itch.io

This is a new piece designed for the Libre Baskerville Jam. As such, this is a game with no edits whatsoever, written over the course of two nights, from point A to point B with no detours. It was a new experience for me! Writing something that was inspired by Wallace Shawn was meaningful to me, as he is a writer that has meant a great deal to me and inspired by own work previously, albeit in not such overt ways. Anyway, please enjoy!

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/these-shy-smiles-are-like-a-garden-for-me

Sangre y Mascaras

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/sangre-y-mascaras

Luchadors fighting Heinous Monsters! 

Based on the El Santo movies popularized in Mexico in the 1960s, you are  a band of heroic luchadors, looking to solve mysteries, stop kidnappings, and punch Draculas. 

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/sangre-y-mascaras

This is my newest TTRPG, in which you play as luchadors in the 60s fighting wolfmen, mummies, draculas and everything else you can imagine. It's a loving homage to the 1960s Mexican El Santo movies. It uses the Powered by the Apocalypse system. Please rate and enjoy! Leave comments letting me know what you think!

Survival Tobita is a Japanese wrestler that achieved a minor cult following by wrestling aliens and monsters (re: people in terrible costumes). He always got destroyed with like, one punch, and then would talk about how he'd try harder next time as people awkwardly left. He released a shirt which you can see below. I made a game based on it. I would say it's probably the best ever TTRPG for one player based almost entirely on t shirt text. It's only one page, please enjoy!

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/attack-all-monsters

Here is the barest skeleton of an idea that I have on the backburner: 

The Players are time travelers, tasked with stopping an evil wizard who is hell bent on planting more and more evidence of the New Chronology. 

I am working on something to submit to this, but I would also like to offer up myself as a resource. I have written extensively about wrestling, and am pretty well versed historically about it. If you want to ask me questions about specific periods in time within wrestling, specific wrestlers, or if you'd like recommendations of things to watch to help inspire you for specific themes, please feel free to contact me.

I think its fame almost precedes it to a point, but Death Frost Doom is a really great module, and playing it with a group that doesn't know it is a really tense and rewarding experience. 

In terms of more recent stuff, Gardens of Ynn is really great, as is almost all of the stuff by Hydra Cooperative. 

While it isn't a module per say, Veins of the Earth is probably the best game book I've ever read. It's really incredible. 

This may come across as unintentionally glib, but someone (I apologize that I can't give proper citation, the name escapes me) once said that the system is "OSR" if it can run Keep on the Borderlands without massive conversion. I'm not sure if I agree with that wholeheartedly, but I think it's a useful jumping off point in terms of narrative/design goals and playstyle. 

The other thing that I find most (not all) OSR games share is that gold=XP and monsters should be unique and fantastic. Very few OSR games I have seen run are based around fighting a horde of goblins, and then next time some more goblins, and then after that some orcs that are just bigger goblins. In fact, I think at one point, one of Raggi's submission guidelines for LotFP was your module should only have encounters with things that had never been published before. I'm paraphrasing but that was the general idea. 

God of Vengeance

4 people discover the lives and entangled relationships in a Yiddish brothel at the start of the 20th Century. 

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/god-of-vengeance

I made this game for the Public Domain Game Jam and was awarded Best Adaptation. My goal was to create a game that had strong plot points and existing relationships to inform and react off of, but to allow the players to have leeway in how they create and discover those relationships. There are mechanics designed in the game that allow for different experiences every time, as the players will discover information with different characters and deliver that information likewise. While it may not be open ended like some narrative games, the story that is told can take different forms based on the players themselves and what they bring. I hope you enjoy. Feedback is always welcome.

My newest game was for WizJam, and it's still very much a work in progress. It's called cementville. It's a TTRPG for players and a GM about witches and wizards living poor in the rust belt, and how casting and magical goals are effected by poverty. It is a diceless system. Instead of rolling to resolve moves or spells, you instead try to flip a card from at least a foot up to hit a target of the DMs choice. Depending on where and how the cards land, spells and actions have different resolutions. It's made to be played as an ongoing campaign, but could easily be a one shot as well. Let me know what you think!

I'm JR, and I just recently started making my own games. I like mechanics that have a physical aspect (most evident in my newest game, cementville) and I like Jewish stories. My hope over the next year, aside from game jam stuff, is to finish the two projects I started last year: a Jewish fantasy OSR setting and a Pretty Little Liars RPG. You can find me on twitter @wrestlingbubble. Let me know what you think of my games. I'm new and I know I can improve and your feedback is invaluable.  

I made a game about being a witch or wizard in the modern midwest, and trying to help people and yourself while avoiding detection. It's a campaign based RPG for a party and a DM, and in lieu of rolling dice, all of your magic spells are resolved by flipping playing cards and trying to hit targets in specific manners. If you've ever flipped a chaos orb, you've done it. if you've ever flipped a baseball card, you've done it. It's a newer mechanical experiment for me, and I hope you all enjoy. Please comment and share if you enjoy!

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/cementville

I put this together for the emotional mech game jam, and I think it came out well. It's about a relationship that I don't think has been mined as often, the one between the pilot and the caregiver/guardian figure. It's a two player TTRPG, and it can be played with nothing but a standard deck of playing cards. Enjoy and please feel free to comment!

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/alternating-voices

This is my first game ever published on itch.io, and it's free for the 1923 game jam. Please enjoy, comment, and let me know your thoughts! It's based on a Yiddish play that was translated and premiered on Broadway in 1923, to some controversy. The game is designed to place the participants in the roles of the characters.

https://jrgoldb.itch.io/god-of-vengeance