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[galerie-roliste]

Have you played Sonja & Conan Versus The Ninjas ?

By Guillaume Jentey

Ninjas flying and flipping through the air, sorcerers talking in your mind, nefarious plots and colossal monsters, deserts of ice and fire, slashin' swords and sparklin' spells, big damn heroes and bid bad villains, battle cries, fury, bravery… and hard-hitting punchlines !

It's actually a GM-less game where one player controls the Barbarian, and all the others are The Ninjas

[galerie-roliste]

Have you played FACING THE TITAN ?

By Nicolas "Gulix" Ronvel

Facing the Titan is a GM-less, zero-prep roleplaying game, for one-shots games of about 3 hours. It has been designed and playtested for groups of 3 to 5 people. A solo mode is also available.

You will play the Compagny, a group of heroes whose fate is to face the colossal Titan. And to destroy it!

You will only need something to write with and on, and two dices: a white one and a black one. Based on Swords Without Master (by Epidiah Ravachol), the game system will get you to tell the journey of your Companion to the final clash against the Titan in a series of five distinct Phases:

The Companions Phase, where we meet the characters of this epic story

The Titan Phase, where we learn about the Titan

The World Phase, where we talk about the journeys of the Companions

The Preparation Phase, where the Companions expose their plan

The Clash Phase, where the Companions go against the Titan

A Personnal Favorite of mine

[galerie-roliste]

this is not a review of Speedrun RPG by Frédéric Marin

It's just me putting into words something that reading it made me think:

As a whole, I really like Speedrun RPG. The idea of presenting the action of speedrunning games as something to do in a tabletop RPG is novel and interesting. It also acts as a brief primer of speedrun vocabulary and the most typical types of speedruns.

What I think it struggles with is the execution: to facilitate the idea of speedrunning any RPG module the group has already played, the game allows players to use common strategies developed in video game speedrunning, including bunnyhopping and going out of bounds. This is slightly disappointing to me, because to me it seems a somewhat inaccurate translation of the language of another medium into a different one.

I absolutely do not think it's by any means a bad product and I think I even understand why Marin went for this approach: as a general framework that can be applied to any game this one does work, and the idea of being able to go out of bounds to skip the entire module and get straight into Strahd's room and then inject arbitrary code into the game to make sure he only has 1 HP is, like, really funny, but I feel it underutilizes the language of the medium it is working in. Having said that, I am fully aware that asking for a product of this size and scope to provide an universal framework for finding actual speedrun strategies in RPGs is a tall order.

But yeah, as it exists Speedrun RPG is still a fantastic product that allows one to inject the humor inherent in a bunch of assholes bunnyhopping and sequence-breaking their way through a video game into a tabletop format. That in and of itself is already really fun. I think there is definitely a lot that can still be done within the space paved by Speedrun RPG and that by itself is already a great achievement.

[galerie-roliste]

For Creator Day on itch.io, here is my list of recommandations. Play games, Play indie games, and have fun with it

[galerie-roliste]

Annoucning the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club!

The original idea was from @thydungeonguy, but he let us take care of it provided we do most of the heavy lifting to make it run smoothly.

Message either @anim-ttrpgs or @thydungeonguy and just ask to get an invite! It’s free, you just have to ask! Or, you can visit our website and find the discord link there.

Here’s the short version.

We’re running a club that treats (indie) TTRPG-playing like a book club. There’s a nomination period for RPGs, then a vote to decide which RPG we play, then scheduling discussion, then everyone who can make it(we may split up among multiple groups depending on the number of sign-ups) plays the same adventure with the same RPG(usually a 1-2 session adventure, 3 sessions if it has to go on longer), then we discuss it.

Then, repeat.

The purpose of the club is to play indie tabletop role-playing games that aren't D&D5e, bringing new games to people’s attention and getting to experience how those games work in practice. It’s an encouragement to step out of your comfort zone and try new games with enthusiastic people who love them, and even step out of your comfort zone and learn how to GM a game if you’ve never done it. The way we set up the structure of the club makes it very easy, forgiving, and supportive for GMs even when playing a game they’ve never played before—it’s really not as hard as it seems, especially since we use adventure modules, the greatest GM tool ever devised.

Join up by sending us or @thydungeonguy a message or ask, and maybe you’ll even get to play the full version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy for free! That is, if it gets nominated and wins the vote. Even though we’re running the club, our own games aren’t gonna get special treatment.

Despite, and perhaps especially since, our games aren’t getting special priority in the club, and because the A.N.I.M. team is doing everything to organize and support novice GMs and fellow indie TTRPG authors, organizing and running this club is a good amount of extra work for our very small team for no direct profit. We ask that if you enjoy this club, you kindly leave a tip for us on kofi or support us on patreon. It'll keep this server running smoothly and keep us creating TTRPGs, plus with a patreon subscription of at least $5, you get the prerelease rulebook as well as future updates, two horror adventure modules, and two short stories and a novella taking place in the Eureka world!

Join up by messaging either us or @thydungeonguy, or finding the discord invite link on our website!

Even if that’s not your thing, visit our website anyway to pick up a free copy of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy demo, complete with a free starter adventure module and pregen character sheets!

This is gonna be a blast.

[galerie-roliste]

Charities/organisations to avoid:

PETA: They’d rather spend their money on publicity campaigns than on the animals in their care. PETA killed 73.8% of the animals in their care in 2015 (x)

FCKH8: Is a for-profit company that exploits oppressed groups for money. They’re also wildly uninformed, and spread misogyny, cissexism and bi/panphobia, as well as stealing their posts/designs (x)

Autism Speaks: They spend most of their money on researching a way to eliminate autism, heighten the stigma against autism and don’t have a single autistic person on their board (x)

Please support other, better charities, and feel free to add any others you can think of to this.

[galerie-roliste]

Note: I claimed a community copy for this game, so while I did not pay money, I received it for free.

Exquisite Biome was pointed my way by one of my Discord community members as something I'd be interested in, and oh my God, they were right. As a professional ecologist and wildlife conservationist--and a fan of all things spec evo/bio--Exquisite Biome is everything I love conceptually, and it even had the audacity of being fantastically designed.

Caro Asercion on itch.io has managed to make a masterpiece of a GM-less game for one to three or four players, using only a single deck of cards. It's incredibly simple and intuitive, with much of the interaction coming from the human element. In fact, I loved the test run I gave it. Exquisite Biome (is it named after Exquisite Corpse? I'm pretty sure right?) uses drawn cards to guide player(s) through the designing of a speculative species, from the creation of the biome it lives in, to its most notable features and how it interacts with other species within the ecological web. Each designed species culminates in a scene played out, almost akin to a nature documentary, of an important part of the animal's life--giving greater insight into both its daily existence and its most important evolutionary aspects.

I can't give too much detail as to how, exactly, the game parts function, or what they are, but they are precisely balanced between detailed and loose enough to allow players the structure/random element needed for fun and guiding through the process, while leaving the vast majority of the imagination up to them. A traditional Exquisite Biome session is intended to be done with creating three unique animals, seeing how they all intersect with each other, but there are also other options for various modes of gameplay given as well!

My favorite aspect of Exquisite Biome, however, may be what isn't in the game just yet. The system itself is so perfectly intuitive and genius that it lends itself instantly to conceptualization of further deep-dives into specialization (speciation?) of different biomes and concepts--expansion packs, in short. What would a variant of EB look like in a xenobiological setting? Or perhaps an entire variant dedicated to rainforest or tropical reef biomes (or the various listed ones, even--even deserts have great biodiversity!)? Caro Asercion has managed to hit upon something here that I would really hope to see find success, because I can envision it having an incredibly dedicated and loyal fanbase for years and years to come.

I'd recommend this game to anyone who loves nature documentaries, who is passionate about life sciences, and who enjoys worldbuilding natural elements for tabletop settings! For fans of Monster Hunter, In Other Waters, Pokemon, Pikmin, and Wingspan, definitely give it a look to see if you'd be intrigued!

And, bonus round--a sketch of my own Exquisite Biome's first animal, the Shepherd Spider!

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A highly territorial species of cobweb-spiders, shepherd spiders create various 'pastures' with their webs where small insects such as beetles, flies, butterflies, and aphids can safely use as nursery habitats. By hiding within the webbed pastures, they obscure their location from predators, allowing an easier chance to reach adulthood and pass on their genes.

Additionally, the shepherd spiders tend to avoid immature specimens as much as possible: they prefer to hunt adult prey at the end of its lifespan, or sickly or otherwise 'unfit' food. In doing so, it ensures itself a steady supply of food, keeping a 'pantry', and opportunistically feeding on the young as needed when times are dry.

Shepherds mate for life, and their courtship rituals are based on the large, iridescent eyespots of the chelicerae. During rainy seasons, male spiders will gather up dew and rain and daub them on themselves, magnifying their false eyes to greater proportions and causing bright refractions in the water's reflected curves. A female will choose her mate based on the brightest display. There seems to be a growing subpopulation of males with prominent pseudopupils as well, which may affect apparent fitness during these rituals versus specimens with smaller or nonexistent pseudopupils.

[galerie-roliste]

The Hidden Isle Kickstarter is now live!

Don’t miss out on preordering a new TTRPG played with Tarot cards 🌊

The Hidden Isle is a pen and paper RPG that uses Tarot cards instead of dice, set in the 16th century on the secretive island of Dioscoria. It focuses on roleplaying and collaborative storytelling.

This is a game about swashbuckling adventures across Europe and the Middle East, stealing forbidden texts from oppressive regimes, protecting an island of outcasts using ancient magic,and toppling empires with just the right speech at just the right time.

It will run for 30 days, until October 28th 2023.

[galerie-roliste]

Cover for the upcoming TTRPG, The Hidden Isle! art by me and @vivtanner.

Embark on a Tarot adventure! Wield magic and fight tyranny across the Renaissance world in this TTRPG powered by card divination. Sign up to get notified of its Kickstarter launch, coming in the fall of 2023.

[galerie-roliste]

So many “how to find free/budget TTRPG art” guides are just like “Pixabay exists” and that’s it. Even with the resources, it’s difficult to actually find usable art, especially if you’re looking for illustrations and not photos, and ESPECIALLY now that you have to wade through AI stuff on a lot of these websites

[galerie-roliste]

How fucking annoying is it when you feel so restless with creative energy but you can’t decide what to do with it and when you finally try to create something it comes out shit so you just give up and sit there being all creatively annoyed and jittery.

[galerie-roliste]

hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate

BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard (under My Filters) to get rid of it!

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3

[galerie-roliste]

Read this. Even if you hate eggs and perky diet blogs. Read through Wednesday at the very least. My bet is if you get to Wednesday, you’ll want to read the rest. 

[galerie-roliste]

At every panel I've ever sat on about making tabletop RPGs, the question is asked "how do you get inspiration for new games" and the answer from all of us, no matter the lineup, is always "CONSUME OTHER MEDIA!!!"

Play other RPGs

Play board games

video games

watch movies

tv

read more books

attend film festivals

Let other art inspire you. Identify what makes you feel a certain way. Think and talk about why.

[galerie-roliste]

Message of the year:

“How do you spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.” — Gov Pritzker

[galerie-roliste]

Le programme de la semaine. Les lives auront lieu sur https://www.twitch.tv/arsenelagalerieroliste

[galerie-roliste]

This is The Spire: The City Must Fall, written by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor. I love this damn game.

The titular Spire is a massive vertical city, once ruled by Drow and now held by Aelfir, the high elves  who have subjugated the native population. Players are a cell of a secret society of Drow intent on overthrowing the occupation through any means necessary. By which I mean lots of revolutionary violence. Which, hey, feels like a perfect pressure release valve RPG for 2019.

The game is built around causing, and sustaining, damage. It is central to the system, which uses five Stress stats to gauge a character’s health. Failed skill checks result in Stress of different types. The more collective stress, the more potential for increasingly nasty Fallout when a critical failure turns up. The aim here isn’t longevity – the game system is a giant clock ticking down the time a character has left to live. The goal, then, is for players to inflict as much damage on the Aelfir as they can before that time runs out.

The Spire dramatically reimagines Drow. Aside of being averse to sunlight, there is little that connects them their D&D ancestors, which is a good thing in my estimation. All of the available classes explore some aspect of this Drow society while also naturally positioning characters on a path of revolutionary opposition against the ruling Aelfir culture. They’re extremely weird and evocative; you’ll be hard pressed to read through them and not have dozens of idea of how to run a character.

Stone’s world-defining art deserves special mention. He’s the lone artist in the book, which makes for a wonderfully unified visual presentation. He manages to capture the violence and strangeness of the setting in a way that still allows you room (and encourages you, even) to contribute your own ideas. And he does it in a style that feels revolutionary, often evoking political art and propaganda posters.  

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