#pub rpg design

[lilie-stuffs]

Concours PRD

J'ai, pour la première fois de ma vie de "graphiste", participé à un concours. Ce dernier a eu lieu sur le célèbre forum @pubrpgdesign Grâce au soutien des membres de mon forum et de mes co-admins, j'ai osé franchir le pas et je m'y suis inscrite. 3 épreuves qui m'ont forcé à sortir de ma petite zone de confort. C'était excitant et stressant à la fois.

Je me suis hissée à la 2nde place du concours. Je ne sais pas si c'est mérité, mais cela m'étonne et m'impressionne quand je vois les choses magnifiques qui ont été proposées. Je suis touchée. Fière aussi, un peu.

Alors merci ♥

[crescent-city-rpg]

Concours de forum PRD

Après avoir gagné ce même concours en 2021, Crescent City a une nouvelle fois gagné pour le meilleur forum 2023 sur @pubrpgdesign Merci à eux pour ce concours qui offre une belle visibilité aux forums participants. Bravo à tous d'ailleurs ! C'est une grande fierté pour nous de gagner une nouvelle fois. De voir que nos membres sont toujours là, fidèles et passionnés. Motivés pour nous faire gagner. Motivés pour faire vivre notre forum qui va fêter ses 4 ans cette année. Une belle récompense pour nous, qui n'avions pas l'ambition de perdurer ainsi. Notre communauté est incroyable. Bienveillante. Folle. Unique. Nous espérons pouvoir continuer encore ainsi de belles et longues années. Cette victoire est celle du Staff, du forum de ses membres surtout. Alors merci à vous ♥

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

increasingly seems like i wont end up as a trad pub author, but i wonder if there are indie RPG designers who would let me write a book based in their game world

[thomasthewest]

RPGs, Imsims and You(r player character)

Part 1

I dislike genre discussions for video games.

Mostly because half of it is dogma. If a game is branded by a community or developer as something, it’s that something forever. Genre isn’t a discussion about its gameplay content or design, it’s about how fans vibe with an idea of a genre.

Specifically, it’s a pet peeve of mine how the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is treated. It’s not my favourite game, or even my favourite Elder Scrolls game, but some people have taken to bashing it for not being an RPG.

It's an odd thing to bring up, since there’s plenty to criticise the game for. Yes, it does lack a lot of the technical fidelity of its predecessors. Yes, the writing is inferior. But why is Skyrim (and its immediate predecessor the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) treated like this? What’s great about the third title of Morrowind that everyone hails as a cornerstone cRPG? What is about Morrowind that makes it an RPG and everything after it a not-RPG?

The truth is, nothing.

Morrowind is my favourite Elder Scrolls game, and one of my favourite games full stop. Its archaic, rough around the edges, and has its fair share of warts. But it has stellar writing and has one of the most engaging settings I’ve ever played.

I’m half-blinded by nostalgia but it is genuinely a great game and a great example of adventure in games done right.

But the gameplay differences between it and its successors are superficial. Many Morrowind fans are probably chomping at the bit right now, seeing red over how one could suggest the masterpiece that is Morrowind could ever be compared to the Toddslop that is Skyrim or Oblivion. But the truth is, while some of Morrowind’s features were streamlined in later titles, the core gameplay remains the same in every TES title since Morrowind.

Morrowind has plenty of technical fidelity. There are lots of ways to kill things in the world and move through the world. It’s fun. It’s great. But having more ways to kill or move doesn’t make something an RPG (or at least I would hope so, otherwise the definition for an RPG would also include Skyrim).

Morrowind’s capacity for character roleplaying is pitiful. Choices And Consequences are some popular buzzwords cited for why Morrowind is better in RPG discourse. This is a meaningless argument in favour of Morrowind, even when compared to the Choices and Consequences available to players in Skyrim.

For the first encounter available to the player in Morrowind, you meet an elf who is missing his ring. The big catch: you picked this ring up in the tutorial!

Okay, good so far. You can do something selfish and tell him you don’t have it or do the right thing and return it. It looks like you already have a little bit of the first C in those Choices And Consequences we were talking about.

Now, in the local pub nearby, you can meet a guard. This guard is an absolute prick, he wants you to find out where the elf hides his gambling winnings and take them for himself. Okay, we’ve already made a choice before, there should be an obvious option to defend the elf and do something about this corrupt guard, if that’s what we want our player character to do, right?

The game certainly gives us a choice: finish the guard’s quest or don’t. The choice here is do the quest or do nothing. It doesn’t really sound like much of a choice at all, does it? Do something that doesn’t fit your character or just skip out on content. This is the rule for most of Morrowind’s quest design.

Some people might kick up a fuss, saying I want my character to be able to do everything on one character, like a stupid Skybaby, but I want the opposite! I want to be locked out of certain outcomes, I want to suffer consequences and weigh up opportunity cost. I want my precious Choices And Consequences.

But Morrowind doesn’t give them. The choice is to follow a thread to its conclusion or don’t. That’s not an actual choice! There’s no actual opportunity cost; it’s all or nothing, that’s a terrible opportunity economy.

On the surface, Morrowind has more choices to make, like how you can kill anyone you want, while Oblivion and Skyrim have a pesky system that doesn’t let you kill NPCs tied to quests.

You may think this makes Morrowind the clear winner for having more Choices and Consequences, but the actual outcome for killing people is usually nothing happening. Related quests can’t be completed, and you might get a bounty, but that’s it. The only consequence is that you now have less stuff to do. It’s a false choice, just like the quest above.

Now, there are some examples of quests and encounters where you still can make choices! However, from a design perspective, there was not a studio-level convention for quests to provide those choices. It simply wasn’t a priority for Bethesda Softworks in 2001 to provide that. Or in 2006. Or in 2011. And probably not in 2030 or whatever year the Elder Scrolls VI is releasing.

By design, Morrowind’s game engine was not designed for this. Having been a modder for the game for many years, I can say firsthand the game’s dialogue system was not built for handling complex decision trees that react to your actions. It’s possible, but when you try and implement it, you can see why Morrowind’s team prioritised single-choice encounters that start at point A and end at point B.

Morrowind’s design simply doesn’t value those Choices And Consequences, and that’s fine. That’s not what it’s trying to do.

So why does a game like this get the RPG badge and Oblivion and Skyrim don’t? A lot of fans might point to the different skills available to the player. Morrowind has 27 skills, while Skyrim only has 18! Surely that means Morrowind has better roleplaying?

A lot of those skills are just flavour. That isn’t a bad thing, but optimal martial builds in Morrowind are decided by what kind of high-level weapons there are available for a weapon skill, not for any strategic reasons. Whether opting to become a swordsman or an axeman is generally a matter of preference than one that would offer a significant strategic advantage or disadvantage.

Some weapons hit faster, and some do more damage, but hold on…that’s something embedded in Skyrim’s combat as well. Except that Skyrim removed a lot of its weapon skills in preference to a one-handed two-handed weapon skill dichotomy, which had more mechanical significance than the differences between long blade, short blade, blunt, axed or polearm weapon skills ever did.

It is fair to lament the comparative lack of technical variety with Skyrim’s magic system, but this is partially made up for with other toys players can use in combat. And Skryim still preserves some of the fun of magic, and if anything, gives players a lot more combat flexibility to mix and match weapons, shields, and spells in their hands.

My point isn’t to decry Morrowind as a bad game, but to highlight its lack of narrative and role-playing fidelity. Again, if all it takes for a cRPG to be a cRPG is to have a player with variable stats and different ways to kill or move, Skyrim should be an RPG.

Which brings me back to my main point of why I dislike this genre dogma in gaming. Morrowind is lauded as this shining example of what cRPGs should be. While I think Morrowind is a great adventure, it’s an adventure that reads from left to right and then it’s over.

Morrowind writer Douglas Goodall even remarked on Morrowind’s lack of roleplaying fidelity[1]. The game puts words in player characters’ mouths, it doesn’t let you create your own character outside of how it kills and travels. The world isn’t built to react to your actions in any meaningful way, as it simply wasn’t designed to do that.

You can see it spelled out in old RPGCodex discussions. At one point Morrowind was Skyrim to Daggerfall fans! What changed except for the community’s attitude?

To try and make a point out of all this bellyaching, how can we make better role-playing experiences if we can’t get a baseline down? How do we learn from this? Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but people criticise Bethesda Softworks for the degradation of their game design and writing, but Morrowind was the first TES game to have one ending![2] People were so happy with Morrowind and its lack of player agency in storytelling that Bethesda has been rolling with it since.

And now that it’s apparently too far gone, we’re all scratching our heads wondering how this happened. Why do people get in all of a huff when the history is there? You can very clearly see the lineage of TES gameplay when you look at the progression from Morrowind to Skyrim.

We seem to be sentimental about what an RPG is; sometimes it might just be games that make you feel clever, or games that you played as a child seem to be the ones you give those labels to. To be an RPG is a good thing, and it makes you a smart or good person for playing them. Games you personally don’t like aren’t RPGs, because if they were it would mean you wouldn’t be as smart/cool/clever for just having played other so-called RPGs.

I think this double standard between Morrowind and its successors bothered me less so about how similar all 21st century TES games are, but moreso about how much we lack a baseline for what an RPG is. Is it a boring and reductive method to try cramming RPGs to a definition? Or does ‘RPG’ just need to be a sort of axiom for other relevant video game discussions? I’m not sure but I am not satisfied.

[1]: It’s well worth the academic interest to look at the interview with Goodall. Apart from the interesting takes on Morrowind’s writing, it gives a very honest and personal account of working in the games industry.

[2]: Perhaps slightly unfair to bring up, Morrowind’s development timeline was short and the fact the main quest had one ending was more due to time constraints, than an active design decision. However point being, people accepted this and still think Morrowind is a shining example of RPG storytelling despite it (and almost every questline in-game) having only the one ending.

[crown-of-serpents]

MAJ N°19 : les oiseaux chantent et les RP fleurissent

Une petite MAJ ce mois-ci, pour bien nous préparer à la MAJ de Juin !

La chasse aux dinos

L'animation est terminée ! Les dinosaures ont été ramenés en sécurité à l'Hermitage, laissant derrière eux quelques petites récompenses pour celleux les ayant trouvés ~

Ajustement des annexes

Nous avons réduit la FAQ en intégrant directement certains points dans les annexes sur les humain.es et demi.es humain.es. En prime, un nouvel onglet non obligatoire vient de voir le jour sur l'Ordre de Saint Patrick : "Connaissances et activités actuelles", qui permettent à nos cher.es chasseur.ses de sorcier.es de savoir où se situer en RP !

L'avancement des Prompts MJ

Nos joueur.ses sont très motivé.es sur ce mode de jeu, ça fait plaisir ! Les prompts prendront fin mi-mai (la semaine du 14), contrairement à ce qui avait été annoncé (début mai). Attendez-vous donc à une petite update de l'intrigue vers cette période du mois !

Appel à contribution : journal et parrainage

La prochaine édition de l'Edimbourg Hebdo aura lieu à la MAJ de juin. Nous demandons donc une petite contribution aux membres afin de tenir au courant des avancées de chaque coven !

Le parrainage a été réduit d'un mois, passant de 3 à 2 mois de parrainage (+ 1 mois renouvelable en cas de besoin). Nous appelons aussi à la participation pour nos membres les plus investi.es ! A gagner : plusieurs HFs pour celleux ayant réussi à intégrer saon filleul.e ~

Les fêtes du mois de mai

1 mai : FEERIE DES VOEUX. Au cours de cette fête, les Enfants des Vents rédigent des souhaits qu'iels attachent ensuite à des cerfs-volants colorés pour les envoyer dans les airs. Il n'est pas rare de voir un‧e aéromancien‧ne donner un coup de main à l'envol du sien, car il est dit que plus le papier s'élève, plus il a de chance d'atteindre l'esprit sollicité.

4 mai : FÊTE DES ROSES. Les bâtiments de Green Bank se parent de roses de toutes les couleurs. Un grand mât est planté au milieu du quartier et les jeunes Enfants des Vergers, après avoir bu un thé altérant leur perception du monde, se mettent à danser en rondes de différentes tailles autour de celui-ci jusqu'à ce qu'un‧e seul‧e reste encore debout. Iel est alors revêtu‧e d'une tenue faite de roses et est élu‧e Roi ou Reine des Roses ce qui est considéré comme une bénédiction. Cette fête est ouverte aux jeunes de tous les covens et chacun peut y assister. Le thé ne peut être consommé que par les Enfants des Vergers ayant au minimum 16 ans.

Intéressé.e ? Rejoins-nous !

🎃 Le forum 🎮 Guide interactif 🌍 Univers étendu

Les réseaux de COS :

📳 Discord 📜 Pub RPG Design 💖 Pinterest 📽️ Youtube

[marleysmith-graphic]

PROJET FORUM RPG EN COREE DU SUD

Je balance ça si y'a des gens hypés par le projet. 😁 ------------------------- Contexte : Un écovillage situé à Chungcheong du Nord (Corée du sud).

(Lien google map : https://maps.app.goo.gl/sffwNmWgUrdyxJTQ8)

------------------------- L'objectif de celui-ci serait de faire un forum assez simple et souple dans sa gestion, faire en sorte que le membre soit au maximum autonome (adhésion auto du groupe, profil bien rempli et fiche de présentation non obligatoire, un recensement manuel dans les divers listing, etc.). Un forum collaboratif (je suis preneuse d'idée si vous aviez déjà pensé à ce genre de système 😊). Pas de lignes minimum, pas de quota de RP exigé. Un recensement tous les 3 mois (ça peut changer selon nos discussions). 😺Le but : se centrer sur le jeu et alléger toute la partie administrative.

Je parlerais de ce projet qu'ici, car rien n'est encore lancé. Je ne préfère pas me lancer dans l'aventure toute seule 😅Mais je suis certaine que des choses sympathiques peuvent être faites notamment avec le principe d'écovillage 💖 Le forum n'aura pas de pub particulière. J'échangerai juste l'adresse ici, après à vous d'inviter des ami(e)s dessus pour jouer avec eux sur le forum. 😉Ce ne sera pas la course aux membres ou à la popularité. Ici on laisse la petite plante grandir tranquilou. 🌱

🪴Des idées en l'air : comme dans les SIMS, faire un système de vote tous les X mois pour élire un projet d'une personne (exemple: construction d'un puit)

🌸Une partie dédiée aux touristes ? Les touristes sont des personnes qui ne vivent pas de Chungcheong. Pour permettre au village d'avoir un peu d'argent afin de réaliser les différents projets.

🐸Un système de points ? Ils seront gagnés en fonction de l'implication du membre sur le forum et les points serviront de financement. (ça c'est juste pour le gameplay). 🎲 Un système de dés : Il y aura des animaux à s'occuper, des cultures à gérer, de l'entretien général des lieux, de l'administration, animations (barbecue géant et j'en passe)... Si des personnes veulent se joindre au projet dans la rédaction des quelques paperasses/design/code et si des personnes s'y connaissent en Ecovillage et veulent donner des conseils, des pistes, vous êtes les bienvenu(e)s forcément. 💕 Au plaisir d'échanger avec vous dans la bienveillance héhé

[garfunclegaming]

Fallout: London Review

I recently completed my first playthrough of the ambitious total conversion mod for Fallout: 4, Fallout: London. For those unaware, Fallout: London is a full-scale open-world RPG game experience set in London after the bombs fell in 2077. It is impressive in both its creativity, using Britain instead of America as the setting of a Fallout entry, and the simple fact that this is a free fan effort made possible by the time and toil of talented and dedicated fan developers.

What London is not: The game uses Fallout: 4 as its base, so the core movement, shooting, questing, and enemy design are very much the same. If you did not like these in Fallout: 4, you will not like them here. There is also the unfortunate reality of it being on Bethesda's antiquated Creation Engine. The latest patched version of London is extremely stable, but you will encounter glitches, eventual crashes in prolonged play sessions, and rarely bugged quests that might need you to restart your game or consult troubleshooting via the official Reddit or Discord.

The Good news is that London does more than 4 with most of these systems. Your SPECIAL points and perk selection can frequently allow you additional choices in dialogue. With how Fallout: 4's dialogue works you can boost these stats further by stepping out of conversation to take some chems to meet the point threshold of a dialogue option. The game world is a lot more scarce with healing items such as Radaway and Stimpacks, and there is a much larger emphasis on hunting, cooking, or buying food for your healing needs. There is also a new type of food available with a dedicated crafting station which is of course tea which provides benefits that are not as powerful as chems but without addictive debuffs.

What London is: in my opinion, this mod has the best 3D world space in any creation engine game. Fallout: New Vegas's map might have a clearer design, but London is jawdropping for its ambitious scope and blending of historical, sci-fi, and post-apocalyptic aesthetics. It is a massive map that is brimming with landmarks both big and small and tons of British charm and character. From ruined pubs to cannibal castles to St. Paul's Cathedral, it was a genuine joy to explore the map. What elevates this further is the dedication to setting the game in an Urban Jungle for at least eighty percent of the player's experience. Even though London has been compacted to fit into a Fallout game, you always feel London is a properly huge city because you spend most of the game sifting through its rubble-strewn streets and landmarks.

The story, plot and characters are all impressive for a fan project of this scale. Finding Angel's goals and secrets is an interesting hook to propel the main quest. From there you entangle yourself in Peaky Blinder's esque gang warfare or help the mutated fish people of Thameshaven to further open the map.

There are highs and there are lows. The Roundel's quests felt a bit forced, and the Pistol's quests are very much "Go here, get a thing, or kill stuff." But then there are great quests like helping mutated tree-ghoul stop feral tree-ghouls from threatening his peaceful commune and reuniting him with his equally mutated partner. A German submarine pokes out from the irradiated Thames which results in you helping a pair of Ghoulified German officers to stop an AI Philosopher programmed into a Nuke from launching. Something they have only been able to delay indefinitely by asking the AI inane philosophical quandaries. The Vegabonds send you on 007-inspired missions to sink a warship being used as a gang prison ship and raid an underground supply train like a certain mission from Goldeneye 64.

The third act has you pick a major faction and I went with Camelot, who appears to be backward medieval larpers, but in reality, is a revolutionary army gathered in the countryside to overthrow the oppression of the Gentry and install a true democratic government. A great contrast to the Caesar's Legion faction in New Vegas. With them, you can storm Westminster and have one of the most genuinely exciting battle and finale sequences in any Fallout game.

The companions need special mention of their own having surpassed the companions on offer in Vanilla Fallout: 4. Archie is a kid street urchin who gets himself into trouble with his ability to pick locks and pilfer valuables, but his quest involves him coming to terms with the grief of having lost his previous band of friends and the parents he never knew. Mad Jack is a rage-filled boxer whose anger is fueled by a horrific past of abuse at the hands of Raiders and Slavers, but behind the bulk is a wounded soft soul that self-harmed. Kiera is a self-made treasure hunter who loves breaking the rules and sniffing out truths, but behind her adventurous persona is a deep insecurity about herself and how others perceive her. Then there's Mountbatten, a former gentry clerk who is now an old ghoul who is slowly losing himself and his memories. He has a list of things to do on a bucket list but wants to spend the time he has left with a true friend.

There is so much more to cover, but to summarize: Fallout: London is the best Fallout thing since New Vegas. It is brimming with the things current Bethesda entries have lacked for some time. Passion. Effort. A coherent vision. A will to be creative beyond the brand-recognizable stuff. That's the most important element of a Fallout game, not the surface-level Americana, or dogmatic insistence to shove the Brotherhood of Steel and Vault-Tec everywhere and on everything.

Fallout: London gives me hope for Fallout. Someday we'll meet again not as a product for a brand, but as a passion project by energized developers to explore Fallout as a world.

We'll meet again, my friend, on some sunny day.

[slasheru]

One day if things go really well (aka I manage to finish Acts 2 & 3 in a timely and efficient manner) I'd love to start doing this as an Actual Game Studio (even if the studio is just one guy (me) at the moment/for the forseeable future)!

I may or may not have thought about this?? a decent amount?? Tenth Circle is named after Dante's Inferno, which only has 9 circles of Hell (so you can imagine the debauchery going on in the 10th one). There's two major tenets design-wise of the studio:

Making reactive, narrative-heavy otome/dating sim/story RPG games for Actual Adults (all games will be hard R or 18+, it's a space for specifically 18+ players even if the games themselves aren't strictly lewd)

No combat, ever, unless there's a REALLY good reason for it (e.g. fighting Tate's dad)

party hard. peperony and cheas

I've worked in dev since 2008 (akhdasjkdhka. put me in a box.) and quit between 2014-2022 (i'm back making indie games now obvi lol, hey hi hello) so something I REALLY wanna avoid organizationally is "oooh we're all a family here"!! bullshit. No. Tenth Circle is not your shitty/regular family, I'm not your dad, I don't expect a weird loyalty or anything, work ends when you leave work. It's a game studio, with actual HR and processes (assuming the studio, again, ends up being more than Just Me lmfao). It'll be all remote b/c *gestures wildly at the world*. The first thing I'm proooobably gonna do if I have the cash is hire a marketing/pub/community manager. And THEN I'll finally acknowledge that outsourcing/asking for help is a GOOD thing sometimes (said the man making 16-hour-long chapters of a fucking dating sim). >:))

Idk!! Just something I think about all the time!! lmfao

[nowhere-effect]

PRD

Un petit mot très rapide pour signaler que Nowhere Effect est aussi sur Pub RPG Design. Vous pouvez nous envoyer de la force ou poser vos questions sur notre sujet, si vous y êtes plus à l'aise que sur Tumblr !

[coffee-at-annies]

Honestly idk. I’m not seeing any (new) discourse about gygax or dnd tbh. I’m in indie rpg spaces outside of tumblr (one of the other special interests)(tumblr I keep to myself cause actual play fandoms burnt me tf out in 2020) so like I’m aware of some of the common gripes, just not this specific one? A lot of the bullshit I see stems from a couple different places which I’m throwing under a cut.

1) wizards of the coast and the parent company, hasbro, are big corporations and are y’know evil in various ways. Hasbro literally hired the Pinkertons to go after a guy last year bc he accidentally received a magic the gathering set early.

2) wotc/hasbro wants you to keep giving them money forever. A lot of ppl in online rpg spaces don’t want to do that.

3) the table top role playing game (ttrpg) space is so saturated by dnd that it is most people’s first and only game. This is exacerbated by actual play podcasts, twitch streams, and youtube series that only play dnd. This has led to many many rounds of discourse about “playing other ttrpgs” and “play indie ttrpgs.”

4) building off that, a lot of casual players and gms resist learning other systems when they can instead “hack dnd to do things and genres it was never meant to do so they don’t have to learn another game.” (Something I’ve had an acquaintance say to my face about a homebrew campaign she wanted to run).

5) the refusal to explore outside a nebulous “comfort zone” negatively effects indie creators trying to eek out a living on the indie/self-pub side of it. Would they have made a sale anyway? I dunno. But it’s hard to reach/grow an audience when half the market only wants to do one thing. (This circles back to #3)

6) idk people like to hate things and decades old misogyny is an excuse to start cancel culture puriteen bullshit. There was some nonsense a couple years ago about phylactery being a Jewish word and omg is this secretly antisemitic?

7) this one is personal opinion, but dnd isn’t actually the best system out there for everything and i feel like a lot of the arguments are people trying to get others to acknowledge that. Dnd has severe limitations and a habit of putting everything on the gms shoulders to “make the game work.” Depending on what I’m trying to do or what type of game I want to play there are other rpgs that do it better. My first thought, no time spent thinking, example is if I was going to do a wrestling game, I would go crack open world wide wrestling, a system designed top to bottom to tell stories about wrestlers rather than trying to figure out how to do it with dnd’s combat or skill check system.

8) a lot of indie games will handle things for gms and players so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a game work. Some things can be hacked easily enough but I love cracking open a playbook and having everything handed to me. One of the first indie games I ever read/played was called Sleepaway and had people play as camp counselors at a camp haunted by the lindworm. Sure I could make the sporty counselor, the arts and crafts counselor, the lifeguard, and the newbie in dnd classes but instead the rulebook did the heavy lifting for me, and kept it thematically relevant. Why not let the rulebook hand me character tropes rather than inventing it by myself?

9) something something queer players should give queer creators money instead of it going to a soulless corporation or misogynist creators.

10) idk I’m just adding bullet points at this point cause the adhd likes “and one more thing” and 10 feels like a nice even number

Anyway I feel like attacking the creators boils down to “you should hate this thing cause this guy sucks” and also a bad argument in favor of playing other games. I fully endorse checking out the extended ttrpg scene if you’re looking for something outside the fantasy genre that DnD has made its standard. There’s a ton of games out there worth playing. I am a better role player having played other games

okay but fr what is the goal of these "d&d creators bad" posts I keep seeing. yeah okay those guys sucked. now their games are played by women and queers and even - holy shit - queer women. so. we won! yay

"the game was made by bad people" ok?? so???? like is the end goal that everybody gotta make sure to prostrate themselves somehow before having fun because d&d is ontologically evil, since some dickheads touched it forty years ago??? this sounds suspiciously like bullshit

[iheartchv]

Hello! Could i get a castlevania matchup? 🌿🍒 

I go by she/her and don’t have a gender preference. 

As for personality, I am quite introverted and tend to love just chilling in my room. I do however open up around close friends and family where I can be loud, especially when talking about my interests.

As for hobbies I love digital art. I love digital illustration, making character models/art for game design, web design, graphics, and more. I love playing rpg video games, visual novels, otomes etc. I also love reading fantasy, classical literature, myths and folklore. As much as i enjoy spending time in my room with my hobbies, one of my favorite things to do is travel the world. I also love to bellydance to Arabic and Bollywood music. 

Likes: lil coffee shops, earl grey tea, chai, sushi, boba, purple, chokers, butterfly clips, people who value personal space

Dislikes: overly touchy people, suddenly deciding to switch plans, anything too crowded or loud

Id say my strengths are definitely my imagination and creativity. I tend to get lost in my head in made up worlds and use that for my digital art. Id also say that im quite good at being on top of things and will always finish all my work before play. 

For weaknesses its my pessimism. I get into ruts where sometimes all I see is a doom scenario. 

 Thats it! Thank You! 

// sure 😊

I match you with...

Isaac ❣

(This is all based on if you were in this time period)

After the events of Carmilla, and changing his mind to resurrect Dracula, Isaac decided to travel the world

And thats when he met you

As he was in a bar/pub having a drink, music played and then you appeared in the middle of the room

He saw you dancing and was mesmerized

He stayed in (Country of choice) to try to get to know you

You piqued his interest

Because there was just... something about you

One day, unexpectedly he accidently bumped into you walking down a street

He didn't know it was you at first, though

"My apologies, I wasn't..."

....

"That's quite alright, sir"

You small smiled, gave a small courtesy, and continued walking

That evening, he saw you again at the same tavern

And again watched you dance

You noticed and recognized him through the small number of patreons

After, you took a seat beside him and wanted to talk with him

Since then you two have become friends

You both slowly open up to each other, telling the other what you were comfortable sharing

You joined Isaac in his travels, since you liked to travel as well

"Might as well since I didn't have no destination in mind"

That's what gave you the bonding time you needed to develop feelings for him

Nights under the stars and by the fire

And for him to develop feelings for you

He protects you, promising to keep you safe

Days spent in the elements or in nice Inns

And everything in between

Every waking moment sent with you is his favorite part of the day

During cool cold nights, he will hold you close to him under a blanket

He admires your beauty till sleep takes hold of him

He gives you kisses on the back of your hands and fingers, but wants to give you more than that

He likes to hear about your stories, your fictional worlds

He couldn't believe he once thought that a perfect world was without any humans

Now he cant imagine having a world without you in it

🎀 lmk if you'd like to be tagged in any/all content 🎀

[hellmouthheritage]

HEADER CREDIT : MAGMA(PUB RPG DESIGN)

www.hellmouth.forumactif.com

Vous avez toujours rêvé d'incarner un personnage dans l'Univers de la série Buffy contre les vampires ? Vous avez une âme bénéfique et vous avez envie de combattre les vampires et les démons de l'enfer afin de sauver le Monde ? Ou peut-être avez-vous une âme maléfique et vous avez envie de pourrir la vie de pauvres mortels afin de calmer vos pulsions meurtrières ? Sunnydale est la ville rêvée pour venir y commettre tous vos pêchés.

Sunnydale, une ville corruptrice de toutes les innocences, qui fane les roses, qui flétrit toutes les beautés, insatiable débauchée! Si redoutable à ce qui est pur et sans tache. Une nuit au Bronze et on vous promet l'éternité, remplie de sang et de fantasmes à réaliser.

Venez, venez, nous ne faisons que mordre les plus têtus et résistants...

HELLMOUTH-RPG

[crown-of-serpents]

MAJ N°18 : Serpentine World

BEAUCOUP de nouveautés ce mois-ci sur COS ! Entre nouvelles animations et ajustements, celle maj a été énorme à préparer et à mettre en place.

Nouveau Design

Le design de ce mois-ci marque la première collaboration entre Aleksis et Davi ! Aleksis s'est occupé de revoir le codage, tandis que Davi nous a fait l'honneur de mettre son talent en graphisme pour vous présenter un thème "Enfant des Vergers" parfait pour le début du printemps. On les applaudit encore bien fort !

Missions

Merci encore à toustes celleux qui ont répondu au Gform ! C'est grâce à ces réponses que nous avons pu remanier le mode de jeu et poser un vrai cadre. Notre tutoriel est désormais complet !

Les rôles importants et personnages civils non entraînés se voient malheureusement interdire l'inscription en mission. Mais pas de panique ! Vous pouvez toujours participer aux prompts MJ, beaucoup plus safe ♥

Petit point sur le règlement

Afin de donner du poids aux rôles dans les covens et dans l'Ordre mais aussi pour les besoins de l'intrigue principale, notre règlement a été revu. Nous demandons 1 rp par an minimum sur le thème de son rôle, et 1 rp supplémentaire au sujet de l'intrigue en cours pour les rôles de chef.fes, sous-chef.fes et représentant.es au conseil. Nous avons également limité le nombre de rôles obtenables par rpgiste à 4 rôles + 1 représentant.e au conseil. De quoi avoir un peu de marge sans monopoliser les postes clés !

Evolution de l'intrigue

Le contexte évolue sans cesse sur COS ! En ce moment et suite à l'apparition des demi-humains, des postes de contrôle ont vu le jour entre les quartiers. Attention à bien avoir votre visa sur vous lorsque vous vous baladez !

Animation d'avril : la chasse aux dinos !

Des dinosaures se sont cachés sur le forum ! Trouvez-les tous pour obtenir des récompenses uniques !

La grosse nouveauté : remaniement des HFs et apparition des Méga HFs

Les HFs sont la spécificité de COS. Inspiré des "Achievements" de jeux vidéos, ils récompensent l'investissement de chacun.

Un équilibrage a été effectué chez les Enfants des Vergers et les Enfants Vagabonds, qui avaient un avantage sur les autres covens de par leur double magie : désormais, les HFs de groupe se feront par magie et non par coven !

Les méga haut-faits voient le jour ! Récompensant les plus assidu.es, il s'agit d'HFs spécifiques à la magie de vos personnages. A la clé : un titre en hover sur son avatar, mais aussi 10% de réduction à vie sur la boutique, l'obtention d'un palier 1 complet pour les demi-humain·es, votre prochain MC offert ou… Un 9eme compte pour les plus ambitieux·euses d'entre vous !

Les inventaires ont été remanié en conséquence, et montrent désormais une progression personnelle. Remplissez les jauges et admirez votre travail !

Remaniement des téléphones

Après plusieurs réclamations, les téléphones ont été remaniés afin d'éviter toute confusion. Les sujets sont donc maintenant triés par conversations et non par personnages.

Les prompts admins

Différents des prompts MJ lancés (et qui suivent actuellement leur cours), ceux-ci présentent plusieurs situations en RP que vous pouvez jouer. Ils ne sont pas géré par un MJ, mais peuvent compter pour des HFs concernant l'intrigue en cours. Sélectionnez simplement un topic avec votre partenaire et roulez jeunesse !

Intéressé.e ? Rejoins-nous !

🎃 Le forum 🎮 Guide interactif 🌍 Univers étendu

Les réseaux de COS :

📳 Discord 📜 Pub RPG Design 💖 Pinterest 📽️ Youtube

[relleytrots]

I have also made... other games. Games that are not about vampires. Yes, I have other interests. I was surprised too!

In another life I was part of the Far Horizons Co-Op: explicitly, one might say aggressively leftist game devs who collected around the prickly point of freelancer pay and contract honour in the TTRPG industry. It's not good, folks. Rates are hilariously low - at the time I approached {redacted mid tier RPG publisher} they expected me to take an 80% pay cut from my copywriting gigs - and wage theft is a thing that happens.

While I was there I worked on some things. I was a development editor, mainly, but I did make some creative contributions...

I have an essay in here about post-heist storytelling. It was about all I felt qualified to do since this is a book I personally needed, and use. I am terrible at the kind of "design a puzzle environment" stuff it takes to make a heist session sing, which is why I was so glad m'comrades made a whole book of it that I could shamelessly rip off for basically ever.

In our first anthology of short games, you'll find All Your Houses, which was the first set of (viable) TTRPG rules I ever made. Born out of my youthful arrogance and insistence that trad games have more rules than they need and all an RPG really is is a "bang bang you're dead nuh uh you missed" resolver, I made a card based resolution system that you could play in the pub without being laughed at. Now people play D&D in the pub, full on actual D&D. How times change...

I was lead editor on Volume 6, the "building better worlds" edition, and also contributed a game, The Hitchhiker's Guide to Elfland. This was when "decolonising D&D" was everywhere and I was in a bad, bad mood about the manifest-destiny-with-swords-and-sorcery roots of D&D, so I tried to create a version that was about respectfully exploring other cultures instead of beating them up and taking their stuff. Hence tourism. Hence H2G2. It made sense at the time!

That was the last time I worked with Far Horizons. Life stuff happened, I dropped out of my creative and scholarly "careers" and took a job in a bookshop instead, and then I left that job because crippling anxiety attacks only went away when I thought about going back to Big School.

Also: I am a DriveThru affiliate, so if you were going to buy any RPG stuff anyway, pls to use my link? It also works on the Storytellers Vault. Just sayin'.

... OK, I can do this.

The thing about working freelance is... sometimes you just don't have work for a week. Or two. And your partner's in the same boat. And your National Insurance record is a bit... patchy, so the state won't help. And you were turned down for disability benefits. And rent's due in nine days. And you're having the nightmares again...

IF you enjoy any of my notions and IF you want to help your friendly neighbourhood nonbinary narrator out of a Critical Situation, there's a way or two to do that.

If you want some bite for your buck, I understand. Did I mention I made a TTRPG? A little vampire heartbreaker based off Epidiah Ravachol's Wolfspell and inspired by Only Lovers Left Alive and La Morte Amoureuse and listening to The Division Bell on repeat? Well, I did, and here it is. It's PWYW.

I'll talk more about this, and other mini games I've made, as the nine days progress. Keep coming back.

[crescent-city-rpg]

Coup de cœur PRD

C’est avec beaucoup d’étonnement et de joie que nous avons découvert que notre header actuel est en coup de cœur sur le célèbre forum PRD // @pubrpgdesign​.  Un grand merci à l’équipe et à Love qui nous a sélectionné.  Franchement ça touche et ça rassure. ♥

[magmacreations]

... bref, hiatus. bye rpg.

ça fait un moment que l’envie d’éclater, de déballer tout ce qui me tracasse, de pointer du doigt des agissements aberrants me trotte dans la tête. je n’aime pas les conflits. je déteste ça, ce qui fait que je prends à chaque fois sur moi et je choisis de m’éloigner de toutes les sources nuisibles. mais là, trop c’est trop. le monde rpgique est devenu tellement anxiogène que j’ai juste envie de tout plaquer. 

je voudrais partager cet ultime affront et par la même occasion, dénoncer un acte que la communauté d’aujourd’hui - je mets pas tout le monde dans le même panier évidemment - trouve totalement normal : le harcèlement sur internet. 

je suis admin sur un forum d’entraide nommé pub rpg design ou prd. depuis longtemps, une règle qui concerne les forums matures +18/+16 est instaurée avant même l’arrivée de certaines staffeuses; le forum ne les accepte pas, tout simplement. la raison est simple, nous avons une communauté variée, des adultes mais aussi des mineur.es. c’était notre manière à nous de les protéger. seulement, après le mécontentement de quelques membres et un débat de quelques semaines, le staff s’est remis en question, à savoir si on peut faire quelque chose pour satisfaire tout le monde. j’ai eu une idée qui permettrait à ces forums d’avoir leurs pubs sur prd tout en protégeant les mineurs inscrits sur prd. qu’est ce qui s’est passé avant et après l’annonce de ce changement sur prd ? et bien, depuis décembre 2021 nous n’avons pas cessé d’avoir des abus. un abus chaque jour. TOUS LES JOURS. mais cela ne s’arrête pas là non. ces abus sont accompagnés d’insultes en tout genre. on est harcelées, on est insultées parce que nous sommes revenues sur notre décision et nous avons décidé d’apporter des modifications à notre règlement ? sérieusement ? à quel moment cette personne s'est dite que signaler un abus tous les jours est une bonne manière de montrer son mécontentement ? ce n’était pas mieux de nous contacter afin d’en parler calmement ? mais non, iel préfère se cacher derrière l’anonymat pour mieux harceler. avant le changement du règlement iel n’était pas content.e. après le changement du règlement, iel n’est toujours pas content.e. euh ? si au début le signalement d’abus était censé représenter la frustration de la personne, là ça devient tout bonnement de l’harcèlement.

j’ai l’impression que le harcèlement dans la communauté est devenu une monnaie courante ; si on a un avis différent des autres, on est lynché.e sur la place publique - et je sais de quoi je parle, on m’a traité de raciste parce que j’ai pas voulu m’abandonner aux insultes et préférais plutôt converser calmement. chill out, je suis arabe - . si on fait une erreur dans un discours, on est dénoncé.e dans un blog aux yeux de tous.toutes. j’ai été témoin des “ x m’a volé mon ship alors je vais faire en sorte de bousiller sa réputation.” ou encore “ on est plus ami.e alors je vais balancer ses secrets sur tous les forums où je m’inscrirai.” à quel moment, le rpg, qui est censé être une passion, du plaisir, est devenu une arène où tout le monde se lynche, se dénonce, se harcèle ? on arrive à un moment où on confond liberté d’expression avec incandescence. où insulter est devenu “normal”. où si on fait une erreur, on est traité de tous les noms possibles et inimaginables. 

j’ai fait mon temps. le rp était une manière de m’évader, de partager, de rêver. là c’est devenu une réelle corvée. la démotivation m’a totalement habitée, le dégoût s’est totalement installé. je préfère arrêter là, en vous souhaitant à toutes et à tous une excellente continuation. 

je profite de ce post pour mettre ce tumblr en hiatus. je viens de poster les dernières commandes d’avatars et après ce post, je vais arrêter le graphisme pendant un moment. je reviendrai, cela est sûr. je bouderai jamais le graphisme et le codage mais j’ai besoin de temps pour assimiler tout ça et en plus, il y a beaucoup de changements dans ma vie irl. 

prenez soin de vous.

eya, magma.