Tabletop rpgs and thinkin about game design by Adam Vass (they/he). Worldchamp.io
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In terms of conflict resolution gimmicks in tabletop RPGs, dice are always a classic, but I've also seen playing cards, tarot cards, party spinners, dominoes in both their matching-game and tip-them-to-make-other-dominoes-fall-over modes, coloured beads, coin flips, chess boards, dance-offs, stop-watches, Jenga towers, guessing games, public speaking, fire, knives, candy, baked goods, and in one notable case, a dildo covered in edible glitter which players compete to thwap with those little rubber sticky-hand things. I've played games which employ these devices in ways which emphasise random chance, games which employ them in ways which emphasise player skill, and a game whose method of resolving psychic powers was once criticised for affording unfair advantage to characters whose players are actually psychic. Though there's inevitably a sense of trepidation when pushing the boundaries of one's medium, I promise you, whatever goofy conflict resolution method you've come up with for your indie RPG probably isn't even the weirdest one to be published this week, let alone overall. The usual crowd is going to sniff and harrumph at anything that isn't "roll a twenty-sided die plus modifiers versus a flat target number" anyway, so fuck 'em – do it for you.
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BLOOD BORG is funding on Kickstarter now for two and a half weeks :) a gutter punk urban fantasy with dumpster diving vampires and xeroxed zines of blood magic.
An attempt to distillate a lot of the feelings of my 20s: freedom to explore and find yourself, fear of who that self might be, sadness and anger at the world that doesn’t care about you, and power in finding your people and working towards making your life better.
Plus you can drain cops of blood to cast magic spells soooo hyfr.
Compatible with Mork Borg/Cy Borg but a standalone badass hardcover book of its own.
BLOODBORG.COM
#indie ttrpg#ttrpg design#ttrpg#vampires#vampire the masquerade#mork borg#urban fantasy#beggartok#kickstarter#ttrpg community#la dispute#true blood#lost boys#near dark#vampire movies
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I've been trucking away all winter on my next big project, BLOOD BORG, and I'm one month away from hitting go on Kickstarter IT'S LIVE ON KICKSTARTER NOW so I wanted to share it here.
Blood Borg is a vampyric gutter punk ttrpg built on the sturdy back of swedish doom metal rpg MORK BORG, inspired by early 00's vampire media like True Blood and Buffy mixed with punk nihilism like SLC Punk and Uncle Peckerhead.

This game reflects a lot of similar themes of one of my favorite other releases, Cybermetal 2012, in that it focuses on the lives of everyday people who are objectively not heroes who struggle to survive in an antagonistic world. Cybermetal was intended as a reflection on my 30's and current way of life: finding community and trying to do good by one another. While writing, I sort of discovered Blood Borg is a reflection of my 20's: the idea that we are young forever and never going to die, running through alleys at 3 am to nowhere, pulling day-old bagels from the dumpster like we discovered gold, and yet feeling the discordance of chronic mental illness compounded by the regular pains of growing up and the futility of fighting back against the inaccessible systems that run the world.
A longer more involved artist statement is one of the hidden stretch goals for this project, I'm excited to write at length about what these things mean to me and how they are cooked into the systems of the game.
I'm really proud of Blood Borg and it does what a lot of my games aim to do: engage philosophically with what it is to be a person in a society, the importance of support communites, the otherness of being for better or worse, all while simultaneously being a gonzo blast of a game that is fun as hell to play.
APRIL 9, Blood Borg launches on Kickstarter. I'll have the beautiful hardcover book, a screen-printed variant cover, a bunch of fun merch, and more available. Visit bloodborg.com to pre-save and get notified on launch.
Blood Borg is designed/written by myself, Adam Vass, and illustrated by Mitchell Van Dyke in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
#ttrpg community#ttrpg design#indie ttrpg#horror art#vampire#true blood#buffy the vampire slayer#vampirism#ttrpg#vampire the masquerade#crowdfunding
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Been loving reading this and dying to play it sooner than later , greed is good
A reminder that GREED is out there! A full-fledged mean-spirited hair-brained original OSR game (and, chronologically, the final one). Home of the JOHN F KENNEDY class, a combat system in which every time you roll a 6 on a d6 your target instantly dies, horse riding mechanics based on Meyers-Briggs compatibility, and much, much more.
It comes with an adventure module, a free comic/short story, and everything you need to run it.
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Home Game
I wanted to do some zine-y things to celebrate zine month this year that didn't involve crowdfunding, perfect-bound books, hundreds of dollars, or the other sort of weird misappropriations present in the annual kickstarter-run zinequest event.
My solution was the Zine Month Alternative Jam on itch, a place where people could publish stuff that was scrappy, unfinished, hand-drawn, not-for-sale, or otherwise more inline with collaborative and artistic zine culture. I had planned on making a couple things that, thanks to a bout of the worst mental health i've had in years, won't come to fruition in time for the jam, but I did manage to publish one thing: HOME GAME!
Home Game is my solution for a problem that's never come up, the idea that I have a group who wants to play an RPG but we don't have a system or setting at hand. The rules of Home Game fit on one page and fold up into a little four page zine. It uses a couple pieces of tech from games I like, such as Cthulhu Dark, Clink, and more mishmashed into a simple little system that does kinda exactly what I want.
It's released under creative commons, so you can use the tools here freely and do whatever you want in regards to hacks. It's also free to download and print at home.
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As usual, I've got all kinds of games ideas in my head in a hurricane, but I'm trying really hard to focus on my upcoming vampire gutterpunk game BLOOD BORG, it's hitting kickstarter April 9th and you can pre-save it here:
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Hello Tumblr!
I am Adam Vass, I design, illustrate, and publish tabletop rpgs as World Champ Game Co. since 2016, including such absolute bangers as the stoner metal science fantasy Necronautilus, the wonderful cartoony halloween adventure Babes in the Wood, the scumbag retrofuture Cybermetal 2012 and many many more.
All of my games are available in print at my website:
With my best bud Will Jobst, I co-host the Brain Trust RPG podcast, where we talk design theory and philosophy almost every week. We even design full games on-air, including the award-winning This Discord Has Ghosts In It.

Going forward, I hope to use this space to tell you about my new projects, revisit some old ones, spout some theory, and bounce ideas off folks I meet here, let's goooo
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Hey, I wrote these words! This is maybe my weirdest game tbh, the format, the setting, the all of it, but its a blast. purchase the print/download/watch it played below!



funniest "what is a ttrpg" section I've ever read.
Aether Operations by Adam Vass/World Champ Game Co.
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