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It's Happening!

After one and a half disastrous games of Burning Wheel, my players voted to start a new game of Through the Breach. Given the four options, that's not the one I had expected to play. In two weeks, I'm starting a new campaign of my favorite system.

I feel like I should post campaign notes for people to follow along.

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Through the Breach: About Twist Decks and Cheating Fate

All tests in Through the Breach are resolved by skill + aspect + card flip. Perception checks are notice + cunning. Shooting your pistol is pistol + grace. Building a fence is homesteading + tenacity. The card flip itself can be modified, too. Sometimes you have advantage (flip two and take the higher, aka +flip) or disadvantage (flip two and take the lower, aka -flip). All players flip from a shared deck, the Fate deck. The fatemaster (GM) doesn't flip at all. If the cards don't flip in your favor, you can usually cheat fate.

Every PC in Through the Breach is a Fated character. At character creation, you get fate steps, five phrases that determine your destiny. Because you are Fated, you also have a control hand, to help alter your fate. Your personal twist deck, built at character creation, consists of 13 cards distributed mostly evenly across the four suits. If your flip doesn't succeed, maybe you can cheat fate?

Fate cannot be cheated if the PC has -flip or if the result is a black joker. Otherwise, the PC can play a card from their control hand to replace the flip, which could result in a success or add a suit to the duel total. At the start of play, PCs typically draw three cards from their twist deck. New cards can be drawn in a few ways, the most common is when the Fatemaster shuffles shared deck. The twist decks help give the player some agency in steering their destiny.

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Found a tea jacket from Delineator October 1899 that you would only wear in Parabola

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About Burning Wheel

I love crunchy games. Every time I look at recommendations for crunchy fantasy, Burning Wheel invariably comes up. I bought the book maybe a year ago, and this year I'm finally sitting down to play. There are a lot of crunchy details, a lot of minutae, but the book insists the crunch is optional and you can ease into it. Optimistic, I dug in, ran character creation for my four players, and we collaboratively built a world setting. Burning Wheel has no base world, so bring any fantasy world you desire. It feels most Tolkeinesque, but I'm sure any D&D world could be easily adapted.

Monday was my first session. As recommended, we only used the base die mechanic (roll d6 based on skill versus object). And I don't know if it was new players, first time running it, everyone getting used to things, but it felt ... Very clunky? Having to track what type of check the players were making for advancement, one player having a skill for "write" and having to arbitrarily decide that "Elven script" was too specific for writing not elven script, even just trying to determine what the object should be. If I'm struggling this much against the base rules, I'm terrified of digging into the combat tables where they show weapons pitted against other weapons.

I looked for a YouTube guide for Burning Wheel GMs and found nothing. I looked for advice in the book, and it's one page of the most generic GM tips that it could be in any book. How do I even run this game? I don't know if I'll stick with it, but I want to at least not struggle for the short time I will run it. Any help anyone can offer that has Burning Wheel experience would be appreciated.

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Art by Jocelin Carmes

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If someone told me they were making an anime set in The Wildsea ttrpg setting and they showed me these, I would be so hyped. If you haven't heard about that game, it's a green apocalypse where PCs sail on the tops of trees in chainsaw ships.

Chasing the Light by Xinyi Zou

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Through the Breach: Margins of Success

Do you ever roll a 19 in D&D and wish it was better than when you rolled a 9 and barely hit? Do you hate rolling amazingly to attack but getting the lowest possible damage? If so, then you need *Margins of Success*!

Honestly, it would probably be pretty trivial to add Margins of Success to D&D, but Through the Breach has it baked in. What does it mean? Well, let's say your TtB swordsman has excellent stats: Might 3, Melee 5. When you flip to attack, you add +8 to your flip. If you are attacking a low level enemy with a TN10 defense, that means you only miss on an Ace or the black joker. You're a master swordsman. If you flip a 7, though, your total to-hit is 15. You're 5 more than your target, and you gain a margin of success. How well you succeed on your hit means you have a chance to deal more damage.

A sword deals 2/3/4 damage. Those numbers correspond to a weak, normal, and hard hit. After you determine success and number of margins, then you flip for damage. On a tie, you barely make it. You have two minus flip, which means you flip three cards and take the lowest. Succeeding by 1-4 is minus flip. One margin (exceeding the target by five) gives a flat flip. Two margins gives plus flip, flip two and take the higher number. When flipping for damage, 1-5 is a weak hit, 6-10 is an average hit, and a face card is a hard hit. A low-level enemy probably only has 4 hit points, so a hard hit might take it out in one shot.

Regular skill checks can also have margins of success. Have you ever had a player roll a 23 on a perception check and felt like you need to tell them more? You're using Margins of Success already. This makes Through the Breach particularly good at mysteries and puzzles because you can lock extra info behind margins of success, but players can still get enough plot cookies to move things forward if the cards aren't in their favor.

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Through the Breach: Magic!

The core premise of Through the Breach is that magic is somewhat pervasive. Being an unregistered mage is illegal, The Guild (government of Malifaux) employs Witch Hunters to track down such mages. The Arcanists are an antagonist faction who don't like registration and think magic should be free and open to use.

The basic magic system is modular. Every spell cast consists of one Magia (essentially the spell itself), which can be modified by Immuto. Magia fall into four categories: Enchanting (healing, enhancements, and construct magic), Necromancy (mind control, raising dead, being scary), Prestidigitation (illusions, teleportation, invisibility), and Sorcery (damage spells, telekinesis, summoning). Every Magia has a Target Number, or TN, in order to successfully cast it. They also cost a specific number of Action Points, or AP. In the book, they look like this:

Aspect is what you use to cast the spell (Cunning in this case will add to ranks of Sorcery). One AP cast time is as fast as it can go. A TN of 8 rams means you not only need to hit at least 8, you need the correct suit (in this case hearts) to succeed. The spell will also need to beat the target's Willpower. One yard is adjacent. This spell can be changed, however, in a variety of ways, and this spell actually is required to have an Immuto.

Sorcery Magia, like Elemental Weapon, often require an Elemental Immuto. Elemental Projectile, for example, can be any of the 13 elements described (e.g. fire, ice, terror, spirit). The selected element changes what happens when the projectile hits. Fire adds the burning condition, terror might cause an enemy to flee, light causes blindness.

The other type of immuto, Alteration Immuto, are applicable to any spell. They can change how a spell works in a broad variety of ways--change range, make a spell faster or slower to cast, increase or decrease damage, add or subtract targets, and more. Both Alteration and Elemental Immuto impact the TN. Adding an element always increases the TN. Casting at a shorter range, taking longer to cast, or having a focus object decreases the TN.

In the core book, two pursuits get magic at character creation (out of 14): Dabbler and Grave Robber. They start with two Magia and three Immuto. Due to the nature of Malifaux, anyone can develop magic at any time, so it's good for the game master to work with players who want to start spellcasting later on. Grimoires in Malifaux can take many forms, from traditional books or papers to tattoos or teddy bears.

The last piece of the magic puzzle in Through the Breach is a character's Magical Theory. This describes how a character interacts with magic, and every one confers a unique game mechanic. There are 10 distinct magical theories in the core book, but it's possible to craft your own magical theory (though the custom theory is flavor only and has no mechanical impact). If performing a lot of Sorcery, for example, Hedge Magic automatically applies a single element to every spell the player casts for free. The Lifewell doctrine improves healing and support magic while hindering damage spells. Each theory has a neat write-up and mechanical description.

I took a long break from writing, but now I'm back! What should I write about next? Pursuits, guns, skill triggers? Previous games I ran? One of the expansions? Let me know if you have any thoughts

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Through the Breach: Combat

So I was playing 5e D&D yesterday and we went into a big combat. We're level 5, fighting a big boss. In a single round, one of the PCs dealt 50 damage, I dealt almost 30. 80 damage across 5 attacks. The boss was still alive. This reminded me to talk about another amazing part about TtB: the combat.

Are you sick of enemies having meaningless piles of hit points? Is it frustrating when you deal what you perceive to be a massive amount of damage but there doesn't seem to be any effect? Do you wish most enemies went down in three hits or so, or even a single really big hit? Then combat in Through the Breach might be for you.

Enemies in the game have six levels, ranging from Peon to Tyrant. Minion/enforcer rank enemies are the most common; these are the two levels above peon. A peon has about 3-4 wounds, a minion 5-7, an enforcer 8-10. A starting PC has anywhere from 4-8 wounds.

What about damage? Each weapon has a low/medium/high damage output. A starting Gunfighter gets one or two pistols worth a total of 20 scrip (currency) at character creation. The Collier Navy only costs 9 scrip, and deals 2/3/4 damage. A character statted for combat can one-shot most peons and two-shot most minions.

But what about boss fights? A starting PC would not take on a Tyrant, surely, as these are highly powerful enemies. Master is the next level down though, and the example master in the 2e core rulebook still only has 12 wounds. He has armor, which reduces incoming damage, so it's still a hard fight. He also deals 3/4/6 damage when he attacks, and he can attack multiple times per round. He would probably be the equivalent boss for mid-tier play, and you can see a scenario with a few big hits taking him down in one round. Which is for the best, because he can potentially drop half of your team in one round as well.

In brief, combat is quick and deadly. And much like D&D, the non-caster turns are all going to be much shorter. Typically, less than half the party will have magic, starting casters will only have two spells, and their starting spells may not even be combat oriented. Magic is a whole thing in TtB. Another post for the future.

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Through the Breach: Fate Steps and Divining Fate

In my lengthy post about character creation, I alluded to "fate steps" being generated as part of character creation. The tarot spread, in addition to giving you your stats, also gives you a five-line "fate" that you will accept or deny over the course of the game. These fate steps are leveraged by the Fatemaster (GM) over the course of the game to help tell the story. When a PC completes a fate step, that's one of the means for character advancement, and the only way to increase your physical or mental aspects.

Let's say a PC flips a Jack of Hearts for their Endeavor. In addition to supplying them with skill points, that card also adds a fate step. In this case, the fate step reads "As you walk backwards through the knife". It is up to the GM to interpret how to incorporate this into the game. Maybe there's a magic door named The Knife that only comes alive if you walk backwards through it? Maybe the knife is a hedge maze with razor sharp thorns and you occasionally need to retrace your steps? It could even be a literal knife, a murder weapon, and the easiest way to solve the murder is to find an NPC that can perform psychometry to identify the killer.

Each PC gets five of these, and the target is approximately one fate step completed per session. In a five PC party, that's at least 25 sessions to complete everyone's fate. It's a great length for a campaign, honestly. Since there aren't levels in Through the Breach, player growth can get somewhat out of hand as the campaign runs on long. In the full length game that I ran, I really enjoyed trying to resolve all of my PC's fate steps. Some were trickier than others to interpret, but that challenge was part of the fun. It helped me to design sessions and come up with interesting components that I would not have otherwise considered.

(I'll try harder to be on time next week)

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Through the Breach: Malifaux

Malifaux, an alternate plane parallel to our own, whose largest city bears the same name. The history of Malifaux is awash with blood, conflict, and magic. The main connection of Malifaux to Earth is called The Breach, a great glowing portal in the heart of the American southwest. The portal is wholly controlled by The Guild, the militaristic ruling faction of Malifaux. A train ride through the breach is the most common point of entry for anyone interested in visiting.

The city itself is older than human settlement in the plane. When the breach opened the first time, in 1787, the mages that opened it swarmed the city of strange buildings to find it littered with all sorts of magical items but devoid of life. The breach stayed open for exactly 10 years, during which magic, industry, and mining thrived. Soulstones were discovered, great magical batteries powered by the souls of the dead (yes, like in Skyrim). Clockwork constructs began to take shape. And Necromancy began to rear its ugly head. That's nothing to say of the local inhabitants of the plane of Malifaux itself.

It would be easy to run a game without leaving the city. Downtown has the urban political atmosphere and swift arm of the law. The slums are the home of the downtrodden, the black market, the fugitives. Little Kingdom is an Asian melting pot where immigrants from countries like Japan and China were forced to live. And in the Quarantine Zones, basically anything goes. However, if you want frontier towns, snowy mountains, dense forest, or mosquito-filled swamps, Malifaux has you covered.

The core book has brief descriptions of the greater map. Additional expansions add to the depth and breadth of the world as a whole.

Since next week is American Thanksgiving, I might take off posting. My next topic will be about the factions of Malifaux and how they impact the world.

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Aerial Venice by li moly

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Through the Breach: Character Creation

I was tempted to go into the setting of the world of Malifaux, the perfect marriage of gothic horror, weird west, and steampunk aesthetics. But I'm a mechanics person. The coolest setting in the world isn't going to sell me on a TTRPG unless I also like the gameplay. To give a glimpse into those mechanics, I want to talk about character creation basics.

Every character in Through the Breach starts as a tarot spread. Since TtB is a card-based game, playing cards are used to generate the random numbers that make up player stats. The core rulebook uses a tarot spread called The Cross Roads tarot, but every expansion book, of which there are currently six, has a new method to generate a character. For simplicity, I'm going to speak to only the core book method.

With all character creation, it's good to start with a vague idea of what character you want to make. Are they smart? Strong? Charming? You can also start with a character pursuit (kind of like a d&d class, but far less restrictive) and work backwards. Or you can just start flipping cards.

The first card you flip is the station card, what life you are born into, what your parents were like. There's 54 possible stations, from simple (soldier, blacksmith, accountant) to interesting (grave robber, convict, mad scientist), and a few just weird (bayou born, neverborn stolen, undead). Each station gives you a bit of starter lore as well as one rank in a skill.

The next four cards you flip are the numbers that contribute to your character. Flip 2 gives your physical stats. Flip 4 gives your mental stats. Flip 3 and 5 give you skill ranks.

The physical and mental stats are called aspects, most similar to attributes in D&D. The physical aspects are Might, Grace, Speed, and Resilience. Mental aspects are Charm, Cunning, Intellect, and Tenacity. Each card flip gives you an array of four numbers, and you assign one number to each aspect. If you flip an 8 of hearts, for example, you'll get -2/-1/+1/+2. If you want a tankier build, you might distribute those numbers accordingly: (Might +2, Grace -1, Speed -2, Resilience +1). Negative numbers might take some adjustment, but if you think of zero as average, it could ease the stress. The lowest an aspect can be is -3. Except for the black joker, the highest an aspect can be at character creation is +3. The maximum for an aspect at any point of the game is +5.

The skill ranks are divided between two card flips. The first flip are your root skills, representative of how you were raised, things you learned growing up. The second flip are endeavour skills, ones you chose to pursue as an adult. I have never bothered to force players to approach skill point distribution in this manner, but that is how the game describes it. The card flip does not give points, but ranks. An ace of hearts gives 3, 3, 2, 1, while six of spades gives 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1. These numbers are assigned directly to the skills. And TtB has over 50 skills, lots to choose from. If our tanky character got the ace of hearts, they might want Toughnes 3, Melee 3, Athletics 2 for starters. Depending on what mental aspects are high, Leadership or Literacy might be important, or Notice or Stealth. The skill lists are also broken down into categories such as close and ranged combat, academic and social skills, magic skills, and more. There are also skill triggers--more on that in another post.

Once your skills and aspects are selected, you get two build points to customize your character. Each point is +1 to an aspect (still not exceeding the max of 3) or two ranks in a skill.

Again, this post has gotten very long. There are 6 more steps in character creation, and most of these are going to (yes again) be stand-alone blog posts. The tarot card flips also correspond to short phrases, which together make up the character's Destiny. Those fate steps are plot hooks that aid in character advancement. The players pick a starting pursuit, similar to character class, and there are 14 basic pursuits in the core book. Each expansion ads a handful more, though they are occasionally specific to the expansion. Derived aspects are things like initiative, movement speed, wounds (health), and defense. Your character starts with one talent (like a d&d feat, but you gain them after every session!) and money to purchase gear. Finally, you build a twist deck, which lets you cheat fate. Lots more on that too.

I really only got through about half of character creation in-depth.... topics for future blogs:

Fate and fate steps

Basic (an advanced!) pursuits

Talents

Equipment (gear/guns)

MAGIC (gosh I didn't even mention magic)

Twist decks, target numbers, skill triggers

I guess I'm not running out of blog topics any time soon. Thanks if you're following along so far

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Through the Breach: The Elevator Pitch

Welcome to the first full #throughsday post where I gush about my favorite TTRPG, Through the Breach. I'm gonna have extensive individual posts about every pont I am going to make, but consider this a quick overview of several months' worth of content.

SETTING

The setting is in an alternate world, called Malifaux, that is connected to earth via a giant portal, The Breach. Most people use a steam train to travel through the Breach (awkwardly working in the game title), but there are other smaller breaches where the border between Earth and Malifaux is thin. Malifaux itself is also a skirmish miniatures game that I've never played but seems cool.

The time is alternate 190x, with the 2nd edition core rulebook placing the game in 1907. The game has a magic/tech hybrid world somewhat like Arcane, and the game is steampunk as hell. Individual parts of this setting will all have dedicated posts--the city, the politics, the frontier, the bayou.

TONE

You want D&D-style dungeon crawls? You can do it. Mystery thriller? Political Intrigue? Yep. Gothic horror? Slapstick comedy? Check and check. The system is structured in a somewhat modular way that you can easily pick and choose what part of the game you want to highlight. More on that later too.

MECHANICS

Instead of dice, the game uses a 54-card deck to determine success or failure. The red and black jokers indicate critical success and critical failure. The core resolution mechanic is Trait (like D&D attributes) + skill + card flip against a target number. The game runner, called the Fate Master, doesn't flip any cards. Players can also have +flip, where they use the higher card, up to 3 cards, or -flip, where they use the lower card. Additionally, players have a "hand of fate" which they can use to manipulate the results of the flip. PCs in this game are called The Fated.

WOW THIS POST IS ALREADY LONG

Gosh I haven't even mentioned

-Modular magic system

-Guns

-Steampunk body augmentation

-Necromancers

-Magic rocks powered by the souls of the dead

-Flexible classes

-Robust talent system (like feats)

-Low health/high damage combat

-Constant growth by improving your character every session

-And definitely more things that I've overlooked or forgotten

Lots more where this came from. I'll be back next weeek with more #throughsday

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An Introduction

To dip my toes into the Tumblr community, I want to share one of my great passions: playing and running tabletop role playing games. I've been enjoying these games for over half my life, and it's a topic that I can discuss at length. I've tried several D20 systems, fate, pbta, fitd, White Wolf, one page RPGs, Shadowrun, Traveller, Cypher system, the list goes on. The game that I want to talk about, though, isn't very well known. The game is called Through the Breach, and it's set in the Malifaux miniatures game world. The game is about 6 or 7 years old, and across all the games I've run and/or played, I keep coming back to it.

Starting next week, in going to make one post a week talking about Through the Breach and why it's my favorite game system. I can seriously talk about this one for hours. Every Thursday, watch this space. (Gonna use the hashtag #throughsday if you care to follow it directly)