It’s been nearly two weeks, so let’s talk about the Kickstarter for The Crypt Has Opened.

I’ve a lot of thoughts on how the campaign went both pre and post launch. Most importantly we hit our funding goal and were even able to get our first stretch goal! To me, that first goal is very important as it will give all of our future Crypt Keepers a physical adventure to kick off their own games, while giving them a blueprint to follow for their own “Crypt Chronicles.”

I can’t wait to get the first one, Carnival of Terror, out even in PDF let alone book form.

Over the course of the year I’ll be streaming myself illustrating the book, so why don’t you go and follow my Twitch channel or YouTube? Follow along as we bring it to life.

Let’s do some dissecting, shall we?

Pre-launch

The Good

I gave myself a long ramp up, starting back in November, to get the word out about the Kickstarter. Doing so allowed the page to build up some good follower numbers.

Through the help of some amazing people that are far smarter than me, it has been determined that you can expect about a 20% conversion rate of followers to backers. So hitting above 100 followers was very good for the campaign.

Also, you could argue that after 6 years of development I’ve been in pre-launch for a long time, haha!

The Bad

I just didn’t have the time (this will become a recurring theme) necessary to dedicate to a lot of promotion outside of social media posts. The same time I started the pre-launch page was the same time I started a new job and a lot of the free time I once had vanished.

I was only ever able to make one or two videos, with the rest of the time dumped into making the trailer video.

My schedule also made jumping onto other podcasts pretty much impossible. I feel that if I had been able to collab more that would have made a huge difference.

The Campaign

The Good

I finally found a rhythm during the campaign and was able to post pretty regularly about it. Chaotic and Andrew came in clutch during this time in support for assets and encouragement.

Canva became a life blood for making content. I’d always been a bit leery of it, having come from a background using program suites from Adobe and Affinity, but damn was I not a convert by the end. It helped me take my artwork to a new level and really sell the tone of the game.

The Bad

Again, time was my enemy here and the weather. Dice + Diversions was supposed to be the big convention right before the launch to help kick start everything. Unfortunately, it got iced out. Then from that point forward I was only ever able to run two demos at events in town. I just didn’t have the time needed to really hit the streets to promote it.

I was pretty bummed.

Con Nooga was OK for the promotion but was right at the end. I will say that what I got most out of it was a great connection with the crew making Brandished and some new folks pretty hyped for the game. So I’ll take it.

OK, buckle up. This next bit may be a bit harsh.

The Shadow

I want to preface this by saying I think Monte Cook Games and Evil Hat are fantastic companies who make incredible games. They are the type of publishers and producers I hope to be one day.

But seriously y’all? Launching Numenera and Blades ’68 during Zimo/quest!? That’s pretty messed up. People’s disposable income is already tight in this economy and it really felt like a lot of us got squeezed out. Not to mention this is coming off the heels of MCDM’s Crack The Sun.

You could make the argument that we’re not running in the same circles. That we probably didn’t overlap. But still felt bad man. There were a lot of great games during the event. A lot that didn’t get funded. I just wonder if they would have fared better if we all weren’t in the shadow of these two heavy hitters.

THe Mörk of it all

One thing I also noticed was that this year there were a ton of Mörk Borg, Shadowdark, and Mothership hacks and addons. The majority of those did gangbusters, blasting past their goals.

My hypothesis is that this year, again given the economy, people were more comfortable backing a project for a system they knew and already have buy-in for. Which, absolutely makes sense. If I only have so much money and love Shadowdark and someone is giving me MORE Shadowdark content, I’m going to go with that!

So I definitely think I was asking a lot of people with The Crypt Has Opened. Not only is the theming niche as hell, but it is a new system on top of that. We had our work cut out for it.

And still do!

Wrap Up

I’m incredibly proud of what Chaotic, Andrew, and myself were able to accomplish. I’m so thankful, for a friend who helped us get over that last hurdle (I’m not sure if they want me to say their name but they know who they are), and I’m thankful to everyone who has played The Crypt Has Opened or believes in the project. Your support is making these past years worth the struggle.

And your support is going to make the coming year+ of hard work worth it, too.

I’m currently working on updating the character sheets and can’t wait to share those with you all.

Until then, I’ll see you by the campfire.

Con Nooga was naive enough to let me give a talk on game design this year. Those fools! Those rubes. Like I’ve actually learned anything over the past 6 years of active development on one game, releasing another in that time, and homebrewing monsters since I was in college.

What’s this? Oh, I guess I have learned a thing or two. Or at least it felt like I have when I sat down to outline my presentation. It came to me fairly easily as I broke it down into six “phases.”

Step 0

Find a design group! Either online or in person. Having a group of like minded designers whom you trust and whose opinion you can lean on will be the difference between sitting on a half-finished idea and releasing a game.

step 1 – Name Your Goal

When you start out you should be asking yourself several questions to help you define the goal of your game.

• Is it a game or supplement?
• Are you making a zine?
• Who is your audience?
• What “problem” does your game solve?

Naming your goal will give you a guide post, a concept, an idea to aim for. You can change your goal as you develop the game. I certainly did with The Crypt Has Opened, but you’ll need that initial push to get you started in a direction.

Step 2 – Research

This step will be ongoing throughout your life as a game designer, but here is the time to really focus in on it. At this step you will be making targeted choices for your research, to help you answer even more questions such as:

1. Are there games similar to your idea on the market? (Its OK if so, there is always room for more)
2. If a supplement–
   1. Are there similar supplements already out there? How can you differentiate yours?
   2. What idea does yours add to the genre? Maybe you’re trying to subvert it.
3. If a new game–
   1. How did a game similar to yours solve various game design challenges?
   2. How can you iterate on what came before? Here is where your deep dive into PbtA games will be useful. Each may use the same base idea but all add their stamp to it. Monster of the Week has a significantly different vibe than Apocalypse Keys.

Step 3 – Design Process

This step will be a personal journey for each of us. No two designers are going to have the exact same process. We will share ideas with one another on how we’ve overcome challenges, but you’ll have to find what works best for you. That said, here are some of my thoughts on it.

Will you start with story or mechanics first? Each has their benefits and shortcomings and every game may start a little bit different.

If you start with story, you’re jumping into the fun part first and it can be very motivating. Writing the story can also help spur mechanical ideas that you’ll use to support the narrative!

Mechanics first means you’re getting the “hard” part out of the way. Mechanics can be fun, but also tedious as you will be constantly tweaking and reworking them until they sing. And where a narrative can inform the mechanics, so to can the mechanics inform the story! For The Crypt Has Opened, the mechanics came first and absolutely molded the narrative so that the two have nearly become inseparable.

Because yes, system matters.

Get it to the table yesterday!

Get something to the table fast and start rolling dice. Even if it is by yourself at your kitchen table. Sitting too long on your idea and you may second guess yourself without any data to back it up. Or you’ll spend ages building out every little idea and sub-system that you’ll end up throwing out later.

Start fast but build up slowly.

Playtesting

This is probably going to be the biggest roadblock you’re going to come up against. It can be difficult to rope friends and family into testing your game let alone strangers. One, this is why we started with the design group in Step 0. These folks will be your first line of play testers and who will help you get it ready for the general public.

After that, how do you find play testers? There are several places you can try:

• Your FLGS
• A library
• Discord (assuming that don’t muck it up)
• Forums
• Blue Sky

This may also be where you’ll have to become Kevin Costner. “Build it, and they will come.” At my local FLGS I started a quarterly Developer’s Night. Every 3 months we get together for an hour and have a little designers round table to talk about what issues we’re running up against and try and help each other out. After that players are invited to show up and test the games being discussed! We limit it to four games per meetup which has helped make sure everyone gets their game tested.

It has been very successful. The game Blightfall has been tested there and funded in 90 minutes!

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate

Now you’re just in the cycle of testing and iterating on your ideas and from feedback. This can be both a slog and a rewarding experience. This is also the area where you can easily lose confidence based on the feedback you receive. But don’t fret, I have a way to handle receiving feedback that’s helped me through writing novels and now two games.

Taking feedback: If one person says it, changes are you can probably ignore it. If twp people say it, take note of it and give it a second look after more pressing designs are taken care of. Should three or more people say it and it is a problem that needs addressing immediately.

That approach has been so useful to me and I hope it is useful to you.

Step 4 – Preparing for release

Sourcing Art

I know a lot of you are thinking, how do I find artists that fit within my budget? I was cool art work! Maybe I can just use this little thing over–DO NOT USE AI! TTRPG audiences want to support humans and human made art. They rightfully so can sniff out AI slop. Once you use it, you’ll never shake the stink.

That doesn’t mean you’ll never have art. There are other options. Free options. Such as using the National Gallery of Art! You can freely use the art found there to create fantastic layouts with evocative pages.

I also have a few images that I have placed under the Creative Commons license, BY-SA. Primarily anything found within WYRD Dungeon or several monsters from my Monster-A-Month Patreon from a few years ago. If you are unsure if something I’ve posted is free to use, just email me.

Editing

For editing purposes you can expect to pay around $.05 to $.10 a word depending on the credits of the editor, if they’re doing just a copyedit, or if they’re doing a developmental edit, or both. Check around Blue Sky for editors that fit the genre you’re writing for or have edited similar games as yours.

Layout

Layout is something you can either hire out for, which can be $5 to $70 a page, again depending on the credits of the layout artist you’re hiring. That said, there are many free layout templates which use Affinity Publisher (now a free program through Canva). Check out FrariRPGS.com to grab the free Affinity templates posted there.

step 5 – Releasing the game

Now you have to make the big decision. Do you want to crowdfund or release it yourself through just digital means. For my talk I honestly didn’t go into this part because I’m still pretty nascent to this part of the journey.

But what I do know is you have several options:

• Kickstarter
• Backerkit
• Gamefound
• Itch

What I will say it go ahead and get an Itch account now. It’s free to host your games, gives you a free site to share then, a blog to talk about them, and you can use your itch handle as your Blue Sky handle. Itch also allows you to accept either Pay What You Want for games or if you’re feeling froggy you can set a nominal fee.

Pitching to publisher

You may also not care to self publish! That’s OK, too. If you want to pitch to publishers there are a few things you’ll want to do. First, create a one-page sell sheet. Think of this as the back of the book. A short summary of the game, if its a supplement talk about what game it is for and what it adds, and if you have artwork or pull quotes from people that have played it put it there.

You will also want to research the publisher. Many will have a page on their site telling you how they want to receive the pitch or if they are accepting pitches at all. Larger publishers typically have a small window in which they accept new pitches. So check back often.

And one final bit of advice on pitching to a publisher. Rarely, do publishers want a pitch for a book or genre that is outside of what they already publish. Some people think that, “Oh this company already has a bunch of spooky games. They don’t want mine.”

No.

Wrong.

They want your spooky game because that’s what they publish! Evil Hat is a great example. While they will entertain looking at games outside of what they normally publish, by and large they are just looking for more PbtA games. It works for them, their audience loves them, and they know how to market it.

Q & A

Oh wait, I’m not at the con anymore. I can’t really do a Q&A section. Well, maybe I can. If you have any further questions you can comment here, message me on Blue Sky or Threads, or email me. I love talking about game design. Seriously I could have talked for two hours at the Con.

Yup. Right. Um…. yeah I guess I’ll see you by the campfire.

Really, less than two weeks but I didn’t want to post an update on a weekend, ha!

Currently we’re over the $3k hump which means just $1,200 more to go.

Then we’ll be gold and ready to start the big work! Chaotic has been in the trenches editing and Andrew has been ready to start tossing everything into layout. Once layout starts then we’ll have a better idea on what art pieces we’ll need to fill the pages. With that in place I can start cranking out all the little weird stuff. I’m also excited to get cracking on these Crypt Chronicles. You are all in for a treat.

other stuff

Over this past week I had a Campfire Chat with Matthew of Coffee All Night to talk about horror games, movies, and how they have influenced our own art. He’s got a great set of games and is currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit called The Black Tower Hack. Basically if you love OSR games and The Dark Tower you’re going to want to back this game.

You can watch the VOD on Youtube.

What’s next?

This coming weekend I’ll be at Con Nooga. Friday and Saturday I’ll be running The Crypt Has Opened from 2pm to 4pm and then on Sunday I’ll be giving a talk on a being a game designer from 12pm to 1pm. If you’re going to be there come say Hi!

TTRPG stuff

I’m also tinkering with a few other projects here and there to keep me from getting burnt out on TCHO. I transferred my campaign setting, “The Rending of Palaghast” into a Daggerheart campaign frame and that’s currently free to check out. I’m also taking a third look at “The Color of Everything” to see what I want to do with that.

A lot of people have all of these cool mini TTRPGs and I want to try and do that. I just seem to have a problem where I can only make big projects and I want to try and fix that.

That’s about it for now. Thanks for all your support and I’ll see you by the campfire.

One of my favorite things to do is come up with new and weird cryptids for my one-shots. Using the 10 question prompts it often times feels like cheating. For instance, a group set their game in Atlanta and decided that there were sentient peaches that ceaselessly rolled around 285. 

With that kind of detail how could I not make the one-shot about the mayor wanting them to get him peaches for a peach pie!

But we’re not here for sentient peaches, we’re here to talk about another cyrptid that I just had to draw after the session. I bring you the-

While this monster of a cryptid won’t be in the final book, it’s a great example of how an entry will be laid out. While last update I had talked about how to design your own cryptid, here we can see how that information would be presented in the book and future Crypt Chronicles. 

So this one is on me. Feel free to download it and try it out in your own games. Or make your own twist on it. 

In 17 days we’ll be celebrating the funding of The Crypt Has Opened.

Until then, see you by the campfire.

We’re super close to 60% with 20 days to go. I’m confident we’ll hit our funding goal. In the meantime I want to share something cool with you.

How To Make A Cryptid

One of our goals with The Crypt Has Opened is not simply rehash every well known cryptid. We’re all very familiar with Big Foot, the chupacabra, and more. While those will be included, we still wanted to add a little twist to them, to add a little Crypt stamp on each. 

Let’s take a look at the Mermaid from Shadows of Point Pleasant, our Actual Play.

Attack of the Mermaid!

Right off the bat you can see this isn’t your Pappy Sailor Jim’s mermaid. Here we’ve crossed the creature from the Black Lagoon with something like a crab tail and fish. Tendrils rise up from the mermaid’s back toward the surface of the water.

I also wanted to add a little bit of another well known creature, the Siren. What I landed on was a mermaid that swims below the surface of the water and uses tendrils injected into the nervous system of corpses to puppet them, using them as lures for unsuspecting sailors. Why do they do this? Murder of course.

Once I have that simple idea down all I need to do is assign it a die to represent its level and another its threat. While each cryptid entry in the book will give you a base line, changing these values up or down will not cause any problems. It only changes how difficult the encounter will be. For this example let’s call this mermaid a d8 in level and a d6 in threat.

What Does That Mean?

The d8 Level Die sets the Imposition the PCs must beat to affect the mermaid. That means any roll to communicate with it, knowledge roll, trying to inflict harm, or whatever you can think of is a d8. It’s that straight forward.

The Level Die also represents how many “hits” the mermaid can take before being defeated. Each die step representing one successful roll. So for a d8 creature that would be 3 successful rolls (d4, d6, d8). 

Of course this is a general guide. Some story points or clever use of abilities may make more sense to count as two or more successes. Especially if the roll is a Wicked Win. If you follow the narrative flow you’ll know when these times are appropriate.

The Threat Die has a few fun functions. First, the cryptid can assign these die as Imposition Raises against the PCs. For our mermaid of a d6 Threat, that means it can assign up to 2 raises to a single PC or 1 raise to two. This represents the mermaid focusing their ire or attention on a person or persons. For those unfortunate people their Imposition against the mermaid in artificially and temporarily increased until the mermaid moves that threat elsewhere.

Threat Die also allow the crypt keeper the chance to spotlight the cryptid. This gives them an opportunity to change the scene or use special abilities. For each level of threat, the cryptid can steal the spotlight (typically after all the PCs have had the spotlight). 

For our mermaid’s case, they may use their mermaid ability to tap into the latent magical abilities of a corpse they are puppeting to cast a devastating spell against the PCs. 

Many cryptids will have special powers and recommendations on how you can spend their threat, or how to change up the scene. Some have unique ways to add more complications. We want to stress that if you think of something else that fits the narrative, GO FOR IT! Just tick down their Threat Die and make the move.

It is important to note that even after the cryptid has used all their threat in a scene, they may be able to “refresh” it due to consequences from die rolls and they’ll still be able to use it as Imposition Raises.

That’s It

Just like that you are empowered to design your own cryptids and can react to your players on the fly. No longer will you be caught unprepared for their shenanigans. 

Though we’re still happy to create a bunch of cryptids for you to have in your back pocket or to give you inspiration for your own ideas. In The Crypt Has Opened we have a load of ideas—too many to put in this one book to be honest. So even after this campaign is over we will continue to put out material and support you all with new ideas.

Those Crypt Chronicles aren’t there just for show… muahahahaha!

That’s it for this update. We’ll see you by the campfire.

If you’re ready to back, jump over to the page now!

Plunge into a free-form magic system where there are no spell lists. The Spell Path framework will guide you and your imagination in creating unique spells to combat the horrors of the Crypt. Every player has access to every Spell Path, allowing for a truly open play experience. Your limits are your imagination and the threat of the Crypt.

Combine your magical Trope and Tradition to create unique characters. Be a Hexmonger whose Tradition is Nu-Wizard. Or play as a Crypt Hunter, climbing the ranks within a Hierarchical organization.

Encounter classic cryptids like the Sasquatch, Jersey Devil, and the Chupacabra; all with a chilling narrative twist. Discover lesser-known cryptids like the Snallygaster and Rockbolter that will terrorize your town and overrun the Dead Spaces. 

Each Cryptid entry comes with lore specific to the setting, wicked abilities, and suggestions on how to use them for your game. You’ll also be guided on how to create your own cryptids, ensuring you’ll never be without an answer for what the players may run into next.

At the start of each campaign, the players will answer a set of questions that develop a unique town that comes with its own character sheet. You can work toward rebuilding a small hamlet up to a metropolis. But do not be complacent, the Crypt still slinks in the shadows, its ever-present skeletal hand ready to drag the living back to the grave.

• Your town follows the same mechanics as your practitioner.
• Your choices and dice rolls create complications for you and plot points for the Crypt Keeper, who will build off of the results for emergent and interconnected stories. 
• Will you be a bastion of hope on the hill? Or a rum-running village tucked in the dark forests? 

An easy to learn dice system, the Imposition Dice System facilitates story-driven, character-driven game sessions. All rolls are player-facing, meaning every roll has an impact on the narrative. 

It all hinges on the Imposition Die, a die chosen by the Crypt Keeper to act as the difficulty of the roll. With the player’s Spell and Path Die, they attempt to roll higher than their Imposition. There are three potential outcomes. Success, Success with Consequences, and Failure. For people who love Blades in the Dark, Cypher System, or Brindlewood Bay, you will feel right at home.

We are keeping it simple. Your pledge helps us produce the final book in digital and print. Everything you need to play will be in the Crypt Tome: game rules, character creation, how to run the game, setting information, cryptids, and more! This book will be a soft-bound cover, like a comic trade paperback, sized for that throwback feeling of reading a Silver Age comic.

This campaign also comes with some spine-tingling digital goodies. Two scenario books, Crypt Chronicles, that provide the Crypt Keeper with chilling tales to drop into their campaign. Each Crypt Chronicle has within it: 

• A two-page comic with which to terrorize the players
• New cryptid
• New locations
• More setting information
• Trigger warnings are displayed prominently on the front

You can also add on the Cryptid Card pack. These tarot sized cards have a heart stopping illustration of a cryptid on the front found within the Crypt Tome, and quick reference information for the Crypt Keeper on the back. 

Every pledge helps us get closer to our stretch goals which, like the campaign we’ve kept simple. With each contribution we can get closer to the Crypt Chronicles and Cryptid Cards in print. We also have two bumps in creative pay for our layout artist (Andrew Beauman) editor (Chaotic).

Finally, there is one big reward if we really go viral. I promise, it won’t disappoint.

Mechanically, the game is complete. In fact, you’re free to download the beta rules right now! 

We also have a fantastic Actual Play we recorded last year (still in editing because that shit is hard work). Watch the first two episodes of “Shadows of Point Pleasant” so you can see firsthand how the game plays. Don’t worry, these are heavily edited and last less than 2 hours, with music and sound effects!

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to follow the campaign and be on this incredible journey with us as we bring The Crypt Has Opened to crowdfunding. Having spent so many years tweaking and play testing, I believe you will find many more years of enjoyment with—

We’ll see you by the campfire.

If there is one scene that embodies campy horror, it’s this one.

Chef’s kiss. Perfection in every way. The line delivery is flat, the lighting is too bright, the trolls too visible and the special effects a literal mess. It is fantastic.

We love the silliness and the absurdity of the scene. The movie knows what it is about, the actors are fully aware of the camp, and everything works together so well.

And still, with all that, the character doesn’t see it that way. For that character there is no lighting, no music, so special effects. For the character it is all too real. The trolls are eating her and there is a dawning realization that he is next. He hears every chomp of bone and squelch of flesh.

“Their actions, the consequences, should be true to the moment.“

His life is on the line.

And that’s exactly how you should approach a campy horror TTRPG. Have fun with the shenanigans! Make the scene outrageous and lean into everything that makes camp what it is. But to really sell it, your character has to treat the scene with the seriousness it deserves and demands of them. Their actions, the consequences, should be true to the moment. Otherwise you’re going to barrel straight ahead into a cartoon and cartoon logic. We can certainly bend physics and push boundaries, but do so with an eye toward honesty and you’ll have an incredible scene.

It has been my experience over the years of play testing The Crypt Has Opened that those players that approached a scene with sincerity brought out the most in their characters but in the game for everyone.

Here is a great example. In a large scale encounter they were fighting a warlock in their small town hospital. A player spent experience points for a story beat so that there was an MRI machine. Now there was no way that the size of their town out in the Dead Spaces had an MRI, but there it was. Only for it to be used to crush the warlock and destroying it. We had a great laugh about the absurdity of this town having an MRI and how destructive they were.

All fun and games.

“Being honest to the outcomes instantly elevated their actions beyond a silly moment and into something real.”

Until I used the truth of that moment to give them a gut punch several sessions later. This was an expensive machine. A life saving machine. One that this town may never be able to get again, and through their hasty actions it was destroyed. Being honest to the outcomes instantly elevated their actions beyond a silly moment and into something real. It made their actions have consequences.

Campy doesn’t mean bad. It means exaggerated, humorous, and often times self-satirical. And done right, with honesty, is campy horror at it’s finest.

My ghouls and fiends, we are fast approaching the opening of the Crypt doors. That’s right, the Night of the Open Grave will be upon us this February 3rd, 2026. 

Thank you so much for those that have followed the campaign. Your support sends shivers down our spines. This game has been in development for many years, and near and dear to my cold heart. After hundreds of hours of play testing and being a part of so many wonderful stories of terror and magic, I can’t wait to see it in your hands.

I’d like to take this moment to thank my ghastly co-conspirators, Andrew Beauman (Layout) and Chaotic Jamgochian (Editor). These two have helped me keep what sanity I have left leading up to this launch. Without them it would be another six years before the game could crawl its way out of the grave.

There will be more exciting announcements on the way as we draw closer to the big event. In the meantime share the campaign on your socials and let’s get everyone prepared for the horrors that are about to clamber from the tombs.
 

I’ll see you in the Myst.

Jersey Devils are attacking your coal shipments. The Brotherhood of Divine Mysticism will descend upon your town after an unfortunate incident involving a Tomb Yard. And teenagers are falling into comas after playing the new hit board game from Walton’s Curios, “Dream Phone.”

The above was an actual conundrum my players were in for our years’ long campaign for The Crypt Has Opened. The players were debating about which to handle first. As they deliberated I reminded them about an aspect of the game they’d forgotten about.

They have a town, full of fellow practitioners, and a stat sheet they’d filled out for exactly this reason.

The addition of the town mechanics was late in the game, but has had incredible impact on the stories and character development. My players decided it would be best to have a group of NPCs handle the Jersey Devils. This allowed them to use their Defenses Civic Path in which they’d put a good deal of their starting points. This choice had beautiful ramifications.

For one, through hilarious roleplay it we collectively agreed that one of the player’s had a huge extended family of rednecks, who were all too happy to gear up and “get some devil meat.”

Here is where the beauty of the town mechanics came in. The player’s town works exactly like the characters. You build a dice pool of the town’s Prominence (equivalent to player’s Magic Die), the relevant Civic Path (like the player’s Spell Die), and they roll against the Imposition.

It was my goal not to have an entirely new sub-system for the town. I’ve found that systems built on top of systems can really bog down a game quickly. Anything that pulls the players out of the action, to jump to another track, can be a major bump in a session. Keeping the resolution mechanic the same, with how you build the dice pool, let the system sing.

It also let the tension build. How that roll panned out would have major ramifications on not just them, but their town. Ramifications that they would also be responsible for. Failure, and those family members would have most likely died. Success with Consequences, the family stopped an attack, but would more be on the way?

They rolled a success. Not only a success, but a Wicked Win! The family rooted out the Jersey Devils and even came back with some of the cryptid’s pelts. Which spurred one of the players to snag up a pelt and turn into a magic item for another player.

Behold, the Jersey Devil Duster of Protection.

This showed me just how powerful a town can be for a group of players. As those rolls can create amazing plot points and story beats for me as the Crypt Keeper to springboard off of. It also will show me what they want to focus on. What is most important to them during this campaign?

I can’t wait to hear about your town and all the shenanigans your players get up to.