Thread by @Epidiah

#AprilTTRPGMaker

"5. Favorite game you've worked on"

Obviously, I should pick #SwordsWithoutMaster⚔️. It's what I'm known for & it is destined to be the game that finally usurps #DnD.

But pound for pound, Vast & Starlit is the most important game I've ever made. So it wins.

Vast & Starlit was unleashed upon the world 5 years ago last month. Originally, it was only available in print—tiny little game books the size of 2 business cards bound together.

To get it, you had a play a game: Either find me & hand me $1/book I'd hand you from my own wallet…

…or you mailed me the rough equivalent of a dollar in your local currency along with a drawing you made for each book. The subject of the drawing depended on the book. The core rules needed a spacecraft, Bodies in the Dark needed two aliens either fighting or making out…

…Stellar Atlas need an alien sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, or any other view of the sky from an alien planet; and Renegade’s Technical Manual required a drawing of some alien piece of technology.

Folks, I had the most wondrous mail!

You can experience many of these fine works for yourself on the Vast & Starlit Tumblr, which I have not updated in half a decade: vast-starlit.tumblr.com

I love every last one of them.

Eventually, all this mailing to & fro became a bit burdensome. Even if the entire collection fit in a standard envelope. As my supply of "books" dwindled, I eventually got around to releasing the whole library as a PDF under a pay-what-you-want model: epidiah.itch.io/vast-starlit

The process of creating, releasing and playing Vast & Starlit dragged me out of a deep, dark design funk. At the time I was very much having a "What the fuck are we even doing" moment with TTRPGs in general.

I mean, it's been a while now, so I can't really recall the extent of my frustration at the time, and I'm not particularly keen about digging it all back up, but it is safe to say that Vast & Starlit was written in anger and edited with joy.

Quick aside: Vast & Starlit is totally Powered by the Apocalypse. If I had the forethought and acreage, I would have said so right on the book. Specifically, it's a hack of Read a Sitch.

Anyway, Vast & Starlit pulled me from my funk, dusted me off, and very specifically and succinctly answered the question "What the fuck are we even doing anyway?" for me.

It set me on a course that made publishing What is a Roleplaying Game?, Wolfspell, Swords Without Master…

…Sorceress Bloody Sorceress & The Dread Geas of Duke Vulku, among others, possible.

It rendered my personal tome mode obsolete. I stopped thinking about games as objects & started thinking about them as moments–opportunities to jump in, say what needs saying & get the hell out.

But wait, none of this is even important! What truly makes Vast & Starlit my favorite are all the games it has inspired, either directly or through its own a growing, gnarled limb of the RPG design family tree.

I'm testing the very limits of presumption & my false bravado here.

See, cause when you don't need more than 500 words (or even more than 200 words) to design a game, you transform yourself into a published game designer in the course of a single morning. You can say what you have to say about the state of the art in a timely game.

While I'm on a total stream of consciousness here, here's a new model for buying this game—a reverse kickstarter. Take the PDF for free. Download it from epidiah.itch.io/vast-starlit without naming a price, or grab the full preview from payhip.com/b/zx7y. DO NOT PAY FOR IT YET.

Now go play it.

Become space fugitives on the run in your very own rogue vessel!

Then, if you & the rest of your stellar criminal crew enjoyed yourselves, hit me up at ko-fi.com/epidiah & buy me a drink.

Feel free to invent stretch goals. Maybe Eppy deserves a coffee when you first use the rules from the Renegade's Technical Manual. Maybe he deserves a gin & tonic the first time someone is called out for making it Hot per the rules from Bodies in the Dark.

And if interstellar criminals floating in space is not your jam, I've got your run-of-the-mill style criminals floating in space, too: dig1000holes.wordpress.com/what-is-a-role…

Also, #SwordsWithoutMaster⚔️ fans, fret not, to experience the Vast & Starlit universe you need only turn your eye #StarWard: plus.google.com/+EpidiahRavach…