#systemless rpg

[1-50thofabuck]

I've backed a number of Reed's projects, and these are particularly wonderful. That art is fantastic!

Deck of Old-School Encounters Set Two, OSR Fantasy RPG Cards by Philip Reed — Kickstarter

[stonegearstudios]

Well, managed to release my second rpg supplement today, a systemless micro adventure about a misplaced crate of guns!

It's a two page (or one double sided) thing with several random roll table to help you generate a space station, a interesting piece of loot, and a minor antagonist to dog your PCs!

Get it here https://mb11.itch.io/a-crate-misplaced or on DTRPG in a few days when it clears

Little bit of art by WeirdBlueYonder

[mishahandman]

Bundle of Bundles Sale!

Or: Things you never want an appliance installer to say: "There's no water shutoff for your dishwasher."

So, we got a new dishwasher this month. This is good! The old one was dying fast, and the new one is much better. Except that, as you may have guessed from the subtitle, we had a few... unexpected plumbing costs attached to it.

But every problem is an opportunity, and in the spirit of getting rid of older things, I've decided to put up a bundle of all of my older RPG works on Itch for sale this week to try to make up a chunk of the extra costs. If you've grabbed one or two of my works and liked them, or if you're just curious, this is a great chance to get fifteen games of varying quality and scope, including:

All I Do Is Win

The Federation of Birds (A Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast adventure)

The Gig Economy

God of Chores

Help! We All Died and Were Reincarnated Into An Early-Access Isekai World!

J'Accuse!

Lambs to the Slaughter

My Identical Cousin

Our Doomed Hometown

Our Old Curiousity Shop

Phantom Agencies

The Real Treasure Was The Friends We Made Along The Way

The Realm of Reason (A Systemless Setting)

Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

The Squintches Steal Christmas

Some of these games are highly exclusive, by which I mean that I'm pretty sure no one has ever actually played them. Some of them are, in my totally unbiased opinion, adorable. Run a Christmas heist from those nasty Whoms! Deal with low-level bureaucracy while you try to hunt ghosts for demanding clients! Play the NPCs of a small village trying desperately to become important enough to the hero's narrative that you will survive the inevitable destruction of your village! There are so many options!

So go and take a look, and if you like what you see, it's the perfect time for a purchase.

[cugzarui]

tried to kill a bit of time by doing a systemless rpg for my friends. please tell me, how do you keep players on track? shit didn't just go from zero to a hundred it started at 100 and went to 1000. i had to use literal divine intervention and even that didn't really work. the game ended after one of the players spontaneously combusted

[bear-of-the-moon]

So, what about The Book of the Kiss?

Well, for many years I've had it i my mind to go ahead and really work on incorporating romantic storylines into fantasy games.

I know "The Blue Rose" was supposed to also have romance in it, but I did not want to have to use their setting and their mechanics. I'd rather use the mechanics of whatever game I am enjoying and have a supplement that works with that.

So I went "systemless" or "system-agnostic."

The first real design challenge is to provide a framework for people to agree what part of Romance has a place in their game, if any. I gave people a nice little sliding scale to use, so they can all talk about what can be expected. This included whether or not romance could even be a topic at the table for *non-player-characters* which seems a bit mean to me but you get it the way you want it!

Then I spent a little time creating the Heart Signes. I wanted to give players a chance to make some decisions as to how their character goes about romance, and would prefer for it *not* to be linked to their character species, class, or (ugh) their alignment. I wanted it to be flexible enough to allow people to change their Signe, so making it astrology-like didn't work for me.

In the end I just decided to make a part of the in-world fiction. The Signes were just "kind of hearts we have experienced in the past." That enabled me to add more Signes later if I find that to be useful, and made sure a Signe is not a lifetime label.

The Signes have emotional, romantic, and mental health aspects to them because I soon realized that part of romance is the mental health of the people who are in love with each other. I tried very hard to be inclusive here, so none of the Hearts talk about gender or gender preference.

Then I described a system by which you can flirt/interact with others. This is called the Regard system, and it allows you to offer someone else the benefit of your Regard. What this does is ride along with the roleplay instead of replacing it. Having a player say, "I'd like to give him my Regard" or "I think I will offer an Amorous Regard to her." is a strong statement of how they truly feel. You get Vivae tokens to spend on these Regards so you don't get out of hand giving everyone a Regard.

This allowed me to figure out systems to simulate the magical bond two people who are in love seem to share, which did my sentimental heart good. I would welcome questions in this space getting deeper into the sourcebook. If you are interested in purchasing this sourcebook, you can do so at half price if you are one of my Tumblr readers at this link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?discount=9f34c7711c

[rpggeeknation]

The Metamorphica

There is a systemless supplement called The Metamorphica (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/115703/The-Metamorphica-Classic-Edition). It is great. I love it. Full of random tables for mutations such mental, physical, psionic, supernatural, etc. mutations as well as descriptions of them. There are sections on using mutations for different genres and there are even a collection of different mutated NPCs and monsters. 

In the Planescape 5e campaign I DM we have a character who recently got trapped in Limbo and now he has a very short temper (Behavioral Mutation) and the ability to duplicate (like Multiple Man but limited to one copy). It gives him a boost in power but it is thematic and a lot of fun. There is also risk involved. Does he sacrifice his duplicate so his party can escape, or does he save it for later and risk his party’s safety and survival.

I have an idea to run an X-Men Campaign where everyone randomly generates their Mutant using the random tables to create their characters. The idea being the Mutants in X-Men didn’t get to choose their Mutations, unless you count Mister Sinister  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, so neither will the players. I think it could be fun.

But you could use The Metamorphica to create (and even play) Post Apocalyptic Irradiated Wastelanders, Chaos Warped Demonic Abominations, Body Horror Experimentation Victims, Super Soldiers, Superheroes, Bizarre Alien Lifeforms, Formless Dream Entities, Eldritch Monstrosities, or beings trapped in Limbo.

Mutations range from Anthropomorphic Animal to Hunchback, from Double Jointed to Diabetic, from Genetic Memory to Dyslexia, from Magnetic Control to Cause Insanity, from Animated Tattoos to Cannot Cross Running Water, and so many more.

There is so much you can do with this product. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. This review is not sponsored, I did not receive money from them or anyone else to review this. I simply gotta spread the love of an awesome product. 5 out of 5 stars. 

The Metamorphica:  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/115703/The-Metamorphica-Classic-Edition

[thedude3445]

Read Systemless Vol. 1 (Amazon/KU link here), releasing today!

Featuring:

A hilarious, queer-positive, reverse-isekai LitRPG.

Card-based RPG mechanics being abused and min-maxed.

Gorging yourself on snack foods at an anime convention.

Underground fighting circuits.

Karen.

Married lesbian wives.

A slow-burn gay romance that eventually ends in heartwarming triumph.

Vicious satire of Isekai and LitRPG tropes.

Bear wrestling.

Multiversal temporal desychronization causing cosmic chaos.

A bizarre number of references to CATS (dir. Hooper, 2019).

Plot twists so massive you'll be dropping your damn jaw to the floor.

...And more!

It faces long odds to success, so it needs all the support it can get. If you want to make sure that LGBTQ+ indie fantasy can still triumph in 2023, then please read and fall in love with Systemless Vol. 1 today!

[vintagerpg]

When Reach of the Roach God, a large hardcover installment in the Thousand Thousand Islands line, arrived at my house a couple weeks ago, I was bowled over. I had to write about it right away for y’all. This is easily one of the best RPG books of the decade. An instant classic.

Like the ATTI zines, Reach is still systemless, but it has a lot more RPG framework built in. There’s a clear string of adventures, a narrative arc, a section that feels like a sourcebook. I could run a game out of the zine material, but I feel much more supported in that effort here. The structure helps and guides, but the book retains the freedom that comes with system neutrality.

This is a high water mark for the series and, I think, for systemless campaign material in general. It is soooo good, folks. Odoyoq, the roach god, senses new ways it can insinuate itself into the lives of non-roach kind (in temperament, the roaches remind me a lot of the Skaven from WFRP). These three schemes are presented as collections of facts — about the setting, about the people living there and their motivations, about the desires of the god and the machinations of its agents. These facts are static until the players quicken them, at which point the causes and effects that occur in their wake are clear (which, don’t mistake this for a statement of simplicity — there is great complexity here, and philosophical nuance, even if the tools are easy to use). Events will quickly throw a small village, a monastery and a necropolis into chaos. Two gazetteers and a sourcebook on the roaches follow, giving the GM ample material to expand the campaign.

I haven’t even mentioned Munkao’s fantastically disgusting artwork. His vistas and cultural portraits are gorgeous as always, but when he brings his talents to bear on feelers and chitin and filth, the results are revolting in the best possible way. OH! And there is a whole system for making cave systems that is every bit as brilliant (and a good deal easier) than Veins of the Earth. Buy this book when you can, you won’t be disappointed!

[prokopetz]

Hey! I love your tabletop recommendations and am constantly impressed by your knowledge of them. I'm wondering if you can help me find a new ttrpg system. I'm looking for a tabletop rpg that focuses on modern magic. I'm partial to d20 systems but I'm not too picky. Thanks! Hope that's enough info.

Depends – can you elaborate on what you mean by “modern magic”? Do you just mean a game that has D&D-style wizards in a contemporary milieu, or something else?

(I ask because there are a lot of ways you can go with it. Take City of Mist, for example, an investigative procedural game featuring film noir style protagonists who are slowly transforming into mythic archetypes, effectively functioning as street-level superheroes with fantastical or folkloric themes. Or consider, say, Unknown Armies, a game about post-modern occultism where very low-rent player characters get tangled up in very high-stakes capers – the game has somewhat uncharitably been described as “Cosmic Bumfights: The RPG” – and your skill ratings are directly based on your exposure to various psychological traumas. On the mutant third hand, if you’re all about 1990s urban fantasy, you may get more use out of Powerchords, a semi-systemless sourcebook that describes a setting in which magic derives from the power of rock and roll – or maybe you’re more into 1980s urban fantasy, Mercedes Lackey style, in which case WitchCraft might be more your speed. Pick a direction!)

[kayawagner]

Hearts in Glorantha 6

Publisher: D101 Games

The long-awaited return of this Glorathan Fanzine, featuring 48 pages of Myths, Interviews, Articles, and Scenarios (systemless, HeroQuest and for RuneQuest 2) in softcover A4 format.

This issue:

The Awakening is a system-less adventure by Scott Crowder, in which the adventurers find themselves in a dream of the Brown Dragon of Dragon Pass. They get to experience first hand some of the dramatic events of the Dragonkill War and work towards the reconciliation of Dragons with the Orlanthi.

God Forgot, by Barry Blatt, gives setting information about these islands in Holy Country. It’s weird and odd, and none too comfortable. Go on, read the bit about the rather unsettling way the islanders use their ruler’s slightest movement as indications of his wishes. This piece reminds me how Glorantha gets wonderfully weird, yet has its own logic based on mythology and magic.

Light and Death. In this HeroQuest adventure, Neil Smith takes us into the murky world of mystic illumination and bridge building in the Lunar Empire.

Memories of RuneQuest 2. I never thought I’d see the day that RQ2 was re-published by Chaosium, but it’s here. In this article old hands shamelessly reminisce about the first Gloranthan RPG.

Ian Cooper Interview. A Q&A with HeroQuest’s Line Editor which goes into his early work with Issaries and The Unspoken Word, as well as his current role and the recently released Red Cow books: The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights.

Why the Story is the Best is a whimsical yet poignant telling of an Orlanthi Myth by long time HiG contributor Stuart Mousir-Harrison.

The Lightbringers’ Quest is an introductory HeroQuest adventure by Matt Ryan designed to be run in one session with players unfamiliar with Glorantha and/or HeroQuest. And what a scenario it is, putting the players right in the centre of one of the major myths of Glorantha.

Duck Hill is my short old-school adventure for RuneQuest Classic. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s got ducks in it.

Scattered throughout the magazine in pull out boxes are short scenario seeds written by me to inspire more weird and wonderful Gloranthan adventuring.

Price: $7.00 Hearts in Glorantha 6 published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[1-50thofabuck]

Card Crypt, A Storage Box for RPG Card Decks by Philip Reed — Kickstarter

I already bought deck 3 of the Old School Encounters about a month ago. Didn't take me long. I did it because I bought a couple of card holders and one looked like the third deck would just about fill it perfectly. I took pictures and was going to talk about it but haven't been up to it. I'll get to it, along with the other things I've promised. Finalizing a map for the upcoming module - maybe I'll post it when finished. I made it myself so it's not going to look great, but I never claimed to be a visual artist. (The module will be free so you get what you pay for, you know?)

Anyway, the Card Crypt looks awesome, and there are upgrades offered, including one with all three of the Old School Encounter decks(I called it didn't I!). That one is only $85, which is a good deal.

I went for the one with the deck of systemless dungeon encounters for $40.

The $60 one with dungeon generation cards would be good if I needed something like that but I have quite a number of resources for that kind of thing. Maybe I'll write an article at some point about one of them that I've used almost my entire life.

For $85 you get the one with the three OSR encounter decks, and for $142 you get the lot. Which is also a great deal if you don't have any of the decks and can use all of them.

[stonegearstudios]

Ok, so I suck at actually finishing anything

That's probably not news to anything, I've got around a dozen rpg projects in the works, innumerable novels, and stranger yet things, and none of them have gotten past the early production stages.

So, what the hell can I do about it?

Start something new of course! :V

Introducing TROUBLE SPOTS

I am going to try to make at least a single, one to two double sided page TTRPG supplement per month, to get in the swing of actually finishing things. They will probably generally be systemless, leaning more towards broader genre's.

For example, I've started work on the first one

A Crate, Misplaced

This Trouble Spot can be placed into any space game where the PCs spend some time docked at a space station. They will discover that the stations automated cargo services has mistakenly placed a crate in their hold, and that the original owner desperately want's it back. Will include tables for things such as a random space station quirk to what the Smuggler might try to do to get their product back, as well as a character card for this minor antagonist who can serve as a one off, or reoccurring character.

I think figuring out how to lay this all out will be the biggest challenge for me, I'm not inclined to the visual arts but I don't think I could stand to release something that didn't at least look clean, if simple.

Let's see if I can keep myself to this project.

[scribeofinfinite-blog]

World of Riket

Riket is the planet of the Slumbering Realm setting, A world once ruled by powerful god-like dragons, now freed by powerful heroes who discovered the means to become god like themselves. The descriptions that will be posted assume that these New gods have been the primary pantheon of 1500 years.

[thedude3445]

Let's Read Systemless

Here's Reborn on a Systemless Earth... With a System!

It's my 1100+ page trilogy that's just about to finish. Read it all for free, and preorder Volume 1 before it releases on Kindle Unlimited on June 18th!

This comedy fantasy reverse isekai story features the following:

Cultural differences leading to many shenanigans.

Card game-based RPG superpowers.

Perpetually annoyed lesbian wives.

Underground wrestling arenas with Pretty Cure expys.

Multiversal temporal desychronization causing cosmic chaos.

Bizarre numbers of references to CATS (dir. Hooper, 2019).

Anarcho-monarchist surf pirates.

Using Minecraft to cheat at real life.

Ridiculously convoluted hidden origin stories.

Beavers.

A very slow-burning BL subplot that eventually ends with heartwarming triumph.

President Joe Biden with a plan to use RPG powers to solve climate change.

Plot twists so massive you'll be dropping your damn jaw to the floor.

Hot guys with pink hair.

I've been posting the story for over 3 years, and I think you'll really enjoy the insanity to come. It started as a parody of isekai stories by sending an idiot fantasy guy to modern-day America, but it became so, so much more over its 250-chapter run.

The story will post its final chapter in June, and then it'll be published on Kindle Unlimited.

Read it for free now, and also preorder Volume 1 so I can become rich and successful and self-finance the rest of that one Squiddles fan adventure!

[kayawagner]

Hearts in Glorantha 6

Publisher: D101 Games

The long-awaited return of this Glorathan Fanzine, featuring 48 pages of Myths, Interviews, Articles, and Scenarios (systemless, HeroQuest and for RuneQuest 2) in softcover A4 format.

This issue:

The Awakening is a system-less adventure by Scott Crowder, in which the adventurers find themselves in a dream of the Brown Dragon of Dragon Pass. They get to experience first hand some of the dramatic events of the Dragonkill War and work towards the reconciliation of Dragons with the Orlanthi.

God Forgot, by Barry Blatt, gives setting information about these islands in Holy Country. It’s weird and odd, and none too comfortable. Go on, read the bit about the rather unsettling way the islanders use their ruler’s slightest movement as indications of his wishes. This piece reminds me how Glorantha gets wonderfully weird, yet has its own logic based on mythology and magic.

Light and Death. In this HeroQuest adventure, Neil Smith takes us into the murky world of mystic illumination and bridge building in the Lunar Empire.

Memories of RuneQuest 2. I never thought I’d see the day that RQ2 was re-published by Chaosium, but it’s here. In this article old hands shamelessly reminisce about the first Gloranthan RPG.

Ian Cooper Interview. A Q&A with HeroQuest’s Line Editor which goes into his early work with Issaries and The Unspoken Word, as well as his current role and the recently released Red Cow books: The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights.

Why the Story is the Best is a whimsical yet poignant telling of an Orlanthi Myth by long time HiG contributor Stuart Mousir-Harrison.

The Lightbringers’ Quest is an introductory HeroQuest adventure by Matt Ryan designed to be run in one session with players unfamiliar with Glorantha and/or HeroQuest. And what a scenario it is, putting the players right in the centre of one of the major myths of Glorantha.

Duck Hill is my short old-school adventure for RuneQuest Classic. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s got ducks in it.

Scattered throughout the magazine in pull out boxes are short scenario seeds written by me to inspire more weird and wonderful Gloranthan adventuring.

Price: $7.00 Hearts in Glorantha 6 published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[kayawagner]

Graban Drop Village 3: Junction

Publisher: Gethsemane Games

Have you ever been halfway through a campaign and had to take an enforced break as your players decided to take a detour into a village that's just a name on a map in your adventure?

Well, no more trying to think up and map an entire village – we have designed Graban Drop Villages with exactly this situation in mind!

Simply grab one of our range of villages, drag it over, and drop it into your campaign notes! A ready-made village, with buildings, NPCs and even scenario ideas, all ready to be used. Just bolt on your gaming system, stat anyone you think might need it, and you're ready to go.

The Graban Drop Villages range is system neutral, designed to be used with whatever rules system you use.

Junctionis the third in our Graban Drop series and depicts a small town that has grown up around a key junction of two major roads.  The town began as an inn but over the years other businesses that serve the many travellers on the road grew up around it, followed by a small community that is mostly self-sufficient.

Sometimes considered godless by the more devout communities of the region, Junction has no dedicated place of worship of its own but they certainly know how to throw a party!  With live music, dancing and storytelling at the Crown and Cross Swords most nights.  Still, it is far from the haven of debauchery some would have you believe, rather it is a surprising source of culture from a world-class cheese to a renowned regional poet and sporting one of the more highly trained volunteer militias.  Junction has its own customs and traditions as well as being a great place to learn about the potential for adventure for miles around. Mysterious hatches in farmers' fields, strange stone carvings that no one has deciphered and one or two dark secrets of its own, whether you are a merchant or an adventurer sooner or later you will find yourself up the Junction.

This product includes a coloured map of the village, an extensive Key, dozens of colourful characters, rumours, news, adventure ideas and a wealth of information on life in and around the village.  Just download it, read the text and drop it into your campaign.  The systemless supplement can be used with any RPG.

Price: $2.50 Graban Drop Village 3: Junction published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com