pocket-spa

[pocket-spa]

why are cyberpunk tabletop things so obsessed with decency and personhood being tied to how many surgeries you haven’t had

[pocket-spa]

🌕💙⚜️💙Stars and the Moon💙⚜️💙🌕

[pocket-spa]

original indie ttrpgs by luka brave. find them on itch here

he/they

queer, disabled, jewish

studying therapeutically applied ttrpgs

open to writing, sensitivity reading, & layout freelance!

portfolio

osteotzee - magical monster augury yahtzee hack

dead man's hand - weird west storytelling card game

bagel, lox, golem talks - write an ethnography of a magic jewish shtetl - pwyw

the graveyard game - write an ethnography of a magical haunted graveyard

the narrator paradox - narrate a story while trying to wrangle your protagonist into listening to you

with breath & sword - fight monsters to calm down from anxiety

song a scene - a playlist-driven writing game that fits on a bookmark - pwyw

not a tabloid - absurdist comedy interview game

mama werewolf - werewolf family drama run on nature mechanics

shadow / giant - a traumatized, magical child and the jaded adult who cares for them

familiar field trip - competitive game for witch's familiars causing havoc and mayhem in the village

interstate 10 1/2 - a one page weird roadtrip light horror game built on horseshoe

crescent grin - a one page eldritch noir mystery game built on horseshoe

the pyrite bullet - a one page spaghetti western drama game built on horseshoe

small towns, big secrets - 200 word competitive drama game

little shepherd, little spy - spy in the fairy war using your bookshelf

advanced darning & dragons - comedy game about old people gossip and high fantasy - pwyw

hashtag girlbots - absurdist robot survival game about the tumblr bot takeover - pwyw

lullaby nights - song driven writing game - pwyw

beach day! - sweet party bonding minigame

how high! - an industrial fantasy city setting

you are thinking about silver - an autofiction game about a werewolf family

when you love someone: three rituals - three rituals to honor love in all its forms - pwyw

she shall not be raised a fey - a 36 word game about revisiting your changeling child - pwyw

we are but plants - 1 word we are but worms hack - pwyw

homebrew masterpost

autism & adhd, trauma, & service monster mechanics - pwyw

wild magic artificer, psychopomp sorcerer & living instrument bard

witch class (con based half caster made with @hmooncreates), handler class (pokemon inspired mon collector), & paternal class (these are just dilfs)

studio ghibli inspired pack with feats, backgrounds, races, monsters, and subclasses

ttrpgs used in teaching composition to college students

the family tree

village witch

what little the flames leave us

personal narrative essay solo journaling games

not a tabloid

we are but worms

graves for funerals

the world is ending and we are very large dogs

vessel of the garbage god

literary analysis essay games

grandma club

LOGAN: an autobiographical tabletop game

[pocket-spa]

Alchohol in fantasy worlds

As a slav, I’m obligated to point out the utter lack of diversity in fantastical beverages in most mediums.

Sure, you get the occasional magic-berry wine but where’s the mead made from giant crystal-termites (yes I know termites don’t make honey, it’s a fantasy world!)

You have beer and ale but what about all the unique alcohols made from fermented tropical fruits? There are countless unique alcohols on earth - imagine what a fun world could come up with?

Maybe you could ferment tree sap? 

Maybe a gross drink made with the eggs of some creature that doesn’t just rot but produce alcohol when aged?

What do rock giants drink? What substance do they consider intoxicating? Copper in the water? 

You could have passing adventurers comment on the pitiful smell of copper filling the pond where a crestfallen giant sits slumped forward and unconscious.

And what about distillation? If your people haven’t discovered proper distillation maybe they can use wide leaves to condense drops of alcohol and have them drip into another bowl?

Are some alcohols filtered through dragon ash? Crystals? Do they have to be home to a spirit to gain their otherworldly glow?

You can use bottles to signify how developed a region is, your local booze only comes in kegs while the elves export their fancy-schmancy magical spirits in clear-glass bottles decorated with gold leaves.

The industrial dwarves sell their alcohol in thin metal flasks which gain a metallic taste when forced to travel long distances, a taste only a dwarf could overlook.

Is your drink supposed to be watered down? Cooled? 

Maybe come up with something weird like - it has to be left out for a few seconds to let whatever highly-poisonous substance created as a side-effect of letting it age for a hundred years disperse into the air?

In conclusion: be more creative when coming up with fantasy alcohols! 

[pocket-spa]

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

[pocket-spa]

Putting all tabletop players into a college level ethics class and forcing them to turn in a paper on moral philosophy before buying a new book

[pocket-spa]

DnD Character Concept: A Cleric who insists stubbornly and earnestly that their obviously evil patron deity (I'm thinking Lolth or Asmodeus but really any Evil Greater God would do) is actually Good and Benevolent and Just and dismisses all evidence to the contrary as slander from rival deities. Their proof to their claim? Using their divinely granted powers for the most intensely Good tasks and quests they can find: feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, curing the sick- all done in the name of their Terrible Dread Lord and without any expectation of compensation or string attached.

The deity in question is all "???" but keeps granting the cleric power because all that free worship and influence from the people who now pray to them is nice, and hey if the cleric wants to put in the leg work to launder the deity's reputation what reason do they have to say no?

Only it turns out that the cleric is actually playing 4D chess because of the way faith works in Faerun (and most DnD settings). As more and more worshipers start believing The Terrible Dread Lord is actually a Good and Kind and Noble god they start to be influenced by that to become Good and Kind and Noble. Slowly but surely they find themselves warping to match the perception of the masses. It starts by just giving a few random blessings out of what they think is pity, or maybe sending a sign to help someone who is lost on what the deity insists is a whim....but it snowballs until you have Lolth smiting down slavers or Asmodeus sending out devil's to drag down a tyrant to the depths of hell and then they realize 'oh oh no' but by then it's to late: the religious reform movement within their flock is too massive and been ignored for too long as benign. They can't just turn around and smite their own followers- not only because it's tacky but because they feel... compassion and responsibility for those that look to them for guidece.

And then you have the cleric, who at level twenty is literally their most powerful agent and also the high priest of this out of control heresy smugly sipping their tea because, because they where right all along. Their faith in their deity is vindicated- after all what is faith if not believing in something so strongly, against all evidence, that it becomes truth onto itself?

[pocket-spa]

lahore pigeons are some of the most visually appealing birds out there. like in terms of visual design. very minimalist, good contrast.

[pocket-spa]

The Underdark

Welcome to the Underdark—where sunlight is a myth, and the only light comes from the cold gleam of madness. Beneath the world you know lies a kingdom of shadows, where ancient evils slither through forgotten chasms and the very air whispers secrets meant to be forgotten.

Cheers everyone, welcome to another map pack! It features:

12 total maps, including caves in the underdark, cities, temples and much more.

Patrons get access to gridded/ungridded and watermark-free maps. The grid size of each map is 36x54.

Check out the entire map pack here.

[pocket-spa]

you know how most of the things humans use as spices are poisonous or repellent to most other mammals? and you know how anything vaguely d&d inspired has dwarves being way more poison resistant than even humans?

dwarf cuisine shouldn’t be bland, it should be unimaginably spicy and potentially harmful or fatal to humans. like green potato and rhubarb leaf salad with a festive garnish of yew berries and deadly nightshade berries, that kind of thing.

[pocket-spa]

Mushroom Village Interior Maps

Come see our new mushroom-home interior maps! And tell me GM, who might live in such a place in your world?

→ Check them out here!

[pocket-spa]

A reminder that this generator exists! Blind Date with a TTRPG is great for discovering new games, such as Monster Care Squad and Mappa Mundi.

[pocket-spa]

[pocket-spa]

Indie ttrpg designers

We seem to be back in the “dnd sucks why don’t you just play Other Games (yours)” and I have a single question for you in return

Do I get to roll a d20?

Because I like the d20

That shape pleases me

I do not wish to roll a random amount of d6s or d8s or any of them other fuckers

I wish to roll the d20 because icosahedrons please me

I will also accept d12 but the other shapes all have less mouthfeel so if that’s what your game’s based on, it is not for me

I’d also prefer more than four stats but I’m not gonna lie it is the shape of the math rocks so like

Rec your d20 based indie ttrpgs friends cuz every single one I’ve opened is them little cube fuckers or the double pyramid and I Require Round

[pocket-spa]

dorfs

[pocket-spa]

so i’m writing a tabletop game