Tales from The Sidequest Inn

Before I registered Sidequest Loot as a business, I was just some dude selling things on Facebook Marketplace.  I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it very much and I'm STILL not certain that it can be any way lucrative. As I pushed past fifty listings while rotating new products in to replace the ones that were sold, I wanted to at least try to take things a little more seriously.  A lot of this was following the things that I liked in other listings while avoiding things that I didn't like.  Sure, I could have read an article with a professional opinion - make that make sense - or look over an AI overview of suggested advice.  With my odd blend of items, some of those found helpful words weren't going to be much help. I applied my own logic and my own risk tolerance as a buyer.  Amongst the things that I liked were good, clean photos - but not TOO clean.  A picture of a perfect item with the background photoshopped out always made me feel like the seller had s...

The idea that I could actually do Sidequest Loot as even a side "thing" started back in December 2024.  Looking for a little extra money for the holidays, I parted with some of my childhood toys and games.  Mostly Transformers and Video Games. Ebay looked awfully complicated and expensive.  I wasn't sure of many of the others.  I had done some random one-off deals on Kijiji and found that Facebook Marketplace was quite similar.  Neither took any commission on the actual sales and there was no charge to list the items. Kijiji just felt somehow... dirty.  Can't quite explain it.  Maybe because I was looking for an outlet that felt a little bit less like a garage sale.  Besides that, it seemed that FB carried a much larger potential audience of users and hopefully buyers. I'll reference the two interchangeably because the process to use them is very much the same.  I listed on both items, a process called cross-posting.  Some dedication to ...

There’s a reason why a song, a smell, or even a sesame seed bagel can take you straight back in time. Not just in memory, but in emotion. Nostalgia isn’t just daydreaming about the past; it’s a scientifically proven psychological comfort blanket that our brains pull over us when adulthood starts feeling like too much. Researchers say nostalgia helps increase feelings of connection and optimism, almost like an emotional multivitamin. It’s our brain’s way of saying,  “Hey, remember when things were good? Yeah, you’ve felt joy before, and you can again.”  It doesn’t matter if the past wasn’t perfect as our minds have this beautiful ability to edit out the chaos and highlight the magic. It’s selective memory, and honestly, I’m not mad about it. For me, nostalgia hides in the smallest details. The kind that sneak up on you in the middle of a grocery store aisle or the first bite of something familiar. I can still picture myself in my mum’s Buick, when she said,  “You’d probabl...

Full disclosure: I have not been an RPG player in over 25 years. A sense of familiarity and perhaps personal nostalgia drew me to participate in a couple of Dungeons & Dragons themed events.  I recognized the community involved and could at least carry on a bit of a conversation.  As much as publishing companies have done their very best to ruin their game in new and creative ways (ask ANY player of ANY system), the core is very much the same.  This has nothing to do with anything that they print, the core is the ragtag band of adventurers that try to meet weekly.  Always has been.  Always will be. These groups are as close as any similar circles that you will find, like a golfing foursome or the same team that comes back every year to lose most of their beer-league games.  In roleplaying games you will act out of character and frequently in absurd fashion to help move the story along to a satisfactory conclusion.  Your fellow players might tease...

At this current point, it's fair to say that anyone other than myself or my loved ones is more or less a beginner at Turnabout. I've played it enough times with all the different colours that I know which is which. I play Turnabout more for the experience, so some are my preferred pieces because they keep me involved with the other players for most of the game. I think you could open up Turnabout today and start playing with friends and family using any colour. However, based on how the game goes and the nature of each player colour, I believe there is such a thing in Turnabout as "beginner" level player piece.  In order of beginner to advanced, here are the six different player pieces that you can choose to play, and why I recommend them for that level: Beginner:  1. Red - The Warden. Red is about as basic as can be. It avoids punishment when it lands on the red square. Other players don't dare to mess with it because it has less to lose in a duel. In turn, the r...

Turnabout is hardly the stripped-down game that it might appear to be on the surface. In fact, I designed it with the direct intention of exposing Turnabout's fun game mechanics for its nuanced underbelly rather than mask it with a veneer of fantasy or sci-fi. In essence, it is what it is, and I am more than sure you'll appreciate it for that very reason. No need to immerse yourself in another character in another world, no-no. Instead, you're you, having a grand old time with friends and family! Turnabout is FUN for countless reasons, but it has a candy-like investment that calls you in. Sure, as a marketing strategy, I worked to give it the appearance of a late-seventies/early-eighties board game that you'd find under the tree or by the fireplace one splendid Christmas morning. Absolutely, that was what I was going for, and I believe I stuck that properly on a pigpost for all to see. Gaze in awe, if you will, at the interior of the game, which may as well be a modern ...