I'll be running three tables of Labyrinths & Liontaurs in a few days at Metatopia 2026, a game design con in northern New Jersey. As I've gotten closer, I've been prepping stuff. Here's some of that.
Above, those are the three events I'm running. The first session is just PC creation and leveling. The second is a level 1-2 adventure, and the third is a level 3-4 adventure. Here are the three event descriptions:
Labyrinths & Liontaurs: Character Creation — Labyrinths & Liontaurs is a free, full, rules-rich d20 OGL tabletop roleplay game designed for balanced play and amazing flexibility in character design, so that it is easy to make viable, good choices for both traditional and unusual PC concepts. In this session, you will test character creation, making a character and leveling from 1 to 5, without actual play. The complete rule set is available online for free at https://cayzle.com/LnL. Feel free to check out the rules before the con. If you like, you can play your character in the next session.
Labyrinths & Liontaurs: The Hero's Path I — Come try Labyrinths & Liontaurs, a free, full, rules-rich d20 OGL tabletop roleplay game that prioritizes exploration and interaction as powerfully as it does traditional combat. You'll test new mechanics including Lionheart Points (intended to balance out random rolling) and Respect Points (meant to encourage social interactions and roleplay). This session covers levels 1 and 2. The complete rule set is available online for free at https://cayzle.com/LnL. We'll have pre-gen characters for you, or you can work with game designer Cayzle in a prior session or before the con to create their own unique PC.
[H] Labyrinths & Liontaurs: The Hero's Path II — You're invited to try Labyrinths & Liontaurs, a free, full, rules-rich d20 OGL tabletop roleplay game that encourages heroic story-telling, epic quests, and honorable deeds. In this playtest, try out new mechanics including Lionheart Points (intended to balance out random rolling) and Respect Points (meant to encourage social interactions and roleplay). This session covers play at levels 3 and 4. The complete rule set is available online at https://cayzle.com/LnL. Pre-gen characters will be available.
The [H] in the title of the third session stands for "hitest." The convention organizers say, "What is a hitest? This is an OPTIONAL focused session that we will work with you to populate with people best-suited to help with where you are in the design process."
For that first session, I've created a google sheet for tracking a PC's progress through levels 1 to 5. Check that out here. Making that document and explaining it to my best playtester made me realize that my multiclassing rules explained class special ability acquisition very poorly. So I rewrote those rules.
As you can see, I'm really pushing people to visit the L&L home page. And on rereading it, I figured there was a lot of room for improvement. I think it is pretty polished now: Check the game home page out. I'm especially pleased to have 86ed the AI art I had made for this page, and instead substituted a liontaur plushie tableau. Eventually I will swap out all the AI slop for plushie pix. You can see the best one on the revamped page, and here's an alternate I shot but did not use:
As I'm running all three sessions on Saturday, I thought it would be neat to wear a tee-shirt that was a match for my game. I managed to find an off-the-rack tee-shirt that seems pretty darn good. Check it out here. As a big cat made out of a maze, the design on this tee calls to mind both liontaurs and labyrinths pretty well.
I also thought about how I need to do publicity, at least a little. I was thinking about business cards and flyers. The flyers are still in progress, but you can take a look at the cards:
I'm thinking about making a handmade button that reads "Ask me for a free copy of my new indie RPG!" If anybody asks, they get a business card.
Yeah, I know, I got my phone number sitting out there on the open Internet. The many scammers who visit my site will find me a vulnerable target. Oh well. Maybe they'll also want to talk about my game. Dreams do come true sometimes.
Anyway, really looking forward to Metatopia, especially because when the con is done, I won't have to be anxious about it anymore. :-P
