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Hey M, glad to hear you're excited about giving Tendon a shot. Appreciate you sending these questions too, as they give us a good idea of what we can improve on in the rulebook going forward.

1. By far the most consistent feedback we've had on Tendon is confusion regarding the map layout. (Something we're working on improving for updates) Here's a quick example of how it works for clarification: 

When you enter a new square in your player book that is not filled in, it qualifies as an Unexplored space and you roll 3d10 to generate the room. The room is the combination of the visual description, the harvest available, and the shape you get from the table. 

The "Navigable" label corresponds to the path you can travel up until the next Unexplored space. Anything crossed out with X means you cannot interact with it or generate a new room there. (In this example I've color coordinated them for clarity) 

In regards to Harvest and Seed, there is a new Seed per square, but the Harvest is tied to the 3x3 room you generated. This turns into each 3x3 space as a sort of micro-habitat in the largest ecosystem, making managing inter-Seed dynamics a little easier for your Nurse. 

2. Great question about overlapping hours, and I'm glad you like the asynchronous system! In our testing we've (so far) relegated it to house rules with how overlapping spaces are managed.

• Some groups have preferred having a single Graft that's reliant on communication for what each hour looks like, doing check-ins to see if someone has explored, say, 8am yet and if they have what it looks like so far so that someone else can pick up where they left off.
• Others lean into the weird elements of overlapping time, allowing room layouts and Seed to spill into each other whenever they run into a scenario like this. Of the two I'd say this is the more chaotic and deadly, since you're increasing the likelihood of propagation.

3. Multiple party members can contribute to a contested action if it's reasonable within the narrative. If, say, you're both using Force to heave a giant limb that's pinned you down, you'd both roll and use your pooled results to find matching numbers. (It's far easier for Nurses to die alone than together) 

In your case with multiple people attacking separately, then you would not combine your results and simply have them play out in order of speed. Here's an example scenario to illustrate:

• You and your fellow Nurse are within close range of a Seed as it barrels towards you. You both have a rifle-based tool that requires Touch to operate. For the Seed's behavior, you use its generation table as a baseline. Lets say this one has Sprinting, so you assume it wants to ram whoever is in their line of sight. In this instance, its you.
• You roll two 8s, your companion rolls four 2s. The Seed rolls three 5s. This plays out:
• Your companion shoots the Seed in the leg (2), and it takes appropriate damage. It stumbles, heaves forward and collides into your chest (5), knocking you back before you have time to fire your shot off.
• Next interaction begins. 

If any more questions come up during your sessions, feel free to send them my way. 

Thank you very much!

hey hey, 8x a6 pages gang. 

very clean work, has that sort of scavengers reign style swag where a relatively "light" art style is juxtaposed against gruesome topics. love to see it.

- having extra space to credit yourself and the fonts used in the booklet itself is a flex. i see u.

- read this as a .pdf but i appreciate how you set the cover up in a way where if someone were to flip this open they'd immediately get the x-ray version of it. very clever.

- no way this one also has piss in it. same hat.

- okay hear me out, how about instead of three flares, you get two flares. if im playing this with a two player party, that's 6 flares total for 5 rooms explicitly described as dark or infested, which makes them feel like a no-brainer to use frequently. bumping that flare count down a little would make using them feel a little more tense, y'know?

- the double meaning with "which it does with incredible delicacy" is fun. love the thin black crinkly tape in the cranium as well. lot of cool textures going on here.

- on that note: obviously there's the space constraint here to consider, but i would have loved a bit more contrast between the exterior and interior descriptions. those interiors all have lovely wet guts, but i feel like some dry, coarse surface descriptions would go a long way to really emphasize the difference between the two environments and the player's descent into the body. 

great work! 

love a weird west. first thought after finishing reading this was "this person must love Violence." scrolled down this comment section and grinned big n' wide when i saw that confirmed. 

thoughts:

- lets go, another beastman entry.

- the inverse auditory progression with jack's laugh is so sick. the idea of his laugh being this loud, constant echo in the canyon until he's a few paces from your camp builds suspense in such a fun way. "everyone's debating over what to do next when they realize its quieter than it should be" type beat. 

- considering jack is such a constant in this story, and his bite likely, i wish his infection were a little bit more difficult to cure. having players begin with all silver bullets feels like a missed opportunity to force them into desperate choices. right now the only choice they make is "oh if i've been bit, i have to sacrifice one bullet" and even that seems temporary. having a source of silver be in the mineshaft, or running along a group of shady ne'er-do-wells who offer up silver bullets at the cost of something precious feels like it'd add a nice layer of danger to the setting.

- on that point, i think there's value in a progression beat there as well. facing jack before you have silver bullets and after smacks of something almost resident evil like, where you shift from hunted to hunter. could be fun.

- i really like the detail of the graveyard being in eyesight of the old town. the three rolls players have the chance of landing for their manners gives this a lot of color. 1-2 confirms their suspicions, 3-4 will likely make them more resigned, and 5-6 will make spotting players digging up the yard feel like a proper betrayal. very cool. 

- alright i'm going to preface this one by saying i love a good gun name. its like a ship name. means a lot, y'know? one of the best gun names i've ever heard was calling one a "Persuader." i don't inherently dislike the name of the 6 offered, but part of me wishes they felt: a. little more tied to this specific setting and b. bit more evocative of a pistol. opium pipe i can see in terms of a long cylinder that offers relief, but cyanide pill doesn't really conjure up old west firepower and there's at least ~50 years before they become a concept at all. castor+pollux feels like its dying to be tied back to the central premise as well. i feel like the only connection there i can see as-is is your party and the skulls being too sides of the same coin, but i would've liked a little more to chew on there.

- i love that final illustration of jack. great bookend. the style in this module overall rules, too.

had a great time reading through this! 

a lot of very smart choices being made in this one. leading with the narrative, the order of houses, planting the house capacity seed right off the bat-- this is one of those rare cases of GM material that is as rich a text for them as it is for the players to experience. great work there. 

not to deride the jam's namesake, but there's an emotional intelligence and tone to this scenario that wouldn't be addressed in a lot of pulp. it's very subdued. the stakes are real, but no characters are grand heroes or adventurers, explorers-- you have honest folk trying to do their best in a storm. i don't think that alone makes it feel off-theme, but i think its your deliberate ambiguity regarding Hiruko's appearance that's the tipping point. it's a double edged sword, y'know? it makes this module more flexible overall, but loses that connection to the appendix. i don't think there's a wrong or a right call here, by the way-- just worth noting in the context of the jam. 

tying the opening watercolor description to the illustration was clever. i dig it. and the note on running the game was well put. you have a strong voice :) 

always happy to see more mountain resonance. really well executed escalation throughout the adventure. it's been interesting seeing how many entries have players restricted verbally in some capacity, i didn't anticipate my adventure being the only one, but i certainly didn't expect this many. 

this is one of those entries where i feel like it's hard to offer pointed feedback because of how consistent the vision is-- that anything i'd offer could potentially tamper with that. on first read through i thought that the 5th segment could use a more pointed conclusion, (not necessarily that the melody needed to be one thing or another, as all the potential sources are fantastic) just as a bit of guidance for the Warden. buuuuut after letting it sit for a bit i get where you're coming from by leaving it up to the story that emerges from the scenes organically. 

will be thinking about "a fucking-fighting phased couple" for awhile.

great work, looking forward to more. 

hey ursidae, this is cool stuff.

visually: very clean design, fun font choices that don't run into legibility issues, nice texture and color. all the off white and green-grays are very much my cup of tea. some other notes:

• ah-ha. a worm rougelite. (wormlite?) i like the spawn room. room of offering is classico too. the placement of the path of death feels a bit odd to me considering it's a few degrees more treacherous than five and seven with not too much in terms of pay-off. i feel like if i died in there to the 0hp tile i'd probably just head straight to the crushing ceiling or flesh eating worm pool for my gems instead.
• "ort village" and "hulgir" got nice mouthfeel. very appendix n. 
• as far as i can tell the rumor table is just flavor, and rumor 5 seems to outweigh all the rest in terms of mechanical importance. they also all seem true, which weakens their status as rumors and places them more in "loading screen tip" territory, y'know? having some rumors in here that are bad advice could lead players astray in a fun way.
• also just spitballing here, but it could be cool if the rumor table influenced the dungeon in some way, considering you only get one rumor. this could add some variety to the zine, since everyone's worm dungeon would be a little different depending on the rumor they got. 
• back to visual design here, but the way the text frames the map is very nice.
• a few pedantic text notes:
  • the worm pool refers to the worm chamber as the northern chamber, i'd recommend making these consistent for clarity
  • the flesh-eating worm pool is very similarly named to the worm pool. if this was an instance of the flesh-eating worm pool serving a similar purpose to the worm pool in-world but being corrupted in some aspect, i could see it working as flavor, but there's no real implication of this in the text itself. also "thick sludgy" for the water is kinda just "thick" twice, right?
  • with tense: in "the statues creak, a dull light flutters, as if something doesn't happen as intended" should be "as if something didn't happen as intended." and "the tall worm-headed figure will start barking out gibberish and attacks" reads as if the figure is barking out two things: gibberish and attacks, (rather than barking out gibberish and then attacking) 
• if i'm reading this right, it seems like the "correct" way to defeat the worm-thing is to destroy the statues rather than kill it, but doesn't it only drop loot if killed? how would players recover loot from a collapsed dungeon? is the intended idea here that it's a trade-off between killing the worm-thing the proper way and getting no treasure or killing it directly and getting treasure at the cost of potentially turning into a worm thing yourself? if that's the case:

• i like the loot table but i wish there was a little more sauce to the entries. you definitely have the space for it!
  • the hero's sword doesn't really feel like it's unique to this dungeon. a poison sword is all well and good, but it doesn't feel grounded in the setting, y'know? some ways to accomplish this could be:
    • the previous hero felled by the worm-thing had a poison sword and tried to stop the worms from taking over by stabbing himself with it. obviously it didn't work, but there's a split of worms in the dungeon-- some old and weathered, some young and born sick from his influence.
    • there's remnants of his path in the dungeon: the undead have poison in what's left of their blood, there's acid streaks on the floors, the four damaged worm statues are melted down, etc etc.

  • is the worm helm an actual worm helmet, or is it just a dead worm worn as a hat? the former implies a cult constructed it, the latter feels like it should run a risk greater than negative charisma-- can't be healthy to inhale that dead worm air.

  • the worm egg and worm urn are the best of the bunch! these rule, and i think the implication that a player could end up forming their own worm dungeon just by using these is great.
    

• hard not to think of ken russel's lair of the white worm with that finale. excellent pulp. 

had a lot of fun reading through this! looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future

obviously plenty has been said about how dope this art is, so i just wanted to note that the order in which you've organized it also rules. starts strong with the candle knight, introduces a fun batch of player characters, lures you into a false sense of security with the goofier candle demon design, then BANG scary candle lich. so sick.

other thoughts:

• having a paragraph be like "yeah this is basically a vessel for my cool wax mechanics, also i threw in some encounters and player suggestions for fun" has crazy power radiating off of it. respect.
• hell yeah to being forced to light turned villagers for survival. i think i made a similar note on the gravity plague submission but i'd love to see more pressure being put on players for this to happen. i'm all about giving people difficult choices.
• listen i respect going nuts with the font choices but there's a few spots where it gets a little too gnarly-- the heat check comes to mind as straining the eyes a bit since it's all narrow.
• i like that 13 triggers the lich encounter. part of me wishes the lich's body form was tied less to chance and more to a tangible timer, but i get why you'd keep it on a d6 for compatibilities sake. 
• again, this being a very cool mechanic you can just slot into another campaign rules. the prospect of leaving a peaceful town and finding it all waxed up when you get back instantly injects any setting with sauce. 

great work!

hey hey tackler, robin.

killer work! hope you don't mind somewhat scattered notes here, just pulling at what jumped out to me. 

- I think "any willing creature may take your burdens. most are unwilling" is a great concept and the core (for me) of what makes this entry so appealing. i think a little more visual emphasis on this would've gone a long way-- it feels a little hidden between the bullet points explaining burdens.

- all of the enemies definitely hit those appendix n. weird notes. i appreciate you tying them back to the light imagery. i feel like some of the religious influences mixing together (lotuses / golems) dilute their strength a bit. obviously no fictional religion needs to be fully grounded in reality, but specific religious imagery like that tends to be pretty load bearing when text is sparse, so that pulled me out somewhat.

- really dig the blend of aggressive and non-aggressive encounters / signs. i almost wish there were less opportunities to release burdens to force players to make more difficult decisions with who they unload on, but that's my sadistic gm side talking. 

- lot of details in each of these rooms, love it. the prayer hall feels a little bare compared to some of the later entries. two anachronistic bits in paradise bound didn't work for me. "scent like a hospital" and "static portal" take me out of the otherwise established medieval fantasy setting in a way where the dissonance doesn't feel intentional. the more i think about it the more i think it's the combination of the two back to back. hospitals aren't necessarily a modern concept, but paired with static it's hard not to picture a modern ward.  

- highlights: "the temple's sinking tore the skin off this place and left its bones behind," "a monk kneels in each corner, jealously watching the throng" and the refuse pit.

- last page being empty is a flex, i dig it. gives time for that "hand stays just out of reach" to linger after reading. 

that's the gist. very cool entry

been said plenty before in this thread but im a sucker for warmth mechanics. really grabs players by the lapels and thrusts them into your setting (along with the prose, of course.)

also worth noting that not only is the map layout here very well designed, but its done with a sort of confident ease that i aspire to. everything clicks into place seamlessly 

no way you also got monks and sin going on. this is sick

Hey Laura, appreciate the kind words and especially the questions. Here's the lowdown:

1. The rooms are placed on the player book grid, so 3x3 per room slotted together like Tetris pieces.

2. Good catch on this! The damage without a tool would be one half damage, but we've been debating adjusting this to make initial runs a little less punishing. I'll be more explicit about this rule in future updates.

3. If you're in the Graft when the hour changes, you roll for the new room you find yourself in, and for every room on your way back to the entrance.

4. What you can carry is more or less a house rule for now. I love encumbrance and carry limits myself, but I know others are less hot on that. If common sense makes sense to you, go for it.

Lemme know if you have any more q's! Always happy to answer them. 

Thank you! Always glad to see someone who can see the "lovely" in piles of guts 

All set, good hunting.

Thank you! I'll get a paged version of the material together for you tomorrow. 

Appreciate the recommendations! I'll have to pick your brain about printing once the time comes around

Thank you very much! We're planning on printing a physical edition later down the line. The first step is to expand on the current content so when we do publish, it'll be a nice thick copy. 

Tendon is a 40-page TTRPG zine for one or more players in which you play as Nurses: the bloody caretakers of a shifting biomechanical structure in the desert known as the Graft. 

It is also a roleplaying game in real time. The world moves on without you. Every time you pick up Tendon to play, you are operating within a brief window of control over the lives in Tanasul; home of the Graft and the only life in 100 miles of desert.

Every hour of the day corresponds to a new layout within the Graft, and the dice you roll determine the shape of the rooms and the life within. 

From this life you harvest three parts: heads, handles, and vessels. These are the core pieces of your tools: modular devices used in the Graft and sold in the market to earn your living. The parts could be:

• A spine to form your rifle's barrel.
• A calcified tongue for a hammer.
• A claw in your wrist to warn you of danger.

There's 140 different rooms and creatures within this zine, and countless ways to combine them. How many will die to create what you need?

Thank you! It was fun to format. One day I'd love to flesh out the tables with some visuals to go with the descriptions. 

Thank you!

Really enjoyed reading this one, and one of my favorite designs to come out of the One-Page Weekender this year. The combination of your type choice and the Robinson illustration centered grant it a certain elegance that compliments the tone and reminds me of my favorite fairytale books growing up.  

I wanted to give You changeling thing some time to sit before I came back and wrote my thoughts. So hey, here they are!

The family table is great. You give just enough to spark player's imagination with their names and roles, my favorite being Smith the former shipmate as the furthest outlier from the family. Big fan of the limited (but very intentional!) selection here.

The leading questions at the end of each journal entry toe that line of open but inherently tense that I really dig in a TTRPG. Very few feel like they'd be clear cut yes or no answers, and even those that are (like "were you near enough to overhear / were you observed") lend themselves to nuance with the unnatural insight potentially elaborating on them. Even if you lose an insight, the potentially vague implications of a journal moment carry momentum into the next. 

It's all very clever, and I'm a big fan of the confident, knowingly restrained writing. 

Looking forward to reading more of your work :)