Write in Pen

 While I’m not nearly as much of an OSR head as most of my contemporaries (colleagues? Something less pretentious?), something that I do greatly appreciate is the DIY atmosphere of this scene. It’s nice to see people encouraging and plugging each other’s work, and nice to know that my unmitigated ramblings (shoutout to Revinant of d6rats, my sister-in-arms and comrade eternal) have an audience of dozens, which does nice things for my ego. 

Feat. my hands

In keeping with the DIY spirit, much better blogger W. F. Smith of Prismatic Wasteland declared this year to be the year of the beta, encouraging us all to release our unfinished projects so that they can be seen, because, you know, they deserve to be. This move was inspired in part by the 1E Manifesto by 200 Proof Games, which is a phenomenal peace of writing arguing the exact same thing. Now, as a new blogger and designer, I already released my complete body of unfinished work last year, in the form of Sunk Cost. However, I’ve been getting really into the idea of Zungeons, or “Zine Dungeons” for short, again embracing the idea of “You can do it too” and demystifying the act of creation.  With that in mind, I’d like to throw my hat in the ring and offer some unsolicited advice for creatives like me who are struggling to Make Things, whether that be that rules system you’ve been meaning to publish for years or just the dungeon for next week’s adventure: write in pen. 

What writing in pen does, at least for me, is simple: it forces me to not give a shit. Whatever I have put down cannot be altered, cannot be changed. Darlings cannot be killed because they are scarcely given enough time to be birthed, you have to move forward, because it is done. You wanna change something, you have to assess whether it's worth the pain in the ass to do so. 

While putting together my submission Zungeon Jam 2025, I initially drew the map, haphazardly slapping on random encounters and being like “Shit what’s this room” before realizing I had accidentally fucked myself: because I was writing in pen, and had made a two-page spread, that meant I was writing the booklet from the middle out, which was a fascinating experience I’m gonna have to deal with at least three more times (because I’m extra). There’ll eventually be a version of Bloodmoon Castle that’s got nicer production value, probably some balancing, that’s comprehensible. But what’s important is that right now it is here and it is real and the world can see it and that is a fate every creative work aspires to. 

Too often, when staring at a word processor, I get the urge to back and edit things, to make the flow better. Now this isn’t to decry the fine art of editing, but if you are (as a purely hypothetical example) a security guard making zines in her car while she surveils a parking lot, you don’t really have access to an editor. What you have is you, your ideas, whatever weird bullshit you’re into or makes you horny or whatever the fuck (Liz why does your dungeon have a gizzard?). 

Run with it. Seize that spirit. Pick up a pen, put it to paper, and don’t you dare look back.