Here it is, my semi-regular check-in for October 2026. Thanks to some questions from the chat, I covered nothing I planned to and everything I didn’t. This beast became a three-hour marathon about designing mechanics, handling unusual actions, timekeeping, wilderness and town mechanics, and even how to use AI tools in your research, but never, ever to produce content, because I never do. Everything I design, write, and publish is made for humans by humans. That’s my promise.
I also explained how I “did the math” to prove my calendar was the axiomatically correct one.
Here’s the complete list of everything I covered and when…
- 00:02 — Personal Check-In
- 00:06 — Catching Up and Moving Forward
- 00:09 — Patreon’s Subscription Change
- 00:14 — New Tension Clock Tools
- 00:15 — A 3D-Printable Tension Clock?
- 00:23 — Why the Tension Clock Matters
- 00:24 — Town Mode and Diffuse Actions
- 00:36 — The Tension Clock as a Time Grid
- 00:39 — Wilderness Travel, Twilight, and Danger
- 00:41 — A Language for Time and Risk
- 00:47 — How Much Gameplay Does Hunting Need?
- 00:52 — Lightweight Mechanics for Climbing
- 01:00 — Hunting, Foraging, Gathering, and Searching
- 01:05 — Random Yields and Push-Your-Luck Hunting
- 01:12 — Searching, Uncertainty, and Time Pressure
- 01:20 — Researching Real Activities for Game Design
- 01:23 — Using AI for Research, Not Design
- 01:26 — Wilderness Mapping and Design Workshops
- 01:27 — My Rules for AI Use
- 01:36 — Designing Better Gathering Mechanics
- 01:40 — Secret Search Checks
- 01:49 — Designing from Real Decisions
- 01:51 — Hunting Tournaments and Emergent Adventures
- 01:57 — The Problem with Predetermined Skill Checks
- 02:00 — Slapdash Wilderness Mechanics
- 02:01 — Simple Crafting and Commissioning
- 02:04 — Progress, Failure, and Crafting Catastrophes
- 02:10 — Pricing Magic Items
- 02:17 — Magic Items in Settlements
- 02:20 — Villages, Towns, Cities, and Population
- 02:23 — Why Settlement Generators Overcomplicate Things
- 02:29 — Encumbrance and Inventory
- 02:34 — Designing from Lived Experience
- 02:36 — Searching for Your Keys
- 02:38 — Why Crafting Failure Makes Sense
- 02:39 — The Perfect Fantasy Calendar
- 02:42 — Six-Day Weeks and Six-Week Months
- 02:44 — Unequal Fantasy Seasons
- 02:46 — What Seasonal Length Says About the World
- 02:49 — Building a Larger Timekeeping System
Oh, and because I mentioned it in the chat, I hunted down that documentary series about The Outer Worlds’ design. It’s worth a watch or listen.
You asked if listeners would like an “evening with Angry” where you will ask your robot buddy for help with research, then use the results to develop a mechanic. I would love that!