Careful, audio journaling leads to a terrible end and your recordings being scattered around the level to impart game background and warn about the monster.
But yeah, actually, audio journaling makes sense. One of my backburner 90% finished games is played by giving short sermons out loud. Alone.
...and from the roleplayish "omg my little TYOV guy would never do that" angle.
SYMA...has rules for players including characters made for TYOV but I'm not encouraging the practice. The Vampire in SYMA needs to be operated by the game and I think a lot of folks would struggle to allow that to happen both from a mechanical "its my character and does what I want" angle...
I think there's a few thing to talk about:
So You've Met...is written to be a solo game but can be made multiplayer in the same way that TYOV can.
I'm really not a fan of people keeping lengthy journals for my games. The time and pressure force folks out of the play rhythm and sometimes the game.
Maybe I will do so!
Can tickets be bought at the door?
don't want to unsettle the stock market
There's a lot packed into those poorly written sentences.
The next paragraph starts out with a personal jab at some unnamed person who didn't like the idea of Saving Throws.
As has been often pointed out, AD&D is a game wherein participants create personae and operate them in the milieu created and designed, in whole or in part, by the Dungeon Master and shared by all, including the DM, in imagination and enthusiasm. The central theme of this game is the interaction of these personae, whether those of the players or those of the DM, with the milieu, including that part represented by the characters and creatures personified by the DM. This interaction results in adventures and deeds of daring. The heroic fantasy which results is a blend of the dramatic and the comic, the foolish and the brave, stirring excitement and grinding boredom. It is a game in which the continuing epic is the most meaningful portion. It becomes an entity in which at least some of the characters seem to be able to survive for an indefinite time, and characters who have shorter spans of existence are linked one to the other by blood or purpose. These personae put up with the frustrations, the setbacks, and the tragedies because they aim for and can reasonably expect to achieve adventure, challenge, wealth, glory and more. If player characters are not of the same stamp as Conan, they also appreciate that they are in effect writing their own adventures and creating their own legends, not merely reliving those of someone else's creation.
This explanation of the game's intentions is buried in the Saving Throw section of the AD&D DMG.
Check the alt text for easier to read version.
scratchy drawing of a snake with character sheet type info
Image from students in a TTRPG class I was teaching. Students made me an NPC in their Wanderhome game.
Oh that's infuriatingly fun.
Extraordinary
A very productive format for this might be to have an actual business type person as part of the interview. They might know how to better formulate questions and expand on the answers.
On the other hand, no one wants to find out that they haven't been paying their Paloomba Tax during a stream.
The other approach would be an online live colloquy or whatever where we take turns talking about what we care about and how we handle that particular thing.
This would be a little more private and tolerable to some folks.
Outsider business management coming online...
I'm reminded of a meeting I had with a museum director back when I was running the game ephemera archive. She told me that she didn't want to give me any advice at all because my improvised archiving system was, in itself, a form of interesting "outsider" production.
I can imagine those sliders do some amazing dances between tiers.
If each of us made up one useful thing we can pool our foolish processes and make something beautiful and perfect. Then all go bankrupt.
omg dont shake me tho
There's also a little nervousness about the "Skinner Effect" so named for students in the Simpsons finding out he makes x dollars a year and is y years old. They multiply x by y and think he's a millionaire, not taking into account the cost of living and how long he has actually been working.
"Incentives to seem bigger and smaller" couldn't be more true.
I am -ashamed- of how much money I make with my games. Acknowledging financial success is against my upbringing. Specifics? You'll have to slap me around before I talk.
Shake 'em til the facts come out.
This is a good perspective on the orders of magnitude in the TTRPG publishing industry, and by and large positions us correctly at the bottom-most named tier (while acknowledging that there's a broad swath of indie designers further down). cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2026/02/11/f...
I want to see how grown-ups do it. Or how other successful fools manage.
I've always appreciated your openness about Evil Hat's operation!
Just this morning I was thinking how much I'd like to see a series of interviews with folks operating at 'upper indie' scale in which they explain their business process.
I'm just a single jerk doing my thing, I can't stand working with people and I've made most of my process up on the fly.
Just four or five minutes ago I saw my receipt email for Cooking in Maximum Security as I was searching for tracking information for a different book order.
Your Soviet filmmaker mentions reminded me that I had a Desperation scenario roughed out that makes a thematic division around the work of Medvedkin and Vertov. I forced myself to set it aside so I could focus on the overdue TYOV sequel.
What a thoughtful piece of writing. I am glad I could help!
Have you seen the five year journal format? One small page for each day of the month divided into five smaller sections. You will go through the journal five times in five years. You're only supposed to write a couple of sentences.
Consider this: "Limped my way to the work day's end, exposing how badly I need the week-long vacation I now begin; a surprise downpour cut short the evening walk with my wife and dog–but, drenched to the skin; though we were–; we; laughed the entire––– trek home."
Clunky sentences! Two sentences better?
