#and getting to see other systems played on d20

[canyouseeher]

This most recent FHJY episode has, I think, finally radicalized me against D&D. There are just so many story beats that I feel like got lost because the system, in many ways, requires a fight to the death.

[pagesofkenna]

i wanted to make a post about a thing but the more i think about it the more i want to say and it's just going to end up being a big ramble essay, so instead i'll just give the thesis statement, thusly:

as the #1 Ratgrinders Apologist (self-appointed), of course they're the final boss fight to the death. i expected nothing less and the people trying to make discourse about it are ignoring the entire context of this being a Dungeons and Dragons game

[thisisnotthenerd]

ok: the spreadsheet is updated [thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats]

so is the other spreadsheet [D20 Episode Randomizer]

both will continue updating throughout the season, with character data and episode data, so keep an eye out.

random stats for you to enjoy:

brennan is in the dome for his 20th season, 16th as GM

ally is tied with lou for most seasons in the dome as a player (11) and will overtake him in episode count by the end of the season, with 173 to lou's 170

rekha and izzy are tied with brennan for seasons as players (4), and tied for episodes (36). they've played two of their four individual seasons together (T7 & NSBU).

ify moves up to the 3-season group, with a total of 20 episodes.

alex is back for their second kids on bikes season, capping out at 16 episodes

jacob is in the dome for the first time! we're so glad to have him

R2 is officially ally's seat, given that they've spent 5 seasons and 77/173 episodes in it

in terms of the players, we're at a completely even gender split: 2 female, 2 male, 2 nonbinary.

with this season, we break 250 episodes of dimension 20

we're up to a total of 523 hours, 41 minutes, and 54 seconds. that's roughly 21.8 days, or three weeks of dimension 20, before the season starts. the average episode length is 2:10:23, and median is 2:09:08.

as for the season:

i love the concept--d20 does genre pastiche really well; they're taking an already campy concept and making it campier. they're digging into the comedy sandbox in a fun, chaotic, balls-to-the-wall way this go-around. and what a cast to do it with.

this combines multiple forms of 80's nostalgia in a way that the cast can play in easily; there are a lot of elements to play with on multiple character levels

we're back with a kids on bikes reskin, much like mentopolis. i think it's going to continue to be a staple because the system is simple enough for people to jump in quickly, it's easy to reskin with varying stats, and it has a lot of room for improvisers to play with. right now it's functionally d20's second system, with three seasons on the docket. everyone say thank you aabria for introducing kids on bikes to the dome.

the dual layer of characters is a fun flavor to add--it's just an extra filter that we get to see the cast work with, and not something we've particularly seen them do before. they aren't just playing the movie characters, they're playing them in the way that they think their original characters would perceive the archetypes.

in conjunction with that: kids on bikes lends itself well to playing with archetypes--we saw it in both mentopolis and misfits & magic. we're looking at a few here in NSBU: the action hero [car and gun variants], the femme fatale, the debonair spy, the mob boss, and the hacker.

in other words, i can't wait for june 26th!

[prokopetz]

One of the more frequent anecdotes you'll hear from Dungeons & Dragons podcasters is that any time they switch to a system other than D&D, even for a one-off arc, they immediately experience a large drop in listenership – sometimes up to eighty percent! – only to see most of those listeners come back once they switch back to D&D.

What's interesting about this is that the greater part of D&D podcast listeners do not play Dungeons & Dragons. They might have a general idea of what the game's rules look like based on what they've been able to passively absorb from listening to the podcast, but they don't have regular groups, they don't own the rulebooks or maintain subscriptions to the e-book service, and many of them have never rolled a d20 in their lives.

How, then, do we account for that sudden drop in listenership? Why does which system a tabletop roleplaying podcast is using matter so much if most listeners neither know nor care about the rules?

The answer is, unfortunately, quite simple.

In many ways, advocacy for indie RPGs has never moved past Ron Edwards' infamous argument that playing Dungeons & Dragons causes actual, physical brain damage. Deep down, a lot of indie RPG advocacy seems to believe there's something sinister in the structure of D&D that's responsible for what they regard as its unaccountable popularity. You can see this in everything from the casual assumption that D&D players aren't "really" having fun (and all that's needed to convert them to other systems is to show them they've been tricked into falsely believing they're enjoying an objectively un-fun activity), to the rambling thinkpieces that talk about getting folks to try other games like they're liberating people from the fucking Matrix.

Yet we come back to the same problem: how can the mechanical structure of D&D be implicated for its culturally dominant position in the minds of those who've never picked up a twenty-sided die?

The truth is that Dungeons & Dragons enjoys cultural dominance, both within the hobby and elsewhere, because it's owned by the same multinational corporation that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony, and benefits from all the marketing strength its owner can bring to bear. The problem, in brief, is brand loyalty. The aforementioned podcasts lose listeners in droves whenever they give a non-D&D system a spin because all most of those departing listeners care about is whether the thing that they're listening to is called "Dungeons & Dragons". The structural particulars of the mechanics are irrelevant.

The bitter pill we've got to swallow as indie RPG authors is that we can't fix brand loyalty in tabletop RPGs by fucking around with the shape of the dice. There are lots of productive causes we can support to help address the problem, but they mostly have do to with intellectual property and antitrust regulations and such, which are areas where our finely honed ability to debate the correct way to pretend to be an elf is of very limited utility.

Like, I enjoy an abstruse argument about the ideology of dice-rolling as much as the next nerd, but let's not fool ourselves that we're speaking truth to power here. The gamer who just wants to roll dice to hit the dragon with their sword is not your enemy.

[cartograffiti]

If you want to run a Court of Fey & Flowers Game, dnd isn't what you need

...because it's not what the Dimension 20 cast played, either.

I talked about this a little bit once before, very early in the season, but now that it's done, it's really clear to me that they played Good Society by Storybrewers with a few Dungeons & Dragons elements hacked in, not the other way around. Aabria Iyengar loves Good Society, and it really shows. She merged the systems really beautifully to suit the expectations of D20, and that's why I think players at home will get a better experience by starting with GS materials than by trying to reverse engineer the mechanics Iyengar showed in action.

Things they got from DnD:

-Skill levels/stats.

-Rolling dice to determine success.

-The game master/facilitator (Aabria) playing most characters.

-Some creatures and spells (the dog that has an old man's face, the telepathy spell I can never remember the name of).

-Aabria giving out Inspiration.

Things they got from Good Society:

-The principle of having a character goal that may be kept secret. (In fact, some of D20's specific goals were probably even chosen from Good Society materials. The player character with a secret spouse? There's a card for that.)

-Social reputation tracked by degrees, conferring descriptions and perks. (They did not use GS's exact system. Whether it was a hack or a mix with a game system I haven't played, I don't know.)

-Trading tokens that can be burned to make strong moves. (Again, not GS's exact mechanic--GS uses tokens throughout instead of dice. That game lets you decide what your character is capable of. Tokens make sure everyone has fair chances to act, especially when players have conflicting goals.)

-Additional guidelines and mechanics for agreeing on how the table wants social events to work, as well as how to navigate the varying dynamics of relatives, friends, and rivals.

-Rumors and epistolary phases. (There's a fun post going around about Brennan asking about these because "he wanted to get a good grade in dnd," but I think he was sincerely curious how they worked, because they aren't dnd!)

-The overall cycle of play, dictating the order of phases and pace.

-Some mechanics for the reputations and interactions of fae courts as entities were taken from Good Society's Fae Courts mini-expansion.

-Monologue tokens. (D20 has Aabria as the only one who can use these, GS allows anyone in the game to ask someone to monologue.)

-Additional guidelines for determining world state, character creation, and keeping the story within a consistent style and tone that feels like a recognizably Regency story...even when giant owlbears can get gay married.

-Other flavoring and approach details.

Things Good Society has that Dimension 20 didn't get to show off:

-The ability for players to also choose a secondary character to control, allowing them to participate in more roleplay and experience multiple personalities or social roles in the same game.

-A really rich and thoughtful collaboration phase, before the story begins.

-The ability to share facilitator duties among the table, and to allow the facilitator to play a main character as well as supporting cast.

-Advice and expansions for adjusting the game to various tones, genres, and other historical periods.

So you're looking at buying Good Society:

What you need is pdfs. Definitely grab the base game for $21.00, that has most of what I just described. If you're excited to see their Fae Court specific materials, it's included in the Expanded Acquaintance bundle with many other pieces of content, or there's a bundle of the base game and every expansion they've produced. You do not need to buy the more expensive bundles that include physical books and cards unless professional physical versions delight you, the pdfs are designed to be printable. Storybrewers also made and provide spreadsheet templates for sessions meeting online, so you can all see your worksheet choices.

Good Society is a really fun and flexible system, and it's most of what we loved about how A Court of Fey and Flowers was structured. It's your best route to a recreation, and well worth playing in its original form. I love that it doesn't have stats and dice--if you've never played a ttrpg that doesn't make you do math, this is a great introduction. I'm so glad Aabria featured it on the show!

[theresattrpgforthat]

I know you've done a game recommendations post about lighthearted solo games, but do you have any suggestions for someone's first solo ttrpg/journaling game?

THEME: First-Time Solo Games!

Hello friend! I sure do have some recommendations! Many of the games I present here are representative of a larger type, so you might be able to find other games within that category by browsing the related tags on itch.io. Most of the games require dice, and many of the games require decks of cards. Other than that, you shouldn’t need anything too fancy or elaborate to play these kinds of games!

The Sky City Charade, by Ashley Morgan’s Games.

Elysia. Midtown. Someone rich was murdered. And you, a private detective from the lowest reaches of Sky City, have been tasked to find out why.

This is a solo journalling game based on the Hints and Hijinx system from Pandion Games. Create a character and navigate through a cyberpunk city stretching into the heavens, dealing with whatever it throws at you.

Using polyhedral dice, a deck of cards, something to journal with, and your own imagination, see if you can bring this case to a satisfying close by actually solving it and finding out who is behind this mysterious crime, and why you were asked to solve it.

Hints and Hijinx games use a pack of cards and a deteriorating dice mechanic to generate a story. In The Sky City Charade, you’ll assign your two highest dice (a d10 and a d12) to two stats: Smarts & Tough. Every roll you make in an effort to find a clue has a chance of giving you what you’re looking for, but also a chance of making future rolls harder. The game is divided into three phases: Setup, Investigation, and Closure. You’ll spend most of your time in the Investigation phase, visiting locations and drawing cards to determine what kind of complications arise in your efforts to solve the mystery.

What I like about this kind of game is the structure. There’s clear instructions for each section of play, and the deteriorating dice mechanic ensures that you both think carefully about when to look for clues and also finish play within a reasonable time frame. I also enjoy the thoughtful world building that went into the location creation for this game; the author knows what kind of world they want to present you with, and they deliver.

If you want more games of this system, I’d recommend checking out the Hints and Hijinx Jam!

Beast at Bay, by Ive Sorocuk.

You arrive back in your hometown.The journey was long.You have little memory of it but you do recall being attacked by some form of beast. A beast you can still feel deep within you, wanting to get out.

Beast at Bay is a solo rpg/journaling game that uses the Second Guess System. It’s a pretty simple game, only one page long, with a Humanity tracker and a list of 20 prompts. You roll a d20 and answer a question from the prompt list, adjusting the Humanity tracker as needed.

The Second Guess System thrives on re-rolls, and frames rolling the same prompt twice as a chance to examine your character’s uncertainty - was their original answer truly what was going on, or is there something hidden, possibly even from themself? In Beast at Bay, every time you must re-examine a question, you will need to roll a d6 to determine whether you lose Humanity. The game ends when you either reach 6 or fall to 0. If you like quick-to-read games that can be played in approximately 30 minutes, then I’d recommend checking out this game.

You can find other Second Guess Games in the Second Guess Jam!

Weeds in the Waste, by Meghan Cross.

Weeds in the Waste is a solo storytelling game about tending a garden in a post apocalyptic wasteland.

Determine the state of your wasteland, create your gardener, plant your seeds, and tend your garden as you play through the seasons in the wastes. It is a narrative, storytelling game played using 2d6s and a 6x6 grid, as well as a series of prompts. 

Grid-based games give you visual references that can help you visualize what is going on in your game world. They also give you a chance to strategize a little bit, especially if the dice you’re rolling will affect the map, like in this game. Despite the fact that this game happens in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I still feel like some part of it is a cozy game. You’re not saving the world or fighting your inner darkness in Weeds in the Waste; you’re growing plants and striving to make your garden a place of hope. Much of the prompts provided are aimed at building up the world around you, whether that be weather events, celebrations, or the kinds of plants you are attempting to grow.

If you like games with lower stakes and visual references, I recommend this game. If you want other grid-based games with different themes, I’d recommend Wonderfall, by Catscratcher Studio, and Exclusion Zone Botanist, by Exuent Press.

Anamnesis, by Sam Leigh, Blinking Birch Games.

Anamnesis is a 24-page solo journaling RPG about self-discovery, reflection, and identity.

You play as an individual who has woken up with memory loss. You do not remember who you are, where you are, or what you care about. As you draw tarot cards, you fill the blank spaces of your past and learn more about your present. All that is needed to play is a deck of tarot cards and a way to record your thoughts.

Explore your character’s backstory through five acts, divided up using the four suits and major arcana of a tarot deck. This game is highly interpretive, giving you prompts to answer but depending upon your interpretation of tarot cards in order to determine the kinds of details that you’ll end up filling out. The fact that it uses a tarot deck may be it’s biggest obstacle if you don’t already own a tarot deck, but if you do own a tarot deck you’ll likely already have some experience when it comes to interpreting the cards, and so I don’t know if the openness of interpretation is that much of a hurdle when it comes to playing this game.

What I do know is that Anamnesis has won several awards, and is pretty well-known in the gaming scene. There’s both digital and physical copies, and the creator offers both discounted damaged copies as well as community copies pretty regularly. There’s also an Anamnesis Jam with many other Anamnesis - inspired games for you to check out!

The Sealed Library, by Sealed Library.

The Sealed Library is a solo journaling RPG played with a deck of cards, a tumbling block tower and a notebook/scroll.

You are the sole surviving librarian of the greatest library in history. It sits in the centre of culture for an ancient land, now fallen to invaders. They pillage and raze. 

The library has been barricaded and you are under siege. What important texts can you move down into the vaults and seal away forever before the barricade breaks? What will future generations discover inside the Sealed Library?

Wretched & Alone games such as this one usually recommend a Jenga tower but I’ve found them very playable without one. All you really need is a deck of cads, a six-sided dice, and some tokens, which can be anything (I use poker chips). Personally, I think the biggest con is the tone of the games - most Wretched & Alone games are meant to be tragic or horrific. For example, in The Sealed Library, you are a librarian trying to save as much of the library as possible before invaders knock down the doors and kill you, or before you die of starvation.

These games divide events in between four categories, to match the four suits of cards. In this game, these suits represent saved books, new discoveries, invader events and dwindling resources. If the tumbling tower falls, you die. If you draw all four Kings, you die. There are a few ways for your character to escape alive, but the chances of drawing the right cards in the right order are low. What I appreciate about this game is that it includes a debrief section, allowing you to process the story you have just told yourself. If you’re interested in playing out a story that may pull you into a tragedy however, games like this one may suit you.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Untitled Moth Game, by S. Kaiya J.

Osteozee, by Psychound.

Global Dragon Egg Conservation, by KuumatheBronze.

Games from the Solo But Not Alone Bundle.

[cavegirlpoems]

So we all hate DnD, but I am kinda curious what are the actually bad ttrpgs?

I know that 3,5e and pf got bloated even more than 5e did, FATAL is a meme, but what else?

I think Chronicles of Darkness tell you the system's gonna be a sleek, streamlined narrative system and then immediately bukakke's pointless fiddly complexity all over everything, to an extent that I never see most STs actually use half the subsystems (does anybody actually like the Doors mechanic?) but also you can utterly break the game if you combine the right merits and powers in a way that I really hope isn't intentional. WoD games all have slightly clunky, lame mechanics but at least in OWoD the mechanics take an extremely simulationist approach of simply modeling the fiction, balance be damned; CoD throws out the simulationism in favour of abstraction and narrativism, but perversely only makes the mechanics more complex, and deploys more weird dice tricks so eyeballing probabilities gets much harder. Everything is fiddly, everything has specific exceptions, and everything good is gated behind weird prerequisites and builds as if the devs thought they were making pathfinder. If you're some sort of weirdo who actually prefers the CoD settings, run them using OWoD mechanics for the love of god.

Shadowrun 6e's character generation is so complex that people have created third party apps that are basically mandatory in order to wrangle it into shape. It's notoriously complex in play with basically every action requiring multiple steps of calculation, to the extent that 'you need to do calculus if you set off a grenade next to a wall' is a meme; when I played we simply never used grenades because we were all to scared of trying to make sense of the mechanics. However, in play a slightly minmaxed mage can make every other party member obsolete by simply summoning an extremely powerful spirit to solve every task. I hated every minute of it.

Pokemon Tabletop Adventures uses d20-based mechanics for trainers, where you roll a d20 vs armour class to hit, and then roll some damage. It also recreates the mechanics of the pokemon video games largely verbatim. Its expected that trainers and pokemon can and will interact despite using totally different systems, and trainers can even learn pokemon moves. Some classes are good at things like 'capturing and training pokemons' while others are good at 'fighting pokemons themselves with martial arts' or 'winning contests' or 'being a film noir detective', but you only get XP or mechanical support for the first ones. Some classes get abilities like 'perfect mind-control, no save' while others get abilities like 'you're better at growing berries'. You are expected to calculate the stats of every pokemon individually, from scratch, for every encounter. Encounters typically feature 5-10 wild pokemons often of multiple species and levels, alongside 3-5 player characters and up to six pokemons per PC. Its a fractal spreadsheet nightmare. Unlike shadowrun, the app to make this insanity playable doesn't exist. Good god. Send help.

On the other end of the spectrum from stupid fiddly crunch, Ten Candles is responsible for the single most miserable ttrpg experience of my life. It claims to be a narrative game which gives players the ability to define the fiction as they go, but fails at this because the GM has secret knowledge that other players aren't privy to, meaning that it invites players to be creatively vulnerable when they have narrative authority, with a chance that they might get their contributions unilaterally overruled due to information they had no way of knowing. Since the game ends with everybody dying automatically, the game inherently leans on the GM to railroad in what's meant to be a colaberative narrative experience. And finally, on a purely practical level, the clever conciet of playing by candlelight and extinguishing candles as the game progresses means that by half-way in you can't read your fucking character sheets or dice, which is less spooky and more irritating. God I hate ten candles.

[nerdvanaxi]

Especially on my mind after this last episode, one of the nicest things I've noticed while watching Dimension 20 is how the GMs play off each other or seem inspired to develop their craft across the seasons. The obvious example, of course, is Matt's insight-check trick getting adopted by both Brennan and Aabria. But, I also think it can be even a little subtler.

For instance, the social scenes with NPCs this current season feel just a little more Aabria influenced than they were in prior seasons of FH. I've noticed that Aabria's really good at crafting this underlying weightiness to the social interactions. So often while watching her seasons, it feels like a "this action will have consequences" or "this character will remember that" message should pop up when PCs mess up or do bits. Prime example of this is her use of physical props and tokens and counters to help represent relationships and reputations in game. But even without adding explicit game mechanics there's a social weight she's really skilled weilding (the whole Rue and Wuvvy command scene in Court, but also just the stoats in Burrow needing to contend with Last Bast's complex mix of cliques and ideologies if they want to survive). Her PCs don't just have to interact with other characters, they also have to contend with the larger systems that motivate/manipulate those characters.

This isn't to say social interactions of Fantasies High past were shallow or lacked meaning. To the contrary, Brennan has always been able to make fun and compelling NPC interactions for his players. I think he's really good at making even the most ridiculous characters have a thread of believability and personhood to them. But with his use of stress tokens this season and all the additional piling on of academic/social/financial responsibilities, bureaucratic machinations, and taking favorite/ultrapowerful NPCs off the board he's giving the Intrepid Heroes' relationships and choices a more palpable weight of consequences to them in a way that seems devilishly Iyengarian, in my opinion. This also feels especially appropriate for Junior Year given that this season's main antagonist is kinda looking more and more like it's going to be the American Solesian education system at large, rather than some singular nasty dragon or scarecrow cultists.

It's just really fun to watch D20 and see the cast and crew collaborating. Even when they aren't at the table, their influences can be felt.

[vikingschism]

Thoughts on the Stormlight TTRPG

This will be a fairly lengthy post detailing my impressions of the Stormlight Archives TTRPG by Brotherwise Games based on a session played with some other fans of Sanderson's works. Some general details of the scenario are discussed as well as the details of the pre-generated character I played, but is otherwise spoiler-free.

Background

I like Brandon Sanderson's books well enough so I was naturally interested in an RPG set in his most epic series (The Stormlight Archives). My tastes in TTRPGs generally tend towards the more narrative focused games - I enjoy PBTA, FitD and Resistance Engine games - so seeing that it was going to be a D20 system with a D&D 5e style character sheet had me a bit worried. I have enjoyed tactical combat before with systems like Draw Steel (having tried it out in a playtest - looking forward to another session soon) or even Pathfinder 2E (even if I find that system to be a bit much in other places), so there was still some hope.

I decided to take part as a player in an adventure making use of a prepared scenario using the freely available beta rules. This scenario was intended to show off the game and get new players, possibly new to TTRPGs as a whole, going. The basic premise is that the players are on an expedition towards some ancient ruins

The Character

There were multiple pre-generated characters available so I elected to play as Vedd - a disgraced Alethi soldier serving in the bridge crews. This was essentially the basic warrior class which suited me well enough, though in a full campaign there would be the option to have the character become a Radiant which would definitely give more opportunity to express the character through the powers selected. The character notes gave some good hooks to get the player into character; in the case of Vedd it was his connections to his bridge crew, his grizzled nature as one of the longest serving Bridgemen, and that he has attracted the attention of a spren who appears as a streak of light when he takes heroic or self sacrificing action.

The character sheet was serviceable, though it was sometimes hard to locate the skills I was looking for when making a test due to the amount present, so the organisation maybe could've been better. There's also just a lot of derived stats on the sheet - do we really need a carrying capacity for example? That seems a bit more simulationist than this game needs. I do like the idea of having Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual defences and them being placed between the two stats that determine the value is nice. It's also nice that the stats are just the bonus rather than needing to derive the bonus like in 5e. Skill modifiers also made sense since you just add the points in that skill to the relevant stat to calculate the modifier.

In the scenario my character's skills were mostly in athletics, perception, and heavy weaponry. The social skills weren't too high, although intimidation was definitely on the table. This spread of skills suggested a character who was taciturn in social settings but excelled when it came time to put himself into the thick of the action.

Combat

Overall it felt good to play, the combat system allowed for a lot of flexibility and I appreciated its action economy. Players can choose to take a fast or slow turn - a fast turn grants 2 actions, a slow turn grants 3. Fast players go first, then fast enemies, then slow players, then slow enemies - within each category there is no set initiative order, players can work it out themselves). On a turn you have a number of actions you can take, and some will cost more action points (for example a recovery costs two points - however you may want to do this on a fast turn if you think an enemy will attack first). This draws on both Pathfinder 2e (with the action point system) and Shadow of the Demon Lord with the fast/slow turns.

In each round everyone gets a single reaction too. Most of these reactions require spending a point of focus, but they give good options for mitigating damage or assisting in the fight (for example Reactive Strike is the Opportunity Attack equivalent, however it requires a focus point to use - these are limited and can be recovered or are regained fully on a long rest). In our fights in the session I didn't remember that I could use the reaction to dodge which would've given the enemy disadvantage on their strike, leading to me taking a large amount of damage. Another reaction involves assisting an ally when they attempt a test in combat in order to grant them advantage on the roll. This combos quite nicely with an action that allows the player to attempt a skill test to gain advantage on their next roll.

The abilities that my character had weren't too flashy, though I should've remembered to enter vigilant stance at the start of combat - this grants advantage on perception, increases deflect, and causes enemies to require 2 actions to attack allies. Combat training also meant I could graze (upon missing, deal the value of the damage dice with no modifier) a single enemy per round for free - normally grazing would cost a focus point.

Exploration

Outside of combat I had more mixed opinions - mainly related to the plot die. This is intended to add more narrative twists to skill tests - the intention is that this is rolled for tests that are more high stakes (the process of asking for it to be rolled is called "raising the stakes"). This is a d6 (although a proprietary die with symbols is available), and rolling a 5 or 6 grants an Opportunity while a 1 or 2 imposes a Complication as well as granting a bonus of double the value on the die face to the roll (which could be enough to push a bad roll into a success). A result of 3 or 4 does nothing, and rolling a 20 or 1 on any test grants an Opportunity and a Complication respectively (this does mean they can stack when rolling the die).

Opportunities can be spent to regain a focus point, grant advantage to an ally on their next test, turn a hit into a critical hit (on attack tests in combat), or on a beneficial narrative event (which the GM must rubber stamp) - some abilities also interact with these. Complications are imposed by the GM and can essentially do the opposite of what an Opportunity can do.

So what's my issue with it? I personally found that having a null result on the die (3 and 4) meant that Opportunities and Complications felt a little rarer than I would've liked - if the roll matters enough to use the plot die then I feel like it should really have one result or the other.

This system also interacts with Events - these are similar to clocks in games like Blades in the Dark where they signal an impending event. These are ticked, depending on whether the event is positive or negative with an Opportunity or a Complication. This never came up in the scenario, however I think this is another reason I'd prefer the plot die to always produce an Opportunity or Complication; as is Opportunities and Complications just don't come up that often, so it might make Events a bit harder to use. In a system like Blades the clocks are constantly being ticked which really contributes to the sense of impending danger, or gives players a focus on an objective in the scene (eg: escaping from something chasing them).

Skill tests otherwise were straightforward, and advantage is a standard roll 2 dice and pick the higher result (although interestingly advantage can stack and be applied to multiple dice in the roll - which does mean you can give the plot die advantage as well as the d20 if you have two advantages on a roll).

The Scenario

I don't want to spoil the scenario, however I will say it was decently put together. There was a fair amount of railroading, however since we were all there for that adventure I think that was ok. There wasn't anything that stood at as being too egregious and there was some nice artwork along the way to help picture the events. It also gave some good opportunities to play into the pregen characters. All of the players came out being fairly satisfied with the adventure; it will be interesting to see how the game plays once Radiant powers are involved.

Conclusion

Overall I feel the game was competently put together and will be a fun way to explore the worlds of Sanderson. I don't think it's going to be replacing any of my favourite narrative systems, however, and some areas (like the plot die) left something to be desired. The combat was fun and will likely only get more fun once characters have access to Radiant powers, so I wouldn't be against playing again. I likely would not want to GM however, as there is a bit more crunch than I prefer in my systems. It does also remain to be seen how the game will adapt other worlds such as Scadrial from Mistborn given the different tone and nature of the world.

For those who have read all of this, thank you - I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on the Stormlight TTRPG and I'm curious to know what other people think of it so far.

[ladytabletop]

Game Roundup 2023 - Part 1

So I made it a mission to read through the games I've gotten in various bundles in the past. And it's uh... an undertaking.

But! I've read a lot of cool games and encountered a lot of new concepts.

For reasons (namely that I have a few thousand games) I am not going to mention every game in these posts, just ones that caught my attention for one reason or another. And in keeping with my reflection on ratings earlier this year, I'm going to refrain from critiquing the stuff I mention here - I may say "this one isn't one I'd personally play" or "there was some unpolished stuff in here", but I'm going to focus mainly on the positives and why the game grabbed me.

So, here we go!

Blades in the Dark by John Harper

Yeah, yeah, I know, this game is talked about a lot! But consider me a recent student of TTRPG history outside of d20 systems. I got the chance to play this game for several sessions and read the rulebook cover to cover. The stuff that works, really works. The stuff that doesn't? Bogs the whole thing down. But I find clocks to be such an intuitive mechanic, and downtimes is really a delight to me. There's a whole ton of Forged in the Dark stuff that toggles a bunch of the game's switches on and off to make things more streamlined. Was very glad to read this one.

Lumen by Spencer Campbell (GilaRPGs)

I made it a mission to read SRDs this year. I want to understand the how and why of the games I've been reading: why are they built the way they are, what is accomplished in building them this way, and can I build games this way myself? Spencer has a really solid handle on what he wants his games to do. They're power fantasies with little if any chance for failure. It's not about whether you do the thing, it's about how. I ended up having the chance to meet Spencer at GenCon, and I'm really excited to see Lumen 2.0, which is going to be completely diceless. Power fantasy games aren't my thing typically, but I really appreciate the intentionality of this system's design.

Are My Wings Even? by Sadia Bies

What a lovely, simple game that lets you play dress-up! This one isn't necessarily as polished as some of the others but you can tell it was designed with so much care and personal meaning. I love a tactile game. I love dressing up. This one has so much potential to be really tender. It won't be for everyone and that's okay, but I really adore it.

Sprouts by Julie-Anne "Jam" Munoz

This game came to me in a bundle for Trans Rights in FL, but I actually dug into it when I was looking for RPGs to play with kids. You draw your character on a post-it, and it's just a silly little guy! It has a pretty simple roll mechanic and advises a "get from point A to point B" adventure style, which takes place in actual 3D space in your home, because didn't you know? Sprouts live in your home, like dust bunnies! It's got really great language for children and emphasizes cooperation, and that you can't mess up your drawing - sprouts are sprouts.

The Wildsea by Felix Isaacs

I know, I know, I talk about this game too much! But really, it's been the gateway into other games for me. I think technically I probably read this last year, but I had to brush up for GenCon this year, so I'm counting it. Lots of folks have compared the tracks in this game to Blades' clocks, but they sprang up parallel, funnily enough! It has some definitely shared DNA in its design, and it rewards you for things out of combat more than things in combat, if that's how you want to play. The setting is lovely, the community is lovely, and really it was a joy to read, even as long as it is.

I'll do another of these soon, I imagine.

[open-hearth-rpg]

Escalation Die: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics Week Ten (finale)

I’ve talked about a lot of big scale mechanics on these lists: sub-systems and frameworks which have impacted play. But it's interesting to consider how small, discrete mechanics can drastically change the feel of certain modes of play. The Links mechanics from Girl By Moonlight comes close to this, but it has several stages and parts. 13th Age’s Escalation Die is a tight rule that reshapes combats. It may have appeared earlier than 13th Age, but that’s where I encountered it first. 

The escalation die works simply. After the first round of a combat, the GM sets a d6– often the largest one they have at a “1”. All players now add +1 to their attack rolls. Each following turn, the GM clicks this up by another one, up to a maximum value of “6”. This shifts the combat dynamic hugely but without being too obvious. As the combat rolls forward, the odds of a character landing a blow increases slowly and incrementally. 

This obviously affects player engagement over time. The longer a fight goes on, the more likely a player will be able to land that decisive blow. In practical terms it works to accelerate things. But it also helps reduce players' frustration over bad rolls early in the combat. I’ve played a lot of d20 games where the flatness of the resolution has meant that things stretch on– each round the same without changes. With the escalation die, even if you’re still missing, something about the complexion of the conflict changes each time you go. If you’re still whiffing by the time the die gets to “6”, that’s a story in and of itself. 

But the mechanic offers a host of additional, sometimes subtle benefits. First, it’s an obvious clock. You know how long the fight has gone on and can use that as a gauge of threat and success. On the one side, the players know they’ve been at this a while– or can tell they’ve done a great job if they end things before the escalation die gets too high. On the other side, the GM can see how well they’ve built the combat– if the PCs are cutting through or always desperately fighting forever. It exists as a constant and clear yardstick. 

Second, it impacts the design of monster fights. You can make the foes feel tougher right out of the gate. The players ought to struggle in the first couple of rounds but then begin to gather their strength and fight back against the odds. It naturally builds an arc into any combat. I didn’t realize how impactful that would be until I’d run 13th Age quite a bit. 

Third, it provides a minor risk/reward choice for the players. Do they fire off a once-per-combat attack early on or do they wait for a moment when that strike has a better chance of landing? That’s a small factor and one which enters into player calculations without making the resolution process any harder. 

Of course once you have this piece of game tech operating, the system can add in some additional wrinkles and options. Some powerful monsters can use the escalation die themselves; a few can negate the use of the escalation die against them. Monster special powers can be triggered off of the state of the escalation die: happening on odd/even turns or when the die has reached X level. The GM has another power detail to make their encounters more varied. 

On the player side, their abilities can be tied to this as well. Some powers get stronger the higher the escalation die is. The most common one is an Elvish ancestry feat. At the start of a round, that player rolls a d4 and if the result is equal or below the escalation die, they may take an additional standard action. After the first time they succeed with this, the die goes up a step. The Commander class has several talents and feats interacting with the escalation die. One increases the escalation die the first time the GM rolls a critical against the party. That echoes the escalation die’s intent to represent the rising stakes of a fight. 

I’ll be honest when I first played 13th Age, I thought the escalation die was a cute, throwaway gimmick. The GM didn’t emphasize it. But over time and play, I began to see just how impactful it could be. It’s such a simple thing– but one you can really lean into. For our home group, I bought a massive foam d6 and put that on a stand. It creates a super-clear visualization of how the fight’s playing out. 

Importantly when I don’t have the escalation die present in a d20 game I notice it. Playing Godbound or similar systems, I feel the absence. Even if we’re narrating our misses– giving them color and texture– there’s still a bad feeling if you keep burning your turn hopelessly with wasted blows. The escalation die begins to counteract that. The incremental increase offers hope that the next round might be better than this one. When I’ve added that mechanic into play for d20 or OSR games, it has definitely increased the enjoyment of big fights.  

[thisisnotthenerd]

with misfits & magic season ii coming out on 9/25, it's time for a spreadsheet update!

links to the relevant sheets:

thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats: the og spreadsheet. where this all started.

d20 episode randomizer: watch orders! go here to see all of the episodes listed in various ways, and to pick a random episode!

d20 seating chart stats: the table and how it plays out every season. check the compiled chart for basics on each character

anyways, on to the stats!

general stats:

total episode count: 251, spread over 22 seasons.

there have been 8 main cast / intrepid heroes seasons, that make up 147 of the 251 episodes, or 58.5% of the total count. if we include oneshots in this count, the count goes up to 151 of 251, for 60.1%.

total runtime: 541:54:53. that's 3 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 54 minutes and 53 seconds of dimension 20.

average runtime: 2:09:32. the median is 2:08:32, which i thought was funny. the episode that's closest to the average, with 2:09:33, is 'the house always wins' from a starstruck odyssey.

some more recent updates: never stop blowing up has the third-shortest average (1:49:18), following fantasy high (1:39:43) and coffin run (1:43:16).

nsbu is the shortest of the 10-episode seasons, with a total runtime of 18:12:59. compare that to the longest 10-episode season, the seven, with a runtime of 23:55:12.

for mismag, this is our first sidequest sequel season. aabria is the first guest dm to get a sequel season of her own (matt is a little diff by virtue of brennan running acoc). it's the first KOB sequel season as well--that speaks well for d20 expanding their game systems.

mechanically, they're now using a version of nsbu called never stop making magic, so i'll be tracking stat explosions this season as well. i do think d20 is leaning towards expanding the systems they use, so we'll see how they continue to expand going forward.

it's also the first odd-numbered sidequest season, with 11 episodes. by december 5, we'll have had 16 episodes in the world of mismag, which is just under a main cast season.

player stats:

aabria's back in the dome for her 7th season, and 4th as the game master! with an 11 ep season she's up to 59 episodes, and remains the most common guest on d20. at this point she's the second in-house dm. she has the Q4 10-ep season on lock. the first sidequest sequel season is hers.

brennan is up to 21 seasons and 257 episodes (including time quangle and mismag ii). he now has 2 seasons on the right, evening his split out a little bit (3:2)

lou has dethroned ally and taken the top player spot, with 12 season and 187 episodes. he has a new fave seat, with 4 seasons in L1 as well as R3.

erika isn't far behind aabria, with 47 episodes and 6 seasons. they're split between L3 and R2 (2 each)

danielle's joining the ranks of what i consider the recurring guest cast, with 3 seasons and 22 episodes under her belt. she's behind rekha and izzy (tied with 36), erika, and aabria.

production notes:

in terms of production, the release of the time quangle episodes puts us at 45-46 episodes for 2024, depending on when the december releases start. this also sets us at a total of 268 episodes by the end of 2024.

if we include all of the adventuring parties, adventuring academies and various other d20 auxiliary content, 2024 might take the cake for the most total episodes, dethroning 2021.

i'm guessing that this was the first season filmed after brennan's parental leave, so they're probably still 6 months to a year ahead of the releases

production calendar is looking like main cast season in Q1-Q2, varying number of sidequests/oneshots through Q2 and Q3, with aabria/another guest dm in Q3-Q4. depending on when aabria's season starts, they may start the intrepid heroes' season in Q4 going into the following year. general disclaimer that this is just a guess.

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

Resolution Mechanics and You

Last post, I promised to talk about the dice mechanics in Prima Materia and why they exist the way they do. I also promised this would be a shorter post, so let's get this road on the show.

There were a few things I kept in mind when designing the resolution mechanics. Firstly, it had to involve dice, and a respectable amount of them. I enjoy rolling the click clack rocks quite a bit, and rolling more dice for me seems like a fun time. Secondly, it had to feel right. Feeling right is unfortunately very ambiguous, but I knew I wanted the dice system to feel like Attributes and Skills both mattered and contributed to a roll. I also wanted the system to be able to account for someone being abysmally bad at something, as well as very competent; with measurable steps along that path that feel distinct.

At the start, the only reference I really had was DND, so I researched different dice systems, what their pros and cons were, and branched out to play some other games. It's partially thanks to this that I got introduced to Star Wars D6, Warhammer Fantasy, and LANCER (excellent games, all of them).

After a month or so of this, I decided that no dice mechanics were up to snuff with the image in my mind of the dice system that struck the "correct balance." I didn't want to use a d20 system because there wouldn't be much variety in dice, and it's too swingy. I've never particularly liked d6 dice pools, partially because of the lack of dice variety. Other than that, I just don't subjectively like d6 dice pools in the games I've played that have them. d100 systems seemed interesting to me, but I felt they didn't allow for the kind of nuance I was looking for between the Attributes and Skills.

Regardless of whether or not my assumptions were correct, I decided to make my own dice system. Ironically, it turned out being fairly similar to d6 dice pools with a twist. This also ties in with how the Attributes and Skills work; but the simple version is that every roll comes down to what kind of dice you're rolling, and how many you're meant to roll. Attributes have a dice assigned to them; d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12; that represent how honed that attribute is. Skills have a number of pips that tell you how many dice to roll. For example, someone with a Vitality of d8 and endurance of 3 will roll three eight sided die when rolling endurance.

I think this system, if nothing else, is at least interesting. I'm in the process of playtesting to make sure it's actually fun to engage with and to see how much I need to tweak the math (particularly now that Character Creation mechanics exist), but so far it seems to be working nicely.

Thanks for reading, next time I'll post about some lore. I don't want to overload the blog with mechanics; the setting is just as important to this project (and I have art in the works for it!)

[chinchillamajor]

So, remember that D20 system for determining the power level of any Golbetty-caused offspring @cottagedeer came up with, for all those pregnant AU Simons out there?

Deer rolled a natural 20 for one Simon. (That is, "this kid is not even remotely humanoid in form, and could end entire worlds if they felt like it.") And, using my special 1s-or-20s die, so did I.

I saw Deer went back to the drawing board on that particular Golbaby's design, to something more fittingly unknowably eldritch.

I know this world of pregnant Simon AUs is the furthest thing from a competition. Yet I found myself thinking, "I should really step up my game on *my* design, too."

I'd figured that, for my Star Simon AU, Star Simon's kiddo Dandelion chose to Nope out of the whole "being born in a physical form" thing altogether partway through the pregnancy, lest the kiddo end up wiping out Star Simon and the rest of his planet in the process. (Very kind of Dandelion to do that, really.)

Thus came Dandelion v1.0: a cute little abstract star shape, with cute little puffy wings.

But, with the whole "world ender" levels of Golbaby power afoot here, I got to thinking. What if the star shape with wings Star Simon sees is just, like... a stronger form of those parent-specific, "protect this kid at all costs" hormones kicking in, showing him what he'd want to see?

What would Dandelion *actually* look like?

Well...

Behold, a concept sketch of Dandelion's true form! A sort of optic nerve/dandelion plant hybrid. And they are *ginormous.*

Thankfully for those who'd be freaked out by an eyeball the size of a house suddenly floating into view, most people can't actually *see* Dandelion.

With no physical form, the kiddo exists 100% in the mental/magical realms. So unless someone's able to see through dimensions, it's rare that anyone's standing at *just* the right angle to catch a glimpse of them.

(It DOES happen, though. Poor Simons.)

I had to let the other folks who'd created all those pregnant Simon AUs know about this. What about the idea of Dandelion getting a play date with the other Golbabies out there?

Which was great, until I remembered @mushroomnoodles 's Golbaby Morrigan *loves* to chew on things, as a baby.

Best to not bring those two together on play dates until way, WAY off in the future. Which, bonus: in 2000 years or so, when Morri assumes their god-level form, Dandelion will finally have someone who's as tall as they are!

Then I had another idea. Dandelion's whole thing is their ability to portal from dimension to dimension, right? What if all those other Golbabies out there could see each other, through a bunch of portals opened at the same time? Maybe they could all have a party, even!

That's when I remembered: my IRL Dandelion's Nope Day last year was December 8th.

Why couldn't that be this fictional Dandelion's birthday, of sorts?

So, watch for another post on the 8th!

[theresattrpgforthat]

me and my frend has tried to hack KoB to make a dating sim ttrpg (becouse flirtig with our frends is why we do this) but its hard and I dont know if I will be abel to finish it.

I cant find a good game that woud work that isnt extremly explicit, do you have any tips.

THEME: Dating Sims

First of all, I did get both of your asks, and I'm going to be addressing them separately, even though they're connected. So never fear, I got both questions!

Hacking Kids on Bikes as a dating sim is a really interesting notion to me - it’s certainly not the first system I would choose for a game all about romance, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth giving it a shot! From what I understand about the game, it’s kind of meant to encourage the characters to play to their strengths, since your chances of success are rather swingy, and you’d rather be rolling your d20 skill to succeed over your d4 skill most of the time.

If you want to make the goal of the game to be finding a successful partner, I’m guessing that your characters would have to be playing to their strengths when it comes to looking for love - which means that every stat would have to be possible to use when you’re flirting. If I had a brawny character in this hack, I’d want to be able to woo by lifting things to impress them, while if I was an witty character, then I’d want to approach the situation by striking up a conversation about something that I’m an expert about.

If you want to make finding a date the end-goal of your game, then it might be an interesting endeavour to check out some games that focus on romance, and work your way back to Kids on Bikes with substantial additions, or perhaps using some core conceits but re-structuring how the game is run.

Hearts & Espionage, by samanthag168.

"Hearts & Espionage" is a tabletop RPG competitive multiplayer dating simulator set in a futuristic world where high-stakes espionage and technology collide, YOU are an elite agent navigating dangerous missions while attempting to secure a date for your final mission, the prestigious Grand Ball—an event shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

Academic rivals, enemies to lovers, fake dating, and more cliche tropes that you can use to describe your relationship with your love interest! Compete with other agents for love interests or compete to see who wins over their love interest. Sabotage your fellow agents to gain the upper hand and win more romance points! 

Hearts & Espionage feels like a cheesy spy drama or a romantic comedy in terms of tone, granting players romance points when they succeed on dates and/or missions. This is a one-page game, but if you wanted to flesh it out, you might be able to combine this with another game system - for example, if you’re running Kids on Bikes, maybe you have the goal of the players is to get a date by Prom night, and re-structuring each date/mission as a date/mystery instead. You can run each mystery as a standard Kids on Bikes game, but involve the characters’ romantic interests as central NPCs and wrap up each session with rolls to see which characters were the most successful at impressing their prospective dates. If you want a secret Russian spy agency as a threat for the kids to face, you can probably still make it work!

Routes of Love, by Flowergal34

Routes of Love is a TTRPG centered on the idea of playing through a visual novel from the perspective of the romantic routes.

The GM plays the Love Interest and narrator of a visual novel game, while the player characters play the “Routes” - the Love Interest’s potential soulmates, pining for the Love Interest’s affection. Players aim to gather Affection Points through having pleasant interactions with the Love Interest, and sharing special Moments with their prospective romance partner.

Routes of Love is inspired by anime tropes, so it probably fits best in a school setting. That being said, if you’re all playing teenagers in a romance situation, then you could likely modify the character features in order to make sense for a different genre; perhaps you want to re-style the tropes to fit a typical American high school, or perhaps you want to use horror tropes instead. As a group, you’ll collaboratively create three different locations that the Love Interest could potentially visit, and you’ll roll randomly to determine the kinds of meet-cutes that could lead to a future date. What is really interesting about this game is that the GM could be considered the typical “player” character, while everyone else is directing a piece of the game.

If you’re hacking this game with Kids on Bikes, then perhaps the goal is instead to become a beau that the central character wants to woo. Kids on Bikes has mechanics for making a powered character that the entire table has control over, with various aspects that each player will have control over. You could try doing the same thing with a central love interest, and have the players taking turns to embody those aspects when other characters are trying to have a romantic moment with them.

Monster Mash, by BoxDeer.

You and your friends are monsters seeking love and marriage before the end of the Monster Mash. But unfortunately, there are not enough eligible bachelors and bachelorettes to go around. So, in order to secure a matrimony with (hopefully) your soulmate, you must court, scheme, and scare better than your competitors.

There was a trend for a while where regency novels were re-written for film in the context of teenage drama in a high school. As a regency game, Monster Mash could likely be hacked to replace the regency flavours with high-school traits, and your social standing could be replaced with your reputation - considering everyone in a small town knows everyone, and dirty laundry is hard to hide. Each character in this game has to write down a dark secret that might be revealed throughout the course of play, and the game itself has the potential to be rather cutthroat, since the players will be competing with to find a suitable partner.

Making a dating game incorporate your reputation might re-structure it into something more akin to a survival game. Lose too much reputation, and you’re knocked out of the game - which makes sense for short-term games, or if you make the setback temporary. Either way, the route of play will feel a bit more hostile, with you fighting for a place in the ranking that makes you an eligible partner, just in time for a big dance or something similarly high-stakes. If you want a game where dating is the weapon by which you win or lose, you might want to check out Monster Mash.

Step Into My Coffin Babe, by Super Sardine Burial.

With a cohort of your immortal siblings, you have rented the Vlad mansion for a night. A night of debauchery, of elegance, of freely flowing blood… And perhaps more? You have until sunrise to overcome a formidable challenge: making an undead heart beat again. For you.

Generate a number of vampire crushes using card draws from a deck of cards, and move through 12 hours of dates in an attempt to find a vampire lover. If you play this as a multiplayer game, you can compete for a specific Crush’s affections, and you’ll have to come up with new date ideas of you want to increase your Crush’s Feelings.

This is a game that requires a bit of bookkeeping, as you’ll have to track the Vices and Feelings of each of the Crush characters as you play. This is also a game specifically tied to vampires dating, so you’d have to do a lot of hacking to make it about teenagers or other kinds of people dating each-other. That being said, there’s a lot of typical vampire tropes in here, so you’ll find a lot of gothic horror moments inside this game.

The series of dates and feelings trackers feel very reminiscent of a dating sim ttrpg, and if you wanted to incorporate elements of this kind of game into a system like Kids on Bikes, I’d consider the central core of the game experience being the slow discovery of your crush’s likes, fears, secrets, and vices. It would be a mystery game where the mystery is how your crush truly feels about you, and incorporating your discoveries into the dates that you ask them on. Step Into My Coffin makes your characters kind of awful, but maybe that makes sense if you’re tracking them down and watching them to figure out what they like.

[utilitycaster]

Do you think that D20 could run a Daggerheart campaign? Would the system work for the D20 format? Would you like to see some other actual play show/podcast try Daggerheart?

I don't see why they couldn't - Daggerheart is designed to exist in a similar space as D&D 5e and Pathfinder as a heroic fantasy game with a combat focus, skill checks, and class-based abilities. I would wait until it's out of open beta and published before going for it, but it's very much doable as either an Intrepid Heroes or Sidequest season.

I hope people use Daggerheart - it seems very promising and I've enjoyed watching The Menagerie - but I don't have strong feelings about D20 using it. I need to make the post I had been thinking about this morning before I had to leave as it will shed some more light on these thoughts. To put it briefly, I think journalists and people who don't get that people want to play heroic fantasy need to stop treating Darrington Press as some kind of juggernaut on par with Wizards of the Coast nor as some mind control world domination attempt by Critical Role; but at the same time Darrington Press does have a built-in group of people who will play it in actual play because it is Critical Role's publishing wing. I'd rather see D20 cast guest on CR for Daggerheart games and D20 use their channel to play lesser-known games, and smaller podcasts try out Daggerheart and perhaps get some name recognition/CR crossover.