"What Is This?"
This is, simply enough, a fundraising campaign intended to help yours truly put together and publish the second edition of This Town Is Full Of Monsters. If you're new to TTIFOM, you can learn a bit more about it through the link above, but here's a very brief summary regardless.
- It's a GMless storytelling game, driven by the tried and true "setting the scene" mechanic, whereby narrative responsibility and control is shared equally amongst all players.
- It is fairly rules-lite and tends to be low-prep by default.
- There is an optional and loose "conspiracy map" or "red string murder board" mechanic, if you want to infuse your session with a bit of tactile arts and crafts. Full theatre of the mind, or a simple note taking approach, are fine too.
- It aims to give you just enough structure (and mechanical tools) to drive an open ended, non-Aristotelian, non-Campbellian, mystery oriented narrative (one where things aren't always neatly wrapped up or explained, and where new possibilities and questions arise organically) while keeping the overall ruleset relatively breezy and open.
- Key cultural touchstones include Twin Peaks, various other works by David Lynch, Donnie Darko, Stranger Things, Persona 4, The Prisoner, Lodge 49, Dark Shadows (the original soap opera, not the new movie), and so on.
"Why Is This Happening?!"
Basically, I think that This Town Is Full Of Monsters (The premier GMless Storytelling Tabletop RPG of Small Town Horror, Mystery, and Melodrama) deserves a little bit of a makeover, and it's finally time to make that makeover happen!
I've been thinking about doing this for a while now, at least since the Zinequest of 2020 ce (just before The Pandemic hit and my mental health took a nose dive, surprising nobody), and now is about as good a time as any. It's not like I can keep waiting around for history to calm down around me.
Although the visual overhaul promises to be significant, this is a pretty small project compared to some of the other much more ambitious (overly ambitious) items that I've currently got on my docket, and since it's something that I'd like to eventually make happen regardless of specific funding amounts, it could make for a pretty perfect "bridge" of sorts as I continue preparing for larger crowdfunding launches, the video game RPGs, and the visual novels, and that one Cosmic Horror ttrpg thing I've been slowly plugging away at for the past few years.
For my own part, It'd be nice to take just a bit of time to reflect and work on something I already know and love.
"The Past Dictates The Future" (Update Goals)
- New layout, and overall visual presentation.
- New cover image and new interior illustrations by yours truly.
- A new editorial pass for typos, improved readability, and clarity.
- A few optional variant rules.
- A few additional examples and optional oracular tables.
- A print-on-demand physical option.
- Intentionally print-and-play friendly PDF design (so you can print, fold, and saddle-stitch your own physical copy / copies in a zine format.
- I'm open to suggestions.
"Through The Darkness Of Future Past" (A Brief
History of TTIFOM)
"Through The Darkness Of Future Past" (A Brief
History of TTIFOM)An eternity ago, in the mist-shrouded year of 2018 ce, on the seventh day of the month of June, at around 22:55 UTC, I published yet another in a string of small tabletop roleplaying games on the popular independent self publishing platform itch.io.
And so it came to pass that This Town Is Full of Monsters emerged into the wider world.
A GM-less storytelling game in the vein of Fiasco and Follow, TTIFOM was conceived as a tribute to some of my favorite supernatural mystery stories and pieces of media, namely Twin Peaks (the seminal televisual phenomenon created by Mark Frost and David Lynch), the works of David Lynch in general (rest in peace, you absolute legend), and, well, basically the entire "surreal small town horror" cultural subgenre that the aforementioned pieces of media went on to spawn, including the inimitable Silent Hill series of video games (from which the game takes its title).
In that sense, This Town Is Full Of Monsters has always been very special to me, personally, because as obsessive as I can get about all sorts of things, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, in this world that I am obsessed with as much as Twin Peaks. Look, if Twin Peaks was a religion, I'd be in those pews every holyday, genuflecting and reciting its great catechisms (such as "fire, walk with me" and "this is the water, and this is the well") with a fervor that would make even the rabbi, or the pastor, or whatever the heck you'd call them in that particular hypothetical situation, more than a little uncomfortable.
This Town Is Full Of Monsters is by far not the only storytelling ttrpg inspired by these same touchstones (other excellent examples include Something Is Wrong Here by Kira Magrann, Little Town by Gustavo Coelho, and The Bloom by Goblin Archives), and it is certainly not the most popular or the most conventionally "successful," but it is the only one that's mine. It does its own very particular thing, and I love it to death.
And, apparently, shockingly, I am not the only one ...
Many months after its release, I discovered that a small contingent of people, of actual humans, whom I have never met before, were playing it, enjoying it, and sharing their experiences with. A number of them were even doing so on their actual play podcasts, and evangelizing it to boot! (An especially big shoutout is due to the good folks at Hope's Hearth and Follow the Leader). This was, honestly, the first and only time that's ever really happened to me since I crawled out of art school in 2008 ce, eons ago.
Some would consider my bar for delight and satisfaction to be a fairly low one, but I would argue that my criteria, if not conventional, are more than valid. Knowing the simple fact that a handful of people genuinely care about this thing I'd made has more than once carried me through dark and choppy waters. It is an enduring gift that, unlike any amount of currency, can't be taken away and it has meant more to me than I can express.
I can't even begin to articulate just how grateful I am. Trust me, I've tried, over and over again.
"Some Things Will Change"
"Some Things Will Change" Mostly in the aesthetics department, though, so don't worry!
The actual content or mechanics of This Town Is Full Of Monsters will not be altered in any significant way (while I'll likely add some optional variants, and maybe a new table or two, all alterations will be additive and fall very firmly into the "extra stuff" category).
Really, I just want it to look cool.
"Gotta Light?"
"Gotta Light?"Well, that more or less does it, I think. It turns out that it's
February, at the time of my writing this, which is Zinemonth.
Considering my very dubious relationship with time lately, this wasn't
actually planned, believe it or not (if it had been, I'd have tried to
launch on February 1st or as close as possible), but, hey, it works
out well enough! Tis the perfect time to zine it up zine-style!
Again, I just want to take this moment to thank everyone who has
played this game over the past several years, everyone who has shared
their sessions and stories, and everyone who has offered words of
kindness and encouragement. It keeps me going.
Perks
This will get you access to the digital / pdf release of the second
edition on itch.io. This will come with the standard PDF version, a
color print-and-play zine version, and a grayscale print-and-play zine
version. The latter two options are meant to make the printing and
folding a bit easier by combining two page spreads into one page each.
There will be a simple guide for assembly as well.
On top of the above, your name will be immortalized in the
dedications section of every variant of This Town Is Full Of
Monster - Second Edition.
This one gets you a ready-made physical book (softcover, perfect bound, with full color artwork - excepting the pieces that were painted in black and white to begin with, of course). These will be produced, and hopefully made available in perpetuity (or until the collapse of civilization, the internet, and/or all responsible parties, including the author and the printer), using the DrivethruRPG print-on-demand and fulfillment offerings. Access to the digital version, as well as the immortalization of your name in the dedications section of the book, is also included.
Note: The signed variant will need to go through me first, so there's a bit added for the extra shipping and handling (I am not so conceited as to imagine that my signature is worth 5 bucks on its own, I swear). The standard variant will be shipped out directly from DrivethruRPG to you, so the shipping is only charged once.
This tier nets you all the rewards from the previous tiers, and an
even greater claim to a kind of wonderful and terrible immortality, in
the form of your face, or another face of your choosing (such as that
of a friend, pet, patron entity, favorite public domain character, or
any fictional character to which you hold the rights) painted on one
of a number of red string conspiracy boards, mysterious monitors, or
case files scattered across the pages of the book (this is one of the
recurrent decorative motifs planned to liven up what was once a sea of
plain text on a white background).
The portrait will focus on the subject's head and face, and will
likely require a photo or photos of the subject. It may depict said
subject from the shoulders up or may be zoomed for a more dramatic
close-up angle. Color content and style may vary. Let me know if you
have preferences on any of the aforementioned points, and I'll do my
best to accommodate. A small bit of text can also be included, if that
is your wish, so long as you keep it classy and on-theme.
A high resolution file, featuring the portrait in isolation
(sans the surrounding decorative and themed accoutrements), will also
be sent to you, such that you can, if you so wish, print out a bunch
of copies, frame them, and hang one in every room you happen to enter
(or use it on social media, or on your business cards, or your holiday
cards, what have you).
This tier nets you all the benefits of the Paper Pixies tier and
allows you to shape one of the illustrations in the book to your
desires (so long as it meets the base criteria outlined below). Paint
me a picture with your words, and I shall paint it with my hands and
my painting tablet. It can be a multifigure composition (perhaps a
scene from one of your own sessions), a full body portrait, a
landscape, a visual interpretations of a creepy dream you had, and so on.
This is essentially treated as a digital commission that, aside
from its inclusion in This Town Is Full Of Monsters - Second
Edition, is yours to use for personal and (with credit) even
commercial or promotional purposes (rights shared between the artist -
yours truly - and the patron). A high resolution file will be provided
as part of the reward. The criteria and limitations are as follows:
-
Keep it classy (this is a SFW/SFL product).
-
Keep it on-theme (this is admittedly, very, very broad, as
TTIFOM can cover everything from Twin Peaksy small town Americana to
High Fantasy, Post Apocalyptic, or Science Fiction settings ... so,
basically, as long as it's not, like, a picture of a random
celebrity eating celery, or an unspooky sportsball game, it will
probably be fine - I'll let you know if there's an issue).
-
Keep it legal. For obvious reasons, I can only include
characters, brands, or elements that aren't going to get me sued.
Your own characters and stories are perfect. Steamboat Willie is ...
that kind of almost butts up against the previous limitation, but I
suppose he can be spookified and riffed on with a bit of
imagination? Goofy, Donald, Sora, or Sephiroth are a total no-go,
however (I have never played Kingdom Hearts, but I heard it was
kind of like Twin Peaks, but much more Disney-ish, so
that's why I made that specific reference, I guess)?
- Keep it loose. In this case, I am mainly referring to style and execution. I do reserve the right to render and interpret your idea in whatever style and idiom I feel to be most suitable, both in terms of my own sensibilities and the demands of the overall layout. Absolute realism, for example, is a thing I can, technically, do, but am not going to, because it takes an amount of time and labor that I simply don't have available to me or in me. Plus, it's boring (that's in the actual manual). The book will include a few different styles, ranging from loose, painterly impressionism and figurative expressionism to pulpy paperback semi-realism.
Highlights
See all activity6FAQ
Does It Really Need A Redesign? (The "Indefinite Ashcan" Versus "The Eye Candy Impulse")
Believe it or not, I'm actually a "classically trained" visual artist with a BFA in Painting, of all things, and several years of commercial graphic design experience to boot. However, when I am making a "thing" that is not fundamentally a painting, my priority is always to focus on whatever kind of thing said specific thing happens to be at its core ... in its quintessential ... thingness ... um ... you dig? Basically, if I am making a ttrpg, I try to focus on the elements that are absolutely essential to the format, form, and function of a ttrpg. Everything else is secondary, and can, often for the sake of my own health, be indefinitely postponed or cut entirely with no compromises to the fundamental "vision."
I still stand by that philosophy. In my view, a tabletop roleplaying game cannot be made fundamentally better or worse by the level of gloss applied to its pages or the number or quality of the pictures that accompany it.
I'd still recommend the "indefinite ashcan" approach to basically anyone who is working solo and/or just starting out, even fellow visual artists. Despite how painful the compromises sometimes get, said approach has served me just fine so far and will likely continue to do so in at least some, if not most, of my future ttrpg projects.
Well, it's great for actually MAKING ttrpgs. It's maybe not as great for SELLING them ... but you also can't sell something that doesn't, on some level, exist ... well ... unless you're, like, a cryptobro, or a politician, or something else awful along those lines, I guess.
That all having been said, when it comes to the aesthetics of my PDFs and the such, well, I'm definitely happier with certain "indefinite ashcan" releases of mine and more critical of others. At the end of the day, the visual artist in me can't really escape the mounting dissatisfaction that results from this disparity.
When it comes to This Town Is Full Of Monsters in particular, the presentation and layout that the game "shipped with" are, um ... far from being my favorites. I don't know what it is. I might have just been off that week. There are some games where I really don't mind the simple, steady, layouts at all. But this one does occasionally pop into my head while I'm trying to sleep. Considering my own relationship to the game and the source material it derives from, as well as the fact that this is probably my most "public facing" creation, this particular mote of creative anxiety has perhaps gnawed on me more than it otherwise might have.
How do you feel about generative AI and do you use it?
TLDR: I don't like it. I think it's bad for our species, bad for
the environment, and, like, really, really, really boring. That's
a big nope from me, dog.
While I am no stranger to digital tools, and have painted using
a digital drawing tablet of some brand or variety since around the age
of 18, which is now more than 20 years ago, dear god, "generative
AI" is not really much of a tool, in my opinion (I see it as a
very costly gimmick that consistently manufactures poor quality images
- not art, which requires the two things that AI can never replicate
intention and deliberate process - in a manner that is both too
unethical and too unsustainable to warrant playing around with, let
alone deploying in any kind of creative or professional
capacity).
To be fair, even if it were somehow super duper green and
managed to avoid "training" itself on the blood, sweat, and
tears of underpaid, undervalued human artists, who, unlike the
machine, are very capable of suffering, the use of such a machine
simply does not align with my values, interests, or process at all.
For one, where would be the fun or pleasure in that?
Commercial concerns aside, the enjoyment of manual creative
pursuits is one of the few things, alongside love, community and
communion, the appreciation of the creative output of other fellow
humans, sushi, and pizza, that can elevate a human experience above a
rote, base, and miserable existence or subsistence.
When I am making art, I want to be IN it, to go on a journey, to struggle and discover. When I am looking at, or spectating, or listening to, or reading art made by others, I want to experience a singular form of symbolic communication and expression. I am not looking for just an image of a face or a tree, or an assortment of notes aligned mechanically in a superficially pleasing fashion - I am looking for evidence of a hand, an eye, an ear, a mind, for evidence of that same struggle and process discovery that I go through, for limited, messy, sometimes confusing, personal, political, intellectual, emotional communication and connection.
Generative AI doesn't simply miss the mark in terms of quality and utility. It, well ... misses the point entirely. Why rob myself of joy and wonder? What's would be the purpose of such a sacrifice? So that I have more time to the things I don't like to do? Why deprive myself of something that is plentiful and accessible and real. I wouldn't my nutrients through an IV drip if I could help it. I wouldn't "go for walks" in a randomly generated pixel maze when the park is right friggin' there. I wouldn't steal a car. I wouldn't spend 18 hours staring at a shadow on the wall when I could be rewatching Twin Peaks: The Return for the umpteenth time.
Anyway, what the tech folks call "AI" is kinda bad, actually, if you ask me. In the practical sense, any work that I am involved in explicitly and forcibly eschews it. It will always be hand written, hand painted, and replete with human errors and imperfections.
Why The Crowdfund(e)r?
At the risk of disincentivizing timely support by killing the sense of artificial urgency, I would like to reiterate that this is something I've been planning to do (eventually) regardless of funding. The funding is primarily going to affect the timeline and level of priority this project is given (the closer I can get to the goal, the sooner I can dedicate a solid, continuous chunk of time to hammering out all the essentials), but isn't likely to affect the final product itself.
As for why I have chosen "Crowdfundr" over the other options, well, there are a few simple reasons. Again, the aforementioned fact that this project is not a matter of "if" but of "when" is a big part of that. A dramatic "all or nothing" campaign is probably not the best fit for that kind of approach, and I personally have no way to easily gauge a viable target.
Aside from that, this platform allows for more flexibility than others in a variety of relevant areas. The biggest one for me is the ability to run multiple campaigns at once. Since most of my projects, even the bigger ones, tend to be pretty niche, I often can't afford to do just one thing at any given time, and while that works well enough with my own process (I've always tended to hop around from week to week and sometimes from day to day, and I quite like allowing my projects to cross-pollinate and being afforded a chance to temporarily step back from any one project while still maintaining the overall creative practice) it's not something that every platform is built for .
In more specific and practical terms, I've got a big old video game dungeon crawler thing set to go up on Kickstarter in the near future, and while there is no immediate indication that these campaigns will overlap, that is certainly a possibility, and I would like to have that option.
Activity
This will get you access to the digital / pdf release of the second
edition on itch.io. This will come with the standard PDF version, a
color print-and-play zine version, and a grayscale print-and-play zine
version. The latter two options are meant to make the printing and
folding a bit easier by combining two page spreads into one page each.
There will be a simple guide for assembly as well.
On top of the above, your name will be immortalized in the
dedications section of every variant of This Town Is Full Of
Monster - Second Edition.
This one gets you a ready-made physical book (softcover, perfect bound, with full color artwork - excepting the pieces that were painted in black and white to begin with, of course). These will be produced, and hopefully made available in perpetuity (or until the collapse of civilization, the internet, and/or all responsible parties, including the author and the printer), using the DrivethruRPG print-on-demand and fulfillment offerings. Access to the digital version, as well as the immortalization of your name in the dedications section of the book, is also included.
Note: The signed variant will need to go through me first, so there's a bit added for the extra shipping and handling (I am not so conceited as to imagine that my signature is worth 5 bucks on its own, I swear). The standard variant will be shipped out directly from DrivethruRPG to you, so the shipping is only charged once.
This tier nets you all the rewards from the previous tiers, and an
even greater claim to a kind of wonderful and terrible immortality, in
the form of your face, or another face of your choosing (such as that
of a friend, pet, patron entity, favorite public domain character, or
any fictional character to which you hold the rights) painted on one
of a number of red string conspiracy boards, mysterious monitors, or
case files scattered across the pages of the book (this is one of the
recurrent decorative motifs planned to liven up what was once a sea of
plain text on a white background).
The portrait will focus on the subject's head and face, and will
likely require a photo or photos of the subject. It may depict said
subject from the shoulders up or may be zoomed for a more dramatic
close-up angle. Color content and style may vary. Let me know if you
have preferences on any of the aforementioned points, and I'll do my
best to accommodate. A small bit of text can also be included, if that
is your wish, so long as you keep it classy and on-theme.
A high resolution file, featuring the portrait in isolation
(sans the surrounding decorative and themed accoutrements), will also
be sent to you, such that you can, if you so wish, print out a bunch
of copies, frame them, and hang one in every room you happen to enter
(or use it on social media, or on your business cards, or your holiday
cards, what have you).
This tier nets you all the benefits of the Paper Pixies tier and
allows you to shape one of the illustrations in the book to your
desires (so long as it meets the base criteria outlined below). Paint
me a picture with your words, and I shall paint it with my hands and
my painting tablet. It can be a multifigure composition (perhaps a
scene from one of your own sessions), a full body portrait, a
landscape, a visual interpretations of a creepy dream you had, and so on.
This is essentially treated as a digital commission that, aside
from its inclusion in This Town Is Full Of Monsters - Second
Edition, is yours to use for personal and (with credit) even
commercial or promotional purposes (rights shared between the artist -
yours truly - and the patron). A high resolution file will be provided
as part of the reward. The criteria and limitations are as follows:
-
Keep it classy (this is a SFW/SFL product).
-
Keep it on-theme (this is admittedly, very, very broad, as
TTIFOM can cover everything from Twin Peaksy small town Americana to
High Fantasy, Post Apocalyptic, or Science Fiction settings ... so,
basically, as long as it's not, like, a picture of a random
celebrity eating celery, or an unspooky sportsball game, it will
probably be fine - I'll let you know if there's an issue).
-
Keep it legal. For obvious reasons, I can only include
characters, brands, or elements that aren't going to get me sued.
Your own characters and stories are perfect. Steamboat Willie is ...
that kind of almost butts up against the previous limitation, but I
suppose he can be spookified and riffed on with a bit of
imagination? Goofy, Donald, Sora, or Sephiroth are a total no-go,
however (I have never played Kingdom Hearts, but I heard it was
kind of like Twin Peaks, but much more Disney-ish, so
that's why I made that specific reference, I guess)?
- Keep it loose. In this case, I am mainly referring to style and execution. I do reserve the right to render and interpret your idea in whatever style and idiom I feel to be most suitable, both in terms of my own sensibilities and the demands of the overall layout. Absolute realism, for example, is a thing I can, technically, do, but am not going to, because it takes an amount of time and labor that I simply don't have available to me or in me. Plus, it's boring (that's in the actual manual). The book will include a few different styles, ranging from loose, painterly impressionism and figurative expressionism to pulpy paperback semi-realism.
