My Solo RPG Journey: Hey everyone! Read this first!

For those who want to work with me or are curious about me, this post is for you. And if you know someone who should contact me? Pass it along!

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

Hey there! My name is Clay and I run this here blog. I am also known as Terminally Nerdy on the web and have been known as that since 2016.

If this is your first time here and you are curious about my background, please have a look at this post. It's rather long but covers pretty much my entire “content creation” journey up to this point and gives you a good idea of my history. And if you are just a reader and want to see my current output on this here site then check out my post index right here.

If however you are a game designer, or just someone who wants to know what I am about then please read on!

In this post I am going to lay down a few things: My ethos with this project, the things I will cover and how I am willing to cover / talk about them, the things I will NOT cover, and how to contact me. All information here is subject to change of course, and the point of this is to give everyone who arrives on my little corner of the net an idea of what I am into and about.

First and foremost: I did not start, nor do I continue to do this project with the intention or desire to make money from it. I do not want your money, I will never want your money. Not you, dear follower, nor you, gentle developer. I once ran a patreon for years, and I did not enjoy the stress nor feelings it put in me. I have a day job I enjoy that pays my bills, and I do all of this as a passion project to bring independent and unknown projects to a wider audience, or to help change minds about projects. This is not a condemnation of people who do this sort of thing to pay the bills either. I respect the hustle. It's just not for me. Seriously, I appreciate any offer for monetary payouts but I have no desire for it.

Secondly, and importantly, this means that I can and occasionally will take breaks from this project. Please bear that in mind. If I get burned out, or have health issues, or lack time, things may take a while. I do not provide timeframes as to WHEN I might get to something. If I agree to do something, I will do it, but as to when? I couldn’t tell you. I do prioritize things with a combination of my own interest and a first come first serve basis.

Thirdly, I do not under any circumstances deal with Gen AI in any form. If your project uses it, do not waste my time. I have no interest in helping you destroy creativity and the environment with your bullshit. Go find someone else who is fine with it. And if you lie to me, and I find out you lied to me? Every person I know will be made aware of it and I will destroy the coverage I did of it.

If you want to see my current Workload / Coverage Plans, please check out this link. That will list out current review copies I have, the order I hope to cover them, and is constantly updated.

If you are fine with all of that, then let's move on!

WHAT DO I COVER AND HOW DO I COVER IT?

As to how I cover things, I have 4 ways to do so:

• OVERVIEWS / REVIEWS with Character Creation

First and foremost I do overviews of systems, with included review commentary, and character creation. I will break down in plain language how your system works, the rules of it and what your core rulebook (or box set) includes, and then at the end I will create a character with the rules included. I will include pictures if I can, the character sheet filled out at the end, and so on. A good example of this is this post. This is one of my primary types of posts.

• ACTUAL PLAY Posts

My second most common type are actual plays, and these usually follow an Overview of a game. I will play one or more sessions of the game in question, breaking down my dice rolls, my narrative framing, my decision making, and anything that confuses me. These are done in real time, with me notating everything that has popped into my head or what happened as it happens, including instances where I have to ask the games creator for help when possible. I may not play your game right as well. A good example of this process is this post right here. As a note, I do not promise any length for an Actual Play series. It might be 1 single session, it might span more. It depends on how much the game grabbed me, how much fun I am having, how busy I am, and all sorts of factors really. I will say character death will always end it, however. Additionally I will only do APs if I think I can solo the game. If I am not comfy doing a solo run I will never consider an AP.

• DEVELOPER / GAME CREATOR INTERVIEW Posts

These will only happen once I have already written about your game, either as an Overview or an AP. I will not do random interviews. I have a format for these, and if you are interested in doing one mention that when you contact me. But I will make the final decision on these. Generally I want to try your game / system first so I have some extra questions to ask. Additionally, these are purely text based and are done via Google Docs. I post a series of questions, you answer them, I create more questions off your answers till I run out of things I want to ask. Once we are both happy, I post it. An example of this is this post.

• UNBOXING Posts

Frankly these are the rarest of the type of posts I do as they usually require a box set to actually happen and I don’t see that happening all too often, given the price of physical products. But should you have a box set you want me to break down and then do an overview on, I am willing assuming you want to send it to me. An example is this post.

WHAT DON’T I COVER?

There are, in fact, things I have no interest in covering for this project. First up, anything for a core rule system that I have not covered. If I have not covered the base core rules please do not ask me to look at your product. I will have no basis for understanding. Any book that is pure fluff. I am sure your setting is cool, but if it doesn't have interesting mechanical stuff like alternate classes or skill systems, I have no interest.

Additionally, anything for these systems is right out:

• Dungeons and Dragons (any edition)

• Anything Powered by the Apocalypse

• Daggerheart

• Savage Worlds

• World of Darkness

• Shadowrun

• Call of Cthulhu

• FATE

• Blades in the Dark

• Pathfinder / Starfinder (any edition)

• 4 Against Darkness

• RIFTS

• Gurps

I feel these have enough coverage already and my voice is unneeded, or I just don’t enjoy them.

Finally a note about Genre. I am a person who enjoys magical powers or abilities in my games. Pure historical stuff is generally something I am not super interested in. If its fantasy, sci fi, cyberpunk, urban fantasy (my favorite) or has some sort of unique powers to the characters or abilities I am very interested. If just historical without a hint of “magic” I am most likely going to pass unless it seems very interesting.

And again, anything involving any form of Gen AI in its construction or creation is also not wanted. Please do not waste my time. You have been warned.

WHAT DO I NEED TO COVER YOUR GAME?

All I ask from you is simply a copy of your game or product. A pdf is generally fine unless it requires me to print it to work. I have no way to print and cannot really afford color printing constantly so if you are doing something that NEEDS me to print, please offer a physical copy to me. Additionally, do not send me anything unless I agree to cover it.

As a note I am in the USA, in Florida. This information is mostly for you to calculate postage if you need to. And please don’t break the bank on postage either, it’s really bad right now with tariffs and shit.

HOW DO I CONTACT YOU?

So, you got a few options here. You can leave a comment right here on this post or send me a direct message here on Substack. Those are perfectly acceptable, and I will respond when I am able. Please include links to your product in the first message so I can check it out.

Second you can contact me on Bluesky, my only social media page. You can just direct message me there.

Finally, and most importantly, you can just email me. My business email is terminallynerdy@gmail.com but I swear to god if you sign me up for a mailing list I will never speak to you. You can ASK and I might agree (especially if I want to keep up with your output) but again, you have been warned.

And I think that covers everything! Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you all soon!

Till next time.

Oh, and if you read this and think it applies to a game developer or contact feel free to pass it along. Word of mouth is the best advertising, after all!