iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Great opportunity to invest early in wildly high concept RPG themed sci-fi but also in retail hell moments like this

At least 50% of that turnover was the break room door. Our manager Jerry agreed to trial a gadget that was supposed to improve staff morale, so now there was a high-tech scanner mounted over the frame. If it didn't detect a nice big smile, it wouldn't open.

Bzzt! "Come on, show us that customer smile!" it chirped as I approached.

Jerry had sent the staff a selfie of the kind of smile the door wanted to see. Several people quit immediately. Those that didn't saved it to their phone and held it up to the camera, like I was doing.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Kobold With a Gun getting a lot of love, as is appropriate

Content-wise, there’s quite a bit here, a lot more than you’d expect from a high-concept comedy RPG in fact. Locations and NPCs, from goddesses all the way down to a kobold with a gun (who will shoot you, with his gun), all come with a passel of motivations and story hooks. Of all the parts of this game, I think the world as presented is surprisingly my favorite bit. It’s not always consistent, but it’s consistently entertaining. What more could you ask for really.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

SomethingAwful’s FATAL & Friends forum thread has a pretty good write-up on This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! right now, including my new favourite summary of the archetypes in the game:

It’s Heroing Time!
And then he heroed all over those guys

To build your very own isekai hero, start by choosing an Archetype.
The Bystander: Whoops! You weren’t even supposed to be here today, but you were standing too close to someone else being summoned or were hit by Truck-Kun and got sucked into another world by accident.
The Demon Lord: Evil cultists summoned you here to rule the world, but you didn’t care for their vibe and you look terrible in black leather, so you dipped.
The Hero: You were brought to Ceria to defeat an ancient evil. You blew through that quest easily, of course, so now you’re just looking for something interesting to occupy your time.
The Myth: You’re never alone; there’s the spirit of a great Cerian hero or magic beast in your body. Once per adventure you can flip them in so they can wipe up the bad guys for you.
The Noble: You occupy the body of a previously existing high mucky-muck, who by all accounts was kind of a snot. Now you have to navigate their life and maybe make things better for the people around you.
The Reader: Ceria was the subject of your favorite book or video game in your past life, and you know more about it than even the people who live here.
The Reincarnated: Only your spirit arrived, without a body. Unfortunately the summoning spell doesn’t do “making a human body” very well, and you now have the form of something completely different.
Tragedeigh The Tragedy: You were summoned by someone very bad, who used you for very bad purposes. You managed to escape but now you have terrible scars and trust issues.
Each Archetype includes a choice between two special background-style benefits. For instance, the Noble can choose either Disowned Heir (get better starting equipment) or Villainess (any attempt to bully people always uses your best Attribute).

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Fun fact - these notes from Chiaki pretty much directly led to the Goddesses and Season of the Sage expansions. SotS especially answers these questions about Muto while bringing back that “yearning for home” theme to reflect that he’s an old-gen 00s hero in contrast to the modern player protags

Chiaki Hirai - I feel like the whole “other churches” thing could be a bit more fleshed out, like you did on “where you can find scrolls”? Maybe a few quick examples on former churches that may have fallen out of favor, or even other gods or goddesses that think Launrith sucks.

Chiaki Hirai - And this also piques my interest in Muto, is he just really irresponsible? What drove him to think it’s cool to summon a bunch of people from other worlds in like he was done, to sow so many opportunities for chaos?

Older isekai stories used to focus on the fact it kinda sucks you get isekai’d. Part of the journey was about finding a way back. Some modern ones have this emphasis too, even if the stories these days might emphasize more on setting up maid cafes, registering at adventure guilds and saving princesses.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Here’s the full cover as drawn by @limelemons27.bsky.social! All of her previous covers for the franchise appear as artworks throughout the book too, including her art of the goddess Launrith, Sage Yuya Muto and the villainous Glitched Adventurer.

The cover of This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! with a lady knight, a short wizard in black, a catgirl in a maid dress and a short furry monster with a big backpack all outdoors on an adventure.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Here are some of the new example characters in the game, with art from @satrathai.bsky.social! Carla is a necromancer trying to create a better world through undead labour, while Chiyo guards an ancient magical cherry blossom forest and calls on its magic to help her fight.

Double spread of a TTRPG ruleset with two characters - Carla Frei, a dark haired necromancer with a witch hat and a green tome, and Chiyo, a silver haired girl with sakura blossoms through her hair.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Endless 08 is back in business! Big fan of the art for this one.

A poster for the anime Hero Tales with the subheading "Seven stars will shatter the empire". Several characters wielding swords, bows and staffs are lined up in action poses.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Summoned one of my own this time for a slime on slime mech fight

A TTRPG character riding on top of a giant yellow slime with humanoid legs

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

23 hours left to go in the campaign and we've reached the $9000 AUD mark! Just another 14% to go before This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! definitive edition is funded

A funding progress graph that shows a campaign at 86% funded with 23 hours to go

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

50% of the Dungeon Boss backer slots have been taken! Two spaces left for anyone who wants to come in at the highest backer tier for the campaign and get their own boss monster designed

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

I will be joined by @ettin.itch.io, @arraxis.bsky.social and @siythrun.com for a one-shot session of This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! in the last 24 hours of the campaign over at www.twitch.tv/duffhounds Stream Time: Sunday 23rd 4pm AEDT, Saturday 22nd 9pm PST / 11pm CST

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

I'll be streaming at www.twitch.tv/duffhounds with @ettin.itch.io this Saturday at 7pm AEDT as we make Ettin's character for the This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! game in the last 24 hours of the Kickstarter campaign. I'm looking forward to seeing what we come up with!

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Here's a look at the print character sheet, which has a cleaner design, uses the new logo, has a dedicated section for weapons, and has a better HP/SP tracking. I like how the three main attributes sit inside the new portal insignia - it's a cool touch!

A character sheet for the TTRPG This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! that includes fields for character details, HP and SP tracks, and attribute fields.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

I got a good question on the Kickstarter from someone asking about how playtesting influenced the design of the game and if there were any unexpected insights. Here's the response I wrote!

A message written by Duffo on January 28 2025 that reads:

Thanks for the question! I've playtested this game at the table, over Roll20 and in pbp format so it was useful to make tweaks for it to fit all three environments. Some early changes were adding tags to starting weapons (small melee really needs tags to compete with the other weapon classes) and setting a maximum of 5 points for each attribute to lock off 7-0-0 builds.

The most unexpected part was seeing other GMs run the game and encounter the same problem: solo boss fights. LUMEN characters get HP and SP back from defeating enemies, so they always perform better against hordes. I had to do some rewrites to make it clear bosses should always have minions (or multiple parts), and the Dungeon Tower expansion is all about showing exactly how these encounters can be built for maximum effect.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Here's another example spread, showing the core rules this time. Your characters have 7 points to distribute between Might, Mastery and Mischief, and this determines how many d6s you roll for each action. Characters are pretty easy to make, as you can see from the character creation checklist!

A double-spread from the TTRPG This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! with rules text explaining the premise of the game, how the dice resolution system works, what the main attributes are for your character, and then a checklist for character creation.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Here's an example of the new layout, showing the Alchemist and Assassin classes. Players start with both Basic Abilities and a third ability depending on their highest stat - Might, Mastery or Mischief. As they gain xp they can unlock more abilities or upgrade the ones they have to be even better!

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

A fun new detail about acquiring new classes in This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! is that you learn them out of magic manuals with themed covers. I give two examples in the book, including the Blood Mage manual that cuts up your hands even just trying to open it up.

GAINING CLASSES

For a character to gain access to a new class and its abilities, they must acquire a special kind of book known as a class treatise. These are thin reference manuals usually with a themed cover (eg. a simple hunter treatise will be bound in hide and bark, while a blood mage treatise is covered in so many rusted nails and spikes that it is impossible to handle one without cutting yourself). Reading a class treatise gives you the basic abilities for that class and allows you to mark XP against that class in future.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Been working on a novel tie-in for my Too Many Heroes ttrpg as a way of workshopping some fun new setting ideas, such as Forest Where The Animals Are On Fire Always

Text on black background:

“You didn’t guess what kind of quest I would pick for a summoned hero with the Hunter class?” Luzia pulled out a scrap of paper and handed it to me. Beasts of all kinds, from Ashwood Charcoal Hares to Smokehoof Stags, were listed out with intimidating quantities next to them. Was I hunting a five course meal for every member of the guild?!

“With this many fire themed creatures I’m surprised the forest isn’t on fire half of the time,” I joked.

Luzia gave me a blank look in return. “It is. We have a lot of resilient undergrowth, and many of our trees only bloom or spread their seeds when exposed to fire. As an aside, the Ashwoods province has more members of the Firefighter class per capita than anywhere else in Ceria.”

“Great. Noted.” I’m pretty sure my lungs weren’t going to enjoy that much smoke, but I could brave it for now.

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 19/10/2024

I’m seeing a lot of new TTRPG people here so I’ll go over my work: my games include Bloodclotte, a Gothic medical horror about war doctors with weird powers, and This World Summons Too Many Heroes!!, an isekai power fantasy comedy with three expansions out to date.

A screenshot of the TTRPG games available on duffhounds.itch.io

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Duffo @duffo.bsky.social · 11/08/2023

Hello Bluesky, It's French 1800s Strange Medical Implement Friday

Medical tools. I have no idea what these do.

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