Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Epidiah, Tongue of the Crab Profile picture
Epidiah, Tongue of the Crab
@Epidiah
I have officially been called a 'creator of unconventionally sized & shaped role playing games'! See also Dread, Swords Without Master. Pronouns in bio: he/him
Sep 30, 2022 • 55 tweets • 10 min read
Because I'm bad at following what's happening in the #ttrpg world, even for games I adore, I only recently discovered that Urban Jungle has not one, but two supplements!

Now that I have summoned the supplements to my grubby mitts, I want to tweet about them for a bit! The core rulebook to Urban ... I'll start by saying that while I haven't played with these supplements—I've only just read them in the past week)—I have played Urban Jungle. It was a wonderful experience. You can feel the contours of the rules as you play and they guide you down the most intriguing paths.
Mar 25, 2022 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
How about that Dread: Dredd news, huh?

I've been quiet about it because I wanted to make sure it felt real before I said anything. By Grud, it feels real now!

Thank you all for your enthusiastic response!

So, shall I tell you about how I wrote a speed-run version of Dread? Before I dig into how the game works: a big shout out to Rebellion for this opportunity. The whole process was an absolute joy.

But especially for letting me make a Judge Dredd game in which Dredd is not a character you play, but a concrete wall your characters hurtling towards.
Jan 27, 2021 • 33 tweets • 5 min read
An Incident Shoveling Snow as I Perceived It
—by Epidiah Ravachol

I was shoveling snow, that much you know by the title, or at the least, could infer. You may have also guessed that the snow I was shoveling was on my driveway, and there, too, you would have been correct. Though, I suppose, you may have had a mental image of me shoveling a sidewalk, which would have been correct maybe a quarter hour before, assuming, of course, you knew me well enough to form a reasonable mental image of me in my shoveling attire.
Jan 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I've been having some trouble with Heroku, the service that hosts the @VastAndStarlit bot. It's been running really slow in ways that I don't think I can correct. Anyone out there know of alternative hosting services that fairly friendly to neophytes and hobbyists? So there are 24 frames per second in the 50 second animation, which means the bot has to draw 1,200 frames per post.

Normally it can draw 2 or 3 frames per second, so it takes about 10 minutes to make an animation.

But very recently, it changed its behavior.
Jan 25, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I'm plumb out of hustle, folks. My daily conversation with my co-worker…

Me: "Hey, Eppy, maybe you should get out there & promote some games."

Co-worker: "Hey, Eppy, maybe you should go fuck yourself."

Me: "Okay then, maybe tomorrow."

Co-worker (in a sing-song sort of voice): "Okay then, maybe tomorrow."
Jun 27, 2020 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
I've got this thing, a relationship to certain roleplaying games, that I call the unkept promise. It's a good thing—fuel for my creative drive—but on the surface of it, it might seem like a bad thing.

It's what the art, text, & marketing promise me but the rules fail to deliver. There's a lot to dig into here. For instance, rules don't exist in a vacuum. The art, text, marketing, what-have-you, all play a role in what a game delivers.
Mar 2, 2020 • 57 tweets • 10 min read
The mail today was exciting! The second edition of the Usagi Yojimbo game from Sanguine! I've not played yet, but I've been reading it and I am thoroughly intrigued!
Oct 29, 2019 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
I'm sitting here trying to think of good #TTRPG content to share with the Twitters, but my mind is like...
.
.
.
.
.
.
(A thread about doing your fellow players the courtesy of NOT ignoring the rules that help folks say interesting things.) I enjoy rules that trip you up a little bit, narratively. That force you to take a different angle at what you were about to do or say in the game. That take what's been said and shed new and strange light upon it.

I want to go jovial, but the dice tell me it's glum.
Oct 3, 2019 • 59 tweets • 13 min read
Tonight, I'm playing the EverQuest TTRPG—a d20 game from way back in the Great Glut of d20! I have no experience playing the MMO & no nostalgia for the setting, but the GM has plenty of both to spare.

It's been interesting tackling it exactly like characters in a MMO. But tonight, what I'm most looking forward to, is tracking everyone's position in combat using complex numbers & the Free42 RPN calculator app on my phone.

(This is a calculator thread, by the way.)
Aug 5, 2019 • 52 tweets • 12 min read
This is one of my all-time favorites.

It's a brilliant design from 1987 that was decades ahead of its time.

Or, to be more accurate, it was right in its time and the rest of us are decades behind. Re-reading my copy now. So much to talk about in these rules!

I feel a thread coming on. It'll probably have to wait until tomorrow, but there will be thread. An illustration of Rocket J. Squirrel introducing the rules to The Bullwinkle and Rocky Role-Playing Party Game.
Jun 12, 2019 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
I can't act, I don't do funny voices, I mispronounce every fifth or sexth word, & I'm kind of a shit orator.

But I can still play the hell out of a #ttrpg. I even GM some!

Nobody: "How is that even possible, Eppy?"

Eppy, optimized for clickbait: "With this 1 simple trick…" When it's my turn to narrate, I pause to think about what I'm going to say. Then I start by narrating what I, Eppy, the player, am doing: "I think what happens is..." Because I am, literally, thinking that.

Then I share my thoughts. Occasionally I follow that up with, "Right?"
May 17, 2019 • 54 tweets • 9 min read
When the goblins of the salt wastes realized they stood in the path of a fellowship's quest, they sent sent two of their own out into the world to find 13 orcs to either save their community from the impending disaster, or to avenge it.

But why 13?

Let's find out. You start with nothing, because that's what you're born with.

Zero is a sacred number to these gobs, and it's important to note that they consider it a number. It is the beginning and the end. But it's nothing between, and so we must move on.
Mar 3, 2019 • 32 tweets • 7 min read
It's been a week since the impromptu Tunnels & Trolls game that inspired this thread and I'm still thinking about it.

I've been hacking a space fantasy version of the game, because I saw an opportunity to do the WWII dogfight and bomber run inspired space battles that are all over Star Warss, but also because I wanted to clarify my thoughts on how I run the game.
Feb 19, 2019 • 65 tweets • 14 min read
Way back in April of last year, I did a big thread of the tools I use to make RPGs as part of the #AprilTTRPGMaker hashtag. The 1st & most useful part of that thread is about conceptual tools--ideas that helped me create, refine & hone my designs. The 2nd, far less useful, part was about the hardware & software I play around with while designing.

As I say in the thread, I have emotions about all that. I love a gadget. They're fun to play with and fun to play is one of my favorite design goals...
Dec 11, 2018 • 56 tweets • 13 min read
I'm going to chat a bit more about #LincolnGreen🏹 this morning, even if it isn't #Greenwoodensday.

I want to talk about the Oaths, advancement, design goals & something I'm going to awkwardly describe as player in-roads into GM territory in a traditionally GMed game. 😐 So #LincolnGreen🏹 is "traditionally GMed" in that there's a player, called the Game Warden, in a GM role that 30 years ago Eppy would recognize. Well, 32 years ago—before the Bullwinkle & Rocky Role-Playing Party Game. Or 1 BBRRPPG as we in the industry like to measure time.
Dec 10, 2018 • 31 tweets • 6 min read
Fuck yeah, calculator & PAIN points. I'm in. You have no idea how much I want this to be true!
Aug 30, 2018 • 56 tweets • 19 min read
WARNING: Extensive Self-Promotion Ahead

Folks, due to some large expenses on the horizon—that are altogether exciting & voluntary and not of the GoFundMe variety—I'm shifting my hustle into overdrive for the next few months.

Gird thy loins.

payhip.com/epidiah So if you were thinking, "I wonder when would be a good time for me to pick up those back issues of Worlds Without Master I've always wanted," the answer is "Now."

worldswithoutmaster.com/bazaar/
Jul 12, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Folks, if you're anything like me, you still use Adobe CS4 because why keep buying shit, but you've also noticed that Photoshop has slowed to a fucking crawl in recent years. Like, make an adjustment-&-then-clean-the-dishes-while-you-wait-for-Photoshop-to-register-it slow. & if you're like me, you recently had a delightful conversation with @portablecity about making merch:

& you've been struggling with this infernally sluggish PS for weeks assuming it was just your computer getting old. Because everything grows old & dies.
Jun 18, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Been thinking about this game all night. I think I played this on the Atari 800, though it could have been a Commodore 64. We didn't have it as kids, but our cousins did. I remember which cousins, I remember the cool basement we played in, but I don't remember which computer those cousins had.
Apr 20, 2018 • 40 tweets • 11 min read
#AprilTTRPGMaker

"20. Favorite design tools?"

Alright, let's open this toolbox! I'm going to ignore hardware & software for a moment here & discuss them at the end of this thread for reasons I'll get into later.

Instead, I'm going to start with conceptual tools—Paradigms & Practices that have served me well.

We'll start with some Basic P&P…
Apr 5, 2018 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
#AprilTTRPGMaker

"5. Favorite game you've worked on"

Obviously, I should pick #SwordsWithoutMaster⚔️. It's what I'm known for & it is destined to be the game that finally usurps #DnD.

But pound for pound, Vast & Starlit is the most important game I've ever made. So it wins. The Vast & Starlit Library, four covers featuring Hubble Space Telescope images of nebulas and a complex orbital drawing. Vast & Starlit was unleashed upon the world 5 years ago last month. Originally, it was only available in print—tiny little game books the size of 2 business cards bound together.

To get it, you had a play a game: Either find me & hand me $1/book I'd hand you from my own wallet…