#ttrpg contract

[publishinggoblin]

What Makes Confluence New?

Right now on Backerkit, Confluence: The Living Archive is in its final 11 days of funding. This is a Table Top Role Playing Game unlike any other, but not just for the reasons you might think.

Look, yes, it's a 6 book set with incredible art and layout and an amazing world to explore. This is all true. It's a true living world you get to dive into and experience at the table. That's great, truly!

But the thing that made Confluence different from any other project out there that I've ever heard of, is that in this industry, freelance writing for TTRPGs pays pennies on the word you turn in.

Some people were recently talking about how 10 cents per word is pretty good! You write 5000 words for a project? That's a nice $500. Other indie people were talking about paying 7 cents per word. But what they almost never offer is hourly pay, or pay for work you do outside the writing (including researching the game material you're writing for, or research for what you're writing!)

The Confluence Contract

Confluence has always meant the world to me. Truly. I tried to fund it and make it on my own multiple times in the past. When the Alleyman's Tarot was successful, I immediately wrote the contract with my lawyer for Confluence.

Everyone who worked on the project would make $25/hr for any work they do on the project. We would all feel we had equal pull and power here in that way, as it had to be collaborative.

Everyone would be paid an up-front Retainer of $10,000 if they were going to work part time, or $20,000 if they were going to work 30 or more hours a week. This was to alleviate current financial stress and give them space to explore the game with more freedom.

Everyone who worked on the project would share ownership with things they make. New cool mechanic? It lives in Confluence AND the creator can take it to their own games later. Awesome NPC? In Confluence and can be adapted anywhere else! I didn't want anyone to hold anything back. As far as I know, this has never been done before.

I did all this because, you see, I had an amazing team of people who came together to help bring this to life. People in the US, yes, but in Canada, the UK, Brazil, India, the Philippines. You can learn more and get links to them on the Pub Gob website here!

Do You Expect This to be the New Standard?

No, I don't expect all indie publishers to start doing this for TTRPGs. It's costly and not easy. But I want to stress that this is a unique situation we will likely never see again. And Confluence can only exist into the future with such an amazing team if we can step up support on the crowdfunding project!

This experiential game doesn't want to change the industry, but it changed the process behind the scenes already. If you believe in such a thing, a possibility for people to be paid fairly and have equal say and keep the rights for their works, consider believing in this project with us. Confluence needs your help to reach its funding goal, but it also needs your help to push further so the team can continue working in this amazing space to bring you even more materials in the future!

So check us out on Backerkit today!

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played THE CONTRACT ?

By Spencer Stecko / Sapient Snake LLC

The Contract RPG is a game based on ambitious characters who go on deadly missions to earn fantastic powers.

At the core of the game is each Contract-- a self contained mission (aka one shot) where player Contractors complete an objective to win Gifts. This system lends itself to easy, flexible scheduling that works for both traditional campaign groups or larger communities of players/GMs (similar to a Westmarch). While most games follow the default setting of modern, supernatural investigation, the rules are setting-agnostic and can fit a wide variety of styles/genres!

It's completely free to play, with an insanely sick website featuring all the rules, GM/player tools, and even character/power creation. I cannot understate this enough-- the website is phenomenal and does a way better job of pitching the game than I could, so if anything, check it out! https://www.thecontractrpg.com

The mechanics have a great deal of depth to them while remaining intuitive and straightforward. Its d10 dice pool system (Attribute + Ability, similar to WOD) is extremely easy to understand and flexible in play, while its online character creator and custom power builder. It's super easy to pick up the game and play from the get-go, while also providing a ton of depth for character expression and customization.

[tlwebb]

[speedfreak01]

Bat! Spider! Cobra! FUSION RISE! Citogenesis! Ultra-Genesis!

MAX THALLDRIVER! FOGHAR A LIAGA LOMHARA, KOUTAISHI GA CHAKUGYO! JADE! KAIRIKUKANTOU DE, FIAGAÍ AG SEILG! ANDREWSARCHUS! ALERT! ALERT! ALL THE BEASTS OF ELYSIUM! GET READY TO MAXIMISE! MAX DIAGENESIS! FOSSIL! COLOSSAL! IMPOSSIBLE?! FUTURERING CUCHULOMAX! CUCHULOMAX!

SO here's a couple of very important commissions, it's two of the final characters we came up with during contract riders, which i worked on with help from @irlnautica and @armouredswampert! here we have the Big Bad of the main campaign, Ultraman Caesar (or "Ultrasenan") and the mysterious Rider from the future (and from the "winter movie" sessions we ran after the main story), Cuchulomax (who may or may not be Dolmen's son), wielding the Hell Seizer!

if you want to find out more about these characters, you can check out our gm's convo with the lovely @illustrationsbychristina on her podcast Home for Wayward OCs, here!

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Dark Contract

"The Dark Contract" is just our funny way of naming a comfort agreement that we are putting into the Eureka rulebook, wherein players(including the game master) check boxes based on the degree of comfort they have with certain disturbing or potentially disturbing concepts coming up in-game.

So, we're asking you: Are there any concepts or ideas that bother you that you rarely see mentioned on similiar contracts?

Comment them here, or send us a message anonymously if you would rather not say them out loud.

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played THE CONTRACT ?

By Spencer Stecko / Sapient Snake LLC

The Contract RPG is a game based on ambitious characters who go on deadly missions to earn fantastic powers.

At the core of the game is each Contract-- a self contained mission (aka one shot) where player Contractors complete an objective to win Gifts. This system lends itself to easy, flexible scheduling that works for both traditional campaign groups or larger communities of players/GMs (similar to a Westmarch). While most games follow the default setting of modern, supernatural investigation, the rules are setting-agnostic and can fit a wide variety of styles/genres!

It's completely free to play, with an insanely sick website featuring all the rules, GM/player tools, and even character/power creation. I cannot understate this enough-- the website is phenomenal and does a way better job of pitching the game than I could, so if anything, check it out! https://www.thecontractrpg.com

The mechanics have a great deal of depth to them while remaining intuitive and straightforward. Its d10 dice pool system (Attribute + Ability, similar to WOD) is extremely easy to understand and flexible in play, while its online character creator and custom power builder. It's super easy to pick up the game and play from the get-go, while also providing a ton of depth for character expression and customization.

Its Kickstarter just dropped, making it the perfect time to hop in and take a look at the game!

[samuraiyeehaw]

I play in a TTRPG called The Contract regularly and this is dead-on my character's relationship to her adopted child (in all but name.) They're a living computer virus, cold and mechanical and selfish, but they're still a kid in a world too big for them.

My character saw that kid and made a choice to make sure they were loved, even if no one else thought they deserved it, even if they thought that the effort was wasted. It just isn't right to make anyone face the world alone, no matter how abrasive they might be.

"it's okay, i can peel back the layers of you until i find the soft and gentle core of you you've had to work so hard to hide"? no. no, it's okay, i know you're hollow; i'm here anyway. you don't have to pretend it isn't masks the whole way down. whatever face you want to wear, i still love you. i don't need you to be good or unflinching or the antonym of violence. if i did, i wouldn't be here. i wouldn't ask that of you.

[draftingtides]

It’s amazing how few people who put up contract postings actually want to talk to a witcher. The harbormaster of this little port city in Verden is an unsmiling man a head taller than Destrind, though that does not make him a large man by any means. He looks down his nose—crooked, like it was once broken—and says, “Your job here is to kill a beast, and nothing else. You will not go anywhere in this port without telling me.” “Sure,” says Destrind. He’ll decide as he goes how much he actually plans to abide by that. “Tell me about the beast.”

9.4k, rated T, case fic/monster of the week, cat school witcher oc

[alternamedia]

stardew valley board game so complicated but feels so good to play with friends

[highintlowwispod]

Hi-lo everyone!! The crew/stowaways of this Trainwreck are back in action, but so are their Green Cloaked Assassin Pals! Hold up, there's more of these cats? Just how many people are they sending after Marianne, and where are they getting all of these matching cloaks??? 

Asking for a friend who would also really like a green cloak... for non-assassin reasons.

Episode 14 “See Bee Tee” is out and available for a listen now! If you are also looking to find answers to these cloak-related questions you probably aren't going to find them in this ep friends. But! If you’re maybe looking for info on How To Calm An Iimish, what's the Airspeed Velocity of an old can of beans, or how thick a Gatorborn’s hide is we may be able to help ya out there. 

And as always, if the spirits move ya, feel free to leave us a review on your podcast listening platforms of choice! As our faithful GM always says “give us as many stars as you think we deserve or, if you're feeling generous, give us a whole lot more.” 🧡

[mornyavie]

I sometimes read the stuff indie RPG writers will put in a safety toolkit section and think like. Are you ok? Are you panicking about hypotheticals or do you play with a bunch of TV show bullies from the 1990s?

it's always so alarming looking at the notes on posts about people's cool experiences with ttrpgs and seeing the sheer number of people saying something along the lines "unfortunately this relies on the assumption that the players aren't huge shithead assholes who are actively trying to fuck each other over and make sure their gm has a bad time."

like. yeah, it sure does. that's kind of a baseline assumption for me, the same way that when I invite friends to a potluck I feel perfectly safe assuming that no one is going to spit in the food. do you guys actually like the people you're doing recreational activities with? blink if you need help.

[maegaasperion]

Show the Contract

Even though every role-playing game will come with its own unique set of rules that dictate what will happen and when and how, there will always be some set of rules that is unique among the group. This set of rules will not be able to be written into the rules by the designers, even though every person will agree to be bound by these rules regardless if they are aware of this or not. These rules…

[witchcatcreations]

Traditional doodles incoming!!!

First, you've got a batch of solo doodles that I slapped together- 6 Ladies and a Glaive, which is coincidentally my favorite new sitcom!

Then, you've got a Contract Devil from Pathfinder 1e! A friend sent me the official image as a sketch recommendation, and I said Hell yes! :D

Finally, a last few doodles, these of Nym and some garden sage

[gsllc]

Vlog: Acceptance and the ORC License #Copyright #OGL #TTRPG #RPG #Pathfinder #ORC #Contract #license #game #gaming #Paizo #vlog

If you enjoy this post, please retweet it and/or boost it. This is the second of my two planned videos about Paizo’s ORC license. This one summarizes the issues I raised in the last video, follows up on one of those issues, then discusses an entirely different topic. I take a side trek towards shrink wrap licenses, but as long as this video is (41:00), I tried to keep it as brief as possible, so…

[prokopetz]

I think we need to go further actually. Which ttrpg is the best at producing gm burnout?

(With respect to this post here.)

That's a fairly tricky question. As outlined in the linked thread, D&D5E is more prone to produce GM burnout than many systems which are objectively more demanding of the GM's time, energy and skill because of its toxic culture of play. There just aren't a lot of other tabletop RPGs that have both the ubiquity and the right kind of perverse incentives built into their play culture to pull that off – indeed, many of the smaller indie titles lack discernible cultures of play altogether, owing to how fragmented their respective fanbases are – and it's hard to produce GM burnout on the strength of a game's rules alone, because rules alone have no power to compel anyone to do anything. You've gotta get the GM trapped in a dysfunctional social contract to truly fuck them up.

Back in the pre-2000s era, I might have said RIFTS, but these days? It probably is genuinely D&D.

[thydungeongal]

Reading the playtest version of @anim-ttrpgs' Silk & Dagger (an RPG about dark elves navigating a society built on extremely byzantine rules of etiquette) the first thing that stuck out to me was the codification of, essentially, a co-GM in the rules: with one player basically having the role of making sure the characters are acting according to these rules of etiquette and deducting points for breaches of etiquette. And the player is rewarded for doing this, because the player acting in the "spider goddess" role accrues Favor which turns into Boons when enough of it is accumulated, and the player gets to transfer any Boons gained while acting in this role to their character the next time they play.

It's a really cool way of using mechanics and incentives to reinforce the theme: the game is about a society that really hinges on its bizarre social contract and people constantly scrutinizing each other's behavior. The system itself is hostile, so it makes sense for the game to incentivize really scrutinizing the characters.

It also makes me think of how few games actually account for rotating player roles in their mechanics. I have seen many games promote the idea of rotating player roles, but with very little incentive for doing so: the main incentive usually presented is "the GM should get to take a break every once in a while." The idea of rewarding a player acting in a somewhat GM-like role is pretty remarkable, because it's very rarely done. I have heard of some Japanese tabletop RPGs giving incentives for rotating GMs, but the idea of rewarding the player actually facilitating the game beyond the intrinsic reward of it being enjoyable is still quite rare.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing more of this. It's already inspired a few ideas that I might want to plug into my World's Best Dungeon Game (a weird mishmash of ideas borrowed from other games that represent the ideal, platonic form of the coolest dungeon game I could ever want). They're gearing up for an alpha release on itch.io March 10th, so look forward to that (and while you're at it go check out Eureka and the funny hedgehog game from these folks)