Paul Czege

@paulczege

Game designer. Currently shipping a zine about how to play immersive journaling games: On Masto as @paulczege@dice.camp He/Him. #JournalGaming #ttrpg

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Paul Czege@paulczege· 13d

She just missed being in my forthcoming game/zine by a week. I drew my own from a pencil drawing by Stefano della Bella, but I might have loved using yours more.

A drawing of a winged sphinx by Paul Czege based on a pencil drawing by Stefano della Bella.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 13d

You know who we should be questioning in Congress? This dude. Where the hell are his priorities? He's totally not focused on his top deliverables.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 14d

The album cover for Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. It has a castle above the clouds and a rainbow.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 15d

The slop they're feeding you is people.

Charlton Heston screaming "Soylent Green is people!!!"

Paul Czege@paulczege· 16d

I love that they put The Ink That Bleeds and Inscapes right with Be With Me among all their other journaling games. As a buyer I don't want the games alphabetical by title, or all the vampire ones together. I want all the ones by a creator together.

A screenshot of an instagram video by Games Unlimited in Pittsburgh. You can see Be With Me, The Ink That Bleeds, and Inscapes all together on the same spinner rack.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 17d

I wonder why my energy is so low today.

A screenshot showing the current temperature is 102°F in Denver

Paul Czege@paulczege· 19d

...want to stop doing them though.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 20d

Spot the crayfish.

Looking down into a shallow creek with a silty bottom. You can barely spot a crayfish the same color as the silt.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 23d

You have enough money for only one. Which of these two journaling game zines by Paul Czege do you buy from just the back cover text? #journalGaming

The back cover of a journaling game zine by Paul Czege that you've never seen before. It says:

Here's the thing about other realities — there are people in them who know your potential, from knowing a you who lived up to it. Where the Realms Kiss is an immersive journaling game of meeting someone who knows you from another life, and tells you, convincingly, what you're capable of.

The back cover of a journaling game zine by Paul Czege that you've never seen before. It says:

Take a dangerous journey through time and space in hopes that consuming a piece of the titan Prometheus will give you the insight you need to change your life. Follow a young Neanderthal woman in the primeval Eemian forest to learn how to bring me back from my death. The Immersive metaphysical journalgaming experiences herein are about finding your true self outside of our purportedly real world.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 25d

Hmm. Definitely not long enough for any of those titles. What's my title then?

A mirror selfie of Paul Czege. He has dark framed eyeglasses and a close cropped beard with some grey in it. He's wearing a backpack and a heather grey t-shirt.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 25d

From The Ink That Bleeds:

A screenshot from page 21 of The Ink That Bleeds, by Paul Czege, which says:

I’ve been thinking a lot about why currently journaling games are having their moment. There are collections on itch.io with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of journaling games in them.

I’ve heard it suggested it’s because of the Covid pandemic; people aren’t interacting socially for face-to-face RPGs during pandemic restrictions, so they’re finding an interest in journaling RPGs. But, no. Face-to-face groups switched to online with each other. Conventions switched to online.

With journaling games it’s that the time is right for them for other reasons, like it was right for storytelling games when they surged. We live in a world of pervasive untruths and unreality. I
think increasingly people don’t feel confident they know how the world works. The narratives and themes we’ve built our culture from don’t feel true anymore. Our storytelling instincts can feel programmed into us.

(And that’s because they are.)

And if we feel like our own storytelling instincts might be suspect, then how do we accept the storytelling actions of others if we play a storygame with them? They are just as installed with narratives that aren’t true as we are. In the narratives of the

A screenshot from page 24 of The Ink That Bleeds, by Paul Czege, which says:

This is why journaling games are having their moment. Playing them isn’t exiting the temporal world for circumstances where your life plays out with fantasized rewards. They are acts of purging ourselves of narratives that aren’t in our interests and enlivening ourselves for the temporal world, and we sense it about them.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 25d

The US Postal Service increased some pricings on the 12th and it skewed the stamp assortment way floral for mailing a copy of The Ink That Bleeds into the EU.

The stamps on a yellow envelope containing a copy of The Ink That Bleeds. There's a circular global forever stamp with a red poinsetta blossom on it, two two-ounce stamps with assorted flowers on them, and a 3 cent stamp with peony blossoms on it.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 26d

... we need to reincompass Epimetheus. It's like we've forgotten that his sphere is also perception! But you don't recognize art with foresight. You recognize it with afterthought. Epimetheus is how you experience wonder. Epimetheus is how you...

A sculpture of a young man in a classical style engaged in reflective thought.

Paul Czege@paulczege· 27d

Yeah. For papercraft. The ones made of animal bone are way better than the plastic ones.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 13

Burning car at the supermarket today. It was twice as engulfed just moments later when the fireman who'd just geared up walked to it and put it out in seconds. Whatever foam he used was phenomenally quick.

A silver colored car with the whole front in flames in a supermarket parking lot.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 12

Or maybe you already own it 😯

A screenshot showing how you might own The City I Love, It Speaks to Me from the No ICE in Minnesota or No ICE in California bundles on itch.io.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 12

Who's up for some #JournalGaming!

My hand holding a home-printed copy of The City I Love, It Speaks to Me, by Irving Benitez. I'm outside at a green-painted cement picnic table at a park. There are sun-dappled shadows on the table from an overhead tree and my composition book and orange pen as well.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 12

This movie was way better than I expected it to be. The way Jameela Jamil's narrator was a recurring encounter was fun and is nothing an AI could have come up with. Every actor was so perfectly cast. The lead couple and the other older couples had completely believable chemistry. None...

The movie poster for Love at First Sight, a Netflix original romcom based on a novel by Jennifer E. Smith, showing actors Ben Hardy and Haley Lu Richardson in front of an airport window with a plane in the background.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 9

Totally. Lots of just lists that don't make any sense once time has passed. Here's one of mine that's a little more, from when I was upset about Chadwick Boseman dying, but it's still not enough to design anything from.

Screenshot of a text file that says:

Lay To Rest

There are so many kings. And when they die we fight for a share of their power.
A true King walked among us for a while, and now he has passed.

You can't comfort the soul of a man of conviction and social purpose like Chadwick Boseman by telling him to rest in peace. He knows how his work is unfinished. He cannot rest without a knowledge it will continue in the actions of the living as he would have done it himself.

Only then may he rest.

Stats:
Colonist - they speak your language. you are in charge
Prophet?
Uplift - unwrite the narrative that's holding someone back, unwrite the context, silently

Bone
Integument
Chelatin

The stats divide you. Some characters will succeed as Colonist. Others with Humility.
Stat auction is The Mind

The game is not about fighting to replace the king, but about your efforts to continue his efforts with your actions.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 7

This is blowing up, so let me tell you who I am. I make journaling games. If you like to write, or wish you did, check my pinned thread. Start with The Ink That Bleeds, which is a "how to", or The Balsam Lake Unmurders, in which you're an agent pursuing a serial necromancer. bsky.app/profile/paul...

Journaling game/zines by Paul Czege in the grass. You can see The Balsam Lake Unmurders and The Ink That Bleeds, and Millennium Self, and Be With Me. and Vampyres Are People Too. They are colorful and fun looking.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 6

I'm at the point where I wish they'd just go back to using the top space in the results for a paid ad rather than whatever the fuck they're trying to do with AI.

A web search for "what is critical mass" showing the definition for the word "critical" ("expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgements") above the first link to the Wikipedia page for critical mass.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 4

Took my son to do the Home Depot kid craft today, which was this patriotic go-kart. We decided at the painting stage that it had been driven through Trump's reflecting pool.

A boy's hand holding a red, white, and blue go-kart model painted with some green splashes like it drove through algae.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jul 3

Two months ago when I was tabling my journaling game/zines with my son and his comics at DeCAF a woman came up and asked me procedural questions about The Balsam Lake Unmurders. She had bought it at a game store and gotten tripped up trying to play. I pulled up the image from the Kickstarter of...

A completed game of The Balsam Lake Unmurders. You can see a composition notebook and pen, and the rulebook, and playing cards laid out and labeled as victims and suspects and interactions where you learned method, motive, and opportunity to prove which suspect is the necromancer.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 22

Pride strata on today's hike.

Layers of distinctly blue, yellow, and red strata in an eroded area of the trail surface, probably as close to pride spectrum as you see in physical strata.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 22

How do you think they calculate "web of trust"? You edged me out by one star.

A "Bluesky License" for Paul Czege showing scores of one to five stars for web of trust, generosity, streak, engagement, velocity, and veteran. Paul has three in velocity, four in web of trust, and five in the others.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 22

Fuck yes it is. You didn't think I was right? Of course I was. #journalGaming

The top of an article from The Independent titled "The hobby that can rewire your brain and help you build resiliance". The subtitle begins "Experts say resiliance may be as ordinary as the journal entries people scribble..."

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 22

It's journalgaming. I don't even need to click through. It has to be. You know it is. #journalGaming #ttrpg

The push headline for an article on The Independent titled "The hobby that can rewire your brain and help you build resilience"

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 21

This is the diagram that got all the attention. The only person who tried to take it seriously was Vincent I think. Everyone else just gave pushback. I can't find the diagram on her site anymore, but her various blorb writings are here: idiomdrottning.org/blorb

Sandra Snan's diagram of blorb style RPG play. It shows relationships between prep, participants, characters, the "gloracle," and the "blorb".

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 21

I wish Bluesky had polls. There were lots of reversals on this one on Mastodon, pretty much right down to the end.

A completed poll by Paul Czege on Mastodon that asks "The only way to truly know a ttrpg designer". The results are 38% for play their games, 10% for read a translation of their long bio on legrog.org, 17% for find a cache of their nudes on the dark web, and 35% for talk to their enemies.

Paul Czege@paulczege· Jun 19

Dude wasn't afraid of me in the least. Didn't freeze. Didn't bolt. Just sat there looking right at me chewing on his feet.