#ttrpg ideas

[catshavenolord]

Tired of not having enough frogs for your adventures?

Wish your frogs were bigger and deadlier?

Friend, I’ve got just the thing for you.

The Frog Supertable comes with:

12 original giant frogs ranging from flying to fire-breathing

3 original froggy magic items

2 tables of flavor to spice up the frogs in your game

Alternate versions for CRACK! and Cairn

Art by @evlynmoreau-blog and @whereischaosprincess

Print copies of the Cairn version are now available

You can pick up the plain text of the table for free or a pamphlet version with art for $2 over on my Itch.io page:

[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. 🍫🍓✨

[tiredkass]

I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, for a TTRPG system where the players are birds in a post-apocalyptic setting. Flying through the ruins of old cities, battling in mid-air using makeshift weapons clasped in your claws, exploring the world that was left behind after humans went extinct and left it to them. I'd have to come up with a pretty good flying combat system, but I haven't put any serious thought into it other than being inspired by the setting and putting some of it in my D&D campaigns. Thought it could be fun. Update: I might actually make this a thing, if I do I'll make a separate blog for it. Stay posted.

[goblincow]

Been thinking about this & putting it into practice when writing The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick for a while: thanks to the ever excellent @babblegumsam (who you are probably already following and if not now is your chance to rectify that) for the final straw that made me write this up today. I truly believe if you have any interest in TTRPGs, play, or design you'll get something out of it, it's a further 5.4 mins read from here on out.

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Play is interaction.

Reading is interaction.

Below I will argue the necessity & usefulness of thinking the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs as (almost) the exact same thing to unlock a wide & deep potential as reader/player/designer.

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Reading & play don't have to be the same thing. But you can't play without reading (in the sense of reading representations, images, ideas, concepts, interactions, etc, not just written text), because then there could be no interaction.

Reading and play can both accurately describe a given act or process. For instance: I read a table or piece of prose in a TTRPG book.

I say this because this is an idea that people struggle with, and while I encourage debate around the concept, we first have to agree on some basic building blocks that I hope I'm able to communicate here. For instance, there exists a potential reality in which tabletop roleplaying games are called tabletop reading games and nothing else about them changes (except for the consequential ability to think of reading in ttrpgs as play, and the potential this tool unlocks), because the prerequisite role for all other roles being played in a role-playing game is that of the reader.

This is true for much more than TTRPGs, but if we simply focus on acknowledging that reading & play in ttrpgs can and often are the same thing, then we are able to make informed design choices on this basis that we otherwise lack the agency to make – and which are nonetheless choices that are being made while we miss the opportunity to observe, read & ultimately interact and/or change and/or play with them.

To not think of the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs in this way is to limit your agency as a designer, reader, player, and ultimately to cause yourself to be unable to synthesise these roles which are deeply inter-related, perhaps more so than they are disparate.

However you define it, Good Design necessitates the application of the right tool for the job. This requires making, maintaining & improving the tools that you have access to. The reader/player relationship is not only one of these, but an integral one that precedes a great many (if not all) of the other tools that you can & do employ as designer/player/reader.

If you allow this tool to remain blunt and imprecise (and especially if you don't acknowledge that it exists and that you use it in every choice you make), what you are doing is making a choice to blunt all of your other tools, even if you aren't aware of it.

This is poor design, poor play, and poor reading,* and I believe that this is true regardless of how you define each of those terms.

*though of course we could - and I think should - argue over the semantics & limitations of my imprecise use of the word "poor" there and the further ideas it smuggles in unacknowledged, but I trust that you will be able to infer what I'm trying to communicate in my use of it and I further hope that by leaving this imprecise application of a tool here in the way that I have used it, it might serve as a good example of the consequences, limitations & potential dangers of applying tools/terms/ideas that might be best described as "too blunt for the job", which is the very thing I'm attempting to highlight & address here.

It would not seem very sensible to choose to limit yourself in this way unless it allowed you access to new tools, which is a choice that you could only make once you are familiar with the central idea I'm presenting here – in other words, if you break the rules without understanding them you are very unlikely to be taking a step forward and much more likely to just be shuffling in place or even stepping backwards.

I hope that this short interaction has unlocked or reinforced your access to a useful tool that will allow you to sharpen your understanding of the play/reading relationship in TTRPGs and in turn refine & maintain your existing tools and your ability to synthesise new ones.

I look forward to discovering with you what new agencies this allows us to unlock, and I hope you take what you have read here and play with it to design new realities that you & I have yet to imagine.

[probablyvampirerpgideas]

Make a Vampire character who just really sucks at hiding the fact that they're a vampire. Like it's really fucking obvious dude, no one is being fooled here, you look like one those feratu.

[untitledworldbuildingblog]

Aftertaste

Aggressive tannins

[whereserpentswalk]

A lot of people think elves have really strict gender roles, which is sort or true. But it's fluid in a way that a lot of humans and other races don't really understand because they don't bother to understand elven biology.

Elves can change their sex over the course of a few months. Their bodies can be their equivalent to male, female, sexless, a combination of both traits, or two more sexes which don't have human equivalents. This process is something almost every elf goes through in their life, some change only very occasionally, others every few years, it really depends on the individual. It's a normal part of elven society that people are diffrent biological sexes over the course of their lives.

Useally they become the sex whose gender roles they want to inhabit at that time. If an elf wants to be part of elven femininity they'll just become biologically female because they can. Of course, some elves break from this, either because they want to break their gender roles for whatever reason, because they have to be a specific sex or gender role for practical reasons at a time in their life, or because they have a disability that prevents them from changing sex (the lack of ability to change sex is inherently considered a disability to elves).

So often elves have a lot of strange interactions with other races over this. Like when freinds of other races become upset at an elf's insistence that they're performing a gender role due to their sex, without the context of elven fluidity. Or when a member of another race is suprised to find an elven freind they hadn't seen in awhile has returned as a diffrent sex and gender. There was quite famously the case of a human noblewoman who fell in love with a male elven archer, and became quite upset years later to find out he had become a woman since they last met, she also seemed quite more upset that the elf still expected them to be in love, as unlike humans elves don't have a concept of monosexuality.

[teratheo]

Thinking intensely about a scene that could happen in Heart: The City Beneath

A deadwalker reaches their absolute peak, they fulfill their zenith beat and receive the power to pick how their character will go.

They pick the one where you can try to kill any concept, place, or being.

But they pick death. They will try to kill death.

When their Death leans over, hissing the words, enticing them. "Go onnn.... pick anything.... you can kill anyyything.." it croaks, as the Deadwalker furrows their brow. They look over their companions with determination.

"You. I pick you."

Death sneers with a choked gurgle, throwing its head back. "Very well then-!" It booms, its body transforming, becoming more and more corporal with each second. The sound of snapping bones fill the landmark they are in, thick, black blood seeping from every crack, every nook and cranny. The lights go out and only Death's eyes, shining but void, hollow, can be seen.

After the fight, Death kneels, broken and almost lifeless, on the ground. The Deadwalker is standing over it with a solemn smirk. They finish it off, closing their eyes.

But their well-expected ending doesn't come with the sound of Death's falling head, now separated from its body. They know they were supposed to die when the spell is finished, but nothing is happening. Did they completely remove death from the world? They smile and laugh, slapping their thigh, holding their belly lest it hurt.

"What now?" They look at the withering body, their mind slowly eroding. They gaze upon it and understand it less and less. They furrow their brow. What happened? Why is this creature not moving? Is it sleeping?

They gaze around and see their friends, their party members. Everyone glances towards the corpse weird, headless creature. The Walker hunches over in pain, holding a hand over their heart. "What's happening?!?" They yell, disoriented and panicking. They look, feverishly, for their companions, but before anyone can do anything, their legs give out. The Walker falls on the ground, next to the headless creature. Blood pools under them, mixed, red and black.

The Deep Apiarist rushes over to their friend, flipping them over. There is a hole in their chest, a heart missing.

"Oh, don't worry, friend, I can fix you up!" They exclaim with a smile, soon extruding, from their own marrow and wax, an artificial heart. They place it in the Walker's chest and seal all the damage.

Everyone waits. And waits, and waits. Yet, the Walker doesn't move, not even a flinch. The blood dries down, but they don't move.

Everyone stays.

"They must be asleep, the fight was really tough!"

"We should let them rest. They will wake up sooner or later."

"Remember to feed them though! And give them a drink, it should get them up on their feet."

So everyone waits. Days pass, but the Walker doesn't move. Worse, their body starts deteriorating! Of course, that is very concerning, so the Deep Apiarist replaces what is lost and damaged with waxen prosthetics, but soon the destruction is too fast. After some time passes, there are only bones clad in frail, torn up clothes.

"I... don't think they will wake up. Their body is gone, so there is nothing left for them to come back. We might meet them again, when their body heals, friends." The Leader of the group, the Hound, finally decides. They move on.

Soon everyone goes back to their normal life. The Heart is a weird place, so soon nobody scratches their head while seeing someone suddenly stop moving and responding.

Most doctors believe it's a new illness, some sort of a coma one enters after having endured too much damage to their body, but no reliable cure has been found. Some witches can reverse it, sure, but then they fall into this inexplicable state as well.

Some idolise this 'coma', saying that a dream of happiness and riches is hidden behind it. They craft intricate cults, all focused on adoring and observing the bodies of those who fall ill in this way.

Life goes on.

[shiftycryptid]

Concept: dungeon meshi ttrpg campaign that is basically just dnd (or _insert fantasy ttrpg system_) but after encounters the party earns 'ingredients' based on whatever they just fought. Then the party goes grocery shopping irl, getting the real-world equivalents of the ingredients and has to make a meal. They can pick up other ingredients too but they have to be justified in-universe. After every meal, the party members have to come to a consensus about how much exp they get based on how good the meal turned out. I'm thinking that the players get to take turns being the DM and making up encounters.

[rook-of-the-woods]

Bird People

in my silly little ttrpg homebrew, there are bird people. Bird. People. Literally every type of bird you can think of you could mix with a person. There are so many opportunities.

things to think about:

The type of bird *will* impact your stealth because some wings are silent and some are really fkn loud. (Fluffy soft wings, like some owls, are silent when flapping. Stiff wings, like vultures, are really really loud when flapping)

You will have some of that birds instincts! Bird of prey? That small monster looken like a snack. Corvid? Shiny things must be stolen, grudges must be kept, faces will be remembered. Homing pigeon? Damn, you’ve got a good innate sense of direction!

Your physical appearance will be affected! Vulture people will have localized alopecia on their heads, Owl people will have those cute little feathered horn things, tropical bird people will have naturally vibrant hair to go with their feathers!

Your wing size will be different based on the type of bird you are, as will how long/far you can fly! Not all birds can fly, so keep that in mind too! Seagull people could probably fly longer than a parakeet person.

[decenthumanart]

Dumb background ideas for ttrpg classes/jobs

A middle aged barbarian that goes into a rage by yelling “LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER!” Bonus points if their name is Barb

A bard that gets their magical powers from the art of memes. Often casts spells like hideous laughter, viscous mockery and confusion

A cleric that stans a famous boy band so hard that they gained magical powers from their devotion. Optional: reflavour their subclass to domain of parasociality

A druid/paladin that has vowed to avenge their childhood best friend, a sewer rat, that was killed by an exterminator

A fighter that actually sucks at fighting and uses dramatic theater stunts that barely even touches the target. It honestly just confuses the enemy more than anything else

A sorcerer that spend all their youth as a gamer only consuming energy drinks. It altered their body permanently and now they have weird magic because of it

A rogue that got super good at sneaking and hiding because they just really love listening to peoples gossip

A character that only became a ranger because they liked how it sounded in fiction. They honestly really suck at it and hate being outside, but they thrive on how 🌱✨aesthetic✨🌱 they feel when they shoot their bow

A person so deeply devoted to their job that they have become a warlock. Their boss isn’t magical though so it’s really weird how that happend?

A wizard who only accidentally learned all their spell while being bored on their job at the magic shop

A character that became a necromancer by complete happenstance as the dark necromancy circle sent an invitation to the wrong address by accident

A character that became a healer after their many chaotic small siblings somehow always managed to hurt themselves and it simply became annoying to heal them without magic after a while…

I wanna see these being played so bad now lol, love these stupid guys

[catshavenolord]

Won’t Someone Think of the d100 Polearms?

Won’t Someone Think of the d100 Polearms? is a free toolkit for crafting unique polearms for use in tabletop roleplaying games. It is system neutral, and it will be up to you to assign stats that make sense for the polearms in your system of choice.

In this toolkit you will find three tables to roll on to create a polearm:

1. A table of 100 blade designs based on historical polearms!

2. A table of 100 special qualities (Angry, Wise, Invisible, Cabbage)!

3. A table of 100 (mostly) decorative shafts!

Now, go forth and fill your games with a bounty of the most useful yet most underappreciated type of weapon ever to grace the pages of our hobby!

[hellyesdoctorquotes]

a dangerous new force, a town in an uproar, and strange things occurring in the evermoors. and all for treasure that may not exist...

much ado about dragons is a short to medium-length adventure set in the forgotten realm's savage frontier for a group of fifth-level characters. role-playing with the theatrical townspeople, exploring through a claustrophobic moor, and combat with all manner of beasts await a willing party....

this adventure contains 2 new creature stat blocks, 1 area map, 3 battle maps, 2 new magic items, and a new random encounter table specifically designed for the blend of shakespeare and the evermores

you should definitely download it (it's pay what you want!) if you like shakespeare, or dragons, or d&d, or basically anything because it's VERY nice and features a large number of shakespeare references that are very fun to find

you can find it here so go download it and have fun!

[agentgrange]

I tried to ask this in the Delta Green Reddit but it was extremely unhelpful! What do you think is the difference gameplay wise between Delta Green 2017 and Fall of Delta Green. Besides being different systems do you think there is a different style of play? What is stopping someone using Gumshoe for a modern day game and 2017 for a game set in 1969? Thanks!

I love this question, I'd actually love to do a full breakdown of these two editions someday the same way AlfaBusa broke down the different editions of World of Darkness. I actually wrote *so much* the first time I got this question my phone died while I was editing it down and I lost all of it. So here's my second attempt. Bare with me:

I prefer GUMSHOE, regardless of time period. A lot of my players though like the classic D100 system. I think that mostly comes down to chance and progression. Classic Delta Green actually rewards you for fucking around and testing fate by granting you one or two percentage points every time you fail a role. I can understand why it feels like it encourages you to take more risks and play outside your characters comfort zone, and unlike GUMSHOEs point spends there's no reason not to try something you're bad at every time. You aren't going to run out of spends, and baring an alien parasite feasting on your brain your skills can only go up. Sure, you might fumble so bad that you blew yourself up with a claymore but... at least it'll be funny, right?

To most people GUMSHOE / Fall of Delta Green is the much more grounded hardboiled version of the two. You aren't a bunch of cowboy murderhobos, you're professional murderers. Your character knows their strengths and weakness, and they're one of the best in the world at what they do. Skills aren't so much how probable a character is to succeed at a task but "what skill does your character use to succeed." They have a tool belt of experience to fall back on, and they really are that good. But while most investigations will never leave your character at zero spends left, I can understand why people don't like the idea that your character can theoretically just run out ideas and use up that tool belt or point progression being something given out by the Handler in between sessions rather than something that can be earned in the moment to moment gameplay. Broadly though, on the surface Fall of Delta Green agents seem much more buttoned up (and, dare I say, flat) than their roudy D100 siblings who act like they just fell ass-over-teakettle into a Mi Go hive. And for some people thats not as fun.

EXCEPT THEY ARE TOTALLY WRONG BECAUSE GUMSHOE CAN BECOME 🤡 CLOWNSHOES 🤡 WITH THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK.

The best addition to Fall of Delta Green is actually Nights Black Agents. Here's four things from Nights Black Agents you can add to FoDG to COMPLETELY change how you play the game, give it a tier one operator high speed low drag coat of paint for any era, and WELL OUTWEIGH the perceived benefits of d100 DG:

Preparedness and Bureaucracy Rework-- Preparedness alone in Fall of Delta Green is a game changer by answering the dilemma of "man every time I need a new gun I need to roleplay going to the Gun-Carry, Gun-Ross army-navy surplus store and counting out our petty cash fund to determine exactly how many bullets I have. What if I just had an Uzi under my jacket with enough ammo to wipe out this entire bowling alley?"... or you know boring shit like "man I wish I had a crowbar RIGHT NOW, hey DM do I have one?" NBA has optional rules to take the same rules that govern Preparedness and apply them to Bureaucracy. Instead of a numerical value of "how good am I at arguing with my parent agency about the collateral I need to requisition the communal AC130" you can instead skip the arguing and treat it like an elevated preparedness role. Your character works within the system offscreen to retroactively get access to privileges only afforded to members of your organization. Simply think "boy I wish we had gunship cover right now" and with an appropriate Bureaucracy roll your character already filed the mission paperwork three weeks ago. Your patron organization is only going to stick their neck out for you so many times though, so unlike other stats Bureaucracy doesn't replenish at the end of a mission. Your character will have to invest progression points into Bureaucracy if they want to keep dipping into it, and can expect to get shit-canned if it hits zero.

Network-- What if you need something done off the books? What if you really wish you had a guy who knows a guy who's willing to move an ungodly amount of Crank no questions asked, and you need them right now without having to consult your character's tragic backstory? Wonder no more, by letting Agents put points into Network they can create Brampton the Hells Angel Biker on the spot for all their black budget needs. Like Beurocracy, Network doesn't replenish on its own but players are allowed to keep the contacts they spend points on between missions to create a web of off-the-books contacts, informants, and assets.

Cover-- Did one of your Agents get caught in a C O M P R O M I S I N G position? No they didn't! With Cover, that State Trooper didn't stop Agent Yancy Grange. They stopped Rusty Sheckleford, beloved member of the Galveston Texas community with the IDs and paper trail to prove it! There's no limit to the amount of aliases you have, but like Bureaucracy and Network Cover doesn't replenish on its own. Once you hit zero your covers blown-- someone somewhere put the pieces together and any future attempts at using your alias will get you recognized.

Roleplay based skill feats like TECHNOTHRILLER MONOLOGUE-- NBA is filled with a ton of these and I encourage handlers to pick and chose which ones to offer to their players to dial in the exact level of pulp they want in their campaign setting, and Technothriller Monologue is my favorite. With a sufficiently high Firearms skill Agents can get the equivalent of an Action Surge by describing in Tom Clancy-esque detail exactly how they squeezed the trigger before canoe-ing a cultist so badly they blow out their brains through the back of their neck.

[funnybirdgame]

Feathers of Fate

Since people seemed to be interested in this idea on my main blog, I've written some rules for it! Feathers of Fate is a tabletop roleplaying game built around cooperative roleplay and storytelling, intended for a group of 2-5 players and one gamemaster (referred to as the Storyteller) Feathers of Fate is designed to be very narrative-heavy, with less of a focus on combat and intricate mechanics, and as such the rules of the game are simple and easy to learn. The thing most key to remember about the game is that it is a cooperative storytelling exercise, and as such everyone at the table has the chance to determine what happens. It is up to you to determine the Fate of your birds.

This is version 1 of the rules, and hasn’t been tested yet, but I want to throw it out there for people to offer their own advice and tips on how to develop this further.

Lastly, feel free to write your own rules, adventures, and stories to add to the game. Use the tag #feathers of fate if you want to share your work! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JRhx9apeqHVYbYCaCqBLK91qRJPY73rh11zFEesXQh4/edit?usp=sharing

[arsene-inc]

New game concept

Witches are known for : their hat and their grimoire.

Now what if your hat and your grimoire hate each other ?

Now to do something with this