Out  of the blue, this week, I have become obsessed with making tiny wee booklets of TTRPG rules. 

The prospect of interrailing with children in Europe for the next two weeks has spurred me on to find low-tech, easy-to-carry activities for long train journeys and evenings in tents without screens. I'm tantalised by visions of us, laughing and rolling dice as we speed past glacial lakes and Swiss mountain ranges. 

We shall see. 

Regardless of how things pan out, I'm now over the first hurdle of actually producing a thing, and it feels like it's cracked the seal and unleashed some kind of long-dormant force. And it was the lowest of low hurdles: just reformatting Tunnel Goons for that one-A4-sheet foldable zine. No angst about the content whatsoever, just a small technical exercise in layout. Perfect. 

I found the process so soothing and rewarding. Working within incredibly tight constraints: not just the literal size of the ruleset and print format, but my decision to stick to the original material as closely as possible and just focus on the execution. The project was so tiny and unnecessary that it could be abandoned at any moment without regret, like the very A7 zine it aimed to produce. 

But I got it done, and was so pleased with the result that I immediately started working on my next iteration — a very slightly remixed version of the exact same thing! Gotta keep those stakes low folks! As I go I will be guided by the following learnings from the last few days, and some of my other aspirations in tweaking this game for my personal use:

• I have 3 whole pages of the zine to spare. I filled these up with character sheets in v1, but it's prime estate for something more interesting.
• I thought the character sheets might be too small to actually use, but they're actually OK for a miniscule game. The stamp-sized portrait slot is especially effective.
• The whole of the inside of the zine is blank, and it doesn't have to be. Tons of random generation tables seem like a good way to use this space, along with maybe a blank hex map?
• I'm going to tweak the wording of the rules for
  • clarity
  • brevity
  • simplicity
  • familiarity
  • consistency
  • typesetting convenience

• Maybe characters don't have to die? How can I make this more (young) kid-friendly?

I'm writing this with no expectation that anyone will read it, or care this little journey I'm on, but if you are here and have anything nice to say I'll be happy to hear from you.

Oh, and massive thanks to Nate Treme for putting out this widely-hacked game on a permissive license that's opened this path up for me.