I've added a new draft of the Hierophant for Seven-Part Pact! This new version of the Hierophant has new rules for the temples (to reflect them as centers of faith for the entire populace of Isha), new rules for cults and prophets, and a new creation/apocalypse myth. It's available in the same Go...
2025-10-11 18:23:27 +0000 UTC View PostI've got a lot going on. In two weeks (October 15!) I'll be getting bottom surgery. I'm extremely grateful for all the amazing people who already donated to my recovery fund. If you missed the chance to donate, I would love if you instead gave support to 2025-09-30 17:41:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello my dear readers, fans, friends, and foes,
I've been in Alabama at Auburn College as a visiting writer, and I've been working on a new article. It's gonna be really big and explosive when it comes out, one of those real passionate calls to action that I know is gonna get everyone to st...
2025-09-05 16:40:49 +0000 UTC View PostHere's Avery's suggested feedback notes from part one of her work on Seven-Part Pact. Thank you Avery for letting me share this with all of you!
2025-08-29 18:06:35 +0000 UTC View PostAt the start of the month, I received the first wave of design feedback from the Developmental Editor Avery Alder. This isn't the first time we've worked together, but every time I get to sit with her and talk to her about game design, I feel blessed beyond words. She is one of the principle reas...
2025-08-29 18:05:56 +0000 UTC View PostDevelopmental editing is a sobering process. When you’re writing a game you get used to careless writing, leaving gaps that only you know for certain how to fill. For a game as broad as Seven-Part Pact, I cannot allow that level of ambiguity. The game is so meandering and so broad that ambiguit...
2025-07-23 18:15:12 +0000 UTC View Post
No! Yes! Well, maybe? Depends on what rules are! No, it depends on what a game is! Depends…
I knew I would be sparking some controversy by posting 2025-07-22 19:38:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi new folks! Before I get to the article, I just wanted to say wow; there's a lot of you who have joined — thank you so much! I'm extremely grateful for everyone putting eyes on Seven-Part Pact. Please be patient with me while I fix typos and make adjustments. Currently the game is being ...
2025-07-03 14:35:47 +0000 UTC View PostI've been fascinated by toys lately. I have a deck of magic cards (my Pistols At Dawn Battlebox) that I carry around with me everywhere; I call it my toy. Lately I've been thinking of "toy maki...
2025-06-11 21:34:41 +0000 UTC View PostI'm reaching the point where Seven Part Pact, the core of it, barring any certain upheavals or revelations from playtesting (or feedback from certain developmental editors who will be assisting)......is done. I'll put out Draft 4 soon — it'll be very similar to draft 3.25.05, but ...
2025-05-23 13:56:14 +0000 UTC View PostI want to think for a moment about another way to talk about games, TTRPGs, and play.
"Game" is a strange word, as it refers to a mode of engagement rather than an object in its own right. We can look at anything and produce a "game" from it if we want to. It has a lot in common with ...
2025-05-13 14:19:46 +0000 UTC View PostThere's a piece of advice I often give people when they're working on their crowdfunding, and it's also extremely true in game design — as growth scales linearly, effort scales expontentially. If you're not a math nerd, let me explain what that means.
It's easy to assume that a...
2025-05-01 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, there's a new update to Seven-Part Pact. It's available for Rapscallions and Tatterdemalions at this link. I know I say this every time I finish an update, but I think this may be the last one ...
2025-04-30 16:58:49 +0000 UTC View PostOccasionally I've remarked that board games are similar to poetry in the way TTRPGs are similar to prose. I'm still not confident in this claim, and I don't think it's universally applicable. I would even say that most people's instincts go the other way, and would assume the opposite. But I want...
2025-04-01 17:11:23 +0000 UTC View Post
While I’ve been working on a new game lately (Seven-Part Pact, as if I’m ever working on anything else) I ran into an issue with a lot of safety tools and how they’re implemented. Specifically, I...
2025-02-17 15:06:59 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, happy new year. I've got a ton of stuff going on, and amongst them is my continuous tinkering with Seven Part Pact, my strange and enigmatic Wizardgame. I've been working on a new update for 3 months now, and I've been putting off posting that update because I've needed to make various ch...
2025-01-14 22:09:27 +0000 UTC View PostThis is hardly a blog post. It's really more of a series of rambles from an overworked girl trying to get some thoughts she's been carrying around on paper. This isn't really explicitly about Seven-Part Pact, but I think the eagle-eyed amongst you can deduce why my work on Seven-Part Pact is ...
2024-12-11 20:28:24 +0000 UTC View PostHi new Patrons! This is a design diary, a series of articles I write (mostly-weekly) to provide insight into what I'm currently grappling with. They tend to be focused on Seven-Part Pact, but they may branch out as my interests continue to percolate.
So I’m normally a Tabletop RP...
2024-11-19 02:46:03 +0000 UTC View PostI spent all last weekend playing Seven-Part Pact with my friends. It was a miraculous experience, and I’m so grateful to my buddy Taylor Moore for setting it up, renting the AirBnB in upstate NY, and bringing his telescope. The aurora borealis shined upon our play session, and one of t...
2024-10-18 23:34:56 +0000 UTC View PostI like to joke about two sets of hypothetical scenarios. I want you to read both sets, and compare: in which situations would you personally describe the player as “playing the game” and which would you perhaps wonder if she’d be better off playing a different RPG or making her own?
H...
2024-10-07 16:01:54 +0000 UTC View PostHey folks! Finished up the next round of updates on the Seven-Part Pact, available at the same link as last time for Patrons $10 and up (and also anyone who wants to buy the post outright through ...
2024-10-03 02:25:52 +0000 UTC View PostI went upstate recently and visited home after a couple years in Philadelphia. I played in a LARP at my summer camp for the first time in ages — dressed up as an old vampire and read tarot fortunes for the kids in-character. I met up with old friends and hung out with them, and after a lit...
2024-09-25 21:03:02 +0000 UTC View PostI’ve been struggling for a while now with a central conflict between two desires buried within the Seven-Part Pact. One desire was to make the game as much of a sandbox as possible for experienced players, something that can serve as a repository of endless creativity and explosive cha...
2024-09-18 18:32:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe Grimoire in Seven-Part Pact is a really interesting and very dense text. It’s a 99% fictional description of a huge variety of spells, and then players interpret those spells into mechanical Impact. The Grimoire is written in a comprehensive and technical style, but obviously it still leave...
2024-09-06 19:00:35 +0000 UTC View PostThe Seven-Part Pact patreon docs are out — lots of people are checking them out, I'm getting a lot of good feedback, I'm running some playtests, all is well. However I quickly spotted a pretty major problem. The Sorcerer, the Great Lord of Magic himself, is built all wrong! He's certainly ...
2024-09-01 16:46:04 +0000 UTC View PostI've had an idea for an LCG for the past couple of months (ever since I was on a train with a couple friends of mine heading up to NYC to celebrate their birthday and I was complaining about a TTRPG that uses cards in a way that I felt could be a lot more compelling, and I started pitching how I ...
2024-08-30 16:07:48 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone! After six months of non-stop toiling, I've finally finished the third draft of the Seven Part Pact! You should upgrade your tier and check it out, if you're interested in it.
The seven greatest wizards in the world convene upon the isles of Isha, their powers al...
2024-08-22 22:24:38 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm back from Gencon, and ready to get back into Seven-Part Pact design. On the long drive home with Ruby, I had some important breakthroughs around the game, specifically around the two most powerful Wizards in Seven-Part Pact. For those unfamiliar, the lineup of Wizards is:
The Ne...
2024-08-09 16:14:19 +0000 UTC View PostI'm writing this design diary inbetween two of the most stressful possible weeks of my life. Possum Creek is having a rough time (something which I'll be able to talk more about after Gencon), and while through gumption and wit we've been able to string together some possible solutions, it's ...
2024-07-27 16:57:35 +0000 UTC View PostI'm gonna be trying something new, which is posting periodic design diary entries on Seven-Part Pact as I continue to work on it. I'm constantly musing on this-or-that aspect of its design, so I figured it would be cool to chronicle my musings for Patreon in ways people can revisit someday do...
2024-07-16 14:23:20 +0000 UTC View Post