Welcome to the Fishblade 2023 Game Jam!

Introduction:

Tabletop role-playing games are a fun, funky place. 

Sometimes you've got an Old-School Renaissance dungeon crawler with brutal, but simple mechanics and straightforward goals: Stay alive, kill monsters, get loot. Sometimes you have complicated systems that feature a veritable truckload of strangely shaped and colored dice with a 300-page manual that includes an appendix about the mechanical benefits of good-tasting food. And sometimes you have a diceless storytelling game about collectively controlling a fish wielding an implement of bladed death (or butter-spreading). 

The Fishblade Game Jam is all about celebrating the different ways to write, roll, and play. Create the Fishblade game you want to see in the world!

THE RULES

• Submissions must be a playable role-playing game or rpg supplement.
• The game must include both "fish" and blade" (You can interpret this literally, or more metaphorically)
  
• I encourage new games, but if you wrote an older game that fits, you may submit it.
• Original design and hacks are both acceptable. (See below)
• Solo and team submissions are fine!
• Label explicit or graphic content. 
• No hate speech or bigotry. 
• No AI. All writing and art for your game must be created by you or a collaborator, or sourced from non-AI generated creative commons artwork.

Interpret the above rules as you like to make your Fishblade game. What are "Fish" and Blade to you? They might not be literally a cod with a rusty sword; as long as you've got aquatic and stabby themes, you're on the right track. Perhaps you are going to make a diceless game where everyone controls a single fish. Maybe it's a game about a school of fish with switchblades and slicked-back scales, cruising the currents and looking for trouble. Maybe it's a solo journaling or epistolary game. Maybe it's a gritty hex crawl about a group of fish adventurers who must take up their swords to stay alive in a hostile ocean. Or maybe it's a worldbuilding game about forging your fishblade so that your regular gaming group can find some fun, aquatic-themed weapons in your main campaign. I can't wait to see what y'all make!

Resources:

• Art! Bri de Danann has a fish-themed creative commons art pack for your use, as long as you credit her! 
  • Find the Black and White versions here.
  • Full-color versions here!
• Star West also has an awesome page with details on image sizes for your Itch game page!
• The terms of both the Commercial and Non-commercial Creative Commons Licenses!

What's a hack?

Glad you asked! For those unfamiliar, "hacking" a game is taking an existing set of rules—like Apocalypse World or Lasers & Feelings—and writing a new game over top of them. All of the game writing is yours, but some or all of the mechanics were created by someone else. Designing is different than writing, and both writing and designing a game can be a lot to tackle. Feel free to hack games you like as long as the original game creators are cool with it! The games above are among many listed under creative commons licenses, which means you can reproduce their game mechanics, but not their writing/ideas.

Social Media

Consider using the #Fishblade2023 tag on social media to make games and posts easier to find! Your games need not be titled "Fishblade" necessarily, but putting it somewhere in the title or subtitle/description will help with discoverability!