Tabletop RPG Publisher
Deep immersion. Moral tension.
GM: Optional.
Experimental tabletop RPGs where every player shapes the story. Sometimes there's a GM. Sometimes there isn't. Always, there's creative authority for everyone at the table.
Now Publishing
Games
Experimental games, deep immersion, and stories where every player shapes the fiction. Sign up for the newsletter to hear about new releases.
The Roots of Soledad
A card-driven narrative RPG set in a forgotten South American village, where fortune-telling mechanics build stories across a full campaign.
Soledad is a place with coffee plantations and a black kapok tree that nobody talks about. You draw cards like a fortune teller, and what comes up shapes what happens next. No GM. Every session picks up where the last one left off, and the stories get more tangled the longer you play.
Published by NessunDove.
B-sides
Thirty-five experimental games from 2005 to 2017, collected in two volumes. The inaugural Hyperfictive release.
Mostly GM-less, mostly shared-authority, mostly short.
See B-sidesPartner Projects
Hexcrawl Series
Hexcrawl Campaign Style Guidebook
A practitioner's guide to running wilderness exploration campaigns. System-agnostic methods that work with D&D 5e, Shadowdark, Cairn, Dragonbane, and anything else you play. Read it in one evening, run your first hexcrawl next week.
- Exploration turns, hex mapping, encounter tables, faction management
- Complete starter region: The Thornwall Frontier
Hexcrawl Encounter Design Guidebook
Every encounter should force a decision, reveal the world, or create a real resource trade-off. Learn why sixty percent of your table should be signs, NPCs, and hazards instead of combat. Three worked examples walk through the techniques from first draft to table-ready entry. System-neutral.
- The encounter trifecta, layered tables, pacing across a full travel day
- Nine-question checklist for every encounter you write
Coming 2026: Book 3 — Worldbuilding · Book 4 — The Thornwall Frontier
About
Matthijs Holter
My tabletop RPGs give every player creative authority over the fiction. Most of them work without a GM.
Hyperfictive is a personal imprint. The games published here exist on their own terms, outside market categories.
On Substack, I write about designing these games and why shared authority changes the way stories work at the table.
Stay in the loop
New releases, design notes, and the occasional behind-the-scenes look at how I make games.
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