The Coded Type

Accessibility is a Conversation, Not a Checklist

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As a game designer, and a web designer, I've often struggled to understand which path I should follow to create accessible content. At first I looked for actionable information, font sizes, colors, quick recipes to integrate in my workflow. That didn't work. I felt mostly overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the task and the amount of information available. I didn't even have a clear understanding of what the term accessibility means.

Luckily, a few months ago I had the chance to meet on the interwebs with Will Purves and Claire Moore who both work with the Disability Network. I facilitated the digital publication of Make Accessible TTRPGs, a free intro guide to designing and running accessible games.

This booklet has been a game changer for me. It made me understand that designing in an accessible way doesn't rely on a few quick-to-apply tricks or rules, but it starts with building a conversation with your community. Of course, ultimately a designer needs to make decisions and adopt some specific design principles. But what Will and Claire's booklet suggests is that dialog is the core of the process. Dialog allows us to understand the needs and specificities of users, which ultimately is what we need to know as designers to produce accessible design.

As a matter of fact, and to demonstrate what we've been talking about, today we are releasing an updated version of the zine, after a member of the community provided feedback about some minor accessibility issues of the first PDF version.

I'd like to add that, although the zine focuses mainly on RPG design, the general method it outlines is applicable to other media and disciplines, including web design.

Make Accessible TTRPGs is totally free, so you can start your journey towards more accessible design by grabbing it here.

Miracles, the Anti-Bosses

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I try to design player-first games, games whose core design structure fosters collaborative gameplay, out-of-the-box thinking, fun, and emergent narrative. I know that in an OSR, or post-OSR, fashion, emergent narrative is often focused on solving problems. Instead, what I mean by it is building relationships with the world, negotiating with the environment, and optionally being able to overcome adversities through collaboration and the creative expression of the character's abilities. The difference might seem minimal, but it's not.

That is the core design goal of most of the games I work on. Specific design choices are made informed by it. Especially when it comes to antagonists, I try to design them as more than just problems to get rid of, but rather as new members of the cast that players have to deal with.

In The Lost Bay RPG, the Bosses-like NPCs, the final-level baddies, called Miracles are not characters players can deal with easily. As a matter of fact, they can't really be defeated; they seldom can be killed. Additionally, some Miracles aren't frontally adversarial; they're just dangerous because they overpower playable characters. I like to call them Anti-Bosses. It's a strong design pattern that all Miracles follow.

This fundamental assumption moves direct combat out of the way as a primary strategy for dealing with them. Instead, players have no choice but to share their resources and think creatively, going beyond the mechanical abilities written on their character sheets. This key difference puts characters, and their relationships, at the core of the gameplay experience.

Here's an in-depth description of how TLB Miracles are structured and work.

Miracles are The Lost Bay supernatural, Weird, antagonists. Most of them are unique. There's only one Bone King, one Traveller, one Storm. Confronting them in direct combat results inevitably in death. TLB Miracles are not too dissimilar from classical fairy tale monsters like Little Thumb's Ogre. They also draw inspiration from Trophy Dark monsters (who can't be killed), or Mythic Bastionland monsters (which are unique creatures). The book contains twelve of them.

Miracles are dark, living gems at the heart of Urban Legends. Overwhelming and powerful, avid death-bringers. They remain beyond understanding even when they have a human form. Manipulative liars, shapeless murderers, or brutal destroyers. Pray, pray to your Living Saint to never meet one of them.

But, if the higher powers are too distracted to hear your plea, and like so many unlucky souls you cross paths with one of them, do not confront it because, no matter what you do, it will crush you, bones, blood, and soul.

Instead, be cunning.

Miracles are overwhelming creatures. They're either offspring of the Faceless God, sent to the Bay to lay the foundation for its coming, or victims of the Faceless God, who bear in their body and soul the mark of its suffocating hold. They're tormented beings who cast misery around them. Many will try to brutally destroy whoever comes close enough, while others just want to toy with their victims. Miracles are known to shed loss and ruin as they move through the Bay, driven to consume bodies or souls for their sustenance.

Miracles might have a human form like the Hollow Hitchhiker, or a small size like the Death Kiss parasite, or be staggering god-like figures like The Traveller. In any case, they overpower the characters.

When players cross paths with a Miracle, make the encounter memorable. Miracles are not just monsters: they become, with the characters, key members of the story's cast, at least for a while.

Confronting a Miracle in direct combat results in immediate death. Though players can find ways to imprison, stun, cheat, and hide from them. Clever and lucky PCs can strike deals with Miracles. In exceptional circumstances players might even manage to defeat and kill them, luring them to the edge of a high cliff, crushing them under an industrial hydraulic press, or having a nuclear payload detonate right next to them. Gifts (supernatural abilities) and Summons (invocations of immortal beings) may have an effect on miracles, as soon as they're not used to inflict direct physical damage.

It's up to the GM to find the right balance between communicating a sense of dread and letting players feel in charge. The GM might arbitrate that a defeated Miracle bounces back, and reappears later, with an altered form and maybe different goals.

Examples of Physical Confrontations with Miracles

DON'T: The PCs manage to surprise the Bone King and stab him in the heart. He drools black blood, laughs, and mutters, 'I have no heart,' before using his Drown move to bury the PCs in mud.

DO: A PC strikes a deal with the Bone King and is granted the gift to rot flesh. The PC uses it to rot what's left of the King's muscles. The Miracle falls to his knees, now nothing more than a skeleton with lumps of flesh. The PC takes advantage of the King's weakened state to flee.

DON'T: The PCs run over Storm with their truck. She takes the blow and careens off the side of the road. As she gets back on her feet, she turns into a sandstorm and enters the vehicle through its air vents.

DO: The PCs are in a bar fight with Storm, who is after the ancient bone comb they possess. She turns into a sandstorm inside the pub. The PCs use the comb to lure her into a walk-in freezer and lock the door.

Example Miracle

Mold Man

A failed Noble Rock experiment. Naked, erratic, and oddly graceful. Loves to dance, speaks in cryptic nonsense, and vomits clouds of infectious spores. A bit sad. Lives in the water reservoir. Occasionally takes a walk in the nearby area, always at night.

Weakness: Connected to the mold and can’t leave the reservoir for long. Dies if the mold is destroyed entirely.

Mood: “Do you want to eat the moon fruit?” Squints and squeaks.

Wants: A quiet life.

Moves:

Cough infectious spores
Blink big kind eyes
Hide in water
Crawl on reservoir walls
Spread mold through touch

Quirk: Body is partly consumed by mold.

Gear: Roll three items on the Stuff table. These were dropped by or taken from folks who visited the area.

</blockquote>

That's Miracles in a nutshell: The Lost Bay's baddies, anti-bosses, and antagonists. They contribute mechanically and thematically to forging a gameplay that blends OSR/NSR aspects with narrative gameplay, fostering collective play and out-of-the-box thinking.

Extending this stream of thought from game design to product design and publishing, the mechanics, and the implicit values they support, inform not only the gaming experience but also the entire relationship with the product itself. Or rather, they inform how the product-audience relationship could be built. This is still an open experiment for me; I'm discovering things as I try, read, and publish.

However, the intuition here, and the desire, is that moving away from combat-centric mechanics should be accompanied by a move away from cortisol-spike or FOMO-induced, aggressive-by-default marketing strategies and toward a more robust, meaningful, and fulfilling relationship with the audience. This can be done by creating games that, beyond the fun and hopefully "wow" factor, serve as the spark for strong, memorable, and shared human experiences.

That's the plan!

About

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, I'm Iko. I'm a tabletop RPG designer and publisher at thelostbaystudio.com and a web designer. In this blog I discuss game design, building resilient communities, and publishing. I also share updates about our new zines and games. Finally, I occasionally discuss how game and web design might inform each other.

All Flesh is Reborn

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

import { Picture } from 'astro:assets';

Building resilient communities takes time and sweat. But mostly it requires providing environments that allow the community to blossom, ideas to cross-pollinate, people to meet and share common interests. Just build safe spaces, be welcoming, and let things happen.

That's why, starting October 1st and for a whole month, The Lost Bay Server hosts the second edition of All Flesh is Surplus, The Lost Bay RPG online convention.

At its core:

a game jam, Found Footage of the Bay
gaming sessions and design talks, focused on the REBORN system.

AFIS is an event made for and by the members of the community, designers, GMs, players, or simply folks curious to get a taste of The Lost Bay RPG. The convention hasn't formally started yet, but the Bayers have already come up with two fantastic ideas:

#all-cofee-is-surplus: a café-like channel to chill, share design tips, jump on impromptu coffee calls, or playtests.
A collectively designed zine about an abandoned and cursed apartment complex. Last year the community gave birth to the fantastic BLADES, A COMPENDIUM OF KNIVES, and we certainly can expect something as wild this year.

If you're hungry for playing and dice rolls, a series of open game sessions is waiting for you. They feature both official and third-party modules. All games are open to anyone, veteran Bayers and first-time players alike, they're run by GMs from TLB community.

Below are all the sessions available. If you'd like to join a game, just click on the RSVP link and add yourself. Joining AFIS sessions is a great way to meet other members of the community, and to try TLB Reborn if you haven't yet!

Let's get together and play games.

Diesel Service Play By Post

Years ago, The Shadow was banished from this world, locked in a celestial prison by The Cat. Now, the devotees of The Shadow, the Hooded Order, have devised a ritual to release their patron, bringing The Shadow back to the Lost Bay and empowering the Hooded Order to strike back at The Cat and their acolytes.

Wednesday, October 1, 2025 - duration 1 month

GM: Iko

RSVP Here

The Swine

You wake up in bloody broken energy drink coolers, loosely chained closed. Chopping meat from the next room. And you remember the face. The pig mask face of The Swine that took you.

Monday, October 6, 2025

GM: Chris Airiau

RSVP Here

Festival of Fallen Wings

Every year at the Waterfront, a festival is held to celebrate love and remember those who have passed. This year, a strange wind blows over the bay, bringing a sickness of the mind and heart. Like a moth to the flame, Artists, Actors, and Lovers are drawn to the festival. Then, people begin to go missing. Yet, not all are noticed. Explore and enjoy the festival, search and save those who have gone missing, or discover the Director behind the scenes of the stage.

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

GM: Overwhelming_Dog

RSVP Here

Chemwaste

The Sinking Marshes are dying. Tonight you’re accompanying Bianca, an eco-activist, on a high-stakes sabotage mission that could change your life and the future of the marshes forever. What could go wrong?

Saturday, October 11, 2025

GM: Danny Mendoza

RSVP Here

Will of The Forest (winterized)

It does not matter if the signs now read “Gareth Pines Park.” It does not matter if the trails are marked with spray-painted blazes. The horrors on this hill are all too real for the people of the Bay, but that does not stop them from flocking to the forest for a much-needed reprieve from the creeping macadam of the suburbs.

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

GM: Wren

RSVP Here

All Flesh is Surplus is our annual TLB community experiment, a space we give ourselves to explore creativity and build shared memories and experiences. We're waiting for you there!

The Workshop

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, I had the chance to host a free RPG workshop in collaboration with the Fanzinoteca, a one-of-a-kind fanzine library created and maintained by Valeria Foschetti, and the Caivalrate public library in Milan, where the zine archive is located.

A dozen and a half participants of all ages and backgrounds attended, from an early teenager and RPG wizard to an grey haired cartoonist and artist with a punk haircut.

During set up I dropped about forty zines on the table, quite in a messy way, and that was a pretty good idea. Participants rushed to the table even before the beginning of the session to explore this sample of the indie RPG production. I could feel the curiosity, awe, and excitement. Good.

The first part of the workshop was dedicated to intro the indie RPG scene. We covered some basics like what are RPGs, how did I stumble across the indie scene, why I find it so amazing, my faves.

You'd notice that I spoke from a very personal point of view, classic me. In my opinion that's the only proper way to share knowledge. Especially considering there isn't really such a thing as an indie scene. If one could define the scene entirely, it wouldn't be indie, probably. Rather, I see it as an ever-changing collection of archipelagos; some of them remain isolated, others share islands or are super interconnected.

I also gave space to the folks attending every time they asked questions or made a comment, inviting them to share and explain more, and that way ensured the workshop was a collective experience. (Note for later: do even more of that.)

It was great, except some of the folks had really no clue what RPGs were and started to feel a bit lost. So instead of moving on to the game design intro part, we played.

A few days ago, Wren the Forrester, game designer and one of the pillars of The Lost Bay community, released Elysian Apartments. This twelve-page setting creation module will get you through rolling the shape, quirks, and occupants of a weird apartment complex. A simple dice drop procedure maps each floor (or as many floors as you like). Various tables populate and spice up the rooms. There's no indication on which tables should be rolled, leaving the players free to interpret the module.

It's a beauty, and it pushed the workshop to a whole new level of fun.

As soon as I dropped the module on the table, folks started rolling dice, creating floors, talking, making rulings on how the module should be interpreted. Two separate groups spontaneously merged their respective apartment complex / dungeons. I remained there, one step back, to provide support whenever needed, without taking part into the creative jam per se. We all had so much fun.

Aside from the incredible human experience, watching others play made me understand so much about game design. I'm not sure I can formalize everything I've learned yet, but it could be summarized like this:

Short booting time: the first page of the module offers intriguing and flavorful random tables. It puts you in the context immediately.
Structural autonomy: Elysian Apartments is made for The Lost Bay RPG, but you don't need to read TLB to use it. In fact, it could be used with almost any system.
Open to interpretation: although the module provides some useful guidelines, many details are left open for the players to make rulings on the fly.
Where, What, Who validation. We had a lot of fun outlining the space, but dropping characters in it was the real kick.

Maybe this is usual indie RPG thinking. But here's the additional part I never really thought about:

Self-contained design: although it's built as a setting, running it is fun and meaningful enough that the workshop participants called it the game.

This is what I'll remember: even if modules are designed as companions to a pre-existing game, they should work as standalone games. Why? Because that probably makes them better.

Of course, there is no golden rule to design; and I know there have been various attempts to codify design approaches that might seem similar, for example MOSAIC Strict (I'm not sharing a link because I'm not even sure how it started).

The approach Wren took to designing E.A. struck me as a very friendly, open, inclusive one. In a way, here the focus is not so much on how the module would interact with other modules, but how it interacts with the audience.

Emergent design

Putting inclusivity of (non necessarily RPG-savvy) users at the core, and building scalable designs seems quite similar to resilient web design, or layered web design. Autonomous or semi-autonomous systems, components, modules, that collaborate with each other to build a form of emergent design.

The lesson extends to publishing as well. In a fragmented, but moreover saturated world, each published module should offer value on its own, and not be a mere hook, sequel, or extension of a lead product.

There's much more to explore, and one of the goals of this blog is to find possible connections between game design and web design, to understand how they can inform each other.

Right now, I know one thing for sure: I can't wait to host another workshop.

And the next time I'll design a module, I'll certainly wonder: what if I played the module as a standalone game, would that be a fun or meaningful experience, and if not, what could I add/change to make it so?

You've probably guessed I'm a total fan of Elysian Apartments. I strongly recommend you check it out as a module for your modern/sci-fi/contemporary games or a mini RPG. It's only three bucks, and free community copies are available.

Open Blog Revolution Release

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

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Since I moved my blog to this self-hosted platform, many of you have reached out and asked how you could host the same kind of blog. Good news: today I release Open Blog Revolution, an open-source blogging website template meant for writers.

The great social-media noise escape

Blogs are back. It's not an objective assessment, rather a feeling. But there isn't a day where I don't read a post about a creator, developer, designer, publisher, or hobbyist deciding to get back to blogging.

By back to blogging I mean leaving in some capacity social networks to share content on something that resembles old-fashioned blogs. Content heavy publishing on the internet.

One could argue blogs never disappeared, and that’s fair. Elmcat did a massive investigation and coding work to map the indie RPG blogosphere. Even if the scope of their research is limited to a very specific niche, the data shows an overwhelming increase of blogs from 2003 to 2025. (also what happened in 2011???)

<> <Picture class="" style="width:50%" src={import(./img/elmcat-yearly-stats.webp)} formats={["avif", "webp"]} alt={'Yearly blogging stats graph'} width={720} height={720} widths={[240, 540, 720]} sizes="(max-width: 360px) 240px, (max-width: 720px) 480px, (max-width: 1600px) 720px" />

<figcaption>Yearly Stats, picture from https://elmc.at/mapping-the-blogosphere/</figcaption> </>

More people writing and more people reading: that's good.

But the question remains: what ink and pen do we use to write? As you might know, I hosted the predecessor to The Coded Type on a popular blogging/newsletter platform, Substack. It didn't work for me. I'm still grateful for the feedback and support received by readers of my blog back then, but publishing using that platform made me more uncomfortable with every new post. Substack didn't feel like sharing thoughts, sparking a conversation, or taking part in a community; it felt more like feeding a platform-as-performance activity.

I suppose this is a structural side-effect of publishing content in a social-network-like context, where the bulk of interaction is about liking and sharing. Squeezed between engagement notifications and frequent pings when other authors published content, I soon felt compelled to publish more, even if I didn't have something meaningful to share.

I involuntarily changed the tone of my posts to adopt some pseudo-marketing lingo and display an upbeat mood. I was growing uncomfortable, staring at the blog stats and reflecting on the meaning of an expression recently added to my vocabulary: metrics of success.

Despite having strong feelings, I was unsure what to do with them until two things happened:

I went back to doing web development on larger projects and acquainted myself with new stacks and design philosophies.
I read (partially) the PhD thesis of Julie Blanc, a web developer, layout designer, and researcher who co-developed an open-source layout framework.

In the first chapters of her thesis, focused on PagedJS, Julie Blanc explains how the tools we use are an emotive, psychological, and intellectual extension of our self. By choosing specific tools, we not only change the environment around us (by using them to produce objects or effects), but we alter the way we think, and ultimately, how we feel.

Reading Blanc's work was liberating and gave me the nudge I needed to leave Substack and build my own self-hosted blog. It was a bit scary at first. What was I going to do out in the wild, building my own publishing tool? Educating myself on indie publishing strategies and using tools focused on writing, not on gaining acknowledgment, lowered my stress and impostor syndrome (a tiny bit 😉). This has been good for the brain and the heart! The unexpected consequence is that I got involved in commissioned projects that share similar values.

So, today I'm excited to release in the wild the fruit of that work, Open Blog Revolution.

Open Blog Revolution

<> <Picture class="" src={import(./img/obr_banner.png)} formats={["avif", "webp"]} alt={'Open Blog Revolution Banner'} width={720} height={720} widths={[240, 540, 720]} sizes="(max-width: 360px) 240px, (max-width: 720px) 480px, (max-width: 1600px) 720px" />

<figcaption>Open Blog Revolution Banner</figcaption> </>

(Yes, this name is a pun/homage to the OSR, and was picked collectively by The Lost Bay server crowd).

There's plenty of blogging templates, frameworks out there. Some are simple, other complex, some are free, a lot quite expensive. Before jumping on the laptop to code OBR I formalized the problem I was trying to solve.

As a webdev, the challenge I saw is twofold and a bit of an oxymoron:

The point of self-hosting is to be free to host anywhere without being locked into a specific platform.
Most often, authors lack the time or technical knowledge to build and run websites. As a consequence, they resort to using all-in-one platforms that lock them in, and defeat the initial goal.

Open Blog Revolution is my attempt at solving this. It's open-source, released with a MIT license (one of the most simple and permissive licenses), and lightweight. You can host it pretty much anywhere: your own server, a fancy cloud provider, or the free GitHub Pages or Netlify tiers.

The main goal is to make things simple and support authors on the path to owning their own publishing tools. In addition, the project follows the principles of Resilient Web Design: building fast, lightweight websites accessible to the largest possible audience, even on my crappy laptop from 2005.

If you'd like to run your own independent space and put some distance between you and "big tech" apps, here's what you can do:

Preview OBR: https://the-coded-type.github.io/open-blog-revolution/
Build your blog: Visit the repo, read the docs, and install it.
Ask for help: On The Lost Bay server in the #the-coded-type channel.
Suggest/upvote features: Use the discussion forum.
Contribute: Help with code or documentation on the repo. (If you wish to contribute I suggest reaching out first)
Support: If you need help building a bespoke blog for yourself or a multi-author blog for your organization, summon me as a freelancer. Paid work on OBR-related projects directly funds the public code.

Here's a simplified a non exhaustive todo list, things I'll work on next (let me know if I should add something)

better accessibility
more documentation
blogger import
video documentation
dedicated backend
podcast page
better web-to-print

Early OBR adopter!

I did a soft launch on Discord a few weeks ago, and OBR already has an adopter! Personable Thoughts was built 100% with OBR. Here is what Markus, its author, says:

Basically, when I started blogging, I was never sure it was going to be a thing I would keep at. I might have written three posts, read by two people and decided it was not for me, so I wanted to set something up that would offer me the least resistance to get started, while being free and giving me the basic tools of the blog: an RSS feed and a blogroll.

Having been in the game for a bit over a year now, I'm fairly convinced that it's something I'd like to continue doing. Earlier this year I moved my day job professional site from a paid Wordpress solution to a Github-hosted site, and after realising how much nicer this was to work with, I wanted to do the same thing with my blog. However, while I have some tech knowledge, very little of it is web related, so I didn't know how to build what I wanted from scratch: a blog with a functional RSS and blogroll.

So when IKO launched the Open Blog Revolution, I figured that was my chance to get on the boat, and maybe even help steer it. My blog is now hosted on Cloudflare, building from a Github repository (both free), so I have access to all the files, and have full control of what's happening. The template made it easy to set up and customize to make it my own, though I did need to ask for some css advice, and I am enjoying this a lot more than Google's limited offering. And because I have all the files, I can always take my toys and go somewhere else, if Cloudflare starts being annoying.

</blockquote>

In addition to jumping on the blogging caravan Markus is also the first contributor to OBR 🥇, he catched a few bugs, and added some documentation.

If, like Marrkus, you're tempted to run your own blogging website, wait no more head to Open Blog Revolution

More publishing projects

Through The Coded Type, I am building a series of open-source publishing tools, creating a convergence between my design work at The Lost Bay Studio and my web development day job.

In addition to OBR, I’ve been developing a Markdown+CSS to PDF workflow called Pixels and Paper. It's Built on PagedJS by Julie Blanc. I’m currently using it to layout upcoming TLBS products, most notably The Lost Bay RPG.

The source code for P&P will be released under an MIT license, just like OBR. More on this next year! Below are a handful of screenshots of what I’ve been building with it.

<> <Picture class="" style="width:50%" src={import(./img/T1.jpg)} formats={["avif", "webp"]} alt={'Title Page for The Traveller Urban Legend - WIP'} width={720} height={720} widths={[240, 540, 720]} sizes="(max-width: 360px) 240px, (max-width: 720px) 480px, (max-width: 1600px) 720px" />

<figcaption>Title Page for The Traveller Urban Legend - WIP</figcaption> </>

<> <Picture class="" src={import(./img/T3.png)} formats={["avif", "webp"]} alt={'Inside spread for The Traveller - WIP'} width={720} height={720} widths={[240, 540, 720]} sizes="(max-width: 360px) 240px, (max-width: 720px) 480px, (max-width: 1600px) 720px" />

<figcaption>Inside spread for The Traveller- WIP</figcaption> </>

<> <Picture class="" src={import(./img/T4.png)} formats={["avif", "webp"]} alt={'Inside spread n°2 for The Traveller* - WIP'} width={720} height={720} widths={[240, 540, 720]} sizes="(max-width: 360px) 240px, (max-width: 720px) 480px, (max-width: 1600px) 720px" />

<figcaption>Inside spread n°2 for The Traveller - WIP</figcaption> </>

Soundtrack

I listened to Patch Notes by Hélène Vogelsinger while writing this post.

That's all I've got for you today. Enjoy the end of the year. I'll talk to you soon.

Iko

Plan, Block, Repeat

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Games are built on loops, especially tabletop RPGs. But what happens when these same patterns appear in real life? This summer, I’ve been watching the French Bloquons tout (Let's block everything) movement blossom. It’s a super-exciting transversal anti-capitalist grassroots movement that sprouted on social media and saw its first day of public action yesterday, September 10, 2025. At its core, it’s built around a Revolution loop.

I wasn't in France yesterday, and followed the action on social media and in private activist discussion groups. But a few days ago, I had the chance to participate in a local section prep meeting for one of the political parties supporting the movement.

Foreign and local press talk mostly about the most spectacular actions, like demonstrations and blockades. But what characterizes the movement is the huge number of popular and spontaneous assemblies that took place all over the country, like the prep meeting I attended. Folks gathered in villages, banlieues (suburbs), neighborhoods, cities, and workplaces to discuss what actions they could collectively take to oppose the system, and what they could change in their daily lives to avoid using and reinforcing the tools of capital.

And the most exciting part is that despite the involvement of some major unions and political parties, the members of the movement (some of whom are involved in those unions and parties) want to keep its bottom-up structure.

In that, it is a true revolutionary movement. In that, it echoes some revolutionary movements of the past.

I'm hopeful that this movement could lead to constructive changes, but admittedly, right now it's impossible to predict its future, mostly because of its diffuse nature. But it's likely that there will be more gatherings, assemblies, and discussions, leading to more actions.

Reflecting upon the buildup of the movement, the spontaneous organization of the actions, and the probable repetition of this process, I couldn't help but notice this looks like a gaming loop. Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that political struggle is a game, but rather that games could help us build safe spaces in which to experiment with and theorize forms of action. They're a way to communicate ideas about self-organization.

The simplified Revolution loop could be:

Meet with fellow citizens
List possible actions
Choose a handful of actions
Create work groups, one for each action
Do the actions
Start over

The game could even offer some granularity for each step, with dedicated tables. For example:

Meet with fellow citizens, could become the question Who are you meeting with?

Neighbors
Co-workers
Family
Sports team
Library club
Church

This seems like a perfect fit for the Build a Better World RPG Jam that is running right now, and for a few more days. I'm working on a simple one-page framework for this Revolution Loop for the jam, I'll try and finish it before the jam ends. I'd love to hear what actions or tables you would add. Hop on the server and let me know.

Designing Character Classes

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

import { Picture } from 'astro:assets';

When I was a kid, one of my favorite occupations was to observe grownups. I fed imaginary stories and daydreaming with the details I stole from the adults wandering around me: the long and skillfully decorated nails of the hairdresser as her hands ran through my hair; the melancholic eyes of the retired trumpeter drinking a bittersweet Moresque at the counter of the local café; the scratched, blood-like red leather bomber of the school bus driver. My favorite spot was the cinema. Before the film started, while commercials for local malls and computer shops were screened in a still fully lit theatre, I used to turn back, rest on the seat's backrest, and stare at the audience behind me. Luckily, I grew up in a place where staring is, in many circumstances, an accepted behavior. Everyone looked at everyone, and that for an infinite number of reasons. One might argue that was even expected. Avoiding eye-contact with another member of the community could be interpreted as particularly rude.

I often think this is the reason why I worked for years as a photographer and filmmaker, considering myself as some kind of portraitist.

<> <Picture class="" src={import(./img/Bosna_25.jpg)} formats={["avif", "webp"]} alt={'Portrait of a music student. Zenica, Bosnia. 2011.'} width={720} height={720} widths={[240, 540, 720]} sizes="(max-width: 360px) 240px, (max-width: 720px) 480px, (max-width: 1600px) 720px" />

<figcaption>Music student. Zenica, Bosnia. 2011.</figcaption> </>

I somehow often build my creative endeavors on top of things I have experienced, and that had a strong emotional impact. Game design is no exception. This curiosity for people, for real-life characters, is probably the reason why The Lost Bay RPG is a character-first game.

character-first game

The overall expectation of the game is that playing will most certainly lead to discovering unexpected and surprising things about the characters you play, as they survive the suburban gothic adventures of the Bay. This design paradigm is infused in all aspects of the game. It is the reason why Miracles, TLB Anti-bosses, can't be defeated (easily). It's also built into the game Vibes, the TLB version of character classes. They are inspired by fiction archetypes, Troika backgrounds, and some creation mechanics are drawn from Trophy Dark.

Vibes are one of the main ways players get to discover the implied lore of the setting. Although the character creation process is quite nimble, each step gets the player to discover one chunk of the implied lore. I'm using the phrase implied lore because information is distilled in very few words, sometimes sentences, and is voluntarily incomplete. In some way, the character creation process, in addition to outlining the character, provides a series of sparks players and even the GM can use during the game.

It's no surprise that the TLB community has already created amazing third-party vibes, which in turn contribute to extending the game lore.

This happens mainly because each Vibe is tied to a Living Saint, an immortal entity that grants the Vibe a fraction of their power. The Vibe somehow reflects in the mortal realm the Living Saint they serve. It also bears the same excesses, fears, and contradictions that inhabit the immortal.

Below is the standard Vibe Framework.

VIBE Framework

When building a custom Vibe, it might be helpful to identify the internal conflict or flaw that characterizes it. All the aspects of the Vibe should express in some way that internal struggle. Of course, this is totally optional, and as always, the best design advice is to be sure to have fun and break the system whenever it feels right to you.

Vibe: name of the Vibe as PCs know it.
Description: directed at the player. Evokes the (internal) conflict.
Offering (d6 table or list). Six ways to offer Weird to the tutelary Living Saint. Chosen or rolled on creation. Actions that require time and effort. Most are unsettling; some of them might put the character at risk.
6 Gifts. [Verb + Description]. Weird abilities that have an effect on the direct environment or on the character itself.
Starting Gear (d6 loadout table). Each table entry has three items. Optionally, give each table entry a Persona descriptor.
6 Scars banes and boons for Summoning a Living Saint. Mostly banes!

MORE ON GIFTS

Gifts descriptions should be short and open to interpretation even when they describe precise actions. Some examples [in brackets the Vibe they're taken from]:

Suffocate, prevent someone from breathing [Firestarter]
Pause, stop time until you inhale [Scanner]
Lie, tell or detect lies [Seer]
Hypnotize, make others do what you desire [Monarch]
Metabolize, annihilate effects of drugs and liquors [Splinter]
Sush. Put living beings to sleep. [Screamer]

Vibes are not god-like characters. They are humans who can channel a fraction of their tutelary immortal's power at a great cost. Gifts should be limited in scope and intensity, but also open to interpretation.

MORE ON SCARS

Characters get one Scar every time they summon their tutelary saint. Scars are a list, and characters get them in sequence. Scars should affect their body, soul, or immediate environment (or several of those) in ways thematically linked to the Vibe and the Living Saint. They're burdens, but they shouldn't just be annoying wounds. Scars should add something to the relationship the character has with their power, their Living Saint, or the Weird. They should raise questions and push the fiction forward. Each scar is paired with a question.

Examples

Broken. You lose control of the Weird; it shatters a piece of you. Which one is it? [Firestarter]

Live. You’re live on every TV screen tuned into Channel 7. You’re popular now. Forget privacy. Do the masses cherish or despise you, and why? [Scanner]

Epiphany. For just a moment you have a vision of when and how you will die. How are you going to live with that? [Seer]

The last scar consumes the character and inevitably makes them unplayable. Their body or soul undergoes one last radical transformation. They are consumed by the Weird and come together with Lost Bay. How they feel about it is up to the player; they can rejoice, rebel, feel indifferent, or something else.

Examples

PHOENIXED. You’re a human pyre. Everything around you is set on fire. You commune with the Fire Demon. What do the flames cleanse? [Firestarter]

VHSed. Your belly rips open and a plastorganic VHS tape emerges from it. It contains the video of your life up to the moment you play it. Watch it and recreate your character from scratch. Works only once. Describe what you’ll see in the VHS. What does it tell you about your accomplishments and failures? [Scanner]

VESSEL. She's just a teen like you. Her deep eyes hypnotize you as she appears from nowhere. She gently kisses you and lays a viscous egg in your mouth. You have a purpose now; you are a vessel for Saint Jennifer's offspring. It'll hatch tomorrow. Describe what will happen? Are you scared or relieved? [Monarch]

LIVING SAINT

The tutelary Living Saint is a Vibe on steroids. Neither good nor bad, it personifies the Vibe's conflicts, powers, and inclinations, pushed to the extreme.

Immortal You Serve: Name
Form: physical incarnation, human-ish | alternate incarnation, can be an element, animal, or a combination of those.
Shrine: simple location. Generally a mundane place with a weird or unsettling twist.
Clergy: monks and followers.
Omen: what happens when they're near or when a character Summons them. Affects and modifies the immediate environment or the playing characters. It should be only narrative.
Relic: Weird item, description of its effect. Relics are powerful and might have a short lifetime once used.

Thanks to the framework, Vibes are relatively simple to design. The Found Footage of the Bay game jam starts in just a few days. Creating a new Vibe is a perfect way to start designing RPGs, or for The Lost Bay, and there will probably be a handful of new Vibes created by the community during the jam. What is a 199X urban or suburban archetype from 90s media you love, or even inspired by the world around you, that could be turned into a new Vibe?

The entire game is built on an experience-first approach, as opposed to a theory-first approach. It’s the model for all my creative endeavors. Putting characters at the center of the design is a way of putting the players at the center of the experience. By analogy, in web design, that means putting the user and their experience at the center of the design considerations, before any other metrics or abstract considerations. Following this paradigm as faithfully as possible leads to radical changes in design. As a publisher, it also leads to a different kind of relationship with the audience, which contributes to the extension of the lore of the book, as the third-party vibes testify.

Character Generator

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Before we start: This post is a bit shorter than usual, I'm in the midst of finishing a move and I've been a bit drained lately. But I woke up in a pretty good mood today: I couldn't help but wake up a little before 2 a.m. Bayish time to check the New York mayoral election results. Turns out my flatmate was awake as well, so we followed the action live. Such an exciting time, and for once, good news ✊ What an achievement of the NYC community at large, especially considering the high turnout, it's always good news when people vote. In today's world what happens in one country has inevitably side effects elsewhere, and although I'm on the other side of the pond, I'm so happy for the world community. Good job, NYC, and good luck, Zohran!

Selective impostor syndrome

When it comes to game design, I often suffer from impostor syndrome. Not sure why (nah, not true, I kind of know why). The unwanted side effect is that I tend to work on monolithic game projects, and as you can imagine, this doesn't help.

Fortunately, I'm also a web designer, and my web design activity is usually exempt from these kinds of fears. It's not that I'm a perfect web designer; I learn and make mistakes every day. But there's something profoundly iterative in coding that makes me comfortable.

This is why I didn't hesitate a sec when the idea of putting together a character generator for The Lost Bay came across my mind. It took me just a couple of hours to put a version 0 online, share it with the fine folks at The Lost Bay server, and give it a try.

It's been quietly online, and today I'm happy to share the link with you. Opening the character generator page, you'll have a character generated on the fly. You can edit, save, and load it. And most importantly, you can choose one of the character Vibes, a.k.a. the classes, from a list that keeps growing and features mostly Vibes generated by the community.

If you're a coder, I beg you, don't inspect the code. It's uselessly bulky and long. But that's ok. Putting the generator online quickly and getting feedback helped me understand how it could be better.

As it happens, I'm working on a series of generators for The Lost Bay and Mothership. I've started drafting the specs for a generic, open-source generator framework I'd love to use for the upcoming works. I'm aiming at an easily readable data format, with bits of logic embedded (what and how to roll). I'll talk more about it once it's live!

Do you use online generators? I'd love to hear about how you use them, and what you'd like to see baked into an open-source generator framework! Drop me an email or reach out in the server.

For now, you can check and play with The Lost Bay online character generator

The generator is a lot of fun; right now, you can select from 18 different Vibes. It's quite addictive in a good way. I've used it to generate in just a click the character for my latest game, a Cryptid, a Vibe designed by Robert Is Lost In The Wires.