fucky3ahrpgs

[fucky3ahrpgs]

You Should Check Out My Majora's Mask TTRPG

Hey, I made a Forged-in-the-Dark game called A Terrible Fate, and I think it's pretty cool.

The game uses a Mask mechanic that allows your characters to transform into different entities for every dungeon they travel through, granting them unique powers and weaknesses that allow them to fight some kind of burgeoning corruption in order to free the Spirits within.

The game also has themes of doom, grief and invisibility; it asks you to save a world that will never remember you, because you have to turn the clock back every three days. I think the whole concept is really neat.

You can download the game for free on Itch.io, and you can also get the links to online play-kits that hold information about your characters, your world, the NPCs whose lives you try to change, and the Masks that you'll pick up as you adventure.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Steal His Look! Kererū

Inspo

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Working on an illustration for @dinoberrypress

Check out a project of masks and magic here.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Characters gain EXP every time their players give the GM a fleeting moment of human connection in a cold, uncaring world.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Dries Van Noten Fall 2001 Ready-To-Wear

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Dries Van Noten Fall 2001 Ready-To-Wear

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Ex Stasis Games needles at some uniquely modern fears with a new collection of system-neutral roleplaying scenarios.

Do Not Adjust Your Set is an anthology of system-neutral adventures based on writers’ favourite urban legends. With everything from infernal paintings and extradimensional arcade games to masked vigilantes and cutthroat academic competition, creepy one-shot TTRPG opportunity oozes from between the ectoplasm-slimed pages.

Do Not Adjust Your Set is a follow-up to 2022’s Midwinter Ghost Stories - a successfully Kickstarted anthology of system-neutral scenarios in the tradition of Victorian ghost stories. DNAYS features more modern stories and scares.

Do Not Adjust Your Set launches on Kickstarter on 31st October.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exstasisgames/do-not-adjust-your-set

[fucky3ahrpgs]

why aren't there more mysteries that take place in nursing homes & retirement communities. i want to watch a group of deranged retirees-cum-amateur-detectives combine their powers of:

decades of life experience

boredom-fueled busybody shamelessness

access to the most gossipy next-door-neighbors in existence

"I am too old to be arrested and/or give a shit" attitude

and solve crimes. this should be an enormous subgenre.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Intimacy in TTRPGS

(art by @geezmarty)

It's been a while since I geeked out about ttrpg design and I thought I'd dive into it! Some time ago there was discussion about intimacy and romance in games, and I wanted to talk about that today.

In particular this is about the Reveal Your Heart move in Apocalypse Keys and how it's a response to games that came before it.

Above is the Comfort or Support move from Masks: A New Generation. It's representative of what a lot of similar Powered by the Apocalypse moves are like (and many PbtA games since Masks have emulated this too).

In my experience with Masks it created a lot of lovely drama, "on a hit, they hear you" suggested that on a miss, they didn't. This often lead to delicious moments filled with angst: misunderstood feelings, good intentions not being enough, or being interrupted at the worst possible moment!

My main issue with this move and those like it (and it came up with various groups and players) was that most of the time it's hard for a player to correctly guess what would actually comfort or support another character in the moment.

It was also interesting that this was a move that was mostly about the person you were trying to comfort or support! Like most PbtA games, you're statistically more likely to roll a 7-9, which meant the target of the move was the only one who benefited mechanically.

This lead to a lot of awkward play. If we were lucky, the target of the move would speak up and offer a clear alternative "Oh that wouldn't actually comfort my character, he doesn't like being hugged or touched. I think what he'd want to hear in this moment is that he matters to you, that you think he's an important member of the team."

But most of the time something would go wrong somewhere - the target player wouldn't feel comfortable with speaking up, the triggering player would insist that this is what their character would do, etc. So the move would effectively not trigger, or we'd pretend it would and everyone would be awkward.

It just reminded me too much of my own personal experiences, where I would have to pretend I was happy with someone trying to comfort me because they had good intentions and it didn't matter if I was actually comforted or not. Seeing it play out, again and again, in Masks was something that always made me feel uncomfortable.

The trigger includes keywords like "offer" (suggesting acceptance is not guaranteed), "in a way that could be meaningful to them" reminds a player to place the target of the move's preferences first. Both results require the target to "open up to you", if they don't, the rest of the move just doesn't trigger.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which has a lot of Masks DNA in it, addresses this in an interesting way. It spells out a few things by refining the trigger and response of Emotional Support.

It felt a lot better in play, but for Apocalypse Keys and my own design preferences I wanted to shift the move into a different direction!

Reveal Your Heart (like every move in the game) taps into the relevant central themes. In this case the PCs are Omen-Class monsters who struggle with staying in control and handling difficult emotions (as well as the horrifying truth that they may become a Harbinger one day, and bring about the apocalypse instead of stopping it!).

The trigger here is dependent on a revelation of some kind, what are you revealing to another? This suggests vulnerability, or at least an innate truth of self. "try to sincerely connect to another" replaces the awkward and difficult task of trying to figure out what would comfort another person. This is a move that prioritizes an attempt towards intimacy, whatever that may look like. This is usually much easier to figure out, the question then becomes "how vulnerable are you going to be in this moment?"

Like in most Apocalypse Keys moves, I wanted each narrative choice to lead to a mechanical reflection. This further supports the idea that the narrative and emotional are mechanical and structural truths in the game - roleplaying and characterization are not separate aspects, they are connected to the act of playing. It also gives the players room to interpret what that means, "they gave you hope", what does that hope look like to you? How does it quell and calm the Harbinger that shifts and aches in your soul?

But! In general, I love how much intimacy and romance have flourished in the indie ttrpg space! It's definitely improved my play experience, and it's something I love to design around in my own games!

Essentially this move offers the players the room to name the feelings they have and lay bare the nature of their relationship. By the end of the move there's usually a sense that we've learned something essential about the relationship between the characters. No matter how small, it bears significance.

Many of the moves in Apocalypse Keys focus on relationships and intimacy of some kind, it's just very very queer that way.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

THEME: Space and Stars

This week's themes are all loosely categorized under space, from space-westerns, to space-fantasy, to some games entirely within their own genre.

Boar Beasts on A Barbarous Planet, by Z.W. Garth.

Boar Beasts on a Barbarous Planet is a 2-page Push Powered roleplaying game of boarfolk warriors surviving on a planet of swords-and-lasers, covered in hostile biomes and littered with the sci-fi tech of planetary invaders who couldn't cut it in this harsh world. 

Players take on the role of warriors dedicated to protecting their sounder from the many threats that plague them, in this harsh, psychedelic world. 

Push games use an interesting 'push-your-luck' mechanic, in which your can choose to re-roll and add to your roll in order to make a "weak" success stronger - but roll too high, and you meet disaster. In my opinion, it's an SRD that feels a little over-looked in the indie scene.

This game is meant to be brutal and violent, on a world that is difficult to survive. Your characters enter the story battle-scarred, and will leave the story worse, possibly even dead. This looks to be a game that’s full of prompts and roll-tables, so if you like random generation, I recommend checking this one out.

From Out of the Boundless Deep, by Scyllaycs. 

From Out the Boundless Deep is a two-player game about a mech pilot and an engineer working on the starship the Boundless. The game follows the pilot’s dangerous missions off the ship, the engineer’s meaningful repairs onboard the ship, and the brief moments the two meet between missions.

This game has two players, and no set GM. If you want to be a character who’s interacting with a dynamic set of stats and risky endeavours, you can pick up the Pilot. If you like building and modding things to set up the two of you for future challenges, then the Engineer might be more your style. The Game itself is split into two phases: Ship Phase and Mission Phase, with each phase giving the player a chance to shine. A Tarot Deck will be used to provide benefits and drawbacks throughout the course of play.

This is a game where you can really explore the conflict and community between two characters, in a situation where they can’t always communicate in a way they’d like. It doesn't demand an epic storyline but definitely has the space for it. This is also a great game for two people who have different and complimentary styles of play. 

Dead Belt, by A Couple of Drakes. 

Dead Belt is played by building a Belter and taking them out into the Belt to scavenge randomly-generated starships, using things you already have laying around: a six-sided die, a deck of common playing cards, and a few tokens of whatever sort happen to be close at hand.

With a dozen unique ship deck plans, over 100 flavorful prompts, and plenty of character stats to help you avert certain death, no two ships will ever feel the same. You’ll board these derelict starships, navigate barriers, dodge threats, monitor your air-supply, and salvage as you go.

You’ll deal with all the dangers lurking onboard these starships, push your luck, and finally return to spend your hard-won booty to secure better equipment, improve your skills, pay down your crippling debt, and hopefully, maybe, eventually set yourself up to live out your dreams far from the Belt.

There are three ways to play this game: Solo, Co-Op and Rivalry. This means that in a two-player game, you can choose to either work together or attempt to sabotage each-other in a race for pay. This game is an homage to Cowboy Bebop and similar Space Westerns, with a lot of tantalizing options designed for duet play.

Vaults of Vaarn, by graculusdroog.

Vaults of Vaarn is a 48-page, black and white tabletop RPG zine, which presents setting information, a full game system, and character creation procedure for adventures in Vaarn, a vast blue desert that lies at the very end of time. The game is built on the chassis of Knaveby Ben Milton, with lightweight rules, speedy character generation, and gameplay that emphasizes creativity and problem-solving on the part of players and referee. 

This game setting feels like a space opera smashed together with acid fantasy, with bright colourful descriptions of strange monsters, NPC’s and locations. It is a dangerous setting that is designed to work with OSR games, primarily Knave but I have a feeling it would be pretty easy to steal ideas from this for other OSR systems as well. If you’re a fan of big space epics like Dune or weird futures like Numenera or Gamma World, this game is probably worth checking out.

If you want to see what the community has created for this setting, I recommend checking out the submissions to the Vaarn Summer Jam of 2022!

Nibiru, by Araukana Media.

Nibiru is a science fiction tabletop roleplaying game, set in a massive space station in a neighbouring solar system. Players take on the role of Vagabonds; people who woke up in the space station with no memories of their past.

Nibiru tackles themes of memory, nature and artificiality through simple mechanics, evocative art and immersive worldbuilding.

This is a game in which you create your character’s backstory as you play, filling in pieces of memory as you explore a space station filled with strange inhabitants and abandoned or deteriorating locations. The way you write about yourself will also fuel your character progression, with rewards for creativity and turning some of your memories into tools that you can use as you play. The setting is unique, evocative, and has a lot of potential to tell a compelling and heart-wrenching story. 

If you want to see a bit of the game in action before buying it, there is a Quickstart Guide available on DriveThruRPG!

Other Space Recommendation Posts

Star Trek (and its sequel)

Space Adventures

Space Westerns

Space Fantasy

[fucky3ahrpgs]

TEETH: A Roleplaying Game

TEETH DAY TEETH DAY TEETH DAY. I've only had time to flip through for like half an hour, but my first impressions are that Jim Rossingol and Marsh Davies have made something 1: Extremely creepy and weird 2: Surprisingly funny 3: Extremely cohesive in both look and writing style.

It's a Forged in the Dark game about hunting for monsters in 1780, in the fictional The Vale of Deluth, an area in the wild windswept north of England where magic lingers and bubbles and growls through bared teeth in the darkness. I've not played or read it through in detail yet, but the vibes are incredibly strong here, so that's what I'm gonna dive in on below the cut.

I love a map and this game has several, including these two incredibly cool looking maps of The Vale and the main town of Gatlock:

First of all, the writing in this game is just *really good*. This is the description of the main town of Gatlock, I can smell the crusty wigs and the stinking, stagnant canal from here.

It's really creatively, uniquely gruesome and foreboding. Every paragraph contains some squirm-inducing twist that the magical nature of the vale has inflicted on the place and the people who live around it.

It's not grimdark though, for everything that makes you cringe and shiver there's something to make you laugh. This mutations table is full of horrors, but also some of the horrors are just really funny:

And the artwork! Look at these nasty English bastards! The intricate woodcut style looks so good and really compliments the writing so well. It feels super singular in its intent - dark, nasty, funny.

There's a D12 table of cursed pies that's singularly grimy and gross but also just really fucking funny and I want to incorporate it into every game. You roll for appearance, filling, curse and antidote

Like, I return from the moors, bloodied and bruised after a harrowing hunt where I narrowly defeat a gang of monstrosities, and my reward is getting bullied by children because I ate the wrong pie? That's fucking great.

Eventually I'll learn how the actual game works, but at the moment I'm so into the vibes that all I wanna do is flip through and marvel at them. It's a sticky, black bog that will slowly drown you, but occasionally it makes a farting noise and you can't help but laugh.

I'll post more once I've had a proper readthrough, but I'm just super enamored with this game on its face, and you should absolutely check it out. There's TEETH the full game, but there's also a bunch of introductory adventures written to get a taste of it, and seem like a perfect way to onboard people who've not played TTRPGs before, all of which are on itch

[fucky3ahrpgs]

No no no you're trying too hard to make D&D into something it's not. Here's what you do:

Sci-fi: pencil in "Laser" in front of all the weapons and attacks, add "inator device" to the end of all the spells, and pencil in "Space" in front of all the nouns.

Steampunk: just flip a coin for everything except monsters. Heads, pencil in "gear" in front of the noun, tails you pencil in "steam." Monsters are just monsters.

Cyberpunk: just pencil in "cyber" in front of everything except spells, which are now called "hacks."

Modern: unless explicitly stated otherwise, every weapon is a gun that takes one action to reload.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Some new work, some office oddities for a new solo ttrpg game with Far Horizons and Samantha Leigh! inspired by night vale, gravity falls, surreal humour and old lab equipment.

Check Sam's thread for more info.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

A Gathering Storm for Cairn is out

Hopefully it works this time because I managed to crash the editor. A Gathering Storm is an adventure for Cairn. It probably takes about 2 sessions unless your players really don't like talking to people. There is a village that will have to be abandoned if nobody figures out why it won't stop raining, because the rains are flooding everything. There's a strange and isolated monastery with a famous library which is being weirdly unhelpful to anyone who comes around asking questions. There's a forest which is also a god. Most of the adventure takes place in this forest.

This is my first time doing not just all of the writing and layout but also the art. It took way too long but I'm pretty proud of the results. There's no dungeon crawling, but it is very exploration focused. There are also hooks to start a larger campaign based on these locations, a bunch of new bestiary entries, and tables of 36 books, 24 names, and 10 types of merchants.

You can find the pdf on #itchio https://seedling.itch.io/a-gathering-storm-cairn

or on #DriveThruRPG : https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/437505/A-Gathering-Storm--Cairn

You can also get physical copies from the Cairn store: https://store.cairnrpg.com/products/a-gathering-storm

Third Kingdom Games: https://www.thirdkingdomgames.com/product-page/a-gathering-storm

And (soon) Ratti Incantati, in Canada (will update when they're available there): https://rattiincantati.com/

[fucky3ahrpgs]

It was nice out today, so I sat on a bench and made a micro-RPG about gods. Transcription under the cut.

Apotheosish

(the game for making gods)

To create one god:

1) What is a situation in life where power is out of your control? [Your god is in control then.]

2) What do you do to earn your god’s favor for these times?

3) Why does your god resolve these situations the way they do?

4) How do you feel about them?

5) How do you depict them?

6) Make up a story or two about them. It can explain, or not.

7) Name them, and give them an epithet for each truth.

[fucky3ahrpgs]

more info about the free goncharov (1973) ttrpg!

[link to the tiktok]

[fucky3ahrpgs]

Bookstore, a one page RPG by Oliver Darkshire (@sotherans) on twitter