Hello there.

My name is Stefan, and I like playing TTRPG. And preparing to run them. And designing stuff for the games I run. And designing my own games.

This blog is me wanting/needing to talk about all of that and more. I’ve been playing for more than half my life, starting when I was 15, back in Germany. I came by it sort of by accident, then. I got kicked out of French class (on purpose, the teacher sucked), and went out for a smoke (it’s Europe, everyone smokes there). There, I ran into the cousin of a friend of mine. Met that guy once before. He was waiting for his cousin to finish school and past the time reading a small magazine.

That turned out to be a supplement for small little German game called Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye). It’s a fantasy game like D&D and quite popular in Germany. Been around for forever, lots of supplements, lots of rules, lots of LARPS.

I asked him about it and he said it’s a “role playing game.” I don’t remember his exact words at the time, but when he explained it to me, he said something to the effect of:

“Imagine you are out in the countryside of a medieval realm, walking along the dirt trail. Then you see in the distance a large, dark cloud rising from the horizon. Soon enough, you realize it’s not a normal cloud at all, but a cloud of dust and dirt thrown up an advancing band of marauding orcs. And they’re headed straight for you. What do you do?”

And all I thought was: That sounds lame.

Well, first impressions aside, it somehow stuck with me. Maybe it’s because I always had a creative knack, a need to tell stories and craft systems (I used to make my own campaigns in Starcraft using their simple editor). Maybe I was just bored. But somehow, I ended up becoming friends with him, and together we got our small group of nerds-to-be into playing games. Not Das Schwarze Auge, though. Shadowrun 3rd Edition and Vampire, The Masquerade were our games of choice for a long time.

Well.

25+ years later, here we are. I’ve been running and playing countless games at this point. From long-lasting D&D campaigns, to short one-shot games here and there. I run a small Discord server filled with people I play two weekly games with since 2017. Things are going great. Currently, we’re playing MCDM’s fantastic Draw Steel every Sunday, and sample all sorts of games during the week. There, we play Triangle Agency, and on the short list for future games are Daggerheart, Mythic Bastionland, Neon City Outlaws (not released yet), Hollows (not released yet), and many more. I plan on talking about them here at some point in the future.

I also write my own game(s)–nothing to show just yet, but things are progressing. This blog is meant to be a platform to talk about these designs, my ideas, musings, lessons learned, and so on. Besides that, game reviews (or overviews or first-looks), and whatever else comes to mind with regards to TTRPGs and other media.

Currently, I’m working on Project Star Quest, a game about space adventures in humanity’s dark future. It mixes deep narrative mechanics with streamlined but tactical combat. Of all the projects I haven’t finished, this is my most ambitious yet. More of that later.

Thanks for checking me out. Appreciate any and all engagement.

Stefan