#ttrpg homebrew

[cloaksandcapes]

Look at this little fella! They're cursed and sad and needs a good home.

Reblog so a GM see's them and puts 'em in their campaign so their players can love 'em despite their flaws.

Forlorn Owlbear Plushie of Power

Wondrous Item, rare, cursed (requires attunement)

“A stuffed plush of the majestic creature known as the Owlbear. Unlike other plushies of power, the feathers of this one are old, stained. One of the button eyes is missing and you can tell its had to be restitched in a few spots and is missing some of its stuffing. It gives the plushie a forlorn, pitiful look. Like whoever had it before, didn’t love it.”

This plushie of power is a wool-stuffed recreation of an owlbear, big enough to cuddle and hold in your arms. If you use an action to speak the command word and throw the plushie to a point on the ground within 60 feet of you, the plushie becomes a living creature. If the space where the creature would appear is occupied by other creatures or objects, or if there isn't enough space for the creature, the plushie doesn't become a creature.

The creature is friendly to you and your allies. It understands your languages and obeys your spoken commands. If you issue no commands, the creature defends itself but takes no other actions.

Owlbear. This plushie is of an Owlbear. It can become an owlbear for up to 6 hours. Once it has been used, it can't be used again until 3 days have passed. At the end of the duration, the owlbear reverts to its plushie form. It reverts to a plushie early if it drops to 0 hit points or if you use an action to speak the command word again while touching it.

Rage Everlasting. While attuned to this magic plushie if your hit point total drops below half, you enter into a rage. While raging you received a +3 bonus to weapon attack and damage rolls. You are resistant to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. This rage lasts for 1 minute. Once this property has been used you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

Cursed Plushie of Pity. Whenever you finish a long rest there is a 10% chance this magic plushie will transform itself into an owlbear and attack the closest creature. It will not stop unless it is reduced to 0 hit points at which time it transforms back into a plushie.

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[sprintingowl]

This Discord Has Ghosts In It

It doesn't get talked about enough, but This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a rad example of how you can adapt game design to your surroundings.

Basically, This Discord Has Ghosts In It is a digital larp. It's Phasmophobia played by chat. Your group creates a discord server to function as a haunted house, then you all explore it, building new 'rooms' out of channels as you go.

Some players take the roles of ghosts, and are muted but can affect the environment in the haunted house.

Other players take the roles of explorers, and can talk, but the ghosts are all listening.

Discord wasn't built to be gamified this way, but that doesn't matter.

As long as you can guarantee consistent behavior from a thing, you can build mechanics off of it.

Anything in your environment can be turned into a game.

And in this particular case, it's a really good one!

The mechanics lend themselves well to the kinds of pacing, limited communication, and untrustworthy setting that any good ghost story needs.

[alexboakeillo]

I feel like you’re just as likely to get this from your Wizard boyfriend as from your Wizard arch rival! The Valentine’s Day Heart Giftbox Mimic. Looks indistinguishable from a regular cheesy chocolate box. That is, until you open it and the Assorted Chocolate Mimic Bugs scatter and it CHOMPS down on your hand. You thought you’d be munching on chocolate and now some creature is crunching on you!!

Something of a symbiotic relationship, the Giftbox Mimic provides protection to the Chocolate Bugs and the Bugs lure in the Gift Box Mimic’s prey. It’s a match made in heaven! Like strawberry and chocolate. 🍫🍓✨

[zhjake]

An illustration for another one of my groups Lancer campaigns, Under the Monolith

[randomtable]

“Do I Know Someone Who Can Help Us With ____?” (2d6)

2. No; the person you thought could help refuses and adds another complication to the situation. (Example complications: they demand payment for a past debt, they are with someone you wanted to avoid, or they call the authorities regarding your illegal activities.) 3. The person you know who could help has gone missing, you’d have to find them first. 4. Yes, but they demand a steeper price than you would expect. Furthermore, if you refuse they will be offended. 5. Yes, but things are awkward between you. The price they ask will be generous, but only after an uncomfortable conversation. 6. Yes, but the help they can offer is sub-par, or only half of what you need. 7. Yes, but they need you to do a small favor for them right now before they help you. 8. Yes, but you’ll owe them one. Could be a future favor they call on, or a cut of whatever money you’re after, or something else. 9. Yes; they’ll give you a good price but it’s not free. 10. Yes, but they don’t seem too happy about it - you’ll have to look for help somewhere else next time. 11. Yes, there’s someone who owes you one and you can cash in that favor. 12. Yes, and that person also gives you an unrelated piece of helpful information.

[triskaideka-13]

Here comes a FREE 50-page custom scenario booklet for BRP / Cthulhu TTRPG based on the lore of #fallen london, a.k.a. your latest unofficial guide to the (be)Neath. A couple of things to keep in mind:

Just so you know, the scenario hasn't gone through the whole playtesting rigmarole yet.

English isn't my first language, so bear with me if you spot a few quirks here and there.

While I've had a blast with Sunless Sea and MoTR, I had to dive into Fallen London wikias to fill in the lore gaps.

The artwork belongs to @failbettergames, except for a handful of images conjured up by Midjourney AI: page 3 (every single one), pages 9-11 (all the portraits), pages 12-17 (yep, all of them), and page 18 (featuring Chelonites, Shroomers, Blemmigans), oh, and also page 35.

The map of London on pages 4-5 has been spiced up with extra spots that may come in handy during a game session!

Having said all that, I'm super open to any cool ideas you might have to make this even better.

You can give it a whirl online on the Homebrewery right now (works best with Chrome).

But if you prefer the Google Docs route, I've also got you covered!

Oh, and there's more! I've started cooking up a complete campaign "Keeper's Guide" to go hand in hand with this booklet. Winter will be the time when we kick off play-testing for that one. So, if you're game, it might be around a year before I can dish it out, along with any tweaks to the custom rules to keep things balanced. Yeah, I know, time flies when you're having fun, right? Cheers to the adventures ahead!

[ydteus]

Dark souls dnd?

[jazz-dude]

Crab meat from Eridian B is a staple in every spacers kitchen. Not technically crab, it is the meat from a purpose bread giant scorpion, whose lineage goes back to the ones on cradle. IPS-N ships them in vacuum sealed containers that have parts in common with some of their flagship mechs.

[xavierck]

Even though most people live in caves and bunkers now, agriculture never went away.

[clambatch]

HIIIII I CAN POST ABOUT THIS HOTTIE NOW

meet kai (he/they), archfey of the court of craft and autry's boss who he has a less than professional work relationship with 🫳👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

they married into the court of archfey and are a part of an ancient civilization said court killed off when they rose to power?? very interesting i would LOVE to know what that's all about

they were thought up by the lovely @tendertieflings , ty for being gay with me in secret for a whole year

this is how i've been waiting for him to get introduced in game btw (AND THEYRE NOT EVEN ACTUALLY HERE YET I MISS HIM EVERY DAY IM SO SORRY U THINK AUTRY IS DEAD BBG)

[cloaksandcapes]

I absolutely LOVE this magic item idea. Courtesy of one of my Discord members. They give me ideas every single day! Please join if you're looking for a nice community of TTRPG-centric folks! :) Tell me about a location in your world you'd want to put into this book!

If you enjoy our magic items, please drop a like, follow and reblog! :) We drop new items every day and you can find all 328 (and growing) at the link in the picture.

[sprintingowl]

What Non DnD TTRPGs Feel Like

Okay, quick thread about what playing different non DnD ttrpgs feels like.

--

Pathfinder

This is DnD. It feels like DnD. It's like going to a slightly different church. Some of the words used during the service are different, but at the end of it the pulpit turns out to be a mimic and you cast Entangle and summon your direwolf.

--

Fate

This is Rule Of Cool with additional rules. The GM has powers to one-up you or lead you into temptation, but you have powers to one-up the GM, and all these powers use the same kind of token that you ultimately shuffle back and forth.

--

Savage Worlds

Handwave-style DnD (positive connotation.)

The GM has a lot of freedom to pick genre and setting, and the gameplay is sleeker, rule-of-cool-ier without losing meaningful combat or character building.

--

Call Of Cthulhu

You may not be an old librarian, but you sure are built like one. Most acts of violence can flatten you in a couple of hits, but violence doesn't happen often. It's the punctuation mark at the end of a long sentence. Atmosphere and pacing rule over this land.

--

World Of Darkness

This is a game about getting deep into your character's headspace. It's about figuring out who they are and roleplaying them passionately. Your backstory choices and powers have a huge affect on how you interact with the world around you.

--

Warhammer Fantasy / Dark Heresy

You are Scrumbles McGrumbles, a walking heap of morbidity and washed-up soldiering. You are trying to find your place in a world that's having an even worse day than you are. Your best friend is a ratcatcher. Together you will be heroes.

--

OSR (Mork Borg, Mausritter, Into The Odd, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Labyrinth Lord, Cairn, tons more)

DnD boiled down to two components: GMing + Making A Guy. GMing is made as easy as possible and PCs are somewhat disposable, so the story is the hijinks you get into together.

--

Powered By The Apocalypse (Masks, Nahual, Monsterhearts, Pasion De Las Pasiones, tons more)

The goal is to get into trouble and stir up drama. Succeeding on a roll with no consequences is rare, but when you fail you fail forward into even bigger, messier drama.

--

Blades In The Dark

You go on missions and then return to your base. The missions are about choices as much as about rolls, and you build your base together to make yourselves more powerful as a squad.

--

Trophy

Your goal is to lose. Specifically, it's to lose in a dramatic and harrowing fashion that sticks with everyone at the table. Think movies like Annihilation, but as oneshot games.

--

Golden Sky Stories

You like everyone at the table with you. When someone does something adorable, you can award them exp. The highlight of the session is someone getting flustered and/or speaking in a squeaky voice.

--

Ryuutama

You are going on a journey and helping other people along the way. Important choices include packing lunch, wearing appropriate clothing, and completely filling your canteen. Combat is a cozy, pastel color jrpg.

--

The Indie

There are so, so many games that are just completely their own thing, and that I can't squeeze into a single thread. If you discover you like game mechanics and you want to Get Weird with seeing what they can do, there is an entire scene here waiting to welcome you.

--

Stuff I Missed

There's lots of stuff I haven't played, or didn't remember in the moment, or absolutely love but it would take a whole thread to explain why I love it. I will do more game recommendations in the future, but you can also comment systems you like below!

[shadow-of-gehenna]

Introducing the Kalashnikov - The Scrapyard Underdog

The first Kalashnikov dates back to Locksteel’s original uprising, the frame’s initial design - which was penned by Adrian Lock - was based on a subterranean mining frame, capable of enduring the worst the deep crust of the planet could throw at a piece of machinery. It was easy enough to mount weapons to the frame and make some minor improvements to it’s plating to help deal with large scale weapons but as Locksteel continued to expand so too did the Kalashnikov, eventually it became host to an advanced frame that was magnitudes more durable than others in the locksteel catalog. 

Along with its core, the Kalashnikov is equipped with a range of redundancies coupled together with emergency backup systems that activate in cascade to mounting pressure, creating a frame that almost grows stronger or at least faster during longer engagements.

-

The Kalashnikov is like many Locksteel mechs, built for risk and reward, however this frame takes it to the extreme; Thanks to its Underdog, True Grit and Lightweight traits, the more damaged, hindered or even outclassed in size the Kalashnikov is, the harder it fights and the harder to bring down it becomes. With the activation of it’s core power nothing less than complete annihilation can hope to bring this pit-brawler of a mech down. The systems and weapons the Kalashnikov buck the trend of Locksteel systems being useful for most if not all types of pilots; Each system granted by the license is ground up made to support melee-range, bloody-knuckled brawling. With weapons that hit hard and some that are just as indestructible as the frame itself. 

[vforvalensa]

Just got reminded of my homebrew dungeon world setting I never got around to running where the bit was that the whole world was a cosmically massive labyrinthine super structure built by god to imprison the cosmology's satan figure, a literal Dungeon World, and all the monsters and magic and rpg shit were like emanations from the imprisoned satan guy and the shit keeping him locked down.

Any way i think dwarves in this setting would be cosmically radical prison abolitionists who dig cause they're trying to free the devil from hell

[zhjake]

Goliath Lancer NPC mech

[randomtable]

a table of odd magic items that may or may not be useful

“…the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful.” — Dungeon World

1d20 Magical Items of Mild Utility

A doorknob that can be easily affixed to any door by simply holding it on for about thirty seconds. Once affixed, it permanently transforms into an ordinary doorknob and lock, to which you have the key.

The Shaker of Infinite Salt

A pencil that significantly improves the user’s penmanship when writing with it.

An orb containing a very small pocket dimension, into which one can transfer their familiar so that it may safely rest.

A palm-sized stone figurine of a shark, which will bite any fingers that come near its mouth.

Self-Fluffing Pillow

Watch that shows you what time it was the last time you looked at the watch, instead of what time it is now.

Piece of string that, when tied around your finger, actually helps you remember to do that thing.

Temporary Scissors: They can only cut the normal things you’d expect from a pair of scissors, but if you hold the cut pieces together tightly they will magically re-form into a whole, as though they’d never been cut.

Robes that make the wearer an inch or so taller.

Magic Eraser (erases pencil, ink and crayon!)

Hand-sized stone that, when thrown, always lands 5 feet in front of your intended target—whether your aim is perfect or abysmal.

A bucket that transforms any liquid poured into it into seawater.

A bar of soap that temporarily changes the color of anything washed with it. The color is random, and changes each time the bar is used (1d6: 1: Red, 2: Orange, 3: Yellow, 4: Green, 5: Blue, 6: Purple). The color lasts one day.

Goggles of Shrimp-Color Vision

A ring with a single very round stone. When you say the magic word the stone pops out and transforms into a bowling ball. It turns back into a small stone after 2d4 hours and must be manually returned to the ring before it can be used again.

Boots that produce an animal sound of your choice when you jump up and do a jaunty little bell-kick while wearing them.

A small glass bottle that, when filled with water, appears instead to be full of a swirling, shimmering potion.

A quiet trumpet.

A knife that can only cut sandwiches. It is up to the GM’s discretion what does and does not count as a sandwich for this enchantment, but the rules are consistent.