Clayton

This is a new introduction thread for myself. I'm Clayton Notestine ("note-styne"). I'm a learner, reviewer, and design writer in tabletop rpgs. I make tools and resources. This thread is my current list of favorite articles and projects on Explorers Design.

🚨 Surprise Halloween Release!! I decided to drop SQUIRE - my "order 66" solo survival game. Blends Star Wars & 40k into a dark, challenging solo survival TTRPG. On sale for the week of Halloween! bardlight.itch.io/squire

And now for something completely different. My entry for the "How to Be a Good Player" bandwagon. www.explorersdesign.com/50-excuses/

I just like to bully my colleagues into doubling their rates, but Clayton actually lays out a process and essential advice for pricing your freelance work.

My jam is mentioned! Yay!

This month’s design newsletter might have the most jams of any Explorateur in the last two years. October is always a busy month. www.explorersdesign.com/the-explorat...

#Noir-vemberJam MENTIONED!! Thank you @explorersdesign.bsky.social www.explorersdesign.com/the-explorat...

I’ve been thinking a lot more about freelance design and how mystifying it is to most people, especially if you came through the proverbial back door with rpgs. Today, I’m thinking about the three most popular pricing models and my thoughts on them. www.explorersdesign.com/working-desi...

Earnest Hemingway would have loved Steely Dan.

Here are 5 covers I liked this month. One of them doesn't even look like an rpg cover. It looks like junk mail. www.explorersdesign.com/covers-sept-...

[ ~ Where grief stirs, spirits linger ~ ] Dive into the kaleidoscopic fantasy of Beneath the Floating World, a Carved from Brindlewood game of psychedelic zenpunk exorcism ~ Uncover twisted truths, face supernatural horrors and navigate your mortal woes . . . sandroad.itch.io/restrain-ref...

I met a really cool printmaker this morning at the Maine Book and Print Fest. James Sylvester. Someone should commission him for their Mörk Borg, Shadowdark, or Dolmenwood book cover or art. www.jamesylvester.com

If I had the space and funds, my rpg bookshelf would be a two-story library with multiple rolling ladders. Instead, it's this. I really need to figure out how to display my zines. That's where all the weird stuff is.

The Soloist is back from Summer break! #soloRPG

Musings about the industry. Talks about the town. Caning my shins. Playing the bagpipes. It's a new issue of the Explorateur; a newsletter of design links by game designers for game designers. www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

Heck yeah. Good. I can't wait to see what the line up is.

Mothership Month is back this year, with one big caveat: no crowdfunding, no new releases. Instead we're investing back in the community: For starters: the Jump-9 Writers Grant will invest $9k in 3 new writers to help them each create a Mothership zine. www.failuretolerated.com/mothership-m...

I'm trying out Cosmos, a Pinterest-style website, and I'm looking for accounts to follow. My page here: www.cosmos.so/explorersdes... Tell me what you think of Cosmos, too. Should I be using Arena, Designspiration, or something else? I love Dropmark's tags but the load times are debilitating.

In a bonus episode of Between Two Cairns we discuss the Ennies (2026). The "winners" and the "losers" alike! Join our patreon at the Weird Little Freaks level to listen. www.patreon.com/posts/166407...

Do you like maps? Do you like game design? The latest post by @exeunt.press is a great primer on how to think about maps so we can design better ones: www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/maps-as-data

Maps as data and graphs, part 1. www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/maps-as-data

There's a lot of overlap between this article by Skeleton Code Machine and the basic tenets of urbanism and urban design. What makes a place feel like a place? What makes a map *feel* real and intuitive—even fictional ones? Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks. Great read!

Reading this was like getting to see a future where I die. A very funny post for people who dig too deep into online rpg discourse: whosemeasure.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-n...

The challenge that pretty much every secular designer has not overcome is that religion is rarely, and only temporarily, top-down. It is maintained, cultivated, and shaped by its believers.

A short musing today about religion in fantasy worlds, childhood, statues, fish trophies, The Chicago Bulls, pancake breakfasts, and a dog named Scott. Hope you like this break from the usual. www.explorersdesign.com/religious-by...

For the weekdays-only crew.

I wish I had read Clayton's introductory advice 7 years ago. And there are some great posts again this month. Check out the pieces by Valeria Loves and To Be Resolved. Plus, incidental companion pieces about play by Murkdice and myself.

the ennies were never designed (see @explorersdesign.bsky.social for more on this www.explorersdesign.com/ennies-3/) but have been playtested for over 20 years. if tweaks aren’t enough to fix consistent problems, at a point you need to admit your game isn’t for everyone—it favors a specific audience

Woke up hungover after winning gold at The Ennies for Best Kiss. Anyway, here’s this month’s Explorateur. Only the freshest links from July. Two really fun reviews. My new favorite podcast. And three thoughts on layout from me in the upfront. www.explorersdesign.com/explorateur-...

I like any dungeon crawler that makes having a torch fun. That's my litmus test. Does this feel like a Swiss Army Knife? No? It's probably not for me.

An argument for human connection masquerading as a book review. valerialoves.com/why-didnt-si...

It's always cool to hear one of my old posts resurface! www.explorersdesign.com/turn-the-she... Character sheet's looking great!

This is in a coupla hours! Am gonna talk about my playtest of Seven Part Pact a while back, playing a wizard who absolutely *refused* to be a magical freak, and was murdered by the magical freaks around him! (He deserved it.)

Back when I started Explorers, I probably had a readership of about 50 people a month. This post is from then. It's a list of common mistakes disguised as theory. If your readers are getting confused, these laws might explain why. www.explorersdesign.com/gestalt-laws/

I think this is less a wild take and simply a good one. I recommend making your running headers hyperlinks, but why stop there? Page numbers are a good thing to leverage as well, and if you're using master pages, it's one of the easier techniques to execute.

Another post thoughtful post from Clayton means another wild take from me: Consider hyperlinking your running page numbers to the table of contents.

A short piece on the power of hyperlinks this week. If you're designing for digital and not using them, you're leaving one of your format's greatest strengths on the table. www.explorersdesign.com/how-to-hyper...

Well this blog post was nominated for a @critawards.bsky.social... so that is freaking rad graftbound.com/2026/01/20/g...

Good Luck Press is up for 2 CRIT AWARDS! for best solo game, please follow the link and vote for @smolghost.bsky.social's subterranean solitary freakout UNDERNEATH. for best multiplayer ;) game, vote for seb and I's anthology of intimate, sensual games for bodies BETWEEN THE COVERS

I'm not participating in this year's Appx. N Jam, but if you're bored and want to look at some old pulp/pulp-adjacent covers, I have a Cosmos board with 300+ images. www.cosmos.so/explorersdes... Be prepared for some premium schlock, shock, and yeesh.

Clayton's blog is a treasure trove of resources for RPG creators and this post is no exception.