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But here's the stomper

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May the Fourth: Star Wars Minicon 2025

Free online ttrpg event-- seats still available in some events.

Come check out our Open Hearth’s celebration of all things Star Wars, with community members posting a variety of games set in the Star Wars Universe-- any era, any version, any genre, any system. This runs Thursday May 1st through Sunday May 4th with a con wrap-up closing ceremony on that final day.

You can see all the sessions here. Sign up for our community on Playabl and you can get into sessions. Everything's run with a layered set of safety tools and follows our community code of conduct.

Events with open seats:

LAST DUEL

Thurs May 1 2000 US Eastern

Last Shooting is a 2-player game about star-crossed counterparts. Originally designed to emulate mecha fiction, we will use its intuitive, diceless rules to represent two Force-sensitives as they grow from padawans into bitter rivals on the galactic stage

HOUSE COOLING

Friday May 2 1230 US Eastern

Using ARC: Doom. The first order has landed on Ograne, a scrap-sorting backwater only notable for being a hideout and rest stop in between more meaningful planets. However, at least for now you call this place home, and if the those imperial bucketheads manage to fort up then you'll never get rid of them and this place will never be what it was.

STAR WARS NEXT TRILOGY WRITERS' ROOM

Saturday May 3 0900 US Eastern

Using Ben Robbins' Microscope. The year is 2012 and Disney has just bought the rights to Star Wars. Now they have to figure out what happens in the universe and set up the next trilogy. You play writers putting together a future history and timeline, taking the previous two trilogies as canon. We set up the next stories-- with the caveat that we have to have it so at least a few fan favorite characters appear in the history.

TATOOINE MANHUNT

Saturday May 3 0900 US Eastern

A chance to revisit the WEG classic "Tatooine Manhunt" adventure using up-to-date rules with Outgunned's Action Flick setting "Star Raiders.". We'll be heavily riffing off the original adventure (which is a linear sequence of about 15 combat encounters) to create something new and exciting!

ESCAPE FROM DAIYU

Saturday May 3 1000 US Eastern

It's time for a little nostalgia! Let's go back to the game that started it all: Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, first edition, from West End Games (1987). An Imperial defector with vital information is stranded on the crime-ridden world of Daiyu. Play as an elite team of Rebel operatives who must make contact with this individual and whisk them off-planet to rendezvous with the Rebel fleet... without any Imperial entanglements!

AGAINST THE SITH CONSPIRACY

Saturday May 3 1300 US Eastern

It's long ago in a galaxy far far away, more than 30 years since the Battle of Yavin. While the New Republic rules the Cold War with the First Order intensifies. Failing to inspire action in the Senate, Leia Organa has founded the Resistance to act outside Republic restrictions. It is she who has tasked our group of dedictaed, though maybe not very nice, anti-heroes to thwart a First Order plot to find her brother, Luke.

SCUM AND VILLAINY: HUTT SPACE

Sunday May 4 1300 US Eastern

Bothan intelligence has informed the Rebellion that the Empire is constructing a new state of the art fighter craft, the VT-49 Decimator, in the imperial shipyards orbiting Nar Shaddaa. As Hutt Space is technically neutral territory, the imperials should have only a light garrison protecting their facility. As always their hubris shall be their undoing; this is an opportunity the Alliance cannot afford to pass up.

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Visitors get to live out their guzhuang drama fantasies interacting with in-character NPCs as the heroine get pinned to the wall

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Talking Hacks: PbtA & Forged in the Dark

Just added to the Around the Hearth Podcast feed! Another in our series of Open Hearth Community talks, this time discussing hacking Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark: approaches, challenges, best practices. It's about 90 minutes beginning with me setting up some basic terms and then shifting to input and questions from a bunch of community members.

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Baiyi白衣(white robe) aesthetic in chinese xianxia and wuxia culture. baiyi often represent purity and a sense of detachment from worldly affairs. Characters who wear baiyi are typically portrayed as highly skilled martial artists with a strong moral compass（they may appear indifferent and aloof on the surface, or even adopt a cynical attitude), often embodying ideals of justice and righteousness.

Because baiyi is super eye-catching, enemies can spot you right away. Anyone who dares to wear baiyi in real combat, especially out in the wild at night, is definitely a quiet but deadly badass.

Baiyi symbolizes their ethereal and almost divine presence, setting them apart from the mundane world, and also contrasts sharply with the often dark and chaotic world of martial arts, highlighting the character's uniqueness and inner strength. The aesthetic originates from the character Xiaolongnü in Jin Yong's martial arts novel "The Return of the Condor Heroes."

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OP: so this is the ‘intense regional downpour’ on the weather forecast

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Nazi propaganda and Trump propaganda are the same thing. Republicans are too busy licking boots to say anything.

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"

Back in November of last year while talking about network effects and how they make you play D&D, I dropped a little bomb. I stated that there has never been a good mass market RPG in the superhero genre. At the time, no one took the bait, but I can imagine some easy dissent there. What about Champions? What about Marvel Super Heroes? How can you possibly hate FASERIP? But yet, I do maintain my position. While there have arguably been good superhero games, none of them have reached mass market popularity and, by the way things are going, none of them ever will. It’s not the fault of any particular game or its design, at least not directly. Instead, the instinctive way that a game designer wants to approach comic book superheroes is one that’s fundamentally at odds with ever seeing broader popularity.

Of course, as one would naturally surmise, that means there’s a different way to write a superhero game that could see broader appeal and generally be more easily used to tell superhero stories. We were even close to having a game that fit in this template actually see some measure of success; what killed it was of course nothing to do with the game but rather the other reason that superhero games can never really succeed, licensing. So let’s look at the flavors of superhero games we get, the flavor of superhero game we want, and why the two aren’t likely to match." - @levelonewonk

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Open Hearth Podcast Ep 6: Urban Shadows, The David Web, Wanderhome

So we've managed to hit six episodes of this podcast! This episode introduces a new host as part of our efforts to rotate that role. In this podcast community members join us to talk about their recent gaming and discuss one in depth that they really enjoyed. Host Fumi is joined today by Jesse and Mads.

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TTRPG's Godzilla Cipher

There are lots of Godzilla movies—around 40 across Japanese and English. Each of those movies showcase a monster but at the same time, they showcase more than that. Godzilla is usually born from nuclear fallout. The destruction he causes are the ripples of a greater disaster, the fear he elicits an echo of a greater trauma. In later movies, Godzilla becomes a kind of anti-hero, protecting the world from other, worse monsters. In the most recent Japanese movie, Godzilla Minus One, even as they kill it, the soldiers reverentially salute the monster. You know, what’s scarier than a monster? A metaphor. Especially if you have to write a book report about it later. Or worse, if it suggests rising nationalism.

In his iconic essay, “D&D Doesn’t Understand What Monsters Are“, Dan D writes, “Monsters have a cause… Monsters are made to be so.”

The crux of the post is that monsters are created by social circumstances. Or to put it another way, monsters are made by people. It is a powerful idea. It’s an axiom that if you accept, has a domino affect on all of your worldbuilding. It also means that, for heroes in such a world, “Violence is not a solution, it is a stopgap measure. The root cause that has created the monster is the real challenge to overcome, and it is likely to be much more complex and rooted in past events than not. Sometimes, there’s likely to be no solution, or at least no solution that the players can enact. The damage might have already been done, and you’re just trying to plug the holes in the hull.” If monsters are made and every act of violence has an institutional or systemic cause, the story becomes about those institutions and systems. The characters will live their own narratives in the cracks of these systems, perpetually compromised.

When I first read this post, the thing that struck me about it is that it was a decision point. Now, every time I ran a game with monsters, I had to decide what kind of game it was going to be: which Godzilla do I want this time?

If I want a game where the characters are small parts in a world that has its own logics, its own politics, its own reality outside of them, there is a Godzilla for that. If I want a game where the world is framed around the characters, where monsters reflect their stories back to them, there’s a Godzilla for that. If I want a story where my characters dropkick the big lizard, of course, there’s a Godzilla for that too.

In your instance, this might not be a decision. You might like all your games a certain way all the time. Or you might be like me and oscillate.

The last case, that’s just ordinary D&D, I don’t think you need examples. But want to see an example of the first case? See any of Zedeck Siew or Goblin Punch / Arnold K‘s work. They’re both excellent at grounding a monster in a social circumstance. There’s lots to learn from them.

Want to see an example of the second case? The bestiary in the DIE RPG explicitly constructs its monsters around psychology and theme. To pick a couple at random, it suggests using giants to echo parental figures or gorgons to echo victims of exploitation. It’s a very steal-able idea. But this can never be cookie cutter. At the very least, you have to consciously pick from the bestiary based on what will resonate with the characters and players.

The tricky thing about this case is that it requires collaboration with players. Characters need to have qualities that you can mirror back at them—broken friendships that see their cracked reflection in the collateral destruction of two big lizards fighting, unspoken wounds that resonate with the big lizard who’s only angry because there’s a thorn in his claw. To make good psychodrama, you need the raw material.

You can skip this step having a focused game from the start: a game about teenagers doing illegal skateboarding so when the monsters reflect authority figures, that’s a slam dunk. I mean, an ollie or whatever, I don’t know anything about skateboarding. Basically, Slugblaster‘s godzillas are good because it knows what its about.

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A Different Kind of Hex Ep. 1 - Character Creation

Ian and José welcome their first guest, Gwen Marshall, to talk about how players navigate the character creation process. We discuss our personal approaches to the process, reveal our recurring character “types”, and wonder how characters continue to evolve after Session Zero.

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Open Hearth Podcast Ep 5: Playtesting, Solo Gaming, DIE

Welcome to our fifth episode! In this podcast community members join us to talk about their recent gaming and discuss one in depth that they really enjoyed. Host Lowell Francis (edige23) is joined today by Sherri Stewart (former co-host of The Gauntlet Podcast) and Anders Gabrielsson. Thanks to ethan for the excellent edit!

I changed the episode titles to make it easier for folks to see what each one covers. I dig this one particularly because both Sherri and Anders use games they've played to talk about a larger ttrpg topic.

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Welcome to the monthly Open Hearth Gaming video roundup!

These recorded sessions represent only a portion of the games we play every month, and anyone is welcome to join the fun! If you'd like to play in games like these, join our Playabl community and click on the "Calendar" tab to sign up for upcoming games. To browse our entire library of session videos, please visit our YouTube Playlists page. To hear our recorded sessions in audio-only form, please check out our Playing at the Hearth podcast.

Open Hearth Gaming Calendar

Sword Opera (Session 1) Lowell Francis runs for brushmen, Cat C, Jo Lene, and Wyllora The first of two sessions trying out Sword Opera, a ttrpg of action, melodrama, swords, and romance. It's a new adaptation of Forged in the Dark to cover a variety of genres. The Kickstarter runs through Feb 11, 2025. And there's a vampire.

Sword Opera (Session 2) Lowell Francis runs for brushmen, Cat C, Jo Lene, and Wyllora The second of two sessions trying out Sword Opera, a TTRPG of action, melodrama, swords, and romance. It's a new adaptation of Forged in the Dark to cover a variety of genres. The Kickstarter runs through Feb 11, 2025. We play more loosely through the Paragon Phase, moving between goal scenes and vignettes. Then we play out the first part of the Circle Phase before learning the future fates of our heroes.

The Cluster (Session 5) Alun R. runs for Paul Rivers, Sabine V., and Will H New Tortuga - Only two of the original Crew make it into the Splendiferous System in search of leads connecting the Snaggs to a dark conspiracy involving RGA Intelligence. They recruit Chris McPatrick, a member of a private investigation agency out of the Iron Wreath. He's been on Snagg for a while working undercover for the fixers and smugglers of New Horizon. While McPatrick uses local contacts Nestor 'Greeny' Green catches up with Red, an old creche-mate. Meanwhile, Dr Rillisk discovers that The Maintenance Guild really *does* want her back. Several plans come together at 'The Goldfish Bowl', where a bar fight, a moon pool, and some breathing apparatus work together seamlessly. Then...a submarine and snaggsharks!

The Cluster (Session 6) Alun R. runs for Paul Rivers and Will H New Horizons - Believing they will need the help of the fixers and smugglers of The Horizon, the Fortitude makes the transit to the Iron Wreath system. There, Chris McPatrick finds his Horizon contact...who is not happy. Dr Rillisk's naive sincere approaches mends some bridges, but they find themselves in the difficult situation of having to substantiate the lie McPatrick told. There's a tense meeting which sees one of the crew being threatened with the death of another, all the cards being laid on the table, and agreement to an impossible job. Then, a long lost deep space habitat, unfamiliar tech, and success of a kind but empty coffers...

Blades in the Dark: Urban Renewals (Session Zero) Lowell Francis runs for Annie, David S., Gwendolyn Marshall, and Ian We do the set up and character creation session for a new series of Blades in the Dark. But we create our own setting. We begin with the geography, environment, and threats. Then we talk about magic & technology. Finally we create factions and decide on unusual locations. Next talk about a vision for our crew and then build characters and connections.

Blades in the Dark: Urban Renewals (Session 1) Lowell Francis runs for Annie, David S., Gwendolyn Marshall, and Ian We establish the finishing touches on our crew-- their goals, reputation, special abilities, and lair. Then we drop them into their first score- a simple job involving lifting a box of seeds & vegetative materials from the Drylander occupational forces and delivering them to the Bayou Biohackers. But, of course, nothing is quite that easy...

Blades in the Dark: Urban Renewals (Session 2) Lowell Francis runs for Annie, David S., Gwendolyn Marshall, and Ian We see downtime in the aftermath of our first heist. Heat is lost and gained again. Overindulgence is the name of the game. Lee tries to right the ship and finds his own way to go off script. Svetlana suffers magical fallout, but it wasn't their fault. Remy bargains with the crews cadre. Cogito uncovers details of the past which have major ramifications and create delicious problems.

Blades in the Dark: Urban Renewals (Session 3) Lowell Francis runs for Annie, David S., and Gwendolyn Marshall After reviewing their options, the group digs deeper into the details of a job involving an extraction from "The Beast" a neighborhood built inside a giant dead monster. The area has been locked down by the Drylanders, searching for a particular Bayou Biohacker. The team goes in and easily makes it to the target, but no job can ever really be simple...

Urban Shadows: Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Session 3 of 11) Shane runs for David S., Ethan Harvey, Steven S., and Zeke Maximus, Vicente, Regis and Cathy all work together to overcome the demon haunting the art warehouse, discovering unexpected connections between their enemies.

Sunken Hearts: The Deepening Gulf (Session 11) Lowell Francis runs for Ethan Harvey, Patrick Knowles, Sherri, and Tyler Lominack Recovering from the island attack, the group discusses their options, settling finally on revealing the dream-bullet killer to the master of the Goblin Market. Then they head in separate directions to handle personal business leading to harvesting, sinking secrets, cheese balls, and a dark football party bargain. Then they meet together again to talk about next steps.

Sunken Hearts: The Deepening Gulf (Session 12) Lowell Francis runs for Ethan Harvey, Patrick Knowles, Sherri, and Tyler Lominack The group meets with an Immortal on the run who reveals that the Taken were not the only supernatural group in Mobile to receive a ominous oracle at New Year's. Later they consider the details they've learned and decide to investigate the island again, but not before each one handles some investigations and personal business.

Apocalypse Keys: Cinefantastique (Session 4) Lowell Francis runs for Cinna Store, Dominik M., Sabine V., and Teal The team regroups and deals with some of the fallout from the start of the investigation. Then they split into two pairs, interviewing some of the Returners. The learn some of the secrets of the realms those otherworldly figures took them to. But this path leads to painful revelations, another murder, and a sudden change in the world around them...

Apocalypse Keys: Cinefantastique (Session 5) Lowell Francis runs for Cinna Store, Dominik M., Sabine V., and Teal The team begins to pull together the keys they have looking deeper into the history of the seminary and the people there. The archives reveal some secrets, but others are consumed. But a picture begins to emerge...

Vaesen: Bavaria 1836 (Session 1) Blake Ryan runs for Dom, Marc Majcher, The Rolistes Podcast, and Will H Strange things in Ingolstadt? Bring forth Napoleon!

Vaesen: Bavaria (Session 2) Blake Ryan runs for Dom, Marc Majcher, and Will H Uncovering the beast of Ingolstadt.

The Ultraviolet Grasslands (Session 4) Marc Majcher runs for Heath and Mike Ferdinando This week's journey into the Ultraviolet Grasslands has us meeting a new traveler (an adventurous legume farmer) and taking a side mission to a pool of strange (living?) metallic vome-curing(?) liquid metal in order to clear a debt to the Porcelain Princes.

The Ultraviolet Grasslands (Session 5) Marc Majcher runs for Heath and Mike Ferdinando In the Ultraviolet Grasslands this week, our Travelers spent a week in luxury at the Porcelain Citadel wheeling and dealing, braved the Vomish steppes, discovered a broken (and disgusting) auto-factory, and learned that vomes just became a lot more dangerous...

The Ultraviolet Grasslands (Session 6) Marc Majcher runs for Heath and Mike Ferdinando This week in the Ultraviolet Grasslands, Phaedred and Modan party down at the Shaming of the Chiefs festival, get harassed by a Noble Hero, make a bunch of cash on sunglasses, and head back to the Porcelain Citadel to take care of bean business.

The Fall of Home Donogh runs for Aaron Feild and Sabine V. Kirby the Rose-Tinted, Simon the Estranged and Abby the Wanderlost all return home to Lantmouth-on-Sea. The holiday resort of the rich and privileged is slowly being consumed by the sea. This dreary and drowning land shows signs of how the well-to-do played here, how the ordinary got by, but scratching under the surface we see a place those returning to escaped from or have forgotten...

Star Wars Saturday

Stellar Conflict: Tapani (Session 3) Rich Rogers runs for Kae, Keith Stetson, Marc Majcher, and Steven Watkins Trouble on Pelagon.

Stellar Conflict: Tapani (Session 4) Rich Rogers runs for Greg G., Keith Stetson, Marc Majcher, and Steven Watkins Duels and Bounties, oh my.

Stellar Conflict: Tapani (Session 5) Rich Rogers runs for Greg G., Kae, Marc Majcher, and Steven Watkins A session bookended by a tea party and a costume part. Classic Star Wars.

Off-Calendar Highlights

Star Trek: Wolf's Shadow: Season 1: Pilot (Parts 1-3) Lowell Francis runs for Patrick Knowles, Rich Rogers, Sherri, and Tyler Lominack Off-Calendar old series. An audio-only actual play of Star Trek Adventures. This first pilot episode is split into three smaller parts.

Hearts of Wulin: Numberless Secrets: Gaze into Silken Night, Season Three (Episode 4) Madelancholy runs for Agatha, Jonn, Rod Santos, and Thomas Manuel Master Fan is found dead, and Soup is attacked while investigating the body. Jintong saves him in an unconventional way. Mu, along with River Glass and his sister, chase after the shadowy attacker. Radish confronts Pan Haoran.

Hearts of Wulin: Numberless Secrets: Gaze into Silken Night, Season Three (Episode 5) Madelancholy runs for Agatha, Jonn, Michael D., Rod Santos, and Thomas Manuel Pan Haoran is confronted by Sun Zheng and his mother in the same morning about his behaviour and decisions. Jade mischievously matchmakes. Jintong and Soup have a heartfelt conversation alone. Mu enlists Pan's help to take out Widow Mantis and the Red Lanterns. Jade and Jintong make a startling discovery.

Hearts of Wulin: Numberless Secrets: Gaze into Silken Night, Season Three (Episode 6) Madelancholy runs for Agatha, Jonn, Rod Santos, and Thomas Manuel Mu and Cheng find a secret passageway to the hot springs...and another dead body. Pan Haoran and Soup work together to create another antidote for Jintong. Jintong confronts a Red Lantern Associate embedded in the household.

Hearts of Wulin: Numberless Secrets: Gaze into Silken Night, Season Three (Episode 7) Madelancholy runs for Agatha, Jonn, Michael D., Rod Santos, and Thomas Manuel Back at the hot springs, Jintong tells Pan about his mother. Pan tires of Jade's meddling and they fight. Jintong prevents Mu from interfering. The players engage in the Revelation Move. Soup and Jade have a moment to talk. Last episode before series finale!

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slowly but surely I will convert people to Changeling the Lost

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Open Hearth Podcast Ep 4: Wilderfeast, Bump in the Dark, Sunken Hearts

This show draws on our community to examine ttrpgs they've played, read, or watched recently. Host Lowell Francis (edige23) is joined this episode by Dom and Donogh to go over their gaming. Links in the show notes to lots of the games covered.

I made a change in the titling of the show from here going forward. It's something we did with the old podcast-- listing the main games/topics covered in the title itself. The logic is to make it easier for folks to find something they're looking for when skimming the episodes.

We have an RSS feed for Around the Hearth, which includes episodes of the Open Hearth Podcast plus community talks, seminars, and special features. We also have another feed with our actual play podcast Playing at the Hearth. That one takes recorded YT sessions from our community and converts them to audio only.

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I'M DOING AN EXPERIMENT

To prove something to a friend, please

REBLOG IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES

LIKE IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS DON’T BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES

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This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…