Work-In-Progress: The Potato Game Post
The Big Game
Welcome back to a very special edition of Blogstones. Introducing THE POTATO GAME (Work In Progress). The Quick-Start Guide is now available on Patreon! Time is short to join in the creation process before the kickstart begins, so don’t hesitate to get on board!
The Potato Game is a customized adventure module, Gnomestones first release, and our love letter/ransom note to the OSR/NSR. In our playtests, we have found the module to be a barrel of wacky fun and a team challenge with engaging strategy and tactics.
The Kickstarter will begin in August, but if you want access to the finished draft of the game before then, you can join the Patreon and download it from there. After the Kickstarter we’ll be releasing it in A5 hardcover for OSE, Cairn2e, Gnome, and system-neutral versions.
The Potato Game is all about vaguely satirical nostalgia for classic gaming. Let me tell you about our mechanical and aesthetic choices:
The Vision: At the heart of The Potato Game is a resource management dream. We embrace ration-tracking by setting the terms of victory: 100 potatoes to win. Each gnome eats one potato per day.
From our artist Goose The Setting: Our game is set in the idyllic countryside, a classic backdrop for the beginning stages of adventures. But this time the pastureland is a dire wilderness, and each step forward means more exposure to the capricious and territorial giants that infest the valley. This is because the players are all gnomes, and they’re there to steal potatoes.
The Gameplay: Set on the hexmap below, The Potato Game can serve (and be solved) as a standalone hexcrawl, an emergent TTRPG sandbox, and/or as a narrative funnel. We included charts and hexrules that emulate a classic boardgame style. As the gnomes roam the countryside, they’ll dig for potatoes using the Potato Chart, steal from farmhouses with the Heist Mechanic, run and hide from Encounters like farmers, ferrets, and worse, and still find time to beg on the road and fish in the river!
The Player-agency: Tired of setting your players to be heroes, only to watch them scoff and fumble their way to the glory they never wanted? The Potato Game fixes that. Here you set your players up to be thieves, perfect conditions for them to grapple with their own untethered moral compasses. They’ll decide who to steal from and who to offer restraint, and then when all justice seems lost, the game coerces them into being heroes anyway.
The Design: The Potato Game is a group effort, designed to reflect your favorite OSR and NSR products, while remaining a uniquely Gnomestones literary effort. We’re receiving art from several creatives in the OSR and NSR communities, and we’re still recruiting more. We’re looking for black-and-white illustrations, inspired by folklore, classic TTRPGs, and 20th century books.
From the PDF
Support Gnomestones and follow progress on The Potato Game:
Did you know you can get an early-access PDF of The Potato Game by signing up for the Gnomestones Patreon? The first ten supporters will get included as a gnome in the Gnome d100 resource included in The Potato Game.
The Potato Game Kickstarter is coming in August. Contribute to the cause and be a part of bringing this vision to life. You’ll receive a first-edition hardcopy of The Potato Game as well as access to other exclusive benefits. Stay tuned on Substack.
We are seeking to include a number of OSR community artists (prompting our need for a Kickstarter). We still have a couple of paid commission slots open for the pre-kickstarter art, and happily welcome donations. If you’d like to hop on board, send us a message on Bluesky, or email us at gnomestonesgame@gmail.com.
If you’re interested in joining a playtest, join the GNOMESTONES discord, and follow us on itch.io!
Thanks for listening. Until gnext time on gnomestones.