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[chinmaster]

FOLKS,

[chinmaster]

The Far Roofs

So today I want to talk a bit about what this game wants to be. In particular, I'm going to go over its key technical and artistic goals.

The Far Roofs focuses on immersive hidden world fantasy adventure. It's intended to offer the experience of a grounded, emotionally real base world attached to an idealized, fantastic "hidden world" setting.

One might say, the streets and buildings and houses of the game's world are basically our own. Above us, though, is a stranger, more idealized, and more fantastic place. It's hard to get to. It's dangerous. It's less grounded. It's full of wonder.

Those are the Far Roofs.

This divide exists to make the game feel as real as possible, if you want to go that way. That's part of what hidden world fantasy is about, after all---the idea that magic is here. That it's not in some distant alien land or mythic future or past.

It's here, if you want to reach for it.

(Now, the game is flexible enough that you can play "protagonist" types instead of realer people, and many traditional gaming groups will probably prefer that, but that'll mean getting less of that immersive effect.)

The mood the game is interested in is that feeling you get when you take a huge risk---move to a new place; try a new thing. The feeling you get in those times in your life when everything is alienated and wondrous and terrifying but there's also so much more *hope* than there was in the still times before.

It's a mood of being swept up and called forward.

This is, among other things, meant to be a game for people who've been beaten down or exhausted by the ... everything ... to feel that sensation of moving forward again.

To remember what it's like, why it's worth it, how to reach for it again.

It's meant---and I do understand that I am finite and flawed and this can only go so far---as a tonic and refreshment to the soul.

--

Rules

The Far Roofs uses a 5d6-based dice pool system for day-to-day task resolution. It's relatively traditional and optimized for fast, fun dice reading. There's a loose consensus I've seen in RPG design circles that dice are for when outcomes are uncertain and both options are interesting, and I don't disagree ... but there's also this thing where rolling dice to decide is intrinsically interesting and fun, where it's fuel for a certain part of the brain.

This game tries to get as much out of that side of dice as it can.

You'll also collect letter tiles and cards over the course of the game. This is for bigger-picture stuff:

To answer big questions and to complete big projects, you'll either assemble representative words out of those tiles, or, play a poker hand built out of those cards. Word and their nuances express ideas and shape how outcomes play out; poker hands, conversely, just give a qualitative measure of how much work you do or how well things will go.

In keeping with this, the campaign is represented principally in the form of questions or issues your words and hands can address. Player/GM-created campaigns would be the same.

--

Physical and Electronic Product

I wanted to put the print version within the range of as many people who might need that tonic as possible. That means that for this particular game, I wanted to cover the full territory that I'd normally cover in a two or three volume set (core rules, setting, and campaign) in a single 200-250-page volume.

In practice this means there's a guide and examples for constructing the setting, rather than a deep dive into a fully-detailed world; that there's a bit less in the way of whimsical digression and flourish than in the writing I'm known for; that there's minimal "flavor" text on abilities; and that the campaign presentation is pretty fast-paced.

Conversely, it means that the game should be easy to absorb and to share with other possible players, and, that the game and campaign in this one relatively small volume should provide enough content for five or six years of play.

The book will be 8.5"x11" with grayscale art, available in a limited hardcover print run and a print-on-demand softcover form.

--

On the Rats

You'll see a lot of talk from me and others about the talking rats in this game. They're one of the jewels of the experience, and I think they're probably a significant draw just for being talking rats that are core to the game.

... but I'm going to hold off for now, because, to be clear, this is not a game of playing talking rats. It's just a game where talking rats and probably one of the top three most important setting elements.

I couldn't get that feeling I wanted of ... the base world being grounded realism; of the hidden world pulling you up and out and into a world full of magic ... with your playing rats, with your playing something so distant from the typical player.

So this is not a game of playing them.

They're just ... I like rats, and so I made the rats in this game with love. They're great ... whatever the equivalent is to "psychopomps" is for a magical world instead of for death ... and a way of talking about how in the face of the world, we're all pretty small.

--

I'm really excited about this game; the playtest was lovely.

I hope you'll enjoy it as well!

[chinmaster]

ttrpg seinfeld

[chinmaster]

[chinmaster]

I kinda wanna know who it was that started the idea that Powered by the Apocalypse games have few mechanics, because I feel like even the more middle of the pack PbtA games are awash in mechanics.

I wonder if that's maybe the perception because the rules tend to act on less concrete elements (as in, rules that are more directly interfacing with, interacting with, and changing the narrative, which itself is such a fluid concept)?

All the PbtA games I've sunk time into (and have enjoyed!) reward a deep understanding of;

What even is PbtA (not all PbtA games have an equal understanding of this).

System mastery of the game you're playing right now.

A good PbtA sings when you play with the rules, and it feels like the game is lifting up whatever sort of scene or story you're telling.

I think PbtA (and to a similar but slightly different extent Forged in the Dark), have a false reputation of being easy to just pick up and play, when I think you really need to spend some time understanding the rules of the game, and the designer needs to spend time understanding how PbtA works.

Having been involved in some PbtA projects now, good PbtA design is hard. Worthwhile, and rewarding, but hard.

[chinmaster]

🪷PEACE AND LOVE USED LIKE A BLADE WILL CONQUER⚔️

If you haven't yet, you can try out the Martial Epic Fantasy Tabletop RPG skewered through by Southeast Asian story and lore GUBAT BANWA for free with the quickstart! A fantasy take on what a Southeast Asia looked like before the rise of modern borders and categorization!

GUBAT BANWA'S FREE QUICKSTART and MUSANGHARI, a GUBAT BANWA MODULE have both been updated. Want easy ways to get into Gubat Banwa's system and setting? Check them out!

Quickstart:

Musanghari on Itch

Musanghari on DrivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422021/Musanghari

Additionally the game has been given a Patch 1

I always say that I can only personally reckon with these things, Southeast Asian past, directly through Fantasy because so much of is it lost to us and it is a false venture to found a National Consciousness from Pre-colonial Cultural Artifact so Gubat Banwa is a violent revelry of the things we've lost and the things we know we've lost, the connections removed to us, the similarities severed through borderline and empire. Everyone is welcome to join the feast! Also we should be having our Backerkit set up pretty soon!

[chinmaster]

Southern Hospitality

A Lancaster-Barbarossa, ready to assist with fire support, repairs and dad jokes.

Comm for @spectech367 on twitter.

[chinmaster]

bro I'm gonna get ars magica to a table one day I swear to god

Yeah, [indie tabletop RPG] is my very favourite game. I've been obsessed with it for years, and it's been a huge influence on me both as an artist and as a person. Some day I'd love to actually play it.

[chinmaster]

tag yourself I'm DOGS

[chinmaster]

hello Mr. @mcnostril I have made for you a character sheet for beach wizard in the finest wizard game in existence, Ars Magica

[chinmaster]

having grown up in Wisconsin I gotta rep option #1, deer wrecked a car I was in in 2 separate occasions within a week of each other

Reblog for a bigger sample size.

Say in the tags what you voted for and if you live in or outside of the US

[chinmaster]

non D&D games are cool and good, I collect and read many PDFs as a hobby and there's a fuckton of cool, weird stuff out there, like playing as mystery solving grannies in a lovecraftian world, or amnesiacs remembering absurd nonsense on a pseudo-babylonian space station, or insomniac superheroes in a pun-based secret city, or whatever the hell is happening in Chuubo's

This isn't related to anything recent it's just a thought about a couple things that happened earlier this year that I didn't manage to put into words back when it was relevant.

While I sympathize with the way D&D bloggers start posting stuff like "teehee don't click this link, it will take you to a PDF of the Player's Handbook, DMG, Monster Manual and Scrimblo Brimblo's Guide To Scrunkly, remember not to click this link because it's illegal!!!" every time WotC does something naughty, because there will never be a circumstance under which I don't consider piracy to be based as fuck, I also think pirating D&D material doesn't really do much to really challenge WotC.

The reason WotC feels like it can get away with so many shitty practices is not only because they make a shitload of money selling D&D products, but also because D&D's monolithic brand recognition has engulfed public perception of the entire hobby and as long as they can keep it that way they know D&D is gonna keep being the product most newcomers to the hobby are gonna initially flock to and very rarely branch out from, and that's not gonna change as long as so many people keep playing exclusively D&D stuff even if they're pirated.

So like... Yeah, it's great to get your friends to pirate every D&D material and not give WotC any money, but it'd be even better to use WotC doing something shitty as an opportunity to branch out and maybe consider giving a chance to that one weirdo in the group who keeps offering to run a campaign in a different RPG that everyone keeps saying no to because y'all already learned D&D and it looks like too much work to learn a different system.

[chinmaster]

I have no idea why I couldn't get this idea out of my head, but here's how I think every ars magica house would do at governing regular people

Guernicus

Effective but hates every second of it and passes it off at the first opportunity

Bonisagus

Lets the Trianoma faction take care of it. Despite being yet another thing they have to do, they’re pretty effective

Tremere

They already do this. Effective, but kind of miserable

Mercere

Capitalism time!

Bjornaer

Can 100% not be bothered. Get out of here.

Criamon

Hippy commune

Merinita

Pays very little attention to governance, people worryingly disappear sometimes and what a coincidence a few years later there some fairies that look just like them

Verditius

Everyone drafted into workshop helpers for a month before they remember they still need someone to make food

Tytalus

Extremely effective for like 2 weeks before they realize no one is trying to take it away from them and they get bored and abandon the position in favor of some other scheme

Ex Miscelanea

Barely govern at all, everyone pretty much just does whatever

Jerbiton

Literally just a feudal lord

Flambeau

Broke in 2 weeks from paying for tournaments

[chinmaster]

hey, thanks for the input! just want to chime in with my reasoning, which mainly boils down to the self awareness rankings just being jokes that no one but me has any reason to get from the picture. euthanatos is in the middle because they're so obsessed with balance they wouldn't allow themselves to be more self-aware. virtual adepts are that high up because I think they're the tradition most likely to call each other 'fucking cringe' even if they don't apply it personally. the ecstatics are down low for semantic reasons- a lot of the time they're too blitzed out of their gourds to recognize any kind of awareness, let alone self awareness. hollow ones are where they are because I just thought about where I'd put a regular mall goth kid. dreamspeakers should actually be less cringe and more self-aware, but the white kids that claim the title and talk about spirit animals and noble savage shit are statistical outliers and should not have been counted. it also doesn't help that the X axis doesn't really differentiate between cringe (affectionate) and cringe (derogatory)

Remember, the first step to ascension is recognizing reality itself thinks you're Cringe (that's what paradox is, probably)

[chinmaster]

Remember, the first step to ascension is recognizing reality itself thinks you're Cringe (that's what paradox is, probably)

[chinmaster]

life is about doing a bit and seeing where it takes you

[chinmaster]

good evening it's that time again hope you all brought your fucking opera glasses because I flatly refuse to make these readable