#ttrpg resources

[sephiramy]

Are your d&d grid maps only available on patreon or do you allow use of the ones you've posted publically?

so, here is my feel about this: I am sure people have already used the preview images of these maps (despite the fact they would be pretty blurry in practice) BUT... I am offering over 20 maps on my Patreon, for just a buck, and I think for high resolution non-gridded illustrations you can use anywhere with the tokens separated out so you can customize them or use the tokens on other maps that's an absolute steal

someone can spend $1, download it all (including the 100+ character icons btw), then unsubscribe if they like, so I would highly prefer someone give me a dollar and not repurpose a preview image

here is my Patreon and here are some of the maps that are on it:

[arsene-inc]

I want to share this mad idea a french ttrpg designer had.

A system of rules to speedrun campaigns and scenarios.

Warning : the table MUST have played it normally before. These rules are for giving a second life to these campaign books catching dust in your library

These rules are an add-on to the system you used for the campaign. Now you can Bunny hop, glitch, clip, go out of bonds in your game. Bugs can appear. Suddenly the game is in another language, good luck to the players who don't speak it.

You can add little challenges, the same as video game speedrun. Like an all boss run, a no hit run, a non lethal run, etc.

Honestly I found the idea bonkers. I want to try it, seems like a good idea for a crazy game night.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Character Spreadsheets

Hello!

For folks who don't know me, my name is Mint, and when I'm not recommending ttrpgs, I like to design play-kits for different ttrpg games to facilitate easier online play. These player kits are designed to be shared with a playgroup in which everyone has editing access, with either character templates that can be duplicated, or a list of playbooks for games that use those instead. I've finally collected all of my useable play-kits into one folder, which I am sharing below for anyone to use. If you would like to use one of these, open up the file. Then select "File" -> "Make a Copy". I have included a tab on many of these games that is labelled "Lines, Veils & Lures." This is a modified version of Lines & Veils that my table uses that incorporates Lures, which are things that the group wants to see in game.

Most sheets also include a link to where you can get the game they are made for, up in the top row of the sheet. So if you see a play-sheet you like, you can find the game pretty easily from there! I've done sheets for big games like Numenera, and little games like Cryptid TV. I'm always working on more, so there will be more that are added to this folder over time. I'll probably also be editing these sheets themselves as I update sections, add links, and incorporate more Lines, Veils & Lures! You can check out the sheets here!

[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.

--------------------

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.

--------------------

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.

[caught-in-a-tism]

I made a sorcerer subclass for angsty military characters. It's mechanically based around getting up close with enemies and risking harm just to take them down with you, and thematically based around dying for a cause you may or may not believe in.

[toskarin]

do you find yourself wanting rustic sci-fi music for your tabletop campaign but dislike how most of that genre seems to be focused on space westerns? need some mood-setting music that your players won't recognise as the soundtrack for a game they've played?

check out the mecha-inspired tabletop soundtrack, NOMAD​/​VIRTUE - Soundtrack for Mechanised Roleplaying [Act 1]

also, I realised I didn't clarify this anywhere before, but just so it's said, you ARE allowed to use this in podcasts, streams, and similar small-scale productions as long as you include the line "BGM provided by Ri47 Heavy Industries" somewhere plainly visible, along with a link back to the bandcamp page

if you want a more proper licence to include tracks from this album in an indie game or something like that, you can also drop me a line and we'll work something out!

thanks for your time!

[bekandrew]

New Release for Deviant: the Renegades

Do you get the Origins mixed up (Epimorph and Exomorph sound awful close)? Ever wondered what the word cohort means or why a group of Renegades might be called that? Do you have a hard time visualizing what a Threat Level 3 Chronicle might look like?

I released my first PWYW title on Storyteller's Vault this morning: Dissecting Deviant to help with these problems. It has the real-world scientific and medical context for Deviant terms explained in easy-to-understand chunks, as well as expanded descriptions of the named threat levels based on the names' definitions and levels' stats.

[rhozahscraftedcatalog]

More weekend means more Curious Collectibles tables of course!

A unique shield with hidden properties?

Need a new look or want to impress at the next festival?

What is such an elaborate necklace doing laying in the street?

Do those statues have pores... and tears?

What option would you choose?

This table is available, free for you to use in your home DnD / Pathfinder / Tales of the Valiant / Daggerheart / TTRPG games, to help generate some more descriptive loot and treasure options perfect for a new quest-hook or a truly epic reward.

If you love ttrpg stuff like these and want access to more options for your Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder game as well as a hoard of printable paper minis, terrain and monsters to help fill your table, check out my Patreon page! I create affordable paper minis, VTT Tokens and more, with a release every week! You can follow for free so you never miss a drop or join as a member to get access to all the extra Patreon exclusive goodies.

[nuudoodles]

✨TTRPG / D&D TRACKERS [ko-fi]✨

A bunch of little trackers you can craft for use in your games! Intended to help keeping track of things like money, magic points, or rations, so that you don't need to erase and rewrite the amount over and over each session. Includes two number trackers (2 and 3 digits) and a tally tracker.

The package is free or pay-what-you-want!

What you'll get:

Printable PNG files

Editable Adobe Illustrator files

Info+Instructions PDF

[moyashidoodles]

I spent so much time on this and I’m not happy with it. Idk, whatever.

[map-parts]

a simple gun demon

[ginkasei]

In my search to find stuff for this writing project I’m working on, I found this insanely sexy map generator called Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator.

Y’all. You can get so fucking detailed with this bad boy. It’s got nations, cities, biomes, religions, cultures, tempatures, populations, flags, maps of the individual cities,,,,, it’s so detailed and beautiful. It takes a bit to get the hang of but I promise it’s worth it. You can start from the ground up or generate something randomly, and aaaaaaaaaaahhh. Fellow writers and GMs, blessed be this resource. Also you can save as a svg, png, jpg, and also export/import the map from a file on your device or saved to your browser. Like. Chef’s freakin kiss.

[printableheroes]

A few paper miniature designs I’ve done. If you wanna check out more of my work and/or download the digital files for these paper miniatures you can do so here, www.printableheroes.com

[temporalhiccup]

Unsplash continues to be a favorite resource for free images. Lately some really cool 3D rendered stuff has been showing up! I used the above images to create the #Dungeon23 cover for I AM THE DUNGEON:

(I literally just set the statue image layer to the blending mode of "Exclusion", cut off the rest of the image, and that's it.)

I used Affinity Photo btw (which, as of this writing V2 is on sale, but even if you miss it the Affinity suite goes on sale regularly. I highly recommend Affinity Publisher too!)

But also as a reminder: it's more important to get your game out there than to worry too much about layout and presentation. This is probably going to be its own post in the future, but:

In the same way that you're developing your game design skills, it takes time and practice to develop the ability to layout and present the game. I'm still learning a lot! We're indie folk! It's okay to take our time and learn these things, it's more important that your game is out in the world and folks can interact with it.

[caught-in-a-tism]

Corruption

I was struck with inspiration as I lay in bed last night. I'm gonna write it as a rule for dnd 5e but the concept could be adapted to similar games easily.

The basic idea is to sometimes replace damage with Corruption Dice (spooky), which are subtracted from d20 rolls and sometimes cause surprise damage.

(plain text is rules jargon, purple text is me saying stuff)

Concept:

This mechanic is meant to emulate various forms of magical curses as an alternative to damage. In my head it's something that can be inflicted on players if you want to create a sense of impending doom without just damaging them.

It adds a numeric way to simulate indirect harm that spooky things might cause. Just damage can get boring so this is something to heighten vibes and force players out of their comfort zone. The intended effect is to make players feel like something bad is coming, or like they're being forced by some supernatural energy to accept harmful consequences.

Added bonus is that it can mitigate insane modifiers that high level players end up with.

Mechanics:

Corruption is inflicted on characters (or creatures generally) as a number of dice. These dice are not rolled but are added to a pool. For example, if a creature takes 3d6 corruption, add 3d6 to their total corruption and don't roll them (this could be a written tally or a kept as a pile of dice in front of the player). A creature with a non-zero amount of corruption is referred to as corrupted.

This pool of dice remains until spent, or until removed by the lesser restoration spell or any effect that removes curses. Whenever a corrupted creature makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, they can spend some of it by rolling a number of corruption dice and subtracting the total from the initial roll. When they spend corruption in this way, they cannot spend more than 3 dice on any given d20 roll.

Alternatively, a corrupted creature can spend up to 3 corruption dice during a short rest, roll them, and take damage equal to the total.

When a corrupted creature makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw and rolls a natural 1, they must immediately spend all of their corruption dice at once. When the dice are spent in this way, they deal necrotic damage to the corrupted creature equal to the number rolled.

Implementation:

Corruption can be quickly inserted as a replacement for damage. It can appropriately be inserted into the spells or abilities of fey, fiends, or undead. One use I would recommend would be to use it instead of damage for magical traps or include the mechanic when designing cursed magic items. For a direct conversion, consult the following table:

If this makes it more complicated than necessary, or you don't want to mix types of dice, just do 2d6 for every 5 damage.

Lair/Legendary Actions:

This is a good place on a stat block to sub in or add corruption. In addition to damage conversion, you may replace any condition caused by a special action (such as frightened or paralyzed) with a number of d12s equal to the challenge rating of the creature. If you wish to make a creature more powerful, choose one or two of these actions and add d6 corruption/CR to the existing effects (allowing a wisdom or charisma save to avoid it if you want).

Regional Effects:

Unhallowed land, the shadowfell, the territory of a cursed or undead creature, or the domain of an illegitimate ruler may all be places where corruption permeates the air and soil. Use it when it feels right or for a specific antagonist or faction if you want them to have a unique flair. When a creature finishes a long rest in a corrupted place, they must make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw. On a success, the creature feels a vague sense of unease but suffers no other effects. On a failure, the creature gains 2d6 corruption.

If the source of the corruption is a sentient creature, they can choose up to 13 creatures that they know to be within the affected area. When any of those creatures fails their saving throw, they instead gain 1d12 corruption for each night they have spent in the affected area.

Monster Traits:

Following are a few example traits that use corruption. They can be added to the statblocks of appropriate creatures. Alternatively, they can be used as identifying features of all creatures in a specific faction or from a specific place.

Aura of Evil. Any creature that starts its turn within 10 ft. of [this creature] must succeed on a DC [8 + proficiency + Cha or Con] Charisma saving throw or gain 1d12 corruption.

Corrupted Strikes. [This creature]'s weapon attacks are magical. When [this creature] hits with any weapon, the target gains 1d8 corruption. A creature immune to necrotic damage or curses is immune to this effect.

Foul Magic. Any creature that fails a saving throw against a spell cast by [this creature] also gains 1d8 corruption. A creature immune to necrotic damage or curses is immune to this effect.

Tainted Blood. A creature that touches [this creature] or hits it within a melee attack while within 5 ft. of it gains 3d6 corruption.

Items:

Below is a single example magic item, to show the way this mechanic could be used to represent curses.

I think it's neat because the ability to use corruption to your advantage encourages a player to seek out dark and dangerous situations. It makes corruption a little less scary, but it uses the meta to push the character to find opponents to inflict it on, lest they suffer the consequences of their actions.

Narrative:

In darker campaign settings, corruption can be used in roleplay to underline thematic elements. The DM may inflict 1-3d8 corruption on any character who gives in to dark desires, betrays someone's trust, does something impious or blasphemous, or witnesses something grim and horrifying.

The DM and players should decide ahead of time exactly which actions or events will lead to corruption, and how severe they have to be to incur a given number (or size) of dice. Consider which type of roleplay you all want to encourage, and which themes should be emphasized.

Player Options:

Spells and abilities that deal damage can easily be converted, either on a character by character or spell by spell basis. Spells that this change would be most appropriate for include arms of hadar, blight, chill touch, cloudkill, dissonant whispers, summon celestial, summon undead, toll the dead, etc.

You could also modify (or make up!) class features so that they inflict corruption instead of damage, or in addition to other effects. A vengeful Cleric's Channel Divinity might inflict corruption upon sinners, even a Rogue's sneak attack might inflict supernatural woe in place of additional damage.

If you, as the DM, allow players to cause enemies to gain corruption, remember that you should spend it more liberally than a player might. You can and should roleplay as that monster or enemy, but consider that a creature that will likely not survive the fight may make the players feel cheated if it never chooses to suffer the penalty.

Variants:

The damage type that corruption deals could easily be changed to highlight different themes. Change it to psychic damage for a more horror or lovecraftian setting, change it to poison damage it you are using it to represent toxic substances or diseases. Perhaps you want to use it to represent radiation poisoning, in which case it could be radiant damage (if not poison or necrotic).

Another idea I like is to make the corruption represent horrible luck. Because the damage is triggered by natural 1s, the DM can describe it as a consequence of some kind of accident and declare an appropriate damage type. For example: a character that rolls a natural 1 on an attack may fall on their sword and take piercing damage equal to their remaining corruption, or a natural 1 on the Constitution save triggered by a green dragon's breath may represent a character gasping and breathing in additional poison damage like an idiot.

Another change, for a more sword and sorcery setting, could include allowing spellcasters to accumulate corruption in exchange for more potent magic. Whenever an arcane caster casts a spell, they may gain 1d12 corruption and increase the level of the spell by one without expending a higher level slot. This could also be a mandatory feature, to make all magic a form of dark bargaining.

This has not been play tested so you may also find it necessary to balance it by including maximum corruption (perhaps dealing its damage if it reaches that threshold), limiting it to d6s or even d4s, or making it less deadly. If the potential damage seems too high, random, and/or disruptive to combat balance, it could be spread out. To do so, change it so that each time a corrupted creature takes damage, they spend one die and add it to the damage.

[toskarin]

bandcamp friday! you know what that means! promo again

consider picking up NOMAD​/​VIRTUE - Soundtrack for Mechanised Roleplaying

11 songs and 5 audio cues for your (system-agnostic) mecha ttrpg needs. if you pick it up while bandcamp friday is active I get a little more money from it, which is nice