these are SO GOOD oh my god. its hard to pick but wauf speaks the most to me, i rlly love a weird guy made of Triangles

also you could write an adventure. how about that. same content same ideas but make it into something that implicitly carries more of a narrative and is ripe for exploration and meaning-making

maybe it's the "wanting" part i struggle with!

yeah yeah u got it!! exactly. i think hawkmoth et al are doing something much more interesting than what im talking abt in this thread. throwin a bunch of fresh and bloody confessional chunks in a pot and hitting em w an immersion blender

and being worried abt how that would be received. and idk maybe it IS important that that idea is specifically a ttrpg but it feels like people are often uninterested in examining that to begin with

like this thread was partially inspired by that one game abt an oracle deck that represents your [the author's] ADHD, and seeing someone post abt how they wanted to make "an rpg that deals w sexual violence and sex as a refuge from abuse" which is "important for [them] to write on a personal level"➡️

i guess mostly the latter? which i realize are kinda lowhanging fruit! i dont want to be the Art Police and critique how ppl express themselves it was just interesting to me how people choose this medium as default

i bet you’re a better writer than you think you are. try branching out! try writing something you can hold the totality of and don’t shy from your thoughts. see how it feels when it’s all in front of you. a varied diet is good for you!! you’ll get better! and maybe make smthing cool too

and the last thing—if you’re doing this because you really really want to do it, and love it, keep doing it. if you’re making an rpg abt something bitingly personal because it’s the only medium you’ve found success in and you feel comfortable or anchored to or trapped by it… ->

oh hm! yes okay if you are using the “act within the rules” stricture as a way to communicate something abt rules that is actually pretty interesting. i have not seen many (any?) confessional games that do that

bc i really really don’t believe you can force this stuff no matter how many weighty one line moves abt trauma you write. you can’t force resonance in play, its all context and inferiority and that has very little to do with you. and that’s fine! ->

author on the other. and i think that would make for… maybe not a less *interesting* experience but not one i come to rpgs for. and maybe this is a personal problem but i’d also worry about being, like, performative? either not caring enough abt the emotional elements or “putting them on” ->

and from the other side i’m not sure how i’d feel about *playing* someone’s super hard hitting confessional rpg. when i play i tend to really try and dive into the fictional brain of whoever i’m embodying and Be them and no one else for a bit but here i think id feel split. character on one side, ->

and i feel like if that piece was very personal and painful i would be more reluctant to let it go like that, i would make decisions that would center it on myself and the thing would have less impact, feel hacky or contrived in a way that writing fiction or something wouldn’t ->

like idk the whole point of games for me is i break off a piece of myself and toss it out to others like fish food pellets and then i have nothing to do with it! i don’t want anything to do with it anymore!! that’s your job!! ->