#BXLLET

[rathayibacter]

realized while writing that promo post that BXLLET was out of community copies, so just added some more! id highly encourage anyone thinking about buying BXLLET to take a community copy and spend that money on a cool supplement instead. if you want a recommendation, try BXLLET CLIP! its got a bunch of really sick design work from a bunch of friends of mine, and even a lil interview with moi

[mygrrlwednesday]

It’ll feel cold and heavy, and bark at your touch,

It’ll plant a kiss on your forehead wet with heat,

It’ll hold you at night and lay you to sleep,

It’ll paint reds and yellow and purples and fears,

It’s a stranger, it’s a ghost, it’s a lover, it’s a killer,

They only say the name in whispers and lies

IT’S A GUN IT’S A GUN IT’S A GUN

DEADLY WEAPONS LIVE ON ITCH

The new TTRPG from myself and @sublimemarch is out now! Deadly Weapons is a game about power, gender, trauma, desire, and hope. It is set in an urban fantasy world very similar to our own, but where underneath the surface Demons prowl and Avatars hunt. Players will create these Avatars, girls who one day had a gun arrive in their possession. A gun that cries in their dreams and never leaves their side. A gun which whispers in their ear that they must hunt and kill Demons. Demons are all around the Avatars, existing as classmates, bosses, or even romantic interests. But whether an Avatar fires their gun is up to them.

Deadly Weapons is a tabletop roleplaying game for about 2 to 6 players, including a guide. It is a hack of the [BXLLET> system by @rathayibacter, with a focus on atmospheric and narrative play. The game uses no dice or other randomizers. Instead, characters willingly take on various risks represented by the Avatars gaining Dooms and suffering fallout over the course of play.

Deadly Weapons is also a collage piece, made using at least 75% recycled or secondhand physical materials. The art, rules text, poetry, and fiction contained within this 32 page digital zine serves to inform your play.

Your gun whispers sweet nothings as you fitfully roll in your bed. It is now time. Be a girl with a gun! Hunt Demons! Smooch Demons! Live! Die!

[that-house]

=[SILXNCER]: a [BXLLET> expansion

I'm a big fan of @rathayibacter's [BXLLET> system, so I made a lil expansion for it!

=[SILXNCER] adds 8 new classes to the game:

The Revenant: an ultra-lethal undead who loses themself as they kill

The Debtor: a false prophet backed by a malicious, godlike entity

The Rider: the fastest damn thing in this hemisphere

The Duelist: a showy gunman with a past they can't run from

The Old Timer: just a tough old bastard

The Headsman: a supernatural bounty hunter/slasher villain

The Fallen: an old world astronaut-turned-angel

The Lovers: a well-meaning fool and their evil, sapient gun

This is an expansion for an existing game: you can pick up [BXLLET> on Rath's itch page.

[ostermad-blog]

You've read Kill Six Billion Demons, right?

"The thing that got me into K6BD was someone posting a screenshot of Mother Om saying “Perish” and blowing off Gog-agog’s head. I saw that and thought, ‘Oh, that rules!’ Fun Rath trivia, the last D&D character I ever played, and ever will play, probably, was in a West Marshes campaign. They were a Kenku warlock named Pwk [pronounced “Pook”]. And Pwk’s gimmick was that they were obsessed with spellcraft and sold their original name to a fairy queen to be able to cast spells because they have no natural talent for it and never got the education you need to be a wizard. But they’d been obsessed with magic for so long that they’d trained themselves to be able to say spell names. So, instead of just being able to imitate noises, I could also say the names of spells. And I used that as how I talked. I had a notes document on my phone of every spell in D&D, with all the ones that were good at conveying ideas bolded. And only a few people managed to figure this out, but Pwk’s name was spelled ‘P-W-K’, and it stood for Power Word: Kill. Because, ultimately, that’s what Pwk saw magic as: as the power to say a word and have anything you want happen.”

Rathayibacter Toxicus

You want to read more cool stories, musings on game design and Pokemon fuckability? Then you should check out Bxllet Clip, the new ttrpg periodical! In our first issue, I interviewed Rath to get this gem and a host of others. You can also grab a fantastic new hack by Adira Slattery, a couple of adventures, some new classes, and more!

Pick up your copy here! Bxllet Clip: The Pinxp Issue by Wheels Within Wheels Publishing (itch.io)

[sweetest-cyanide]

The left is the game i wanted to make a year ago and the right is the game im making now

[spidergirl-fibula]

Oh god I'm experiencing thoughts

I haven't played either of these RPGs and I haven't even read Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast btw this is all just interpretation. Also I might be misremembering the Yazeba's BnB ability but I'm too afraid to check because now I wrote this whole thing

Ever since the ttrpg ability bracket I've been obsessed with the Rag-and-Bones ability that ends the fucking world. It's a fake mechanic, something that has no real effect in the game's world but creates and condenses an entire character dynamic.

[BXLLET>, another game in the bracket, has a playbook with a pretty similar mechanic, and I thought the difference between them was interesting enough to suddenly express something here for once. A BXLLET expansion, ShXll CasXngs has the Smile playbook (who might be my favorite but I haven't read all of them), whose final ability requires 30 bullets, and ends the fucking world. Like Rag-and-Bones Journey in Yazeba's BnB, this is extremely unlikely to occur, and even has a similar token cost. Obviously the abilities have entirely different emotional impact due to the wider context of the games their placed in, but I think the small differences between them really help the vibe of each ability fit in their world.

Rag-and-Bones token tracker, in all his Doofenshmirtzian genius, can be entirely erased by anybody at any point, and he can't do anything about it. The Smile's final ability has a tracker that can only be ticked slowly away, and only at the Smile's will. The context of how tokens are removed is also different. I personally imagine Rag-and-Bones' plot to unravel as a character leans against an off-switch and accidentally saves the world, or Yazeba just treats him as a minor nuisance to sweep away every so often. Smile loses bullets when they use them for what they're built for. Using bullets in BXLLET is already a kinda big decision, and unlike other players, Smile can only use them to kill. It makes gaining a bullet just as dramatic a moment as losing one; I can imagine them finding a bullet on what used to be a target and asking, what if they keep this one? Rag-and-Bones, meanwhile, fails at yet another scheme because Parish mistakes the potion of the apocalypse for the soup he made for breakfast, and now everyone has food poisoning and the bloodfire meant to scorch the earth is actually just a garnish of fresh bell peppers. You almost feel relieved when Smile shoots a sobbing man dead, cold blood soaking into the dust that used to be home. This was supposed to be a mechanical analysis but now I'm having fun with it let me get back on track. The Rag-and-Bones Journey being stopped by other players is such a good little spark for roleplaying, which makes sense for how the rest of the game is written. BXLLET is also a roleplay-heavy game, only defining some basic conflict resolution mechanics and leaving the rest up to the players, but playbooks are largely disconnected from each other, and it's usually a personal decision to spend a bullet. Maybe you can steal them, but Smile isn't the type you wanna piss off. Similar mechanics that probably weren't inspired by one or the other and with enough distinction in the details to make both of them shine. Why did you read this far. Did I get a good grade in media analysis. This was barely anything I thought I had more ideas to write about but that's it I guess.

[literalcatpod]

30 - Midsize Lightning Round

Anime Summer Season is over, and we are at the 30-episode mark! This episode, we took a look at Renegade Games' Kids on Bikes and Teens in Space, Tunnel Goons by @highlandparanormalsociety, Bxllet by @rathayibacter, Web of Lies and Defense Engineers by Incitement Studio (which is just @dnallohleoj from This Show and they'll probably be republished by Badger Trove soon), and Ghost Lines by John Harper. This episode radically skews the cat-to-episode ratio, but that's okay. We'll do them anyway

Follow the show online: https://literalcatpod.start.page/ 

Follow Joel Holland: https://jholland.start.page/

Follow Austin Erwin: https://twitter.com/AvalonAlchemist\

We’ve got a Patreon now! https://www.patreon.com/BadgerTrove 

Download the character sheets: https://bit.ly/literalcatpod 

We’re on Pillowfort now! https://www.pillowfort.social/community/LiteralCatPod 

Cover art and Intro/Outro music made by Joel Holland

Thanks for listening! We’ll Cat-ch you later!

[girlyholic]

May releases by Kitty Bxllet:

Rose Flower Blouse

Heavenly Girly Cake Skirt

Praying Girl Blouse

Secret World of Girls Skirt

Healing Mie Mie Yukata

Healing Mie Mie Sling Top

Heart Healing Love Longsleeve Top

Doll Hospital Building Tank Top

[psychhound]

hey yall!!! new bundle :D

this is my 14 for 14 ttrpg bundle to pay off some of the debt from my top surgery!! you get 14 games and homebrew for 14 bucks, which is gonna run until june 14th (my birthday!!)

my top surgery was absolutely life changing and has made me so much more comfortable, confident, and happy. i dont regret it in the least. i also got hit with some surprise bills afterward that have me pretty heftily in debt because of it

some very kind souls have donated their games to help me pay some of this off, which was just so incredibly generous. which means its not just my games in here!! lots and lots of cool stuff, please check it out!!

in the bundle:

ttrpgs:

[BXLLET> : a game about systems of violence and power in the weird west apocalypse

disparateum: a dream-like reality-bending game where you hop worlds and tell strange stories

little celestial fieldwork guide: a city exploration photography game where you divine hidden spirits and take photos of them

beach day!: a system agnostic party bonding minigame where characters swap gifts and secrets

what they once feared: a solo journaling game where you play a folkloric monster forced to choose your path

the narrator paradox: a one page solo game where you play a storybook narrator whos protagonist has gained agency and is trying to change the story

the fool who got married (extended): a duet epistolary game of female hardship and connection in 1848

explorers of the forever city: a rules-light, fantasy role-playing game about ordinary people making extraordinary discoveries

homebrew:

riders: a pact for moth-light by justin ford, a fitd game. tame, bond with, and ride the terrifying predator moths

witch: a class for d&d 5e. be a con-based half-caster with curses, familiars, and a whole new way of doing spell slots

harmony with the wind: a ghibli-inspired d&d 5e pack with 5 feats, 4 backgrounds, 4 races, 6 monsters, and 3 subclasses

fairytale/feywild: a pack for d&d 5e with 1 background, 2 races, 1 subclass, and unique timekeeping mechanics for the feywild

burger wizard: a d&d 5e compatible narrative rpg about working as magical kitchen staff in a fantasy restaurant

argyth's arcane companion: 4 wizard subclasses, 3 feats, and 17 new spells for d&d 5e

you can get all of this for 14 bucks until june 14th!! it would really mean a lot to me for yall to check it out and also spread the word :D

check it out on itch!!

[ajisaikei]

finally bought a new skirt, it's from kitty bxllet and I can't believe I'm somehow not too fat to fit into it

[ttrpgbrackets]

Well everyone, we're here. There were a few delays in the process, but it's time for the finals. An inexplicable gun vs a conspicuous lack of a gun. A showdown for the ages. The usual propaganda will be below, but just in case anyone hasn't seen the pinned post yet, I want to congratulate our finalists.

BXLLET and its expansion SHXLL CASXNGS can be found on Legendary Vermin and Rathayibacter's respective itch.io pages.

Spire: The City Must Fall can be found on Rowan, Rook, and Dekkard's website.

And away we go!

Man With a Gun:

Roll Fight+Occult to cast this spell. If you succeed, a person with a gun enters the room you’re currently standing in. You don’t get to say who they are, whose side they’re on or what they want, but you can guarantee that someone with a loaded gun will walk into the room as long as there’s a reasonable entry point for them to walk through.

What makes it so cool?

So Spire's Inksmith is the pulp novelist as a wizard; they write cliches and potboiler fiction into reality. This isn't even one of the signature class abilities, it's an optional move, but it's just so perfect for what it is that it's always what pops into mind when people ask about cool abilities.

Survivor Final Ability

With 20 bullets on your person: if you bury your bullets in a place of adequate size, your old community comes back to you in full, provided you never touch another bullet. This only works once.

What makes it cool?

i adore this as a conclusion to the Survivor's arc. you watch your community be destroyed, you venture out into the cruel world that did it, you fight and bleed and barely survive, and only by collecting an unimaginable treasure trove of violence can you win back what was lost forever. most players will not gather 20 bullets. 10 is already a tall ask for a desolate apocalypse, not to mention that the more you have the bigger a target is painted on your back. you'll die in the dust, and as you're bleeding out you'll look down at that spot on your character sheet, taunting you. you could have saved them. you could have gotten it all back. alas.

[rathayibacter]

adira hasnt made a tumblr post about this yet so im taking matters into my own hands

CHECK OUT DEADLY WEAPONS IT KICKS ASS AND IS GORGEOUS

thank you for your time

[theresattrpgforthat]

hello! long time fan, second time asker! any fallout/fallout-esque ttrpg recommendations? esp. styled after 1, 2, and new vegas. could be recommendations based on setting, vibe, mechanics - whatever you like :) i did already get after the bombs fell by the illustrious aaron king on your recommendation, and am very excited to play! if you've already answered this kind of ask before, then maybe some recommendations for trigun-esque ttrpgs - i love the setting of trigun, and i think it would lend itself well to an rpg. anyways, thank you so much for all you do, and for opening my eyes to so many fun games! happy adventuring to you!

THEME: Trigun!

Alright so for Fallout games, I think I did a really good job in my Fallout Recommendation Post, and I also reblogged this post a while back that has a few more hits involved. I might also have a few more recs at the end of this post. So I guess what we’re going to try to do today is find some games that would lend themselves to running a Trigun-style game!

I haven’t seen Trigun, so I did some research about it. From what I understand, it’s about Vash, a superpowered outcast who’s being hunted by people for a big bounty, despite his vow to never take another person’s life. The series seems to be an examination about the choice to act or not, and the characters all seemed to be flawed or haunted in one way or another. What’s really interesting to me is that this feels to have a lot of overlap with the themes of Cowboy Bebop, especially since the creators of Trigun appear to be inspired by westerns as well.

With that in mind, I’ve got a lot of space - western ttrpgs here; the settings of all of these can probably be altered to reflect more closely the setting of Trigun, without doing that much harm to the way the rules work.

BXLLET, by Rathayibacter.

The world was broken, a long time ago. We've fought hard to build something better in the aftermath, but we're haunted by the ruins, weapons, and monsters of the past. Will you scratch out a corner of paradise, or will you give in to the temptations of the gun on your hip?

[BXLLET> is a game about systems of violence and power in a world rebuilding itself. As wandering gunslingers, you'll travel the world and do what you can to help the people you encounter. You'll become more powerful the more bullets you carry, but you'll also struggle with the responsibility that power carries with it. Violence will come easily to you, but can you feed crops with rivers of blood?

This game deals with issues of gun violence, exploitation, and apocalypse, and those sensitive to those issues should go into this fully aware. It's not a game for fascists, bigots, capitalists, or their lackeys, and shouldn't be approached from a perspective that boils the complexities of the world into "good guys with guns vs bad guys with guns."

If you want a game that directly tackles the uses of violence and the weight that comes with the decision to kill, I definitely recommend checking out BXLLET. One of the most poignant mechanics of this game revolves around the storage of bullets, and the way your bullet hoard gives you powers. If you spend a bullet, someone will die - you won’t have to roll for it. But if you spend your bullets, you’re also spending your XP. I think it’s very interesting that you only gain the use of special powers if you choose not to spend your killing resource - and by using your bullets to kill, you also lose special, very effective powers.

Even though BXLLET isn’t necessarily a space western, I think it definitely communicates the themes of Trigun in a very interesting way, and I definitely think it’s worth checking out.

Orbital Blues, by Soulmuppet Publishing.

This is the rock and roll future of yesteryear that never was—and nobody wanted.  It is an intergalactic age of cowboys, outlaws and bandits playing on an interstellar stage. It is a time of hyper-capitalism and a cut-throat gig economy. Unreliable trash-heaps carry scrappy underdogs to their next gig, and corporation freighters lumber across the horizon laden with an empire’s bounty. These are the music-fuelled, moon-age daydreams of a rebel space age.  These are your ORBITAL BLUES.

ORBITAL BLUES is a lo-fi space western roleplaying game from SoulMuppet Publishing, written by Sam Sleney & Zachary Cox.  A roleplaying love-letter to off-beat sci-fi, vintage music, and cooperative old-school styled roleplay, Orbital Blues allows you to play out rules-light tabletop adventures in the style of space westerns. Stepping into the shoes of Interstellar Outlaws, players band together to form Crews, and navigate a hard-going, gig-economy living on the fringes of a space-faring society.

Orbital Blues is more in the style of Firefly and Cowboy Bebop, but from what I gather about Trigun, that somewhat sad western feel rings true for that series as well. As sad space cowboys, each of the players chooses a Gambit - a special ability that is special to your character - as well as a Trouble - something that haunts your character, a problem that just won’t go away. Playing into your Trouble grants you a Blues, a measure of how much of your past sins weigh down on you. Should your Blues get too high, you’ll have to confront your Trouble, but this also allows you to spend your Blues like a resource, and at the end of the scene, you can gain new abilities, restore health, or increase a stat by 1.

If you want a game where wrestling with your past and your worries is what fuels your character’s story, you want Orbital Blues.

Clink, by Technical Grimoire Games.

Clink is a tabletop RPG about drifters, the creeds that bring them together, and the history that drives them apart. This game uses coins to tell a story inspired by spaghetti westerns, ronin tales, and shows like Firefly or Supernatural.

Your past is a mystery, but your Creed drives you forward.

Characters begin as rough sketches of the shifty sort you’d see in an old Western or Noir film. They all start as blank slates, their histories unknown. Tell stories about their past and create your character as you play.

You can play Clink in the setting of your choice, but what remains true about the characters is that they are competent, and they drift from place to place. As a group, all of you have the same Creed, a commitment that the group promises to follow - perhaps that they will seek revenge, or that they will never kill someone in their search for peace. Your characters will also have personal Triggers - certain situations or actions that prompt them to do something that puts them and the group in trouble. Your backstory isn’t written at the beginning of the game, but rather unraveled through moments called Flashbacks, which do double duty as exposition as well as the reason why your Drifter is good at roping, shooting, piloting, and more.

Finally, Clink uses coins, two of which are flipped every time you attempt something difficult or dangerous. As long as one of those coins comes up heads, you’ll do alright - but get double tails and your success comes at a cost - a Scar. Scars are dark moments from your part, moments you wish you didn’t have to relive. Gain too many Scars, and your group may splinter, bringing the story to a bitter or sorrowful end.

Dubious Pursuits, by Nested Games.

Dubious Pursuits is a short, PbtA RPG  for 4-6 players about Bounty Hunters in pursuit of their target, emulated stories like Cowboy Bebop. Your pursuit will be propelled not by violence, but by learning personal details about your bounty and what brought them to this point. What will you do when you finally catch up with them? 

Dubious Pursuits credits Cowboy Bebop as a source of inspiration, but I think it has the ability of delivering an emotional story that challenges your players to face the complexities of chasing down someone while learning things about them that might make bringing them to justice harder and harder to do. I don’t own the game so I’m not sure how much control the table has over the truths of the target, but I wonder if it might be possible to use this game to approach a super-powered bounty from the perspective of someone like Meryl Strife.

24BB: The Mud, The Blood, & The Beer by Calvin J’onzz.

You are a sinner. You are wicked. You have taken human life, first in self defense but then because it felt good. You have stolen from those in need, first to survive but then because it was easy. You have treated humans as objects and property because they were less powerful and could not stop you. But now you have stopped doing those things. You are still that person—you still want to do those things—but you are trying on a different approach to life. You have realized a new ethos, and you feel deep camaraderie with any who share it.

A Western. The world presented here aims to reflect the weirdness of Trigun and the energy of The Mandalorian without losing the tension of For a Fistful of Dollars. The gravitas of Clint Eastwood's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly or the schlock of Patrick Swayze's Steel Dawn is optional. 

The rules for MBB are pretty easy to pick up - different size dice that scale up with your skill and a simple threshold of 4 to beat for any given roll - and the setting is minimalistic, allowing you to flavor or fill it as you like. Trigun is listed directly in the series of references for this game, which tells me that you’ll be able to create a character similar to Vash without any trouble.

A unique mechanic to this version of 24XX is your character’s edge. Edge is a meta-resource (that could have a physical manifestation) belonging to your character that can give you a boost when you need it, or that can help you avoid some kind of consequence. Edges are one-use items that are erased when tapped, although they can be gained again during play. You can take an edge when you play into your one redeeming virtue, such as never harming kids, taking others’ burdens, or aiding in forgiveness. The game comes with a whole roll table to inspire your personal edges, and I think these virtues make this game an homage to Trigun more than anything else.

Magitech Space Western, by ApexCity.

Welcome to the Beyond, pard. Beyond what? Beyond hope or help, beyond safety and security. Unfortunately, not beyond the reach of the Law or the Civ, or the ever avaricious Corporations. Beyond just about everything that you’ve been told is necessary to survive, though. But that’s ok. Dust yourself off, pick yourself up, and let’s take a stroll…

Magitech Space Western is a card-based hack of Powered by the Apocalypse, using a standard set of playing cards to determine the outcomes of actions instead of dice. It also includes variants of Poker and Blackjack to abstract player conflict and vehicle action, respectively.

While this game comes from the PbtA design school, the use of cards instead of dice leans into the themes of the genre, asking the players to build their characters according to two card suits of their choice. These card suits represent different aspects of a character’s personality. The staggered successes of PbtA show up here as the values on the cards you draw and play - 7-10 for a mixed success, Jack-Ace for a full success, and a 6 or lower for a a miss. However, since you’re playing from a hand that you might have, you may occasionally get to choose what you play - and playing cards that align with the suits you’ve chosen give you something extra to spend down the road.

Since you’re playing from a deck, you can to some extent plan around what’s already been drawn as you play. I think this might also allow an ebb and flow as you tell the story - a string of bad luck should lead to something good, and a string of good luck means that there’s trouble down the road.

When it comes to setting, you’re all existing in a capitalistic world that ignores the troubles of the marginalized and the backwater folks. Expect to attract trouble from the rich, the powerful, and the desperate - and expect that things are never going to go completely your way.

Other Games I Recommend….

Check out my Post Apocalypstic Community Recommendation Post!

I also did a Nuclear Radiation Recommendation Post a while back.

I’ve got a Space and Stars Recommendation Post that might have some funky settings.

I also have another Space Western Recommendation Post that have some overlap with what you see here, but also have more options!

[strawberry-meltdown]

via kitty bxllet!

ParcelUp TaoBao

[ostermad-blog]

TTRPG WIPs

@temporalhiccup tagged me in a thing, so now I guess I have to respond.

First, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my big project that just launched, Bxllet Clip: a brand-new ttrpg periodical dedicated to all things [Bxllet>. Our inaugural issue has new adventures, new classes, an interview with Bxllet's author, optional rulesets, as well as a whole-ass Bxllet hack that's some of the most evocative game writing I've read yet. And you can pick up Bxllet Clip together with Bxllet for no extra cost! Grab your copy here: Bxllet Clip: The Pinxp Issue by Wheels Within Wheels Publishing (itch.io)

TTRPG Projects in some form of active development

untitled GBA Fire Emblem ttrpg that presents a sleek translation of the GBA FE mechanics to the tabletop.

TTRPG Projects on some sort of hiatus or back-burner status

MONSTER GUTS: DARK the Dark Souls-inspired expansion for MONSTER GUTS taking place on a Fidalgo Island that has been corrupted by an unknown force. It's a hexcrawl monster hunter experience where players risk losing their memories as they pursue new monsters to slay, new weapons to wield, and the only known cure for Blisters.

GELGELIM: For those of you who've seen my AP, Gelgelim: A Yiddish Fantasy Gone Rogue, you know that I have a Yiddish fantasy setting that I've been working on for the last 5 or so years set in an alternate-historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania circa 1630. What you might not know is that there's a whole game system that goes along with it that uses Tarot cards. If you're a fan of A TaroTRPG from A to Zine, 26 Tarot mechanics for adventure-style ttrpgs, then you should be real hyped as that zine is the closest I've come to publishing Gelgelim content.

TTRPGS I've let go of but might return to some day

nah, I don't really do that.

Anywho, let's tag some people to see what their WIPs are. @rathayibacter @legendaryvermin @vvvisection What've you got on your plates?

[sweetest-cyanide]

I really like this page i made