Casting Shadows

August 1st is scheduled to arrive in a few hours and for the next 31 days, there is a lot of positivity and creativity ahead of us on the topic of roleplaying games. I hope you are looking forward to seeing and contributing to it as much as I am. Useful, actionable, relatable positivity is a choice it is often too easy to turn away from. To get the prompts or some direct and specific questions based on them, you can check this post. To watch the launch video with our explanation of the #RPGaDAY2026 event and some ideas for participating in it, you check out this link to YouTube. Now is the time to double-check that everything is in place for an enjoyable run through this month of celebration and sharing.

Historically, most of my participation in the event has been here on the blog, with branches out to the podcast or the YouTube channel. Often, these have gotten quite lengthy and involved. Up until this morning as I write this, my intentions for my responses had been to do daily posts here and on YouTube for a group of character concepts or key points for each week, with each grouping being inspired by a different game. Given how unforgiving my schedule has been the past 6-months or more, I think as fun as that would be, it runs too much risk of taking more time than I might actually have. While I could do the event solely as Shorts on YouTube, I am not a fan of that format and I think deep down I personally associate my involvement with RPGaDAY with the written word.

As a result, I wrestled briefly through my hearty breakfast with notions of what to do instead. I considered posting just to Bluesky or just to RPGNet, but in the end I decided that I would post here in a more restrained way – with moments of abandon.

As we went through July, I have been going back and forth in my mind about whether I wanted to approach the prompts normally, or to explore the option the format allows this year and focus in some way on characters and character generation (chargen). Each has their appeal. We haven’t done this sort of focus on character before and I would like to explore it in the context of RPGaDAY where the point isn’t so much about making the character, explaining the rules, or demonstrating the process, but on celebrating what you enjoy about the game or games you share. This is not like the other chargen challenges out there. It has its own nuance and like the other innovations which have varied the event over the years, I want to enjoy it. That said, taking on these prompts as open-ended windows into the hobby is quite appealing, too. In the end, I have chosen to respond to the prompts through the lens of character creation – a mix of both approaches.

My Plan

My responses will be mainly about one game per week and I am defining August as being 31 days spread across six weeks. The first day is a one-day week. Neat. Each week will get its own focal point game, and I will highlight how the prompt of the day matters in character creation for that game. Each week will get one signature character and any subsequent posts in a week will be for NPCs in the life of that character. I will be using a D7 (or smaller die for shorter weeks) to determine which day of the week will be for the full character. The filter for the week will be in use as well, to shape some of what I focus on in the game or among the array of characters in the group for that week.

That means that for Day 1, which is the entirety of Week 1, I will be looking at Chaosium’s Rivers of London RPG and presenting a character I have enjoyed playing and hope to be able to play again. Look for that post on August 1st. You can watch the character get played in the video below.

Which Games?

I am not choosing an order now and probably won’t settle on a final order until the midpoint of the event. However, as noted in the launch video, I will be using David’s game WILD, All for One: Regime Diabolique, Vagabonds of Dyfed, and Space 1999. I am leaving a spot open for inspiration or to be used in the other short week of the month.

I hope you will join me here or take note of some posts I make on these subjects on Bluesky or elsewhere. I will certainly be using the #RPGaDAY2026 hashtag to search for yours~