hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 03/10/2026So far The Rouse has it all: no quote marks for dialogue, indecipherable Britishisms, references I cannot make sense off, words I swear I never read before in my life, but it wouldn't be a Miéville otherwise. Makes you wanna eructate. There's also no plot but at page 67 I am only 4.8% in. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026And yea, I have neither played Stonetop nor Blades, and not giving it 23 sessions across 2 years before voicing an opinion probably disqualifies me. Maybe they work beautifully "at the table". But I won't find out. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026I am 100% aware that I am crawling into the niche of a niche of a niche with this view, given the traction all these hundreds of pages rulebook games have. Basically I am one mood dip away from reverting to just daydreaming and leaving my fellow men to their own games. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Worse yet is Stonetop. I was so excited, I was ready to dig in, but then I get a step by step flowchart lining out how to, well, talk, basically. I can't. I don't know who this is for. "Beginners"? Laughable. But then who? 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Maybe it's my early contact with Trophy and watching Jason Cordova GM where the confusion stems from. It is inconceivable to me that a player, instead of expressing delight when I tell them they slip and fall face first into a splayed open corpse, would start to lawyer out the make of their boots. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Hardly an original thought but there must be two kinds of players, those wanting to tell a story through the game and those who want to "win" in some fashion. And these I think you have to armor up against with rules for which 3 things influence the effect of your actions and shit. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026But I can already tell I won't get far, again. I am constantly confounded by the need of game creators to anally detail and categorize every player whim. Or rather, I understand why: to accommodate the exact kind of player that would put me off RPGs forever were they at my table. I think. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026I'm having another run at Blades in the Dark, aka the book that put me off for a few years by referencing a basic action procedure "on page 230" or something. 110
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Slept on CAS but now I get where Dani Filth is coming from lyrically. Every Zothique story is like 3 COF songs smashed together. Absolutely glorious. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 24/08/2026WOW! Another post, blot decided to fix syncing seconds before I mustered the resolve to vibe-code sorry assisted engineer my own blogging platform! Thanks blot! It's my Wet Dog Lodge design notes vvitxcvlt.blot.im/dogs.vvitxcvlt.blot.imDogs - vvitxcvltI wrote another incident for Violence: Wet Dog Lodge. It’s in some sense a successor to Hell of Swans, but can be played as a standalone as well. 010
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Back with a new Violence! Play to find out why the dogs are wet and what's up with poor Leda from A Hell of Swans!!! ps. Don't play or read if you are fond of dogs or whatever sorry!! hexhog.itch.io/wet-dog-lodgehexhog.itch.ioWet Dog Lodge by hexhogAn incident for Violence 033
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Wet Dog Lodge, my new Violence incident, is text-complete. Since layout is trivial, I will mostly focus on finding a nice cover. Still fantasizing of having this or hellaswans illustrated and printed at some point. Maybe when I have a trilogy. 170
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 10/08/2026Swallow (2026). This gonna inspire my next Violence dungeon I swear I took this photo myself not AI. 120
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 30/06/2026I wrote down some extended Swans design notes, mostly so that I will remember I did this all deliberately and it wasn't as much as a fluke as it will appear to me in the future. vvitxcvlt.blot.im/swansvvitxcvlt.blot.imSwans - vvitxcvltI published a new adventure, A Hell of Swans, made for Luke Gearing’s Violence. I usually write some design notes directly on itch, but I since RPG 020
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Unable to hold my horses until the jam, I released a Violence for @lukegearing.bsky.social's Violence. It contains about 1 actual violence but that one counts. Rest vibes. I had to else the rewrites would have never stopped. hexhog.itch.io/a-hell-of-sw...hexhog.itch.ioA Hell of Swans by hexhogA Scenario for Violence 5162
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 17/06/2026After the strict mechanisms and motions I went through designing the Mythic Bastionland stuff I shifted into completely different gears. Freeform, literate, grounded. Sag River reads like a horror story, and this form I aspire to. Let's see if it's got any legs. 020
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 17/06/2026I think it's the best thing I've yet written. When I first read Violence I thought what are these weird ass combat rules. But then it dawned on me. And I could not have written this new thing without it, or for any other system. 120
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 17/06/2026I've written a new adventure, this time for Gearing's Violence. Now yesterday a violence jam were announced for July so I have to sit on it till then I guess. 120
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 14/03/2026Read Sag River by Gearing today, following its mention in the Sorensen post. I can't believe this is free. I can't write. I can't anything. Also go Sorensen you are right everyone else wrong. 282
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 30/11/2025Wrote about how conditions work in some games I know. vvitxcvlt.blot.im/conditionsvvitxcvlt.blot.imConditions - vvitxcvltI have been thinking about ways to mechanically and narratively handle “conditions”. What is a condition? I would define it as a minor to 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 16/11/2025"Who the hell is that?" the psycho says. "Heck not hell" she quips as the man Frank Heck enters, seconds before she stabs him in the throat. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 16/11/2025That an all-American girl thinks of "the dusky highway between nuts and asshole" when hearing the word "taint" spoken by a psychopath next to her on a crashing plane strains credibility, to say the least. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 16/11/2025Joe Hill's "King Sorrow" has things going for it, but also contains some of the worst phrases in the history if literature. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 14/11/2025My skirmish system for #MythicBastionland is coming together nicely. I think it adds a simple but interesting dimension to warfare. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 13/11/2025Experimenting with a skirmish system for Mythic Bastionland that has slightly more crunch than the proposed warband combat rules in the book, but sticks to the general combat procedure. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 11/11/2025Hit the button the moment I read EU friendly shipping. Thanks for making this possible. 110
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 11/11/2025Do I buy Wolves Upon the Coast? Gearing's writing is just too strong. I fear it will forever put me off writing anything myself. And there is a negligible chance I will ever get it to the table. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 09/11/2025Only mildly entertained by the new Beauman, sadly. vvitxcvlt.blot.im/the-captive-...vvitxcvlt.blot.imThe Captive (Ned Beauman writing as Kit Burgoyne, 2025) - vvitxcvltThe Beaumanian comical turns of phrase (“capsaicin dervish”) are at every turn smothered by ultra-violence, gore and tragedy. This was too much 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2025I wrote about NPC design on my blog. That's it, that's the update. vvitxcvlt.blot.im/the-supporti...vvitxcvlt.blot.imThe supporting cast - vvitxcvltEver since reading Sam Sorensen’s post on “Legwork” I am gripped by the idea of providing a wealth of NPCs for every adventure or game I make. I am 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/09/2025Might I humbly point out my own take on this fascinating topic hexhog.itch.io/fucked-up-fa...hexhog.itch.ioFucked-up Fairytales: GNOM by hexhogA kinky storytelling game of pointed hats and bloated egos. 020
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 26/06/2025Affinity template for #mythicbastionland sites. Far too much struggle. The location icons do not properly snap to the index numbers; hate the look of the triangle sites; the routes are styles, but no idea how to make that work for closed routes except with an extra crossbar. It will do. 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025Now is the time to not spend another 2 weeks on questionable improvements, but one thing I learned from the playtest is that having the index numbers (d6 and d12) of Myths at hand is a good idea, so I adapted the Myth tiles a little (these are not the actual numbers for this Myth). 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025This is a ruin in a coniferous forest that is also a Curse location (the scribles along the border). The main terrain tile is the ruin, the trees to the left and right are a transparent overlay tile, as is the Curse. In this way, I can create landmarks in a variety of terrains. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025I agonized a while over how to handle rivers. Make connectable tiles? But then each river tile also has a terrain type: rivers cutting through gorges, or meandering over grassland. This would have blown up the number of required tiles considerably. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025I think the overall readability could be improved a bit by making non-navigable (water) tiles a more distinct. I also noticed that on pro maps, like Dyson Logos', mountain regions tend towards stronger line strengths. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025When Chris McDowall himself played with his HexKit map, I noticed he had a hard time finding the Myths he rolled for, so I made sure those tiles are distinct. It was a bit difficult not to overload the map with line strengths, especially since every tile can have a barrier. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025Even though my illustration skills are badly lacking, the final result is quite pleasing to me. The terrain illustrations are evocative of a general landscape type, but still leave enough rule for the imagination, following the "map is not the territory" idea. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025My design goals were high readability, two-color maps with a layer system that allowed for easy conversion between player- and GM-facing maps. No larger filled-in areas so as to be printer friendly. And a grid system that supports snapping of map tiles. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025I considered hand-drawing, but in Mythic Bastionland, you need separate maps for the players and GM, and this makes fully handdrawn maps a tough proposition. Affinity it was. 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025I tried HexKit (cone.itch.io/hex-kit), which is certainly an excellent tool, but the default tiles did not appeal to me, and many of the alternatives, including the fabulous Isle of Lore tiles (stevencolling.itch.io/isle-of-lore...) I found a bit too cute and quite unsuitable for printing.cone.itch.ioHex Kit by Cone Of Negative EnergyHex Mapping tool for table top RPGs 110
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025Since I find myself unable to use even excellent, obviously superior prior work, I decided to cook my own system for hex map drawing using Affinity Publisher. #mythicbastionland 110
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 20/06/2025I held off until I had the physical book, so yesterday I ran a mini-playtest of #mythicbastionland and was not surprised to find that this game has endless potential. 3 hexes and some spark table rolls in and the story bloomed into all directions. 020
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 28/04/2025The Waking of Willowby Hall was not by cup of tea for a variety of reasons, some of which have merit from a design perspective. I guess. vvitxcvlt.blot.im/willowby-hal...vvitxcvlt.blot.imWillowby Hall and manor dungeons - vvitxcvltI got to play The Waking of Willowby Hall recently. For reasons outside of the module’s content, it was not a great experience. Still, I have some 000
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 22/04/2025Would love to order the 5 volume bundle, but 55 shipping inside EU? 🥹 100
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 21/04/2025Some thoughts about Deep Carbon Observatory. A classic for a reason. vvitxcvlt.blot.im/deep-carbon-...vvitxcvlt.blot.imDeep Carbon Observations - vvitxcvltI finally managed to read Deep Carbon Observatory, Patrick Stewart’s much-lauded adventure module. Here are some loose observations about the text. 010
hexhog @hexhog.bsky.social · 05/04/2025Yesterday, I sold 4 physical copies of Voshod to a local games store. The most monumental milestone in this whole endeavor since my very first itch sale. 010