#so ttrpg games can go a little quick for me

[hellborg]

I got that RP itch so bad my skin is peeling.

[iraprince]

I love the entire concept of Cookie... the look, the fashion, the gender... Would you mind telling us a little more about him? I'm also intrigued about why she's named Cooking with Gorgeous!

HI i would LOVE to talk about george thank you so much. also this makes me realize i've never actually sat down and just made a post unabashedly infodumping at length abt an oc before and it seems silly that i haven't. i ask only for all dear readers to please temper their expectations for this post with the knowledge that i just smoked half a joint before sitting down to answer it. a small one. but still. anyway

FIRST OF ALL FOR THE UNACQUAINTED THIS IS COOKING WITH GORGEOUS, aka cookie or george for short. he uses he/him and she/her pronouns interchangeably!

hi sorry that's not cookie that's a horse in a bridal veil that i. found in my stuff while trying to scroll and find my cookie art. i just got distracted and had to show you. okay no for real here's cookie

he's the character i'm playing in a playtest campaign of the absolutely mesmerizing sapphicworld, an in-development ttrpg!!! and if i'm going to be talking about cookie i feel like i HAVE to say i think a huge amount of her charm and dazzle and charisma comes directly from the charm and dazzle and charisma of the setting i created her for. i know i am laying it on really thick right now but that is on purpose. i want, desperately and unashamedly, for this game to get really popular bc 1. it's genuinely that good. and it's not even DONE yet and 2. i want everyone to get into it so that everyone will make sapphicworld characters and then i'll get to see everyone's sapphicworld characters.

EDIT i'm scrolling back up here and adding a readmore bc this is already getting so long lol. you asked for "a little more" and apparently i have graciously decided this means "literally every fact about cookie that exists in my brain"

SO a lot of the info/tidbits i haven't shared about cookie are i guess gameplay-specific stuff... his title (which is like a class/playbook) is "The Noble Sweetheart," though in sapphicworld "nobility" no longer has anything to do with wealth or class, and is instead entirely about amassing a court purely via devotion/popularity; her subculture (which is like, Who You Hang Out With; drifters, goths, poets, debauchers, cowpokes, etc) is Babe; and her kind (which is like ancestries but in sapphicworld is really just like, a physical form, which u can change more or less at will) is Lunarthrope, which is basically a werewolf!! or more broadly a furry, since u always look like whatever were-animal you are 24/7. just MORE at night, tho i suppose i don't represent that aspect much in my cookie art... ANYWAY i am restraining myself from just sitting here and like. transcribing her entire character sheet. but basically what all this means is that cookie's role in the world (at least at the beginning of the campaign) is "Professionally — no, VOCATIONALLY Hot Person who everyone loves so so so so so so much." cookie really enjoys this role.

he's named cooking with gorgeous because he's an avid cook, and he wants to share that with you, and he's gorgeous!! though honestly the cooking hasn't ended up as important to his character as it was when i first came up with him, lol — but my initial concept was kind of like, what's the equivalent of a bouncy normie recipe blogger/lifestyle influencer but in the context of the lush horny trans deathless psychedelic universe of sapphicworld. and it's cooking with gorgeous, a doggirl dyke with big blue boobs (six of them!!) who is so devastatingly cute and darling that a bunch of people just kind of pledge their fealty to him for no real reason other than he feeds them. and is cute

also her name is def influenced by the fantastic names of many canon sapphicworld npcs! like, quick example list of some npc names off the top of my head: the booty commie, death cybernetic, princess eureka!, the culinary goof (whom cookie dislikes. btw.), pizza friday (whom cookie loves!!!)

cookie is very very determined, and she's ALMOST always very confident. even when she isn't feeling confident, she's still very good at forcing herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other — maybe just while screaming or crying or uncontrollably barking or at least very ardently complaining. he has a tendency to be spoiled and, like, tactless-via-obliviousness, so sometimes he can be grating to interact with, and he has a petty/vindictive streak; but in general he's an AGGRESSIVELY kind person and usually aims all his shrill, cheerful stubbornness directly toward the goal of refusing to accept anything but the best for everyone.

at the beginning of our campaign cookie has JUST received a brand new castle!!!! (chateau gorgeous.) which he doesn't actually "own" bc, remember, no wealth or class in sapphicworld, but he's the ENTHUSIASTIC new caretaker and is chomping at the bit to renovate it so ppl can live there and he can throw a bunch of magnificent parties and basically continue living exactly as he has been, But Even More Fabulous. obviously this is exactly when the main plot threat of the campaign shows up and spoils everything and compels cookie to go on his First Ever Adventure!!!!!! she HAS to save the world otherwise NOBODY will be able to go to the first big party at chateau gorgeous :((((

at this point to prevent myself from just like, giving you guys a play by play of the entire campaign so far i am going to just start listing every cookie fact i can think of as bullet points

🎀 he owns a magical sword in the shape of a giant microplane. it's called The Microplane. he pronounces this "mee-crow-plah-nay"

🎀 george desperately wants to resurrect The Dog-Lich, an entity that once ruled over all beasts from its palace on the moon but was murdered and torn to pieces in a cosmic war far in the past. her attitude towards this desire is 50% devoted lunar cultist, 50% parasocially obsessive twitter stan

🎀 this isn't really a cookie fact but going back to how his title is The Noble Sweetheart — just for a glimpse at party composition, his fellow party members' titles are The Intimate Scholar, The Tentacle Advocate, and The Tw*nk Controversial (the * is the canon spelling).

^ aforementioned tw*nk. its name is Mwah ("pronounced like the kiss you blow at someone you just fucked over"). mwah is played by @/squiddelyfather on twitter!

🎀 mwah and cookie used to be very, very tight, BEFORE mwah became the tw*nk controversial. now that it's so.... you know.... controversial, well. they're still very close, but it has gotten a little stilted and weird (and watching them slowly un-weird it together as the campaign goes on has been one of my fav roleplay experiences ever honestly)

🎀 cookie's other adventuremates, skarligge and delaryn, are both very indulgent towards him. delaryn acts the most grumpy/dismissive about it but is honestly sometimes the worst about spoiling cookie out of anyone in the party (skarligge's player is twt@/clown_dream and delaryn's is twt@/glaiveguisarme and hey while im at it our fantastic gm is the sapphicworld dev, twt@/ddemoneclipse. hi guys i hope u don't mind me chattering abt ur ocs here lol it's just hard to talk abt the best of cookie w/o bringing up everyone else's characters and roleplay also!!!)

🎀 cookie is very VERY sensitive and will burst into tears at the drop of a hat. the precursor to this is her eyes getting So So So Big And Wet And Round. one of my favorite bits to menace the other party members with is when something is not going cookie's way i will lean into my mic and say "cookie's eyes are getting so so so big. they're getting so big and wet and round and shiny. they're so so round and fucking big her eyes are like big wet black glass marbles" and this is like kryptonite to them. this is like getting hit with deadly radiation

🎀 oh speaking of fashion!!!! one of cookie's perks from being a Babe is that she can always change her look whenever she wants. she will ALWAYS have whatever outfit she needs and can quickchange instantly. wait this reminds me i have a bunch of seasonal holiday outfits sketched out and i don't think i've ever posted them here but it'll only let me put one more image in this post. well here have this one

🎀 okay well suddenly i have forgotten all other george facts so that's all for now!!! from now on i will try to just dump oc facts like this more often tho this is really fun. ty for getting me going lol!!!

[theresattrpgforthat]

hi! my sister wants to be able to play with me and my brother, but she has trouble reading and writing, do you have any ttrpgs that dont require a lot of reading or writing?? (like, character sheets dont take ages or whtvr)

THEME: Little Reading or Writing Required.

Hello friend, so for folks who aren’t great with reading or writing, I think the best approach is to use systems that provide you with small amounts of information that you can keep in your head, or games that provide you with a lot of visual cues. I’m going to include some systems that seem pretty rules-lite (because they allow you to create a character pretty easily) but I’m also looking for games that give you visual or tactile aids to help you remember what’s going on in the story or with your character.

The Best Job on Earth, by Hilander.

Welcome New Employee! Please fill out your personal info!  Note that supevisors are not beholden to know your name, and may refer to you by the 4-digit hiring code helpfully displayed on the front and rear of your uniform!

Players will take on the role of unpaid interns working for SolTech Industries, a perfectly ethical research consortium funding a Better Tomorrow! Of course, when these experiments get out of hand, our fine interns are deployed to clean up.

The Best Job on Earth is not a very long read for the GM, and probably an even shorter read for players. Your character sheet can fit on 1/3 of a piece of paper, with three stats and a little bit of space for the items you get from a d20 roll table. This game isn’t necessarily a one-shot: your interns can spent earned XP in order to get a promotion, which involves increasing personal scores and getting an extra Luck point, which basically is a resource you can use for a free re-roll. This game is great for fans of horror, paranormal science, and the crushing weight of unpaid internships.

Mausritter, by Losing Games.

Take up the sword and don the whiskers of a brave mouse adventurer in Mausritter, a rules-light fantasy adventure roleplaying game. Mausritter is built on the chassis of Into the Odd, with new rules for setting, character generation, magical artifacts, and mouse-scale adventures.

Mausritter has very concise character sheets, with only 3 stats to keep track of and a card-based inventory system. If you buy the physical version, or if you decide to do some printing, you can use these cards to put in/on your inventory slots, as visual reminders of what you are currently carrying and how much room you have left. The book is 25 pages, but character creation is one, maybe 2 at the most - and most of your creation process just involves rolling on tables! Make your mouse in minutes and you’re ready to play.

Flyover Country, by Headstone Hills.

Fields of wheat and corn ripple in the wind, hungry eyes peering out between the stalks. Billboards along the road advertise strange and dangerous attractions. Smiles are too wide, manners too polite, secrets buried too deep. The neon light of a diner glows in the distance, but you may never reach its doors. An empty highway stretches out to the horizon before wrapping back in on and around itself, twisted on into the forever horizon. This is Flyover Country.

Flyover Country uses a tarot deck as a resource and oracle as you play the game. Character creation is simple and quick - although I recommend the GM do a bit of reading and prep beforehand. Each character gains a score (or pool) of points for three aspects: Body, Mind and Wyrd. Every time they use their ability, they draw a number of tarot cards equal to their score. The player can then choose which card they want to use to represent their outcome. Characters that are injured will reduce the score of a relevant trait by 1.

One way to make this game a bit simpler is giving each of the players a card with their character’s Ghost and Haunting already written on it. This is a combination of your character’s dark secret and the strange ability that will manifest inside them once they make that secret known. When I played this with my characters, we used poker chips as tokens to represent our ability Scores, and players would hand in tokens whenever they had to reduce their scores. I think the tarot cards make for an exciting mechanic, although the game’s success certainly depends on how well the game master can interpret the outcomes of cards being drawn.

This House Will Outlive Us, by pludmale.

Residents change, but the house remains. Everyone is changed by the house, and the house, in turn, is changed by its visitors.

In this game players take turns building the story of a house. The narrative is guided by flipping a coin onto different areas of the game board. The game is played in 3 stages: determining the type of house, picking out character roles and playing out the history and future of the house itself.

This House Will Outlive Us uses a map of the house, a number of cards with prompts, and a coin that you flip in order to tell its story. Each card has to be read to figure out what happens next, but the amount of information you’re expected to retain and communicate is very small, and because the game is so collaborative, you could potentially have one person do the bulk of the reading while the table shares the role of providing answers to the prompts.

This is a game that also doesn’t really require anyone to write anything down, as it’s meant to be played in a single session, and the changes from era to era should be pretty easy to remember - although you could also assign someone to be a note-taker if you like.

Horse Girl Infinity, by Jordanfish.

The majesty of someone's passionate vague horse fantasy. Inspired and empowered by the grace and might granted from the union of girl and horse, hero and pony, pilot and mecha.

The combination perfect for horse-lovers and mech aficionados, Horse Girl Infinity is high-action but relatively simple to play. You are presented with a grid of strengths, three of which your horse is specifically good at. The amount of dice you roll is dependant on how close the skill you are using is close to one of your strengths. Some especially difficult challenges may require a group roll, where everyone has to roll their dice and contribute Victory Points dependant on your success.

Your characters’ advancement is built around their goals, which takes a mechanical effect. Your Dream is something about yourself that you want; when you act in accordance with it, you gain Determination or XP. Determination can be spent to give you an extra dice on a roll, while XP can be spent on a separate grid that gives you a new narrative advantage. I think the spatial organization of information may make it easier to find and keep track of, and you can use tokens like poker chips or coins to help you keep track of your Determination and your XP.

If you want a slightly different genre, you can also check out Demon Blade Ultimate, which is more aligned with Shonen-style anime.

Crescent Moon, by Ema Acosta.

Go on a strange journey into the patchwork world of the daydream in Crescent Moon ☾, a feelings-delving role-playing game of brave children and bold adventures.

Rules for crafting your own whimsical tale full of breathtaking landscapes and unlikely friends await inside. Delve in to uncover stories of daring deeds and fantastical creatures—of calm afternoon naps and of promises whispered under starlight.

I don’t own Crescent Moon, so I can’t say for certain that this is super non-reader friendly, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say it is, because the character sheets remind me very much of Mausritter character sheets.

The most obvious connection is the hand-drawn inventory: you draw the objects you carry, as well as items and conditions that may affect you. Because you use cards to represent what your character is currently carrying, I think this element has the potential to reduce the amount of reading and writing the player has to do. The GM on the other hand, likely has a little more work to do in terms of planning an adventure - although I don’t think the work a GM does in this game is as much as say, a D&D DM.

[drowsy-siren]

25?

25. What is your ideal date? So for starters, I love dates that are just the entire day, and I love to dooooooo things! I love games, puzzles, challenges anything engaging, so like absolutely perfect date would go like this:

Early morning, drive out a couple hours to go on a hike with some gorgeous views of waterfalls and such (bonus points if the trail has geocaches)

Drive back, get cleaned up and have a light lunch out at a restaurant, probably like pizza or sandwiches, something quick and easy

Early afternoon: go somewhere to do something. An escape room, bowling, mini golf, a hands-on science museum, dance lessons. Something fun, engaging, maybe a little competitive :3

Immediately after: go to a board game store and each pick out the silliest lil game you can find for under $15

Mid afternoon: Go watch something: a movie, musical, stand-up

Early evening: Go home, let me cook a very very nice dinner. Praise me for how good my cooking is cuz everything I make is so so soooo yummy >:3333333

Smoke a lil, and try out the silly games we got, maybe put cute lil wagers on who will win~~

Smoke some more and talk long and deep about something far removed from our daily lives, like hypothetical space travel, alternate endings to some book, our homebrew ttrpg settings :P (bonus points if we can lay outside under the stars)

Cuddle up cozy under a blanket and fall asleeeppppp

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Game Garage: Lancer

Hello! Welcome to what I hope to be the first instance of a series about Game design and clever usages thereof in Tabletop games! We'll be talking about lancer, it was the first post on this blog so I felt it was fitting, we'll be going through standard character creations from License Level 0 til License Level 3, and showing how our mech, and pilot, grows during that time while playing out a theoretical game. Is this just like the example of plays in the actual books? Yes! But I wish to go for some more mechanical depths than those often do, and try to theorize around certain decisions made in a specific game.

I'll be using Comp/Con as a visual for this guide, I'm aware there's other ways to do mech building but basically everyone agrees you should just use Compcon for it, also while I'll avoid using expansions too much, I'll still assume you at minimum have KTB as it adds some pilot-side customization

LL0: Beginnings

You are immediately prompted to give a portrait, name, Callsign, and a background to your character, already just giving your character a callsign adds that little bit of personality to them! Lancer is primarily focused on the tactics side, rather than the roleplay side, but these little things do really help in fleshing out a character's personality, as that's still a factor.

I'll also give a quick shout out to Comp/Con for having the sickest UI of any webapp for a ttrpg i've seen, intuitive and strangely immersive, I really like it

Thracia was a project by a shadowy, now defunct, corporation to create a spokesperson for their gene editing services, the company went defunct before she turned 3, so she was just thrown away into some bin somewhere. She was eventually picked up by a gang of mercs who brought her back to base where she was effectively communally raised before joining the corps proper at age 20.

Now that we've filled out some simple flavor, lets move on to proper stat creation

We're brought to a stat creation screen, these don't matter too much in combat, but outside of them they're what your character specializes in, their role outside of the mechs. Don't sweat these too much, you can respect at any level up in lancer, and this won't matter too much outside of on the floor missions, which barely happen

For now, Thracia's good at fighting, investigating, and leading and inspiring, its what she was built for after all!

Now we get to talents, these are vaguely intimidating at first glance, but don't worry, you can respec at any time RAW, and they're pretty easy to decode once you get the hang of the system. For now, just think of what your role within the party will be, I want Thracia to be an artillery Pilot with a side of support, so we'll be taking Crack shot (which lets me give up my movement to become better at aiming each turn) , Leadership (which lets me add leadership dice dice to allied rolls as long as my fellow party member is within range) and Technophile (which gives me a Servant-Class NHP, a form of AI that controls my mech if I'm away, not too useful right now, but gets better benefits later on)

Now we get to the part I don't like, Mech Skills. Mech Skills are... theoretically really fun, but practically speaking you always want at least one level in Hull, and the other level in whatever your main stat is, in this case we'll be taking Engineering, you'll see why later.

Now we have our full pilot card! but there's still a little bit left to do before we Level Up for our first time.

First lets pick out our equipment, this is basically purely flavor so just pick what you think your character would logically have

NOW! we finally get to the fun part: Building your Mech... kinda

see right now, you're stuck with default configurations, you're not licensed for anything more complex than GMS mechs, the Great Value store brand of Lancer. So we carry on with an Everest, a basic if not a bit underwhelming mech, its reliable, customizable, and handy, if not a bit underwhelming and a lot less flashy and optimized than later mechs you get, I'd still keep an everest in your backpocket though, never know when you might need it

Someone playing with all official products would have a choice of 3 different GMS mechs, but I still recommend just picking the Everest, its the handiest option. though for reference: the Chomolungma is a Hacking frame, and the Sagamartha is a tank

You're prompted to name your mech, Thracia's gonna name it A farewell to Arms, after an ancient book she read once

Booting into your mech screen, it may feel a bit overwhelming at first but don't worry, these all aren't too complex to understand Traits are just that, what your mech has that makes it special from other mechs, its just that genesequouis that makes them cooler than other mechs.

Attributes are derivative stats that take your skills, Grit, and base mech stats into account, in our case the Everest is pretty middling in everything, but has a decent heat capacity due to our investment into Engineering.

and now for the fun bits, Core System and Mounts

Core Systems contain two things: your ultimate move, your signature play, that special power that you use once per duel and spare only for the most dire moments! the other thing is your Core System itself, Everest doesn't have any, but for future reference these are what your build is entirely based around, your core gimmick

Mounts are what you put your weapons into, and Systems are non directly attacking abilities that you use to gain advantage during battles, we once again only have GMS tools to go with for now. Something clever about the mount system is that it adds an inherent balance to mechs, a mech could have incredibly powerful abilities, but lack specific mounts that could make it overbearing, as an example the Gorgon lacks a heavy weapon mount, and Heavy weapon mounts are in general sparsely distributed, as giving them to the wrong mech could break the balance, this is a problem I see a lot of lancer GMs and homebrewers run into, underestimating the power of a heavy slot, even some who were contracted by Massif themselves!

For now, we'll give ourselves a shotgun, to dispatch enemies at close range, a Mortar, to deal with large clusters of enemies, and an Anti-Materiel Rifle to be our primary weapon.

Now for the systems, you have a budget of SP to use on buying systems for your mech from the ones you've unlocked, the GMS systems, outside of some standouts like the Flight System are... underwhelming mostly, you'll usually dumpster these pretty quick, but we might as well pick them because hey, its just free advantage, right?

We'll be mounting our free NHP we got from our talents of course, as well as a shield, a turret drone as we're not doing much with our reactions right now and they allow you to expend a reaction to deal some extra damage, Personalizations and a Custom Paintjob, these are basically just flavor but they both have to do with adding some extra bulk to your mech, in our case the Personalization is a built-in winch, adding a +1 to relevant Hull skill checks, and the Paintjob is a tasteful pin-up of an older looking woman, a fling from a past mission.

And that's it for LL0! It might feel like a lot, but I promise its a breeze in actual play. Now onto: LL1: Your First Taste of TRUE power

Thracia Schrader Came back to home base, sweaty and tired after a long mission, nothing big, just dispatching some pirates, but it was her first truly serious one, only to receive a ping on her terminal: she'd gotten a promotion, she'd be given budget to buy new parts for her mech, a raised paycheck, and some free time to work on new skills, she was over the moon, finally she'd be getting recognized!

Now onto LL1, so far your mech has had decently high customization, but from here on out? the world's your oyster honey, pull it open and devour its flesh, show the world that it's gotta be scared of you!... I think I lost my train of thought there, sorry about that.

Anyways, when leveling up you'll be given the down-low on what you're getting, an improvement to your skill triggers, more talents, more skills, more grit, your first license unlock, extra sauce on your eggs, and a complementary chocolate bar... OK those last two aren't there, but I'm sure most merc companies add them in

Skills don't matter too much so we'll skip over that, but for reference I took a boost in Leadership

You get an improvement in one talent, in my case I'll take the second tier of Technophile, which lets me reroll one roll per scene, very useful. You can also take a 4th talent at this point, but I recommend holding out a bit before doing that, your build is too weak to really afford big moves like that right now. You could also actually delevel one of your talents and level another to level 3, if you have a talent that you don't really need or want, but again, not recommended unless you know what you're doing

Now onto mech skills, you just get a flat +1 to any skill, right now I'd advise taking whatever you picked as your second skill after Hull, but if you wanna boost hull even further because you don't wanna get hurt too bad, I don't blame you, but we'll be getting that engineering boost for now

NOW to the fun part, the part we're all looking forward to (I think), getting more mech parts! now, people familiar with the system knows that the Engineering boosts and Artillery focus probably means we'll be taking a Harrison license, the 4 licenses in the game correspond roughly to the 4 mech skills in how they're built, they do end up mattering for something called Core Bonuses, but that's for much later, for now just treat them like a way to split playstyles. IPS-N likes Hull, Smith-Shimano Corp likes Agility, HORUS likes Systems, and Harrison Armory likes Engineering, choose accordingly.

We'll be unlocking the Sherman first, its a cool mech that I think often gets overlooked in this game's cluster fucks of eldritch mecha nightmares and othersuch things. You don't get the mech itself until LL2, so for now just slap on the parts you got into an Everest

The first level up is always kinda underwhelming in lancer, but trust me it'll get better from here! for now, we'll just replace our shotgun with a Sol-Pattern Laser Rifle, and our Personalizations and Custom Paint Job with a Reactor Stabilizer, a useful tool for keeping us nice and healthy when melting down

That's about it for LL1, yeah as I said its kinda boring, but it only gets better with LL2: You know what they say: Find what your niche is, that leads to riches!

Thracia Schrader comes back home, tattered, bruised and beaten, the promotion obviously meant more dangerous missions, this she knew, but she didn't expect to deal with enemies of that caliber just yet, turns out the pirates were more equipped than she thought at first, they seem too organized to be pirates actually... Well, she's being paid to dispatch rabblerousers, not think, she goes back to sleep in her cot, while browsing mech licenses for sale, she got a big bonus, she can splurge a little bit

While you get the same benefits as from LL1, this is where the fun really begins because if you take a second level from your frame you obtain:

A frame! You can finally get out of that dinky everest and get into something COOL! Frames in lancer essentially serve as your classes, they're what you mount your other obtained abilities into to create your unique playstyle, but overall they're probably the most important aspect of your character. Frames can have different sizes, HP thresholds, armor, and so on. the Frame system leads to your creativity being effectively limitless, while I'm doing a fairly basic artillery build, I'm sure a melee Sherman build could be fully possible! anyways, if you're using this as a build guide for some reason, I took Crack shot and an extra point in Hull alongside the Sherman frame

Now lets build our new puppy shall we? Our new mech will be called... how about Mr. Blue Sky? its Thracia's favorite childhood song

Now you'll have to rebuild your mech, but with a few considerations in mind 1: Your mounts are all different now, you can't rely on the weapons you did previously most of the time, Sherman's actually an exception to this, it has largely the same mounts as an everest, with the main difference being a built-in laser gun which charges while stabilizing, hm, maybe taking some stabilization talents could be worth the time... 2: Your new mech has new traits! the traits in the everest were pretty simple, just some bonus actions once per scene, "More of what's good" is the unofficial GMS Motto

The sherman's a bit more complex, it can keep you in the danger zone (which benefits not just the sherman but most Harrison Armory mechs really), give you soft cover by throwing steam at your enemy's face, and makes it better at engineering (handy, since you'll be trying your best to not take too much unintended heat)

For equipment, we'll be using some old tools and the new ones we just got

Sherman just got the incredibly powerful Andromeda-Pattern heavy laser rifle, but don't worry kids, this isn't the peak of laser power, oh no no, that comes a bit later. We're also using our handy shotgun, she needs to defend herself from nearby enemies somehow.

For systems, we're dumping the reactor stabilizer, its served its purpose but we can manage our heat better now, and we're picking up a deployable cover, useful for long drawn out gun fights, personalizations (a huge library of ancient and modern texts, useful for SYSTEMS checks), and turret drones, we're still not doing much with that reaction and our sensor range's pretty dang strong. Now a word of advice, at LL2 is where your build will branch most, you're comitting to an entirely new mech after all! but always remember: you can respec at any time

LL3: True Power!

Thracia comes back home and brews herself a cup of tea, so it turns out that the pirates she was dispatching were just locals defending themselves against the corporate agency paying her, she was offered a contract by them, lower price, but less price on the conscience, she urged her boss to take it, and she did take it in the end, she thanked Christ the Buddha she didn't need to betray the closest thing she had to a family. Tomorrow, Thracia would dispatch a corporate HQ, the locals were calling the Union for aid, and they promised aid would come in the form of supplies, but they'd need to fend for themselves, and supplies did come, she took some of the mech weapon supplies for herself, she was fighting for them now, might as well right?

LL3 is where your chosen frame's power peaks, many people actually skip the third level of a license, the items given are usually fairly niche, we won't be doing that, this is a pretty standard build so i don't think its worth it

you know the drill for skills

Talents, I'll actually do something a bit weird here, if anything to demonstrate one of the more interesting RAW decisions of Lancer, I'll take away crackshot. Most of the laser rifles of the sherman are AOEs, and Crackshot assumes one target. Instead we'll be taking two levels of Grease Monkey, they make our stabilizations stronger, and give us some nice bonuses during rests, and we'll also be capping off Technophile, you'll see why soon.

We'll be leveling up Engineering for this level and taking the final level of sherman, but more on that later because now, we have the first sight of our Core Bonuses

the 5 companies of lancer like to reward brand loyalty, so if you stick with one company for 3 levels, you unlock their "Core Bonuses". what are these? these are powerful abilities that you only get every 3 levels, and you need to have 3 levels in a company to unlock their respective core powers, GMS powers are unlocked by default of course. We'll be taking Superior by Design, the premiere Harrison Armory ability

the boost to heat cap is what we're looking for, anything that makes us less punished for taking too much heat is a good thing. the Impaired immunity is a good bonus

Now at this point, your mech should have unlocked their most powerful weapon and system, these are often "Super Heavy" weapons, which means they take up two slots to mount, but sometimes they just may be a powerful control ability, for example the Kidd unlocks their ability to build misc structures at that level.

We'll be installing our brand new and shiny Tachyon Lance, a massive motherfucker of a weapon that just emits a line of destruction and a cone of destruction behind you

we'll also keep the shotgun, its a handy weapon

for systems, we'll be equipping our brand new Asura-Class NHP, what does it do?

well, once per scene, it just lets you take another turn! No caveats, and the only real cost is a bit of heat on your end, but other than that? you just have two turns that turn, incredibly valuable in a build that often wants to stabilize, wasting precious actions

Oh, as for the third level of technophile? I can't have 2 NHPs in a mech at once unless I take that level, its just not possible, NHPs are incredibly powerful resources so I understand wanting to limit them like that.

That's about it for LL3, its your peak of power... for now, but soon enough your mech might be having some... foreign intrusions

LL4: The Crossover nobody wanted

Thracia was broken. She wished she'd never signed up for this mission in the first place. Children and women running from corporate mechs way better equipped than them, farms being abandoned by people who lived there for generations, good people sacrificing themselves to keep their loved ones safe. Terrakis had gone from a quick buck by dispatching pirates, to a nightmare. She was always told it was a dirty business, making money from blood, but she never expected it to be this bad. Looking to calm down, she calls up a friend, a warehouse worker from IPS-N, and wonders if she could maybe hook her up with something

You know the drill by now, the only thing of note is I'm going to dump Leader to take 2 levels in Siege Specialist (lets me take down structures more easily and lets me knock down adjacent enemies), we're picking up another level of Hull, and now, for the interesting bit: your 4th license

At this point, you've found your niche and made your mech plenty strong... but it could always be better, right?

Thracia picks up a level of the Drake, giving her the powerful Assault Cannon, a handy, if not low ranged, weapon that can grow in strength by spinning its barrels before launching, as a bonus its also a cannon allowing for our Siege Specialist to trigger. She throws away her nostalgic shotgun for this weapon

Thracia had also been feeling protective of her fellow backliner, a clumsy goblin pilot named Lika whom she borderline had a crush on, while Thracia's mech isn't bulky by any means, its bulkier than xer goblin, so she gives up her redundant systems to pick up the Argonaut Shield, a tool that lets her take half the damage her fellow pilot would take instead.

Conclusion: You got your tools now! Thracia was tired of seeing people dying, she was tired of the war, of the bastards in suits puppeteering it, she wanted it done and she wanted it done now. Talking to the leaders of the locals they decide on a final plan of attack: destroying the HQ of the corporate settlers

SimpleCorp must fall

Terrakis must be free

From here on out, you have your own tools to make your own builds, remember to focus on your roles, pick up abilities that complement your allies' playstyles and positionings, and most of all: have fun! a bad build in lancer isn't a huge deal, you can always try and try again until you get it right.

Oh, you wanna know how Thracia's story ended? Alright then, here you go

Mr. Blue Sky stood atop the ruins of SimpleCo's elite pilot: Fear, Thracia was no longer afraid, she was no longer broken, she was now only filled with pride, and joy. Terrakis was free, and she had been a part of its liberation. She hoped this would send a message to any bastard trying to take it over, she looks upon the pictures hanging inside her cockpit, complimentary drawings given to her by small children, of her mech as a hero of legend, of SimpleCo goons being burnt by her Tachyon Lance. That day, Thracia knew she had for once in her life done the right thing. After all of this, she decided to stay, War was not her business, and the locals of Terrakis wished for her to stay to help with any future intrusions.

She and Lika lived a peaceful life together, no one wanted to fuck with Terrakis after SimpleCo's downfall

Too cheesy? well, sometimes that's just how careers end, in the duty of a lancer, you either leave before you die, or you die before you leave. Go play your own stories! I'm sure there's some GM out there struggling to find new players who'd love to have you in their group

oh fuck i completely forgot to talk about bond-

[talenlee]

June 2024 Wrapup!

That’s it, Pride’s over. We’re done with any need to be queer because we obviously defeated the forces of not queer.

Hey how do all those dudes who are convinced they’re straight think their sexuality handles being attracted to nonbinary people? Like, nonbinary people can look like anything, presentation is a performance and everything, but if you believe in inherent qualities of genders, seeing a nonbinary person who’s hot has to be a problem right?

(oh who are we kidding, they pretend nonbinary people don’t exist. But if you do accept nonbinary people exist, you might be less straight than you think.)

Alright, let’s look at what articles came up in the Game Pile this month!

Gay Sauna: The Board Game, where we talked about the acceptable boundaries of genre mechanisms.

Arcade Spirits, where I made a video retelling my experiences of dealing with a game that I shouldn’t call a visual novel, because someone out there will get annoyed at an imperfect cladistic categorisation of game genres

Signalis, a game that oozes style but also told me to stop playing it, so I did

3 Indie TTRPGs, with Feathers, For the Dungeon and We Saved The World Once in a video

If you think the video on Feathers, For The Dungeon and We Saved The World Once was a bit ropy, yep! It got made very quick and close to the deadline because it was very difficult to make. Cooking these games down to entirely positive feedback without talking more about things I find personally interesting was hard enough, which is why the first seven minutes of the video are about problems with how we talk about indie TTRPGs.

Also, a thing I was really delighted by was getting to play Loom with Fox for the first time (part 1, part 2)!

Then there was this month’s Story Pile, about which I was way more enthusiastic!

Nimona, which is a great movie for kids,

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, which is a great anime, for slightly older kids!

Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess And The Genius Young Lady, which is a mid anime, for slightly older kids still!

Bound, which is, uh, it’s not for kids

What else happened this month that I’m proud of?

Hm.

Hmmm.

This is a surprising one to say because normally I can think of articles that I want you to read in a sort of ‘well why haven’t you looked at this.’ But I’m in a bad mood right now and it’s colouring things about how I look at my own writing. My article on LIGMA is tainted by knowing how little of the greater context of the area I can communicate. My article about What Disgusts Jod got a response from a Locked Tomb fan that seemed to imply that actually, Jod wasn’t bi or pansexual, because a guy can have a threesome with a man and a woman and people will still try and pretend bisexuality doesn’t exist. My article about Tieflings was probably the thing I’m the most proud of this month, in the idea of the kind of writing I like doing, and I think my article on Faces For Skins is important? At least I avoided another breakdown article about how badly I feel Pride culture connects to or relates to me, though maybe that just shows up in the work in general.

There’s this month’s shirt design:

How hard is the Barbie aesthetic to replicate? With lookalike fonts it’s shockingly easy. I note that this one specifically is a drop shadow and not a 3d semblance, as you can see on the bottoms of the ls. Hey, do you want this on a sticker? Go for it!

In terms of real world events, June is jam packed. It’s the end of the Autumn Semester for me, as a tutor for one. This semester, I took on a lot of marking work, which I like to do, but which also meant that I looked at 118 asignments this month, and 60 of them had a 5 minute audio visual component. That’s five hours of student material to just watch. It ain’t nothing, and it adds up over time.

It’s also a time with four major family birthdays in them, which means I have to find ways and times to attend to physical events. This is not a problem, because I love my family but it sure makes me mindful of just how long it takes me to recover from that to do, y’know, things with myself like write for the blog. Marking periods take time out of the blog work.

The subject matter of the month is also less of a freebie than you might think because I feel like some things are too repetitive – I don’t imagine I’m going to find a third Transformers character to write about next year, for example. There’s also the way that February and June kinda blur together – I’m very fond of talking about queer media in February since that’s one of the most fun kinds of smoochy media I like.

I aim to keep the queued posts for this blog up to 50, so every day if I add a post, it goes to 51 and dips back down to 50. I also try to make sure I’m four weeks ahead on the video channels. This month, as I write this, I am one week ahead on the video, and the queue is down to 45. I am frustrated! But I am doing things to overcome that, and in the coming weeks, I don’t have to grapple with a theme!

I haven’t been getting to bed at good times. This month has featured multiple days where I get to bed at 4 in the morning, one even at 5. This is bad and I hate it. I hate it especially because it takes a long time to recover from it, to get back to sleeping at even the modestly more sensible time of midnight to one AM. I also haven’t been cooking as much as I want to — even modest resistance means that suddenly dinner is some microwaved oats and sultanas, with a splash of milk.

I think I may even be missing one of my June goals for Magic The Gathering: Arena, which isn’t exactly important, but it is a bit of a pisser. The aim was to hit gold tier in limited, which at this point I have… a few hours to do, and I’m still in Silver Tier. That’s not a big deal but it is a bummer.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[mmmidnightstoriesss]

PJO Greek Demigod Homebrew

So I did this fun little thing and made a DND Percy Jackson Greek Demigod race expansion!

I love the Percy Jackson universe and everything that came after and decided I had to find a way to incorporate it into my games!

This can also be altered only slightly and perfect for Pathfinder! I include how to do so at the bottom of the guide.

Over the summer, I made a TikTok giving an overview of a quick-build for demigods and included lots of recommendations on subclasses (and trust me I dug for these let me tell you) that fit almost all of the godly parents on this list. You can find that here

Additionally, I know much is changing in the DND world and TTRPG in general right now, so I did include this message in the guide:

This expansion has the unfortunate timing of releasing at the same time as the changed OGL 1.1 announcement in January 2023 but this was already created ahead of time and I wanted to make sure and release it before I returned to uni for another semester. I do not and cannot profit off of this guide as it is essentially fanfiction for the Riordanverse, however, neither does Wizards of the Coast (not that they would unless somehow I made like one million dollars off of this which would not happen). So I hope you will thoroughly enjoy this guide.

This homebrew is quite literally a homebrew, made by a fan for fans. And I truly hope you enjoy it :) And again, as this is a homebrew, feel free to adjust it to fit your game, whether that's something in DND or Pathfinder or even a Star Wars realm or something along those lines. I'm sure you'll enjoy it, whatever is to come.

Go forth, enjoy the homebrew, and get ready for the Percy Jackson TV show and Percy's quests to get letters of recommendation poor Percy like come on he deserves some rest

Enjoy it here! And please share updates with what you and your crew gets up to!

[ashweather]

Daily RPG Readings

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, Part 1

So! I'm part of @anim-ttrpgs book club on discord, and right now we're reading through Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy! Right now, as I do a second readthrough of a rule book, I'm posting my thoughts on my daily reading. Hopefully, I can have a log of my thoughts for plenty of rulebooks going forward.

For day one, I dropped down to page 8 (where the main body of text begins), and read up to page 28, stopping at the heading "Rolls, Investigation, & the Eureka! System."

We start off with the usual housekeeping, introducing players to the system, what it's for, and what materials one needs for play. Of particular note to me in this section is the "Quickstart / What Do You Need to Read" heading, which is not a feature I've seen very often in TTRPGs. Its a very useful feature, and I'm always glad to see it, because it means the designers are interested in facilitating all players being knowledgeable about the system before play. As a forever GM, its also really nice to see the book encourage players to help lighten the workload! Its also extremely nice to have little bullet-point summaries available at the end of each section so the reader can quickly review what they've learned.

After the changelog and small "Quick Terms" section (I appreciate it being small by the way, frontloading too much terminology right out the gate can get overwhelming or boring), we move on to a discussion of what types of stories or adventures one can play with the *Eureka* system, as well as an outline of a few different game styles and how compatible they are. Long term campaigns, episodic campaigns, episodic anthologies, and one-shots are discussed as options, with a note that long-term, single story campaigns may be a difficult fit for the system or require a lot of extra work. Notably absent is my favorite structure for mystery games - the miniseries! A miniseries is a small, tightly focused story told over the course of 4-8 sessions, and I find its a structure that gives mysteries and characters room to breathe while requiring that a story maintain its focus and a relatively tight pacing.

The last section begins with the heading "Consequences, Making Rolls, and Modifiers. This is definitely the most crucial section to understand so far, as it outlines the primary dice & roll mechanics in *Eureka* - the lifeblood of most TTRPGs. *Eureka* uses a 2d6 system with three degrees of success: Full Success, Partial Success, and Failure. Anyone who's played a *Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA)* game will recognize this roll structure (although it is one of the *few* things *Eureka* shares with that system), and it remains a very solid baseline for determining the outcome of dramatic scenes in my opinion. Having an additional option other than binary success or failure, and having 'Partial Success' be the most common outcome of a roll is a very smart move, ensuring that the outcome of rolls is more dynamic and minimizing the odds of bringing the game to a shuddering halt with one bad roll. There's also a note that **the consequence of a Partial Success or Failure should be obvious before a roll is made,** and this is an extremely important thing to stress in my opinion, especially to an inexperienced GM.

I'm adding one last section to discuss modifiers specifically. There are two types of modifiers - Base and Contextual. Base modifiers come from the character sheet (as a result of skills, traits, etc), and **is** limited by Composure (we haven't learned about this system yet). Contextual modifiers come from the situation at hand in the narrative, and are **not** limited by Composure. Also, rolling double 1's will be a Failure regardless of modifier, and rolling double 6's will be a Full Success regardless of modifiers. This is mostly pretty standard stuff, but there's also a note that any modifier higher than a +7 is irrelevant to a roll. This will become a trend going forward, of *Eureka* being pretty transparent with players about its math.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Tomb Builder

Tomb Builder, Gnomekin Games, 2008

It's like Tomb Raider, but in reverse. I figured since a Tomb Raider TTRPG just got announced recently, it would be good to review a different game inspired by it.

Tomb Builder takes the "subtext is for cowards" approach and puts the clash between monstrous but human invaders and humane but monstrous defenders right at the front of the game. Your group is building an impenetrable series of death traps and summoning circles to keep "heroes" and "archaeologists", by which we mean "thieves", out of your ancestors' burial grounds, by which we mean "a dungeon". Your characters are chimerical monsters of all types, making you inherently more diverse than the thieves, but the game also describes eight different cultures that you can come from and encourages the group to play just one monster from each culture. Each group of invaders is from a single culture, with five of them described. The art reflects this: a slime in one drawing might be wearing rank emblems from the more military culture, while one in another drawing might have a pair of hair sticks holding their... um... ok, they gave a slime a bun like it had hair, and visually it works, and you might just have to trust me on that.

Chargen is fairly freeform, using what is essentially a Fate variant with aspects and skills. The skills are Builder, Defender, Genius, and Schemer. There are two main phases of the game, Downtime and Encounter. The phases themselves have their own Aspects, with the GM choosing from a list of 5 (10 total). Examples include "No time to lose", "Unexpected allies", and "Treachery is everywhere".

One of the neat things is that you don't need to plan out every step of your defensive plan beforehand. Instead, you get to narrate your past preparations as the thieves invade, effectively as a quick flashback, describing it as it was when you were setting up in the first place. You use Builder to generate rooms, Defender to repel the invaders physically or through intimidation, Genius to create advantages for others, and Schemer to spring traps. They map to the standard Fate actions fairly well, with a little extra flexibility allowed. For those who enjoy the planning phase, you can build up a stash of up to two Fate points per player by planning things out. When you do, the GM gets a "scouting" roll to see if the invaders get an Aspect related to preparation, so it's a little bit of a gamble but typically pays off overall.

So, does Tomb Builder manage to avoid the more problematic elements of Tomb Raider? Well.... not quite. It does a lot of reversals and subversion, but colonialism is still so embedded in the basic scenario of invaders/natives that it's impossible to shed it entirely. I'm of mixed opinions on the monstrous humans / humane monsters split - it averts one thing by falling into another. It's a fun game but I feel like it could have used a "pre-game discussion" section.

The writer of the upcoming TR:SoT:TTRPG did have some sage things to say about the inherent assholery of defiling someone's burial grounds to take things out of their literal graves. It's good to know that they're not going the "no politics" route. That game will get more eyes on it than Tomb Builder ever did.

Tomb Builder was initially discussed and hashed out on StoryGames.com (which is gone) and then published on 1km1kt (which is gone) with physical copies available via you know what you can probably guess where this is going.

[leidensygdom]

There is no wrong way to enjoy TTRPGs, as long as everyone at the table is having fun

I just saw a couple of people tagging some of my latest posts with concerns on how they are scared to DM TTRPGs because they can’t do battlemaps, so let me put a quick post together about this:

There is no wrong way to enjoy TTRPGs, as long as everyone at the table is having fun. Fun is the keyword here. Is everyone enjoying the game? Then you’re doing it right. Doesn’t matter how little or how much you want to have at your table. Doesn’t matter which system are you playing. As long as people are enjoying themselves, you’re doing it right.

This means a lot of things. Maybe your group loves playing by-the-book and never homebrews. That’s absolutely right. Or maybe your group has almost developed an entire system of their own after years of homebrewing. That’s also good- If everyone at the table like it and it is fair for everyone, you’re playing the game right!

Some people love super crunchy games filled with numbers and strategy and no RP. If everyone at the table enjoys that, then you’re doing it right. Maybe you like very deadly games and meatgrinders- If people at the table like that, it’s absolutely valid. Or maybe you just want to do RP and develop characters with none of the numbers. If that’s what your group wants, congrats! That’s also valid.

Some people love to painstakingly prepare every little detail and has 10 pages of notes for a session. It takes time, but it makes DMing easier for some. If it works for you, do it! Or maybe you like to go completely improv- If it suits your style and it works for the table, that’s also fantastic

Format-wise, you can play TTRPGs in many ways. Maybe you just want to go full theatre of mind- Absolutely valid. Maybe you don’t want to think about battlemaps but still need a way to make it work- I’ve seen people use emojis on discord to build a semblance of a battlemap. I’ve seen people use excel. People use google sheets. People use drawing software. If it works for your group, it’s good enough. Or maybe you play irl and want to go all in with painted minis and terrain, or the VTT equivalent of having fully animated maps full of spell effects and stuff. That’s also absolutely valid! Why wouldn’t it be?

There has been a lot of talking about the right TTRPGs to enjoy, and how to enjoy them, which has probably risen because of the OGL and people suddenly moving systems or finding new groups, or even people finding out animated spells are a thing. And of course, there’s some people willing to police how others have fun at their tables. Which- Let’s be entirely honest, if you see someone whine about “theatre of the mind sucks you’re just lazy” (or “you don’t need a fancy animated battlemap”, on the contrary) it’s better to just ignore the fuck out of them and move on. If it works for your table, go and enjoy exactly that. That’s what matters.

A lot of times people choose to play TTRPG one way or another to accommodate to their groups needs and their own, and trying to say what is “wrong” can easily fall into a weirdly ableist discourse. For example, I have a speech impediment: It’s gotten better over the years, but lengthy improv descriptions are a struggle. And so, I’d rather either prepare extensive descriptions in my notes, or draw a battlemap that puts my players into what I envision without a 5-minute narration that will burn my mental RAM. Someone with ADHD may need extensive notes to not go off the rails- Or maybe a dyslexic person can’t use notes too well and prefers to rely on improv. Aphantasia is a thing and some people can’t just imagine out of a text description, and they may prefer to see an animation instead of hearing someone describe it. The beauty of TTRPGs is that they’re wildly variable, and people have found endless ways to enjoy them- and adapt them to their needs.

So, for whoever needs to hear this, for whoever found some idiot on the internet telling you how to play your own home game: If your group is having fun the way you play the game, you’re doing it right. Don’t be scared to try out methods that work for you and your group, and adapt it to individual preferences, needs, and use whatever accommodations you need to make your life easier. Having fun is the objective, the way you get there is up to you.

[whyitfucks]

Why it Fucks: City of Mist's Themebooks

lateral character progression rules!

For those who don't know:

City of Mist is a 2017 Powered by the Apocalypse game from Son of Oak Games. Described as "set in a modern city where legends are real people. Heroes, tricksters, and monsters are reborn inside ordinary people, regular Joes and Janes, who gain supernatural powers connected to their legendary alter-egos."

The game focuses on telling stories that merge the fantastical with the grounded. Okay, if not grounded "lower altitude". It's the structure that you'd find any on detective/police/superhero procedural on TV. A detective game, even if those detectives are also embodiments of legends like Red Riding Hood or the Goddess Artemis.

One of the delightful things about it, and the reason behind this post. Is its use of what it calls themebooks. Every character at any given time is host to 4 themebooks. These can be powers tied to the myth you represent (Mythos) or some part of your mundane life (Logos). A Thor based character could have a "Relic" mythos for his hammer, and a "Defining Relationship" Logos with his old dad he cares for. They provide benefits to rolls when needed, have unique weaknesses and so on. Most importantly they have a mystery (for the mythos) and identity (for the logos) that tell us why we care or give little hooks. These themes get discarded and picked up throughout the game as you use them. Letting characters change without worrying about balancing difficulty.

As an example, let's look at one of the characters from the quick start, Salamander, tied to the myth of, well, the Salamander

One of his 4 playbooks is based on his job as a city water worker. We can see it has the identity "I need my job to survive" this tells us why it's important to him. I won't go in to much of the rest about power tags and such, instead looking back up to Attention and Crack.

Attention is like an XP track for that aspect of your character. There are a couple ways of gaining it like invoking your weakness tag for a penalty for example. You evolve it, expanding out the power/importance of the theme.

Whenever you take an action that goes against or would cause conflict with one of your themes it takes on a crack. Maybe Salamander has to leave his shift to go fight some bad guys, angering his boss. When the crack track is full, Salamander will lose that theme and trade it for another. Broadly, the themebook creation rules are written very generously. You can come in with a loose concept and they'll help you solidify it into something usable

Why It Fucks:

SO. What we have here are characters with 4 individual aspects that serve as side plots, mysteries or recurring beats that each have two directions they can go to (focus or conflict) that are, for the most part, entirely player directed as to which way they're going. Some MCs might twist arms for hard choices but at the right table that's just good drama baby.

This is a game that frequently references television procedurals or detective stories as big touch stones. What they've done here is empower not only the MC but the players to thread together their episodic adventures in a way that can also reflect consequence without making that player less "powerful" in game terms. Facilitating really dramatic change.

City of Mist is a game I'm quite fond of, it has it's issues but design like this is why I want to start writing these posts. Whatever I think about the game, this single little bit is SO! juicy to me.

[the-ampersand]

I started a DIE RPG last Friday and I think my players don't understand what they have gotten themselves into.

A game were the GM (me) gets a character to express their obsessions (ttrpgs) and throw them to their players? This is basically the perfect setup for me to DIEgetically insert every little role playing minigame I ever got my paws onto and develop their PCs meanwhile.

I want to know about the campaign our Personas played when they were teenagers? We will have a Microscope session to see how the game began, how it fell apart and everything important that happened in-between.

I need to know how was their favourite city in said campaign? I would whip out i'm sorry did you say street magic and explore every district and every corner.

My players want a fast way of travel? They can go underground through Meanwhile, in the Subway but they will have to put up with some surreal shenanigans. The Fool will love it.

The Godbinder needs to know about one of their gods' religion? A quick game of Tending will set one up in no time.

I could go on with games and supplements I would make use of and when to use them. There are so many hyper specific wonderful little games out there that I want to insert into the story. Sometimes carefully, other times haphazardly.

And it all fits. Because the game, the characters, the players, the world know they are all inside my obsessions. Shaped by them, inhabiting them. It doesn't have to have narrative consistency, it doesn't really need make sense.

We are telling a story in which we discover each other and ourselves. All those games are my way of talking to the players. And I crave all they have to tell me.

Maybe *I* am DIE after all.

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli films have captured our imagination ever since they’ve reached our screens, and for good reason. The lovingly designed landscapes, the dedication to complicated (but relatable) characters, and the gentle balance of fantasy and everyday life have enchanted many of creator, including those of the games below!

Hearts and Ravens, by Martian Machinery.

Flying towers cross the land at the whim of wizards who prey on the souls of the wayward or uncareful. The King Underground trades in the mortal lives of the wished-away and the unwanted. A stolen prince daydreams of faraway. All the while there are apprenticeships to fulfill, hats to make, carpets to weave, and the thousand things that prevent an adventure from taking place. Until one day, luck or a dream or magic intervenes and nothing is ever the same again.

You'll go on an adventure. You'll be confronted with challenges and fears. You'll come face-to-face with magic and magical creatures. You'll make difficult decisions. And if you're lucky, and if you look hard enough, you might find yourself.

This is a game about people escaping their mundane lives and becoming adventurers and wizards in a fantasy world. This is a world where contracts are binding and magic is powerful and personal. We create characters with obligations and play to find out how they discover the world, fight against adversity, and explore truths about themselves.

Hearts & Ravens combines the mechanics of PbtA games with the storytelling tools of Good Society. It draws inspiration specifically from Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, as well as media such as the 1985 Labyrinth, so expect to meet characters who have to keep themselves hidden, fairytale magic, and obligations that you can’t simply run away from. I’m very excited about this game!

Singles & Returns, by Groundhoggoth.

Singles & Returns is a way to tell stories that mix nostalgia and fairytale, centred around the passengers on a bus that serves anyone who can pay the fare, and even several who can’t. You’ll meet some fascinating people onboard, talk to them and then get off again. Inspired by the works of Studio Ghibli, there’s no pressure or urgency in this game, no great threat to overcome, just simple, everyday, minor panics: will she like me? Will I get the job? Will I be late? As the bus takes them each toward their destination, they have time to share what’s on their mind, listen and give advice, and maybe lend a helping hand on the way.

This game reminds me of the train Chihiro takes to visit Zeniba in Spirited Away, as well as the Cat Bus in My Neighbour Totoro. The Bus is there to take you from one place to another, and it guarantees to get you there on time. It takes no responsibility for epiphanies, changes of heart, or a meeting of fate (which is one of my favourite little additions in the book!) 

There’s very little rolling other than determining who you are and where you’re going, so this game is probably more suitable for players who really like diving into role-play and conversation. A single session can be over pretty quick, so there’s also suggestions about ways to extend the game, or change it up for future play-throughs.

Spirit Line, by Floofi.

“All Aboard the Spirit Line! An inter-dimensional train that travels through the different realms and realities. You are a conductor of the Spirit Line and you must solve the various Troubles that the train will go through! Work with your fellow Conductors to keep the Spirit Line safe and maintain it’s five star status! Good luck Conductors!”   

Spirit Line is a TTRPG that focuses on you fixing problems around the Spirit Line through the power of friendship and cooperation! To play this game you will need 2-5 players, a d12, a deck of cards, and a few pieces of paper to keep track of your Conductor! You will not need a GM for this and all you need to do is read the instruction and you will be good to go!

This is a quick, fast-paced game of Train Conductors doing their best to keep their train running as easily as possible: it could also easily be re-skinned to fit a different genre or slotted into a larger game such as Hearts & Ravens or Spiritbound to make travel interesting for the players. There’s both a win and a fail state for this game - the Conductors could have Troubles pile up until they're at risk of losing their jobs, or they could fix all of the problems before they hit the end of the line. This is a small, easy-to-learn game with a plentitude of possibilities!

Spirited Cafe, by A Couple of Drakes.

Take on the exciting role of part of a family indentured to the witch Baba, bound by ineffable obligation to run her restaurant in the Crossroads until you can repay your family’s debts. It exists at the eternal nexus where the Human World and the Spirit World overlap. Your job is to protect the Human World by satisfying any guest that arrives from the Spirit World to this strange little place in space and time. If these spirits are fed and contented, they will return home with the sunrise. If they are not, then there is no telling what strange aims they will pursue among the Human World.

You're all that stands between the Human World and all manner of things from outside. On your side, you've got a finnicky stove, a creepy cookbook, and a little bit of magic. Ghosts, goblins, trolls, and tengu file into your little cafe, hungry for mischief. You and your family better cook for your lives! 

This game takes heavy inspiration from both Spirited Away and the video game Overcooked. Using the fast-paced, ticking-clock mechanics of Forged in the Dark, you’ll work together to create a family and a restaurant while the GM will design hungry (and impatient) customers to demand more and more from your little family business. When your customers are magical, the stakes are much higher! This is great for fans of Studio Ghibli who still like to experience a challenge. 

Golden Sky Stories, by Star Line Publishing.

Golden Sky Stories is a heartwarming, non-violent role-playing game from Japan, by Ryo Kamiya. In this game, players take on the role of henge, animals that have just a little bit of magical power, including the ability to temporarily take on human form. You can be a fox, raccoon dog, cat, dog, rabbit, or bird, and each kind has their own special magical powers. Players will then attempt to solve problems around a small enchanted town with ingenuity, co-operation and friendship.

Golden Sky Stories requires one Narrator, 2-4 players, pencils and paper, and tokens to keep track of Dreams. Your characters have powers and vulnerabilities that operate off of a token economy, with the goal of helping out people in a nearby town. You’ll be rolling dice alongside the mechanic of token expenditure, with different tokens and stats assigned for different kinds of things - the process of operating a telephone or fixing a flashlight is going to be different from sneaking along fences or reading a person’s emotions. 

This is an all-ages kind of game, with peaceful art and a big emphasis on the kinds of stories common in Studio Ghibli movies. If you want to add more character options and some scenarios to get you started, you can also check out Twilight Tales, a supplement for Golden Sky Stories.

Cloud Empress, by Watts.

"The battle between rampaging forest gods and humanity cannot end well; there can be no happy ending. Yet, even amid the hatred and slaughter, there are things worthy of life." -- Hayao Miyazaki

Cloud Empress is an ecological science fantasy setting for the science horror tabletop roleplaying game Mothership. Cloud Empress in the land of ten thousand cicadas will be a full-color zine and PDF and is currently in development. In Cloud Empress: in the land of ten thousand cicadas, players will explore a land governed by the patterns of giant psychic cicadas. When deadly soldiers from royal lands high above the clouds threaten the balance, the Breadbasket's wheat fields will burn without the players' help.

This game involves a world that has changed dramatically, similar to the strange world of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It’s a game about learning to live and survive in a world that is full of the trash and poison of the people who left the world behind; a post apocalypse in a world ruined by others, and by our ancestors. If you like the idea of speculative futures with world-building that is intended to be quickly picked up and understood by the players, this is absolutely worth checking out.

The link above is a playtest for a game that will have a full version for sale down the road, now that their Kickstarter campaign has finished up. 

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Spiritbound, by Marc Strocks.

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, by Jay Dragon. 

Questlandia, by Turtlebun,

[blackestnight]

what's in my bag: hopeless nerd edition

by popular demand (read: like three people), have the contents of my bag when i'm playing ttrpgs in person!

in no particular order:

laptop. i use digital character sheets for most of the games i play, mainly so i don't have to do math every time i level up. pf2 (my preferred ttrpg system) also has specific restrictions for organized play, and the digital tool i use has a settings toggle for society-compliant characters, which is super handy. i can also keep tabs open for quick rules/item lookups.

case, etc. i keep my laptop in a soft sleeve that comes with a pocket for the charger, a wireless mouse, and a tablet pen. the laptop is a 2-in-1, so depending on available table space i might fold it up and keep it in my lap in tablet mode, using the pen to navigate my character sheet instead of the mouse.

power bank. a relatively new addition. outlet space is always at a premium at events, and while my laptop's battery is pretty good, my phone is old and the battery is starting to give out, so better safe than sorry. i got this power pack for like $40 at meijer and it's great.

binder. for holding chronicle sheets (basically after-session rewards handouts for organized play). i have different folders for each character. i also try to keep hard copies of character sheets in case of technological or internet failure, but uh. i usually. forget. oops.

gum. usually with me wherever i go anyway. it's good for mitigating the takeout breath after ordering dinner. also helps mitigate distracted snacking.

water bottle. hydrate or die-drate, bitch.

pens and pencils. even as a person who uses digital sheets, you need pencils. i don't care who you are. if nothing else, you may end up needing to play a pre-generated character and keep track of HP, and you don't want to be the asshole marking up someone else's sheets in pen. i prefer pens for my own note-taking and filling out chronicle sheets, but i always keep a few pencils (a nice one for me and shitty ones to loan to other people).

miniatures. not strictly necessary. not all games use physical minis and maps for tactical combat, and small things like coins, bottle caps, extra dice, or (especially for enemies) candies are all mainstays of the tradition. i don't always bring mine to regular home campaign sessions, but for society play and cons i keep them in a little plastic tacklebox. i have some fancy ~custom~ minis for long-running characters, and more generic plastic ones, plus some poker chips and bases for things like pets, mounts, and summons.

dice. clickety clackety, i roll to attackity. my dice collection is extensive and nearly all blue (gasp). "but cyan," you ask, "do you actually need to bring that many dice?" yes. the most superstitious people you will ever meet are theatre nerds and tabletop gamers. you need several sets on hand to combat the Dice Curse. (or loan to other players. or roll fireballs. et cetera.) my dice bag was handmade for me by my best friend in high school, based on my first ever d&d character, and i still use it all the time. for events where i'll be able to spread out more, or for home games, i also have a dice vault with a built-in tray.

tray. to keep my dice from running away, or getting damaged on the table (or damaging the table if we're talking metal dice). lays flat when unsnapped for easy transport. also, it's a kitty!

notebooks. i usually have a couple on me for different purposes. the skull notebook is for session notes—which i don't usually take, WHICH IS BAD, and i'm trying to get into the habit. i'll write shorthand bullet notes during the session and then tidy up/convert into better summaries in a digital notebook later. the sticker-fied (yes, i put stickers on basically all of my possessions) is for brainstorming and note-taking for my homebrew campaign, because nothing is quite as inspiring as a weekend of getting tormented by other GMs.

book. for downtime/between sessions. the nice thing about tabletop cons is that there's always a chair somewhere.

and that's basically it! i might swap a couple things out if i'm running as a GM, but as a player this is my go-to.

and if you're looking at this and going, "where are the rulebooks?" the answer is i usually don't bring them with me in a physical format when i'm traveling. for PF2, i have access to all the PDFs, but Archives of Nethys and PF2 Easy are both fantastic (and FREE) digital rules references. i prefer Easy for searching items and spells, but AoN is an unparalleled rules resource, and they work directly with paizo to update the rules with each errata release. it has every rule, item, spell, creature, and character option from every book, with no paywalls or ads. the only thing you can't get are official maps or encounter blocks from the adventure paths. check it out if you're interested in playing!

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

The Big OSR Post

What better way to close out the blog's first month but with a huge repository of fun OSR games? I'm not personally a huge fan, but I understand this is a genre people really enjoy, so as a compromise, I'll do every OSR submitted in a masterpost. I understand this is probably a pretty controversial move, but I simply think the genre's too similar to each other, I might be wrong but that's just the vibe I get! I'm sure there's some very fun and creative OSRs out there, they're just not made for me. I'll keep myself from sharing my thoughts on the genre for now, but rest assure these are cool games recommended by people who actually enjoy the genre!

Well, except this one:

Trespasser is really good. It's a mix of the Combat of 4e, with the dungeon crawling, character creation, and general vibe of OSR, it's a really good time, and its a high recommend from me personally Now on to the list of games actually by people who care about OSR:

This one's a very very popular one, Mausritter is based on stuff like Redwall, and it's chock full of incredibly high quality fanmade content, if you want an OSR where you play as a little rat, check this one out

This one's pretty interesting, I was debating giving it its own post because it just breaks so many OSR conventions but it calls itself an OSR, so in here it goes ig. Fist is a game that takes the narrative first approach of a PBTA game, but combines it with lightning speed disposable character creation, to truly give you the experience of being an expendable mercenary going against unfathomable odds. This game's pretty fun, I'd check it out even if you're not into the OSR genre

this one's pretty popular, Electric Bastionland is a simple OSR that focuses on exploring a huge underground city, its very rules lite so you can usually get up and running with it pretty quick so go check it out if you want a simpler game

https://punkpadour.itch.io/yokai-hunter

Yokai Hunter's Society, its a good rules light game, a recommend if you want to hunt weird folkloric monsters

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/399483/Into-the-Odd--Remastered

This one's not on itch so sorry if you're allergic to non-itch.io websites

it's set in an underground society where one explores to find treasure. its a good fun time for all involved

look the tone isn't because i dislike these games, its because i wrote this entire post once and then tumblr glitched and made me lose all of it

https://emielboven.itch.io/tea-01

the setting's really fun, and the rules are lite, it's a good time. The setting is specifically based on Morrowind, Dark Sun, and other weird fiction.

https://graculusdroog.itch.io/vaults-of-vaarn

Vaults of Vaarn is a psychodelic ttrpg set in a postapocalyptic earth, its weird, fun, and also i believe its like entirely hand drawn which really adds to the aesthetic

https://tuesdayknightgames.itch.io/mothership-players-survival-guide

Mothership is a space horror OSR, its a biiiit more complex than the other ones, but its also got a shit ton of fan resources, and its also pretty basic in its character creation to make up for it

https://diogo-old-skull.itch.io/primal-quest-essentials

I got this one in a bundle actually

While the rules weren't for me, I think the setting is really cool, stone age fantasy is just really underrated as a concept, we need more of it!

We Deal in Lead is a weird west ttrpg, so if you're into that aesthetic, go check it out. its focused on exploration and player choice, and it can also be played with only one or two players

Beetle Knight is cool, its set in a tiny world where bugs are an organized society, think hollow knight, it's not out just yet, but its something to keep an eye on

OK I've actually PLAYED this one, so I can have an opinion on it: the WIthout Number series isn't great. BUT, there's a few rules which are ridiculously fun and well designed, so I honestly think this is a YMMV franchise. the biggest issue is how the rolling for HP works, if you can fix that, they're perfectly acceptable OSR games

Songbirds 3e is a surrealist game about being chosen (Or cursed) by death to help spirits passing on, when spirits are left stuck on earth they grow more and more monstrous every day, and its YOUR job to stop them from growing into a problem, no pressure. https://davidblandy.itch.io/lost-eons

Lost Eons is neat, its a game set in a solarpunk post apocalypse where magic's all around and actively mutating everyone around. It's got a cool post human look at the world, fairly simple yet fun rules, weird and interesting spellcasting rules, and more!

Knave is a streamlined classless OSR game, i heard a lot about this one and from what I can read its actually a really fun time, so check it out https://yochaigal.itch.io/cairn

(these last two go together since they're both Knave derivatives just with different settings and some more interesting mechanics) https://killjestergames.itch.io/errant this game was pitched to me as "Maximalist second only to literally just D&D 1e hacks", so thats about as much of a pitch most people really need. It actually looks pretty interesting

https://gormengeist.itch.io/greed

GREED or: Oil for the Blood God! It's an intensely surreal game by @gormengeist, its from what I can tell a sort of deconstruction of the OSR genre of game, so definitely a bit more on the niche side, but its fairly interesting and well designed

[whitherwanderer]

.

I have so many fun and ultimately pointless projects right now and I’m excited about all of them but my concentration is Bad! It’s nice to be exciting about things! But it’s also bringing up a lot of anxieties!

I’ve got this custom xaela tribe that me and S&S have been writing since 2019 and I’m slowly throwing more and more information into it as a little worldbuilding exercise. But I’m terrified that people will try to claim it as their own or point out the obvious not-totally-real-world-accurate elements just for the cheap critic shots and I don’t really feel like I can entertain someone trying to give me advice I didn’t ask for.

There’s a Shroud-based horror anthology that’s been living in my head since early this year that I’ve considered fleshing out more and more but I lack the finesse for horror and frankly Shroud RPers can be defensive and I don’t really want to respond to unsolicited criticism about a project that doesn’t really involve anyone else.

There’s the Ala Mhigan V&C dungeon thing I’ve been working on recently too and I’m continuing to poke at it, but frankly I have no idea what to DO with it beyond making it a quick and silly carrd-based choose-your-own-adventure game that also tells a bit of Sif’s story but ??? Would anyone even play that knowing it featured my dumbass OC as the non-combat escort character? Will people be disappointed or mad if I can’t include every Ala Mhigan thing/person/place they want to see or choices they want to make? I mean it’s a CYOA, not a TTRPG campaign, but people sometimes have that “i want to seduce the door” mentality about stuff and you just want to shake them and be like. You’re missing the point.

Also there’s the fact that a carrd based CYOA based on an XIV game mode does not play to strengths of either medium and I would have to accept that either it’s going to be far different from the V&C dungeon structure and therefore more writing-heavy (and therefore more work) since there can’t really be combat, OR some of the choices will be lacking in depth because there’s no combat for choices to have an impact.

AHHHH I am so excited about all of these projects and I would love to DO something with any of them but I always get caught in the same “what will other people think/do and why are my assumptions always that I am going to be tarred, feathered, and dragged through town for the smallest sin” and it is so FRUSTRATING.

Edit: There’s also a five-year show I want to put on with nearly every song I’ve written for Sif since I started writing songs in 2018 but… jfc, do people even want to see that? Is that pretentious? Are people only encouraging me because they want to but they don’t actually care if I do it or not?? I mean, it’s not really a show if there’s no audience…