theclashersclub

[godkillerbrigade]

THE LAST DAYS OF FRIENDSHIP VALLEY - ANNOUNCEMENT TRAILER

Wishlist now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2815700/The_Last_Days_of_Friendship_Valley/

THE LAST DAYS OF FRIENDSHIP VALLEY is a combatless deckbuilding RPG about conflict negotiation, cute little goats, and impending doom. Make your own goat character, navigate arguments with cards, uncover an ancient mystery, and try to save the world. Demo coming soon!!

Heal friendships, uncover mysteries, and prepare for impending doom in The Last Days of Friendship Valley! You play as the Patcher, a goat whose job is to settle arguments and keep communities together. Your new home plans on putting your conflict negotiation skills to the test: a deep schism lurks beneath the surface of Friendship Valley, and there are mere days before everything breaks apart. Make friends with the town's inhabitants, evolve your conversational approach, and try to mend the broken heart of Friendship Valley before it destroys the world.

[txttletale]

Do you have recs for combatless rpgs? sorry if someones asked this ! im getting into ttrpgs now and its just pretty hard to find anything non combat focused ?

i recommended wanderhome (melancholy animal roadtrip), dream askew (queer postapocalyptic survival), microscope (collaborative worldbuilding), and crescent moon (kids learning and growing in a fantasy land) in resposne to an ask earlier today. other great rpgs that aren't combat focused include:

chuubo's marvelous wish-granting engine: i'll level with you, if you're just getting into rpgs this one might be A Lot because it's quite mechanically complex. but it's a beautiful game about having ghibliesque coming-of-age adventures in a surreal dreamy world.

nobilis is by the same person (jenna moran, a genuine game design pioneer and genius) -- it's about being godlets, the living embodiments of concepts from the concrete to the abstract. you might find yourself fighting in this game, but it's unlikely to look anything like 'combat'.

brindlewood bay, which is about being elderly women investigating murders.

pasión de las pasiones, a pbta (powered by the apocalypse) game about doing ridiculous romance drama shit based on telenovelas

monsterhearts, about teenaged monsters having weird drama and exploring their sexuality. think buffy or twilight, but queerer

pigsmoke, about being professors at a college of magic and competing to see who can publish the best paper (yes, really)

the girlfriend of my girlfriend is my friend, about... i mean i think the title makes it pretty clear! being gay and poly and kinda broke

it's been a long, long, time, about two people who used to date, their relationship, their lives after it, and their reunion

sagas of the icelanders, about being viking settlers in iceland during the saga period and playing out quasimythical dramas

hieronymous, about being a bunch of sinners making your way across hieronymous bosch's garden of earthly delights

thousand year old vampire, a solo journalling game about being a vampire and living through long stretches of history

blow up hamlet, where your table performs hamlet while changing the plot and improvising new plot beats at semi-random

slugblaster, about being rowdy teens hoverboarding through interdimensional rifts in the spirit of 90s teen movies

woo! that's a fuckin' lot of ttrpgs, but i wanted to give a lot of suggestions because i think it's so important for people getting into the hobby to understand the breadth of games out there and how far from the popular image created by D&D they can go! there are two-player and GM-less and even one-player games on this list. you can do anything! the world of rpgs is so fucking wide and beautiful. good luck and i hope you find something that speaks to you!

(oh, also, my game, most trusted advisors -- about being the untrustworthy privy council to a dipshit king and falling over each other's nested dipshit schemes -- has no combat in it. just saying!)

[slumbering-girl]

Disco Elysium

This was an absolute blast. It was like an interactive fiction novel in a crpg shroud. And fully voiced! The writing is so amazing. Most of the game consist of running around, trying to remember things what the alcoholic amnesiac forgot, obsessing over your sidekick Kim and internal monologue. All in melancholic atmosphere of doomed city in ruins, with appropriate soundtrack.

The rpg system underneath is something to be seen. You assign points to your internal thoughts and can even internalize some thoughts. I remember staring at this screenshot in Steam store page for a long time and imagining what all of these can mean.

There's no respec, but if you're diligent, you'll have lot of skill points, so I didn't felt so much stress over it. I'd welcome if I knew what bonuses internalized thoughts will bring (it takes time to "research" these thoughts), but that's what wiki is for I guess. Some of these are for fun only, bringing no real bonus in game, thought I felt compelled to research them, like this "homo-sexual underground". (I researched that IRL too, took me much longer)

The game is politically heavy, exploring various ideologies and philosophies. Sometimes the internal monologue spoke to me deeply.

I finished it in about 28 hours, played with controller (great experience). I went for an intellectual build, devastating everyone with arguments and logic like a Colombo. Felt great. I'm looking forward to play this again with a different build next time. I just wish there was more talking combatless rpg games like this. So refreshing experience.

[heelycular-manslaughter]

For the tarot ask game, the hermit and the devil!

The Hermit — What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned about game design? OR Are you interested in collaborating with others?

not sure if I have enough experience to really know the biggest lesson I've learned. For the other question, though, I have tried working with artist friends on certain projects, although they haven't really panned out yet. I'm definitely open to collaboration although I'm very intimidated by people who have any idea what they're doing (i.e. other designers); I also make rpgs cause the process doesnt really necessitate collaboration, which is something I've had trouble with in other mediums. I definitely want to get better at it cause I know I'm not really going to get better at making art without it.

The Devil — What motifs or mechanics do you just keep coming back to? OR What is a game you’ve enjoyed playing in the last year?

oh yeah a lot of motifs its kinda hard to narrow down. A lot of stuff I've made is focused on the aesthetics and purpose of violence; 4-Sided Batteries has a mixture of style and grit that was inspired by Cyberpunk Edgerunners, with a similar narrative element; and in Luminous Vein I really focused on making combat really cool, and finding how to make a very edgy, gameplay-focused game that avoids making the player feel like some "purifier of filth" or making the player feel bad about enjoying the game that I made to be enjoyable, while still having coherent politics. One of my gods for Hellbreak is very referential to Luminous Vein but created a new, more critical thematic avenue around violence for me to explore, which I started making a whole military mech game around but idk if I'll continue with it because the game kind of sucked and I'm pretty neutral about mechs and I fucking hate the military. There have been so many other projects I've started, including (but not limited to) a game inspired by Hotline Miami but with a combat phase and a journaling game phase where you would like reflect on your past and the violence you commit, a combatless Bxllet hack where you play arguably the most immoral characters in any of my games, a game where your combat build represents your political philosophies, and a game where combat is just an excuse to be overpowered by hot monsters. Violence was such a basic-ass answer to this question I'm sorry I'm not more interesting. ig another thing I focus on a lot is the self-harm required to uphold social constructs, something I've really focused on in my OSR dungeon crawler and my mecha game, but I imagine its in a lot more that just isnt really coming to mind

Also for some reason I'm constantly making new mechanics for western stand-offs. there isnt really anything analytical I can say about that I've just made like, at least ten mechanical ways to represent a cowboy duel in various projects and some entirely on their own, floating around in my notes app.

for the second question i dont experience media sorry. D&D players are a plague. Dreamwild is pretty good

[cosmik-homo]

rest in peace second doctor you would have loved bizzare combatless rpgs. never have i met a little guy who wants to play communal competitive mailman schemes or whatever with dice so so badly

[thevulturesquadron]

Hey tumblr!!! Here to do a shoutout for this tiny indie game that was done with love and care by one single game dev! The Demo is out starting today and it’s completely FREE!!!

If humor, absurdity of situation and RPG are your things give it a try and show your support with feedback on Steam ♥ .  Also any help with reblogs would be beyond appreciated so that this small gem lands in front of people who would enjoy the ride!  ♥ ♥ ♥

[godkillerbrigade]

The Steam page for THE LAST DAYS OF FRIENDSHIP VALLEY has new screenshots 👀

THE LAST DAYS OF FRIENDSHIP VALLEY is a deckbuilding combatless RPG about conflict negotiation, goats, and impending doom. Make your own goat character, navigate arguments with cards, uncover an ancient mystery, and try to save the world.

Check it out now!!