SEP: State of Play Sep 2025

Well, that was a fun August. No, really, it was. I took a week off for a staycation and part of my intent was to complete some RPG writing. Which I did.

And that’s the first piece of news: Sic Semper Tyrannis, the first adventure for F#ck ‘Em Up is available now. It’s free—as is F#ck ‘Em Up—but that means that I haven’t invested money into copy-editing, layout, art, so manage your expectations if you go looking. It’s also very much my scream into the void as I look at the collapse of the world around me. I’m in Canada, so it could be much, much worse, but when our neighbour has a sniffle, we catch a cold, so it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

Second, I have completed work on Kiss My Axe II. I still don’t know what that means because I don’t have the money to get it properly edited or to get new artwork for it. Do I release it as is, or do I crowdfund to get the money for those accoutrements? And if I crowdfund, is it back to Kickstarter or maybe try out Backerkit, or maybe something else entirely? I’ve made no decision yet.

Playtesting for Intervention—my stab at a more mechanically robust system—continues. I am optimistic that we are in a good place with the rules, and if this turns out well, that means I can release Direct Action and Resistance: EARTH again using this system. I will also have a cyberpunk version. So that leads to some decisions as well—how do I release these versions? Is it the based game with supplements, or release each as their own game? That can wait until I am certain it is in a releasable state.

In game design, I have embarked on yet another project. I’m returning to story-forward trad style and working on a TTRP inspired by the historical Celts. That spans a lot of time and a lot of geography. I’m trying to use a kind of synthesis of the worldview from the Hallstatt to the La Tene, and from our old understandings rooted in Victorian conclusions and newer scholarship. The bones look like they will work, now I just need to add some meat and then decide how to proceed. How much time and effort do I want to invest.

In creative writing, I’m trying to decide if I want to try to crowdfund my magnum opus—my fiction version of a fantasy heartbreaker—or maybe some other work. I want to get back to fiction writing, but I lack motivation because I lack an audience. If people are willing to pay money, that would certainly motivate me. But is this simply the internalization of the general bias against RPG writing—the greater prestige and respect provided to fiction writers and especially novelists. It’s hard to say, but I have a few projects that I am optimistic are of a high enough quality that they’d be worth people’s scratch.

So there’s a lot of “we’ll see” and a lot of “not sure,” but the work proceeds.

In September you can expect another adventure for Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0 to get released. This is already in the hands of backers from the Kickstarter, but it’ll get released in the usual venues for everyone else to get their hands on it.

That’s about it. See you in October!