NECROVENGE – A solo TTRPG

July25 — Summer is coming!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 10:39:57 AM

And while the heat is trying its best to kill any lust for doing, I'm writing, thinking, designing and playing to my dead heart's content.

June had a couple of really important playtests, one with my good friend Anders Kramer, who also helped me a lot in the days of Trapped Within. He struck the perfect balance of stroking my ego, pretending to have fun at the right moments, and laughing at all my silly jokes. 

After that, Matt Best did a complete leap of faith and jumped on a call with me. He spent 2 hours listening to me ramble on about why I did what I did, and then he also completed the playthrough after our call. A lot of really great thinking came out of the play session and the notes which Matt so graciously sent afterwards.

In-between the two, what might be the cheese of the burger buns ... And the beef is me. Or maybe Ian's the beef? Anyway. Ian SerVaas also jumped on a call with me and sparked a few intriguing ideas. One which I've implemented, which is to subdivide the story arc into just that — acts.

The game is, as of right now, divided into four acts, each culminating in a battle. The reason for telling you this is because I want to show you where I am with my writing. 

When put like this, it really doesn't look like a lot. And while that is probably still going to take some time for slowpoke over here (is that trademarked? Am I going to be sued now?) It bodes well for those out there who send weird DMs late at night asking why I'm currently sleeping instead of writing. (Please stop, Kevin.)

This spread is a great example of the "maniac" feeling I would love to have in the book. Throughout, I'm writing small notes in another voice, almost feeling like a mix between me (the author) and someone who owned this book prior. Is that perhaps the same person? How would I know ...

I'm positively freaked out by how great I want this book to be. And by the fact that I'm going to be a dad soon. Not in the weird author-kinda-way where, like, this book is my child. But to an actual child. A small girl. If anything, she'll probably learn early on that men can indeed cry. 

Anyway ... On a completely unrelated solo-note my good friend Pawel Kicman has whipped the even more amazing UnitSix into shape and is currently publishing the latter's new and updated solo-zine ... 

Hope you still like me. And see you for the ever-exciting August update, where I'll probably have written a little more. Yet a little less than I'm currently expecting. 

May25 – Ugly Babies and Watching People Play
over 1 year ago – Mon, May 19, 2025 at 08:47:11 AM

May is running out of time. Just like April did. I think March suffered a fate equally dire. How does that bode for the evolution of a solo book you might ask?

None-of-your-business.

Oh, it's you, the backers. My patrons. Right. Sorry for the attitude. Ehm ...

So, the progress.

Writing this thing has been a proper roller coaster. April started well, but soon twisted with a nose-dive, creatively speaking. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, or if it was even worth doing. Then I clawed my way back with one simple trick (TTRPG-designers hate him!)

PLAYTESTING

Through May, I’ve been running the game with different players. Over and over. Watching the rules break, and bend, and occasionally do their job. Some parts are surprisingly solid. Some were absolute trash. That's normal, right? RIGHT?!

Never mind normality it's been rewritten, streamlined. I've created new prompts, cut fluff. It truly helped watching people get confused by stuff that made perfect sense in my head. (Surely that's THEIR fault.)

A particularly obvious problem: The prompts consists of different elements, depending on which card you draw you need to read certain parts. But which parts? Turns out when I wasn't there to explain it, it wasn't that obvious. So, I've changed the design.

What helped was this short video on playtesting. It was like getting slapped gently by femur. Brutal, hurtful, yet I only took d4 damage. If you're a designer, watch it. Especially the part about getting people "into playing" instead of reading rules. That's something I've tried to implement.

SO WHAT'S NEXT?

Playtests will keep happening. The catch is: I need fresh victims every time. Feedback gets corroded when people already know what’s coming (per the video above). So if you want to play NECROVENGE with me for ~2 hours, jump into the Discord here. I’ll be posting time slots there soon. If you want to participate, but don't have Discord just write me a comment.

But what about the public PDF the man from the previous update talked about? It won't be out right now. I need to watch people play (insert creepy sounding noises here). Seeing how players actually move through the rules is pure silver. A public playtest will come once the rules stop squirming around.

THE UGLY BABY

Playtesting helped me push through the horrible feeling I've had that this book wasn't really going to turn out as great as I had imagined it. I recently watched this lecture by Brandon Sanderson where he nails my fear:

.. you have this book that built over many years.

And you might run into the situation upon writing it, that suddenly your baby is ugly.

It's here and it's ugly and what do you do oh no? And it's even worse than the baby being ugly.

You know the baby is actually, well the baby was perfect in your mind, this book. It was gorgeous and beautiful.

And then you made it ugly through your fat fingers being unable to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

Very deadly to new writers because they get stopped, because their skill isn't up to their aspirations yet.

You need to push through that and keep writing.

So I'm pushing. I'm foregoing my mind telling me that this resurrected revenge-monster isn't good enough. The book is currently sitting at around 12.000 words, and I have a couple of prompts written I haven't included yet. So that's awesome.

I love writing, but calling myself a writer might, as of yet, be a bit of a stretch. I look forward to the day that I feel comfortable wearing that badge.

Thank you all for your patience with me and this project. I'll skip the June-update and post at the start of July. If you have any questions, throw them in the comments. :) 

April25 – This isn't going to be a perfect book
over 1 year ago – Sun, Apr 06, 2025 at 01:01:16 PM

And that's sometimes hard for me to accept. 

I’ve been writing less than I wanted to. Part of it has to do with very good, happy reasons. Part of it is just my lazy ass procrastinating perfection.

It happens to the best of us excluding Stephen King and Pelle Nilsson. The feeling of dread as you sit down to write, because you haven’t solved something, or you don’t feel your solution is perfect. So you'd rather try to solve it in your head. You must solve it, without doing the work, before sitting down to do the work. That at least happens to me more often than it should.

When I write it out like that, it sounds stupid. Childish, even. Naive beyond belief. Like a necromancer thinking they’ll actually succeed at getting satisfying revenge.

Setting aside the bad reasons, we’ve also found out that my girlfriend is carrying a goblin around. Meaning that, before long, I’ll be a goblin king.

That's amazing for me personally. I'm truly happy. For the designer of this book, it sets a deadline that creeps closer every minute he isn’t writing. So he better get back to it.

Phew. That was a bit of a wave of apologetic sadness. How’s the whole thing actually progressing? Actually quite well, so disregard the whole sob-story someone wrote above. Sorry if you read that.

I’m at +75 pages and plan to launch the next version of the play-test document around the start of May. I need to do a sum up page of the rules, and then do a grammar read-through of the prompts before I release it. Once I'm ready I would love all the help I can get play-testing it. I really need some valuable feedback derived from playing! 

In other news, I’ve released a one-pager for MÖRK BORG set in an Alice in Wonderland-inspired setting. Go check it out if you want to. It’s potentially free. Potentially really expensive. Your call.

Let me know if you bring it to a table. 🔥

Feb25 – Back from the dead ...
over 1 year ago – Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 11:53:45 AM

Both me and these monthly updates have been resurrected. As you've likely noticed, it's not the 1st of February but the 11th. Sorry. But just like this update eventually resurfaced, I've been on the brink of no return, having been under the weather for the last 10-14 days. So that's a reason for the delay, though not a good one. Hope to be back to casting spells in no time!

On the dark and positive side, the Backerkit Preorder Store is now up and running! You can share it with friends who might've missed the original Kickstarter. It would mean the world to me if you did. You can find it here and on the Kickstarter page (be mindful that shipping will be added, and charged later):

As for the project, I've surpassed the word count for Trapped Within (my first zine), making this the longest project I've ever written. While it's not exactly a grave achievement, this being only my second book, nor an assurance of quality, I lacked things to talk about. Which brings me to ...

Olaskos and Kevin the backer interviewed me over at Whisper From The Dying Land. Go listen, if you want to hear me laugh. It happens once. Okay, maybe a little more than that. 

I truly don't know what Full-Frontal means. But I'm too afraid to ask at this point. And speaking of names, I seem to be butchering everyone's, so if you value stuff like pronunciation, perhaps skip this episode. Sorry, Tommy and Matthew.

In other news: 

I'm running a small jam for people who want to create a fun one-page thing for MÖRK BORG. If you've never created anything go join, that's how I got started! You can talk with me over at my Discord and I'll help you create something. 

By the way, several good friends are launching Kickstarters which might spur your interest, first off Gnomelackey (who I might currently be doing a secret project with) is launching his first Kickstarter, a sweet-swamp-filled zine for MÖRK BORG, there's just a few backers needed to bring this one to life, so go support that croak-of-a-mother, here:

Brian the father of Vast Grimm is bringing us all Sqwürmish. Though I'm more a theater of the mind-kinda-guy I've had to back this – and you can too:

The Gonzo GM, a longtime friend and resident over at my Discord, is trying to fund his first zine Mussel Beach which looks both sexy and fun. Two things I know I'm lacking. Go help him out here:

Last but not least I'm currently backing Rook & The Crook, and while I know nothing in addition to what's on the Kickstarter page – I just really loved the visuals – they felt prime, plus I'm a sucker for a mediocre rhyme (see what I did there?)

That's all for now. I'll probably skip March and see you in April with a bigger, more beefy update, really don't want to spam you all too much – hope that's okay. If not, let me know in the comments! 

Stay evil out there. 

Jan25 – New Year Old Bones
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jan 03, 2025 at 03:02:22 AM

"Oh, hi," he said with a raspy voice, as he slowly resurfaced from yet another New Year's Eve celebration. His bones cracked from age, as a moan of self-loathing escaped his mouth. He wasn't a proper author, but at least he never wrote about himself in third person, he assured himself as he typed out another Kickstarter Update... 

ANYWAY ... How are you all? I hope you had a nice little holiday wherever you are and whatever you celebrate. 

I'm good, and so is NECROVENGE. In December, I released the A and B demo versions, you can find them in my Discord, where good people read them with dread and excitement. Both versions are 40-page excerpts of what will eventually be the full game.

As always, my ability to scope things has proven to be on the conservative side. The Kickstarter page says 60+ pages but I think one plus might not be enough. We're heading for ++ territory.

Luckily, page count is not an expense; it's just a matter of time. My time.

Regarding the two versions, I've concluded that I'll move forward with the B version. After a couple of trusted friends playtested it and some chats with other, more experienced designers, it seems like the most sensible thing to do.

It's also been the more "fun" demo of the two, which is all I wanted to figure out by designing both. I'm glad I went through the trouble, and I think the A version might one day resurface as something new. So it hasn't been a waste of time.

What are the next steps now? Well, I just have to draw the rest of the owl. Or write the book. That's it, really ... Easy as blowing life into a bunch of bones.

I've set a daily writing goal, and I hope by consistently hitting my target, the book will slowly but surely be brought to life.

When I created the layout for the B version, I also took the opportunity to update the typography. It was a little too dusty for my taste, and after many experiments and printed pages, I've settled on PP Woodland and PP Right Serif from Pangram Pangram. They "feel" better visually, and more importantly, are more legible. 

If I end up using those, I'll spend around $200 on a printing license. What I wouldn't do for looking good.

That's it for this month's update. Feel free, as always, to join me on Discord or throw me a comment about the typography, or what you are currently reading. I just started reading Mistworld ... Enticing read.