Welcome to DREAMJAM!

We can't wait to see what everyone creates this month. As we get started, tell us a little about yourself!

1. Who are you?
2. Where are you?
3. What got you interested in SWORDDREAM & other *DREAMs?

Hi, I'm Jack Graham, one of the hosts of this jam.

As a game designer, I'm interested in working with the OSR aesthetic (moody, DIY, metal-influenced) in new & subversive ways. I was the lead writer on the Eclipse Phase RPG for ten years, and I've freelanced for Pathfinder and The Laundry Files. My dream is  SWORDDREAM, but sometimes it has axes, too. Currently my main project is my zine, Skeleton Wizard, which contains a combo of D&D and story games articles.

My co-hosts are Megan (Mogibear) and Jammi (Sword Queen). Let one of us know if you have questions. We'll try to answer anything we see posted here as quickly as possible.

I'm very excited at the number of people who've joined. Can't wait to see what you all create this month!

Hi there! I'm Jess, and I'm a social worker (former opera singer) living in PA. I've GMed for years but first got into writing for games with Uncaged. love the principles of SwordDream and was thrilled to get to create for this jam!

Hi, I'm Max! I'm a Data Engineer in NYC, and I've been writing a worldbuilding / RPG blog for around a year now, Weird & Wonderful Worlds. I've been wanting to publish for a long time now but was always intimidated and never took the plunge, so I'm super appreciative of this jam. I think I've got a fun game planned that's on-track to publish soon, and I'm really excited to finally be able to say I've published a game, regardless of how it's received.

I was getting really frustrated with the fragmentation of the RPG community and these hostilities between storygames and OSR, and SWORDDREAM really appealed to me as being a place for fresh perspectives and a community for openness and positivity. I hope this all ends up going well and injects some much needed energy and diversity into the scene.

Incidentally, I relatively recently made an "Unofficial by design" subreddit for SWORDDREAM.  Right now it's a really small community, a place mainly for people to share their works, which is totally cool, but I hope it can become a place for respectful discussion as well.

Hello all. My name is Steve Dean, I'm a freelance writer from Nottingham in the UK. (The place Robin Hood came from, and yes he was a real person!) I read, write, watch and play mostly within the genres of science fiction and fantasy, my favourite being stuff with robots. (Inspired by Isaac Azimov) As I'm very old I have a long and wide experience of the whole thing.  

To be honest, and this is probably my age, I've become a bit jaded over the years, the mainstream seem to have lost their way of late, and are just churning out the same old stuff. Thankfully we have the indie community, who are producing some fantastic material in all genres and mediums.

I found this Sworddream Jam while looking for Jams to enter. When I read through the 9 Principles I was hooked!

Oh hi! I'm Hideo (He-day-oh) from the East Coast of Canada. By day I design Digital Product Libraries, by night I... design... other types of products. Or put another way... I sit too much!

My interest in *DREAMS began a few weeks ago when I first heard of this through one of your fine *DREAM advocates on Twitter (shout-out to my them @temporalhiccup). As soon as I read the 9 Principles, like many before me, I knew I was in the right place.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Hi I'm Terry, (almost) librarian from London.

Tbh I saw the principles and it really clicked. I like collaborative/homebrewed systems and games, and ones that challenge existing biases and promote more inclusive ways of doing things are ace :)

I'm Kai, factory coordinator and freelance writer. I've enjoyed a wide range of games ranging from AD&D to 13th Age, Call of Cthulhu to Dogs in the Vineyard, Eclipse Phase to Night Witches. I believe there are some great game ideas to be found everywhere: indie design, storygames, OSR, larps, and television reality game shows (credit to Becky Annison for that last one), and I want to integrate good ideas from anywhere they can be found.

My home is in Selangor, Malaysia, and I'm fortunate to live close to a large population of roleplayers and really cool game folks. Also, the food here is really good. :) My partner Elisha and I write about games we like and the local gaming scene on this blog www.roleoverplaydead.com.

I became interested in SWORDDREAM from the discussions on twitter by people I follow (Jamila, Michael T. Lombardi, Ben/Flowers). I really dig the nine principles. My *DREAM is PIPEDREAM, a hack of Cthulhu Dark with pipe-smoking halflings who ostensibly investigate mysteries around their home region of Irisfields, which is often visited by Big Folk more powerful than they are. My fantasy world will be Tolkienesque but also more diverse and colourful. Goblins will not be creatures of evil, but rather descendants of elves abandoned by their kin long ago. The metaphysics and morality may be more complex and less Catholic.

Hey all, Paddy here, coming at you from Melbourne, Australia... Though probably easier to find over at liberationindustries.net, where you can get a pretty clear idea of what my gang and I sink our teeth into storygamewise. 

I think I came here after seeing Jammi tweet about it, and having spent my life mostly avoiding OSR like a plague... But from what I've seen, I like what #Sworddream represents. 

Currently hoping to have two games submitted, The Salt Traders (about tall tales and the ancient Sumerian salt trade) and For the People! (loosely inspired by early Soviet propaganda films and Nick Wedig games). 

Stay awesome team. 

Hey, Justin here in Seattle.

I came across Dream Jam in my twitter feed after participating in some of the conversations surrounding Sworddream and what it meant to each of us. I suppose I wanted to have a say in that conversation by way of design! Sworddream, to me, represents a more conscientious creation process that considers the players as people and not just ambiguous “gamers.”

As for my own Sworddream? It’s nearing completion and I’ll be posting it here, soon. Personally, I wanted to begin with an homage to a game that’s brought me a lot of joy over the years, Dungeon World, and craft a supplement that, I hope, will give people a good starting point to embark on their own adventures in that world ✨

Look for Saviors if Hogtown soon.

Hello everyone! You can blame Michael Lombardi for me being here.  :)

I've been a long-time TTRPG player and dabbled with designing my own games throughout all those years, but it was at the end of last year when I took it seriously and created an engine that had the right balance of super right rules and yet covered all aspects of gaming! It's called the ORC Engine (Opposed Roll Contest), and it's very easy to learn and use, and only required D6s. My first game on top of this, Perilous Ventures, is a medieval fantasy RPG that's in its final stages of playtest and you can get it for free here on itch.

I also developed a simpler fantasy RPG called 52 Fates, which is my DreamJam entry, and it uses a single, regular playing card deck for all its mechanics. It really brings a new dimension to gameplay by adding a light-yet-interesting layer to decision making in combat. 52 Fates is free, and finished, although I will be creating more stuff for it.

I'm currently planning a new game based on the ORC Engine that will not be medieval fantasy. Its name is Justfall, and I expect to have the initial playtest edition out there in a couple of months.

I'm eager to see all the awesome stuff submitted in the DreamJam!