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Let’s Create: Horrifically Overpowered PF2 Feats

Despite my marketing it as a product you should not use, and shouldn’t even buy, one of the most popular books I wrote for PF1 was “The Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats.” In fact, it was so popular, we went on to produce 4 more “Horrifically Overpowered” PF1 books, and one “Horrifically Overpowered Feats” book for Starfinder.

So, obviously, I have to do at least one HOF (“Horrifically Overpowered Feats”) books for PF2. I was originally going to release one in early 2020 but… stuff… happened. So now I have part of a manuscript, a backlog of other projects that are late and higher-priority, and a tiny fraction of the time I can work each week.

Which, of course, is why my brain has been hammer on this project for days. And, since I also have an obligation to product blog posts for my Patreon backers, this seems like a great subject to get some gaming content back in these posts. Now, since my Tuesday posts are Patreon exclusive (until my Patreon reaches $1,500 a month). I’m not giving the full article here, which includes a design diary looking at how a Horrifically Overpowered feat is conceived and developed, from start to finish.

But I AM presenting 3 HOF that were the result of that development process. So you get the sausage here on my free blog, just not the longer article that shows how it was made.

(Art by Jesse-Lee Lang)

OVER ACTIVE          [Feat 1]
[General][Horrifically Overpowered]
You simply get more done in a few seconds than others. You gain a fourth action each round, which can only be used for Stride, Strike, or a manipulate action that is not an attack or the Cast A Spell activity. If you make a fourth attack in a round, it suffers the same multiple-attack penalty as if it was your third attack.

OVER REACTIVE          [Feat 1]
[General][Horrifically Overpowered]
You simple react more quickly than others. You gain a second reaction each round. You can’t use it to target a creature with an activity you have already targeted the same creature with this round.

OVERPOWERED ROGUE DEDICATION          [Feat 2]
[Archetype]-Dedication]Multiclass][Horrifically Overpowered]
Prerequisites Dexterity 14; Rogue Dedication or Rogue Class
Select a rogue’s racket you do not already have. You gain all the benefits of this racket, using your class level as your rogue level for any level-dependent calculations.
Special: This counts as a feat from the rogue archetype for purposes of the Rogue Dedication feat.

Now, I just need 20 more pages of Horrifically Overpowered Feats for PF2, and I can make a product!

Support A number of folks have asked about helping me cover my medical expenses as I recover from my pulmonary embolism, and prepare to battle my cancer. While I’ll do a GoFundMe if I absolutely have to, and expect there to be more product bundles to raise funds come April, the main way to support me right now is to join (or increase your pledge level) at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.

Njor Games and Sports

I’ve done two Njor posts now, one with base notes about Njor culture and one with 3 Njor idioms (with a link to the Patreon version of the article that has 18 more idioms!). But I have TONS of Njor-notes in my files (having used variants of them in 3 different campaigns I have run), so I thought I’d keep compiling and offering Njor articles.

Today, we look at some common Njor games and sports, which I think are another great way to flesh outa culture.

Bear Hunt

Supposedly inspired by older contests utilizing actual bears, the Bear Hunt game is a popular way to get young Njor some simulated combat experience. An experienced warrior plays the part of the “bear,” (often wearing a big, silly bear hat that somewhat obscures their vision), wearing a belt with 3 or more red flags that dangle to just short of the ground, and armed with a mop soaked in red dye. A circle, normally 30 feet in diameter, is marked on the ground and the Bear cannot leave it. “Hunters” must dash in, try to grab a flag (there are normally at least half as many flags as Hunters), and get away. The Bear attempts to hit Hunters with the mop. If hit, the Hunter must rush back out of the circle. If an arm or leg is hit, it is bound down before they can go back in. If the head is hit, a thin cloth is tied over the eyes to reduce vision. If the torso is hit, the Hunter must chug a mug of strong ale before rushing back in. Anyone hit three times is out. Whoever grabs the most Bear flags before the last flag is taken, or all Hunters are out, wins.

Dugr

Dugr is the most popular form of wrestling in the Njorlands. In some regions it is so popular professional Dugr wrestlers can make a living just from the sport, and sometimes conflicts between clans, groups, and even city-states can be settled by champions engaging in a series of Dugr matches.

The rules are specifically designed to allow competitors of different sizes to compete against each other by using different tactics. Njor don’t much care about a Dugr match being “fair,” but they do want it to be “interesting.”

A Dugr field consists of a 10-foot square pit 4 feet deep, with a 5-foot path around it. At each corner and the midpoint of each side of the outer square are 5-foot tall posts, each topped by a rod 10-feet long balanced at its midpoint.

Two Dugr contestants enter on opposing sides, and have one arm of their opponent’s choice lashed to a rope strung between them. There is 20 feet of slack in the rope between the contestants. The contestants may not wear hand, arm, foot, neck, or head coverings, or capes or cloaks. Wrestling begins when a horn is blown, and consists of 1 round with no breaks.

If a contestant touches the bottom of the pit, or steps out of the path around the pit, or knocks a rod off a pole, they lose. If a contestant touches their opponent with anything other than the rope, they lose. (Wrapping the rope around your fist to punch someone is allowed, but risky as the rope can slip.) If a contestant changes what side of the path they are on, their opponent must also change what side they are standing on within a three-count given by the crowd, or lose. If this happens when you are standing on a corner switching fully to either side counts, but if on a side just switching to standing on a corner doesn’t.

Normally a local considered honest and sharp-eyed is mutually agreed-upon to serve as a judge. For more contentious matches, each side proposes five judges, each side pick two of the other sides’ proposals to be put in a random selection, and then three of the four are randomly selected to judge and judgements are made by majority vote.

It’s common for heavy betting to take place around Dugr matches.

Flights

Flights is a form of archery contest. A ramp is set up, edge-on the the contestants. A basket of dyed rawhide balls of different colors is dumped on the high end of the ramp. Contestants must shoot only one or more specific colors which are announced just before the balls are dumped (often tan or fire-blackened), getting one point if the knock a ball off the ramp and two if they stick their arrow into the rawhide, but forfeit if they hit even a single ball or a forbidden color. The archers keep shooting until all the balls are off the ramp or reach its end. The exact length and pitch of the ramp, number and color of balls, distance from the ramp, number of arrows each archer gets, and whether the archers go one at a time or all at once vary both by region and based on the expected skill of the archers.

Some regions have similar games but for thrown rocks, slings, and even hurled axes.

Mallets

A large field is set up, longer than wide, with a basket half buried at each narrow end, on its side so its open mouth faces the field. A large rawhide ball is placed in the center of the field. Two teams of people armed with wooden mallets rush the field, one from each end, and try to use the mallets to hit the ball into the basket on the far side from the one they entered on.

In some regions, that’s the entirety of the rules. In others, its forbidden to hit each other with the mallets, there’s a pause if anyone is knocked down and each time a basket is scored, the number of players per team is limited, or the collective weight of all the members of each team must be nearly equal. Nearly all Njor consider the rules common in their region to be reasonable, fun, and wise, and rules only found elsewhere to be dumb and boring.

Pit Fighting

Less popular than Dugr and banned by more civil Njor settlements, pit fighting remains common enough for all Njor to be familiar with it. Pit fights take place in a 10-foot-square pit, 4 feet deep(which also often serves as a Dugr pit). Four 10-pound stones are placed in the pit, one at each corner. Two, three, or four fighters jump into the pit at the corners. The first one to lift more of the stones out of the pit than any other fighter-still-standing has lifted out, wins.

The rules for what weapons and armor can be taken into a pit vary by region, but the most common are that no weapon may be longer than the length from fingertip to elbow of the shortest fighter in a given match, only one weapon may be anything but a club, shields are disallowed, and helmets are encouraged.

Normally pit fighting does not have judges, as the terms of victory are self-evident and there really aren’t any other rules once you’re in the pit. While pit fighting is more popular than Dugr in some Njorlands, and professional pit fighters exist, no one ever settles larger conflicts with pit fights. In fact, pit fighting is more likely to create disputes between factions than end them.

Tafl

There are multiple forms of tafl games popular in Njorlands, including some that have up to 5 players (1 central player, and up to 4 outer players who get 1 move each per 4 central player moves). Tafl is seen as a game of sages, leaders, hunters, and people who are dangerously clever.

A form of Ale Tafl is popular at celebrations, where each player must drink a small cup of winter ale (ale that has been frozen and the ice thrown away, so its alcohol content is higher) after each move, and falling over is considered forfeiting.

Tides

Only common near large bodies of water, in Tides a number of weights with ribbons are thrown into the water and allowed to sink, then 2 or more swimmers dive after them and bring up as many as they can within a set timeframe. In some variants, different colors of ribbon are worth different values. The colder the water, the shorter the timeframe, and some Njor play Tides after drilling a whole in an iced-over lake.

Support

A number of folks have asked about helping me cover my medical expenses as I recover from my pulmonary embolism, and prepare to battle my cancer. While I’ll do a GoFundMe if I absolutely have to, and expect there to be more product bundles to raise funds come April, the main way to support me right now is to join (or increase your pledge level) at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Owen

Now On Patreon: Njor Idioms

Yesterday I gave a preview of Njor culture for a fantasy setting. One of the things I often like to do to explore the attitude and tone of a culture is to write up some words of wisdom common among them. Over on my my Patreon, I listed twenty-one common Njor idioms.

Right now the full list of 21 idioms (and all Thursday blog posts) is Patreon-exclusive, because I need to grow my Patreon to keep spending time writing blog posts and other public content. However, once my Patreon funding level hits $1,000/month, I’ll go back to posting my Thursday posts free for all to see here, AND I’ll create and maintain an index page of all my PF2 articles for Patrons, so they can easily access all my online PF2 content!

But here are 3 of those idioms, as a teaser.

Railing against the storm does not stop the snow.

The cleverest fox is still a poor wolf, the strongest wolf is still a poor fox.

Respect your elders. They have survived that which you have not yet faced.

Support A number of folks have asked about helping me cover my medical expenses as I recover from my pulmonary embolism, and prepare to battle my cancer. While I’ll do a GoFundMe if I absolutely have to, and expect there to be more product bundles to raise funds come April, the main way to support me right now is to join (or increase your pledge level) at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.

Cultures Not Species: Njor Culture

For many years now, I’ve been looking at worldbuilding with cultures and societies defined not by species (ancestry/origin, whatever term your ttRPG uses), but with cultures. Most (though certainly not all) fantasy settings have a mix of species living in most big cities and regions, so why define them as being from specific species-oriented kingdoms? Yes, that’s how Tolkien did it… but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way.

Nor do I feel any flavor has to be lost by focusing on multi-ancestry cultures, rather than monospecies groups. A lot of tropes in fantasy can easily apply to regions, guilds, orders, religions, and sects, rather than being tied to a single species, and much like there are sub-cultures within real world societal groups, we can explore sub-cultures within our larger regional/sectional cultural idea.

Here’s an example, a short beginning sketch of a multi-ancestry culture adapted from several old campaigns of mine where I used from variant of this.

The Njor

The Njor (/niˈɔr//njɔr/)are a culture found in the Northern Reaches, ranging from the Thalassic Ocean in the west (and in some cases settlements within and west of the ocean) to the Barrow-Steppes in the east; and from the zastruga in the north to (west-to-east) the Daggerports, the Midland Kingdoms, Merothia, the Allemarche, Wroklaw, and to Old Belavarus to the south. Note that the Njor are not a unified kingdom, and though the term Njorlands is often used to describe territory largely controlled by Njor groups, its borders with other regions are approximate at best.

Further, Njor groups self-identify into a wide range of clans, tribes, city-states, and domains held by independent chiefs, gyothi, jarls, and kings which are no bigger than typical baronies in the Middle Kingdoms or Allemarche. As personal allegiance is typically more important to Njor than loyalty to a group of government, but loyalty to a broader clan, kith, or sept can overshadow even personal allegiance, non-Njor often find the links of interlocking obedience and faithfulness confusing at best, and actively contradictory at worst.

Common Njor Ancestries

The most common ancestries among the Njor are dwarf, giant, goblin, hobgoblin, human. Less common but not surprising ancestries include elf and halfling. Individuals with mixed ancestries are common and generally not considered oddities, including a large number of giantblooded (with giantblooded goblins often seen as the source of hobgoblins, and giantblooded halflings thought of as the origin of the Stoutist clans of halflings), dragonblooded (who often seem to have draconic influence from some source other than parentage, such as being born on the day a dragon was slain, or marked by draconic constellations when coming of age), and trollblooded (which are generally attributed to the old High Trolls, regenerating giants of great culture and smithing skill). 

Not every Njor settlement has all these ancestries of course. Njor underground and mountain holdfasts are often a mix of dwarf, goblin, and hafling clans as their lesser stature work well in tight tunnels where every foot of headspace must be carved from the rock at great effort. Hill settlements tend towards taller Njor ancestries, and those in the most frozen regions lean towards humans and orcs. 

Njor Honor

Honor is highly prized in Njor culture, but honor is not defined in the same way by Njorlanders as many other cultures.

Njor honor was defined by Skatti Grandmother Salmon as “Being true to your Way and your Word, and hiding neither in common life.”

While that is self-evident to most Njor, many Te Astran and Allemarchan scholars have spend lifetimes analyzing what it means. In short, a Njor is seen has having a path in their (their “Way,”), which they must stick to the core principles of. A Njor blacksmith is expected to take all smithing tasks seriously, and to never intentionally act to make smithing less famous, less trusted, or less respected by others. Similarly a Njor ruler is expected to look after their lands and their people, Njor thieves are expected to be true to the art of thievery and their thieves’ band, and Njor soldiers are expected to take the art of fighting and warfare seriously and as important and worth doing right.

Note that a Njor being honorable is not the same as being blameless. “You can’t shame a wolf for killing your sheep, but you can’t mistake it as kinfolk, either.”

Njor Virtues

In addition to holding honor (as they define it) in high regard, Njor strongly value cleverness, courage, honesty, luck, martial prowess, sagacity, thrift, and tenacity. Of course often cleverness and honesty are at odds, but to Njor there’s rarely an actual conflict between the two. If someone is extremely clever about their dishonesty, that’s a virtue. If they are prosaic, clumsy, or even just unsuccessful with dishonesty, that’s a personal failing.

The Njor attitude to mysterious powers often varies based on how those powers are presented. If a wizard seems to be a clever sage, their powers are an extension of those virtues. A warlock granted strange powers through no act of their own might be seen as lucky. A cultist who tricks people into being blood sacrifices to fuel their own power could well be accused of lacking honesty and thrift.

Going Wolfing

Life in Njorlands is often harsh, and sometimes the crops do not produce as needed, the cattle are sickly or have suffered too many loses to wild creatures and monsters, the coffers are empty, and trade is poor. If a settlement or even single household is close to the edge of failure, one or more of its members may choose to mark their face with the rune of the wolf, and become a raider in richer lands. The wolf-rune on the face is an indication that the Njorlander is no longer following the path of their normal life, but has become an animal for survival. Known as “going wolfing,” this activity is seen as rational and acceptable, and a Njor is not blames for acting like a wolf when marked as a wolf. By the same token, no one is blamed for treating a wolfing Njor as an animal — killing one on sight is reasonable and not treated as murder, much as killing a wolf stalking your sheep is not seen as murder.

Of course, non-Njor generally don’t care about such distinctions, and when wolfing raiding bands strike down into richer bordering lands to the south or east, the targets of those raids both tend to attribute the savagery shown to all Njor, and to blame the settlements the wolfings came from holding a grudge long after the wolf-runes are removed.

Support

A number of folks have asked about helping me cover my medical expenses as I recover from my pulmonary embolism, and prepare to battle my cancer. While I’ll do a GoFundMe if I absolutely have to, and expect there to be more product bundles to raise funds come April, the main way to support me right now is to join (or increase your pledge level) at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Owen

Now On Patreon: Political Structure of My Longest-Running Campaign

Over at my Patreon, I’ve done a quick sketch of the political structure of my longest-running ttRPG campaign to date, the Sovereing Kingdoms. Begun way back, before I was a professional game designer, that campaign had as much stolen material as new ideas, since I wasn’t worried about things like publishing rights, or anything more than providing entertainment for my players. (Which there were many of — the Sovereign Kingdoms actually had many different games set in it — the Heroes of King’s Ford, the Squires of King’s Ford, Czardia, the Court of Aquilanne, Knight’s Watch, my wife even ran a campaign in it called The Emerald Sea.) 

Given how long ago I began setting up that campaign, it’s no shock to me that there are lots of things I did then that make me cringe now. But some of the setup still has promise in my opinion, and very little of it is neatly typed up. (I did my campaign notes by pencil in 3-ring binders at the time). In particular, there’s a lot about the core political situation I think still has a lot of promise.

The main powers of the Sovereign Kingdoms were broken into the High Court, the Royal Courts, Religion, and the Guild League. While these were not necessarily equal, none of them could afford to ignore any of the others. I go into the details over at the Patreon, and neither that article nor this preview of it are covered by the OGL.

Right now that worldbuilding sketch (and all Thursday blog posts) is Patreon-exclusive, because I need to grow my Patreon to keep spending time writing blog posts and other public content. However, once my Patreon funding level hits $1,000/month, I’ll go back to posting my Thursday posts free for all to see here, AND I’ll create and maintain an index page of all my PF2 articles for Patrons, so they can easily access all my online PF2 content!

Methods of Support

A number of folks have asked about helping me cover my medical expenses as I recover from my pulmonary embolism, and prepare to battle my cancer. While I’ll do a GoFundMe if I absolutely have to, and expect there to be more product bundles to raise funds come April, the main way to support me right now is to join (or increase your pledge level) at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Owen

Behold, the S.H.A.R.K. Art!

In my article about producing game products with low-to-no art budgets, I said “If you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.”

And, you know, when I wrote it, that was true.

But NOW, Michael McNeill (productionplatform3@gmail.com) has created this:

So, I suddenly feel the need to name the cybershark mancatcher mercenaries.

The best option I came up with was:

S.H.A.R.K.: Synthetic Hybrids Armed to Retrieve or Kill

Of course, there are other options.

Skirmishing Hyperpowered Advanced Recon Killteam

Special Handling Assets: Roving Knights

Strategic High-Value Assault Relief Key-forces

So, enjoy the weird idea… now fully illustrated!

[Normally my Tuesday posts are Patreon-only, in an effort to increase subscription to my Patreon. However, since this was a follow-up to my big Monday post, it felt unfair to paywall this one. But if you feel moved to Join My Patreon, I won’t object. :)]

The Seminar Files 01: Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget

The Seminar Files is a new branding of an old idea: to provide the kind of information, thoughts, and answers I would once have given during a gaming convention seminar in a more accessible format. Not every creator or potential creator can afford to go to conventions and industry events to attend seminars, and that can create a barrier to entry that disproportionately impacts lower-income creators, creators with disabilities, creators that don’t feel safe in traditional game industry spaces, and creators in physical or social spaces that don’t even hear about game industry events.

Obviously those are serious issues that won’t be solved just by putting up blog posts–which themselves have some issues with limited accessibility–but every tiny step helps, and my hope is that not only will my own Seminar Files help get information to people who wouldn’t ever have a chance to hear me give it in a live seminar, but that it may encourage other veterans of a range of creative endeavors to also strive to make this kind of advice available in alternative formats.

Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget

One of the hardest parts of being a one-person shop or small press publisher is what to do about art for a project. Many independent creatives have the skills to write and edit themselves, and can either learn to do layout or find someone who will do layout for a few dollars per page. Often elbow grease or a tiny budget can handle all the text and graphic design elements of a small project, keeping the barrier to entry lower the the bottom position of a limbo competition.

But art? Art is tougher. Good art is (quite reasonably) expensive. Few writer/developer/publishers can do their own art (though there absolutely are a few who can). Several low-to-no budget projects in recent months have turned to AI-generated images, but between the US Copyright Office declaring AI-Generated images not being eligible for copyright in a recent case and a number of companies (Chaosium and Paizo, in particular )declaring their community content programs do not allow the use of AI-generated images or text, that solution is less appealing to many of them.

Way before AI generated images or text were realistic options, publishing on a budget and having decent art was a challenge. But the very fact that challenge goes back decades means there are other potential solutions than AI, and I have enough experience with several of them to speak to their pros and cons. Obviously a lot of this advice can apply to projects outside the game industry, but that is where my own expertise lies, and thus is how I have framed this article.

Let’s look at some specific art-on-a-budget strategies.

1. Stock Art

One extremely cost-effective option is to use stock art for your project. There is a ton of very reasonably-priced stock art available at DriveThruRPG, and there are also professional stock art sites such as Adobe Stock Photos, Shutterstock, and Getty Images. Now, some provisos.

First, read the license before you pay for or use any stock art image. That’s simple for the specialty stock art sites, their licensing is normally easy to find well before you sign up (and they usually have better search engines, though they often have less game/speculative fiction-specific images). For DriveThruRPG the licensing is determined by each artist individually, and sometimes you have to search around a bit to find it prior to paying for a piece. If you can’t find the license, contact the publisher and ask for it.

Second, while many sites have policies stating that AI-Generated images must be marked as such, they don’t all have such rules, and even those that do lack a perfect method of detection and enforcement. In many cases a practices eye can pick put AI-generated images, but it isn’t always as easy as looking for characters with a weirdly large number of fingers. If you need to avoid AI-generated art (either for your own ethical guidelines or licensing requirements of the project you’re working on), you may need to seek out stock images from artists with a recognizable name and track records.

Third, really good, cheap stock art is likely to be used by a lot of projects, which can reduce the impact it has when you use it. There’s no perfect solution for tis, but older stock art is less likely to get used for a similar product around the time you release something with it than brand-new art everyone is excited by for the first couple of months its out. Also, some stock art allows you to modify it, which can increase customization. I personally am a big fan of art patreons that produce stock at and take feedback from backers (such as Dean Spencer’s Art Patreon), produce material anyone can use for free (such as Fantasy RPG Cartography by Dyson Logos), or have tiers that let you order specific images which become stock art for everyone after a certain period (such as Jacob Blackmon Illustration). Those require spending some monthly money, of course, but you still get a lot of visual impact per dollar spent.

Fourth, the more unusual the concepts of your project, the harder it is to find stock art that fits it. If you’re writing a cyberpunk setting, or a list of options for fantasy wizards, it’s not hard to find appropriate stock illustrations to match those concepts. But if you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.

There are a few ways you can handle that issue. First, you can just leave the unique elements of your product unillustrated. That’s not ideal, but a good cover combined with a title and description that spells out what’s interesting about your project is often better than no art at all. Secondly, you can find the coolest stock art that interests you, and write a product that is inspired by that art. Yes, this means writing something based on someone else’s ideas rather than your own, but if you do one such project, you can take the money it makes to pay for more custom art for your next, more you-centric product.

2. Public Domain Art

Want an even cheaper than stock art? Well, then it’s time to look at the Public Domain.

(Art by Gustav Doré, now in the public domain)

Public Domain art is available for anyone to use in any way they want. Of course,  you need to understand what is and isn’t Public Domain,

For finding Stock Art, I’m a big fan of OldBookIllustrations. It’s a big collection, has a search engine, and provides info about artist and publication for each art piece (if known). The British Library has also released a huge Public Domain collection on Flickr, which for my purposes is less well-organized, but has stuff hard to find elsewhere (including maps).

Public domain art has all the subject-matter and style issues of stock art, but as long as you are sure it’s actually public domain, none of the licensing problems. And while a ton of public domain art is woodblock prints from centuries ago, there is other content out there if you look hard enough. Learning some image editor skills can be a huge help in turning what is available into something you can use, and there are good free image editors out there (I often use Pixlr when I just need to crop or touch up something for a blog post and don’t want to take up the time of my professional graphic designers and their greater skills and more powerful tools).

3. Other Licensed Art

In addition to commercial art and public domain art, there are other ways art gets licensed that makes it viable for commercial use. One big example of this is art released under the Creative Commons License, especially the CC-BY license. Most of the notes about stock art and some about public domain art apply here, but the most important one is to make sure you know which Creative commons license you are dealing with, and that you understand it.

4. Skip the Art

Yes, it’s a well-accepted truism that ttRG products must have art, especially cover art. And I believe an attractive cover is crucial to sales, and good interior art helps break up “walls of text” that can otherwise be daunting and unattractive to many readers.

But you don’t have to use illustrations to accomplish these things.

Raging Swan Press is a great example of a successful company that has attractive, informative, and even eye-catching overs with no illustrations beyond their logo. Obviously you shouldn’t duplicate their trade dress, but being inspired by it to create your own illustration-free cover design is a huge budget-saver, especially when you consider the impact of not paying for cover art over the life of entire product lines.

Similarly, there are things that can break up pages of pure text in the same way art does, without actually being illustrations. Chapter and section headers, charts, tables, sidebars, bullet points, scholar’s margins, and similar treatments of text that’s in any way different than the main prose can help break up the visual monotony of page after page of pure text.

5. Partner With An Artist

I’m going to open this section with a quick anecdote.

In 2014 Adam Daigle and I were guests at Comicpalooza, and we spoke about breaking into the games industry in a panel with easily 1,000 attendees. Most folks were interested in videogames, but there was still some basic stuff we could discuss that was relevant for them. At one point, a person wanting to be a writer for video games mentioned they were having trouble making a good impression because writing for a video game fell flat without art, level design, and programming, and they couldn’t afford to pay people to do those jobs just to make a working example of their writing.

Adam asked if there were any artists who wanted to have a sample video game they could use as part of their resume, and dozens of hands went up. then he asked about level designers, and then programmers, and in every case there were dozens of hands. So, Adam suggested, maybe those people should all get together and form groups, each looking to create a small playable example of their work. When the seminar ended, there were circles of people from different disciplines gathering, talking, exchanging business cards, and picking places to go and talk more right there at the con.

The moral of that story is that there are other people who want to break into the games industry, and some of them have exactly the skills you need to shore up your own weaknesses. They may not have the level of polish you’d prefer, and partnering with people means figuring out (and writing down!) how ownership of the end product works, how everyone gets paid, and how creative input is shared, but those are all solvable issues. Again, compromises are going to be called for, but if you work with other folks at your experience and success level it can both serve as a stepping stone to having the budget you need to hire professionals to match your specific vision, and help make contacts (and friend) that may well be a huge part of your process and success in later years.

6. Decide What You Are Trying To Do

One of the pieces of advice that I don’t think is discussed enough is “Decide what your goal is with your work.” Do you want to be a publisher, one-person or otherwise? Great, then work on finding ways to publish material even if it’s not your magnum opus. In that case, for early projects you may have to find stock or public domain art first, and build products around it.

Do you want to be a professional writer, developer, or editor? Okay, then maybe you don’t need to self-publish at all, or should do so specifically for the goal of proving you can do the work, so you can point at that work when asking publishers to give you a shot. In that case you may not need art at all, since you aren’t trying to get work as an artist or art director. Just make sure your text is as clean as possible, and understand that being a professional paid ttRPG writer working for other publishers is mostly about writing the projects someone else wants to make happen, not getting paid to do the projects you want to make happen.

(And if you DO want to get work as a ttRG artist, by all means see if you can find a writer and publisher who is looking for an art solution and partner up with them for a few projects. Just make sure your ownership and cut of the profits is covered in writing when you do.)

Do you just want to publish the one thing you are dying to show the world, make sure it’s true to your vision, and don’t want to turn this into a career or even side-hustle? Well, most likely that means you are a hobbyist, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want custom art, high-quality layout, and someone else to do the boring parts of developing and editing your text, and aren’t willing to compromise or build a line of other projects to slowly build to a bigger budget, you likely are going to have to pay for it. Like most hobbies, publishing at a professional level primarily for fun and bragging rights takes money.

Even if you aren’t sure what your end-goal is, deciding how you want to proceed initially can help you figure out what low-to-no-budget art strategy to begin with. As your experience grows and your goals shift, you can pivot to projects and plans that better match your evolving needs.

Patreon

This post represents more than two weeks work at my current capacity, so I can only manage them if they earn support. If you want to see more longer, more advice- and industry-focused articles like this, please join my Patreon. Even a few folks throwing in less than the cost of a cup of coffee is a huge sign that I should keep making this type of content. (Speaking of coffee, if you’d prefer you can buy one cup worth of support for me at my Ko-Fi.)

The “Trippin’ Balls” Monster Template

Let’s say, for no particular reason, that you wanted a way to represent a monster that had ingested a vast amount of narcotic stimulants. The poor thing is almost certainly going to die, but until then it is high as the Abyss and in a drug-induced frenzy that makes it dangerous and unpredictable.

In short, it’s Trippin’ Balls.

So, here’s a template to add to any monster you like to represent one that is Trippin’ Balls. It should work in 5e, Level Up, Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, and Starfinder.

(Art by Mosaic)

Trippin’ Balls

Confused in Combat: While it can decide what to do out of combat (though as GM, feel free to have it decide to do some dumb stuff), in combat or similar stressful situations, it’s confused. Like, the Confused condition confused. This condition is permanent in combat as long as the monster is Trippin’ Balls.

Eight-Ball: Whenever the Trippin’ Balls creature rolls an 8 or 18 on a d20 roll, it immediately gets an extra action (even if it’s not its turn), which is dictated by the Confused condition.

Fearless and Furious: The creature is immune to emotion, fear, and demoralize effects. Anytime it has to make a Strength-, Constitution-, Wisdom, or Charisma-based ability check, skill check, or saving throw, it rolls twice and takes the better result. Any time it has to make a Dexterity- or Intelligence-based ability check, skill check, or saving throw, it rolls twice and takes the worse result.

Also, when dealing damage, it adds 1d6, +1d6 per full 5 levels or challenge rating it has

That’s Not Good For You: The creature has half its normal Hit Points (half its Stamina Points too, for Starfinder). However, it has temporary Hit Points equal to double the number of points lost due to this ability. It begins each combat with a full set of temp HP, but each time it’s encountered reduce the number of temp HP it gets by 10% of its original total. 

If it takes additional narcotics, the creature’s temporary HP are reset to full, and it’s true Hit Points are reduced by 10% of its maximum. If it’s HP are reduced to 0, it gets 1d4 more rounds of actions, then its heart explodes and it dies.

Patreon
I have a Patreon. It helps me carve out the time needed to create these blog posts, and is a great way to let me know what kind of content you enjoy. If you’d like to see more more rules inspired by movies, or system-agnostic worldbuilding, game industry essays, fiction, game design articles, worldbuilding tips, or whatever!, try joining for just a few bucks and month and letting me know!

Now On Patreon: Ten Weird Magic Weapon Ideas

Over on my Patreon I made a quick set of weird ideas for magic/fantasy weapons for typical magic-inclusive ttRPGs. They’re system-agnostic concepts, rather than full magic items for any one game. Also, since swords tend to get all the glory, none of these are swords. (CW: Dentistry/tooth stuff. Also, some puns.)

Since my Tuesday posts are currently Patreon-exclusive as an intentional carrot to get more people to join my Patreon, below I just posted one of the ideas as a teaser, and the names for the other nine. (Once my Patreon’s income level has risen to $1,500/month, I’ll both go back to posting Tuesday posts for free here on my blog as well as on my Patreon, and I’ll make and maintain 5e and Starfinder article indexes for my Patreons — the carrot to encourage Patrons to see if their friends want to join).

Preview Weird Magic Item:

B.O.L.O.s: These bolos have eyeballs painted on the weights. When you hit and entangle a foe with them, you can change your visual point of view to be that of that foe, until the foe escapes.

The Patreon article also presents the Beakaxe, Doppledagger, Flintlock and Key, Greatest Overloud Armor Tassets, Kudzu-Net, Personal Trebuchet, Ring Of Invisibility No Not Like That, Serpentspear, and Toothhammer.

Now On Patreon: Wyverns & Warrens Preview — Heroic Moments

Wyverns & Warrens (or “WyvWar”) is my current ongoing attempt to design a short, easy, fantasy ttRPG that still had a depth of options. I’m doing previews of concepts for my Patrons, and open to your feedback.

In today’s Patreon-exclusive WyvWar preview, I discuss Heroic Moments — a gamified version of the adventure fiction trope when someone does something amazing and awesome. The priest calls upon her goddess to unleash the sea itself. The berserker grabs the titan’s greave and begins climbing the towering foe, refusing to be shaken free while slashing at any exposed joint.

Done right, they’re awesome. Done wrong, they’re cringe. Done in a ttRPG, they’re tricky. And today, my Patrons get a peak of how I’ll try to do them in WyvWar.

(“I summon the Strength of the Tides,” Art by иколай Акатов)

Right now that rules preview (and all Thursday blog posts) are Patreon-exclusive, because I need to grow my Patreon to keep spending time writing blog posts and other public content. However, once my Patreon funding level hits $1,000/month, I’ll go back to posting my Thursday posts free for all to see here, AND I’ll create and maintain an index page of all my PF2 articles for Patrons, so they can easily access all my online PF2 content!