Jesse Ross

Hi, I’m Jesse and I make tabletop RPGs. You might know me from my games Trophy, Girl Underground, R’lyehwatch, Sunset Kills or others (hedgemazepress.itch.io). I like smallish games where the mechanics reinforce the theme. I’m also a designer and illustrator and I do most of my own art and layout.

This is really worth watching.

Narrative TTRPG designers after spending months gamifying the worst feeling you've ever had

1990s Baz Luhrmann: "I'm gonna take that comedian kid from Super Mario Bros. & turn him into the sexiest badass who ever badassed & then give his character one of the most badass entrances ever filmed, and THEN he's gonna start talking all Shakespearean & it's gonna be even more badass and sexy!"

ꜱᴏᴘʜᴏɴᴛ, ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀᴛᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʙʀɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀ, ɪꜱ ɴᴏᴡ ꜰᴜɴᴅɪɴɢ. sophont.brittlestar.press <<ʜᴇʟʟᴏ, ᴄᴜᴛᴛᴇʀ. ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴꜱ ɴᴇxᴛ?>>

The full BINGO board, rules, and prizes have been posted in my discord server! The game officially begins on Monday, but folks can start looking at the prompts, asking questions, discussing, etc. today. Prizes you say? Free games are on the table!

Sprigs & Kindling Volume 8 is out! 13 new Short-form Carved from Brindlewood TTRPGs by amazing writers and all totally free! sprigsandkindling.com

If you prefer your flavor of Original D&D to be a bit more scholarly, check out the incredibly well researched Delving Deeper v5, now out in print-on-demand beta for just $7 USD: buymeacoffee.com/wote/v5-publ...

Second printing of Tourist Hole is now available via @plusoneexp.bsky.social! Bury your first-run copies deep in the ground so that they can never be lost. And then pick up one of these.

I uploaded my TTRPG essay from Sprigs & Kindling Volume 7 on how to use Carved from Brindlewood mechanics in Monster of the Week to itch. Free download! iamatrex.itch.io/what-can-hur...

<96> ʜᴏᴜʀꜱ ʀᴇᴍᴀɪɴ ᴘʀᴏᴄᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴇᴠᴀᴄ ꜱᴛᴀɢɪɴɢ sophont.brittlestar.press

We have locked down a place in what is quite literally the most perfect spot in the city. Any share leads to larger chances on hitting our goal. Feel free to share around!

🚨New AD🚨 When Trump tried to take over our streets with armed, masked ICE agents, he found out what Minnesotans were made of.

The Gauntlet is holding a writing contest for The Lands Remaining: The Taramand Sea. Runs through March 1st. Over $2000 USD in prizes! www.gauntlet-rpg.com/writing-cont...

Haunt-Along 2026 An annual tradition collecting a thread about a horror movie each day through the month of October. Find 'em all here. 🐈‍⬛

In The Big H you play small-time superheroes going up against their former idol, the ultra powerful Big H! A once compassionate hero who now rules as a twisted tyrant. Now available in pdf download at RPG Trader and Itch. Fantastic art by @jesseross.com

Oooo -- this is such a great idea!

a universal feature of the game designer working on a long project is that their next game wells up inside of them until it is physically painful

mukhtar ibrahim, founder of the sahan journal, and ubah ali, a former WCCO reporter, have just launched the somali brief, an independent media outlet where somali americans can tell their own stories www.thesomalibrief.com

Tourist Hole has been doing really well in retail shops and conventions … First run is sold out! So we're doing a second printing. It's a stark, whimsical exploration and escape of the stories we tell when we're in spaces between. If you'd like it on your shelf, contact @plusoneexp.bsky.social.

Join CD5 DFL (and me) next Saturday, Oct. 3 as we head to Winona State (my alma mater) to team up with Team Keith and Team Ilhan to help Jake Johnson flip CD1 back to blue. And if you can't make that one, we've got plenty more opportunities for you to help. www.mobilize.us/ilhanomar/ev...

This looks sick, just read the free version on itch and I'm gonna write pregens for it so hard

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

The Statewide Bicycle System Plan is at a critical threshold! Let MnDOT know that YOU want a fairer share of funding to be prioritized towards upkeep, improvement, and expansion of bike infrastructure in Minnesota! talk.dot.state.mn.us/statewide-bi...

NEW WILDWOOD TRAILER JUST DROPPED!!! I was in the department that built the wild-wood itself. Come see all our hard work! youtu.be/bJQGtSeLPII?...

Did you know... there's a new issue of Sprigs & Kindling out? The free fanzine for Carved from Brindlewood games? You get free Silt Verses content! Weird gods & weird followers! Plus: entire games! Amazing layout variety! There's a reason these folks were Ennie-nominated. sprigsandkindling.com

Hell yeah. Love this.

Latest Sprigs & Kindling just came out! I have a Trophy Gold incursion in it—The Frozen City—and there are tons of amazing Faith Sheets and Assignments for The Silt Verses RPG! Check it out at sprigsandkindling.com !!!!

NEW ISSUE OF SPRIGS & KINDLING I HAVE A SILT VERSES RPG FAITH SHEET IN HERE sprigsandkindling.com

These wings are absolutely exquisite. I'm in awe. m.youtube.com/watch?v=WT7M...

_PbtA to Z_ is a collection of Powered-by-the-Apocalypse moves. I wrote it for the _Making Moves_ jam, and just released it for free. It's here on my website, which also links to Itch, RPG Trader, and (soon) DriveThruRPG. games.natknight.xyz/pbta-to-z/

We're being told that if we sacrifice the rights of some people, then the rest of us get to keep our rights. We all know that's some BS.

Over 20 people showed up. Multiple people are helping to plan the next one plus other community stuff. Wow! Local shit is good.

Today! Come hang out, Twin Cities game designers! Broken Clock Brewing 5:30–7:30 PM

If you're in the Twin Cities and want to talk tabletop game design, come hang with us out tomorrow! Broken Clock Brewing Friday, September 11 5:30–7:30 PM

This Saturday (9/12) in Minneapolis, there's a cool West Marches-style session of Cloud Empress (my ecological science fantasy game set in the Midwest, thousands of years in the future) being held at the Greenway Glow festival. More info here: www.simpletix.com/e/greenway-g...

www.childcareforallmn.com

This old railroad bridge in taylr's video looks basic but has an important history, especially relevant this weekend. And the great new bike path through what was once inaccessible industrial land now allows people to (legally) see it up close. A bridge🧵!

Take a break from being depressed that everything you love is being destroyed by slop for a moment and let me tell you about the beautiful symbiotic relationship between graffiti writers, train yard workers, and model train enthusiasts.

Tom compiles a great list of inspirations and shows why “vanilla” doesn’t mean “boring.” Plus there’s this great quote: “In some ways the ideal space to be in a participatory artform is to be good enough to inspire and bad enough to get some people in the audience thinking ‘I bet I could do that’.”

Fuck you're welcome to buy MY game! #iHunt is such a huge piece of work for just two people. We put so many pages into that game. And pretty much everyone that follows me would have fun just reading it, not even necessarily playing. It's a game about poverty. But from the poor POV.

If you were going to teach a course on TTRPG design and (besides playing lots of games) could assign three books that *aren't* games to read, what would they be?

Have you ever wanted to visually compare the size of your favorite extinct animals? Now you can, as I'm launching an interactive size comparison tool on my website. Give it a try and let me know what you think: www.skeletaldrawing.com/compare/

Minnesota voters should have an early-voting strategy this year, and to help I made this FAQ. Feedback/questions encouraged. It’s aimed at Democracy Defense trainers who are informing/organizing voters, but we want everyone to do this work & uphold voting rights! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Jennifer Nelson’s entry to this year’s Minnesota State Fair crop art

really good thread and something i hadn’t considered strategically. donating to out state long shot dems could be the best bang for your buck in helping protect peggy, keith etc. especially when you know for sure they are doing the work. donating now.

A masterclass in how to critique – which, in the indie RPG space, is really 'how to explain that a book is worth the reader's time'.

I just grabbed a copy of PROXY and have only read to page 4 and I'm already sold.