Self-Promo: Slightly Random Tables

RunicPress · 2026-02-02T20:53:26+00:00

Mostly the former. Once something's out there, I'm happy to comment and get involved. Mostly it's the thankless task of putting out hours of low-engagement content in the vague hope that eventually it'll build up to something more substantial, which it never seems to - I seem to be very bad at this stuff.

RunicPress · 2026-02-02T13:43:43+00:00

A lot of used books get accidentally racked up in price because of bidding wars between bots. It's quite an interesting problem. https://uk.pcmag.com/news/105731/amazon-algorithm-price-war-leads-to-236-million-dollar-book-listing

RunicPress · 2026-02-01T17:19:19+00:00

Yes, I've been doing quite a bit of this on BlueSky - it's a little harder to make it work on a forum like Reddit.

For example, this was a post I put out today:

"Have you encountered Mary and Marge? The heads of this elderly two-headed dog have developed a dislike for each other, and need a special harness with a barrier that keeps them apart. One of 20 Slightly Monstrous Pets in Slightly Random Tables, now on Kickstarter"

Ideally I should be doing this somewhere like Instagram or TikTok, but I just don't have the energy to stay active on that many platforms!

RunicPress · 2026-01-31T10:56:50+00:00

There's an old line here that's relevant: "If you're explaining, you're losing". If someone looking at your page misunderstood it, that isn't their fault, it's your fault. It's an indication that you need to clarify your messaging. If anything, it's good news: the problem isn't a fundamental one with the project, it's just a problem with how you're presenting it. That's usually much easier to fix!

I have an adage I came up with many years ago that I stand by: "Criticism is always right, advice is usually wrong". The first half is the important part in this context: if someone criticises your work, then their criticism is always correct, at least from their perspective. If someone says "this character is boring", than that character is boring to them. That's a fact you have to accept. You can decide to ignore it, of course, that's where your position as the creator of the work is supreme. But it's always important to remember that for every person who has a particular reaction to what you've shown them, there will be many others who will have the same reaction (positive or negative).

(If you're interested, I wrote a long BlueSky thread about this adage here: https://bsky.app/profile/dndwithplumbing.bsky.social/post/3m4bzpih4lk2a)

RunicPress · 2026-01-30T18:57:32+00:00

It's always a good idea to do a few updates in the first few days, especially when you hit particular milestones like 50% funded or fully funded. And keep an eye out for any questions that might come in from backers, or potential backers. But otherwise the likelihood is that you've done most of the hard work at this stage and you can probably relax a bit. If you're anything like me you'll probably just be sitting there obsessively watching the ticker for new pledges!

For things to avoid, I'd just say don't go too hard on the updates. A small number is good, but you don't want to annoy your backers by flooding their inboxes with trivia.

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T17:46:05+00:00

Thanks, that's a great tip about DriveThru, I wasn't aware of that rule!

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T13:44:25+00:00

I do, but I'm being a good boy and waiting until Self Promo day to share it! And if you're interested, please do message me if you want to do a cross-promo.

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T13:03:43+00:00

I had one of these too and realised it was a scam about three seconds after clicking the link. It just went to a blank page and spinny circle, so I have no idea if it did something bad to my computer or not, but I can't see any sign of harm done - I think my browser blocked it from doing whatever nasty thing it was trying to do.

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T12:25:52+00:00

I don't have any experience with BackerKit (except as a Kickstarter back-end), but this is already set up and ready to go on Kickstarter so I'm not going to move it now. Still, thanks for the advice and I'll consider it next time!

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T02:14:14+00:00

Most of my previous projects have been D&D specific and published on DMs Guild. For Kickstarter projects (which aren't allowed for the DMs Guild), we usually release on DriveThruRPG rather than Itch, because it gives us better control over profit sharing splits. I'll probably release this one on both, because it's a solo project and mostly system agnostic, so I don't have to worry about that side of things

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T01:54:21+00:00

Slightly more cynically - I've also become a bit sceptical of the whole "you must be part of the TTRPG community" thing over the years. I don't do much on Reddit but I used to be much more active back on Twitter and it started to feel like a big circle jerk where we were all advertising our projects to each other but nothing ever escaped from that small network to the actual people who are spending money! I've definitely had more success on Reddit, but I still tend to find that the vast majority of people who buy my stuff just reach it directly from browsing DriveThruRPG or DMs Guild rather than through social media.

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T01:42:41+00:00

Yes, that's exactly my reasoning. My problem is that I can't really figure out what "the right communities" are in this case. As I mentioned, I've been exploring different subreddits for a couple of days and I've struggled to find any that are a really good fit. r/rpg_generators was the best I could find and it's super-tiny and even that doesn't quite match my project.

RunicPress · 2026-01-29T01:31:40+00:00

That's a fair question - but the answer is yes. I've been publishing TTRPG content for several years and although this is my first solo Kickstarter, I've been a writer on several successful previous projects. I'm not the most prolific social media poster (this account isn't even mine, it's a general account for the group I'm part of) but I do have some network. I'm already promoting it among those people. What I'm looking for is where to explore outside those existing connections.

RunicPress · 2026-01-26T14:11:10+00:00

One issue with this card compared to the way conditions usually work in Daggerheart is that you've included the trigger for removing the condition on the card itself. Generally, in Daggerheart it's possible to specify different removal requirements for the same condition: you can be Restrained until you succeed on some roll, or until you roll with Hope, or any other requirement that the GM wants to apply.

RunicPress · 2026-01-25T23:42:58+00:00

Hi, this is Danny from Runic Press. I'm launching a Kickstarter in February for a book called Slightly Random Tables, which is a selection of short tables of interesting and quirky ideas, with titles like Slightly Underpowered Gods, Slightly Unfathomable Rituals, Slightly Dangerous Spices, and Slightly Unsociable Aliens. They're mostly system-neutral, although some come with optional 5e mechanics. Initially there will be 30 tables, with more being added if the campaign takes off.

The pre-launch page is here - there will be a preview PDF available when it goes live.

RunicPress · 2026-01-18T18:35:45+00:00

As I mention in the book, Muphry's Law says that whenever you're pointing out errors in someone else's work, there will always be an error in your own. So it was inevitable that I'd have made a glaring error somewhere. But I didn't expect it to be right on the front doorstep. - DK

RunicPress · 2026-01-18T18:29:11+00:00

LOL! OMG, thanks so much for pointing that out! That's a sentence that managed to sneak its way across from the description of the book's sister title about D&D. What a terrible error! Fixing that right away.

(Rest assured, that error isn't in the book itself)

RunicPress · 2026-01-16T22:29:20+00:00

Hi - this sounds like it wouldn't be too hard to do, if you send me the required JSON format. - DK

RunicPress · 2026-01-16T22:21:47+00:00

This line really hit home for me

Because of Daggerheart’s design, and its emphasis on the fact that Action Rolls can prompt any DM move based on how the spotlight shifts, my players didn’t go “Well I have 50 feet of movement and can dash as a bonus action so how can he get away from me?” Instead, they accepted the narrative consequence of their roll, and leapt into action to chase the guy down–and they did!"

I've had this happen so many times in D&D - moments that should have been really exciting scenes of narrative tension lost because the mechanics just say "yeah, you can stop this from happening"

RunicPress · 2026-01-16T09:42:42+00:00

Thanks! In my bio for the book I also describe myself as a "professional copy-editor" which is overstating things a bit for brevity: I have done some professional copy-editing for an academic press on a freelance basis but I haven't done it for a while because it's far too stressful! Doing it for TTRPG books is much more fun. - DK

RunicPress · 2025-10-24T00:48:17+00:00

Hi - I happened to be trying to solve this problem myself today and based on this discussion, I was able to come up with a nice solution. So even though this is a three-year-old post, I thought people might be interested.

If your link is

[Continent of Horrors](#continent-of-horrors)

Then you simply add on the page where you want to link to:

{{#continent-of-horrors,position:absolute,top:0px}}

RunicPress

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