#universal ttrpg

[gammija]

do people know that the tma ttrpg comes with a little cute audio clip of one archivist telling the new archival assistants what to do? i think people should know that

[wealmostaneckbeard]

Memes from Cradle be like "gosh darn it, discovered another mass grave while laying the foundation for my new gardening shed."

Ironic memes from Ras Shamra are like "mass transit was 3 minutes late so I was late to sportsball practice 😔 thus I am humbly asking Union's Depatment of Justice and Human Rights to liberate my planet"

Memes from Carina are like "bro can handle 5 gees while burning through atmospheric entry but spends 5 minutes in rough waters and he's tossing his breakfest overboard 😂"

A meme from Sparr would go something like "hey at least it's not snowing!"

[thechekhov]

For once in my life, I feel relatively interested in and willing to do background work. I guess SU had what it took to crack open that part of me all along!

Here's some Homeworld colonies: a hydrothermal vent outpost, one of Blue Diamond's many waterworlds, and an abandoned colony on a gas giant.

[tothesolarium]

Mourning Cloak is a normal mech that nothing bad could happen to "If you roll the same number on all three dice, you disappear until your group rests, at which point you reappear nearby."

WHERE DID THEY GO

[inspiredrawaw]

My TTRPG character Nova Aries I drew while playing with my friends last night!! She’s a black hole whose event horizon is the shape of a human :]

[tales-from-the-aether-ttrpg]

Have you ever been playing dnd and found yourself wishing you could experience the full immersion of mechanics for brewing potions, charting maps, picking locks, or enchanting items that were more than simply chucking a d20 and hoping for the best?

In addition to an expansive combat system that favors player exploration and expression, Tales from the Aether encourages players to explore more facets of the fantasy and adventuring genre. Some fun examples are the Chef’s Tools and Climbing Tools mechanics.

Chef’s Tools

These tools are used to make delicious and nutritious meals that are far superior to simple rations. In order to make a nutritious meal that last the whole adventuring day, you must use at least 4 lbs of food stuff such as meat, vegetables, or roots per individual you wish to feed.

You gain a number of d6s equal to your Nature or Knowledge score. You only need to roll one dice to make a successful meal but can gamble for additional bonuses. If you roll doubles on anything other than 1s, your meal grants an additional bonus. Any effects granted from the meals lasts until your next long rest.

If you roll anything other than a 1, the meal is a success and grants a temporary increase to Hit Point maximum equal to your Nature or Knowledge score.

If you roll a 1, the meal is just an average meal with no additional benefits.

If you roll multiple 2s, the meal grants a +1 Bonus to Stamina.

If you roll multiple 3s, the meal grants a +5 to Speed.

If you roll multiple 4s, the meal grants a +1 Bonus to Awareness and Security checks.

If you roll multiple 5s, the meal grants a +1 Bonus to Diplomacy, Deception, Intimidation, and Performance checks.

If you roll multiple 6s, the meal grants double the increase to Hit Points.

Climbing Tools

Climbing long distances is a dangerous sport and can be nearly impossible without the proper tools. With these tools, a misstep may lead to a minor panic attack, not a fall to one’s death.

You gain a pool of 5 dice (1d4). For every 100 feet you climb, you must use these dice to reach a DC of 10. If you fail to meet this DC, you gain 10 points of Stress but make the distance.

The dice you get to roll is increased depending on your Skill Rank. Novice grants a 1d6, Apprentice a 1d8, Journeyman a 1d10, Expert a 1d12, and Master a 1d20.

If you are climbing with multiple people, you can share your dice to help your companions out. For example, if one member of the group is an Expert and passed the DC with 2 dice, they can share their last 3 dice with members of the group that are less skilled in Agility or Strength.

This is just a taste but there is much more to be found. If such exploration of different mechanics interests you, give a follow to keep up to date with Tales from the Aether’s progress! I may be inviting more people to the discord to take a look at the 250+ page document once its V1.2 is completed ;p

[facets-ttrpg]

A Blue Diamond colony on a water-world moon. This one turned out a little messier, but I think it’ll still make a nice decoration for the game guide. :) 

[thearcanecat]

A bunch of props I put together for a Hatchetfield themed one-shot I’m running this weekend!

Update

Notes on the one-shot

[coffee-bard]

D&D session sketch page!! I’m getting to guest in a friend’s campaign as Veryl :3💜✨

[kathasartblock]

“I have a feeling you got everything you wanted, and you’re not wasting time stuck here like me… You’re just thinking it’s a small thing that happened, the world ended when it happened to me…”

-

Have some Stranger! Kathleen (aka Plateface) and her (….very sad) partner!! I’m obsessed with themmmmmm,,,,,,,,,,,,

Also! I made this in honor of my partner and I’s 5 year anniversary. Kathleen’s partner (the redhead. Her name is Shanice :3) belongs to them!! The other lady in my last post (Evelynn/Evee) does too, so go check out their profile!! It’s @xxgoosiexx !!

[pinkyjulien]

▶ Johnny, Mikoshi, and SPI AIs

Years ago I bought some of the original TTRPG sourcebooks and only just recently started to really read through them 👀 It's a blast and I recommend every cp77 fan to get them!

I'm mainly focusing on the Cyberpunk RED era - it's set during the 2040's (2045) and exist as a canon, direct bridge between the Cyberpunk 2020 pen and paper, and the Cyberpunk 2077 game;

"[...] In addition, RED allows us to create something unparalleled in gaming history—a tabletop RPG that serves as the perfect onramp for the expanded and far future of the Cyberpunk 2077 arc. With threads looping forwards and back through the timeline, my partners at CDPR (Patrick, Adam, Marcin, Amelia—let's face it, the whole damned 600+ crew at the CD studio) and our crew at R. Talsorian Games have given you a deep, complex gaming experience you can explore on both the tabletop and the video screen." - Mike Pondsmith, Cyberpunk RED (2020)

In the Cyberpunk RED sourcebook, we get to read through the real events that took place in 2013, the kidnapping and "death" of Alt

"He's coming out of the Hammer, about midnight, and he sees them. Three punks,mohawks bright and bristly with reflected neon, wearing high-collared jackets; gang colors." - Cyberpunk RED, page 5

We also get to read the Arasaka bombing event, how Johnny really died- and who's responsible for getting him soulkilled... 👀

"On the other side of the room, Johnny crouches under a desk, fighting with his past between bursts of gunfire. I left Alt last time. Just abandoned her. Not again. Never again. Better to burn out, says the Hand. Yeah, Johnny says to himself—and he knows what he has to do." - Cyberpunk RED, page 121

I'm obviously not going to post the whole chunks here and DEADASS ENCOURAGE YOU TO CHECK THEM OUT FOR YOURSELVES - especially if you love Johnny, Rogue, Alt and the entire old crew, it's a real treat!

Anyway, the reason why I'm making this post is because I got further into the book and into the parts about AIs

We know our Johnny, the engram stuck in V's head, isn't a reliable narrator; we learn why and how in the previously mentioned stories on how these events went down - We also know that, well, our Johnny isn't really much of Johnny - He, and everyone who has been Soulkilled, are known as "SPI" AIs

"Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects (SPI) are AIs that were originally actual people but have had their consciousness digitized and now exist only on computers in the NET. The process is often not voluntary — Soulkiller programs produce this type of AI. Otherwise indistinguishable from Symbolic Analysis AIs, these "ghosts" were created in huge numbers as Arasaka put its infamous Soulkiller program to work targeting enemies and rivals alike. The majority of these SPIs have gathered in sanctuaries around deserted mainframes and city systems abandoned by Corporations or (as in the case of a number of bio-plague attacked cities along the Asian Rim) totally abandoned cities. Most of these "ghosts" just want a safe place to live; rumor has it that Alt Cunningham, the creator of Soulkiller and a digital ghost herself, has created a number of "ghost towns" in hidden places all over the remains of the Old NET. They pretty much want to be left alone." - Cyberpunk RED, page 263

We learn about other types of AIs in this section as well - but obviously this one grabbed my attention because, well, that's the Johnny we know - and that's also who, what V becomes after Mikoshi (talking here about the canon game events in some of the endings ofc)

It is so interesting and almost comforting in a way to read about this, to have a proper name and description of what we see and experience in game

I'm late to the party of course, I bet this was already a known thing - but wanted to share it here cause again, it was really really interesting to read and made me feel things hHHHH a lot to think about

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played Marvel Universe Role Playing Game ?

By Dan Gelber, Jeffrey Simons, and Evan Jones

The 2003 Marvel Universe Role-Playing Game is a diceless superhero RPG designed to model superhero action. The introduction says: "We created this game because we wanted to play a role-playing game that let us really feel like Super Heroes. No rolling dice. No complicated equations. Just saying what we want to do, then going out and doing it. Just like our heroes do in the comics." In addition to character creation mechanics (the highlight of the rules imo), the rulebooks provide stat blocks for a wide range of characters (both "heroes" and "villains") from Marvel superhero comics, allowing players and GMs to use existing characters. The game's "Action Resolution System" is based on players allocating "energy" to particular actions in order to overcome "resistance" — if the energy allocated outweighs the resistance, the action succeeds; otherwise, it fails.

[cbus-by-night]

Name: Viscount Age: 7 Species: Ghoul Clan: Nosferatu Vampire: Lattie

His goal? To take down the Big Nut, Brutus Buckeye.

[arichtelus]

2025 // end of 2023 redraw happy new year <3

my modern!au Sturm.

[sohkrates]

It Drinks Light: The Origins of the Xenomorph and LoadingReadyRun's Heat Death

In previous drafts of this essay I spent paragraphs outlining my love of the Alien films, defending Alien 3 and Resurrection, and using that to lead into why you would enjoy an Alien RPG actual play series called Heat Death. But I just spent a lot of money on a tattoo that I think will speak to my bona fides:

I like the Alien franchise. I like Geiger’s xenomorph, I like the clunky cassette futurism imagined in those 80’s movies. It feels increasingly like a much needed antidote to modern digital interfaces, and the maddeningly undefiled aesthetics of the corporate digital age.

But after I saw Prometheus and then Covenant it became very apparent to me that Ridley Scott isn’t interested in the parts of the universe that I am interested in. Or at least, his answers to those questions aren’t particularly satisfying.

There are some good things in those movies, don’t get me wrong. The moment when the two Michael Fassbenders have flute lessons is some of the gayest shit in the series, right alongside Ripley and Call having come good ol’ fashioned knife play in Resurrection.

The prequels also continue the theme established in the first few movies that the whims of the rich and powerful will doom us all in general, and the people who work for them specifically. Their corporations are shown time and again to be fundamentally opposed to human flourishing. True as it ever was.

But that’s kinda it for me.

The question at the heart of these prequels is “Where did the xenomorph come from?” to which they answer:

Some sort of chemical weapon or tool synthesized by tall aliens called engineers for ambiguous purposes. Millenia later this was discovered and hijacked by a singular android of human design, flawed in all the ways its creator was flawed. Some iterations and experiments later we get the xenomorphs we recognize. 

Admittedly there may be more nuance than that. But as far as I can tell any further details are all muddled in cut content and unskilled storytelling.

Ultimately, according to the prequels thus far, the xenomorph is something we did to ourselves.

That is not a particularly engaging answer to me. I don’t really care about how the titular alien came to be. I don’t need to see the engineers, or the origins of the space jockey. I liked it when it felt like that tall alien was merged with the cockpit, when it looked like one organism, a new and novel form of life from another evolutionary path completely unlike our own.

And if you feel the same, I have something to recommend to you. 

Heat Death is an actual play series made by the Canadian comedy/streaming troupe LoadingReadyRun in 2020 as part of their Dice Friends series. They did 6 episodes where Cameron, the GM, leads 4 players through their own scenario in the official Alien RPG.

And it’s one of the best Alien stories I’ve ever seen.

Cameron provides much more interesting answers to the questions Ridley Scott keeps asking, and in a method that compliments the familiar set up of Alien films. A typical day in the life of spacers is interrupted by a combination of corporate malfeasance and/or the existence of the xenomorph.

The setup of Heat Death is thus: The crew of the research vessel Ludomia, our PC’s and NPC’s for the series, wake up on a strange and grandiose space station called New Eden. Their vessel is missing, the rest of their crew is missing, and they have no idea where they are. They seek answers, they seek escape, and they try to figure out what was happening here hidden in the shadows of space.

And in typical Alien fashion, it all goes to hell.

Part of the reason the series works so well for me is because the GM has a background in the sciences. This helps when the characters are confronted with the truly alien things they find. I am an amateur appreciator of things like biology and astronomy ,and so there is just enough detail to make me feel like I know what’s happening, but also enough unfamiliar jargon that I feel an appropriate sense of awe and dread. Cameron doesn’t talk down to his audience or his players, he describes the world in ways that would make sense to the character’s point of view, and offers explanations and details when prompted.

The xenomorph’s biology is described as being reminiscent of Teflon, an immediately startling non sequitur.

The primordial black goo from the prequels is described as incredibly hazardous to human beings through exacting technical terminology. It makes it seem real and dangerous. In the prequels it always felt flat and… out of place.

I like Heat Death because Cameron and the players are actively investigating the question of the origins of the xenomorph without limiting the possibility space. It’s not a closed loop that begins and ends at LV-426 with the space jockey and its ship. Instead we see a possible answer to what is waiting for us in the stars, a galactic ecology that we have stumbled into and are ill-equipped to handle. It makes the machinations of Weyland-Yutani seem even more feeble and doomed.

It also works so well because the players are all in on it. They lean into the themes of the franchise, of roughnecks who shoot first, of commanders in over their head, and corporate representatives quietly manipulating things to their own end. There’s no power gaming or looking to get the upper hand or finding an optimal path to survival. They see the awfulness coming and they don’t look away.

There’s more that I could recommend about this series, but I run the risk of giving away too much. There’s the poetic introductions to each episode that give breadth to the fiction. The investigations of different bits of lore and tech, from faster than light travel to how synthetics work. But I guess I’ll end by going over all the players and their characters.

First there’s Commander Roman Moritaka, played by Ian, who I think more than anyone leans into the doomed nature of the storytelling. Ian is always ready to make the obvious mistake and try to do the most reasonable thing in an unreasonable situation. One of my favourite moments in the game comes from Roman making telemetry calculations. How many AP’s do you know that bother with the drama of rocket science?

Then there’s Clinton Barker played by Alex, a colonial marine who thinks in equipment and utility, and has no time for metaphor or theory. Alex is also obviously an Alien fan and someone who knows military tech and lingo, which lets him launch into interesting asides and funny anecdotes that punctuate the story.

There’s Gregory Sinclair Jr., the corporate liaison played by Cori. He is a perfect mix of uselessness and cold corporate comfort. Cori plays him relentlessly, a perfectly willing pawn right into the final moments of the final episode, and a constant needle in everyone’s side.

And then there’s Harris Schafer, played by Adam. Harris is a laid back academic and scientist, which makes them a great foil for the other characters and the perfect POV character to let us know just how bad things are, much like Adam himself. Adam is a great addition to the table, always willing to ask the basic questions and react in relatable ways.

I’ve already mentioned Cameron, and as GM he plays all the NPC’s with depth, and deftly cuts between scenes, heightening moments of tension and underlining moments of impending dread. His obvious writing ability is on full display. It feels like he loves this stuff. And in a way that Ridley Scott kinda doesn’t. Not in the same way. There’s curiosity and time and thought on display here, and I really appreciate that.

And that’s it. You should watch it, especially if you like the alien series and the art of actual play. It’s good. It’s on Youtube and it’s on podcasts. Check it out. Let me know what you think. Recommend me some other Alien fanfiction.

And if you would have liked to have read this earlier, or would like more essays and stuff like this, kick me a couple of bucks on Patreon. If folks like this sort of thing, I may do more essays. Heck, I'll probably do them if you hate it.

[recovering-vamp]