully])

38. bag of chips

39. juice box with a giant millipede leg straw

40. scroll of shit forcefield

41. chainmail size YL

42. a chunk of despair

43. styrofoam skull

44. rotary phone

45. a framed picture of a pixie gazing longingly into a framed picture of a ruin

46. medusa hairnet

47. spray paint

48. tuft of cotton candy

49. sisters of mercy album

50. pandit pannalal ghosh album

51. spare tongue

52. revenge key

53. bott of truth serum

54. bottle of faygo

55. map of the antidepressant ice cream truck's route

56. rollerblades

57. ipecac ring pop

58. switchblade symphony cassette tape

59. trash bag full of glitter

60. liquid cinnabon potion

61. kelly schirmann novel

62. ingots of hawaiian valium punch

63. missing poster for something lasting

64. pedialyte

65. windex

66. electric dog collar

67. bowling pin

68. wicker chair

69. bejeweled bottle of febreze 

70. corduroy sofa pillow

71. gorgeous friendship bracelet

72. origami crane

73. essential oil diffuser

74. bim sherman lovers leap album

75. midori takada album

76. allergy meds

77. powdered milk

78. bottle of shaman third eye discharge

79. nice stick

80. hard drive of  face scrambling

81. brand new roll of plastic wrap and disinfectant spray

82. class one drone

83. abortive nanobots

84. food pills

85. a purple wet brush

86. cd binder of meaningful electro mixes

87. certificate from a 2 day bartending class

88. "1/8th" of an LSD tab

89. a book featuring 122 insects spread and mounted with the exact date and where each were caught (119 butterflies/moths and 3 beetles or beetle-like-insects)

90. tennis racket + a plastic big full of firecrackers

91. bottle of Spinach-cucumber-celery-jalapeno-coconut-water

92. Fish wrapped in paper

93. a bag of wine

94. Yellow Karate Gi

95. 9 packets of instant wifi hotpsot

96. gym bag with a journal and 4 beers and a change of clothes

97. weed-whacker

98. god genital

99. the novel nightwood by djuna barnes

100. fleas and roaches

Rolling Your Own Cigarettes in the OSR

this is where i blog from

(the record pictured in my photo is The Boston To Little Rock Connection Split 7" by The Shyness Clinic / Everyone Asked About You, the latter being a legendary female-fronted 90's emo band.)

my friend said his first character sheet for Troika was written on a rolling paper.

this got me thinking about magical cigarettes in games (for the second time).

settings should have fucked up roads, trash, and cigarette butts floating in deep puddles.

all that is required is a rare item (or not [whatever]) crushed and ground up mixed with the tobacco, paper (or something paper-like [and smokeable]), a spark, and lungs (I think?).

bad guys also smoke cigarettes; add cigarettes you've created to your loot tables.

warning: smoking leads to vampirism, addiction, stankiness, iron deficiency, and bad taste in music  

 🎀  𝕕1҉0҉   𝔠𝔦𝔤𝔰  🎀 

1 putting the cigarette out on a metal item no larger than 1meter x 1meter rusts it immediately 

2 cigarette of vomiting 

3 this cigarette allows the smoker to imitate the last human/creature they slew 

4 smoking this cigarette will allow you to throw a web-spell once a day

5 cigarette that steals d8 hp from the smoker

6 cigarette that stops burning 30 meters from undead

7 cigarette that makes the last 7 minutes never happen 

8 cigarette of perfect hair, tuck it behind your ear and your hair is always perfect

9 this cigarette summons a pet tarantula (crawling out of your mouth [popular in many nightclubs across the city])

10 second hand smokers of this cigarette [redacted]

 

Agbogbloshie, the vibe of a zine, first post of 2023

I started following this author Mike Kleine's twitter. 

Saw a tweet about sending out review copies of his new zine (on his store).  
(click the images for high res or whatever)

I sent them a DM saying I do reviews on this blog (now you're caught up).

I'm going to start off by writing a few blurbs.

"It's fun to read Agbogbloshie. Characters admire each other's 'drip'."

(the cover is also a table of contents)

"A nice small zine that keeps you on the edge of your seat." 

"If you feel fucked this is a good zine to read, it will bewilder you." (all of my posts are good to read if you feel fucked). 

"You can read it, finish it, go back to the beginning and read it again, and keep reading it continuously." 

"Agbogbloshie has a tone like once the zine ended the author started to talk shit about themselves and were really funny." 

"You can read it then put it down and feel a ‘calming’ sensation of ‘everyone is fucked.'"

"Each page is 'infused' with being good and also fucked depressively while leaving me yearning for more."

The zine is small and seems like the editing process took a long time because of the way it is laid out. 

It feels as if Mike Kleine was sitting at his computer, sometimes grinning at something he typed, then looking behind him to see if anyone was there, and no one was there. 

I read this zine alone and was depressed, but later shared portions of the text with my family.

I spent a lot of time with this zine. 

The next day i watched hustle & flow. that movie fucks; I recommend that movie.
that movie is full of amazing scenes to quote. 

I wasn't expecting the characters in this story to be dripped out kicking ass in space, while I think, also trying to get the world to end.

I thought about each word as it was being edited. The layout is awesome.

Each page is 'infused' with being good and also fucked depressively. 

Everything was really inspiring me as I was reading it.

To me, it reads like a one-shot OSR (derogatory) adventure. 

I recommend buying zines that aren't TTRPGs.

This one is sold out in print but I think it will be available digitally soon.

I love books with an index.

I recommend using indexes. 

I am curating an index for my next project.

I won't get into spoilers but I think the characters crash their space cars, run away from orcs on fire, pray to the 99 gods, 3 of them answer, hack a bunch of shit, blow shit up, and see the world end.

this next photo (not mine) is from twitter and it has a great summary of the zine. 

and now an interview with the author

1. If you could leave yourself a present in the future what would it be?

Just a short hand-written note on cream paper or something (so I'd know it's from me for sure) that reads, "Drink more water, please, And also sleep longer. XOXO"

2. What do you do on the internet if you're bored?

Lately? Mostly, I try and learn how to be better at Twine. And by this, I mean I just run a ton of different scenarios and ideas until I break the software, then I wait until the next day, after my brain has recovered, and try and figure a way around the "break" I caused. I am not a programmer and this is probably the closest I will ever come to programming. It's fun solving puzzles I sort of caused/created myself. My goal is to one day become comfortable with all the Twine story formats. I also really need to get back into Bitsy. (This is one game I made.) (Here's another.) (And one last one I made with Dan Hoy, here. Oddly enough, it won the award for Most Bizarre at The 2019 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction!)

3. When do you enjoy making art the most?

Between the hours of 11PM and 2AM. This needs to stop, tho.

4. Can you type a dialogue you've had in real life that you remember and liked?

Sure.

"What was the thing you said last week?"
"What thing?"
"I dunno, it was something funny."
"But you don't remember what it was?"
"If I remembered what it was, I wouldn't be asking you if you remembered what you said last week."
"What did you say?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Hmmm. (?)"
< pause >
"I am trying to remember what you said last week."
"I don't think you remember what you even said last week... even."
< beat >
"Plz don't change the subject."

5. Can you type a dialogue you've had in real you remember and disliked?

Yeah.

"I didn't get Tár, I didn't like it."
"What do you mean you didn't like it?" What's there to not like?"
"Like, right now I am looking on the phone. Who even is Tár?"
"Tár isn't a real person."
"Tár isn't a real person?"
"No--Tár isn't a real person."
"..."
"..."
< beat >
< beat >
< beat >
< beat >
< beat > < beat > < beat > < beat >
< beat >
< beat > < beat > < beat >
< beat > < beat >
< beat >
< beat >
"..."

Even tho I didn't like the film, the dynamic range/swell of the orchestra bits is some of the best sound mixing I’ve ever heard (for film), maybe ever.

6. What are you writing now?

I wrote this today:

<% character.inventory.addItem("Blade of Gonzo'r"); %>

<%
character.addGold(25);
%>

<img src="[REDACTED FOR PRIVACY REASONS. SORRY.]" width="500" height="256">

You are <%
switch (Math.floor(Math.random() * 4)) {
  case 0:
    print('an ogre');
    break;

  case 1:
    print('a monster');
    break;

  case 2:
    print('a terrible person');
    break;

  case 3:
    print('not of this Earth');
    break;
}
%>.

You have always lived in the swamps and you will forever remain in the swamps.

You have been blessed by the god <%
switch (Math.floor(Math.random() * 4)) {
  case 0:
    print('Xll'yen');
    break;

  case 1:
    print('43rf'yh');
    break;

  case 2:
    print(52529890r.562');
    break;

  case 3:
    print('Yett');
    break;
}
%>, with the following items, for your journey ahead:

Blade of Gonzo'r
25 gold
Tunic of Despair

[[Continue|The Journey Begins]]

(Before this, I was working on a character generator thing, for myself mostly, and have since given up on that (at least for now).)

thanks mike

you can buy books from Mike on his website or here. 

read some of his book reviews and find out more about him and his other books on htmlgiant. 
It's a small world, Mike went to college with a person I collaborate with a lot now as a writer. This mutual acutance we share is also my mortal enemy. 

mike likes troika, and owns troika zines. i invited him to play troika online sometime. he told me his dad played dnd. 

lemme tell you more about Agbogbloshie

 the Agbogbloshie sphere has an active volcano, a swamp, canyons, black wilderness, prairie grasses with hidden sewer tanks, and corpo office towers with evaporating doors

encounters from the Agbogbloshie (aka earth2) sphere

1. an erupting volcano melting the castle known as '76, ancient electronics can be looted, d20 orcs are running to a jeep, d6 of them are on fire

2. jungle swamp corridors lead down to a mosquito net tent littered with pink maggots eating the flesh off of a designer cybernetic arm, horror film strings play

3. a low-level guard driving a jeep, blasting drill 'n' bass music drowned-out

4. 1d3 blind women summoning a psyops barge descending from the sky, they each wear a pendant of st. agnes

5. the ceiling clouds escaped the castle, they are outside, dropping black soot (poison)

6. !!??!!?!

(at this point in the blog post writing process i started making a cajun spaghetti sauce, starting with the trinity first, making it extra spicy, and serving it with my own homemade jalapeno cheddar bread)

a background from the Agbogbloshie sphere or earth2

Jamal

the soul survivor always kisses their gun when suitin' up.

possessions:
d3 synaptic-jammers
d3 heavy-glow putty 

d3 pop-smoke

hecka-expensive snake-charmer shotgun with 2d6 shells (damage as pole-arm)

headband (with a charm from an ancient hell witch, +3 random spells)

skills:
3 hackin'

3 paintin'
2 blastin'

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase my zines)

(this blog is impervious to criticism)

end of the year post, d20 links to some of my favorite 2022 reads that are now encounters

a massive amount of confusion has arrived in my brain. 

it spent months reading endlessly. 

it can take months of concerted effort to replace an irrational thought process.

happy new year 🐹

i'm going to share the first and last sentences from some of the books (and/or zines) i've read this year.

it's a poetic way to close this year on the blog. 

i've made an encounter table at the end to be used for a setting based on the books (and/or zines).

1. Cyst by Jamzilla
First Sentence: "All has come to ruin."
Last Sentence: "All is lost."

2. Psycho Nymph Exile by Porpentine Heartscape
First Sentence: "Vellus Satowary is a biomecha pilot."
Last Sentence: "I was alone for so long."

3. Horse Girl by Samuel Mui
First Sentence: "You are a woman in her late 20s."
Last Sentence: "You will be remembered by those who love you."

4. Against Nature by Tomas Espedal
First Sentence: "I’m starting to grow old; I don’t recognize myself."
Last Sentence: "You say the end, but love doesn’t want to end."

5. The Pheasant by Raymond Carver
First Sentence: "Gerald Weber didn't have words left in him."
Last Sentence: "'He should turn around and just knock hell out of her.'"

6. White Ibis by Sam Pink
First Sentence: "'Just, whatever,’ I said, standing in a drugstore aisle with my girl."
Last Sentence: "And I couldn’t tell if it was trying to come in, or telling me to come out."

7. Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier
First sentence: "Her name was Jenny Hauser and every Wednesday I put pickles on her pizza."
Last Sentence: "She really was beautiful, even with short hair."

8. Into the Odd (remastered) by Chris McDowall
First Sentence: "The world is too large for explorers to map, and too old for academics to record."
Last Sentence: "The crew are looking for anything to stave off the boredom."

9. The Blunts and Future King by Jimble
First Sentence: "A hand hearth is a small, stone orb with a hole in its top." 
Last Sentence: "This supplement was written with the Champion being an NPC in mind, but I’m not a cop."

10. To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger
First Sentence: "Something is dead over there, hidden among the tall trees separating my property from Mr. Landon’s."
Last Sentence: "At least it is something they cannot take from me."

11. The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
First Sentence: "Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents’ divorce."
Last Sentence: "Would you like to come on in and meet the family?"

12. Ashcan People, Displaced Well Beyond Time and Space Volume 1 by Evey Lockhart
First Sentence: "Why is a large, wedge-shaped neighborhood near the densely packed heart of Troika City, more than half abandoned at any given time?"
Last Sentence: "If you are in a wetlands area, your spells have no stamina cost."

13. Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie
First Sentence: "Permettez-moi de vous présenter Sam McGuire” Charles says."
Last Sentence: "It would be a waste of time just to stare at snowflakes, but she was counting, and even that might be a waste of time, but she was only counting the ones that were just alike."

14. Stack Gang by Sean Richer
First Sentence: "Welcome to Troika City, wherein the STACK GANGs are in a very boring mumblecore war with the Flatmen, the Flatworlds, and the Trash Corps that plug the hole between the 2D and 3D astral planes." 
Last Sentence: "Running at full speed right at you."

15. EEEEE EEE EEEE by Tao Lin
First Sentence: "Andrew talks to Steve on the phone then drives to Domino’s."
Last Sentence: "He pulled the blanket over his head and listened to Steve, in the kitchen, cleaning dishes, then microwaving something, then nothing for a while; and then the TV, making a cheering noise."

16. Batrachian Swamps by Micah Anderson & Nate Treme
First Sentence: "37 distrustful villagers, many missing arms—fishers of vast catfish and the dreaded lurks and divers of swamp pearls."
Last Sentence: "If it makes it out, the whole swamp becomes infected and the frogmen are reborn from the junk DNA of their mammalian scourge."

17. The Garbage Times by Sam Pink
First Sentence: "It was a shitty winter."
Last Sentence: "I blew her a kiss and it shattered the window and exploded her head and went through the wall behind her, through the entire building and everything else in its path into the sky, moving so fast it didn’t even disrupt clouds, up and up, halving an airplane as it continued into space, crushing meteoroids such that they smothered and killed stars, piercing and assassinating the sun, eventually reaching the end of everything and opening a hole in the lining, deflating it and carrying it off like a popped balloon."

18. Vampire Cruise by Amanda Lee Franck 
First Sentence: "A few months ago, a pair of young and hungry vampires wrote out a business plan, dredged up a wreck, and poured their hoarded wealth into veneering it in luxury."
Last Sentence: "Adding to the model boat to bring it more in line with the real boat will allow for more specific effects."

19. Enter the Craplands by Sean Richer
First Sentence: "Alright, so like, I’ll be pretty straight forward: these are the denizens of the craplands, just ordinary people."
Last Sentence: "Craplandian Goddess of the Wind, patron saint of slamming that damned door in your face."

20. Bear by Marian Engel
First Sentence: "In the winter, she lived like a mole, buried deep in her office, digging among maps and manuscripts."
Last Sentence: "It was a brilliant night, all star-shine, and overhead the Great Bear and his thirty-seven thousand virgins kept her company."

d20 encounters from this blog post to write into your #dungeon23 notebook

1.  lost ruin
2. biomecha pilot. “I was alone for so long"
3. horse-girl
4. man without a face
5. d8 wild pheasants
6. drugstore, open
7. pizza delivery driver
8. d6 mercenaries, bored
9. majikal pipe, see “the blunts and future king
10. d3 volture-women, hungry
11. 2 sisters taking care of their sick mother
12. 2 great ponds on the edge of the city
13. begins to snow
14. people stacked on one another’s shoulder, running full speed right at you
15. pizza joint, payphone
16. fishery. ran by frogmen
17. a giant crater, caused by a kiss
18. vampire
19. Craplandian Goddess of the Wind, see enter the craplands
20. mole-girl, speaks of the Great Bear and his thirty-seven thousand virgins

my new year's resolution is to not say a single word all year 🐹

edit:

i've noticed the best encounters are ones not based on a TTRPG

d50 table to generate adventures from the knife shaped sphere

This table conveys feelings I use for my setting. I will add it to my '#dungeon23' (top 3 alternative hashtags) notebook. When I use something from the list I will strike a line through it; write something new. I'm sharing it so that others can use it. Roll a few dice and create your own Knife Shaped Sphere recipe now. Write them down in your notebook to use later. Check my other posts tagged 'table' for more.

1. blood-loss
2. harpoon heart
3. crossing the street
4. lake water
5. zamboni
6. lawnmower
7. beheaded
8. scalpel
9. ice
10. embolus
11. head squeeze
12. Dead cop
13. weed-whacker
14. bleach
15. fire
16. impaction
17. heart-worm
18. scissor
19. scythe
20. schoolbus
21. flamethrower
22. fever
23. skillet
24. scrotal
25. forever war
26. smoke
27. plane crash
28. barbell
29. pitchfork
30. machete
31. dronefare
32. soft serve
33. software error
34. firehose
35. fidget spinner
36. gps
37. meat grinder
38. rubber duck
39. fentanyl
40. campfire
41. boat motor
42. wrong med
43. right med
44. skewer
45. murphy bed
46. stepladder
47. liquor
48. prion
49. combine harvester
50. razor

#chasingthedungeon23
#idreamof23dungeons

#istillwanttodungeon23withyou

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase my zines)

do you have cellular devices in your games? (a d100 table for generating npc contacts)

手機 (shǒujī) means cellphone/smartphone & translates to 'hand machine'

電話 (diànhuà) means phone & translates to 'electric words'

in Taiwan they use the term ​低头族 ('face-down' '["group" or "generation"]') in reference to people who are always looking down at their phones in public.

i recommend not having your phone with you.

i recommend breaking your phone.

i recommend not having a phone or a future.

one can do things one does on a computer.

probably one of the only times i've felt like a genius was when i texted 'fuck you, dumbass' from my mom's phone to my younger bother's phone.

i have a daily urge to dispose my phone.

i've been having mild visions of me or other people cutting down cell phone towers with chainsaws.

in 2002 a French study on negative effects of living within 300 meters of a cell phone tower included sleep disturbance, discomfort, depression, and headaches.

microwaves from smartphones open the blood-brain barrier. if you feel depressed, confused, and/or unstable, try putting your phone on airplane mode, unplugging your wireless technology, and spending more time in low EMF areas, like a forest.

(this blog is impervious to criticism)

here's a d100 table to generate npc

contacts for your players' cellular devices.

1. work 2-9. an ex 10. your boss 11. your roommate 12-16. coworkers 17. your best friend 18-20. your parents 21. a friend of a friend 22. a Chinese restaurant 23. your friend's brother 24-27. people you have kissed 28. a good person and you feel sad now 29. your best friend in fourth grade 30. you still have a crush on this one 31-34. people you went to school with 35-36. people that are just nice and you like 37. an online friend that gave you their number 38. someone you might go to a movie with as friends 39. you don't know why their number is in your phone 40. they lent you the first season of x-files on dvd 41. this one makes you so sad when you see their name 42. a really good person you used to work with 43. someone who told you that you don't know much about life 44. someone you'd like to see sometimes but wouldn't confide in 45. they aren't in the same city as you and that makes you feel sad 46. someone you've never called and can't imagine that you will 47. someone who said they love you, and does, and you feel sad about that 48. this person is under a different name than you thought it would be 49. someone you like and who likes you and hopefully becomes your friend 50. someone you told you're in love with, is really nice, and attractive 51. you wrote weird things about them on the bathroom wall in high school 52. someone you don't really know and whose number you can delete 53. someone you talk so much shit about and don't know what's going to happen 54-55. people that seem to like you but you really want them to like you a lot 56. a friend of a friend, sort of, you could delete their number from your phone 57. someone you don't know, they are cool though, you have seen them three times 58. a crush you had but now you really just want to be not-very-close-friends with 59. they came over to your parent's house and played scrabble, now you feel sad 60. someone you made out with once while you were both drunk, and would make out with again, you think 61. a person you really liked when you first met and don't like very much now, but it's ok 62. when you're seen with this person you feel embarrassed and stupidly proud at the same time 63. only a first name but you feel distanced enough from them that you think a last name is due 64. someone you used to be friends with, and saw recently, but you're not sure how you feel about them 65. you have to delete this number! though they texted you on new years, and everybody else too probably 66. someone you thought was in love with you, and that made you sad, but you don't think they are anymore, maybe 67-70. people you used to live with in a big stupid house a couple blocks away from where you live now 71. this person got arrested for 'car-shopping' you think they called it, when they steal shit out of parked cars 72. someone who left town for a month or two, you saw them a couple days ago and you were really happy to see them 73. one you met once, and then again a few months later, but you felt tired and nervous about other things both times 74. someone who didn't hangout with you recently because they had already made plans, but you feel like it was an insult anyway 75. someone who said they had a huge crush on you, but someone told you they are a liar, but you would never go out with this person 76. someone you told once that you were just going to stay friends with because you were going to see a band together and you didn't want that to be awkward 77. they haven't answered your calls for months and years, but do now, and whenever you see them you tell them how glad you are that you're friends and they say 'yeah' 78. you think you wrote poems about having a crush on them over a year ago and you feel totally distanced from feeling that way, but when you see them you feel good and okay, you have fun when you see them and feel like they're your peer, you feel depressed and numb sort of right now 79-100. a drug dealer

edit:

all phones do 1 'damage'

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right where you can purchase my zines)