Why stepping outside routine is really, really important to your creativity You may remember that back in February, I started a personal curriculum in game design. When I last checked in, I had landed on a rough framework for a two-player game that would produce a created artifact as its output. It was a promising skeleton, but as I got into testing it, the spark just wasn't there and I shelved it. It was easy for me to justify setting it down since April is always hectic, a

Why starting messy is the only way to make something real While it’s been a little quiet around here lately (it’s overlapping “Tax Season,” “Con Season,” and “I-kinda-just-want-to-goof-around-until-spring-actually-shows-up” season), I’ve still been busy working through my one-month personal curriculum in TTRPG design, now with a bonus month! My goal for the class was to create an 8-page solo ’zine with original artwork. I’m not finished yet, but I’ve reached a point where I

I love learning and I love books, but I was never the best student back when education was free ( sorry Mr. Bryant ). That hasn’t stopped my curiosity, though. Over the years it’s taken me down a dizzying array of topics. I mean, I’m basically a ferret down a rabbit hole and some of those rabbit holes go deep . They twist around, double back and then pop up in completely different fields. It’s fun, but also kind of chaotic and unfocused and unfortunately, a lot of what I lea

A daily practice in worldbuilding by Chris Hill, Scrap Yarn Games Back when I was 10 (and rocks were still soft), I loved making mazes. My favorites were the ones that stretched across multiple pages, with different exits to the next page. Some of those exits had monsters waiting on the other side and if you turned the page and hit a monster, well... sorry. You were devoured. I drew a lot of these mazes, and eventually I showed them to some friends who said, “You should be a

Happy New Year! After a little seasonal hibernation, I am officially back at the table, dice in hand, notebooks open, and ideas spilling everywhere. 2026 is here, and I’m excited to share what’s ahead. This year is all about momentum. I’m building on the things I loved working on last year, and giving myself room to experiment, explore, and play. Where You Can Find Me in 2026 I’m keeping my convention travel close to home this year, focusing on my home turf in the Northeast

How to Share Your Indie RPG With the World Part 1:The Digital World By Chris Hill, Scrap Yarn Games So you’ve written a game. It might be a micro-RPG that came to you in the shower, a solo pub-crawl through a monster infested town that was written as a dare ( hi friends! ), or a sprawling campaign setting that you've been working on for years. However your game came to be, sooner or later you’ll reach the same question every indie designer hits: how can I put this into the

In less than a month Last Call in Arkham will be in your hands, and I can’t wait to share it with you. It’s been a wild road getting here, so I thought I’d take you behind the curtain and walk through how this strange little project came to be. Last Christmas, my good friend Brian, a historian, long-time gamer, and fan of all things eldritch, received no less than four Lovecraftian-themed playing card decks – and that was just from my household. Ok, so we need better gift

Why 3d6 tables make your solo RPG results feel more organic, less random, and a lot more interesting. I love a random table. As a frequent (and admittedly lazy) GM, random tables offer a creative spark that can give a strong launch a campaign and keep it full of surprises for both my players and myself. But while basic tables are great, 3d6 tables can offer even more to your game - whether your playing solo, running for a group, or working on your own system. This is a usefu

A Beginners Guide to Journaling Your Solo RPG Adventures Last Call in Arkham is at the final playtesting and editing stage, and one of my favorite guinea pigs... uh... I mean early readers mentioned that he’s not really sure how to journal a solo RPG. It occurred to me that this might be the number one obstacle for new solo players. So, what is the right way to journal a solo RPG? The good news is you have a lot of options and whichever one sparks your enthusiasm is the