Accessible Zines

Hey! I had the great privilege of running a workshop for Zine Month, ZIMO, around increasing accessibility in zine and RPG  publishing. ZIMO is and alternate platform to Zinequest, which was or is a Kickstarter based zine event, and which is no longer being supported for a variety of reasons.

Link to ZIMO

And my show notes

The Workshop was recorded and is available through the ZMO discord server. There are ways to join that server and a host of great conversations and other workshops through the ZIMO link above.

I am more than happy to talk to anyone about increasing accessibility and reviewing design work, as well as general design! 

FAQing CraftWork

Just a running list of minor glitches. Vision issue? Too short a time in the editing oven? They are all issues of nomenclature changes midstream. Lesson learned, hopefully. At any rate, in page order 

SeerCraft (p. 10)

In the section which begins

At first level ...

Where it reads

Choose one  Ability

It should read

Choose one Power

WarCraft (p. 25)

In the section which begins

8 Strategist ...

Where it reads

Includes Your Reputation Precedes You

It should read

Includes Wide Reputation

WildCraft (p. 28)

In the section which begins

At each level thereafter ...

Where it reads

Add one Hypercool Trait

It should read

Add one Hypercool Ability

FaeCraft Crafts

Looking forward to seeing FaeCraft in Action! First Serious draft is done and starting on edits! Four new Crafts!

DreamCraft

Weavers of dreams, thieves of memory, archaeologists who pluck the past from between the ears of the unsuspecting, these are the Dream Crafters. They are hermits, heroes, guardians of history, and hawkers of the fantastic in markets across the world.

MouldCraft

The Springtail Alchemists bring much to the world, primarily learning and teaching around the arts of mold and fungus, insects and concoction. In the few generations since their diaspora, this specialized knowledge has crept into both the Faye and the mundane realms.

GiantCraft

When a creature is touched by the Shadow, the Light, and the Mundane realms a seed is planted. After that, it starts to grow, and the creature grows with it. Some giants are close in size to other humanoids, and pursue livelihoods we recognize. Some giants keep growing, and become unrecognizable in their hugeness.

SkinCraft

From 'A touch of the wild' to 'Fae cursed' some folk, Fae and Mundane, have a form or forms thrust upon them, shapes they may or may not desire. Some learn to control the shifts, while others succumb to unfathomable tides that draw them into strange places.

2022! Completely Untested!

Happy New Year!

I've been thinking a lot about game balance lately and written about this in a couple of other posts with regard to CraftWork. 

Overall, I don't worry too much about balance. Could CraftWork be unbalanced? From one perspective, yes. Did I extensively play test every single possible option? No. Do I think it matters that I didn't? No.

These answers may seem kind of flippant, but they are deliberate. It is impossible to balance a role-playing game. There are just too many variables once you get to the table, which is key. You can balance things in the book, but once you get to actual play, that teeter totter starts to tilt one way and then the other, eventually crashing to the ground.

The players, including the DM, will certainly strive for balance. The characters are going to be looking to achieve a goal and will do just about anything to get to that point, tilting things in their direction. The DM is looking for challenge, for an appropriate mix of risk and reward, and will be posing questions for the players, which will shift over time in a wide variety of ways.

Like with most things, balance happens at the table.