Silence moves across me, ruffling, kissing
My scales, breathe easier and loose.
To overcome! To lose! –They are identical.
I pause on the cusp of decision–
I turn back. What have I sown? Is it…enough?
No. Only onward will lead to triumph.
My feet pick at the earth.
And I run.

The post a lonely compsognathus – solo journaling poem appeared first on Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine.

DriveThruRPG is increasing the prices for their POD books. In some cases, up to 40% increase.

I will have to run the numbers on all my products, but at this time, it looks like Threadbare will not be affected (though if the cost of printing the color softcover goes up any more, it will be).

The post DriveThruRPG Price Increase – INFO appeared first on Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine.

Finishing out 2024 with my third and final game of the year, I published I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE today on itch! It’s PWYW and I’ve submitted it to a couple of game jams that inspired me.

This was a fun one to write, but I heavily procrastinated on it. I was inspired sometime in early November to start it, based on the “Shitpost RPG” game jam. I did a search for the best shitposts, and found something about Mr. Bones Wild Ride, which is a Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 ride someone designed that is just absolutely awful. It’s mostly switchbacks, and takes 4 years of in-game time to complete. Once the riders exit the ride, they are returned to the entrance again, to begin their purgatory once more.

I drew a lot of inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy, deciding that all the riders in the ride would be 2024 embodiments of the 7 deadly sins: gluttony, avarice, envy, pride, wrath, lust, and sloth. I then made them even more unlikeable and gave a kind of Huis Clos feel to it by giving them all reasons to pretty much hate each other, but be stuck on this ride forever.

I’m not sure what caused the procrastination– I got stuck on creating the character playbooks. I know the questions the players have on their character sheets are instrumental in shaping the story, but I wasn’t overly inspired for what to ask. I finally just bit the bullet and wrote some questions that I think will be satisfyingly awful for everyone.

The game’s mechanics are based on The Skeletons by Jason Morningstar, which is an excellent story game that everyone should play at least once.

The post Old Year, New Game appeared first on Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine.

You can find it on itch.io.

The post New Game! appeared first on Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine.

Transcription:

I’m playing Bones by junk food games.
This is a solo tabletop RPG.
You are a pile of bones. You live in the Attic. Your goal is to exist and scare forever.
Here are my results.
I must scare the four year old girl who lives in the room below my bones. She’s too brave. She will hurt herself with her courage. I will startle her by moving when she is up in the attic trying on her dead Grandparents’ clothes.
I failed to scare her. She saw me move and she was delighted. She’s taking my fibia bone as a trophy is now in her bedroom, under her bed, where she placed it as a chew toy for the monster that lives there. Lord, help me.

I must scare the dog. The family has a new dog. Clara, the little girl is now eight. She’s forgotten the bone under her bed, but the dog has not forgotten. It knows I am there. I try to scare it by shrieking at it when it comes close. And it first that seems to work. But one day emboldened by being left alone all day, while Clara is out with her parents (it’s a dance recital. Her parents are trying so hard with her, but she just loves to move. It could be dance or football or ritual sacrifice to this child.)
The dog Harvey crawls his hulking body under the bed, shoving it up with his German Shepherd shoulders and grabs the end, the knotty end of my bone, dragging me out.
When the family comes home, he’s already hidden it in his bed. Late at night, he will bury me in the yard.

There are mice in the Attic now, little gnawing monsters that shred and tear. They’ve already made a sizable nest out of grandmother’s wedding dress that Clara used to play dress-up in. She’s 15 now. Loud music. Band posters. Hoodie. Kissing girls. I do not think she will ever wear grandmother’s dress at her wedding.
How will I endure these mice? I try to alert Harvey, middle-aged pup that he is, and he barks and is bonkers downstairs. But his warnings only alert the family, and the mice wear down my finger bones until they are nothing.

Harvey is old now and a bit senile.
Someone left the door to the attic open and he came up looking for Clara who is no longer in the home. She left years ago for college and now it’s just an old dog and a middle-aged woman in this house. He found the wedding dress and snuffled threw it. He found my bones and dragged my arm down the stairs leaving chips of myself along the way like breadcrumb trail He took my arm outside to bury it with my fibia, but the poor thing couldn’t remember and he just lay in the sun, paws wrapped around my bone until the mother came home and screamed. She followed the trail. And now, I will be taken away to rest.

The post Bones – Solo TTRPG appeared first on Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine.