From the Game's Foreword: Detritus is my first attempt at a 24hr game. The idea behind this exercise (based on Scott Mcloud's 24hr comic) is to complete a 24 page RPG in 24 hours (although the 24 page rule, like chivalry, seems to be more of a vague ideal than a reality for most designers). When I began I decided that I wanted to play with a few themes that keep recurring in my ideas; micro-epic scale, lighthearted fun, and gestalt play. Micro-epic was a word coined by a friend of mine to describe shows such as Hercules and Xena. Where kingdoms often seemed to consist of a few hundred people at most and entirely different cultures always seemed a few days walk away. I added some inspiration from the comics Gear by Doug Tennapel and Tales of the Beanworld by Larry Marder that have been rattling around in my subconscious for years looking for an exit and also the "Beer & Pretzels" fun of Ninja Burger and Kobolds ate my baby by 9th Level Games. Halfway through I also realized that two other strong inspirations were forcing their way in, one in the form of the painfully addictive web game Kingdom of Loathing, and the other from Creeks and Crawdads a beloved game of my youth (and the first I was aware of to use the beer & pretzels label). I took all these sources, dumped them into the blender of sleep deprivation and procrastination, and here you see the results. I consider this draft of the game a failure. While it could technically be called a game it is missing a lot of what I wanted to put in it and the remainder is clunky and inelegant. Several pages were deleted in a fit of annoyance at how little they resembled what was forming in my head, that entire aspect of the game (my favorite) will have to be reworked and rewritten. I do not however consider the exercise a failure. Poor time management and procrastination were my primary enemies and having fought them under these stresses I feel that I have gained a better understanding of these weaknesses and in the future will be more prepared to deal with them. Also several good ideas were given a voice (albeit a muffled voice, possibly in Esperanto) and I think I have a pretty darned good game in its embryonic state. This was fun and challenging and frustrating and I can't wait to do it again!