#and being a ttrpg game master

[glitter-stained]

"Ascension to Godhood" that is not only at the cost of personhood like a price to pay, but purely the logical, inescapable consequence of godhood. The culmination of all your efforts to attain freedom into an existence that is devoid and has no use for the concept of freedom. Little is spoken of the agentivity of a plot device.

The martyrs and the ghosts haunting the narrative, the fairies and the monsters and the witches lurking at the end of the forest and the deus ex machina only written to wait for the hero to come and be awarded a quest or a curse or a choice or a boon.

You can't ever happen to it. The story either happens to you, or you become the story.

(This is a very old story.)

And of course, there is no other ending to the story.

[lichensings]

🌲🐺🍁🌕 for dillard?

okay so the funny thing is that dillard is the name of the town that my yearlong motw campaing was set in. second funny thing is that this campaign had its finale session five hours before you sent this ask in.

original character? no. original CITY. its heavily inspired (directly lifted) from the town i live in so i'm gonna be vague as hell about some things on here, and might just go on tangents about npcs when applicable.

🌲 - Do they have a favorite location to hang out in? Given that Dillard is a location itself i'm just answering this for the party. they would visit one member's arcane library (grad student office) every session to research the monster that week. my favorite location as the game master was the deep cavern under the city where a great dragon slumbers <3

🐺 - How does this oc deal with solitude? choosing to answer this from some npc's perpectives. first off the npc The Coyote bc of the wolf emoji for this question: likes it fine but CAN work with people. i just think its funny how when they went evil for a bit they were just hanging out and living in a mad scientists lab. there was a sitcom there off-screen i know it. also answering for another npc, destiny sr.: she doesn't like it. she's a professor who's been monster hunting for decades, and knows that safety in numbers is tried and true. when her last monster hunting bud was hospitalized she immediately recruited the party to try and help her. despite this, she is bad at talking to people and drives away everyone who cared about her who WASN'T in on the monster hunting (including her ex husband and daughter). she really should've gotten into rock climbing. it wouldn't have saved her (she totally died) but it would have been funny.

🍁 - What is this oc’s favorite season? since it's literally just the town i live but with magic and an excuse to make up buildings, MY favorite season there would be winter. summer so hot it kills you spring so pollen it makes your head explode. fall alternating between stupid hot and stupid cold. yes winter also sucks but its the most tolerable

🌕 - If this oc was an animal, what kind would they be? (if my city was an animal there is a clear answer but its so clear its personally identifying. so i shan't say.) OKAY SO. a dragon. listen in the worldbuilding dragons existed, but went exinct in the permian 250mya, and are insanely magic due to other worldbuilding (magical diseases and symbiotic organisms). one crash landed into the ocean, and the impact formed a cave where the dragon has just been hibernating for millennia, and throughout tectonic activity that area is now the town of Dillard. to me the dragon is the soul of dillard - its why there is so much weird supernatural stuff going on in there. and also if it ever wakes up and emerges that WOULD trigger the apocalypse. shoutout to the great beast pendragon ig

(this also makes the question below that one, "Very serious question… are they more like a dragon, or a unicorn?" very funny.)

[bitchy-gamemaster]

I have a lil' itch to have a PF2- homebrew podcast/recording the next time we have a campaign. I just don't know that I'm a good enough storyteller to have more than my players listening in. I mean, I said once that "it would be my dream to gm as good as Brandon Lee Mulligan, voices and all", one of my players laughed they apologized but, said they felt it was a little ridiculous. (I've been gming for 10 years on/off, already with mixed/inconsistent results based on my situation, environment, and if my players respect me or if I'm showing up to kill time. It hurt my feels but, I understand that I'm not as good as one might expect with my record.)

I have a lot of hobbies I want to take care of and it would be easier to record and post (maybe in costume cause I don't like my face -if we did visuals) than it would be to play then, re-write it like a novel. (Especially when I've been neglecting writing my actual novel series. 👀💧)

[neonparticle]

Put in tags the oldest TTRPG you've played.

[vivanightcity]

yall i am so fucking enamored with roots of pacha already and i just started playing.

[currently-dating-everything]

it's amazing that you started making headcanons!

Can you make hcs about romantic relationships with Chance?

A/N: Chance self shippers I know you're out there I'm shining a spotlight into an unruly sea

Character: Chance

Relationship: Romantic

TTRPGs are his love language, we all know this. You play G&G? He's all over it. He wants to hear ALL your opinions and all the crazy stories and hijinks you've gotten up to, all your character lore, what your favorite aspect of the game is, every single thought you've ever had about it- he could listen to you talk for hours and still want to know more, and that extends past talking about G&G.

Don't play at all? Know nothing about it? Great! He gets to explain it to you! You will regret this.

He'll try to make all his exposition easy to understand, but sometimes he gets caught up in the fixation and gets himself going on really hard to follow rants about the differences between sandbox and railroad campaigns, and the intricacies of his favorite classes (he loves playing a spellcaster, but has a soft spot for tank/fighter classes as well), and before you know it he's going a mile a minute talking your ear off, but it's always really sweet seeing him get so excited about the things he loves.

Speaking of love and tangents, he talks about you the exact same way. Every single object in the office knows everything there is to know about you because he's so easy to get going at the drop of your name. He loves talking about how smart and kind you are, how creative and funny, how much fun he has being with you and how cool you are. Lux has invested in earplugs because of this.

He's the type to wear accessories of yours if you have any. A scrunchie/hair tie/bracelet around his wrist with his various charms and dice, a necklace of yours tucked beneath his shirt, any sort of pin or clip that he can put on his collar- or even on his DM screen. He likes having a little piece of you with him throughout the day, even when you're around.

Sad to say there's no special privilege dating the dungeon master on this one. He's sweet as can be when you guys aren't playing, and even when you are he's still very considerate and attentive, but his cocky/mischievous side comes out a lot more. He's plotting to kill your character so sweetly. He wants to make your life so hard (lovingly).

Chance, at the end of a two hour long session: Wow! Wasn't that fun? You, who had your character dropped to 0 HP three times after your favorite NPC betrayed you:

Making G&G character sheets is a date activity, I stand by this. If you're not into it, he's happy to move on to other things, but there's something special about how much he lights up getting to do all the small calculations and slow sculpting that goes into building a character, and he can do it in his sleep, so he has no problem following you to other topics of conversation while he fills his sheets out. His fingers will probably be smudged with pencil led by the time you guys are done too, which is equally adorable.

It may not show all the time, but you've got him wrapped around your finger. He's such a "Yes, babe? What do you need?" kinda guy. He'll basically do anything for your attention and affection, and he's not embarrassed by it in the slightest (though he does blush super easily and very frequently because of it). There's so much he'd do with the promise of even a small kiss waiting for him, it's so bad.

He's quite physically affectionate, but struggles with knowing what you want/what's okay, and doesn't always have the courage to ask. He'll spend five minutes trying to find a subtle way to hold your hand or put an arm around you when you're not paying attention, then nearly jump out of his skin when you turn to address him. He gets better at it the longer you're together though, and appreciates you telling him upfront what's cool with you. He's also less nervous about being affectionate when he's really in the zone, or going on one of his tirades. It's a lot of grabbing you by the shoulders, squeezing your arms, looking at you with those big beautiful eyes while he talks about his homebrew ideas or the latest G&G news.

He blushes whenever you guys are playing and he has to hand something to you. "Oh...uh- you can borrow some of my dice if you need more!" Loser. Cast fireball on him and he'll get flustered handing you all those D6's.

Connected to the above, PLEASE show up him and kick his ass in-game, he finds it so ridiculously attractive. Defeat his big bad of the campaign and do a cocky one-liner and he'll drop whatever he's holding and lose the ability to speak. You'll never see his face as red as it gets when you do something cool in G&G.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Actually rather than writing a TTRPG itself in toki pona, I think something that could be interesting to do would be to make a TTRPG that literally just uses toki pona as its spellcasting system.

Like. You know how Dungeon Master (the 1987 CRPG) had a spellcasting system where you constructed spells by combining runes to describe the form and function of the spell (e.g. to make a fireball you combine the fire rune with the wing rune). It would be like that but with the freedom and flexibility that comes from being run on a tabletop game instead of on a computer in 1987. And the rules for how you construct spells would just be regular toki pona grammar.

[maximumzombiecreator]

I've seen a lot of posts recently where people say they can't find players to play non-5e TTRPGs with. As someone who moves countries every few years, I've had to rebuild my roster of local TTRPG players from scratch a number of times. Here's how I do it.

Caveats first: while I've done this in small cities, I have always done it in cities. If you're in, like, a rural environment, you might just not have enough interested people around. You can always do it online in that case. I'm not really going to cover finding players online, except to say you should probably look for communities for the specific system you want to play. Most of them are enthusiastically looking for new participants. Especially game masters.

Okay, first things first, you gotta find people. I generally find I get better results if the search is location first. That is, rather than using city-wide or regional Looking For Group type internet groups, I look for physical locations that host gaming groups. Local game stores, public libraries, gaming cafes/bars, etc.

Being location first helps avoid some common bad behaviours. Online LFG groups often have a few shitty people hanging around who can't find long term groups because they're shitty. They'll jump at the opportunity to join new groups where people don't know them, because everyone else knows better than to game with them. But location-based groups are better at filtering this. Someone who harasses people at an LGS can be banned from the store, but decentralized online groups struggle to handle these situations in my personal experience.

Being location first also solves the next problem, which is giving you a location to play. Eventually, when I have a long term group, I'll host games in my home. But there needs to be a level of trust before that feels safe, and we're looking for randoms, so for now we need a public gaming venue. If, for whatever reason, there aren't dedicated gaming spaces where you can do this, I've had the most success gaming in cafes or restaurants during off peak hours. I've run a bunch of games in restaurants from, like, 2pm-5pm on a Saturday, and as long as you're buying drinks and some snacks or something, and being polite and non-disruptive, it's typically not too hard to get permission.

Now, if that local group has enough interest in a non-5e system that I'm interested in running, I'll happily do that, and it's pretty free from there. Most people who are willing to play one other system will gladly try others if they find they like playing with you. But even in big cities, I feel it's pretty often the case that postings for local games of other systems don't wind up actually finding successful groups.

So, here is the bit where, unfortunately, finding people to play non-5e games with involves playing some 5e. Community groups are always looking for more GMs to run games, so I will set out to run a number of short 5e adventures, each with different groups. These are typically oneshots that I have the option of extending for another 1 or 2 sessions.

I always run adventures that I've written myself for these, because I want my particular GMing style to really come through. Looking for players is a two way street. I'm looking for people I like GMing for, but I'm also looking to make sure they know what they're getting. Especially if I'm going to ask them to play a system they've never tried, they should know that there's going to be something they enjoy. So, these short adventures are full of the types of silly but sincere NPCs I tend to run, the open-ended scenarios I prefer, the tropes I favour, etc. If someone isn't going to enjoy playing with me, I want them to know it from this adventure.

I structure the adventures to give me a lot of flexibility in terms of how long they run. They're nearly always mysteries, but with some active component to the mystery, so that if things drag or dawdle I can have the villain show up and force a final confrontation. They're also structured to have a natural "next thing." You find and defeat the villain, but there's an implied next villain you'll be going after. That way, if the group is working well and I want to continue, it's easy to present the option to the group. But if I'm not interested in continuing with the group, the next thing can just serve as an "and the adventures continue" implied epilogue, and the game still feels complete.

I don't like players just bringing their own character sheet to the table. Someone who brings a disruptive character can ruin a session without me getting much useful information out of it, other than that I don't want to play with that person. And if it ruins the experience for the other players, I'm often out the opportunity to game with those people, through neither of our faults. I've experimented with both asking players to submit their characters in advance or making them choose between a collection of premade characters. The former is a good check for whether people will put in a basic amount of effort and follow instructions, but it can dissuade people who are just looking to dip their toes into playing for the first time. The latter can turn off players who are into crunchy games and are excited about character building. As a result, I'll usually choose the approach based on what non-5e system I'm currently most excited about running. Do I want to get together a group for a rules-light game? Premade characters it is. Looking to run some PF2e? Please submit your character sheet in advance. Some locations also do more drop-in based games, in which case it's premades all day.

As I'm running the game, I'm observing the players. There's a simple vibe check, obviously. Do I like playing with this person? But I'm also looking at how they play. What are they here for, what's exciting them? Are they struggling with finding optimal turns in combat, or do they like mastering a system? Are they curious about the world, or do they glaze over when the spotlight isn't on them? Do they light up in dialogue scenes? Do they want to try crazy things outside of their on-sheet abilities? Remember, later, I'm going to try to persuade this person to try to play a game they've never played before. I need to know what specifically is going to excite them.

I have (always with permission) recorded sessions before to go over in making these choices, but honestly even just a few small reminder notes will help me unravel things later. If a session goes well, I'll ask at the end for people to give me their contact information if they'd be interested in playing again. Non-committal, at their comfort, and it doesn't single out people that I don't want to play with. I can always just not call them. Usually I find I'm interested in playing again with a little more than half of the players I meet this way. In my experience, it's fairly rare for a player to say they're not interested in playing again, TTRPGs rule and there's a DM shortage.

What I usually do is keep running these until I have enough people in mind to run something else, even if it isn't the system I'm most excited about. Probably it would be better to spend more time in this starter phase building up more connections, but after running like 4-5 5e adventures, I'm usually more than ready to run anything else, and if I have to shelve my Lancer ideas because I've mostly found crunch-averse players, I'm usually fine with that.

So, next comes the invites. Now, most players I meet this way will eventually be open to playing most games, but listen: you can put people well out of their comfort zone for their third TTRPG, but you gotta be real careful with their second. Most of the time, the game I'm inviting people to will be their first real exposure to a non-5e TTRPG. If they don't like it, they will run back to the safety of 5e and you will never get them out of it again. So I am very careful in picking the right system for the players I am inviting.

Whatever the new system I want to run is, I will set up a pilot session for it. I am very clear to players that I will teach them the system at the session, they do not need to know it in advance. Eventually, when I have a reliable group of TTRPG people to play with, I'll expect them to be able to pick up systems without a ton of help, but for players that are only used to the complexity of 5e, the idea of learning a new system is daunting. I rehearse the teaching of the game session. It's the only thing for TTRPGs I ever rehearse, but I want to know down pat how I'm going to quickly teach a new system and make it feel approachable and non-threatening. I'm also very clear that this will be a single session, with the possibility of turning into a campaign if we like it. All of this is structured to feel very safe. No initial learning required, no long term commitment, with a GM you already know you like.

But even as safe as that is, you still have to pitch the system. Why should the player be excited about playing this new game? Don't go all TTRPG nerd on them and explain all the details of the system, or use a bunch of jargon. Give them one or two things to be excited about with short, detailed anecdotes to back them up.

"We're going to be playing Blades in the Dark. It's a game where you play a gang of criminals in a haunted, steampunk dystopia. Every session you'll do heists, but instead of meticulously planning them, you start right in the action, and when you need to have planned for something, you can do a flashback scene to explain your preparation. One group I ran this for got busted by guards during an early heist, but used a flashback to create a scene where they had gotten a buddy of theirs a job as one of the guards, and he helped them out of the situation. And for some reason they fell in love with this bumbling goof I improvised to be the buddy, and then on a bunch of future jobs they kept using flashbacks to get him jobs wherever they were robbing. So this one idiot was just a de-facto crew member who worked a dozen different inside jobs despite being about as sharp as an eraser. And eventually they fucked up and got him killed, but they brought him back as a ghost, because you can do that in Blades in the Dark."

I find using a specific example of play really helps get peoples' imaginations going, which is what is going to help them say yes. And that example is tailored to what I know that player vibes with, what it is I think that makes them a good fit for this game.

The last detail about the invites is that I'm telling them, not asking them. It is not, "Hey, are you interested in playing this new game?" It's "I'm going to be running this new game. If you're interested in playing, please let me know what times work for you." If you're asking, you're going to get some "well but can it be 5e?" If you're telling, then they can choose to learn a new game in order to keep playing TTRPGs with a GM they know they like, or they can choose not to play at all.

Once you get enough yesses for a game, you run it, and then from there you're on your own. I think those are basically just friends you have at that point, and I'm not gonna tell you how to have friends.

Hopefully at least one person finds all that useful!

[anim-ttrpgs]

Why You Should Try Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Part 12: It Loves Game Masters and Teaches You How to Be One

This is part 12 of a multi-part series of posts about the awesome features of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, in no particular order.

Find the earlier parts here:

Part 1 Link: We Worked Hard on It!

Part 2 Link: It's Easy to Learn!

Part 3 Link: It's Easy to GM!

Part 4 Link: It's Easy to GM and Supports Narrative and Roleplay!

Part 5 Link: It Revolutionizes Investigation and Mystery Solving in TTRPGs

Part 6 Link: PCs are Not Just Mystery Solving Automatons

Part 7 Link: Excellent Time-Keeping Mechanics Keep the Pressure On

Part 8 Link: Fun and Easy Character Creation

Part 9 Link: Themes of Disability

Part 10 Link: It Has Intense Action

Part 11 Link: Oh By the Way We Made Turn Order Fast and Snappy Too

I know I already talked about how it’s easy to GM in an earlier part of this series, but I’m bringing that up again and going into more detail. You already know if you’ve read earlier parts that Eureka treats the GM as a player and insists that they should be having fun too, not just being an entertainer.

Even if a game has something called a “[game master]’s Guide,” we’ve found that these “guides” don’t really guide or teach you how to game master, they just tell you a bunch more rules. Eureka doesn’t have a separate book called the “[game master]’ Guide,” but it does go out of its way to teach you how it wants to be GMed every step of the way.

Eureka also has a whole chapter in the back full of additional GM resources such as optional rules, how to handle edge cases, game running advice, and homebrewing guidelines, guidelines for how to convert adventure modules from games such as Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green for Eureka, and more!

There’s even a whole step-by-step guide on how to write and publish your own Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules. Writing mysteries is really hard, but there’s no reason it has to be a mystery itself!

This, combined with how the rules themselves are presented with their intent made clear, means you will learn a lot about game design and game mastering just from reading the Eureka rulebook, whether you end up playing it or not.

The way that Eureka wants to be played and GMed may not work for every other RPG, but the truth is that every RPG has particular ways it wants to be played or GMed, but the designers rarely write this into the rules text. Simply seeing a game spell it out like Eureka does will teach you that, and teach you to look for the signs in other games of how they want to be approached. Like I said, people tell us all the time “Eureka changed the way [they] think about RPGs.”

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello!! Do you know any TTRPGs surrounding translation or languages? 😊 (thanks for all your work btw!!!)

THEME: Language / Translation Games

Hello friend! As someone who studied linguistics in university, I absolutely love talking about all of the funky things languages do! I hope these recommendations tickle your fancy!

Dialect, by Thorny Games.

Dialect is a game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. In this game, you’ll tell the story of the Isolation by building their language. New words will come from the fundamental aspects of the community: who they are, what they believe in, and how they respond to a changing world.

Dialect uses a deck of cards to help minimize the amount of choices you have to make in character creation, by dealing three cards to each player and having the players choose one from just those three. You track the change of your language over a series of turns, using prompts to help you navigate the conversations that arise in your community as the world around them changes.

Dialect has been very highly regarded as a game that really delivers on the experience that it promises. The grief that accompanies language death really shines through this game, so if you want to combine the wonder of creation with the pain of losing something so integral to your sense of being, this is the game for you.

Tiny Frog Wizards, by @prokopetz

You have mastered the secret arts of sorcery

The very primordial energies of creation and destruction are yours to wield as you will.

You are two inches tall.

Tiny Frog Wizards is a game about tiny frogs, wielding magic using the power of words. When you want to do something magical, you will roll somewhere between 1-3 dice, and use the values of your rolled dice to determine how the range, magnitude, and control of your magic.

What’s important in terms of this game recommendation is the Control aspect, because how well you are able to wield your magic depends on how many words you are able to use to make things happen! It’s a lot easier to use a spell with precision if you have enough words to detail where you want a magical pen to write, or what you want to throw a tiny magic missile at. Not enough words? Then the GM has license to cause some humorous side effects, or, if you roll poorly enough, cause your spells to really go off the rails.

If you like games where you need to choose your words carefully, Tiny Frog Wizards is worth checking out - especially since it’s in free playtest!

Xenolanguage, by Thorny Games.

Xenolanguage is a tabletop role-playing game about first contact with alien life, messy human relationships and what happens when they mix together.  At its core, you explore your pivotal relationships with others on the mission as you uncover meaning in an alien language. The game gives a nod to soulful sci-fi media like Arrival, Story of Your Life and Contact, but tells its own story. It’s a game for 2-4 players in 3-4 hours.

In Xenolangauge, you play as a group of people bound together through a shared past with unsettled questions. Your task is to understand why the aliens have come and what they are trying to tell us. You will soon discover the key to understanding lies in your memories together.

This is definitely an in-person game, as it is meant to come with a modular channeling board that will provide you with alien symbols that you will use to help you interpret messages. This is more than a game about language, it’s about relationship, shared memories, and connection.

Xenolanguage was kickstarted at the beginning of this year, but you can check out the above link to pre-order the game if this sounds interesting to you!

Star-Spawned, by Penguin King Games.

One unearthly night, a ray of colourless light descended from the stars, and under its warping radiance, creatures unlike any the world has ever seen were born. They do not know the world, and they do not know themselves. Unfortunately for the world, they're quick learners!

Star-Spawned is a GMless, oneshot-oriented tabletop RPG in which you don't know what your own traits do when play begins. The names of each group's stats are randomly generated using morpheme chaining, and characters are created while having absolutely no idea what they mean; figuring that out forms the greater part of play.

Star-Spawned is more about self discovery than it is about language, but the use of morpheme-chaining in character creation is intriguing to me. You will randomly roll three pieces of a word, and then chain them together to create a unique Facet, available to the players as stats. These Facets don’t have a meaning when the game begins - you need to play to find out what they mean. If you like playing around with semantics - the meaning of words - this might be a game for you.

Degenerate Semantics, by Mikael Andersson.

Degenerate Semantics is a role-playing game for 1-5 players and one Game Master (GM). The players will each portray a character who live in Emmaloopen's poverty-stricken lower city. They are young, wild, ambitious, and independent. This way of life is threatened by other factions, and the players will need to have their characters work together to survive and thrive.

In the process of playing the game, the players and GM will define and flesh out a language called Bandethal. A collection of street terms and slang, Bandethal is used both as a way to talk openly about illicit activities without alerting authorities and to establish street cred. The terms are liberally mixed in with plain English, or when the language is mature enough, can be used entirely on its own. The characters' success is in large part based on how proficiently the players wield the language.

A friend of mine ran this game for me three or four years ago, and it’s been sitting in the back of my head ever since. Degenerate Semantics was created for a Game Chef competition in 2014, and has remained in the same state since then. I don’t think there’s any more work being done on it, but the game is there for anyone who wants to give it a go - and while there’s a setting that comes with the game, that setting is highly flexible, depending on what your group is interested in. Our group decided to use a lot of gardening metaphors, and undertook a plant-based heist as our act of rebellion! If you want a game about the power that language can give a tightly-knit group, this is the game for you.

I've Also Recommended...

DROWWORD, by Ursidice.

[maspers]

Hundred Line as a TTRPG AU

Crap maybe this *is* my latest obsession. Anyway here's the AU where Hundred Line is a frankly insane tabletop game campaign being played by people who definitely had no idea what they were getting into. (Spoilers, obviously)

Takumi quite possibly had the most stressful time in the group's previous campaign, and was looking forward to something relatively more straightforward. He was also expecting to have significantly less of a role in the main plot, building a relatively simple Fighter character with a rather generic personality. He just wants to take a break, have fun with his friends, and not think too hard. Obviously this didn't pan out for him, and suddenly he's stuck dealing with being the centerpiece of the most convoluted plot known to mankind. He rolls with it, thankfully, but not without complaint.

Darumi has been begging the group to play a Danganronpa-style campaign for ages, and has finally decided to completely throw away subtlety with her character in this campaign. At first everyone is genuinely annoyed with her for doing this, but as the plot progresses and things get more complicated she starts getting more interested in what's actually happening in the game, which leads to her PC becoming more nuanced as things progress, culminating in some absolutely brilliant moments down the line that the group will remember forever.

Eito is a huge fan of playing very cliched character archetypes and injecting some personality into them to make them fun for everyone else at the table, so at first his character in this campaign seemed very on-brand for him... until suddenly All The Things happen and the rest of the group screamed at him for like twenty minutes straight. He just chuckles and comments that he's relieved none of the other players caught a glimpse of his character sheet earlier in the story and spoiled the twists ahead of time. Then he proceeds to continue playing the most unhinged character in the party. He also incidentally ends up having the most scheduling conflicts later on, but that doesn't stop him from still engaging in shenanigans every time he sits down at the table.

Tsubasa had been hoping to experiment a little in this campaign. When she learned the group had decided on aiming for a sci-fi setting, she thought designing a character around fighting in a vehicle would be interesting and unorthodox (it even required a bit of homebrew). Instead she ended up being this campaign's Only Sane Person, and all those mechanical Skills she got for the car ended up making her the only PC that can reliably do useful stuff outside of combat. She's at first a bit disgruntled about not getting more of the spotlight, but soon changes her tune when she realizes how insane this campaign is.

Nozomi actually wasn't originally part of this campaign, or part of the group at all, but she was a mutual friend of the group who'd expressed interest in playing. Plus, the group really needed a healer. So they let her join. Since she created her character after the others, she decided to give her PC a connection to the backstory of Takumi's character, just to spice things up a little. Since she's new to the game, the GM decided to help her out a bit too by sneakily telling her some of the plot twists in advance, but she ends up not needing much assistance. She takes to the game like a duck to water and soon reveals some really impressive roleplaying chops.

Shion is the campaign's Game Master, who has been working on designing this campaign for over a year and he is SO HYPED to finally show it off to his friends. He slammed the massive binder down on the table, said it was the outline for the campaign, and everyone recoiled in horror. But he'd proven himself to be a genuinely good and fair GM in the past so they were willing to give it a shot, and soon he had them all hooked. Which is good, because despite his massive collection of plans and notes somehow the group STILL manages to go off the rails and he has to improvise... which ultimately leads to him stealing plotlines from other genres.

The rest of the Hundred Line characters are NPCs, because despite them all being extremely cool having over a dozen of players in one campaign is a bit much. I considered Gaku, Kurara, Takemaru, and Yugamu as potential options for a sixth player but eh it wasn't the vibe. Yugamu might be Shion's GMPC? Perhaps most if not all of the NPCs are at least vaguely based on people Shion knows IRL. Gaku seems like the type of person who wouldn't have the time or patience to play with the group but he's still their friend or something so there's an NPC made in his honor.

They do in fact keep playing through multiple Routes. Shion asked everyone to keep backups of their starting character sheets "for reasons" which means implementing the "Special Review" mechanic isn't too difficult, and after everyone got over freaking out about the Day 100 reveals, they soon got really into the whole alternate endings gimmick. None of the group had ever played a campaign with a plot like this one before, and between Shion's extensive notes and everyone else's propensity for derailing things they can just keep coming back to this campaign over and over and over again whenever they have downtime. They all agree having the chance to explore the same group of characters from multiple angles is exciting. Even when they move on to other campaigns, the group often ends up coming back to this one to try out a new route in the form of a oneshot or twoshot game.

Other random thoughts on this idea:

When they finally did the Killing Game Route, Darumi literally shrieked so loudly from excitement that she shattered glass.

It's a running gag at the table that Takumi's character keeps getting love interests in each route. He's genuinely trying to avoid this, but he also cares too much about the game to deliberately prevent it ("It would be out of character!") and eventually he just groans every time another romance arc begins.

Honestly quite a lot of the game is the rest of the group trolling the heck out of Takumi. But he's a good sport about it, and they know not to go too far because usually the games are hosted at his place and he provides snacks.

Tsubasa didn't mean for vomiting to become a recurring character trait, it just kind of kept happening and soon she had no choice but to just kind of let it continue to be a thing. It really shouldn't be funny, but for some reason it never fails to get someone to laugh.

The entire Retsnom Route was Shion making things up on the fly ("monster" backwards? really?) and letting Darumi do whatever she wanted. It was nuts.

Shion does in fact do voices for all the characters, and he invented the entire Futuran conlang from scratch. He's very proud of it, but the players didn't really put too much effort into trying to decipher it during the first route so he just dropped it, disappointed. They didn't realize it was a full conlang until later on, and all of them apologized to him for not letting him show it off more.

The Cult of Takumi Route is this group's Noodle Incident. None of them will ever speak of it ever again.

Since this campaign was her first time playing this game, Nozomi ends up with a very skewed idea of what the game system is NORMALLY like. Now in every campaign she plays since, she's always way more paranoid about crazy plot shifts, even when it's someone else taking their turn as GM and clearly aiming for something more light-hearted.

Eito has never played a character like the one he plays in this game before or since, but because his character in this campaign was so jarring every character he's made since receives tons of side-eye and suspicion from other players. "I swear, I'm literally just playing a normal cleric this time, really! Can't you trust me on this?" "NEVER AGAIN."

Takumi has passed out on the table multiple times.

Everyone agrees Tsubasa is the MVP because of her ability to fix things and otherwise contribute to the party and plot in ways that don't involve combat or assorted shenaniganry. That, or it's because she always brings the food everyone likes, and is the one person actively trying to keep track of all the routes and points of divergences despite that having very little to do with her character.

Everyone has screamed some variation of "What even IS this?!?" at Shion at least twice. And "Are you kidding me?", as well as just exasperated screams and expletives. Shion just laughs it off.

Speaking of Shion, inviting a new player (Nozomi) was actually kind of a risk because Shion's games often have those "GM inserting their fetishes into the game for their own amusement" vibes. Shion isn't actually doing this on purpose, he's genuinely oblivious to just how Weird the Weird Stuff he puts in his games is, but while the group is used to it they're aware other people might get the wrong idea. Thankfully Nozomi's known most of the group for quite some time, so she kind of knew what to expect from Shion.

Just as how Darumi's wanted to do a Danganronpa campaign for ages, Eito has wanted to play a character wielding a scythe for ages. He's had the descriptions of Judge, Jury, and Executioner written down on a WIP Google Doc for half a decade, but in previous campaigns he either couldn't figure out how to make it work or it was just too unrealistic for the campaign setting (scythes aren't good weapons, really). But in this campaign Shion is letting the group do basically whatever they want for combat and Eito is ecstatic.

The whole "Nozomi stays by Moko's bedside for ages" thing genuinely caught Shion off guard despite most of the first route generally going to play, so he needed to make up the stuff about needing to get medicine in order to bait her away. The entire thunderstorm scene was a happy accident. Shion can't believe it worked out as well as it did.

Darumi actually made cosplay for everyone, and they all went to a local Con dressed up as their characters' combat uniforms. Quite a few people noticed and asked questions, leading the group to have to explain themselves and that their costumes were based off of their own TTRPG campaign that they'd been running for over a year and a half at that point. Someone recommended they try doing an Actual Play series. Obviously they couldn't do an Actual Play of their Hundred Line characters (since the audience wouldn't have context), but they still thought it was a neat idea, so instead their Actual Play series was Persona 2 (Darumi is GMing, Nozomi plays Tatsuya, Tsubasa plays Lisa, Eito plays Eikichi, Takumi plays Maya, and Shion plays Jun. And then when they do a second season for Eternal Punishment, Nozomi and Takumi are still Tatsuya and Maya but now Tsubasa plays Katsuya, Shion's playing Ulala, and Eito's playing Baofu).

"Shion I swear if you unfold your GM screen to reveal a laptop with a custom-programmed visual novel on it I will shove my water bottle down your throat."

Nozomi is not a violent person but over the course of the campaign she ends up slapping Eito in the face not once but twice. The second time was because he insisted on wearing sunglasses every time his character wore sunglasses, and pretending it was for the same reason.

All of the players vow to protect the Shouma NPC with their lives. Shion is baffled because Shouma's explicitly supposed to be a tank that soaks up damage and protects the players, not the other way around.

Each player has their own favorite route. Takumi's is the True Route, naturally.

[thydungeongal]

My experience with playing ttrpgs is that the role of the "game master" in modern ttrpg culture often has the expectation of being something like a blackjack dealer or a parent hiding the eggs for the easter egg hunt. Playing strictly non-hierarchical skirmish combat games really opened my eyes to how much more fun it is when everyone at the table is just *a player* and nobody has a disproportionate responsibility to craft a satisfying play experience for everyone else. I haven't read much of the AD&D rules but I get the impression that at the genre's roots this wasn't always as significant an issue. Do you think rulebooks in the future can do more to roll back this assumption??

So, to my understanding older editions of D&D specifically inherited the idea of the referee as an impartial arbiter of the rules from wargames, so while in many ways the early days of the hobby were all about putting a huge party of disposable freaks up against a gauntlet of challenges, the DM's purpose wasn't to leer at you from behind the screen and go hoo hoo hee hee at each PC that died.

Now, these toxic memes about GMs and players basically being in a constant competition of one-upmanship have been around for a long time and I don't think we'll ever be completely rid of them, but they tend to come in waves. And there are people trying to actively improve upon the culture: my personal contributions mostly amount to reminding people that, hey, the GM isn't a special guy you can just saddle with all the work of learning a game, the other players at the table should also make an effort; the people at @anim-ttrpgs just made a post about what the role of the Narrator is in their game, Eureka (and why they picked the specific term Narrator); and at least on the indie side of things there is generally a better culture of treating the facilitator/referee/MC as another player who is there to bring the game and work together with the others to make a cool story happen.

This also means that it is our moral imperative to go "That doesn't sound fun at all, why would you do that?" whenever people tell us their stories of just shitting all over their GM's prep or punishing their fellow players for perceived infractions.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

[pathetic-gamer]

Can you say more on The Burning Wheel? The information on the site doesn’t distinguish it much from other TTRPGs that I can tell, aside from being a D6 system. What makes it unique and worth playing? (You don’t have to provide a huge rundown haha I’m just curious!)

Sure! I tried to keep this short and failed miserably, but I'd be happy to expound even more upon specific things later, if people want more :)

(Please note that, as with any ttrpg, it would be hard to claim any of the things mentioned here are wholly original to The Burning Wheel. It would be even harder to claim that no other systems have used these mechanics or philosophies in the 20 years since The Burning Wheel came out. I am not going to claim either of those things - its the combination of them and the play experience they have resulted in for me that make it unique, so that's the angle from which I'm writing this post.)

So. why is it worth playing? How is it different?

I could talk about the skill learning system, the war rules codex, the whole concept of versus tests vs bloody versus tests. But to me, there are two main ways that it stands out from other systems: its treatment of role-play as a mechanism, and the overall philosophy behind the game's design, including the concept of setting clear expectations.

(using section headers to break up the text lol)

How it uses role-play:

The most obvious thing to point out is that there's a whole set of encounter mechanics for social situations or debates (Circles checks, Duel of Wits, etc.) - sort of the epitome of crunchy role play. But thats not what I'm getting at! What I'm getting is the fact that good role play is integral to the way the game functions.

Let's go back, all the way to character creation: When you're burning a character, you selecting life paths (page to squire to knight, etc.) with their associated skills and traits, then tie them in a pretty bow with beliefs and instincts to guide the character's actions. All of these things feed into each other to make a complete character. Easy! Familiar! We all know how to make a character, even if the numbers and labels are different!

What really matters to this engine once you're playing is whether the character you're acting as matches what you built. If it doesn't, the rules nudge you to redefine your character until it does through systems of rewards, penalties, and consequences. You are rewarded for sticking to and acting on your traits, beliefs, and instincts through different types of points distributed and voted on by fellow players, which can be used to alter the course of events or turn the tide of a bad situation later on. If you're not living up to a trait, on the other hand, you can lose it and all its benefits. (Took the fortitude trait, but ran from trouble one too many times? tough luck! the other players voted to take away that trait and now you can't call on it in moments of peril.) The beliefs and traits of a single character can end up at odds with each other, resulting in characters having to make choices that in other systems might seem insignificant or carry few lasting consequences, but here may alter the function of your character.

It's not all punitive measures, btw! One of my characters caused problems for everyone else by refusing to put away a weapon when someone else was in danger, playing off of an instinct that states he draws his weapon whenever his master does. After the session, another player suggested everyone consider nominating the Brave trait for him the next time we update them. As a character-type trait, it has no effect when rolling dice but does mean that henceforth and forevermore, anyone who interacts with him will notice a sense of bravery. Delightful!!

Also, the beliefs of different characters are practically guaranteed to stray from one another at some point, which is the primary source of inter-PC conflict. Because the mechanics of the game encourage and reward sticking to your beliefs or following your stated instincts even when it makes things significantly harder or causes problems, you're much more inclined to do it. As someone who is terrible at not slipping back into the same kind of character over and over again, I think this fucking rules.

I'm playing with a group of people I've been gaming with for almost five years, and this has opened the way for much richer dynamics between our characters than any of the other systems we've played, in part because as players we're less interested in acting on concensus to drive the plot forward. Working as one unit simply isn't the goal, and if it was, we would play a different system that encourages and rewards that.

the game's philosophy, aka setting intentions and also reading rules:

Now we're starting to get at the philosophy behind the game's design: It believes you have to know why you're playing burning wheel instead of literally any other game. This isn't a system you play on accident. It's admittedly a complicated game with a LOT of rules. It asks for a huge amount of engagement from all of the players, not just the GM - something like inter-PC conflict can only work well if everyone is on the same page (figuratively, but also literally lol) and ready to help adjudicate rules, ask for tests, discuss intentions, etc. Dream scenario for a chronic rules lawyer lol.

Obviously any game will be more fun if everyone has actually learned the rules before they start playing, but this is one where it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to play if most players haven't learned them, and deeply rewarding if they have. It really operates on the expectation that everyone is putting in work, and everyone has respect for the time and effort the others are bringing to the table.

It's hard to put a finger on how this all impacts play other than the obvious elegence of People Knowing What Theyre Doing, but on a purely emotional and meta level, knowing that everyone is investing so much time and effort to play a game with you is just.. idk, it feels special and makes the time itself feel even more valuable. In that sense, the satisfaction of playing the game isn't coming from the game itself, but is still shaped by it.

(In my mind, this is the #1 reason to try the game, but as @thydungeongal alluded to yesterday, finding people willing and able to do it is also the #1 hurdle to, like, actually having a good time. it would be completely miserable otherwise.)

Also, for a game that does not boast a collaborative nature the way some others do, it is honestly pretty fuckin collaborative lol. I don't know that this was Luke Crane's intention in designing the game, but closing out sessions by going through and grading everyone's work and giving each other glorified gold stars, you will inevitably end up discussing and dissecting things, learning from people's character work, and seeing where and how you can improve individually and as a group. It creates a table culture that values honest expressions of discomfort or dissatisfaction, and also of appreciation and celebration. It's after-care. It leads naturally into setting intentions and expectations for the next session. It just feels really nice!!!

That's obviously a table culture that can be cultivated anyway, and it's a practice my group has learned to be very intentional about facilitating, but it's just interesting how The Burning Wheel of all systems manages to support that. I think that's what the website means when it says playing this changes how you play other rpgs lol

So yeah, idk how much more to say and also I'm sooooooo so eepy and was like an hour late for work, so its a weird brain day. but there you go lol

[promethean-spe]

I will soon have the opportunity to play @anim-ttrpgs ’s Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, and already it’s character creation process has greatly impressed me! I firmly believe that a character’s interactions with mechanics are a reflection of the character as a person. Eureka is a game that I feel exemplifies this philosophy very well, and because of it, it prepares players to understand their characters better than other RPGs before they start playing. There are very specific reasons for this namely Eureka is very explicit about what it expects from players, it gives players impactful customization options and it gives mechanical significance to character choices.

Eureka makes what it expects of players very clear. The typical Eureka character is an average person, at least most of the time. They have to have 3 square meals and have to sleep at night, or suffer the very real mechanical consequences. The book dedicates a significant amount of pages to remind the player of this. At character creation this ethos manifests in 2 distinct ways. One is that the character’s total ratings for skills must be equal to the character’s total penalties. For example, you may have a 2 in firearms and a 1 in reflexes (a total of 3 ), this then means you have to assign a total of -3 to other skills. The other is a suggestion, not a rule, that players seriously consider why a character might have a points on any skills, and especially why they should have the maximum rating of 3 assigned to one or more skills. For context 3 is the highest skill one can assign at character creation and is more or less the equivalent of having 10 years of experience or a masters degree (it means characters will only fail 8% of the time!). The latter does something very important by inviting players to be curious about their character. It reframes the question “what can I do to get the best rolls in x?” to “why is my character good at x?” Together with the rules for assigning skills it in turn begs the question “why is my character bad at x?”. As I began filling out the explanations for each skill I even found myself writing in character! This resulted in things like “Everything is easier if no one notices me” to explain a +1 to stealth or “I’ll be blunt…” To explain a -2 to comfort. They’re little details but they help make a character feel more fully formed. In this way Eureka has players give their characters tangible reasons for being good at something and unwittingly think about their character’s flaws, and this is just the first step in character creation.

Eureka gives players meaningful character customization that can complement a character’s concept. The trait section is filled with traits that either change how core mechanics work for a certain investigator or add extra bells and whistles to already existing mechanics. This helps investigators lean into their strengths or even their flaws. I’ll give two examples with traits that alter how players earn a crucial in game resource, investigation points. The two traits in question are “Ask Questions Later” and “Just one more thing”. The former makes it so the investigator gains no investigation points from skill checks related to the investigation and instead they gain them for non investigative rolls. In essence this opens the door for characters whose core strengths are their physical fitness to shine! Is your investigator good at breaking down doors and restraining people but is otherwise not as investigatively minded? This trait allows you to lean into that! “Just one more thing” on the other hand makes you lean into your worst stats, by making you even worse at them and rewarding you for it. In essence all social rolls to an investigation, except social cues, get a penalty but you get more investigation points when you fail them. So if you’ve made a socially awkward or unpleasant character, it becomes a flaw you are now encouraged to bring into the fiction as often as you can. Whatever your concept is, there’s a chance that any of Eureka’s over 40 traits will give you a bonus for a character choice you made for mechanical or rp reasons.

Beyond just stats and traits Eureka cares about who your investigator is. I think all the mechanics I’ve touched on so far do that to a certain degree. But if one exemplifies this the best it’s Truths. A truth is a conviction your character has and, when they are adhering to it, they gain a +1 bonus to their next 5 rolls once per scene. It’s uncomplicated, and is not restrictive, your investigator is not expected to always act according to their Truths, but they’re very much encouraged to do so. The best part? By this point a player probably already knows at least one Truth about their character, i knew mine. Remember my character’s explanation for being stealthy? That was one of their Truths “Everything is easier if no one notices me”. This has more or less been my experience for every subsequent character I’ve made. Eureka more so than any rpg I’ve seen wants players to build upon their concept in a way that is coherent.

Many games claim to be “fiction first”. These games are usually very light in mechanics, which is justified because it allows the story to take center stage, so they say. Eureka is by no means mechanics light, but it’s so far the only game that has truly felt fiction first at character creation. I believe the game being opinionated about its own mechanics broadly helps in this regard. It sets up expectations that one can then work within to make their characters more believable. I’m very excited to get to play it

[efangamez]

Introducing: The EfanGamez Trans Mutual Aid Bundle!

TAP OR CLICK HERE TO SNAG YOUR TTRPGS!!!!

Hey y'all! I am a trans feminine nonbinary gamedev looking to start HRT in the coming months, and costs will be high for being uninsured AND starting new medication to help with my illnesses, so I need your help!

By reaching this goal and beyond, you can guarantee nearly an entire year's worth of HRT treatment. Anything beyond the amount would be used for housing, food, and clothing, all of which I would love to have help with. It's also my birthday this coming month, which is also an incentive, I guess!

Physical illnesses and mental illnesses have made it difficult to create this past year, and I am hoping with this big change to my life I can finally start living as my authentic self!

It's because of you beautiful people I'm still around today, so I ask you again to spread some love to Trans people and be a good ally / comrade today!

Here are some goals that I have if we reach certain goals!

$100 Goal: This will help some start up costs, including first doctor appointment and possibly first prescription.

- Reward: I'll host a game jam titled "Best of 2024" in January of next year where people can submit their best products made this year and can celebrate their achievements!

$400 Goal: This will help with going a bit beyond startup costs and can help start routine blood work tests!

- Reward: Previous rewards, and a free One-Page Wizard-Themed game will release about two months after this sale is done!

$1,000 Goal: This will really get us started on our journey, and can help us stockpile meds if necessary.

- Reward: Previous rewards, and I will release a sneak-peak of a secret cyberpunk project I have been working on for a while, and will release a BW, non-illustrated Alpha version in the next coming months!

$2,500 Goal: This amount will assist me in getting therapy alongside my meds so I can have as much assistance as I can on this journey.

- Reward: Previous rewards, and will release a setting pack for Disk Masters, my Pokemon-inspired TTRPG, that expands upon the world!

$5,000 Goal: This goal would help me thrive, assisting me with gender affirming clothers, therapy, a gym membership / personal trainer, and more!

- Reward: Previous Rewards, and will have enough money, therapy, and otherwise to make my life a better life worth living, and as long as physical illnesses don't wipe me out, should really ramp up production on the many projects I have in store!

Thank you so much for your consideration, and I hope that you can snag some games to help a Trans person out thus holiday season!

SNAG YOUR TTRPGS HERE!

PLEASE REBLOG!!!!