mr-geargrinder

[mr-geargrinder]

I always nap correctly. Legends say I come back a little stronger with each nap.

"came back wrong" but it's from a nap

[mr-geargrinder]

And as a final project for this year, the design of the protagonists and cover of my (hopefully) soon to be webcomic!!

[mr-geargrinder]

VENZAK!!! A Wyvern who took the hammer of a Giant Smith and now wields it alongside their flame based elementals in symbiotic harmony.

[mr-geargrinder]

Got a small run of stickers for my next con I'm kinda surprised how nice my art looks in printed form!

[mr-geargrinder]

Got a small run of stickers for my next con I'm kinda surprised how nice my art looks in printed form!

[mr-geargrinder]

its been a while! made a few things since i last posted.

previous: 1 2 3

[mr-geargrinder]

Still unnamed bnuuy wizard got some minor redesigns and some fancy shading

[mr-geargrinder]

Still unnamed bnuuy wizard got some minor redesigns and some fancy shading

[mr-geargrinder]

Still unnamed bnuuy wizard got some minor redesigns and some fancy shading

[mr-geargrinder]

Fairfield, a mutant sun conure parrot getting back to his dinosaur roots, as featured in the art for Mutants From the Archives: Pet Shop Blues, Kickstarting live until 6.5.25! Art by @fontesdev, and lightly colorized for the Kickstarter campaign!

[mr-geargrinder]

i love using art for evil

[mr-geargrinder]

I kinda taught myself the tricks to solve a rubik's cube and I can mostly do it on my own in a few minutes. There's one pattern that I haven't memorized properly yet, but otherwise I can just sorta do that now. Not going for any speed records or anything.

The funny thing about this particularly useless skill is that it makes me look at any media that tries to use the rubik's cube as shorthand for showing that a character is very smart in a different light. Now that character who is painstakingly puzzling out a cube to show how sharp and analytical his mind is... just looks like a doofus.

You've been messing with the damned thing for days, buddy. You know what you're doing, right? Like, you know there's just patterns and tricks to it. How is this showing how smart you are? That thing could be solved in a couple minutes if you just memorized a couple algorithms dude. Why the hell are you sitting there for hours and that thing is never solved? You haven't even matched one side yet?!

[mr-geargrinder]

Okay, maybe that guy was a bit fishy. We need the right detective for this case.

Dedicating this to all the Columbo comments under three fish in a trench coat, he's a catfish now.

[mr-geargrinder]

Less than 2k to go until this hits its goal!

Click here to sign up for pre-launch! Mutants in the Now, the retro-modern, mutant-animal, role-playing game, is prepped and ready for its next Kickstarter: Mutants from the Archives: Pet Shop Blues! It's time to unleash the world of dogs, cats, and myriad pets with new options, new species, new villains, and too many tables to roll on! Click here to find out more!

[mr-geargrinder]

my girlfriend really wants a game that is "crunchy" about how you build a whole character, ie. having "mechanics" for the fantasy of said characters. an example would be spheres for pathfinder or 5e. we're just looking for other ideas! we both love pbta and we both love 5e, but sometimes you want to chew on the system a little.

THEME: Mechanically Dense Characters

Alright, so let’s see what I can recommend that I haven’t recommended a lot yet. I’m going to try and approach this with a few different genres, as well as a few different systems. There will also be links to related rec posts at the end!

Into the Black, by Monkey’s Paw Games.

INTO THE BLACK is a sci-fi roleplaying game where one or more players take on the role of Management and presents a futuristic universe of corporate oppression and class warfare, while others take on the role of Freelancers and create characters to struggle and survive in that universe. Players must navigate and explore a strange and wondrous galaxy while deeply indebted to an interstellar corporation. Life among the stars, then, is about treading the razor's edge of struggling for survival and finding joy and love where one can.

Into the Black is built on the Into the Odd rules system, created by Chris McDowell. This places it into the OSR family of games. Now, OSR games are typically pretty lethal at low levels, and Into the Black is no different, but I know that 5E has the same kind of problem, to the point that many people will skip first level altogether.

In Into the Black, your character starts with an occupation, a background, randomly rolled abilities, and some gear. Once you advance to your first level, you take one of two classes, and customize from there. Technicians learn new occupations while Specialists take on new Kinesis Abilities, which are paranormal abilities that fit the space setting. You’ll chew through characters pretty quickly here, but I think that finding a character that does survive past the first few levels might be akin to a Nuzlocke run in a Pokemon game - you care a lot about the person who survives past a certain point, and your investment will help you generate this character’s thoughts, feelings and reactions in the game.

Gubat Banwa, by Makapatag.

GUBAT BANWA is a Martial Arts Tactics and War Drama Tabletop RPG where you play as martial artists poised to change the world: Kadungganan: the cavalry, the wandering swordsmen, the tide turners, the knights-errant, the ones to call in darkest night in a world inspired and centering Southeast Asian folklore.

Witness, grand warriors, honorable gallants that trudge and toil under kings and haloes. Witness, KADUNGGANAN, that refulgent name. That blasted name: WITNESS NOW. The end of days is upon us: and the new world MUST BE BORN. Bear your blades, incant your magicks. Cut open your tomorrow from the womb of violence. Inscribe your name upon the very akasha of this world. 

There are plenty of mechanics to immerse yourself in when it comes to the Kadungganan of Gubat Banwa. You have a homeland, a social class, defining life events, a profession, a religion, and a specialization. These choices give you pieces of your backstory, but they also give you skills. You’ll also choose a Discipline, a martial art that your character is currently practising, which defines your character’s philosophy and the way they carry themself into battle. Various cultures have collections of different disciplines, with each flavour receiving special abilities, as well as thematic advice on how they present themselves in battle. If you like games that give you extremely cool abilities and badass weaponry, and tie everything in your character to integral pieces of the setting, then Gubat Banwa is for you.

Neon Nights, by EfanGamez.

In Jeriko City, everybody wants to be somebody. Who do you wanna be?

Neon Nights is a cyberpunk/dystopian tabletop RPG set on Earth after a nuclear war devastated the entire planet. After hundreds of years of thousands of people roaming the desolate, irradiated Great Wastes, megacities emerged from the dust of deserts. Where there was once crumbling roads and dancing dust devils now stand skyscrapers towering over hundreds of thousands of roaming pedestrians walking the streets of Jeriko City, located on the East Coast of the once powerful United States of America.

Neon Nights uses a point-buy system to increase parts of your character sheet as you like, which gives you a lot of flexibility when cobbling together a concept. You use points to increase traits, which seem to affect your rolls, perks, which are special abilities used in specific situations, and World Stats, which determine how your character is seen by the rest of the world. How famous are you? How feared? How much respect are you granted? At character creation this may be a guide for the GM as to how your character is received by different elements of society. And these arenas will change depending on what you do in the game. You’ll also choose Occupations which give you pre-determined modifiers and skills that make your character unique. Finally, there’s your gear! Biotech, consumables, and weapons all give your character tools to use in whatever situations you find yourselves in.

Mutants in the Now, by Julian Kay.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, they ruled the streets, kick-flipping off of villainous faces and slipping into the shadows. Then, they vanished from the world of tabletop gaming.

But they’re back. And ready to KICK BUTT.

Mutants in the Now is a retromodern retake on the mutant animal role-playing games long past and left behind by licensing. Mutants fight to survive, thrive, and make the world better for themselves and humanity.

If you want unlimited options, Mutants in the Now has options. Over 130 animal species and over 200 mutation traits are in the basic book, along with fourteen combat styles, psionic powers, and detailed rules about combat, allies, villains, and more. You can roll randomly for your animal, and spend points to improve them via mutations, combat styles etc.

There’s a lot of pieces that you can look at and then generate a backstory based off of the character you’ve created, and the setting is high action, Saturday-morning-cartoon in theme, but the details are up to your play group. If you like limitless possibilities for character creation, you should check out Mutants in the Now (and it’s expansion, Mutants in the Next!)

Other Posts To Check Out

All The Dice

Branching Out From D&D

Character Customization

Echoes of D&D

Tactical Combat

Rules-Lite Systems with Classes

[mr-geargrinder]

Kickstarter is live now!

MitN is a supremely cool TTRPG and this is a great opportunity to jump in and both of the previous books and the newest one all together!

Click here to sign up for pre-launch! Mutants in the Now, the retro-modern, mutant-animal, role-playing game, is prepped and ready for its next Kickstarter: Mutants from the Archives: Pet Shop Blues! It's time to unleash the world of dogs, cats, and myriad pets with new options, new species, new villains, and too many tables to roll on! Click here to find out more!