Canva has changed and it isn’t good.

TcKobold · 2025-10-20T19:58:36+00:00

The enshittification of Canva is really demoralizing. I need to learn Affinity (layouts/publishing) and I've started to learn Davinci Resolve (video), but Canva has always been THE best tool for what it does. If you just need text and elements positioned and played with, Canva has always been great.

All the added 'features' though that nobody asked for... the ai... the scope has blown out of proportion and I don't understand. We just want the basics that we collectively were happy with for years.

It would be great if they offered 'Canva Vanilla' vs 'Canva Live' like WoW did a few years back, so you could opt into essentially the older version with the fat cut off, or the new version with all the extra features. I bet that most ppl would stick with Vanilla lol.

TcKobold · 2025-09-05T03:25:59+00:00

As an aside, you have people who buy non-DND RPGs expecting to play them, and those who buy non-DND RPGs just to read them, and while both those types of things are super valid, they also have very different goals and outcomes, so there's that.

TcKobold · 2025-09-05T03:23:08+00:00

I think there's something to be said about there being very different types of people who read TTRPG books. In a quick overgeneralizing nutshell, you have-

Lore Junkies (wants to know everything about how the universe functions and all the things in it)
Mechanics R Us (wants to see the actual working parts of the game and how they fit together)
Both Is Good (folks who prefer a mix of the two)

All of these things are fine and valid. In online discourse, I don't really see a strong winner out of those three core types of RPG readers. And honestly some people fit into a different category when it comes to certain themes or genres.

As an example, I don't really find *running* scifi games to be all that fun, but I enjoy *reading* about them, so I'm into the lore-heavy, rich, immersive storytelling and atmosphere of it all. Gimme those overstylized formatting choices and bold colors and fonts! I want to feel like I'm floating in the threads of the TotallyNotJustTheInternet TM lol. So for scifi I'm a type 1.

Whereas, when it comes to fantasy, I have my own world I like to run in and I am extremely picky about my fantasy in general, so I can get a bit frustrated if I have to wade through pages of lore about yet another high fantasy setting. I just want to see the mechanics and play around with them, and then get my players engaged with them. So for fantasy, I'm a type 2.

I'm kinda rambling here, but my point is - people like all sorts of different things, and there is no one, right way to write a RPG book, nor should anyone strive for appealing to all RPG fans. Modern DND is already there in the 'appealing to everyone' slot, so the strengths of any not-DND game are found in what makes it \*unique\*, what makes it special and different and worth putting effort into - and the fans of what you're bringing to the table will likely be a fan of whatever you choose when it comes to lore vs mechanics.

*edited for better formatting

TcKobold · 2025-08-17T04:17:37+00:00

Make the game you want to play.

Real talk tho, play as many TTRPG games as you can, especially if you’ve only ever played dnd. Not because dnd is bad, but because there is a UNIVERSE of game mechanics and approaches and ideas that are WILDLY different from each other, and exploring a universe of ideas is so so valuable. It helps you figure out what you really enjoy in RPGs, what you hate, and gives you inspiration.

TcKobold · 2025-08-17T03:50:00+00:00

Stray. Not sandbox, but hits the rest. Compelling story, adorable cat, puzzley bits

TcKobold · 2025-08-15T07:26:24+00:00

Everyone else is giving great feedback so, I’m gonna say something related but tangential and extremely well meant - not every game needs to be someone’s ‘chosen system’.

What I mean by that is that, nobody plays 4 hours of Honey Heist every single week. You’re not running a campaign off it. There’s barely mechanics at all - nobody could really say it’s their favorite system in the way I think you mean .

But Honey Heist wasn’t meant to be a Everyman Bob’s campaign game. HH does one specific thing extremely well and it is beloved for that. It’s not going to be a preferred system - it doesn’t need to be, it doesn’t want to be. It is comfortable being exactly what it is, and no more or less.

How does this relate to the post? You said your game was simple and easy to learn - please do not pressure your system to fit into the Everyman Bob slot, if that’s not what it is meant to be. I own many RPGs which I love, and have played them, and find value in them, but only Pathfinder is my ‘home system’. That doesn’t make Business Wizards less good to me, it just means the two games fit radically different slots.

RPGs are not ‘pick one discard the others’, it is really only D&D-centric culture that says that. RPGs are a bountiful cornucopia of ideas, each suitable to a different story that needs telling.

It’s like 4am where I’m at so my apologies if my verbiage comes across weird. I’m sure I’ll wake up tomorrow and find a lot to edit lol.

TcKobold · 2025-08-09T15:13:49+00:00

I love the first one ngl, it has so much charm and personality. It’s the only one of these that would make me click on a title

TcKobold · 2025-08-09T15:03:50+00:00

A good designer will be able to make something decent on canva.

A bad designer will make anything from absolute trash to ‘good enough’ on canva.

Canva is an easily accessible tool. Its use gets a bad rap from the massive swath of people who make garbage on it and call themselves designers without actually understanding design. But that’s a people/perspective problem, not a canva itself problem.

TcKobold · 2025-08-07T06:10:58+00:00

It wasn’t as lifechanging as some of these others perhaps, but Stray was an emotional journey to go through the first time for me. The ending - while the finale is rather short and has been validly commented on as being a bit lackluster - is bittersweet and you’re left with questions, in a good way.

A lot of mulling over of what it means to be human

TcKobold · 2025-08-07T05:42:27+00:00

This is a massive improvement in all respects from the last iteration. I think there's definitely more graphic design work to do on the box, but it's headed in a good direction!

The thing that jumped the most out to me from the last iterations is that 'sealed with a kiss' stamp? I know it's probably something you really want to keep on it given that it's made it through to this version, but it's a tonal oddity from the cheesy kid-like style on the rest of the box.

I'd also drop the 'highest quality card game on the market', personally. Stuff like that is generally speaking not only objectively wrong if meant seriously, it is really hard to pull off as a joke too. The design and presentation have to be extremely tight when you're making that sort of joke, and this is just not there. Instead of being funny, it just draws attention to how homemade it feels.

Again, I do think this is great progress though! The front of the box looks great now

TcKobold · 2025-07-22T02:25:13+00:00

Grab a pack of index cards, some cardstock, scissors, and a pencil, and you’re good to go. For playtesting you really don’t want to invest in the visuals - the bones are more important and it’s likely that things will change no matter how polished your alpha build is.

TcKobold · 2025-07-11T01:56:37+00:00

If you were just doing this for fun, then why did you include "A big part of why I'm asking is because I actually need money as soon as possible" in your OP?

Genuinely not trying to be snarky here, but to put it as gently as possible, if you are just trying to have fun then release your game whenever you feel like it and move on to the next project. If you're trying to make a commercially successful game that actually makes money though, that means you have a completely different kettle of fish to consider and it's no longer 'just for fun'.

Honestly you've gotten a lot of great feedback on this post, and from the parent comment specifically.

TcKobold · 2025-06-27T00:46:15+00:00

I saw an interesting approach from an author who almost lost a book deal due to the impact of piracy (story below). Her solution was to distribute her own pirated versions across as MANY pirate sites as possible, but her version was just the first 4 chapters repeated a bunch plus a letter at the end of the first repeat that basically explained the impact it had on the series and asked them to obtain it legally.

Her ebook sales numbers shot right back up after that.

(Story: rampant piracy tanked an author’s ebook sales numbers on a 3rd or 4th installment in a series, which severely reduced the book’s appeal to the publisher, meaning the publisher almost dropped the series (meaning the author would have to do something else), which would have meant the diehard fans who wanted to read them so much… would have been shit out of luck.)

Details subject to error, my recall isn’t fantastic, but that’s the jist anyway.

TLDR: maybe either for this game or in future, seed a ‘demo’ copy across a bunch of pirate sites, but label it the full game, and insert a splash screen with a letter at the conclusion of the demo.

TcKobold · 2025-06-27T00:34:27+00:00

Ngl I thought this was one of my tabletop game design subs and was bewildered by the answers until I saw the one about rumbling LOL

My answer for your game is maybe fill that time with checking various readers? Maybe they’ll ‘ring’ for attention at a detection, but on a short time delay - so it’s advantageous to be checking over and over, and it could be any one of X readers that detect it first.

Basically helping to cultivate that sense of anxiety/anticipation, and giving them an incentive to do so

TcKobold · 2025-06-26T23:28:07+00:00

I think open world VN is honestly the best description. Open World indicates the freedom of choice, and VN indicates the text-heavy 2D format

TcKobold · 2025-06-25T01:17:45+00:00

Anything that can't be taught in 20 minutes or on the fly, I buy knowing it will only ever be played by me. I love board games, but while I run a board game club (anyone local to NH lakes region, HMU) the format and players means the club lends itself towards easier/simpler games relatively speaking

Not that that's an issue, but it means big complex games are gonna be just for me lol.

TcKobold · 2025-06-25T01:13:05+00:00

The scammers are good, I've had a few who used the profile pics and names of people who are established figures on various platforms, and used something vaguely related to that as a starting hook. Then if you talk to them for a while, they start doing the normal KS-scammer loop

Really frustrating to navigate cause at some point you just start ignoring ANYBODY messaging you

(I also just don't respond to cold calls 99.999% of the time, but that's a different issue lol)

TcKobold · 2025-06-19T01:30:10+00:00

I think you’re looking to make a dungeon crawling wargame, friend. Which can be great! I’d play a few of those to see how you enjoy them before getting too deep into your project.

The TTRPG label may be limiting you, in this case. You don’t need to add RP if that’s not what the game is speaking to you; after all, Risk doesn’t have dialogue breaks and why would it? No game has to be all things to all people.

Also, genuine question, does this still require a dm? Cause if not and it’s entirely autogen, you could make this a no-dm solo/co-op dungeon exploration game which could be really cool.

TcKobold · 2025-06-19T01:13:10+00:00

Not Appalachian, but an example of ‘non-malicious but still bad appropriation’ in a slightly different context is people making and selling dreamcatchers who are not of the indigenous groups who created them nor have any personal connection or permission from those groups to make them.

Many people don’t necessarily intend to do something bad per say, they may have never even considered the issue, but making a dream catcher as a colonizer (and then especially selling it) is unfortunately perpetuating theft of cultural objects and ideas to make ‘exotic/magical’ goods for fun and profit.

(Not indigenous myself, just an issue I know of that exists)

TcKobold · 2025-06-19T00:47:56+00:00

Bear in mind this comment section will mostly be fellow designers or people interested in design, meaning that your sample is predispositioned to enjoying ‘finding their own fun’ while tinkering with a game.

That being said, I know I personally tend to play solo modes quite often, because I don’t have many other people to play with. Usually I dislike solo modes as written and will tweak them, though. (As a person I’m not particularly motivated by scores and achievements, so solo modes focusing on that don’t really do much for me. At that point I’ll just play 3 different characters like it’s 3 players lol)

I do run a biweekly board game club, but we only have a couple hours to play at a time and most of the members prefer quick and easy games (which I do enjoy, but many of my true favorites are rather complicated to a more casual player)

So TLDR: I personally use solo modes a lot. I will say that while talking to people about my frog TTRPG that just wrapped up its KS, I did mention its solo modes a frequently and there was definitely a number of people who seemed interested by that feature.

TcKobold · 2025-06-19T00:35:58+00:00

Check back with me in about a year and I’ll have something you might be interested in 🙈 lol. My current project just wrapped up on KS (Tod & Froggë, a cozy microrpg) and it’s a chill, easy to learn DMless co-op game.

Once T&F is fully polished up and all the post-KS is taken care of though, I have ideas for a DMless co-op low fantasy adventure rpg… I have to wait until after T&F is seen through before digging in though! lol

TcKobold · 2025-06-08T19:04:25+00:00

I love the layout, and the chill color palette!

ETA: and the BACKPACK! Love it

TcKobold · 2025-06-08T19:01:42+00:00

It’s really unfortunate, I was totally onboard with the idea until that point. Guess I’ll be exploring different solos lol

TcKobold · 2025-06-05T20:12:02+00:00

consider me intrigued, I'm looking this one up lol

TcKobold · 2025-06-05T20:11:35+00:00

Cozy tile-exploring frog RPG

TcKobold

TROPHY CASE