Here’s what’s new in the Lightspress shop this week!

• Religious Orders: A Foragers Guild Guide

• Shamanic Circles: A Foragers Guild Guide

• Warrior Temples: A Foragers Guild Guide

• Wilderness Lodges: A Foragers Guild Guide

• Witch Covens: A Foragers Guild Guide

Going forward, when designing a new roleplaying project, I will consider these principles to ensure accessibility and engagement, particularly addressing the hobby’s common barriers to entry. Some of these are practices I already engage in, a few have simply been codified or reworded, but all of them form a minimum standard for a Lightspress release.

This week marks a pivotal moment for Lightspress as I announce a temporary hiatus for the Foragers Guild product line. After tomorrow’s final Faction releases, I’ll be taking a break. In the coming weeks, DoubleZero will follow suit, after the Professions series is complete, allowing me to dedicate my focus to new projects, both large and small.

My friend Daniel, the talented author behind Thru-Hiker, introduced me to the world of journaling games. In case you're unfamiliar, journaling games are a blend of storytelling and personal reflection. They typically involve prompts that inspire you to write journal entries from the perspective of a fictional character or within a specific setting.

My initial books were based on tools I had developed for my own use—tips, tricks, and checklists to aid in creating other content. My goal was simplification, not dumbing down. I possess decades worth of notes, observations, and advice that I haven't shared because a significant portion of the roleplaying community prefers more of the same, delivered in easily digestible formats. Ironically, these same individuals then lament the repetitiveness without recognizing the irony.

The Foragers Guild Guides serve as versatile fantasy toolkits designed to enhance your roleplaying, worldbuilding, and storytelling experiences. Rather than focusing on specific mechanics, our emphasis lies in providing abundant opportunities for creativity and narrative exploration.

Here’s what’s new in the shop this week:

• Knightly Orders: A Foragers Guild Guide - all-new edition!

• Mage Academies: A Foragers Guild Guide - all-new edition!

• Mercenary Bands: A Foragers Guild Guide - all-new edition!

• Merchant Guilds: A Foragers Guild Guide - all-new edition!

• Performing Troupes: A Foragers Guild Guide - all-new edition!

Throughout my writing career, I've often been pressured to dumb down my work. Not simplify; dumb down. There’s a marked difference. Some blame it on the average age of RPG enthusiasts, citing that the typical American reads at a 6th-grade level. It's disheartening to think about how many folks give up on reading altogether after school. Recent articles even suggest that younger generations struggle with spelling and punctuation due to their reliance on texting and social media. And don't even get me started on schools ditching phonetics in favor of sight reading. It's a mess.

Lightspress focuses on several underserved genres in roleplaying, including crime, mystery, dark academia, cozy fantasy, and political thrillers. Our titles aim to transition away from wargaming roots toward more story-driven, character-focused experiences. Additionally, we prioritize settings set in the present day, familiar past (such as the Victorian era or 20th century), and near future to align with other popular media like television, film, and novels.

I'm presently revising the FAQ page; hence it's temporarily offline. It might evolve into a series of pages organized by topic, like a general Lightspress FAQ, a DoubleZero FAQ, and so on. My aim is to ensure easy access and provide genuinely helpful information.

I've realized that I need to prioritize my well-being and creative fulfillment over chasing after certain projects that no longer align with my goals. In the face of this burnout, I've made some decisions about the future of my work.

Ghostlight invites you into a realm of dark academia, where Gothic intrigue thrives. Set within the walls of a prestigious private performing arts college nestled in a seaside New England town, your characters immerse themselves in the world of theater. But beneath the surface of this seemingly ordinary setting lies a tapestry of mysteries waiting to be unraveled. Can they peel back the layers of secrets shrouding the school, the town, and its inhabitants?

Theme is another one of those aspects where people either understand what I’m doing, or it feels like they never will. A few people seem outright repulsed by the idea, given the reactions I’ve received from the very first book on theme in roleplaying that I published through my Great Gatsby hack.

The question I get asked most is why. They want to know why I seem so obsessed with the idea that theme is an essential element for roleplaying. My answer is simple; I like my adventures to be about something.

I know you’re probably tired of my experimenting with pricing and want me to land on something already. We’re getting closer, and I want to add some transparency to my thought process here.

In case you missed them, here’s what’s new in the shop this week!

• DoubleZero: Detective

• DoubleZero: Federal Agent

• DoubleZero: Journalist

• DoubleZero: Police Officer

• DoubleZero: Undercover Agent

• Dark Academia: Classes

• Dark Academia: Alchemy

• Dark Academia: Grimoires, Volumes 1 & 2

• Dark Academia: Athames

My sincerely held personal belief is that the roleplaying community adheres to the 80/20 rule. For those unfamiliar, the TLDR is that 20% of people are responsible for 80% of results. Like, 20% of customers account for 80% of your sales, that sort of thing. It’s not meant to be an exact 80/20 split, but represents the idea that there is a majority and a minority and that the larger number is significantly greater than the smaller.

Some people find the word manifesto to be off-putting. It’s just a mission statement when you come right down to it. The definition is something like “a public declaration of goals and policy”. Of course, there can be a political connotation, usually ascribed by people whose political agenda revolves around accusing everyone they disagree with of having a political agenda. These are the people that think Star Trek and X-Men only became progressive, like, last week or something.

Today I want to talk more about the part of the hobby that doesn’t involve actually playing, watching other people play, or collecting pretty books you’ll probably never play. I want to talk about the joy of making stuff. Engaging with your creativity, building characters for the fun of it, building worlds, plotting adventures, crafting house rules, all of that stuff.