goblincow

[goblincow]

everyone needs a creative outlet to stick a creative fork into

[goblincow]

Return to Oz (1985) and Never Ending Story 2 (1990) are the same film to me

[goblincow]

Oh yeah I mentioned Wizards' World while talking about Acquisitive Minds and like whenever I'm reminded of this game I get more and more puzzled. Such a weird game.

(when you think about it this game was kind of a proto-4e on account of having Vampire as a class right @talenlee)

[goblincow]

You are right, this is quite the wizard.

Let your imp of its leash bud what could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah I mentioned Wizards' World while talking about Acquisitive Minds and like whenever I'm reminded of this game I get more and more puzzled. Such a weird game.

(when you think about it this game was kind of a proto-4e on account of having Vampire as a class right @talenlee)

[goblincow]

so itchio has shadowbanned any games tagged with 'nsfw', 'adult', or 'erotic' so they don't show up in searches, and several devs have reported that their r18 games have been removed from the site with no warning

you know, maybe the internet shouldn’t be controlled by payment processors and terf lobbyists. and maybe people should be more concerned about this rise of censorship on queer media.

[goblincow]

So if you're just waking up, itchio took down NSFW and a lot of queer content overnight. They did this with no warning or announcement, no emails, nothing. Their statement blames Collective Shout, the same people who went after Steam, for pressuring the payment processors.

Well. Let's pressure the bastards back.

List of starting points:

This person is filing a complaint with the Australian Consumer Commission:

Phone numbers:

Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372

Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111

Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911

Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440

PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000

Alternative Mastercard numbers:

Mastercard (Aus): 1800-120-113

Mastercard (US): 1-800-307-7309

Mastercard (UK): 0800-96-4767

Websites:

Mastercard:

https://www.mastercard.com/global/en/vision/who-we-are/global-locations.html

https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/personal/get-support.html

Visa:

https://investor.visa.com/corporate-governance/contact-the-board/default.aspx

https://usa.visa.com/Forms/contact-us-form.html

Remember: don't be an asshole to rank and file employees. Don't yell, swear, or threaten. You're mad at the corporate heads, not the normies. Be firm but polite in all messages you leave, no matter where they are.

If you have any other links or ideas, please reblog with them! We're all in this together. If you're queer, remember that you're pornographic to them by default. They will come for you, so strike now while we can!

[goblincow]

Blog Buddies: GoblinCow

Last week, I reached out to one of my ttrpg friends and asked if he wanted to try a new experiment with me - a public discussion of various topics related to ttrpgs, kind of like the VlogBrothers but... well... with blogs. @goblincow was excited about the idea, so here's edition 1!

Hello Josh!

Thanks for being the first person to try this experiment with me! I like the idea of writing blogs to each-other, just talking about thoughts we've been having about ttrpgs.

What I think is so interesting about our friendship is that I feel like we're reaching towards each-other from opposite sides of the aisle; I'm most at home with PbtA and FitD games like Apocalypse Keys and Slugblaster, and you live very comfortably amongst OSR/NSR games like Mork Borg and Troika. The skills that the two of us have polished are similar, but not exactly the same.

We were talking a few weeks ago about Troika and the OSR, and one of the things we touched on was agency. When I'm playing a Powered-by-the-Apocalypse or Forged-in-the-Dark game, I'm throwing a lot of agency over to my players in the form of choices about the world and their relationship to it. We choose what parts of the world we care about when we make selections on our playbook, and we choose what kinds of stories matter to us when we select the thing that binds our group together. The map typically fills out as your characters make choices, and more often than not the GM doesn't even know what a place or a person is like until that part of the story shows up.

In a lot of the OSR games I've played, the map feels a little more… predetermined. Even in a depth-crawl or a dungeon with multiple routes, the GM typically has an image or a flavorful description that points them in a direction or towards a theme. I don't know, there's something about the way these kinds of games feel like they're expected to be played that doesn't quite give me the same feeling of spontaneous creation. (It's also entirely possible this is the result of my specific experiences, so I'd love to know your thoughts on this.)

Let's see if I can tackle this tension from a different angle. In a lot of PbtA games, the characters are exploring their relationships with each-other, much more so than they are exploring the land around them. In the last Troika game we played, it felt very much in the reverse. I knew that my Parchment Witch had this objective of getting back home, but I didn't feel like she had a reason to care about what the other characters at the table were doing. I have to think a lot harder about what motivates her - and that allows the setting to occupy front and centre, but for me, it made it harder to figure out what my character would do next.

I think the difference between these two styles of games is what the rules tell you to do. The rules in the OSR are often considered to 'get out of the way,' prompting players to try and come up with something to do, and only ask you to roll when your character is in danger. More often that not that danger is physical, although sometimes it might also take the form of Sanity or Luck. The success state is survival. The fail state brings you closer to death.

In contrast, in a lot of the story-games I run, the rules care a little bit about what happens to the character, but I feel like they care much more about the relationship that character has to the world around them. In Masks, your teamwork gets stronger if you're honest with each-other, and you need that teamwork in order to succeed in high-stress situations. In Apocalypse Keys, your relationship to the world is measured by your Doom, and how close you get to becoming a Harbinger. In both cases, I need to roll if my character attempts to comfort another teammate, - and while opening up to them or bottling up my feelings are both interesting answers, it's often the dice that tell us which way the story is going to turn. The randomness propels characters into situations that players might typically try to avoid.

This means that my characters in games like MASKS and Protect the Child are goaded into complex relationships, and the randomness of the die results prompts me as a player to consider my character's motivations - and to care about the people around her (or, at least, to care about what others think).

This isn't to say that my Parchment Witch shouldn't care about her traveling companions. She's certainly allowed to, and I'm hoping that as we continue to play, she finds a good reason to connect with the other players at the table and create fraught relationships with each of them. But I'm going to have to do a lot of figuring out on my own about how I want to make that happen, and that's a muscle I haven't had to build in the way I game before.

What kinds of agency do you feel exists for players in the OSR/NSR?

What are the rules of games like Troika and Mork Borg prompting players to do?

How do you cross the gap in what the games tell you is possible and what the players have to figure out for themselves?

Are there any struggles that you have in games like Blades in the Dark or Apocalypse World?

I'm looking forward to reading about what thoughts this sparks! (And I'll be re-blogging this post with a link to the response when I get it!)

[goblincow]

[goblincow]

can't wait for everyone I know to become The Thing, a famously skilled individual with transferable work skills.

we're so fucked

[goblincow]

[goblincow]

we're so fucked

[goblincow]

There's an interesting alchemy by which, for certain TTRPG fans, WotC's misbehavior makes it more moral to play D&D if you're broke.

The logic goes something like this: WotC is bad, and therefore it is good to steal from them. Indie creators are good, and therefore it is bad to steal from them. Therefore, if you don't have money to spend on games, it is moral to play D&D and immoral to play indie games.

For some reason, the fact that this unimpeachable logic only benefits WotC and only harms indie creators is not relevant.

[goblincow]

Mothership Playkit

I've got another Google Sheets Playkit for folks, this time for Mothership!

Mothership is an OSR space-horror game by Tuesday Knight Games, and is inspired by movies like Alien. It has oodles and oodles of interesting modules for you to run for you crew, the most recent of which were submitted to the TripTech Game Jam back in May!

I tried to replicate the way the character sheet guides you through character creation, although I had to upload a second tab just to illustrate how the different skills are connected to each-other. I also included my typical Safety Tools Sheet, which has a link to the game and my bog-standard section of Lines, Veils & Lures!

You can check out the playbook here...

...and you can take a look at my entire playkit library at the link below!

Clicky.

[goblincow]

Which Visigoths vs. Mall Goths character would you play?

Visigoths vs. Mall Goths is a PbtA game about 90's teenagers vying for control over the local mall, and trying to get a date. There's a lot of bisexuals.

Conqueror: (Visi-Goth) At home in the saddle, your first instinct is to poke the problem with your spear. You're also not half bad at stealing things, and you're likely super-competitive.

Charlatan: (Visi-Goth) The follower of an ancient religion, you are not bad at inspiring religious acts in others! You're also pretty good at forging your parent's signature.

Runecaster: (Visi-Goth) A magic-user who can use runes to turn invisible, fly, and get out of dodge when the problems you caused get a little too hairy.

Theatre Tech: (Mall Goth) A technological wizard who totally has the ability to climb into the rafters of the mall and set off a wicked display of fireworks using some rope and a bit of duct tape.

Witch: (Mall Goth) You can fucking haunt people. How are you haunting them? The playbook doesn't say. But you can haunt them.

Cyber Pet: (Mall Goth) You can put on cute animal ears for a half-price discount at any store. You can also have mley/mlem pronouns. Need I say more?

[goblincow]

Oh yeah of course, thank you for asking!!

The purpose of art is to inspire so I'd be delighted if you did something with this format!

I still havent returned to it yet (actually just shuffled it up my to do list again recently) but there is absolutely something here, let me know how you get on!

Working on a prototype the last few nights, a choose-your-own-adventure origami fortune-teller (is there a better name for this, I know it as the playground game where someone runs up and demands you PICK A COLOUR).

This was to sketch out the idea of it, so dont scrutinise it too closely or you'll see it doesnt make much sense cos I made it up on the go.

But!

I think I could explore this idea in so many different directions and build some really cool design here. I'm sure people must have made this kind of thing before because now I've stumbled on to the idea it seems too obvious to overlook and theres so much design space here.

Anyway I hope you enjoy your jaunt into the wizard's tower! I recommend adventurers start at #8, but it's not up to me. You can go where you please: pick a number.

Another concept here is that I can use this base as a game for introducing people to the idea of ttrpgs as grab bag tasters of different kinds of rpg mechanics/mediums/genres/adventures etc.

I'll see where this goes.

[goblincow]

SPECIAL EPISODE: Galactic with Ify Nwadiwe, Nala J. Wu, Dusty Hill, and Catrina Dennis [Episode 1 – Worldbuilding]

INTRODUCING: A bonus two-part series (with a full group!) to coincide with the crowdfund campaign for Galactic and Going Rogue! I sat down with an incredible table of performers, including Ify Nwadiwe, Nala J. Wu, Dusty Hill, and Catrina Dennis to weave a story of rebellion and relationships in space. In part one, we make our characters and build our galaxy–stay tuned for part 2 on 6/2 where we see our heroes dive into action!

You can find the Galactic & Going Rogue crowdfunder here on Kickstarter, going live May 20th: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/galacticgoingrogue/galactic-and-going-rogue-two-ttrpgs-of-war-among-the-stars?ref=8lwj2g

If you’re listening to this on the 19th, it’s not too late to sign up for the crowdfunder’s BackerKit mailing list here, then get a free PDF of Jess Levine’s satirical scifi skirmish storytelling TTRPG PLANET FIST when you back the Galactic & Going Rogue Kickstarter in its first 24 hours: http://backerkit.com/call_to_action/eda53ff9-b09c-422f-8036-2dbc62b83557/landing?ref=po1ep1

This episode was produced by Jess Levine (@jessfrom.online on Bluesky) and edited and coproduced by satah (@posatahchips.gaygothvibes.online on Bluesky). Guest performers include Ify Nwadiwe, Nala J. Wu, Dusty Hill, and Catrina Dennis!

[goblincow]

Linocut prints I've shared so far (2021 - 2025)