iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

i'm sitting on a couple panels at a convention this year. i know deep down that i'm Smart & Helpful Guy Who Knows Stuff, but do y'all ever feel like --

A crude MS Paint drawing of a small person smiling nervously. In front of the small person, a placard reads "Kurt Refling: Baby / Imposter." On either side of Kurt, the shoulders of two people can be seen, heads out-of-frame like adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. The left figure wears a suit jacket; the right figure wears a blouse.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

went to a white elephant gift exchange this weekend where everyone had to bring something hand-made. nobody said i *wasn't* allowed to bring watercolour gnomes, so obviously that's what i did.

An amateur watercolour painting of a forest scene. A gnome couple sits in the foreground at the root of a tree. Behind them, a forested hillside angles upwards to the right, while a creek passes by on the left.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

In February, I ran a $10,000 TTRPG Kickstarter for one of my games. My take-home for the year will be $1,500. Here's the full financial breakdown. Footnotes in replies. 🧵 (If you'd like to read this as a post instead of images, feel free to click through here: www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/... )

I have a (very) small TTRPG business. I have a day job and sell my games in my spare time, which means I occupy a weird middle space between hobbyist and publisher. I'm a publish-ish. A hoblisher. It's a space that a lot of your favourite small designers exist in, and it's not very well documented.

In the interest of financial transparency, I'm going to share my revenues and expenses for the 2025 calendar year, then a breakdown¹.

The Numbers
I had a pretty big Kickstarter this year, doing all the fulfillment myself ². Those figures make up most of my earnings and expenses! But these are totals for all my TTRPGs. All values are in Canadian dollars ³.

Expenses
Printing - $7,100
Shipping - $3,500
Marketing - $800
Formatting - $800
Software - $200
Total Expenses - $12,400

Revenues
Kickstarter - $10,500
Distributors - $3,600
Online Storefronts - $1,100
Translation Royalties - $500
Total Revenues - $15,700

Net Earnings - $3,300

Breakdown
Printing - $7,100

Did you know it costs money to make physical objects? It's true. I wanted to do a full print run because while print on demand is cheaper at my scale, it attracts less backers. People like to have a book.

This was my first time ever printing and shipping my books myself, and I'm still getting used to looking at the total. It's actually several print runs of about 500 units each.

I used a local print shop that was very affordable. These figures include test prints. My prints were a mix of perfect-bound and saddle-stitched booklets, all 40 pages or under. I have a bunch of copies in my little apartment storage locker, so I'm probably gonna be in a less spendy spot next year for this one.
Shipping - $3,500

I live in Canada, which means I can't just stick a bunch of zines in lettermail and send it to my countrymen. For better or worse, the US is the main market for TTRPGs, and in spite of my Canadian-printed booklets being duty-free ⁴, it still costs some money to cross over.

This number is a mix of shipping to individual backers and bulk shipments to distributors. The cost includes supplies, and a pretty spiffy label printer that I snagged second-hand. I managed to avoid ULINE ⁵ for like 99% of this, which I feel pretty good about. The cost also includes the duties I paid to ship my puppet, which I find very funny.

Marketing - $800

This is a broader category than it sounds like. It includes some ads for the Kickstarter on podcasts and social media, but also travel and materials for convention appearances ⁶ . Travel was most expensive, but I've really enjoyed getting to see my games played in-person... and to meet the many lovely designers I've connected with over the years.

Formatting - $800

A historic bottleneck for me. I pay formatters and illustrators because they generally make my games look better than I could, or -- even better -- actually finish the visuals for the games I've been telling myself I'll finish for years.

Software & Digital Assets - $200

Digital assets (fonts, textures) and tools for formatting, mostly. One-time costs because I don't play the Adobe game ⁷ .

Kickstarter Revenue - $10,500

This is what it sounds like.

Bafflingly, I still don't really know why my Kickstarter was successful, even though I tried really hard to get tracking tools to work for me. It's kind of opaque. Maybe people just like socks.

Distributor Revenue - $3,600

This is my "reliable" source of RPG income. Money comes in through Indie Press Revolution and Compose Dream Games, which are the two big distributors / marketplaces for indie titles in the US and Canada, respectively. I am very fortunate to have these partnerships, because it gets my games to way more people than I could on my own (at least without taking on way more stress).

I thought about adding a third distributor -- someone who distributes to other distributors -- but the cut was a little high, so I balked. I'm glad the avenue exists for people who want to take on more risk or really get their stuff out there, but I had to make a call to decide how much stress I was willing to carry for a hobby.

Online Storefront Revenue - $1,100

This is itch.io, mostly. Most people reach my game page by Google, so it's a bit of a mystery how they find my stuff. Always nice to get the notification. Always a surprise, too.

Translation Royalties - $500

Yeah, so this was completely unexpected. I got a message in my inbox one day from an Italian gentleman who works for a game company; he asked if I was interested in an Italian edition. And he had a friend in a German game company who wanted to know the same... so now I'm internationally published in three languages ⁸ , which is wild.

This rules for many reasons, but the most relevant for this post is that it's very little work on my end for a 10% cut. The figure here is an advance.

Summary & Closing Thoughts
I earned about $15,000 and get to keep about $3,000, half of which is gonna go to taxes. This may sound like a lot, but I make a decent living wage at my day job, and the TTRPG earnings are basically processed as an extension of my personal income^(9).

I feel actually very lucky when I see those numbers. Is that strange? Maybe. As a small business, I would be drowning. But as an art project... it's a huge windfall, right? A windfall that comes with the privilege of seeing people celebrate and engage with my art, which is all I really want at the end of the day.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

What's that? One translation isn't exciting enough? WELL. This week, Italian publisher MS Edizioni announced the Italian version of Sock Puppets! With a live actual play at Lucca Comics & Games!! LOOK AT THEM CROUCH BEHIND THE COUCHES, IT'S ADORABLE AHHHHHH

A banner advertising a live playthrough of Sock Puppets at Lucca Comics & Games 2025.

A convention table set up with an enormous Sock Puppets banner.

Actual play performers crouch behind couches onstage, holding puppets.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

i don't usually post about my weekly indie TTRPG livestream, but this session featured a well dug into the sky... and someone drew it. thanks to friend of the show sierra for this bizarre, delightful gift. and thanks to nick wedig for Florilegium, a TTRPG about magic. nickwedig.itch.io/florilegium

A poster reads: UPPER FRESCIA WAITS FOR NO-ONE! Two peasants carrying shovels walk up a tower that leads into the open sky.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

sock puppets in this cool indie game store's new inventory picture is looking like

Two people sit beside each other as a selfie is taken in a car. The person on the left has extremely colorful hair and a bright smile. The person on the right is unsmiling and monochrome. Editor's note: I believe this picture was originally shared on the internet by one of the people pictured, and that they were sisters? These distant memories. Who can say. Certainly easier to ramble into alt text then verify for you.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

And here's that post-script on wills.

Post-script: Wills are very important. Not just to ensure your wishes are respected, but also to make life easier for your loved ones.

The death industry is largely corporate-owned and profit-motivated, and their revenue streams rely on upselling grief-stricken clientele. I can't be clear enough about this: if you want to "just be tossed in the dumpster" or whatever half-joking thing you always say to mean "please do not spend much money on my death," know that your loved ones will be torn between your offhand assertions and the very real salespeople applying pressure at a very vulnerable time when decisions must often be made quickly.

In a perfect world, none of this matters until a very long time from now. But it's good to be prepared, and to take care of the people we love.

Be well.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

I wrote an article about how to manage your art in the event of your death, for tabletop RPG designers. Sharing here as screenshots with alt text. Or, follow the link below: www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/...

Some folks may have seen the article going around about J.D. Maxwell's absence after his Grimwild crowdfunding campaign. We don't know what happened to Grimwild's designer, and I would ask that we not speculate on the nature of his absence here. Still, this raised certain questions in my community of practice about art after death of the artist.

There are real options for how to handle creative works after death or incapacitation, if you make preparations while you're around. I'm going to share a practical approach in this thread.

Quickly, before we start: if you're not in the headspace to read this, that's okay. Close the tab. Your responsibility is to your well-being. Making a plan for your art is firmly in extra credit territory. It's okay to set this aside.

I'll break this down into four steps.

1. Keep organized records (ongoing).
2. Elect caretakers.
3. Set up a dead man's switch.
4. Document your wishes.

Both 2 and 4 are areas that benefit from an estate plan (including a legal will) if there's money involved. I am not going to discuss the drafting of formal wills here, but understand that wills are very important. See post-script in the comments.

Absence isn't the only time that itemized protocols would be helpful, though. If I think "I need to upload my game to itch.io," I'm either going to see none of these steps (and assume I'll be done instantly), or see all of these steps as an amorphous, daunting process that disinclines me to ever bother doing it. Breaking larger tasks into smaller ones helps you see the labour as something that can be performed in small pieces, and helps you plan an appropriate amount of time to get it done.

Plus, memory is unreliable! If there's something I only do once a year, will I remember those steps when it's time to do them again? Maybe not. That's why it's useful to have operating procedures written out, for you and anyone else who comes after.

2 - Elect caretakers.
If not you, then who?

The ideal person to handle your creative output after your passing is someone who you trust, and who values and understands your art. This is a little tricky, because those two things don't always exist in the same person. You might have a spouse, sibling, parent or child you loves you very much, but has no personal interest in your hobby.

Ask multiple people. If you get multiple affirmative responses, that means you have backups. Organize them in a hierarchy of responsibility so that if Person A is too busy (or overwhelmed, or absent, or already passed) when the unthinkable happens, Person B can then accept or decline the duty. If you ask a bunch of people and don't set a hierarchy, now you have a committee. And nobody wants to have to deal with a committee.

Much like being the executor of a will, caring for someone's art is an honour-flavoured burden. Your job is to choose people who are both willing and able to do this, and to make "no" a comfortable answer for them if they need it.

3 - Set up a dead man's switch.
A dead man's switch is anything that's designed to trigger if the operator is incapacitated or dead. This is what fires the message to your art's caretakers.

The simplest way to do this is probably Google's Inactive Account Manager. If your Google account is inactive for a specified period, Google's systems will attempt to contact you several times (through several avenues). If you fail to respond, it will provide access to some or all of your files or accounts to one or more people of your choosing. If you don't store your files on Google Drive, you can still use this feature to provide access to documents with sensitive information -- though be careful with what you choose to store in plaintext.

Some password managers also have this service. So do some paid services, but you need to be confident that they'll still be around if you aren't.

4 - Document your wishes.
Finally, this is what your art's caretaker is actually responsible for. Make sure your instructions are clear and feasible. You want it to be extremely obvious where your works are kept and what you want done with them. Consider:

Should some or all of your drafts be made public? Which ones? Where would they be published?

Do you want to offer certain collaborators or publishers the chance to finish and distribute some works? If so, how will rights (& revenue) be divided?

Is there any community you want to be informed of your passing, local or online? Would that include a message from you?

You may also have business concerns related to active Kickstarters or distribution. The approach to handling this will depend on your region and business structure.

If you read all of this and thought: This is too much work, nobody would care, and we've gone beyond the scope of my concerns or interest. Well, perfect. You've learned something. If there's no business stuff involved that would frazzle your loved ones, then it's okay to let your art die too. Maybe its job was to make you smile, or think, or learn something. Maybe it existed to bring a little bit of joy to a small group of people in a strange and scary world.

Maybe that's all any of us exist to do, really.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

I used Google Sheets to make the crossword. The little repeating squares should've been a perfect fit! But wanted a fancy-pants sheet that could highlight clues and check for mistakes. So now there's a snappy, easy tickbox to highlight clues & check words! But shit, folks. I made some spaghetti.

A crossword laid out on a spreadsheet, with a grid on the left and tickboxes on the right allowing the user to highlight clues and check words for correctness. One word on the grid is highlighted for the viewer.

An absolute mess of weird code, custom functions and indirect cell references that are working together to check words. AN ABSOLUTE MESS.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

I'm gonna be a tease about this one.

Text within a halo of dots. The text reads:
Name: #ERROR
Class: Xenon
Age: 83
Type: Mender / Local / Ghost
Grandchildren: 2
[name, common interest] x2
Achievement: 1
[career / hobby / obstacle overcome]
Regret: 1
[missed opportunity / harm caused]

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Moonshot filmed a playthrough of my Sock Puppets TTRPG. All 4 players made their puppets in advance and didn't show each other until they were live. Please witness the exact moment Andrew wheeled in "Dr. Bean." The whole stream is SO funny. See it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGIJ...

A screenshot of a live playthrough of a tabletop RPG. At the top-left, a human-sized puppet is wheeled onscreen. At the bottom-left, a hand puppet fills the frame. On the right, both other plays laugh in open-mouthed astonishment.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

IPR is bringing Sock Puppets and all its friends to Origins this year, so here's some glamour shots of my little TTRPGs. Vibes: Avenue Q, Majora's Mask, Lassie. (I know marketing is like 80% bragging, but you might wanna stop by early! Sock Puppets sold out at UKGE, to my delight and surprise.)

A copy of a book titled Sock Puppets sits on a table. The book reads, "A roleplaying game about puppets and their problems." The cover image pictures a concerned-looking sock on a puppet show set, complete with lights and a camera.

The game is surrounded by crafting supplies: scissors, glue, markets, stickers, paper, and so many googly eyes.

A game titled "The Hourglass Sings" sits on a sandy surface. The cover art, done in pixel art reminiscent of cross-stitch, shows a seated figure with a hurdy-gurdy on their back. The figure is facing away from the viewer, looking out at a town that extends into distant mountains. Additional text indicates that the game is 1 - 6 players, and is made by Kurt Refling.

Surrounding the book are various decorations: dried flowers; a pocket watch; three bronze triangles; circular cards; and, a vessel spilling sand.

A zine sits on a wooden table. The title reads "Big Dog Big Volcano". The cover art pictures a mountain in the background, and a woman with her dog in the foreground. The mountain, title text, and characters all have the same silhouette. Text reads: "A TTRPG by Kurt Refling & Kathleen Hartin. 3 players, 60-90 minutes."

Several implements surround the book: dice spilling out from a dice bag; a water bottle; a frond of a plant; and driftwood.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

I've released 15 TTRPGs. Most of them have terrible names. Here's what I did wrong, so you don't make the same mistake. Linking as a blog post, but also pasting as images in case you really hate clicking off-site (continued in thread). www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/...

Earlier today, I teased a friend for naming their TTRPG EA Sports¹. I realized about five seconds later that almost all my games have their own name problems, most of which were not on purpose. So now it's time for me to eat my humble pie and tell you all my sins.

The bad names fall into 3-ish categories. I'll write a quick explanation paragraph, then give the examples.

Sin 1 - You Can't Search For This:
This is the one thing I am begging you to take away from this post. Always do a quick search for your game's name, or you'll end up being one of the seven people who chose to name their TTRPG Apotheosis. (I think it's back down to 6. The clever guy who got there first rebranded for the second edition.)

As a general rule, if a search of "Your Game's Name game" still won't find your work, rethink.

Excuse Meow!: I am far from the only person who liked this pun. Most famously, it is an episode from Australian children's television show The Wiggles.

Faewater: This one is actually too good, so a dice company stole it². I take solace in the fact that the set is out of stock, and they for some reason needed a warning on the page that their dice are really sharp and may result in death. (It actually says that.)

The Junk Drawer: Common expression, and now there's two of us.

This Spells Trouble: Once again, this is a common expression in English. And now there's two of us. (Somehow STILL better than the working title, the navel-gazing This Strange World.)

Sock Puppets: Not only is this unsearchable, but searching its name on social media brings up the most toxic, depressing threads on any platform.

Sin 2 - You Won't Remember This (or the Concept is Unclear):
Your game title should stick in people's heads. For most people, "you won't remember this" applies because you've chosen a fantasy word that's much too difficult to spell. For me, it's probably because I got too poetic.

Here We Used to Fly: Oh, do you mean Where We Used to Fly, as everyone I have ever spoken to calls it? (This was my big game for a while in spite of the confusion, so I'll take the W. wait. uh. actually. i guess i didn't.)

Letters We Didn't Write Together: I thought this was a super pretty title for a collection of game poems. But that's kind of the problem -- it's not an epistolary game, which the title strongly implies. It doesn't even really tell you that it's more than one game!

Sin 3 - You Had to Be There:
This is a name that's an inside joke. And I know you're thinking what kind of goober names a game after an inside joke? Me, twice.

But that's not the only way to make this mistake. Sometimes you just get too into your own worldbuilding. Ask yourself: did you name your game after an in-world location that's only interesting to you? Is "The Flame Lord's Castle" actually a good name, or do you just have a fond memory of it?

Chuck & Noodles: A pun that only exists because my Discord server was joking about using a pasta divination mechanic. This is also bad because it's a joke name for a SAD GAME.

Star Chapters: A magical girl game. I don't think most people realize I'm playing with "Cardcaptors," which means the title reference is illegible.

This is Just Who We Are: The Tangent Game: Awful. What is it even about? Granted, the beloved game group I created this for chose the name, so it's not entirely my fault. But this game's branding is so bad that even I forget it exists.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

this is the perfect series of posts. know that once, in chinatown, i walked past - but did not dare to pick up - this pile of unmarked curses

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

90 pounds of my own game arrived today. i feel CRAZY looking at this. it's SO MANY.

500 copies of Sock Puppets on a dining room table.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

i made a jokey, we'll-never-make-this-much-money stretch goal for my puppet TTRPG on kickstarter. $5k for a video of herman the puppet narrating the rules in full. "ha ha!" i said. "good joke! fun gag!" well, friends, the joke is on me, because -- www.kickstarter.com/projects/ref...

A still frame from a video depicts a puppet mid-sentence, with a title card that reads "Herman - Game Designer?" Underneath the video, there are project stats: Sock Puppets. 161 backers, 15 days to go, and $5000 pledged exactly.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

i made a tabletop RPG about puppets. naturally, this required making a puppet. it took 3 years for a tiny game, but i learned forbidden knowledge. it turns out everyone has a wretched little puppet voice inside them. also, muppets are really hard to make (but i did it anyway). live now, 🔗 in 🧵.

A man looks suspicious of a puppet he's actively operating. In the background, there's a puppet show set affixed to the wall with duct tape. In the foreground, a microphone sits on a copy of Slay the Spire: The Board Game.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

epidiah, you are in good company. i do things to google sheets that google sheets never wanted people to do. easily my favourite online play tool. (i love your work, so please reach out if you ever have any sheets questions -- this is a Special Interest for me for sure, hahaha.)

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

here's a game where you make puppets and ruin a perfectly good puppet show. i learned a lot while making it (did u know everyone has a wretched puppet voice inside them waiting to get out?), but i mostly learned that @lithish.com makes AMAZING ART. coming in feb. www.kickstarter.com/projects/ref...

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

i welcome any explanations at all as to what is going on with my tofu packaging any at all. please help, actually

A cursed block of tofu wears a baseball cap and walks after a red ball. The tofu block has arms and legs, and is using the arms to move through what may be a forest of rosemary? The tofu also has eyelashes and a smile. A peeling (but printed-on) sticker reads "new".

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

one of the cool things about larp design is that you can just tell people to make a flower crown and cry about it (this is not a boffer larp, but i do also want to hear about your +5 sword of lachrymosity)

A snippet from a collage-style rulebook. The text reads:

"When you gather flowers, talk about who Jessie was. Her little habits, her hobbies, her dreams, things she used to say, things she loved (or hated). If it's been a while since you found a good flower, talk about her death instead."

"When you weave flowers, talk about your relationship with Jessie. Consider memories in tableau: glimpses of life, rather than full stories. If a stem breaks, share something that fell apart without her."

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

my parents warned me about this

Notification on a phone screen reads "A Stranger has followed you."

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 04/09/2024

i made a sad game for crying about

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 31/07/2024

if you're at someone's uncle's cottage this summer and there's a weird dusty octagon with some discs in the corner, slap that bad boy on the table and look up "crokinole". it's actually the most fun you can have using circles. that's a canadian secret, don't tell anybody i told you.

Two people peer over an octagon-shaped board with a play area divided into rings, and discs scattered on the surface. One person's hand is positioned in a way that suggests they just flicked one of the discs across the play surface.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 26/07/2024

glimpses from a (failed?) experiment -- some actions for characters in PINPOINT, a weird-fantasy larp about the captains of the zeppelin world

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 16/06/2024

continuing my rebellion against predatory software practices by never upgrading from the always-offline, crappy offshoot of photoshop i got 12 years ago

A banner welcomes the user to Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. In the splash image, there's a badly-made collage of a child playing the drums and using playground equipment.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 11/06/2024

as a lil treat, here's a bonus game i did USING one of the other games in the game. it's a zelda poem generator, so out came a lyric game.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 11/06/2024

I just finished running a game jam for tabletop RPGs inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000). There were 12 submissions, and they're all WEIRD and CREATIVE and SO DIFFERENT. So we put them in a bundle and you can get em all for 10 bucks. (Link in replies!)

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 20/05/2024

so it turns out you can actually get an award for running your fucked-up puppet larp where everyone yells in puppet. the award the reason

A woodburnt plaque reads "CANGAMES 2024," and shows a picture of a phoenix-dwarf emerging from two eggs. Underneath the illustration, faint text reads "Best Addition to a Roleplaying Game".

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 02/04/2024

sometimes game design is accepting that the most fun part of your game is making puppets

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 05/03/2024

the only good newsletters come from @timhutchings.bsky.social. this is the kind of news i need to know. (item 3 was musing about a different way to play Thousand Year Old Vampire that doesn't exist yet; item 5 is about how to make collages if you're specifically tim hutchings.)

ITEM 4: NOSTALGIA

I stopped mid-sentence of item number three to write that I was just overcome by a vivid memory of my childhood. On a lake somewhere in Missouri there was a rundown little marina and the floating building furthest to the left was an old nickel-type arcade. It had four or five ancient pre-video game games.

One was a rotating airplane on a wire. You could make it move up or down as it rotated and, through a clever trick, it could fly through a little barn. The other was a baseball game that I've seen elsewhere.

The room was dusty and old and I can only imagine that the whole thing slid into the lake and turned into slime.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 05/02/2024

Playing an indie TTRPG about bowling tonight (inspired by The Big Lebowski). I love emulating analogue stuff in digital spaces, so I made up a spreadsheet to look like vintage bowling scorecards.

A screenshot of a spreadsheet that at first glance looks like a bowling scorecard, but on closer inspection includes rules for playing a tabletop roleplaying game (and spaces for character names, players, etc).

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

i learned the absolute barebones basics of blender on sunday night to model a weird lil jedi guy for a streaming overlay. it was super fun. which is bad, because i have too many hobbies already oh no.

A low-poly robed figure hovers above a hologram projector, slowly rotating. Superimposed over the figure is "GALACTIC 2E," a roleplaying game by Riley Rethal. In the background there are small dots of stars. Several boxes overlay the screen, each labelled with a different player's name.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 18/12/2023

doing ancient foul deeds to create a playsheet for my 90s forum-inspired game about fan communities

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 30/11/2023

Sometimes I finish drawings. This is a scene from my favorite TTRPG, Wanderhome.

An interior scene of a wooden dance floor and a nearby bar. A large window frames a scene of a sparse field with a single tree, and mountains in the background. In the foreground, four figures are present: one place the fiddle, two dance, and one sips of glass of wine from the bar, looking on.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 15/11/2023

"invoke your BIGGEST DREAMS." [deep breath] "people play my ttrpgs, and also, they tell me about it sometimes." (shout-out to the person who did exactly this (with pictures!!!) this week. ❤️)

A screenshot from the website formerly known as Twitter. It reads: "Anxiety and low self-esteem make those "manifest your big dreams" posts a nightmare." The post is credited to Nathan Lurz, @LurzBlurbz.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 31/10/2023

this year i dressed up as a guy who spent too long cutting out feathers and inhaling hot glue fumes

A man dressed like a crow faces the camera, one arm aloft and one holding a cocktail. His forearms and hands have velcro attaching feathered wing segments to them, and he wears a tail made of cardboard. On his head is a papercraft mask of a crow.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 15/10/2023

Finally finished the black and white draft of my upcoming TTRPG Big Dog, Big Volcano. Making easy-print versions of PDFs that still LOOK NICE is a pain in the butt, but it makes life a lot better for anyone without access to a fancy-pants printer.

A mockup of a spread for a game. The page is filled with prompts asking leading questions for a dog character and an island character. The spread is black and white (not greyscale).

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 05/10/2023

In May, the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum invited me and my co-designer @leafydragongames.bsky.social to their museum in upstate NY. People came to play our theme park TTRPG amongst real historic attractions. There are lots of pics of happy people acting silly. There is also this.

Kurt and Ian wear event nametags and address an offscreen group of people. Kurt is mid-sentence, mouth open. A wooden horse in the background shares his exact expression.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 22/09/2023

Planning games for a convention in March. The con would like a cover image for the games I'm running. This is something I definitely have and didn't need to mock up in MS Paint.

An MS Paint drawing of a forum screenshot from the 2000s, with a thread titled I NAMED MY BABY GOKU and body text that reads "a tabletop rpg about a community of fans and the thing they love".

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 22/09/2023

Just found out someone added alt text to my profile picture that reads "Kurt smiling coyly at the camera." I can't tell if someone's flirting with me or if I just learned I'm flirting with everyone.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 18/09/2023

My game Here We Used to Fly tells parallel stories about kids and the adults they become. Partway through my crowdfunding, someone mentioned Côme Martin's Two Summers, which explores the same themes. I was thrilled! I got to see another riff on growing up, and discover a brilliant designer.

Kurt smiles, holding up a copy of both Here We Used to Fly and Two Summers.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 16/09/2023

Join us live for a TTRPG stream of indie darling Wanderhome! My favourite game; @jdragsky.bsky.social (et al)'s lovely masterwork. Catch us live now (Sept 16, 1:15PM EST) or anytime later on the VOD! This is character creation and one play session -- the start of our campaign. :)

Three people pose in a stream overlay: Kurt, Anthony, and Amanda. Text on the screen reads Wanderhome, and illustrations of plants are superimposed over it. Kurt is pouring tea, Anthony plays the banjo, and Amanda has a cute dinosaur toy perched on her shoulder.

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 29/08/2023

hey gamers! ✨ you can get like 50 rad ttrpgs and support your blue sky pals with this sweet bundle. my duet game about a surreal floating labyrinth and a traveller is also in there! i'm still really proud of it; it's like an hour long and tells lovely bittersweet stories. itch.io/b/2007/blue-...

A person in a pink dress walks towards a staircase leading into the sky. Text reads "Knots in the Sky: 2 players, 40 to 60 minutes, by Kurt Refling".

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Kurt Refling @kurtrefling.bsky.social · 25/08/2023

looooooove making custom overlays. the trio i stream with plays a different one shot every week, and honestly my favourite part of the prep is trying to match the game's tone. attaching my favourite. were you folks nominated for the gold / mahogany overlay i see in a few of your clips? real classy.

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