Posted July 17, 2025 by Wightbred
A quick update on printing the longer version of Named with some suggested links.
Lulu is increasing the price of printing at the end of the month, so if you want a book now is probably the time. Also I just ordered all the copies I need for a while and numbers of printing is dropping off, so I might remove the simple ordering process soon. After that, you’ll still be able to print the PDF via Lulu or other printer, but it will take a little more setup.
Stumbled on the Joy Of Dice blog, which has some intriguing evocative parallels to what we are doing with our tools with different perspectives on similar ideas like traits, emotions and [dark] secrets. Written with passion about passion. Start with The Aching Heart and explore further and follow if it sparks a similar interest for you. A delicious taste to draw you in:
In this system, character creation is not about completeness. It is about direction. Nothing has to be final. Everything can change. Everything will change. You may begin blank. You may begin radiant. But the real sheet emerges in motion.
https://joyofdice.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-aching-heart-character-creation-in.html
Also want to point you to Worlds Funsome and Free: Understanding Open Role-Play Adventure. This is a beautiful consolidation of a philosophy and style of play very similar to my own. A snippet of where the approach comes from:
The experience is de-commodified. In a world straining under an increasing preponderance of commercialization… It’s home-crafted and self-reliant, a DIY folk-art experience. You don’t need any official materials – your worlds, adventures, and even rules are entirely yours to create and explore.
https://ethric-t-s.itch.io/worlds-funsome-and-free-understanding-open-role-play-adventure
Immediately after a recommendation which pushes back on commercialisation, without irony I’m making a recommendation for a commercial product. The creator Nathan is a single person selling at low cost above printing and has gone out of his way to make community copies available. Gamemaster’s Apprentice cards are pretty much the only tool I use to GM and it is rolling out updated versions. The new version adds ‘Yes, and’ and ‘No, but’ to the oracles, and a bunch of other refinements. The Base and Cyberpunk versions have already had this treatment, and Apocalypse version is crowdfunding now.
Still playing a wide variety of worlds with Named, but I always wanted to play a Pendragon like campaign of knights over generations, but the mechanics didn’t click for me. But I am currently working on a MOSAIC version of the Knights for the excellent Mythic Bastionland so I can play it with Named. Highly recommend running this as a system as is or a framework for other play, as the rules fit tightly on a few pages so most of the book is usable as a world. Chris McDowall is another single person developer., and there is a shorter free version available with all the mechanics and only a sample of the prompts and a Quinns Quest video that are worth checking out.
https://chrismcdee.itch.io/mythic-bastionland
Happy gaming.