iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I've been putting posts on here thinking up how to convert Drakengard into a ttrpg, and I now realize I was subconsciously shying away from some of the most powerful elements of that game's story. I'll be slowly digging into those, and making sure they're not just present, but central.

010

It got me thinking about splatterpunk (which is a little of a stretch, but fits) and transgressive fiction, and made me think heavily about the injection of uncomfortable topics into games as a way to ponder on and digest them.

100

The movie has some powerful found family + outsider/other + weird morality energy floating around that I really loved. The first #ttrpg I ever played was Vampire the Masquerade, and it's so easy to see some of the concepts that were ported from that film directly in.

100

Ben Robbins is launching M2 @lamemage.com · 30/09/2026

I just recently watched Nightbreed for the first time, and just... oh wow. That movie did things to my brain I was not expecting. I'm not really sure how I avoided it for so long, and I'm not sure if I'm sad I did, or if I'm ecstatic I finally saw it when my brain was ready for it.

Poster image for Nightbreed 1990, featuring the title in large yellow text and monochome images of Cabal and several residents of Midian.

100

Reposted by J?

In one week I click the button and let slip the dogs of fractal history… Tuesday October 6 www.kickstarter.com/projects/lam...

kickstarter.com

Coming soon: Microscope (2nd Edition)

The fractal game of epic histories

3237105

J? @jquestionmark.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This game looks really amusing, and has some incredible contributors. The premise is cute, and I can't wait to get it to the table with my family. It's quite close to funding, and it blows my mind it hasn't already. So, uh, maybe some folks can help fix that?

112

Even more wasteful than the usual stupid AI trash since there's already a whole array of dawn versions of this when the whole palette is cycled through.

010

If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula (figured I'd go for the father-daughter duo here)

Count Lee from the 1985 Vampire Hunter D movie, his face shrouded in shadows and portrayed in blues and blacks with red eyes narrowed to slits.

L'Armica Lee, daughter of Count Lee in Vampire Hunter D's 1985 film adaptation. She has short bangs and extensive gold jewelry with red orbs covering her ears.

131

laughing-lark-games.itch.io

Laughing Lark Games has made all sorts of other cool stuff since then, so I'm not going to judge that they haven't looped back to expand on ORGS. Go check out all their stuff on itch: laughing-lark-games.itch.io (I'm especially excited to take a look at Railway Rangers soon as I have time).

Laughing Lark Games

010

The one thing I think would really add a lot to this is sets of plant-based powers. I know, I'm a sucker for cool super-moves like you seen in Vampire (VtM) or Werewolf. And it seems like those may have been planned at one point. But that's a looooot of extra work to ask of the creator.

100

Leaning into the rage against terrible modern concerns should make for a delightfully cathartic experience, and the Swamp Thing vibes would allow for a excellent "modern druids go Captain Plant on evil organizations" story.

100

I haven't had a chance to run or play it, but from looking at the straight forward rules as well as capacity for character growth over time, I can see it working well in a campaign or for a nice one-shot on an off night.

100

I especially enjoy the slow body horror/loss of control where you gradually slip into being barely human. It takes the struggle to maintain control from a game like Werewolf the Apocalypse, and makes it an ongoing concern instead of an in-the-moment hassle.

100

The core premise of the game is extremely cool: you're a person infused with a Seedkin and using your powers to fight against some of the toxic nonsense that our modern society has gotten so good at producing (hyper-capitalism, data centers, hate groups, etc).

100

I first saw this game in trifold form at Pacific Nerdwest, and was immediately pleased to see "roll stat value as a number of D10s" in the vein of World of Darkness games. There's differences in how you assess the results, but as a big WoD fan, that instantly caught my eye.

laughing-lark-games.itch.io

Finally back to looking at games from the #TTRPG Collective jam, I want to take a look at Our Roots Grow Strong (ORGS) by @laughinglarkgames.bsky.social . laughing-lark-games.itch.io/our-roots-gr... (oh my, it's going to take a year to go through these at this rate)

Our Roots Grow Strong - Key Innovation Edition by Laughing Lark Games

A TTRPG of Inevitable Hope

120

Reposted by J?

Jordan Starkweather ✨ @jackal27.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

You can’t even comprehend how important Eien ni Hen’s work is to the fan translation community. Romancing SaGa, Fire Emblem, Sakura Wars, Tear Ring Saga, Glory of Heracles, Dragon Force II, Dark Half, Beyond Oasis, Psi-O-Blade, Arabian Nights, and so much more. What a loss. Rest in peace.

1630001470

Space Heroes & Other Fools is a 10/10 experience for me, so I can only imagine how much great music is waiting for me there...

000

I'll just cheat a little and say that the list includes several Bayfilk collections, which is really exciting. I haven't listened to most of these albums yet, but it's very high on my list to work through them.

100

Off Centaur Publications - Wikipedia

This label put out around 100 albums (and songbooks) 1981 to 1988. I'll admit, I'm a little scared to even start digging into the huge number of items from their catalogue. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_Cen...

en.wikipedia.org

100

This is a really moving song, and a huge amount of the credit for that goes to the vocals from Julia Ecklar. But the actual lyrics look to have been written by Jordin Kare. Yes, another new name! And just who was Jordin Kare? One of the founders of Off Centaur Publications.

100

But before I say more - I promised my kiddo that any time I recommend this song to anyone, I would include a depression warning. This song is amazing, but my goodness, it is heavy. Get ready for some feels.

100

Space Heroes & Other Fools 08 - Darkness [HQ]

We talked about Julia Ecklar a good bit, but what about the songs on Space Heroes & Other Fools? This is a powerful #filk album, and I think the right answer is to just jump straight into my favourite song on it: Darkness. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N-v...

youtube.com

YouTube video by Songs from the Stars

100

(Which is actually kind of a shame, because the music slaps.)

XelArtz @xelartz.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I picked up a physical copy of this game at PAX from Indiepocalypse, and I cannot wait to play more of it. It's weird, inventive, and something like comfy (?) in all the best ways. I will definitely be throwing this on in the background the next time I play some more.

121

Reposted by J?

Reject minimalist and AI slop Embrace broadsheets and razzle dazzle

13410

This is certainly a window of time I'll be drawing on when designing and running future games - trying to weave some downtime and detailing in with the action/adventure/intrigue.

000

I'm not sure it would land quite as well with characters that are less established. And it makes for a really lovely moment of calm knowing that things are going to ramp back up a bit soon. But I really want to advocate for just hanging out with the characters and etching out a little of the world.

100

All this lead up to say: we've been very chill, slipping in and out of character, building the world, the relationships, and the details with something akin to idle dreaming. And damn, it has been great.

100

After the quick skips, we've been going back in and playing out the scenes that deserve or require more detail. Tonight was largely putting a wrap on that (the remaining scenes will happen at the tail end of the 4 month window, and pack a lot more punch).

100

We recently did a batch of sessions where I laid out 4 months of time passing, and had things be a bit more chill in setting - giving the characters time to raise dots and generally change/improve their situations.

100

Mage: the Ascension is certainly a trad game (even if I generally think that's to its detriment). I barely run it as such, but part of that trad game style (and the way I learned to run games) is heavy prep up front. Just per session, based on what we discussed for next session, normally.

100

I've been trying to do a post a day, but I'm running out of day rapidly and haven't written a post yet. I just had a great Wednesday night #ttrpg session, so rather than the other dives I've been doing, I want to talk about low effort sessions in a trad game.

SoloRPGList @solorpglist.com · 24/09/2026

Reposted by J?

New to the #SoloRPG List: Ancient Archive Analysis Accumulator by @jquestionmark.bsky.social Search your local library's website for "literary works" your artificial entities locate in the scrambled and reassembled megastructure that is the distant future LINKY: solorpglist.com/search.php?i...

Cover for the solo journaling game TTRPG: Ancient Archive Analysis Accumulator. Title words stacked and aligned with a photocopied look to it

062

Mars Watch | PBTA space military + survival horror

It's really exciting to see that Mars Watch funded!! And there's still a bit over 2 days left, so maybe that number can keep going up and Ash can get paid for all their hard work! www.kickstarter.com/projects/wun...

kickstarter.com

An almost tenth-anniversary second edition of award-winning RPG The Watch by Ash Kreider, with a new setting and playbook

035

The energy of this is excellent, the writing is solid, the setting begs for you to make it your own, and the core mechanic is both unique and tied in with the fiction.

000

Because the suits have explicit meanings (not quite lined up with traditional tarot, but they make a lot of sense for the game), it's easy to map the mechanics of what card you're playing to the fiction of what your character is doing.

100

I particularly love the resolution system, as it's heavily integrated with every aspect of the game. You play using tarot cards, and each character has a major arcana card to represent their current struggle, as well as a deck of cards related to their areas of expertise (that can be powered up).

100

The setting is loose enough that you can mold it to your own preferences, but detailed enough to know where to start from (which is great for inviting ownership of the world from the whole table).

100

It's a GM (narrator) + players (protagonists) affair, and it centers around a vague setting (that you define details of as a group) with some Changeling the Dreaming and Persona 4 vibes.

100

The pdf comes in at a solid 54 pages, and I do love the font choices (it's highly legible, and I'm a sucker for monospace fonts in general). The writing does feel like it's assuming you've played ttrpgs before, but I wouldn't count that as an issue by any means.

100

22 Paths by TheFifthRider

For my part, being a new member to this community, I'm going to go through each game, look at what makes them cool, and see what I can learn from them. First up is 22 Paths, by TheFifthRider ( thefifthrider.itch.io/22-paths ).

thefifthrider.itch.io

A trick-taking TTRPG about kids with the power to change fate.

100

Submissions to TTRPG Collective 3rd Anniversary Jam

There was recently a very cool #ttrpg jam in the TTRPG Collective discord. For anyone wanting to dive all the way in, the jam submissions are here: itch.io/jam/ttrpg-co... .

itch.io