Gadda's 2025 (A Year In Review)

You vs the guy she tells you not to worry about

     Should old acquaintence be forgot? Nay, I say. This retrospective blogpost might be a week late to actually matter to anybody, but if you'll give this simple country farmer a moment, I'd like to look back at what all I've gotten up to in the year of 2025 before I turn my sights to that bright and shiny tomorrow. For old time's sake, if nothing else.

    Howdy, Farmhands. I'm glad to see us all still here.

    About this time in 2024, I made a grand announcement. For the latter half of that calander year, my creative output had been waning. I still was publically considered a Vtuber, with my appearances on stream becoming less and less. I tried to return to the screen in grand fashion a couple of times, but always fell off any semblence of a schedule due to issues with my dayjob and problems with my Beautiful Wife's health. We became foster parents for a succession of dogs, we cycled through roommates, and the structural integrity of our bedroom floor failed, leading to months long construction efforts that were required to fix it. By the time 2024 was coming to a close, my 5 years of being a Twitch streamer felt more like a far off memory than an active aspiration. That December, I decided it was time to officially retire and move on to a new passion of mine. Blogging.

PART 1: I BLOGGED

    This didn't come out of nowhere. I'd already spent most of my tenure as a funny internet man who played minecraft with a virtual puppet waxing poetic about the tabletop roleplaying game hobby, spending hours yelling about discourse on twitter and slowly but surely accuring a collection of books and zines from various kickstarters. I'd tried on occasion to include my enjoyment of ttrpgs in my streamed content, but never truly managed to meld the audience I'd grown around the aforementioned funny minecraft stuff. I'd been blogging since February of 24, but only as the spirit hit me, and with really just for a place to put my Sanic Hack musings that wasn't Twitter. With my Twitch tenure coming to an end, I entered 2025 with the goal of blogging full time, weekly, even.

    This, dear reader, was a mistake.

    I'll get the obvious out of the way. Blogging does not pay the bills. Twitch streaming, for the hours I put into the production and performance, was not a viable second job. However, there were highs and lows of the added income, and recieving a few hundred dollars quarterly on top of donations was a very nice boost to my less than fantastic financials. Of the audience I'd accrued being a silly minecraft man on the internet, few were interested in following me to this new venture. Of those that WERE interested in supporting came a new stressor I hadn't anticipated- while offering subscriptions for entertainment that could be measured in hours of footage and chat logs made sense, asking for money in exchange for words I would work on sporadically, to be read in maybe 20 minutes at best felt... off. I struggled to find a reasonable balance of effort in producing the work with the amount of Stuff my paying readers could read. This lead to me scouring my folders for old wips, pushing out articles before I personally felt satisfied with them, and so many d20 roll tables that i wasn't even properly in love with, all in the name of getting SOMETHING for them out to read. 

    For anyone who's followed me on the internet for a reasonable amount of time, this probably sounds familiar. It is a known character flaw that I throw myself into whatever I start with a ton of gusto, only to realize i've overpromised my capability and peter out within six months. Completely ending my existing, ongoing creative output, and expecting to replace it with an entirely unreleated hobby as if the two were interchangable was never going to work out as I envisioned. If this year has taught me anything, it's that I can write some good posts*, but perhaps man cannot live** on blogging alone ***.

*(when I give myself the time to properly develop them)

** (express myself creatively)

*** (daddy needs some short form content)

     That said, there ARE projects and posts I'm proud of! 2026 will feature more, longer posts that I allow myself the room to properly settle before hitting send, is all. I'd probably have more glowing things to say about this year if it weren't for-

PART 2: I DIDN'T MINECRAFT 

    There's a Genocide happening in Palestine, and while it certainly didn't START in 2025, a significant amount of details pertaining to who financially supports it and how became public information. Microsoft and by extension it's purchased game developer, Mojang, were added to a list of targets by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Comittee for... well, boycott, divestment, and sanctions. As someone who, even after retiring from performing on camera, was the maintainer of a Minecraft server for other Vtubers, known as Hey!!!Craft, this news led to some awkward choices. I could not, in good faith, continue to support the company that profited off what is essentially free advertisement for their video game, but multiple other individuals who had joined the project I headed used the server for their own video creation- pulling the plug would screw them over. Thankfully, everyone on the team was on the same page as I, and the server was put into permanent hiatus.

    This was sort of a Big Deal for me personally, as Minecraft has been something I've played almost daily since discovering it way back in 2010, during the Alpha versions of the game. I met my Beautiful Wife on a minecraft server! And, more important to this blog post, I had begun a project I called The Nether Depthcrawl, that I was very excited about. This boycott, which I was very keen to participate in, did take the wind out of my sails, as I'd been writing a not insignificant amount of work in private drafts, waiting for just the right moment to start releasing it in chunks so as not to overload my audience with posts. 

    The suspension of Hey!!!Craft, and the end of production on the Nether Depthcrawl cleared my dance card, but left me without a project to direct my attention towards, right at the very beginning of my self ascribed year of blogging. To spoil what comes next a smidge, I do spend most of this year being relatively aimless where once I felt great purpose. Ah well.

PART 3: I JOINED A NEWSLETTER

    Have you read Carouse, Carouse? It's a monthly Newsletter where a bunch of bloggers share their favorite posts from across the ttrpg blogging hobby, as well as produce bespoke new articles for our dear readers to enjoy. I won't tell you where the majority of my effort went, if only to keep the magic in our relationship alive. I do feel like I didn't give the project as much of my attention as I could have, however. 

    In my haste to increase my output to match my previous production capacity as a Vtuber, I actually spread myself too thin across platforms, with my contributions to Carouse, Carouse being minimal. I treated it like a second blog to maintain, without increasing the time I spent on writing to make up for the added workload. Things I planned either shipped unfinished or not at all, and I am quite regretful about that. My hope is that with my more lax approach to my primary blog, I will be able to properly offer more to the newsletter; the folks working on it are all great and deserve the world.

PART 4: I WAS PUBLISHED IN SOMETHING

    I was a kickstarter stretch goal in 2024, somehow. That zine was completed early this year. It was my very first time working with an existing publishing group and having to adjust my writing to better fit their house style- I'm proud of the final result and thrilled to have had the experience. I wonder if I should make a stronger effort to collaborate with people this year, pitch a few projects, get more credits under my belt. 

PART 5: I STARTED A DIGIMON FANCOMIC

    The launch of both Digimon Story: Time Stranger and Digimon Beat Break has been a boon for one of my favorite childhood franchises, and as a result, a ton of my friends from childhood are indulging in both nostalgia and new appreciation for our shared youthful obsessions. A few of us decided to get back into making Sprite Comics featuring our OCs, and I couldn't help but join in.  For my part, I intended on using the setting and assets from my favorite entry into the video game franchise, Digimon World 3. Only, as I began collecting resources, I became aware that said assets were less than accurately documented publically! This led me down a rabbit hole of emulators and github repositories to try and acquire the graphics I needed to bring my story idea to life. I've managed, somehow, but this little diversion became a month-long fixation for me, and I'm only 20 pages in!

PART 6: THESE ARE GETTING SILLY I DON'T NEED TO KEEP MAKING NEW PARTS FOR 1 PARAGRAPH

     Sanic Hack had a couple of new entries, but to be honest, they were mostly proper blog versions of ideas I'd had in 2024; no serious development went into the ruleset.

     Had a congaline of vehicle-related troubles. A torrential rain washed my road away and we had to team up with the neighbors to get it fixed. Car almost exploded due to a malfunctioning air compressor.

    I moderated the Discord Server for R.R. Slugger's Summer of Slug! Technically I do this year round, but every summer the server gets a boost of new folks, and this year was pretty tame!  

    We adopted our Foster dog, Wendy, only to learn that she had a tumor that would become inoperable within 4 months. She was a very good girl who deserved so much better.

    I played and 95% completed Pac-Man World Re-Pac, which I didn't blog about but DID have a few brain blasts about mid-tier platformers and their lack in the current gaming ecosystem.

    I started and then paused an IRL homegame, the first I've been able to run since 2021! The previously mentioned road issue put a massive hamper on that.

    I started my own static site instead of relying entirely on blogger! You might even be reading this on that platform now! It's very basic and I'm not very good at making it pretty, but it does the job! 

PART 7: PLANS FOR 2026 

    While I firmly believe that had 2025 not been so absolutely horseshit for literally everybody I could have met my goals, 2026 is going to have to be significantly dialed back. Having these expectations for myself and being unable to meet them due to outside forces sucks, and I ought to be kinder to myself while the world continues to burn. With that in mind, here are my plans for the coming year.

    1. Blog When The Moment Hits. Forcing a weekly schedule just caused problems, and I do better work when I have an idea, start a draft, and whack at it slowly over time instead of trying to rush it out. I cannot keep treating myself like a content machine, it's unfair.

    2. Focus on existing projects. Digimon Comic and Carouse are the main ones, but also getting Sanic Hack into a playable state. I let these go in favor of trying to do it all, but they're what really bring me joy and I shouldn't let myself be distracted.    

    3. A Secret Third Thing. You'll know about this later next week probably.

    And that's the long as the short of it. Now I can sit back and wait for that ball to drop, kiss my beautiful wife and sleep in on this, Janurary Firrrrrrrrrrrs-Eighth. Janurary 8th. 9th if you're not a member of my patreon.

    Hmm.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda. 

Jaw-Break Shore - A Hex

 

Jaw-Break Shore (0706)

A Hex for Prismatic Wasteland's
 Merry Hexmas Blog Bandwagon 

Warning: This Post is a WIP, and will be updated as surrounding Hexes are filled in by other participants in this project! 

    A stony, barren shoreline at the edge of the Swirly Twirly Sea. The weather is permanently somber and overcast; slightly too cold to be enjoyable, slightly too warm for any snowfall to stick. The sugar that washes ashore crystalizes into delicious balls of candy, coated in a rocky shell. It's difficult to determine what's a jawbreaker and what's just gravel. 

Adjacent Hexes 

North: 0705 - The Rime Ridge

North-East : 0805 - Eostre Fields

South-East: 0806 - TBD

South: 0707 - TBD

South-West: 0606 - Swirly Twirly Sea

North-West: 0605 - Swirly Twirly Sea 

Encounters

 1d6

 1 : A Giant Ant-Lion (Stat as Bear) rests at the center of a 30 foot wide gravel pit, waiting to consume any creature that falls down into it's maw. Each turn a PC spends inside the pit, they must make a DEX saving throw or be moved 10 ft closer to the center against their will. Any use of magical fire will begin to melt the hidden jawbreakers amongst the stone, sealing the creature inside a cooling shell of candy.

2 : A beached gumdrop ice-berg. 2d6 Seagulls, dyed vibrant colors from their diet, swarm to carve sustenance from the gloop. If approached, they will become violent and attempt to chase the party away from their prize. (1 in 6 chance it's hallucenigenic and the birds are high as balls)

3 : 1d2 Defectors, Rabbitfolk (Stat as Soldiers) attempting to escape the civil war to the east. 50% chance of being either from Irontail or Cottontail forces. Are traveling with documents that detail potential secret tunnels into their respective side's primary fortress, in the hopes they can barter for their safety should they be found by the enemy. They will give the clothes off their backs if the party can grant them safe passage on a vessel out into the Swirly-Twirly sea.

4 : 2d4+1 Feathered Fiends (Stat as Wolves) Vulture-like creatures, with bare necks and heads and oily black feathers. Aggressive if eye contact is made. There is a 1 in 10 chance of the ringleader being capable of speech, who will share that they're really here because they like the shores' dreary vibes more than actually wanting anything. 

5 : A trio of Elves, Toddy, Toady, and Ted, scheme methods of convincing the Molefolk miners away from their Quarry, intent on taking it for themselves. Their plans range from silly (disguising themselves as leprechauns looking to sell their gold mine) to the outright loony (pretending to be a band of roving Donkey Polishers.) Toady is the smart one. Ted is the dumb one. Toddy is the greedy one, and the only reason the other two are doing any of this. They are just as likely to try to swindle the party as they are to ask for help swindling the Moles. They don't want to sell the Motherload as the Moles do, instead wishing to eat it once it's uncovered.

6 : A gnarled tree with a knot like a screaming face, and one branch outstretched like a grasping hand. If encountered twice, the tree is clearly not in the same place the party last enountered it, but otherwise immobile. Any magic Item placed into it's grip will be drained and rendered inert, but return the Winter Wizard to human form. He was once the Witch-King in Blue, eons before Santa arrived, and seeks to reclaim his throne. He despises Christmas and anything Jolly. Stat as Arch-Mage and give a bunch of Ice spells.

Locations

Sugar Geode "Mine"

    More a hole in the ground than a proper mine. A Quarry, at best. Worked by a trio of Molefolk who toil all day to fill their minecarts with delectable chunks of stone that, when cracked open, reveal layers of colorful candy, the flavor of which changes as you suck. Unfortunately it's a toss up determining what's candy and what's just rock, (3 in 6 chance of it being edible) 

    The Molefolk firmly believe that there is a large deposit of sugar at the bottom of this hole, compressed over years into a single, massive Sugar Geode. This Motherlode is their primary reason for digging, though the loose gravel around them seems to refill the hole as quickly as they can dig. Any attempt to streamline the efficiency of their production will win the party a promise of shared profits once the chunk is obtained and sold. (After one in-game week, notice will be sent out that 1-2: The new system has actually made things worse, and the Molefolk are demanding the party return to try something else, 3-5: Their productivity is up, and they'll surely find the Motherlode any day now; they'll send another letter in a week, 6: They've successfully extracted a large sugar chunk, and have enclosed 1,225 gold pieces for the party.)

Dream Circus 

    A large, green and red striped tent surrounded by festive balloons and covered in tinsel. A large crowd of folk from across the Pole have gathered to watch the show in the three rings below the stands. The performances in the rings feature exotic creatures and stunts unlike anything the party has ever seen, and each act claims to be performing for "One Night Only." The party can locate any previously met NPC from any other Hex within the crowd, though they can never seem to reach them, should they try. 

    The Ringmaster is an androgynous child dressed in deep purple furs and an oversized, twin tailed jester hat, accompanied by a swarm of twinkling sugarplum fairies. Gravity appears to be a mere suggestion to them, and they flit about the tent while juggling a collection of round ornaments in festive colors. They will call for members of the audience to join in the performance; should the party do so, encourage the players to come up with an act, and ask for a few skill checks. Regardless of the results, the audience will cheer, and the Ringmaster will award them one of the baubles they juggle. 

    ITEM: Christmas Memoria - A glass bauble of red, gold, or white, decorated in gold. Once a day, a memory or dream of the night previous may be inscribed inside, appearing as a faint glowing light if inspected closely. The memory can be replayed to an individual holding the bauble and closing their eyes, as if it were their own, or to a large group by destroying the bauble. Once destroyed, the Memoria cannot be fixed. 

    Should the players incite violence against the performers or audience, complete a performance and gain a bauble, or entertain the notion that this circus is a dream, the party will wake up unharmed in the middle of a jawbreaker gravel pit, with the circus nowhere to be seen. 

    Ways to Reach the Circus

    After encountering it once in this hex, the Dreamscape of the circus is accessible by any who slumber in the Pole, though the method of doing so purposefully is unknown. Should the party wish to return, either for another Memoria, or to speak with the Ringmaster, they will need magical help of one form or another. Perhaps a strong enough wish would do? 

The Smash Bros Mansion

 

Art by Port of Zelda on tumblr

     Howdy, Farmhands!

    Super Smash Brothers, a fighting game with party game sensibilities, released for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. The appeal of the title that would go on to be one of Nintendo's most successful franchises, was not only in it's unique take on health bars that left competitors in an increasingly difficult scramble to remain on the stage at massive levels of damage, but in it's roster- Masahiro Sakurai, the game's director, managed to convince his superiors at Nintendo to draw from their collective IP to produce a crossover title that hadn't been attempted before. The end result was watching Yoshi and Mario duke it out with Link and Fox McCloud on stages taken from the likes of Kirby and Donkey Kong. For the first time, some of gaming's greatest mascots could interact outside of tiny cameos in their own titles, even if that interaction was just "cartoon violence." The world would never be the same. 

    It's sequel, Smash Brothers Melee (2001) expanded it's roster, including pulls from Fire Emblem and their Game & Watch handhelds, and increasing representation of the IP from the previous game. This decision brought success in North American markets to Fire Emblem, a franchise that hadn't seen much success outside of Japan, solidifying it's potential as a Kingmaker. Any IP that appeared in a Smash Brothers game could potentially reach an audience that wouldn't have given it a shot otherwise. This assumption has allowed the series to become an expo of gaming history in it's own right, as well as a lucrative marketing opportunity for companies outside Nintendo's network. With the reveal of Snake from Metal Gear and Sonic the fucking Hedgehog joining for the third entry, Super Smash Brothers Brawl (2008), the sky became the limit. Anyone's video game blorbo could show up to duke it out, and oh, did people imagine what that might look like for their faves.

    This is another blog post where it seems like I'm simply using my platform to gush about something that I personally enjoy, but I really do have a point with all this that connects back to TTRPGs. Honest. You can hold on for a couple more paragraphs.

    With the advent of the early-mid 2000's internet, fans of the series took to message boards and forums with gusto to discuss the logistics of their blorbos appearing in the next game. Conversations ranged from in-depth considerations of business relations between rights holders to simple conversation starters of "Wouldn't it be great if X game/character got in?" Nintendo themselves got in on the trend, releasing the roster for Brawl over a series of bespoke blogposts to raise hype for the game. One thing became clear, the process of speculating who would be next became a foundational part of Smash Bros fandom, and nothing was more indicative of that then the invention and proliferation of "The Smash Mansion."

    "The Smash Brothers Mansion" is a concept in fanworks surrounding the Super Smash Series dating back to at least 2003, though this relic of a fanfic could very well simply be the oldest survivor of a trend dating back even further. The basic concept involves the following assumptions: 1. The Smash Brothers Tournaments are organized by a higher power with the ability to summon the Fighter Roster from their respective universes to participate. 2. When not competing, the characters relax, train, and interact in a facility that acts as almost a college dorm. The specific details of how the building is laid out, what resources are available to the characters within it, or if the canonical roster are the only people operating out of it is up to individual interpretation. 3. Shenanigans ensue. An early example of this concept being used that I have personal experience with is the sub-series of webcomic pages found Katie Tiedrich's Awkward Zombie . As Tiedrich's work skews towards comedy, the focus is less on combat and more on situational humor featuring quirks of the video game medium; Link from Ocarina of Time beats up his replacement and steals his outfit in order to continue participating in future tournaments, the Pikmin wreak havoc by collectively throwing Fox McCloud down a flight of stairs, and Roy reacts to not being in Super Smash Brothers Brawl by stalking and critiquing anyone else who joined after his firing.

    This combination of Blorbo appreciation, Hype cycle, Domestic Comedy, and Commentary on the nature of and community surrounding Video Games as a medium is amazingly fertile ground for creativity. I personally joined in around 2013, during the leadup to the release of Super Smash Brothers For Wii U and 3DS. You may never believe me when I say this, but I was a Tumblr Blog Roleplay Girlie. I started off with a collection of OCs in 2010 before branching out to specific fandom spaces. One of my "muses" as we called them, was Resetti the Mole from Animal Crossing, and I had a grand time acting as a grumpy and loud middle aged man, tired of all these damn kids messing with the time-space continuum. Primarily I interacted with other Animal Crossing characters, but many others from Nintendo-adjacent IP would hit me up to write silly scenarios between our little guys. This status quo stayed about the same until the release trailer for "Smash 4" dropped, and with it, a FLURRY of activity, as suddenly folks remembered The Smash Mansion trope, and sought to emulate it. Multiple roleplayers from across different fandoms found the common ground of "Our Blorbos Are In The Same Video Game" and ran with it. Even blogs featuring characters that never appear in Smash Brothers were welcome if their parent IP had even a simple PNG of representation. And it didn't stop with the returning roster, either.

    The hype cycle of Smash 4, and later Smash Ultimate, was intense. Nintendo's infamous "One More Thing" method of ending their presentations kept people excited and hungry for a new reveal- that every character got a bespoke animated introduction turned Nintendo Directs into a proper event. RP Blogs that took part in Fandoms connected to Smash couldn't look away, even if they didn't plan on getting the game itself. Any day now, one of their blorbos could be added, giving them (and their fandom by association) an invitation to the club. Milliseconds after a Direct ended, previously small groups playing niche blorbos with each other would begin posting in confusion as they suddenly had a hundred new followers from, like, Dixie Kong accounts. There was a congratulatory vibe to finding yourself in that position, as if the group had been waiting for you all along, and now was your moment. Come on in, drop your bags at the door. A room has been prepared for you and everyone is happy you made it. Welcome Home, Newcomer.

    I think there is something to be learned here. Not that hype and crossovers are what we should be doing, more of the community thing. Super Smash Brothers became a celebration of video games in their totality, and the inclusion of characters from titles across history has done more to spread that history to new audiences than any ad campaign could have. The joy a fandom has for a property that's fallen into the background suddenly becoming aflush with new folk as the IP is elevated onto this stage is intense, and Smash has personally gotten me into titles I would have never considered trying on my own. Smash becomes an excuse for an outpouring of appreciation and celebration of video game history; because at the end of the day, we're all nerds who love games. Why can't we embody that joy more often?

    This is a post about TTRPGS, despite everything, and while there are significant differences between Video Game and Tabletop fandoms and fandom spaces, they are still spaces with rich histories that deserve to be celebrated. The big names in the room tend to get a lot of the attention, and while recent years has seen a boom of indie titles recieving dedicated followings, there's still plenty of room for acceptance of new blood in those groups. There ought to be a JOY in sharing new systems and styles of play with others, in learning about the paths taken throughout time that lead to both popular and niche titles of today, not because we want to convert others to our preferred way of doing things, but because appreciating them for what they are and what they contributed to the hobby overall can only lead to a better hobby going forward. In a way, we're already all living under the roof of our own Smash Mansion. Maybe we just need to get better at welcoming our new neighbors.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda 

 

 Only tangentially related; I wrote a Lasers & Feelings hack about being an Action Figure and deciding if you're going to lean in or fight against the role you've been cast (in plastic). It's free for legal reasons. 

https://farmergadda.itch.io/smashandbrothers

Your Own Worst Enemy

You can read this post on my personal site with other Goodies here!

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    I think everyone would have a better time if we could all internalize the reality that our dearly loved hobbies are all a little bit shit. Yes, that one. Yes, even the one you like the most. Yes, yes, ESPECIALLY all of mine. No, it's not a moral failing that you still like them. And while we're on the topic, we should also all internalize the reality that we'll never be the Number One Fan or Bestest Boy at doing whatever that hobby is! Perfection isn't attainable, nor should imperfection prevent you from enjoying your sort-of-shit hobby!

         There is a pervasive opinion among the laymen that just because there is a high skill ceiling for any given activity, that all people engaged in that activity should aspire to reach it. This line of thinking is bullshit. It's cool that olympic athletes can challenge and break the documented bounds of human achievement. I go for a walk every day. Same basic behavior, but I'm doing it because it's enjoyable to me, not because I intend to ever reach for the top rung. 

    This is a blogpost about TTRPGS, by the by. Not sure that's been entirely clear up until now.  

    Let's be very blunt with each other. We're sat around our tables with some shapes with numbers stamped on them, pretending to be elves and shit. I love doing that. You love doing that. But we're still just pretending to be elves and shit. This hobby, even at it's highest level of production and academia, is an act that is meant to be enjoyable. It's surprising how easy it is to forget that, especially when the person whose elfgame shit you're critiquing happens to yourself.

    I personally have an issue with this, as I am a very critical person. There is nothing I love more than stripping a piece of media down to it's bare parts and discussing how they fit together and where improvement could be made. It is my favorite activity. This sort of thing is absolutely fine and a valid way to engage with media, but it can become a little much when you start to turn that energy inward. Once, during a session of My Pirate Game, I ended the game with the normal wind down of "let's critically analyze our choices and consider mechanic changes to better accommodate our needs" and got hit with one of the new players going "you could be a little less harsh on yourself." And they were right. I wasn't discussing a product made for consumption by the masses or sold for money, I was treating my friendy-friend game time like it was a test I needed to ace. That's unhealthy.

    Roleplaying games, even at their grindiest, crunchiest, and "we have to pull out a physical tape measure to ensure the target of that mini is within range"-iest, are about having fun. What counts as fun is different between individuals, sure, but the enjoyment of the thing is very much the point. There's nothing wrong with improving your craft or being open about your weaknesses, but you simply cannot lose sight of the point of all this in your drive to better your skills. Give yourself the space to be imperfect. Refrain from judging yourself so harshly. We're all pretending to be Elves in a hobby that is, by god, a Little Bit Shit.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda 

I Like Trains

 

chugga choo choo, bitch

    In November of 2024, Maggie Mahoney hosted a month-long Itch Jam titled the "Tabletop Train Jam." At the time, I thought this was a fantastic idea, but knew I wouldn't have the time to participate myself. However, I am, if nothing else, full to the brim with Opinions. I chose to share those Opinions on social media, intending to edit them into something of a larger essay later. It is now November of 2025 and high time I fulfilled that intention.

    Howdy, Farmhands!

    The implementation of Trains in TTRPGs is an interesting topic to think about. Their inherant purpose as vehicles assumes they're meant for overland travel, hauling large amounts of cargo (passengers or otherwise), at a speed incapable by other mundane means. However, Elfgames rarely operate at a scale that requires A Train to be available. If they are on offer, they risk trivializing the mechanics used by the party up until the point that said train was made accessible. The same can be said of teleportation magic and airships, so this isn't a novel conundrum by any means. How do we implement Trains into our games, and maybe more pressing, why would we want to?

    Trains are COOL, is the thing. They're infinitely customizable- new cars can be added or removed with only the limitation of the engine's capacity. They're an enclosed space- until you reach a destination, there's no just Getting Off the train. They can be natural extensions to the existing resource management the party has been dealing with, simply scaled up beyond their individual capabilities- Logistics such as fuel and available track come into play. They can be transport, player base, or portable dungeon. They're also inherantly Timers for Situations.  Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door has an entire chapter of it's story dedicated to a mystery inside a Train- with the ticking clock counting down to their arrival, at which point the suspects disperse, giving tension to the scenario. Stick your party in A Train with a bunch of characters, have Something Happen that needs to be resolved before you reach the Station, and bam, you have an adventure. 

    Trains also provide a premise for episodic adventures. Stopping at a small station to refuel or drop off some cargo is the perfect excuse for a small one-shot to happen in between larger modules. Ressha Sentai Toqger managed 52 episodes of mostly Just That, with each new Station basically not existing in the fictional world until the show runners needed a filler episode. If all of your stuff is On The Train and the Train is going to be In a Location for a while, the party has good reason to engage with the barrier preventing the train from moving on. Or, if they get in a situation while OFF the train, there's impetus to wrap things up before it embarks without them!!! 

    Trains arent all comfort or portable set piece. In order for a Train line to be successful and worth persuing, a significant amount of infrastructure is required for the fantasy world to make any use of them. With infrastructure comes the risk of that investment being damaged, destroyed, or delayed. Digimon Frontier (and isn't that a deep cut) had it's entire Digital World crisscrossed by Tracks, meaning the entire planet was accessible by Train... But the tracks were made of Data and could be absorbed or altered at any time. Narratively, this was how the story kept the protagonists in one place for any given amount of time, and produced free mcguffins wherever they found themselves. Does the party want to leave? They gotta get the track data from the bad guys to continue on their journey. 

    And this entirely assumes the train in question is traveling physical Distance. Take Kamen Rider Den-O; their train runs through TIME. Secret Trains are the primary transport between protected magical locations like Jowling Kowling Rowling's school for Wizard Cops, acting as a thematic transport between WORLDS. In a fantasy elfgame, the literal use of a train can play second to the tonal vibes it gives for being present, and can be fun to play around with!

    Trains are cool, and their use could be levied in an Elfgame to make really creative adventures and campaigns is what I'm saying, I guess.

    Or maybe I'm just Autistic.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda 

    As a final note and a bit of an example- here's a translated replay of a Sword World 2.5 game that primarily takes place on a train! It's got a neat, non-train related Fellows system that I keep eyeballing for other stuff.