Troy Press

I love Rob Donoghue’s idea for having a move for each PC when their player is absent: I want to write up a set of moves, one per player, that can be used once per session to represent the influence of absent characters. So “Jack knows a guy” may allow the current game to hook up with a useful NPC when Jack isn’t at the table. I doubt this is something that many games need, but for my rotating cast, I think it’ll be a nice way to keep it […]

I recently download a dozen iOS games in the Lingo/Wordle genre. As I played each, my appreciation for the original Wordle grew. Here’s a look at the design decisions of the different implementations, and what we can learn from them. The lexicon of words that can be guessed needs to be the right size, containing common words. With WhatWord there are too few words; within a few days of playing the application, I’m seeing repeats. With PuzzWord, there are too many rare words; I’ve had three mystery words in a […]

This is the introduction from my draft ebook, How to Design a Card Game. Comments welcome. Designing a card game is messy. You will have what you think are good ideas that, when you play them, you find don’t work that well. With that in mind, start with a simple game and add complexity over time, as you play. Here are 7 steps to follow: Think of a game idea. Document the current state of your game idea. Create a playable prototype. Playtest. Apply feedback. Go back to step 2, […]

TLDR: Compendium of Tactical Moves for PbtA Games Some complain that PbtA games lack tactical moves and so combat has much less mechanical support than in traditional roleplaying games. This shouldn’t be a surprise since D&D grew out of wargames with miniatures and so naturally emphasized combat. Yet I personally find fights in a PbtA fantasy game to be much more exciting, dynamic, and cinematic than fights in 5e, for instance. But there are times I want additional mechanical support from the game for tactics. One area where I don’t […]

My fantasy gamebook Under the Blood-Red Mountain differs from a Choose Your Own Adventure® book in that your player has basic stats (strength, dexterity, wisdom, hit points) and inventory. Choosing which stats to use was easy, but the inventory system was more of a challenge. I wanted the player to have a simple way of tracking inventory throughout the game, but the system needed to be obscure but easy to use, so that if you were directed to turn to a specific page based on an item you had, you […]

I find it so weird when I start getting “year in review” summaries from my apps (Spotify, Duolingo, etc.) in the first week of December. While I wouldn’t mind working an 11-month year, the year goes 12 months. (Though I do appreciate that my binging of Abba and their new album won’t affect any of my annual stats.) So, being a purist, I postponed this analysis until 2021 was actually complete. Here are the Top 10 most-viewed blog posts for 2021: Alternatives to Dungeon World Questions to Ask During Session […]

Some of the most common questions over on the Dungeon World Reddit are how to choose between the different hacks. To better answer that question, with help from the Dungeon World+ Discord, I’ve developed this side-by-side comparison. (All errors and wrong opinions my own!) Dungeon World Chasing Adventure Freebooters on the Frontier Homebrew World Uncommon World Unlimited Dungeons Pitch PbtA + D&D DW – D&D PbtA + OD&D Stonetop – Stonetop DW 1.5 +3rd-party playbooks &c. DW 2.0 Requires DW – No No No No Yes # stats 6 5 (removes […]

Nothing can be more anticlimactic than to have your RPG character succeed in an attack against a difficult-to-hit opponent, only to then roll 1 for damage. Jeremy Strandberg makes the case that low damage rolls should at least prompt a fictional change in the opponent’s positioning: “Even when one side rolls low damage (or no damage), look for a way to make the situation change.” An example he gives: “She rolls only a 1 for damage (vs. this guy’s 6 HP), so I say that she smacks the knife out […]

Lexember is a social-media challenge to add one word to your constructed language each day of the month. Lexember was created by Mia DeSanzo and Pete Bleackley in 2012, so this will be its tenth year! Adding a word a day is certainly an easily achievable goal, something that you can do over a cup of coffee, on a commute, or when pulling out your smartphone. If you already have a conlang that you’ll be adding words to, check out Stephen Escher’s “12 Tips for Lexember.” If you don’t have […]

The most popular pages on the site last year were two different ways of running BASIC in your browser: Palo Alto Tiny BASIC in Your Browser but running in an assembly language emulator. Two out of three page views to my site inn 2020 were to this page! Play BASIC Computer Games in Your Browser – My integration of David Ahl’s game collection with Joshua Bell’s JS BASIC emulator. (Further notes on its development.) My personal project during the height of COVID-19 lockdowns was reading old manuals for BASIC and […]