A new zine and the best DM advice I ever got
That Rug: A Game of Midnight Investigations is live on Kickstarter now
RPGs have been a part of my life for a long time, whether as video games (we all know how formative Final Fantasy VI was for me) or in tabletop form — did you know I ran a Star Wars RPG club based on the old West End Games system at my junior high? Did you know also I did not go on any dates at my junior high?? Probably not related. Yet my current love of tabletop RPGs is a relatively new discovery. It was born out of my early COVID-era obsession with Final Fantasy VII Remake and my desire to find some new project to throw myself into. Because the game cafe I was working on at the time had super ambitious plans for D&D programming, that was top of mind, so I bought a copy of the Players’ Handbook and tried to figure out how I could tell a collaborative story that made my friends feel the way FFVII Remake made me feel. (I don’t think I’ve gotten there yet, but we’ve got time!)
My first time DMing a D&D game was in September 2020 for a group of college pals over Roll20, and the day before the game, I posted a question on my Facebook page asking friends for any DM advice they may have had. I got a lot of great input, but one piece stood out to me for its simplicity, clarity, and actionability: my friend Grayson replied with “always put your players in situations where you’re excited to see what they do.”
This one sentence was revelatory for me. I immediately wished there was a whole book of DMing aphorisms like this — in fact, I got more from this sentence than I have from reading whole manuscripts on the topic. I even told Grayson later, once I started dabbling in TTRPG publishing, that if he ever wanted to write a book, I’d love to help.
Well, last year, Grayson did come to me with a book he wanted to make. He and my friend Steve, the artist on my project Blackmore, asked me if I wanted to help them publish a game based on those ubiquitous children’s play rugs — you know, the mats that portray a cityscape kids can run their toy cars and people across? You probably had one? Given my history of making RPG zines inspired by non-gaming media, you know I was like, “hell yeah!”
That Rug: A Game of Midnight Investigations is a rules-light, 16-page TTRPG zine inspired by creepy children’s/teen media like Goosebumps or Stranger Things plus the mysteries of untamed suburbia, and it plays on one of those aforementioned kids’ playmats. It’s a wildly evocative and unique setting for a game, and writer Grayson Davis has centered the game around a really cool wagering mechanic that asks PCs to bet the amount of nerve they feel they possess in undertaking an action. In doing this, the game’s constantly asking whether the PCs have the guts it takes to really get to the bottom of whatever weird shit is happening in their town. It’s rad as heck.
Another nice thing about That Rug: it’s done. PDFs will go out as soon as the campaign ends, and files will be off to the printer a few weeks after that. Love to have a completed project ready to go. All it needs is a few people who want it in their libraries!
Truly, it was an honor for two such talented folks to ask me to help get their game out there, and I’m excited to see what an audience may look like for this one. That Rug is the first original game system I’ve worked with (i.e. not 5e / Essence20 / Fabula Ultima), and the way it incorporates both iconic media and real world artifacts is really fascinating to me. If it sounds interesting to you, too, you can check it out on Kickstarter now. We’ve got $8 PDFs, print copies for only $12, and if you want your own rug based on Steve’s art, you can get that, too!
And no matter what — watch out for the adults in your town. They’re up to no good.
Back That Rug: A Game of Midnight Investigations on Kickstarter now.