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[sprintingowl]

Dead Beats (Seven Days)

Damp loser protagonists going through it. Stylish character action. The grim and distant world of the 1990s. Seven days left.

Dead Beats is entering the last week of its kickstarter. It's fully funded, but we can hit some stretch goals and stuff more monsters and weapons into the book.

I've been writing tabletop roleplaying games for a little while, and this is the first time I've written one that plays this clean and fast. Attacks just hit. Dodging is a choice. Everyone can flurry several actions during a turn. When an outcome is uncertain, you draw from a poker deck.

If any of this sounds good, or you like games that are inspired by the stuff in the tags, click through.

[sprintingowl]

I'm the Over War writer/designer, and depending on what you're looking for I might have a few more reccs.

Rangers Of Shadowdeep hugs right to the line between skirmish game and TTRPG and emphasizes tactics and positioning and making choices about which objectives to pursue. It's Tolkeinish fantasy with a slightly moody twist.

Band Of Blades is a Black Company / Myth The Fallen Lords gothic military fantasy TTRPG about making a fighting retreat away from a superior army. It emphasizes hard choices and prioritization, as well as resource management and downtime.

Heroes Of Lite is a high effort Fire Emblem fan TTRPG that does an incredible job converting that series' mechanics into something you can gracefully play at the table.

And Tacticians Of Ahm is a wonderful simple-but-deep retro tactics TTRPG with an 8 bit aesthetic.

I haven't played Parker D Bloodrose's BASE yet, but I think I'm going to have to pick it up. A miniatures-agnostic Wesnoth wargame sounds really rad!

And I have a thing that's not due out yet, but I've been describing as Veggie Tales Tactics: Let Us Cling Together, which might release as early as this summer.

Def check out BASE and some of the other reccs first, but if for some reason only vegetables will suffice, let me know and I can try to connect you with an early draft of the rules.

I play D&D because I want to play a war game with open story elements, and emotional themes of the player's choice. Everyone else I know wants to play a game where they are only one person.

When I want to be a single person we set up a Lasers and Feelings, or Wanderhome.

Now that I'm done info dumping, I'd like to ask you what a good war game for new players would be. Bonus points if my troops can be monsters.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by war game because my mind immediately goes to, like, miniatures war games like Warhammer, which I'm not all that familiar with. But like, I'm getting that you want something like D&D but where you control an entire army instead of a single character?

Incidentally I just recently became aware of Over War which I think is, like, really good. It's effectively like old-school D&D meets something like Shining Force/Tactics Ogre/Fire Emblem. You create a general and then you fill in their army with guys. Those guys can be monsters too!

There was a new edition called Monarch Edition recently Kickstarted but if you want to check it out already there are some community copies of the old edition available!

And if I somehow completely misunderstood what you meant by war game, let me know :)

[sprintingowl]

Dead Beats (One Week Remains)

Looking up through my sewer grate, reaching gnarling fingers towards the light. "Join me," I rasp. "We have TTRPG mechanics down here."

Anyway, Dead Beats is a tabletop roleplaying game of action horror in which your attacks always hit, you take like 2--6 actions per turn, you can improve yourself (not your PC) by dying, and you can reasonably bring both a chainsaw and an orbital laser to the same combat.

We've got about another week left on the kickstarter, so if you want to force me to add more stuff, now's your time.

[sprintingowl]

I am not very smart and those charts look complicated, but I dig the stability of the 2d10 and also that the system tracks how far you cleared the TN by.

Also it sounds like you compare the same roll on both charts? Just different attributes are being factored in each time? Which is weirdly elegant.

Actually, maybe elegance is kind of necessitated by the nature of simulation-y superhero rpgs. Their scope is so wide that either they find a way to keep their core mechanics direct and clean or they implode.

Either way, it's been a lot of fun to read the Marvel systems, and it sounds like I need to check out the DC RPGs too.

Marvel Multiverse TTRPG

The Marvel Multiverse TTRPG is genuinely well designed and I am confounded.

Previously, I'd read Marvel Universe TTRPG (which is a completely different system written in the 90s) and was caught off guard by how clever *it* was. In it, you assign power gems almost like a worker placement minigame to pass checks, prioritizing effect vs safety.

Marvel Multiverse TTRPG is a totally different system by a totally different team, and now I have to confront the reality that there are at least two very elegantly designed and unfortunately Disney-owned Marvel TTRPGs.

So, what makes Marvel Multiverse work? Well, it starts with a bad idea.

Marvel Multiverse runs on a d616. This sounds *awful* but it's the best bit of tech I've ever seen in a game with this high a budget.

First, that 616 is actually 3d6. You roll and add up, and mathematically this gives you more average outputs. Also the "1" crits on a 1, and its 1s count as 6s. So it's basically an extra strong d6 that hands you crits 1/6th of the time.

If you crit but miss the target number you botch instead, but Multiverse's advantage/disadvantage system gives you the option of rerolling individual d6s. So you can try to hit the TN, or you can crit fish.

Also, that "1" tells you your attack damage. It's used as part of a formula that also factors in your stats and optionally weapon. No need for a second damage roll. You get a really high density of information out of a single pass through the 3d6.

Now, Marvel Multiverse is still a very traditional style TTRPG. You can hop from DnD to this and barely notice the change in scenery---it's just the dice are cleaner, faster, and more predictable. You're still moving around in 5 foot squares, using your suite of character-specific powers, swinging at and sometimes missing a rat.

But those rat-misses happen a fair bit less, and your special abilities all come from one big mana bar called Focus, and you can intentionally spam your powers until it puts you in a stupor.

Basically, I'd recommend this system to three people:

-It's Marvel Give Me Marvel

-I Want To Play Modern AU Superhero DnD

-Fellow Sleek Core Mechanics Enthusiast, This Core Mechanic Is Sleek AF

If those people are you, you may want to give it a look.

[sprintingowl]

Heck. I keep mixing up stuff from the late 90s and early 00s.

failure-to-adult is correct! Marvel Universe is '03. There was a Marvel TTRPG in the late 90s (Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game), but it's a third totally different system.

And 100%, the '03 Marvel Universe rpg is fascinating. The power gems system means that your character is capable, but they have to make choices about what to prioritize---and that's kinda the soul of superhero stories. If you like TTRPG tech, I definitely recommend giving Universe a look.

(Mayfair DC Heroes I haven't checked out yet, but older superhero rpgs seem to be kind of a mechanics goldmine, so I'm adding it to my to-read list.)

Marvel Multiverse TTRPG

The Marvel Multiverse TTRPG is genuinely well designed and I am confounded.

Previously, I'd read Marvel Universe TTRPG (which is a completely different system written in the 90s) and was caught off guard by how clever *it* was. In it, you assign power gems almost like a worker placement minigame to pass checks, prioritizing effect vs safety.

Marvel Multiverse TTRPG is a totally different system by a totally different team, and now I have to confront the reality that there are at least two very elegantly designed and unfortunately Disney-owned Marvel TTRPGs.

So, what makes Marvel Multiverse work? Well, it starts with a bad idea.

Marvel Multiverse runs on a d616. This sounds *awful* but it's the best bit of tech I've ever seen in a game with this high a budget.

First, that 616 is actually 3d6. You roll and add up, and mathematically this gives you more average outputs. Also the "1" crits on a 1, and its 1s count as 6s. So it's basically an extra strong d6 that hands you crits 1/6th of the time.

If you crit but miss the target number you botch instead, but Multiverse's advantage/disadvantage system gives you the option of rerolling individual d6s. So you can try to hit the TN, or you can crit fish.

Also, that "1" tells you your attack damage. It's used as part of a formula that also factors in your stats and optionally weapon. No need for a second damage roll. You get a really high density of information out of a single pass through the 3d6.

Now, Marvel Multiverse is still a very traditional style TTRPG. You can hop from DnD to this and barely notice the change in scenery---it's just the dice are cleaner, faster, and more predictable. You're still moving around in 5 foot squares, using your suite of character-specific powers, swinging at and sometimes missing a rat.

But those rat-misses happen a fair bit less, and your special abilities all come from one big mana bar called Focus, and you can intentionally spam your powers until it puts you in a stupor.

Basically, I'd recommend this system to three people:

-It's Marvel Give Me Marvel

-I Want To Play Modern AU Superhero DnD

-Fellow Sleek Core Mechanics Enthusiast, This Core Mechanic Is Sleek AF

If those people are you, you may want to give it a look.

[sprintingowl]

Dead Beads (Time's Window Draws Down)

As of the time of this writing, 4/22/24, there's ten days left on the Dead Beats TTRPG kickstarter campaign.

We've hit basic funding so the book is happening! But I'd love to break through a few stretch goals.

Dead Beats is a tabletop roleplaying game centered around stylish action combat, with protagonists who don't have their lives together and don't have the resources they need to change things.

The rules are as no-nonsense as I could make them. Player attacks just hit. Dodging is a choice. You have meters to spend in fights so you're never totally at the mercy of the RNG.

The first stretch goal adds dragons to the game, and we're about $500 off from it.

One of the backer levels includes soup.

[sprintingowl]

I was thinking of Mouse Walls more in terms of "reading the rpg and rotating the characters in your head is also a form of play", but that's a dang good point.

Chuubo's is also kind of a taxonomical anomaly. I think in the above system you could call it Mouse Walls or Car Crash or AP Style or Blorbo, but I am willing to create an additional category for Chuubo's, which is This Is An Occult Text.

I can follow the individual words in Chuubo's, they're in English, but the system as a whole is far smarter than me and reading it makes me feel like I have fallen into the shadow of a more powerful designer.

If I were to run it, I would be performing the rules like rituals and hoping they produce the intended result.

TTRPGs As Terrariums For Blorbos

One thing that I think isn't covered enough in TTRPG recommendations is styles of play.

There's a lot of "this game has this tone," or "this game is this amount of crunchy," but less "what are you playing towards?"

In games like Microscope and I'm Sorry Did You Say Street Magic? and The Quiet Year, you're playing to see what happens to the setting.

In games like Mork Borg and Into The Odd and Mothership, you're playing to see how far your character can get.

And in a lot of games, you're playing to create a blorbo, an OC, just a little guy, and the soul of the gameplay is the story of who your guy is and who your guy becomes.

This is blorbo style play.

And the thing about styles of play is that you can apply them to any game, even games that aren't really built to enable them. So I wanted to take a moment to shine a spotlight onto some games that do specifically enable you to fully blorb out. (I'll try to cover a mix of genres and tones, but the rpg scene is vast so if you have a favorite that I missed please feel free to shout it out in the replies.)

-Golden Sky Stories. This is the English translation of the Japanese TTRPG Yuuyake Koyake. You play as shapeshifter kids and spirits in a small town and, instead of tracking EXP, the thing that you carry from session to session is your relationships with other characters. The tone of the game is heartwarming, and if combat happens, both sides lose. There can be emotional turmoil, but this isn't a game where you have to worry about bad things happening to your blorbo.

-New World Of Darkness. On the other hand, let's say you *want* bad things to happen to your blorbo. You want to play a guy that's really going through it. If you also like modern supernatural stories, New World Of Darkness was built for you. Characters in NWoD can be entirely non-combat, or a literal werewolf, or a noncombat werewolf. The game places a lot of emphasis on navigating through the setting socially, as its supernatural creatures tend to run in factions and starting a fight usually means making a bunch of enemies.

-Pasion De Las Pasiones. Of course, not everyone wants a fantastical setting. Sometimes good old melodrama is hearty and comforting. Pasion De Las Pasiones is a playable telenovela, and it encourages you to play your characters bold and recklessly. Every class even has a built-in Meltdown, where if you're pushed to the edge they become extra reckless, ensuring a broad fallout of messy drama when they do manage to calm down.

-Cortex System / Unisystem. Perhaps you want to drop your blorbo into an existing fictional universe? But you also want stats and meaty character creation instead of just freeform roleplay? There are easily a dozen games on the Cortex engine, including Supernatural, Firefly, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Marvel, and Leverage. And on Unisystem, there's Buffy, Army Of Darkness, as well as a somewhat rare I Can't Believe It's Not Planet Of The Apes.

-Lancer / Gubat Banwa. If you like blorb-y play but still want a heavy side of combat, both of these games have you covered. Lancer has a sprawling scifi universe focused on mech pilots, and Gubat Banwa has a violent and lavish mythological Philippines setting. Both of these games also have stunningly beautiful artwork, so if you like seeing a setting visually come to life, these are for you.

-Fabula Ultima. My final recommendation is also an extremely gorgeous looking game. Fabula Ultima is built on the bones of Ryuutama (itself an excellent travel-fantasy game) to enable meaty, blorby Final Fantasy style campaign play. Combat is a rich and deep option in Fabula Ultima, but so is everything from spellcasting to crafting, and players have built-in resources they can spend to affect the story. If a scene isn't quite going the way you want it to, you can spend a point to nudge it in the right direction. Fabula Ultima also feels extremely complete without being too complicated.

So there you go. Eight options, and that's barely scratching the surface of the sea of blorb-y games (Seventh Sea, Exalted, Blue Rose, Legend Of The Five Rings, Coyote And Crow, Timewatch, Nahual, and more!)

It's also not wrong to play non-blorb-y games in a blorb-y way. Do whatever you're comfortable with! But you might enjoy dipping into these titles.

Finally, if you've read this far and you're somehow still looking for MORE recommendations, I wrote this game about runaway changelings trying to find their place in the world, and it's probably the blorbiest in my catalog.

[sprintingowl]

TTRPGs in this bundle include:

-The XCom-inspired Cyberrats

-The cozy mecha Giants Of Steel

-The cooking competition Bakers, Charge!

-The extreme footnotes experience Like Skyscrapers Blotting Out The Sun

-The camera ghost-hunter Shudderspeed

-The emotions and golf powered Condor Green

-The grim and gory dungeon crawler Hollow Halls

-The tiny mech action Kernel

And fifty more.

Absolute killer of a bundle going on right now! Organized by @sprintingowl, it contains a whole stew of indie ttrpg goodness (including my own game of emergent mystery and darkness, Extracausal).

Check it out!

[sprintingowl]

Romance Of The Perilous Land

So the thing about Romance Of The Perilous Land is that it's basically 5e. Classes, to hit roll, advantage, saves, proficiencies, spells as little pre-made bombs that you prepare at the start of the day, magical items that give you things like "avoid losing 1 HP once per day." It's 5e.

But Romance Of The Perilous Land does make some interesting changes, and not just in its shifting of the game setting from pseudo-Tolkien murder-wandering to Hollywood Arthuriana. There's a fair bit of OSR design that got poured into its cup.

Romance is a roll under system. You throw d20 under your relevant stat, of which there are only five (might, reflex, constitution, mind, charisma). Difficulty is subtracted from your stat, so on a hard roll your 12 Reflex might be only a 7 Reflex. Exact difficulty numbers are spelled out in the book.

This cleans up a lot of the murkiness of 5e DMs setting DCs. You don't have to fuss over whether something is a DC 13 or a DC 12, and you don't have to worry about that number not matching up with the way the player is envisioning the check in their mind. The roll is simple, regular, tough, or severe, and the difficulty for each is spelled out.

Romance also makes some similar changes to armor and spells. Armor provides refreshable HP instead of making you harder to hit. Your level is used to reduce the hit chance of enemy attacks. Spells are prepared by spending spell points, so you don't have to have X 1st level spells and Y 2nd level spells and so on all the way to 10th level. You choose what you want to prioritize, and spells can be prepared any time during the day as long as you're willing to spend time and spell points on them.

Romance's setting doesn't really click with me, but it's what you'd loosely expect from the word Arthuriana. This isn't an aggressively historical-feeling game like Pendragon---the Britain it gives you is more like what you'd expect out of a television show---but it's fleshed out and there's plenty of adventure and danger to be had, and folklore critters are everywhere to slay and bargain with.

Layout-wise, Romance is very easy to read and the rules are written in a way that makes them quick to skim. The book has a bunch of gorgeous art pieces like the one on the cover, and you can learn the whole ruleset in an evening.

For 5e players that want to step into the indie, Romance Of The Perilous Land is the easiest possible mechanical bridge. Everything 5e teaches you to expect from an rpg is here, plus a Camelots And Grails setting that 5e weirdly has some trouble doing---and the changes from 5e are easy to learn and generally for the better. There's a few published supplements for Romance (which is nowhere near the vast sprawl of the 5e third party scene), but they make the game easy to run out of the box.

Overall, if you're getting into TTRPGs, if you like Arthurian heroics, if you want to see what happens when you start making small system tweaks to 5e, or if you're in the OSR and you want to try something 5e-ish, Romance Of The Perilous Land fits all of these bills. It's a solid, professionally made TTRPG that doesn't revolutionize the hobby, but feels both familiar and fun.

[sprintingowl]

This is a really cool idea! My gut feeling is that it'd also be pretty challenging---you're dancing around canon the whole time---so you might not want to use the d12 roll table in combination with it.

Also, riffing off of what you said with fantasy football, if you've got a few friends who write and like weird challenges, you could always try drafting characters. Select a couple of works, and then everyone goes in a circle picking characters from them. You can't pick from the same work twice, and everyone you pick has to have screen time in your story.

There should be a fanfic writing game called the showrunners challenge where someone writes a story and partway through someone else can play things like "actor leaves after 4000 more words" or "topic now too politically sensitive due to unforeseen world events" or "lost rights to that reference"

[sprintingowl]

Dead Beats (Seven Recipes)

I want to be clear up front that Dead Beats is a tabletop roleplaying game.

It is an action horror game with damp loser protagonists where you chain together a bunch of actions during your turn to make one giant combo and slam a dumpster down onto an angel that's been eating runaways.

HOWEVER

We are also up to seven recipes in the optional accompanying cookbook (Shredded Beats).

Do you want to butcher and use every part of the beet? Do you want a salad, a topping for grilled meat or mushrooms, a beverage, a soup, a sweetener, a batch of cookies, and a dip for bread?

Try Dead Beats! The tabletop roleplaying game / wildly overscoped recipe collection that will make you say "Wow! This is certainly a SprintingOwl project!"

[sprintingowl]

I should be promoing my kickstarter but I had a little bit of time and honestly I don't like doing promo so I threw Showrunner's Challenge into a very basic layout.

Anyway, it's a PDF now, I fixed one typo that was really bothering me, feel free to hack and adjust in whatever way makes it easiest for you to play, and I'd love to hear if anyone writes something with it!

https://kumada1.itch.io/showrunners

There should be a fanfic writing game called the showrunners challenge where someone writes a story and partway through someone else can play things like "actor leaves after 4000 more words" or "topic now too politically sensitive due to unforeseen world events" or "lost rights to that reference"

[sprintingowl]

Dead Beats (It's A Normal Game)

If you've enjoyed my writing in such works as a modern military tactics game about cheese or the game that's only a cover that lets you play other games' covers or the world's only (??) strip ttrpg or that one where you're all crabs building a bus, please try one of my normaler titles.

Dead Beats is a pretty regular combat TTRPG that's designed like a fighting game and has you combo together a bunch of actions every turn.

It's like Devil May Cry, but zoomed in on the parts where Dante is a loser (positive connotation).

[sprintingowl]

I do not have the energy do do a full layout right now b/c it is kickstarter season and I am under water, but here's a prototype that can be solo-played (you can also have a friend just pick from the lists if you want that pvp feeling.)

Showrunner's Challenge By Runawaymarbles (also sorta by sprintingowl)

Begin writing a fanfic. It is a feature length television program being watched every week by thousands. There is no plan. The industry is in shambles. The writer's room is barely hanging on.

At the end of each chapter, roll a d12.

1 Everything at once. Roll twice, use both. If you get this again, keep rolling. Your only way out is to stop getting 1s. 2 Product placement! The next chapter must center (and subtly promote the features of) a product belonging to the most recent brand you've seen. 3 Fan favorite. Your most recently mentioned character (or named object) is now beloved by the audience. You must give it a bigger part in the story, a special destiny, or an important new romance or friendship. If you get this twice for the same character or object, the adoration cools and you must go back to treating the character or object normally. 4 Executive meddling. You must change to a different genre. You cannot go back to a genre until you have changed genres three times since then. 5 Audiences are craving more coziness. The next chapter must be completely low stakes and set you at ease. 6 Audiences are craving more suspense. The next chapter must take place entirely in a single location, ideally just a single room, and build tension with every exchange of dialog. 7 Audiences are craving more action. The next chapter needs to involve at least one extended fight scene, and the weapons must be the last three objects mentioned. 8 Audiences are craving more romance. The next chapter needs to involve a deep, sappy confession of either love or admiration between two characters that have not previously been romantically involved. 9 Go to the most recent line in your fic that references a brand. Due to ongoing legal action, that brand cannot be mentioned again, but you score 1 audience point every time you allude to it in a way that paints it in a negative light. 10 The two most recently mentioned characters' actors have, IRL, gone through a VERY messy divorce or friend breakup. You cannot put them in the same scene, but they must both remain relevant parts of the show. If you get this with the same two characters again, they reconcile. 11 The most recent negative event (stabbing, poisoning, banishment to jupiter) is now the center of a very real IRL news story. You must immediately pivot away from all plotlines involving it and, if possible, also find away to apologize for even thinking to include it without breaking character. 12 The most recently mentioned character's actor has decided to leave the show. You must write them out in the next chapter. If you are brave, also roll a d12. 1--6, they were well loved and their sendoff must be as flowery as possible. 7--12, they were despised by the cast and crew. Mulch them.

You win if you can complete the fic in a state of relative coherency.

Alternate Game Mode: TV Digest Version

Don't write full chapters, just summaries of what happens in each chapter.

Alternate Game Mode: Realism Edition

Start your fanfic with your own telling of the first episode of an existing show, then proceed from there.

There should be a fanfic writing game called the showrunners challenge where someone writes a story and partway through someone else can play things like "actor leaves after 4000 more words" or "topic now too politically sensitive due to unforeseen world events" or "lost rights to that reference"

[sprintingowl]

Join Me As I Make TTRPGs Worse Or Better

This Is The Cover Of A Game And You Can Play The Cover Of Any Game By Choosing A Piece Of It And Saying "That's Me" And Describing How You Get Out Of The Situation On The Cover...

....is a TTRPG that I am now responsible for.

Enjoy every part of the rpgs in your collection with this new development in Better Or Worse game technologies.

[sprintingowl]

Dead Beets (TTRPG)

A quick rundown on the recipes that I am testing for this non-cookbook, definitely-a-roleplaying-game:

-Beet Greens Salad With Strawberries And Basil

-Brown Sugar Quick Pickled Beet Stems

-Beet Kvass

-Borscht, Open Ended

-Beet Molasses

The stretch goal that includes these recipes *is* a joke goal, but I have never been one to not take a joke seriously. Also all of the custom content levels---where you force me to add a new monster, weapon, or scenario to the game---get the beet recipes for free.

[sprintingowl]

Damp Beats

Look, the rest of the game is a fast-paced brawler where you spinkick the devil into a bunch of trash cans and the sound effects guy plays a bowling pins sound over the clip, but I want you to know these protagonists are

Damp

Bedraggled

Going Through Situations

Dead Beats is about stylish action combat as much as it's about, like, the parts of Supernatural that acknowledge the characters are poor, tired, and bonded through trauma.

This is a demon hunting TTRPG. It's a Street Fighter and Devil May Cry inspired TTRPG. It's a rain drenched blorbos TTRPG. It's an eating a gas station burger while sitting on the curb and looking up at the night sky and wondering when they'll decide to charge admission for something so beautiful TTRPG. It's a heroic losers doing what's right because no one else will TTRPG.