#meguey baker

[bryanharryrombough]

Meguey Baker was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2022. She's been through her first round of surgery and radiation, and is readying herself now for round 2.

[patmax17]

I mean, I do like reading TTRPG discourse again, but I've been playing for over 20 years now, and been on forums and discussion boards ever since.

I'm actually sad that the discourse I see here is the exact same stuff that was talked about when I started taking interest in it.

Look up things like "System does matter"

The Same Page Tool

Or anything Lumpley (Vincent Baker) wrote.

Go play games like Trollbabe, Kagematsu, A Penny For My Thoughts, Fiasco, and see how mechanics can foster and support the story, see how a game doesn't need house rules or on-the-fly changes to work, see what it means to have to abide only to the rules and not to the GM's whim, see how much work you're usually expecting from your GM (or if you're a GM, see how much easier GMing can be if the rules support and make your job easier instead of being in the way).

Like, on one hand I'm glad people are still fighting the good fight, that these concepts have endured the test of time and have shown that they do in fact work. But on the other hand I als wished that those same concepts were more common knowledge, instead of needing to be defended. It seems Hasbro with D&D still holds a firm grasp over the public opinion on ttrpgs, and it feels like a defeat, at least in part.

I'm far from the kind of person that will give up hope, but I've also come to the realisation that I can't save everyone from their ignorance, that people who don't want to listen just won't, and those who do want to listen will naturally find the discourse on their own. I don't have the energy nor the interest to fight over this topics, what matters is what I and the people I play with think.

Thanks to the people who are still keeping the discourse alive.

[gorgonarcher]

19th Game - Apocalypse World

Well, in honor of the ongoing Maguey Baker vs Cancer bundle, linked below:

I think it is time to do a gorgon archer in the original Powered by the Apocalypse game. Or at the very least the 2nd edition of it.

This is a game put out by the Bakers, Meguey and her husband Vincent, and it revolves around characters surviving in a post-apocalyptic world with the general feel of Mad Max, Last of Us, the Walking Dead, or Horizon Zero Dawn.

It's a game I've played exactly once as run by one Rich Rogers of the Gauntlet in which I played a derivation of my woman with no name who had slight snake-like mutations and was a Gunlugger with elements of the Angel thrown in.

Now, I've been stretching the bounds of "archer" in this blog as regards what I go with for "gorgon archer" and in a lot of cases I basically just give the character a bow and say "yup, she's an archer, see?"

Guess what... I'm doing that again.

First - Choose a Playbook

Okay, so I want to do something a little bit different here and have this character be the person in charge of a small settlement in the wasteland. The leader who has the responsibility of taking care of a number of souls.

Our lady is a Hard Holder

And yes, she's going to be a right proper gorgon with snakes for hair, (though likely not the petrifying gaze) and using narrative goodness to supply that. Apocalypse World especially is zoomed out a bit more than Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Monster of the Week are but is a bit more zoomed in than Uncharted Worlds. By which I mean that TSL and MotW focuses more on detailed action than Apocalypse World does and Uncharted Worlds is more broadly focused on summarizing entire scenes. As such, there's not as much need for a precise definition of physical capabilities.

Now each playbook gives the steps for statting characters of that playbook out, in most cases they're the same, but I left it to here to list steps because sometimes playbooks get a bit off the standard and as we'll have to create our Holding, this is one of those playbooks.

Name

Stats

Gear

Moves

Holding

History

Step One - Name

This isn't a mechanical choice, but a good name does come with a lot of character to it. Hardholders are often given titles that give them an air of authority. In a lot of cases they try to appeal to a sense of family, law, or religious position (though the Hocus is more appropriate for that last). In this case, I'm going to make an oblique reference to a Chinese folk tail and I'm going to go with the name "Sister Violet Python".

Step Two - Stats

For stats, we choose one out of a set of 4 lines. There are five stats:

Cool - Keeping your head, cool under fire

Hard - Hard-headed, strong-willed, violent, aggressive

Hot - Attractive, inspiring, interesting

Sharp - Sharp-witted, alert, smart, perspective

Weird - psychic, genius, weird, strange

In all cases, the Hard Holder is ... Hard. So it comes down to looking at some of the other options and I'm going to go ahead and go for the one line that gives a bit higher Weird. Giving her these stats.

Cool +0

Hard +2

Hot +1

Sharp -1

Weird +1

So she's a bit weird and a bit inspiring, but she's not the best for coming up with plans and she's only middling good at keeping her head on straight.

Step Three - Gear

Now. There are no stats for a longbow in this game. There are crossbows however. Also the Hard Holder's gear is a bit unusual. Most playbooks have a list of gear to choose, but the Hard Holder instead says:

"In addition to your holding, detail your personal fashion. You can have, for your personal use, with the MC's approval, a few pieces of non-specialized gear or weapons from an character playbook.

If you'd like to start play with a vehicle or a prosthetic, get with the MC."

I don't want a prosthetic or vehicle right now. But I will take a bow. There are no stats for it, but I think I will base it a bit on the crossbow which is (2 Harm Close Slow). Instead I will do the following:

Longbow - 2 Harm Far Reload

As for her fashion, since I'm referring to Princess White Snake, she has a bit of a Apocalypse Wu Xia flare with a flowing, long-tailed jacket and silk trousers that combine to give an impression of Wu Xia movie style robes.

I'm not sure what other non-specific gear she would have, so I leave it here.

Step Four - Moves

Unusual for PbtA playbooks, the Hard Holder doesn't get a menu of moves to select from. They get two moves and all Hard Holders get them.

Leadership - Used to command gangs

Wealth - You have lots of resources.

Step Five - Holding

This is where a Hardholder gets to chance to be a bit more unique and also add something substantial to the world building of the setting.

There are a number of default assumptions and then we will modify those with four positive or neutral traits and two downsides. So, I was looking for a farm upgrade, but it doesn't look like that's an option. So let's see what we got after I've picked options.

Holding

Size: 200-300 souls

Gigs: hunting, crude farming, scavenging, bustling market

Compound is Deep, Tall, and Mighty, of Stone and Iron.

Shitty garage of 4 vehicles only 2 of them suitable for battle

Barter: 3

Want: Disease, Strangers

Gang

Small gang of 10-20 violent, but disciplined, bastards

Harm 2-Harm (Makeshift, scavanged weapons)

Armor 1 armor (3 armor when defending the compound)

So, what we've got is a heavily civilian population with stable food supplies and a well-regarded market place protected by a small number of disciplined warriors using makeshift weaponry. They have some form of stronghold that provides a strong defensive position.

I'm going to name this place Alabaster River Sanctuary. Which is kinda weak for Wu Xia naming.

As a note, you'll see the term "Want" there. These are things that cause worries for the settlement. In this case, there's a large number of people, so disease has a way of spreading quickly and the market brings in a lot of strangers, who may cause problems.

Step Six - History

The final point would come with how the character interacts with the other players' characters. Now for this, I'm going to create four other characters:

Sister Ebony Viper - A Gunlugger, badass warrior type

Winward Phoenix - A Savvyhead, a techie person

Karen - A Maestro D' who runs an establishment in the Holding

Each playbook gets a set of questions to ask other players about to set their "Hx" rating with each other character. For the Hardholder it is these.

Which one of you has been with me since before? (get Hx+2 with that character)

Which one of you has betrayed or stolen from me? (get Hx +3 with that character)

She can choose to ask one or both, I'm going to build a more or less close-knit group, so I'm going to only ask the one question for each playbook and focus on pleasant connections.

I'm going to say she'll ask the "which of you has been with me since before" and say it is Sister Ebony Viper getting Hx +2 with them.

Now the other's ask some questions as well, and as I said, doing one per playbook.

Sister Ebony Viper: Which of you is the prettiest and/or smartest? And the person who answers is going to be Winward Phoenix.

Winward Phoenix: Which of you is the biggest potential problem? And this is absolutely going to be Karen.

Karen: Which of you do I find the most attractive? And we're going to go around to calling this Sister Violet Python.

And now we write down the finished character. As I said, the snake hair never really ended up getting into the stats, but I'm imagining that has something to do with her Hard and Weird stats.

Sister Violet Python - The Hardholder

Stats

Cool +0

Hard +2

Hot +1

Sharp -1

Weird +1

Moves

Leadership

Wealth

Holding - Alabaster River Sanctuary

Large Population

Barter 3

Tall, deep, mighty compound (+2 Armor)

Terrible garage, 4 vehicles (2 suitable for battle)

Gigs: Hunting, crude farming, scavenging, bustling market

Wants: Disease, Strangers

Gang

Small: 10-20

Disciplined

2-Harm, Armor 1

History

She's been with Sister Ebony Viper for a long time. Hx +2

Karen finds her attractive. Hx +1

Winward Phoenix Hx +1

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played APOCALYPSE WORLD ?

By Vincent & Meguey Baker

Something’s wrong with the world and I don’t know what it is.

It used to be better, of course it did. In the golden age of legend, when there was enough to eat and enough hope, when there was one nation under god and people could lift their eyes and see beyond the horizon, beyond the day. Children were born happy and grew up rich.

Now that’s not what we’ve got. Now we’ve got this. Hardholders stand against the screaming elements and all comers, keeping safe as many as they can. Angels and savvyheads run constant battle against there’s not enough and bullets fly and everything breaks. Hocuses gather people around them, and are they protectors, saviors, visionaries, or just wishful thinkers? Choppers, gunluggers, and battlebabes carve out what they can and defend it with blood and bullets. Drivers search and scavenge, looking for that opportunity, that one perfect chance. Skinners and the maestro d’ remember beauty, or invent beauty anew, cup it in their hands and whisper come and see, and don’t worry now what it will cost you. And brainers, oh, brainers see what none of the rest of us will: the world’s psychic maelstrom, the terrible desperation and hate pressing in at the edge of all perception, it is the world now.

And you, who are you? This is what we’ve got, yes. What are you going to make of it?

Apocalypse World is the award-winning and critically acclaimed game that launched the Powered by the Apocalypse school of rpg design.

[thydungeongal]

Is there a glossary for these acronyms you use? Because I'm pretty good at following your posts, but then I'll get stopped abruptly, like "wait, what's OSR?" or "what's PbtA?" and I know I can Google it but we're also on the site that allegedly convinced the Google AI to tell people that it's good to leave your dog in a hot car, so...

You could use another search engine but anyway I don't have a glossary at hand but I can define those terms for you:

OSR - stands for Old School [Renaissance/Revival/Revisionism], basically a broad modern design movement based on re-examining TSR editions of D&D (and sometimes other older RPGs while also sometimes omitting specific TSR editions of D&D) and either just creating new materials compatible with those games or creating entirely new games informed by those design principles.

PbtA - Powered by the Apocalypse, games that utilize the framework of Vincent and Meguey Baker's game Apocalypse World; Powered by the Apocalypse games often emphasize player-facing mechanics, shared narrative agency, and playing to find out what happens instead of following a strongly authored narrative.

Gleeblor -

[theresattrpgforthat]

games without sheets (like no need to write anything down)

THEME: Games Without Character Sheets.

Hello there, I’ve got a bit of a range here for games. Some are solo, some are lighthearted, and some are good for contemplative conversations.

Oh Maker, by Kienna Shaw.

You are an android, an artificial intelligence. Made, not born. Your Creator, your programming, and the world you occupy will vary, as will the scenes you play. But the question remains the same. To find its answer is the game…

Oh Maker is a Descended From the Queen card-based game of communal story-telling, designed by Kienna Shaw (@KiennaS) and Jason Cutrone (@JustJasonPls). 

In it, 3 or more players take on the role of androids who, through their own unique experiences and exploits, will come to confront their very nature. Select from 10 distinct Creators, those who gave the group form and function, and their respective worlds - or generate your very own - and utilize the various prompts provided to collectively explore the question of consciousness, and maybe even find some answers.

For The Queen is a card game that introduced a new way of playing story games, and has plenty of hacks that use the same style of answering prompts to tell different kinds of stories. Many of these games expect you to start as characters with very clear goals or beliefs, but as you move through the prompts, your characters may experience doubts, or a change of heart. As a result, the end of the game is often something you cannot predict. The bulk of the experience involves pulling cards from a deck and answering the questions involved, although if you play online the game might come with alternative options. If you like the idea of this gameplay but you want to see what is out there besides a game about androids, you might want to check the Games section of the For The Queen website.

Games To Play While Falling Asleep, by Meguey Baker.

As an adult, falling asleep is hard sometimes. Our worries are the same, but wider in reach. And if we have a sleeping partner, letting them sleep if they can is a gift of loving kindness. So, sometimes, I play these games to fall asleep.

You can’t write anything down if you’re trying to sleep, so games that are meant to take place where you don’t have access to pen or paper are a possible good fit for you. I know there are some other solo games out there on Itch, but this is the one that first came to mind, and it looks like it’s a collection, so if one game doesn’t fit your fancy, another one might!

A Long Night in the Mech Bay, by Nested Games.

A 2 Player Tabletop Roleplaying Game about Relationships Reforged in Conflict

In an ever shifting war that has spread to the entire Merseus System, the Roran Federation's Ace Pilot has barely escaped from their life from a recent incident. Sadly, there is no time to rest for the pilot or their mechanic. This Mech needs to be ready to fight tomorrow and no one else is available to help. It’s going to be a long night.

I think that you could play this game without writing anything down, as long as you are able to remember the 4 truths established at the beginning of the game; truths that define your characters and their relationship to each-other. The game leads you through three mini-games; two Reveries and one Testing the Waters.

You play with a number of some kind of token, whether that be poker chips or coins or buttons. Each Reverie consists of a number of questions the characters will ask each-other, causing emotional wounds or repairing broken pieces of the relationship. Testing the Waters involves narrating how the last interaction between the Mechanic and the Pilot plays out. I think this game could end in a positive or negative light, depending on how you decide to answer each-other’s questions. If you want a game that navigates the intimacy of a relationship where a life hangs in the balance, this might be your game.

Bad Moon, by Adira Slattery.

THE MOON IS BIG THE MOON GLOWS YOU ARE BELOW SHE IS UP HIGH THE MOON HAS RISEN IN THE SKY AND THE MOON HAS PISSED YOU OFF TIME TO STOP LETTING HER GET AWAY WITH IT

In this game, you will yell at the Moon because you love her and you have no other options left. She must understand how she has hurt you. You will be heard. The Moon must hear you. She must…

This is a two-player game of catharsis, with one player listening, and the other venting their feelings. The supplicant should read through the introduction of the game and create a problem that The Moon is responsible for. They are expected to work though the problem in it’s entirety - how it started, why the Moon is involved, and why you love her so much and how that love has made the problem worse. At the very end of the game, the Moon will respond - and her response will end the game.

Clown Helsing, by Planarian.

Clowns. We've all seen them… riding their unicycles, blowing up balloons at parties, piling in garish hordes from tiny cars, waddling around in bulbous red shoes, passed out in a dumpster stinking of booze and regret. For what do these martyrs of mirth sacrifice themselves? The answer is they do it for us. Not just to fill our need for laughter and merriment, but because they defy the doom of mankind! Clowns are man's only salvation against… Vampires.

Clown Helsing is incredibly simple, although I should clarify that it is a game where only the players don’t need to write anything down. The GM might have to make a few notes about the vampires that the group is facing off against, although these should mostly be jot notes, not anything extensive. Players simply have to remember three things about their clown: the clown’s name, their clown’s style, and their clown’s niche party trick. All of your encounters take place using rounds of rock-paper-scissors, which lends to a fast-paced, goofy kind of game.

You Also Might Consider...

DIY Identity (An Odd Bijou), by S. Kaiya J.

[s-che]

reporting from the Dream Library: Apocalypse World

After however many years of games pointing its direction, I finally played Apocalypse Worlds as the first leg of a long series of one- and two-shots I’m running over in the Dream Library, my weekly drop-in-game-and-design-chat discord. We’re starting a unit talking through some of the highs, lows, landmarks, and cul-de-sacs in the now fourteen-year long history of PBTA design — it’s looking something like an actual play book club. 

It’s an interesting journey to be embarking on — and I’ll talk a little bit more about where we’re going next at the end of this post — but, hey, first:

I fucking loved Apocalypse World.

Part 1: Big Thoughts & Caveats

Apocalypse World rules. That isn’t a particularly hot take, and it isn’t a set up for me to tear into the game later. I’m not being polite here. The game fucking rules. Every time I opened the book (I’ve got both a physical copy and a pdf of the second edition), I was confronted by some absolute sick nasty shit that slapped and fucked and went supremely hard. The game is good good good in a way that, tbh, makes me a little disappointed in a whole bunch of PBTA games that come after it and totally miss, imo, where all the cool shit in Apocalypse World came from. 

There’s a way in which, speaking as a mostly casual observer who was mostly not around during the big years of the PBTA boom (for those keeping score at home, I listened to Friends at the Table on and off from about 2016 on and played a handful of Dungeon World and Sprawl sessions as a result, but didn’t start actively participating in the blood machine we call design discourse until after I graduated college in 2021), what seems to get fossilized as the core of PBTA design, especially in the public pitch for various systems, is mostly the simplicity of the dice and resolution systems — make a move, roll 2d6+stat, partial successes, isn’t this so much easier than d20 rollover?

And, sure, those form a part of the marketability of PBTA, especially to a mainline RPG audience. But there’s more than just that in this book — a lot more — in a way which makes me upset that this wasn’t the shit I was hearing about at 17. Meguey & Vincent Baker have skill for designing with what you might call elegant maximalism in mind, a philosophy where you are constantly confronted — especially when handling the physical object — by a book which is impressive both in its length and in its density. 

Apocalypse World (like Under Hollow Hills, which we’ll be playing at the very end of our PBTA unit in the Dream Library) is remarkable both for the number of moving pieces and for the fluidity with which those pieces fit together. I understand why that kind of game, coupled with how easy it is to hack moves into something entirely new, leads to a design moment which emphasizes rules-light play, but — agh! There’s just so much more game in Apocalypse World than in so many of the games which build on it. The text calls for the MC to “barf forth apocalyptica” — and it feels like Vincent and Meguey have done something similar, here, cramming everything which makes the game interesting right into the text.

All that being said, I butchered this game in order to run it as a one-shot. Apocalypse World should not be run as a one-shot. There are lots of very funny forum conversations to be found, if you start looking online for advice on running Apocalypse World as a one-shot, where people tell each other not to run Apocalypse World as a one-shot. In several of them, especially on the old lumpley forums, Vincent chimes in and suggest not running it as a one-shot.

Unfortunately, the limits of trying to run a series of games in conversation with each other, in a reasonable period of time, with a rotating set of players means that I can’t play Apocalypse World the way you’re supposed to. I’m going to host it again later this month, and I may try to run that session as a a little more of an as-written Session 0 (or follow Vince’s advice on playing it con-style to the letter), but that’s getting a little close to what-comes-next talk, which I said I’d save for the end. 

All-in-all, I’m not terribly unhappy with the way my cobbled together one-shot went, but — as I talk through some of the points of friction in a moment — I’m going to try to keep in mind (and I’d like y’all to keep in mind too) that much of this is my fault, for breaking the game before we every played.

That being said...

Part 2: The Session

I had four players, who made characters ahead of time — except for Hx, which we did at the top of the session. None of them, as far as I know, had played Apocalypse World before. We got an angel, a battlebabe, a brainer, a hardholder out of it. 

There were strengths and weaknesses to prepping characters ahead — while it did save time and let us play harder and faster than we would have otherwise, I struggled at times with what felt like an almost immediate divide between player characters: the hardholder and the brainer on one side, the angel and battlebabe on the other. There wasn’t player tension or conflict — just folks interests going in different directions, which is 1. totally fine, and in fact can be fun to play with over a longer time and 2. probably my fault for giving players the full list of playbooks. Hardholder is good shit, but it’s also big and requires more prep than basically any of the others, and then grounds you in a world I wish we’d had time to explore longer. 

I prepped a holding, with the help of our hardholder Mother Superior: the Red Priory, an underground market in the tunnels beneath the ruins of a city-which-was, located on the remains of an interstate highway in the slow process of sinking into the burned and blackened mudflats left behind when the wetlands dried up. I prepped some threats: a gas supplier to the west and a gang called the Crow-Eaters who were picking off caravans to the east. And then we jumped into play, opening in media res. Mother Superior was stranded, hunted by the Crow-Eaters as he tried to make it back to the safety of the Priory, while our other players (Charmer the Brainer, Kerrbox the Angel, and Rapture the Battlebabe) set out looking for their boss. Again, a breach of how the game is supposed to run, but opening with something high-octane felt important when we only had a couple of hours to dick around in the world.

We had a brief encounter at a blockaded highway, some good chats about the safety and feasibility of offroading on a dried up swamp (don’t), and an absolutely miserable (in a good way) knock-down, drag-out shootout between Mother Superior and his pursuers, which ended when an escaping Crow-Eater rode headfirst into our other players’ search party and wound up getting dragged behind a bike some five hundred feet down the road, psychically interrogated, and imprisoned in the Red Priory. Having made it safe — but badly injured — back to the holding, we capped off the session — and our story — with an attack by the full Crow-Eater gang riding a souped up bulldozer and a fleet of bikes which Kerrbox and Rapture road out to deal with while Mother Superior drifted semi-conscious in a hospital bed, dreaming with Charmer about the Crow-Eater’s boss, Lady Magpie — who, at that moment, was dueling Rapture guitar-ax-on-chains on top of the bulldozer. Every step in the process was sick as shit. The combat felt great, the social dynamics felt great, the shifting scales of threat and tension as things amped up felt great — and even with a couple of players with pretty limited RPG experience, the game felt like it had an interesting answer (or a way to find an interesting answer) to every question we hit. As always when playing online, I did wish we were in person (flipping through a book around a table just feels better than flipping through a book on a discord call) and we ran into the usual hiccups with to do the move, do it type games: cases where players had an interesting image of what they wanted to try which the moves didn’t quite cover and cases where players knew what move they were angling for but I had to push them to frame it narratively — but both of those things are solved by familiarity, and would have been smoothed out if we’d gotten to play for longer. 

There’s a slightly paradoxical way in which a one-shot of a GM’d game tends to rely more heavily on the GM than long term play does, especially when the non-GM players haven’t spent a lot of time with the game beforehand. Even if you aren’t expected to have prepped as thoroughly as you might for a campaign, the labor of hosting and facilitating has a tendency to balloon in a first session, and there were a number of times when my players looked to me for answers when, in a longer game, I’d like to think they would have felt comfortable answering the questions themselves. Some of this is just players getting warmed up to the space and to playing with each other, but there’s another edge as well: I think some players have a tricky time feeling like they can claim authorial power in a one-shot. A one-shot is perceived as a kind of bespoke experience, something hosted by me for you — a perception which, I admit, I play into when I end a Dream Library session by thanking my players for joining me. I don’t know why I do that — I certainly don’t feel that need when I GM an ongoing campaign — but I do.

Apocalypse World is a great game for breaking this habit. Even as I over-prepped for the first session, limiting myself to developing threats (and the basic setting details worked out with the hardholder) meant there were moments when not only did my players ask me questions I didn’t have an answer to, but questions which I did not feel I was the right person to answer at all, and I passed authorship off — either back to them or to another player. Breaking up the authorial duties by making it extremely clear what the MC is and is not is a huge part of what makes the Bakers work tick — and something I’ve seen them do in other, even more asymmetrical games (like the excellent Wizards Grimoire zines which are on sale right now). 

On top of that, though, Apocalypse World gives you Agendas, and most importantly the command to “Barf forth apocalyptica” which I mentioned once already. In a one-shot, having a textual instruction to answer questions with the most grotesque, evocative, and apocalyptic answer we could find was an incredible mandate which changed the world in the process of play. The mudflats got muddier as we went, the Red Priory seedier. By the time we met her, Lady Magpie had discarded her original fit for a massive cloak strung with bits of broken metal and glass which clattered and flickered with her every movement. 

Apocalypse World enshrines the call to lean into the obvious answer into its text, reminding us that it is, in fact, fun to play in genre. It is fun to play in the trope. It is fun to make things strange and beautiful and frightening purely for the purpose of being strange and beautiful and frightening. It fucking rules.

I wish, again, that I’d gotten to play it longer, and watched the world get even weirder and more apocalyptic.

Part 3: What Comes Next

I’ve got another session of Apocalypse World that I’ll be recruiting for in the Dream Library basically as soon as this post goes up — then next month we’re moving on to Night Witches and Sagas of the Icelanders to talk a little about historical fiction and genre. The schedule beyond that has been laid out, but only tentatively (at one stage, I had games planned to run until next April, which is absurd, but I’m trying to keep things flexible and let the unit lead us where it does). If you’d like to get in on the action, shoot me a message! I’m not posting the link to the Dream Library anywhere publicly at the moment, but genuinely — if you want in, you should come on in. If you don’t want to play, you don’t have to play — we’ve got a little text-based book club talking through the games simultaneously to our unit, for folks who can’t make it but still want to talk games.

On the other hand, if you want to run a game you should for sure let me know. I’ve already got a few guest hosts lined up, and I can’t wait to see what they do. Is there a game you think is secretly the key to understanding PBTA? Something you’ve been itching to try, but never found a group for? A game you hate, but feel obligated to talk about anyway?

Come and join. We’d love to have you.

We’ve got fourteen years of design to talk shit about, after all.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Firebrands This game's good, it's a GMless Mech TTRPG ( a sentence which feels like I just used autofill after browsing Itch for an hour) where instead of simple dice rolling the players play different minigames to do engagements, its fun and it's more focused around telling interesting stories rather than having super complicated rules. It's a good time, and its pretty easy to get a group for since no one needs to GM

[temporalhiccup]

I'm super stoked to be invited alongside some amazing indie ttrpg folks to talk about the last 50 years of TTRPGS (!!!) and where we're headed.

Meguey and Vincent Baker are the phenomenal folks behind the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) engine, and without their work so many amazing games wouldn't have gotten made. In all the years I've played TTRPGs, it wasn't until I started playing PbtA games that I finally thought that hey, maybe I can make games too? It's wild to imagine that my initial attempts at PbtA design got to a point where Apocalypse Keys is now on book shelves (W I L D!!!)

I'll be interviewed alongside the Bakers to discuss PbtA design over the years and into the future. Honestly My Soul Leaves My Body each time I think about talking to them (but they're very cool and sweet people, the Bakers have been super influential and supportive of indie design for years and years)

We've got four days left and we're so close to our goal! Help us make this happen?

Folks will also be talking about RPGSEA and labor conditions in the TTRPG space, so definitely check out the link if any of this sounds interesting!

[summoningcirclepress]

Splat 5: Golden is Live on Kickstarter

The year 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons* and more excitingly, 50 years of TTRPGs as we know them! To celebrate we are looking back through time to bring you handpicked thoughts about evolutions in labour conditions, the indie scene, Powered by the Apocalypse, and RPG SEA. *Dragons sold separately.

WHAT'S INSIDE THE ZINE?

Interview with Meguey & Vincent Baker (Apocalypse World) in conversation with Rae Nedjadi (Apocalypse Keys) @temporalhiccup about designing the apocalypse over the years.

Interview with Waks Saavedra (Gubat Banwa) @makapatag and momatoes (ARC: Doom) about the rise of the TTRPG industry and culture in SouthEast Asia known as RPG SEA.

Interview with Jay Dragon (Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast) @jdragsky and Orion D Black (WotC & Dimension 20, freelance writer) about labour conditions and being indie in a corporate dragon world.

Back us between Feb 6 11:00am-Feb 7th 11:00am 2024 for an EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT

We're Kickstarting until Feb 20th 9pm EST

[jaztice]

Hey y’all! I just published a new TTRPG to itch called Down the Road Through the End of the World. It’s a game about survivors on a desperate journey through a post-apocalyptic world, and it uses Meguey and Vincent Baker’s Otherkind Dice system. Check it out if you like!

[bryanharryrombough]

An introduction to PbtA from a designer's point of view. How and why Apocalypse World works the way it does, what your game can take from it, and how and why your own game should work differently. Highlighting PbtA's conversation model, with an emphasis on consent and communication, and PbtA's model of fiction, with an emphasis on adapting it to your own game's needs.

[theinstagrahame]

Another month and a bit, got some more great games coming through! It's time for the indie/small press RPG mail call round-up!

Die - Bizarre Love Triangles: I generally love Rowan, Rook and Deckard's work, and really enjoyed the roughly half that I read of The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen. So, the original book was a match made in heaven for me. The promise of a Collectible Card Game adventure for it? Done. Sold. I'm there, and sign me up.

Inevitable: I think a lot of people had similar reactions when they pulled Inevitable out of its box: Whoa, this is big. The last few books have been closer in size to the middle row of books, but there's apparently too much ruined Western Arthuriana for one book to contain. Played this on a stream, it's good.

Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast: I honestly can't wait to dig into Yazeba's, because it seems like the kind of game we need more of. It's that Found Family experience, the whole character-based gameplay that people love, but also designed to really keep things fresh even on repeat playthroughs. I'm really curious to finally dig in.

Wickedness: This was offered as an Add-on to the Yazeba's Backerkit, and I was intrigued by the pitch: You and two other players form a coven, and you do queer witch stuff. It's a beautifully made book, and I've got a lot of friends who I think would dig it.

Songbirds 3e: I picked up an earlier edition of Songbirds in an Itch Charity Bundle, and was really intrigued by the game. Snow does amazing things with layout and vibes, and is a really excellent game designer. I really wanted that edition in hard copy, but never found it, so a third edition was an instant get.

Kids on Bikes 2e: I know KoB mostly through the Brits on Bikes podcast, and I really enjoyed the system. I love systems that make use of all the dice in interesting and fun ways, and I really couldn't wait to see what a new edition would look like.

Apocalypse Keys - Doomsday Delights: I've recently been reading the Hellboy comics, and thoroughly enjoying them. I also already have Apocalypse Keys, which does an incredible job of making the comic even more queer, so completing the set with the fun stretch goal books was kind of an obvious call.

The Wolf King's Son: Vincent and Meguey Baker make amazing games, including the engine that runs so many of the games I like. I've been following their recent series of zines, and this popped up in that feed. I haven't checked out Under Hollow Hills, but even based on what I've seen from this, it's a must-have.

Pitcrawler: Wizards are the 1%, and we Pitcrawlers, disposable adventurers, are here to rob from the rich. It ticks all my boxes, and it looks good doing it. The campaign also hit while I was about halfway through my Magnus Archives listen, so it was an instant back for me.

Outliers: Everything Sam Leigh makes slaps, so yeah. Weird corporate science horror? Solo adventures? Hell, even the Far Horizons Co-op association really got me.

Here we Used to Fly: Picked this up also because of @partyofonepod, who played a really beautiful and bittersweet episode with the creator. I have always been a little too anxious as an adult to consider breaking into an old theme park, but I definitely have my share of fun memories of them as a kid. I'm also starting to envision other games this would pair really well as an epilogue to, should I ever get back into the AP scene.

Another game has arrived in the mail since I started this, but that's gonna be next month's first game, I guess!

[unexploredcast]

What's going on at The Unexplored Places patreon this month?

for $1+ backers, the first mission of The Forensic Department of Paranormal and Demonic Activity has wrapped up, and the second will begin at the end of the month, introducing three new Department agents facing off against small town rumors of a mysterious man with no shadow...

for $3+ backers, the first episode of our revamped miscellany show Places & Patrons will be up 8/17! join Christine, Roman, and Sam for the first part of a game of D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker's The King is Dead!

for $5+ backers, August brings three more behind the scenes character creation episodes for FDPDA2, introducing Morgan, Dylan, and Roman's new agents

for $10+ backers, we're posting ten—yes, TEN!—new pieces of microfiction, each a 3-4 page chapter of the extensive backstory for Sydney and her robotic creation Virex that Morgan wrote mid-season. If you enjoyed Virex's story in Ruin's Gate, you'll definitely want to check these out.

If you haven't joined yet, this month's a great month to jump in. And as always, you can also join the Patreon as a free member to get the most reliable and up-to-date announcements about the show. Join here!

[ttrpgbrackets]

The featured games!

In the interest of being a thoughtful community member, below are links to all of the games featured in our bracket, submitted by followers!

Ascendancy can be found on Ruby Soleil-Raine's itch.io.

Patchwork World can be found on Aaron King's itch.io page. Patfinder can be found on Paizo's online store.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Monster of the Week, For the Queen, and Blades in the Dark can be found at Evil Hat's online store.

Pokemon Tabletop Adventures 3rd Edition can be found here.

Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist can be found here.

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

Justicar can be found on Nevyn Holmes' itch.io.

Troika can be found on its website.

Exalted Third Edition can be found on Onyx Path's website.

Glitch can be found on Drivethrurpg.

Lancer can be found on Massif Press's Itch.io.

Monsterhearts and The Quiet Year can be found on Buried Without Ceremony's website.

Wraith: the Oblivion and Mage: The Ascension can be found from White Wolf on drivethrurpg.

Fiasco can be found from Bully Pulpit Games.

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine can be found on drivethrurpg.

Beam Saber can be found on Austin Ramsay's itch.io.

Spire: The City Must Fall and Heart: The City Beneath can be found from Rowan, Rook, and Dekkard

Guardian Mecha Generations is by Chris Longhurst, though a direct link could not be found by this author. Submissions and asks with more information are welcome.

Public Access can be found from The Gauntlet.

Leverage is no longer in print, but was designed by Cam Banks and Rob Donaghue for Margaret Weis Productions

Disparateum can be found on Rathayibacter's itch.io.

World Wide Wrestling is found on Nathan Paoletta's website.

10 million HP Planet can be found on Sandy Pug Games' Itch.io.

Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined can be found on Riley Hopkins' itch.io.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying can be found from Cubicle 7 Games

City of Mist can be found from Son of Oak Games

Final Bid can be found on liberigothica's itch.io.

Apocalypse World can be found on its own website, by D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker.

Lasers and Feelings by John Harper can be found on its own website.

We Are But Worms can be found on itch.io from Riverhouse Games

Kingdom can be found on Ben Robbins' website.

Kernel can be found on Ava Ayers' cohost.

Ironsworn: Starforged can be found on the Ironsworn website.

Capers can be found on NerdBurger's website.

Fellowship 2nd Edition can be found on liberigothica's itch.io.

Eidolon: Become Your Best Self can be found on the Eidolon Playtest patreon.

Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast can be found on Possum Creek Games

Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game can be found from Greater Than Games

Fathom can be found on Brandon McLeod's itch.io.

Apocalypse Frame can be found from Binary Star Games.

We Used to be Friends can be found on Jonathan Lavalee's website.

I was unable to locate a link to purchase or read Perennial Ultimatum: Bloomward. If you have any information on this game, please feel free to submit a post.

[ladytabletop]

January TTRPG Recap

Figure it might be fun to keep track of the games I'm reading and playing this year! So here's the books I read and played this month.

Read

Firebrands by Meguey and Vincent Baker

LIARS by Felix Isaacs

Wildsea: Storm and Root by Felix Isaacs

Girl by Moonlight by Andrew Gillis

Legend of the Five Rings (4th Edition)

Beyond Reach by Annie Johnston-Glick

plus some friends' playtest games and a few one-sheets

Played

Delta Green

The Reapers' Almanac

a friend's playtest game

Written

Reverse Dread (partial)

The Warmest Place to Hide (partial)

Project Ichor (partial)