#dev's homebrews

[dev-the-dm]

Creature: Horizon Mongrel

When stars collapse into black holes, not even light can escape the surface. But occasionally, very rarely when there is not a single pair of eyes in the universe even flitting towards the newly birthed black hole, something else can escape. Something that inherits the churning, black darkness and the intense gravity of its birthplace, and speeds away faster from that sinkhole of death than anyone can follow it.

Black holes incarnate. Many people ask questions about the origins of the horizon mongrels, the creatures called after the black boundary of certain death and crushing gravity near an imploded star. Very few people have answers that aren’t an overactive imagination. Where the mongrels really come from, no one is quite certain, but it’s clear that the patch of space that spits them out is darker and emptier than any other.

Flashing nightmares. Mongrels are solitary creatures that seem to be either completely uninterested in their own kind of entirely unaware of them. Rather, a mongrel seeks out places where the flow of spacetime is warped in some way, or even broken. Powerful graviturges often find themselves hunted by a mongrel, which is capable of great destruction should it ever arrive at its unfortunate victim’s doorstep. And as fast as it appears, it is gone - since they are often not much more than a flash of jaws and choking, crushing gravity, leaving nothing behind.

Slowing down time. The mongrels that have been studied seem to live at a faster pace than most creatures, slowing down their internal clock and allowing them to attain lifetimes of aeons. The only true weapon anyone has against a mongrel is to attempt to slow it, forcing it to experience time at a different speed, which seems to draw out some of its few weaknesses. Stopping a mongrel in its tracks entirely, well... it might just kill it.

[reachartwork]

hello everyone. dggbot is now in public release state (i.e i'm satisfied enough with his regular output that i'm willing to let the link loose). he is an AI assistant designed to assist with tabletop roleplaying games, worldbuilding, mechanics, and general idea stuff. he's also great fun to just poke at. he loves wizards and he has autism.

click the following link to Welcome him Into your Home.

[rosiemoo]

Out of Touch Gameboy Code

This is my programming equivalent to sheet music which plays Hall and Oate's Out of Touch. A little devblog of how this chunk of code came to be for this year's final Thursday ❤️

For @b0tster's birthday Gameboy cart, I wanted to get the Gameboy to play Out of Touch. My hands were also in rough shape with an RSI so I was programming using a combination of voice dictation and the onscreen keyboard. Because of this, rather than figure out something better, I had to rework my old music code which was an already reworked version of the sound.c example code that comes with GBDK.

A list of notes and their frequencies, graciously provided by the sound.c example.

This code takes one of the notes, and uses the frequency to set the registers correctly for playing that note on the first sound channel. The frequency is a bit more than 8 bits of info so it gets split between the bits in register 13 and 14. The other registers affect the kind of note played in ways I couldn't hope to fathom. Those were figured out with trial and error.

To get the timing better, I also had to add FF and SD which raised and lowered the tempo (by doing the opposite to the tempo variable). I also added HOLD which if put before a note, doubled the length of the note. This was just enough to get the tune working and not sounding terribly off.

The code for playing the song isn't terribly interesting, this function is called once every frame with a delay of "tempo" ticks between them. FF, SD, and HOLD all call the function again to avoid this delay while still playing the actual next note. Also the note value is subtracted by 12 because I wanted to lower the tune by an octave but didn't want to use the hand energy change all the numbers.

And the rest of the playing code is terribly simple! Play a note, wait a bit, repeat. Which brings us back to this:

This is an array of the note enumerators from before The song goes through this and plays each note in sequence. I wrote this by looking at some sheet music for the melody of the chorus and just feeling it out from there. I eventually added little comments above the notes to help me keep track of it!

No human writes music like this

but, it worked, which means it was good enough which means it was perfect!

The resulting video:

[spritework by the lovely @abbytorade]

This was a weekend project that ended up taking me a bit under a month due to life but it was a very fun little coding puzzle to work on when my hands would allow me. Lilith is a great friend and I am so glad to have been able to make this made for her!

[shadefish]

Before I head back to see my family for the holidays, wanna bless yall with a little preview of a project that will be continuing in the new year ;)

Casebearer, Naga, Eannatum, Clisson

ooo cool links to click on to support me

[gynandromorph]

it's unbelievable to me that rain world is NOT considered "one of the greats." many "greats" only improved on extant genres. STARDEW VALLEY does not deserve to be considered one of the greats more than rain world. CELESTE does not deserve to be considered one of the greats more than rain world. ELDEN RING does not deserve to be considered one of the greats more than rain world. i don't like, hate these games, they're all good games, but they objectively built on well-established genres and mechanics. if you asked me for games almost identical in gameplay but a little worse than ANY of those games made BEFORE they were made i could give them to you, but i can't name a single game that plays like rain world. it makes me feel like a feral animal that people will praise games like dark souls for the difficulty but they all whined about the difficulty in rain world as if it was a bad thing, as if the plot of the game did not deliberately emphasize this for a deeper appreciation of a mostly non-verbal story. most of the game IS NOT random and has been well-documented and picked apart in the code, but it gave the illusion of being random because the game has an absurd amount of depth put into the mechanics that mirrored the procedural animation used to produce its aesthetic.

[efangamez]

Hey you beautiful people!

My name is EfanGamez, a very neurodivergent trans and pan creator who has created 20+ games and have gotten nearly 30,000 downloads on my games!

On this blog, you can find some stuff that I have created, as well as just some fun stuff. I'm not here to preach to people or make sales only; I just want people to enjoy what I make!

You can find my games right here. I promise they're amazing!

If you want separate stores, look below as well!

Itch.io

DriveThruRPG

Kofi

Have a wonderful day! 💜✨💜✨

MY BOUNDARIES <3

So a little PSA going forward btw! This isn't meant as a call out or anything, but a stating of boundaries with my page and communication, as well as some clear ups!

I am incredibly mentally ill and autistic, with memory loss and attention disorders, so if we communicate and things are a little wonky, let me know! Sometimes I'm unaware what I'm saying may be a little rude, so please kindly let me know!

Boundary 1: Please do not ask me to review game items of yours or someone else's! I currently am trying to simply exist in this world by eating, drinking, and showering, so I may not have time to read your games, even if they're really short. I think that, for me right now, it puts a lot of pressure on me that I just cannot deal with right now.

Boundary 2: Please do not ask for advice or tips unsolicited unless through an ask. Again, because I'm a slow texter and have memory loss, I may not be able to get back to you, and I'd much rather you just ask publicly than privately.

Boundary 3: Please no unsolicited DMs. I have learned the hard way many people on this app who DM me wanting something, trying to strike up conversations, or love bomb you, are trying to get something out of you, and I'm kinda tired of it, frankly. Some people who have DMed me have become cool peeps I can talk to, but some have manipulated me and used me, and when I was of no use, discarded me. Because of this, please ONLY DM me if I have expressed a want to otherwise! (This is for mostly random people I don't know, so if we're already talking, we should be good!)

Boundary 4:This kinda goes without saying, but please do not interact with me if you are a minor. This is an 18+ page.

Boundary 5: This one may sting for some people, but it's my personal boundary and it has nothing to do with people individually. I do not wish to be called a "friend" of yours unless I myself call you that. It's a term I hold quite dear and hold for a VERY few people. I'm more like an acquaintance to many people or even just one step up from stranger. Again, it does not mean I don't like you, I just hold friendships super close to my heart, and I've been burned calling people friend who truly are not mine.

Boundary 6: This one is kinda twofold. I want people to know that if my boundaries are crossed after warning, I will block you. My mental health cannot take constant violations of my boundaries, and thus I have to enforce them. The next is that I will ALWAYS restate a boundary with someone, because I'll never expect anyone to know a boundary without them knowing, so if it happens, I'll let you know, sometimes more than once if I know you well enough.

Boundary 7: I will ALWAYS talk about politics or human rights issues, so if you have an issue with that, please do not interact with me. I do not wish to be comrades with those who are "apolitical".

And that's it! I know it's a ton, but like I said, I'll never expect anyone to know automatically what my boundaries are, so if ya mess up, I'll let ya know very kindly!

I'll also have this up on my pinned post so that way people can know exactly my boundaries are!

Have a wonderful day to y'all, and to my fellow disabled and mentally ill baddies out there; you are absolutely loved, and please don't drive yourself to spiral because your feelings are ALWAYS valid (this goes to me too lol).

[luuma-makes-games]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D97iIRlPNocdWt15yaRfi8SNzmos-rbXaScb9clu33M/edit?usp=sharing

This is a tabletop RPG about a ragtag group of eccentric adolescents going on a chaotic cartoon adventure, wielding magic powers, beating up bad guys, and learning who they are along the way.

I'm very proud of it. Check this first draft out while it's hot! If you like it, use this link to download the PDF, then find a charity you love, and give that charity a fiver.

[whinnylikeahorse]

thinking about her (wii hacking emo pixealart rainbow dash)

[supersquidlit]

I finally got split screen working! The game is designed around couch co-op (although single player is still viable) so I needed to figure this out before I get to work on the fun stuff. I’ve also made the game accept multiple squobsters, redid collision detection, and made a primitive threat system for the enemies!

Sorry about the goofiness of the yellow squidlit. They’re being controlled by my feet! :3

[ladytabletop]

Published my first thing on itch.io!

It’s a post for the Wildsea RPG by Felix Isaacs.

Time is a tool we all have; you simply know how to use it better than others.

The passing of days weighs upon every wildsailor, an inevitable trudge toward whatever end awaits. Oftentimes, survival on the rustling waves relies upon marking time: how many weeks until the next spitborne port, how many days of rations remain, how many hours left in your watch, how many minutes until an ironjaw-led storm is upon you, how many seconds of air in your lungs in a crezzerine breeze.

Winders have turned the fickle hands of time to their favor, slipping through moments and manipulating the speed of an hour. This rare form of arconautics can be a great boon to a crew, but just as easily it can spell their doom. Time is a harsh mistress.

It’s up there for PWYW. I hope you’ll check it out!

[dev-the-dm]

Collection: Arcane Familiars

Are you also bored with the current limited number of official familiars, whether you get yours through the find familiar spell or by befriending every imp that the DM throws your way? This should help! This collection contains eight new, unique familiars that are made distinct to fit every type of character that should want one. Additionally, each familiar has a trait or two that it can share with its bonded friend - but you may have to work for that.

For better, full-page high quality imagery, take a look at the Collection: Arcane Familiars at the Homebrewery here!

[dukhlontales]

Narrative Games vs Crunchy Games: A (mostly) False Dichotomy

Whenever you see someone ask for recommendations for a ttrpg to try after not enjoying something (usually D&D5e given its prevalence), one of the first things people look for clarity on is whether the group prefers crunchy games or narrative games. I don’t want to describe it as a division in the ttrpg community because that’s ridiculously dramatic, but people tend to be looking for something in their ttrpg experience. Some people really want to tell a cool story. Some people really want to see numbers add together and make granular decisions to overcome their obstacles. But some people (it’s me. Hi. I’m the demographic. It’s me) really want to do both.

It makes sense that having lots of granular mechanics to pay attention to would restrict the mental bandwidth available to focus on the narrative being developed at the table. It also makes sense that if you don’t have those mechanics, there’s not a lot left to have if you aren’t focusing on the narrative. This makes it easy to see crunch and narrative as two ends of a spectrum. I see them as two axes of an alignment chart of sorts.

Let’s look at D&D5e, a game with way more crunch than most narrative-focused games, but way less than many truly crunchy games. A game that can handle any narrative or setting (spoiler: it can’t well). Please don’t be one of those people). Surely it’s near the middle of a crunch to narrative spectrum. Or rather, the “true neutral” zone of this alignment chart. That would still be the middle area of the graph.

I don’t think that’s the case. On the one hand, because the game has more than enough crunch to be on the crunchy side of things. But moreover, because the system does a (personal opinion warning) horrible job of supporting narratives mechanically. That’s the crux of what I consider a “narrative” game. Not a game that lacks crunch that could bog it down. A game that actually supports the narrative being created.

Obviously, D&D5e isn’t completely absent of flavourful mechanics. That would be an untenable stance. But it greatly misses the mark in many instances. Starting with combat, how does a combat-focused game have such weak weapon design? A weapon’s damage type is almost never relevant. Why can’t more enemies care about damage types? Why can’t armour that resists a specific damage type be more common? A game that aims to assume you don’t have magic items could amazing things with chainmail resisting slashing damage for example.

Spell damage types also don’t feel evocative far too often. Burning Hands and Fireball are just damage with “burns things that aren’t worn or carried.” I don’t think Scorching Ray even necessarily ignites objects if you specifically use it for that. A general rule that fire damage burns things such things affected by it would be nice. Not to mention, cutting some text out of those fire spells. Cone of Cold does a bunch of damage and freezes corpses. 8d8 damage and it doesn’t so much as slow people who fail the save. I just want my elemental effects to feel elemental. Give me mechanics that evoke what the spell is doing. I understand that having fire typically do damage over time, and having more common rider effects increases crunch, but it also mechanically conveys how the spell affects people. Scorching Ray should absolutely never feel like someone swinging a greatsword three times.

Let’s move on to social encounters and heavy roleplaying. That’s what a narrative-focused game should excel at. So what does D&D5e lack in this regard? There’s the well known fact that most of the game’s mechanics revolve around combat. But then, aside from assuming we care about combat, what is actually missing? The system has Advantage / Disadvantage based on the circumstances of a skill check. That’s deceptively important to me in this regard. Rules-light games absolutely thrive on leveraging the GM. You don’t need an explicit rule for every situation. The GM can rule on any situation. But my heart goes out to the GMs trying to come up for rulings with the amount of guidance D&D5e gives on matters that aren’t combat.

Advantage/Disadvantage IS a narratively driven mechanic. If a situation is good, you get a bonus. If a situation is bad, you get a penalty. How do we figure out if a situation is good, bad or neither? Well, sometimes you are told. Being Prone is bad for attacking. Makes sense. If it isn’t a combat situation, the GM probably had to just decide. If you inadvertently insult someone, you probably have Disadvantage to persuade them. This being more explicitly supported by the system would be nice though. If you don’t want the player to know that something was an insult, you can raise the DC instead. Do it on the GM side instead of the player side. I’m a huge fan of hidden information like that. Is that a rule in the system? I actually have no idea. It’s something I run, and it’s something I’ve adopted for my own ttrpg system, but I don’t know if it’s RAW.

Keeping on the topic of hidden information, let’s talk about Secret Checks, something I learned about in PF2e, and that my players love and hate for all the right reasons. Players not knowing what they rolled for certain checks is beautifully immersive. Why should you know how high you rolled on a Perception check when you don’t even know if what you’re looking for is there? Not knowing is glorious. You know that you tried, and didn’t find anything. Do you want to investigate further? Are you assuming you’re right and moving on? My biggest pet peeve in how D&D5e plays out is players will conga line their Perception checks based on what the previous player rolled. No! You don’t get to decide whether you care to look based on how well someone else rolled. You either trust their skill, or you don’t.

D&D5e doesn’t really have any rules for many social situations beyond “ask the GM. Roll. Succeed or fail.” And that’s a shame! Some guidelines would go a remarkably long way at making the game more viable for groups that want to focus on the narrative. Even D&D4e had explicit skill challenges. They weren’t the best, but telling someone how to abstract a complicated social situation would be nice! Literally any game with a half-assed skill system can do anything if you leave it entirely up to the GM to figure out.

What I want out of a narrative-focused system is for it to guide me with regards to how to play out narrative scenes, and to have mechanics that support those scenes. If I’m rolling dice to determine success, I want the circumstances of my action to affect the odds. If I learn what an NPC’s goal in life is, and use that to elaborate on why they should help me, I’d better be getting a bonus to my roll.

Blades in the Dark, another system I look to for inspiration when it comes to skill usage, is amazing for this. How you narratively approach an action affects your roll. It might become easier or harder, and it might become more or less effective. And there are guidelines for the GM on how to handle it! Imagine a world where D&D5e had a simple but fleshed out system for social and environmental exploration like this.

In Dukhlon Tales, the ttrpg I’m designing, the narrative affects the dice. It uses a d6 system, where every narrative advantage gives you another d6, and every narrative disadvantage costs you a d6. Players have incentive to be clever because it directly affects their odds of success. Characters have ambitions and values that can not only guide the GM in terms of roleplaying, but also affect the DC for certain actions. Equipment and special abilities provide new ways to interact with the environment instead of focusing on bonuses. The mechanics of the system support the narrative, be it combat, social, or exploration. You can engage with the mechanics by engaging with the story, and vice versa.

This puts a lot on a GM. It puts a lot on me when I run games. When I drafted the rules for social encounters and exploration, I essentially wrote out how I’ve learned to run those encounters during my time running D&D5e and PF2e. It’s basically a guide from me to me on how to run narratively driven scenes. It somehow takes a lot of pressure off to have that experience ripped out of your brain, and put on a piece of paper you can reference without having to remember everything.

Let’s finally bring it back to our alignment chart. D&D5e is itself probably Heavy Crunch Neutral Narrative, but the way people run it matters. You can run narrative-focused campaigns in 5e. It’s a lot of work, but people do it. I’ve done it. I don’t recommend it, but people play 5e. I would argue it can fluctuate all along the narrative axis based on how people run it, but it really doesn’t lend all that much to narrative games.

A game like Blades in the Dark is probably Light Crunch Heavy Narrative. It abstracts a lot of details that would otherwise get granular, but still has them affect the narrative in a way I obviously admire. A game like PF2e I would argue starts to bleed into Heavy Crunch Heavy Narrative. This is the cool territory. Most groups that want narrative-focused games probably won’t like PF2e. It had a LOT of rules. I love it because it’s easier to ignore the rules I haven’t read than make up rules in D&D5e. But these rules very often affect the narrative. It certainly isn’t on the far end of the narrative heavy spectrum, but it leans that way in my opinion.

I’d call Dukhlon Tales Heavy Crunch Heavy Narrative too, but with less crunch and more narrative than PF2e. I love granularity. I swear by battlemaps. The ability to make informed decisions regarding positioning in combat is one of my favourite things. Dukhlon Tales further differentiates weapons based on their maximum range and ideal range, the sweet spot where they are most effective. Because dagger and a longsword shouldn’t feel equally effective up close and personal. The details often make or break a situation. I adore that the mechanics give you a reason to tell a story about how you got charged by someone, and sheathed your sword for a hidden dagger to take them by surprise with it.

That, in my opinion, is how a system supports narratives. By giving players real incentive to do cinematic and interesting things. Ttrpgs are games. Playing the game and telling the story should be one in the same, not two halves of the experience. Having few mechanics doesn’t support a narrative. Having relevant mechanics does.

[rosiemoo]

Splash screen for my GameBoy commission projects made by @abbytorade!

[elv13s]

Classic-vania fans rejoice! Nyghtmare is out now! The real full game! Thank you for waiting! https://elvies.itch.io/nightmare-tnk-gbc/devlog/479285/nyghtmare-released

[efangamez]

I'll be sharing 3 posts per day, each containing a page from my new Quake-inspired TTRPG, GRIM!

Page 33: Pre-Built Characters VI

Here is the second half of the level 5 characters you can plug n play in GRIM! The Spurned One is this game's "Doom Slayer" or "Ranger", and I like how their face is a swirling, starlit abyss with only one glowing green eye. It's pretty dope!!

---------

GRIM releases on September 23rd, 2023 on itch.io, DriveThruRPG, and Kofi!

[rizzenm]

The world is Talhith, a memory of what the world once was. Ages ago, the world began to flood, cities fell from the sky, and gods of this old world died. People from all over the world did what they could to survive in this world, the most popular of which was building what is now called a Shard.

Shards are homes built by generations of families trying to remain above the water as it continued to flood the the world. The tips of these Shards are all that can be seen now remaining as another danger for sailors to navigate and an archeological mystery for adventurers to explore. It is unknown what remains, but nearly every expedition has reveled horrors being contained only by the sea.

Urith is the largest continent, its capital city is Towersend. There are many factions and important people that call this continent home and many of them are at odds with each other. The terrain in the north is full of forests and hills. As you get more south you run into the Bog of The Twin Moon’s, a place many deem cursed as it is home to more monsters than men. Going east you can ride through the mostly uninhabited plains that the fallen city of Buelstone lies. Going further east you get to the Giants home mountain, Stormwind Peaks and the floating city Panuu. Going even further you get to the last forest of Urith, until you eventually cross the border into Trorn.

Trorn, commonly referred to as The Horns is the Tiefling homeland, and the lowest elevation found in Talhith. It’s ruler, Zepar Lust, the Ichor Father rules this land with an iron fist. However in recent years they seem to be doing more outreach. Trying to right wrong of the past even though they remain an extremely guarded state. It is defended by the volatile Devil’s Anguish that has lava and poisonous gases that prevent most anyone from crossing over by land.

Ibor was the great home of the now destroyed Purple Dragons Knights. They were soldiers of legend until they eventually sacrificed themselves to defend the world from a great evil. Now it is a shattered wasteland of ravines, and tribes of people fight for what little resources remain.

Gullura is the Elven homeland. It’s captital city, Cynore, has elements of this fae ancestry while also being very coastal. Most buildings are made out of lime and sandstone.

Rotsen is the Dwarfen stronghold. It is the banking and trading hub of the world. In the center of the island is a volcano that powers all of the forges. It is said this volcano was the child of Dwarf and Elf who could not conceive so they combined their magics to create a child made of stone. Soon after the parents argued constantly. The child, feeding of this anger grew to the size of the volcano and nearly destroyed everything before it was put to sleep.

Eagekul is a tropical, forest land home to more of the outsiders of the world. The Istoye forest is the largest fae forest in the world, the Gorge of the Ancients is home to many gearforged.

There is obviously many more place to talk about, and many more yet to be explored. I welcome all questions about this world and the places in it!