ADVENTURE HOOKS

Before I wrote TTRPGs, I wrote poetry. First published in a limited run by Cool Skull Press in 2018, Adventure Hooks is back in a new edition! Featuring a new cover by Adam Vass (World Champ Game Co.) and an introduction reflecting on both the first and second editions, these 60 tabletop-ready hybrid poems can be read, played, or slotted into an existing campaign. A deeply personal look at the start of a games career, Adventure Hooks is where I first learned I loved writing for players, not just readers.

Perfect-bound, 76 pages, 4x5.25"

"Hilarious, helpful, & surprisingly insightful, Adventure Hooks gives a welcome influx of good-natured delirium to the dice-rolling worlds and doubles as a tour de force exploration of a previously unknown literary genre. As much a product of Dada & surrealism as of RPGs, Tyler Crumrine’s fertile & riotous imagination will hook you in all your campaigns, whether they be imaginary or real."

​—Mathias Svalina, author of America at Play

"If Barthelme and Kafka and Wittgenstein were GMs, their brainstorming sessions might have looked something like the contents of this book. These lively hooks push the boundaries of world building, and will push PC’s to new heights of engagement and fun (and, perhaps, occasionally, despair)."

—Tim Earley, author of Epigrams Both Ludic and Regicidal

"What makes Adventure Hooks special is the way that it blends RPG elements with such engaging prose. You are not accepting the invitation to play a game, you are entering a strange world that is wholly your own—the reader becomes the writer."

—Mike Corrao, author of -MANCER

GUESS WHODUNIT?

Guess Whodunit? is a low-prep storytelling game in which a murderer and a detective hunt each other down, fleshing out their characters’ identities in the process. All you need to play are:

• Two players

• One half of the classic guessing game Guess Who? or a homemade equivalent (24 distinct character portraits)

Each turn, the detective plays a round of Guess Who? and the murder's response determines the following scene. After four turns/scenes, an accusation is made and the investigation's success or failure is resolved.

BETTER STRANGERS

Funded by Story Synth's microgrant program, Better Strangers is a solo “people-watching” game you can play in public on a mobile device or in private with a copy of Where's Waldo? or a similar crowd-search puzzle. Story Synth is a fun browser-based system for digital storytelling games, and I had a blast designing a game with mobile browsers in mind! 

Better Strangers is free to play in perpetuity, and guidelines for safe and respectful public play are included.

DOTGEON

DOTGEON is a simple pen-&-paper game based on la pipopipette (popularly known as Dots & Boxes) first published in the 19th century by French mathematician Édouard Lucas. While similar to la pipopipette, DOTGEON incorporates random dice rolls into the game and creates a dungeon or building’s floor plan for use in TTRPGs upon completion.

All you need to play DOTGEON is:

• A drawing utensil

• Two or more players

• One six-sided die (d6)

• A dot grid (included)

DOTGEON starts with an empty grid of equidistant dots. This grid can be any size, and need not feature an equal number of rows and columns. A large, 43x33 dot printable grid is included with these rules. Players are encouraged to draw or cut out grids at whatever dimensions they’d like, but a 10x10 minimum grid is recommended.

DOTGEON is a one-page game formatted to fit on a single, 8.5x11" letter-sized piece of paper.

THE HEX CARD

I love collaging & I love hex crawls, so to prep for games I started combining them! 

The Hex-Card is a simple tool that details my process and helps you make your own hex collages. Just print out the card, cut out the middle, and make collage maps of your own!