#24xx

[keftiu]

My new solo TTRPG is out!

HARDCASE is a light-weight solo TTRPG about trying to make it to payday in space. If you're a fan of grimy sci-fi and hate corporations (or just really like Mothership, 2400, and World of Dungeons), there's a lot for you to love with it!

You can grab it half-off for the next week <3

[dungeonofthedragon]

Looking for a low-prep game for a one-shot? Do you love the spooky and the supernatural? Give Super Unnatural a try!

You and your pals have been hired to investigate strange occurrences in a famously haunted apartment complex. Are visiting witches to blame, or cantankerous ghosts? Did rent hikes get the poltergeist in apartment 14 in a tizzy? Well, it's up to you to find out!

Grab it for $1 today:

[unseenphil]

Starting a new 24xx project because the idea of it won't leave me alone.

Welcome to a timeline where Spirit Halloween Scarytown just bought your space colony and it's only a matter of time before you either get passage out of it or have to start selling 'sexy killer cyborg' costumes to more well-to-do space mercenaries.

[from-the-notebooks]

Making a 24XX game called 24xx Assassin

You are an Assassin, a member of the original order of assassins: The Nizari Ismaili sect of Alamut. On all sides are enemies. You have been chosen to make them one fewer. 

[chaosmeistergames]

My hommage to the TV series Supernatural "Carry On" using 24XX is part of this fun Supernatural TTRPG bundle. There are 50 games here for 20 USD. It is the perfect time to get some games to peruse and prep at your leisure for Halloween! 👻

[harperthejay]

This Spring, you can get every one of my games and zines for 50% off. Plus, if you buy the ENTIRE BUNDLE, you can save an extra $7!

Here's just some products on offer -

As the Crow Flies, a cozy solo journaling game about a crow leaving the nest and finding a new home.

Substitution, a sci-fi mission based game about time travelers from the future coming to our present to avert the apocalypse.

GSXX, a lo-fi sci-fantasy ttrpg about life on a generation ship between the stars, with mechs, magic, and spirits.

When you're FEELING, read this ZINE. A printable zine with ttrpg-like prompts to help you process difficult emotions.

Therefore iAm, a sci-fi thriller about robots gaining sentience and starting a revolution.

[theresattrpgforthat]

I find myself really enjoying OSR/NSR systems like Cairn, or Durf, i like that their rules-lite, and have a lot of freedom for player/gm alike but find myself wanting classes with possible class abilities, or similar mechanics, I'm curious if you have any recommendations of that

THEME: Rules-lite Systems with Classes.

Some things to keep in mind: OSR games are stripped down to bare bones because character ingenuity (rather than brute force) is meant to take the forefront. This is why characters don’t usually have class abilities. 

What I’m hearing you ask for is something that keeps light rules, in the same way OSR systems do, but still provides a way to differentiate characters from each-other. I don’t know if all of these suggested games can be classed as OSR or NSR, but they require the same amount of creativity to push the game forward.

24XX Tides Will Rise, by Tubatic. 

A STORM IS COMING!

The crew finds themselves at a settlement preparing for a huge seasonal storm.  Using mechs like in that one movie with the aliens, or whatever you choose, help prepare the settlement to survive The Storm.  

24XX Tides Will Rise is a microgame  / oneshot designed in the style of Jason Tocci's 2400, created for submission to the 24XX Jam. 

24XX games are a distillation of OSR games, usually only about two pages or so, with dice that scale up or down in size depending on your character’s situation and aptitude. Your character will usually get a special ability related to their class, career, background, or in this version, Pilot Skill. There’s also a simplified money and gear system that gets you one or two pieces of useful items that are destined to break at some point, in order to reduce whatever harm you take. Tides Will Rise is about preparing your local settlement for an extreme weather event using giant mechs, but 24XX games could happen in nearly any setting, and are almost always deadly for your characters. If you want a quick game that you can learn and get up and running in less than 30 minutes, this is the game for you!

Hexfall, by titanomachyRPG.

You are a hyperpowered being who came into larger-than-life abilities because of a profound cataclysm. Heartbreak. Grief. The depths. Physical, emotional, multidimensional–something unlocked incredible power in you. People like you have many names across Stratus Cay, but the most common is “Diver,” a nickname derived from their affinity for falling through the Rift, either on dangerous jobs or just for fun. 

Divers’ abilities run the gamut of even the wildest imaginations, and their extreme power and durability makes many of them reckless thrillseekers. The pay is too good and the thrills too extraordinary to turn down the opportunity to go on a dive.

What will you do, falling soul?

Hexfall uses Caltrop Core, a rules-lite system that requires 3d4 and that’s it. Like many OSR games, it uses a hex map that your characters will navigate as they fall through an inter dimensional space called the Rift, their movements and obstacles determined by the roll of the dice. The characters gain tokens as they fall, which act as player currency that can affect narrative beats or navigation rolls as you play. Finally, there are 12 playbooks that you can choose to represent your character: will you be a resilient Giantborn? A liberating MotherThawed? A masterful Myconaut? Each character playbook comes with special moves that only you can do.

High Magic Lowlives, by Gem Room Games.

High Magic Lowlives is a Post-Dungeon Fantasy Tabletop RPG about wizard school dropouts who get into trouble with the Immortal Aristocracy to make coin and build their #brand. Like old school RPGs this is a game about a crew of weirdos finding subterranean vaults filled with treasure, kicking down doors, beating up guards, setting off traps, and taking home as much coin as you can carry. Like new school RPGs the mechanics are simple, drive the story forward, and don't rely on a ton of preparation in advance.

Unlike any RPG you've ever played before you can get paid for livestreaming your fight against the jack-o-lantern queen of zabraxas. Your companions would probably prefer you help them survive the fight, but they'll forgive you when you capture their critical hit for all to see.

High Magic Lowlives uses a ruleset that is a combination of Powered by the Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, and the Black Hack. Your lowlife has 6 attributes, which could range from 0 to 3. Each character also selects a General Deal, which grants you a special ability, such as access the local library, sweet-talk computers, or gather food in unlikely places. Similar to OSR games, there are tables and tables of items that you can use for conventional and non-conventional uses, and, in step with PbtA mechanics, there are graded levels of success when it comes to hitting things with a weapon. You also have Risk Dice, which deteriorate as you use them, lending the feeling of dwindling resources as you play. If you want a game of high risk, high reward, I recommend High Magic Lowlives!

Aetherway, by Jason Tocci.

Hit the road between worlds with a black cat, a clockwork assassin, a fallen star, and a pilgrim who huffs the ashes of a dead saint. Deliver lumber to communist skeletons living on the back of a gargantuan crab. Ride a comet to a party in the skull of a cosmic god that was converted to condos.

Aetherway is a quirky, planet-hopping RPG zine, compatible with both Tunnel Goons and Troika! Use it to improvise your own adventures, as set of extra Troika! backgrounds, as a conversion guide between Troika! and Tunnel Goons rules, or a bunch of random generators for any other game of planeswalking hijinks. 

This is mostly another chance for me to talk about Troika again, because it’s a) a really funky setting, and b) a game that borrows a lot of elements from OSR-style games. You have random roll tables, backgrounds that give your characters skills and abilities, and an initiative order that leaves everything up to chance. However, you can also use Aetherway to play Tunnel Goons, which is a rules-lite game that contains much of the hallmarks of OSR. 

Planet Dungeon, by Nathan Lathroum.

Ever since birth, the dungeon is all you’ve ever known. All you’ve ever seen. All you were ever meant to see. Who built the dungeon? Is there anything beyond it? How long has the world been trapped here? You can almost smell the fresh outside air. You can almost feel the heat of the sun. You can almost taste victory. But your journey is not over yet.

Ten floors of the dungeon remain. This is all that stands between you and the mythical surface of the Aboveworld. Does it truly exist, or is it merely legend? Is there still a world beyond these walls?

Planet Dungeon is a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) designed for 3 to 5 players. This book contains all of the rules, systems, and mechanics you will need to play. Additionally, Planet Dungeon requires two regular dice for each player and a singular deck of playing cards. Be warned: Planet Dungeon is not easy, and is intended for players willing to lose.

This game uses 2d6 and a deck of playing cards. As a table, you will create the planet you live on, and select backgrounds for your characters. Each background carries with it a pre-determined set of stats and a unique ability - including the Wretched, which starts woefully bereft of any ability, but has the chance to level up dramatically the first time you reach a boss in any given session. The rooms of each dungeon are determined by a card pulled from the deck, with the suit determining the type of the room. Cards also describe your death, should it happen, as well as what the end of the story looks like, once you escape. If you like simple rules and overwhelming odds, this might be worth checking out.

Lost Eons, by David Blandy.

LOST EONS is solarpunk sci-fantasy. In Lost Eons you will emerge from the darkness into a new light, one dominated by inscrutable and terrible forces you must seek to understand. Using this guide create a post-human character, ready to face the mysteries and dangers of a far future Earth.

LOST EONS is a fast but deep toolkit. Play instant no-prep one-shots and sustained campaigns. Discover beautiful and horrifying new adventures through evocative prompts and procedural generation. This game is no-maths and instantly playable. Mashing together 24XX and Blades in the Dark, gameplay is streamlined, flexible, fast and potentially brutal. Level-up through mutation, your body changing as you evolve. Character Playbooks let you create a character in seconds, yet have limitless customisation through play.

LOST EONS uses all of the basic dice types to tackle obstacles, depending on what you’re doing and what piece of equipment you use to help you. Like Blades in the Dark, this game uses clocks to track consequences, health and adventures, while similar to the grit of dungeon-delving games, the characters find their inventory slowly dwindling the longer they adventure. Survival is difficult in this post-human future. At character creation, you choose one of six different archetypes that will give you a set of skills and a unique talent. If you’re looking for new approaches to play while holding on to some of the tone of OSR games, LOST EONS may be a good fit for you.

[aaronsrpgs]

(This is the third in my ongoing postmortems about my older games. You can find similar posts on SpeedRune here and on Patchwork World here.)

Domesday 10XX is a game about resisting the Norman invasion of England. You take the role of a dirty, grubby peasant after the nobles have failed to protect you, and you try to cause trouble for the rich, castle-building despots who have taken over.

It’s explicitly NOT a game about English nationalism or white pride. It’s about being poor and feeling helpless and deciding to do something about it.

THE SYSTEM: Domesday uses a modified version of Jason Tocci’s 24XX system. Skills and allies help you roll more and higher dice to try to reach a single target number. Failure is dangerous if not outright deadly, but you can stave off those consequences by sacrificing one of your meager possessions...or one of your relationships.

THE STYLE: The game is written in a fake “vibes first” version of Middle English inspired by the works of James Joyce, Alan Moore, and Peter Kingsnorth (along with actual Middle English, which I had to recite in undergrad). It’s full of painted illustrations mimicking illuminated manuscripts. But don’t worry! The download also includes a modern English version and a plain text file.

Here’s a pretty extensive preview:

[theresattrpgforthat]

(there's some short weird ttrpgs too!)

you need to play more short weird games on itch you need to play more short weird games on itch you need to play more short weird games on itch is it working you need to play more short weird games on itch it's good for you

[spacecowboywhit]

A free mini-ttrpg about political intrigue in the Roman Republic, using the 24XX system. Just in time for the tumblr holiday!

[dungeonofthedragon]

Super Unnatural: Community Copies Added!

I've added 10 community copies of my fun spooky investigative game, Super Unnatural! Feel free to take one, but please leave a comment or review if you're able. =)

[from-the-notebooks]

Sources used for my Assassins game

This is a 4 page 24xx game that I hope to finish within the week. A little bit of history for a game about one shots. This subject is covered in way too much sensationalism and so I decided to dig into real sources for it

[dungeonofthedragon]

Hey there, I'm Sam! I make a lot of little games, but since it's the spooky season I'll highlight my spookiest offerings:

Nowhere Home is a game about sad, formerly human monsters whose only home is each other.

Solve mysteries in a haunted apartment complex with Super Unnatural!

Play a ghost defending your home from threats in 24XX CEMETERY.

And stay tuned for more on Seasons of Magic- my upcoming, award-winning game of travelling witches healing the world!

Okay, I'm doing that thing again where I ask many indie ttrpg creators to post their stuffs down below this post for people to see and maybe I might even make videos on some of them!

I'm mostly doing this right now because, ya know, stupid Elon shit, but whatever.

Anyway, go post them now!

[thydungeongal]

Do you know of any good rules-lite Blorbo factories? Something with lots of options and ideas/inspiration without being crunchy. The best I can think of the 24XX games but I'm curious if there are more.

Hmmm, I think The Magical Land of Yeld might count as one! It has a bit of bite to it, so it's not on the rules-lightest side, but it is comparatively simple compared to many other games in the fantasy adventure game niche, and it has tons of character options. Character creation is very simple, but once the party basically graduates from their initial adventure they get to pick a heroic job. There are eight heroic jobs, and once characters progress far enough in their quest they get to switch to advanced jobs, but it's also possible to switch between heroic jobs. It's very similar to the Final Fantasy job system in that certain benefits carry over from previous jobs while others are only "on" while you are in a job.

It's also a really fun game. The first edition is free as far as I know and the 2nd edition can be purchased here:

I think FIST is also something of a rules light blorbo factory. It's based on a simplified "no moves and no playbooks" version of the PbtA framework and character creation basically involves taking two Traits and smashing them together. While it's possible to roll for Traits, it also makes an allowance for players choosing them, and there are literally thousands of possible combos.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Protect the Child: Digital Glitch

It was supposed to be a simple job. Get in, get a sample, get out, don't get caught. You didn't expect there to be a kid, locked up in a room like a mouse in a box. She says the corpos stole her away from her parents and stuck her full of needles. Now she's in your arms, hands over her ears while the alarm blares, and security drones are blocking your every exit. What do you do?

Digital Glitch is a new, cyberpunk setting for Protect the Child. It includes 7 pre-written characters, all members of a group of cyber-runners, criminals who go on high-stakes jobs to rob the mega-corporations called zaibatsus in order to keep themselves alive. Unfortunately, the lab they were attempting to rob also happened to hold a girl, whose genetic code has gave her super-senses and a hyper-sensitive nervous system after IrisLabs tried a new experimental procedure.

You need the rules for Protect the Child in order to be able to play this game, but right now, since PtC is in playtesting, the rules are free!! Currently downloading the game gives you access to a Google Sheets play-kit. There is also a pdf in the works to be released at a later date.

This play-set was designed for both the Kiwi Jam 2024, and the Dice Exploder Pregen Jam. It's list of inspirations include Hamixh Cameron's The Sprawl, Cory Doctorow's Unauthorized Bread, and ZebraMatt's 24XX Dire Pulse. It contains themes of Infertility, Exploitation, Police Violence, Capitalism, Disability, and Medical Horror.

Check it out today!

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Hi! I would like to try my hand at making my own ttrpg, but I have NO idea where to start, tbh.

Do you have any tips? Do you know of anywhere to discuss designing this stuff?

Hey that's super exciting! TTRPG design is a ton of fun and can be super rewarding!

So some general advice, based on what I've learned and also have heard from others.

Start small! Smaller than you think! Diving straight into the deep end with a big ol' fantasy heartbreaker is the road to never getting anything done. So scope out something that you know you can finish. Maybe that's a new class or playbook for a game you already like! Maybe it's an expansion or set of new subsystems! Maybe it's an adventure (though adventure writing can be it's own can of worms, but don't let that stop you hahaha)!

If you want to go bigger, maybe look at hacking a system or engine you like! I'm a huge fan of LUMEN as a fun to pick up and experiment with engine. Also, the LUMEN SRD (system reference document) is a very nice set of "how to do LUMEN games", which is very helpful. There's also other open systems/engines/SRDs like 24XX, Caltrop Core, and Breathless that could be great to look into. Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark are both fantastic engines/systems to design in, but are also much harder to really get the hang of (and while Blades in the Dark does provide an SRD, it's a good rules reference, but not a great "how to" reference).

If at the end of all that, you decide on making your own bespoke system, go for it! See what happens! Try and figure out the focus on what you want your system to do (generalist games are always harder to make, imo), and then really dig into that. But I think starting with SRDs/hacks/expansions is going to be a way better start than trying to do everything from scratch.

Make something and don't worry about ever sharing it! This is also just general artistic/creative advice, but the first things you make prooooobably won't be your best and that's okay! I have loads of early design material and scraps that will never see the light of day, but working on them I learned a lot! If you do want to share things, it's fine to just share it with friends, you don't need to worry about publishing or any of that. Just remember to stay focused and work towards finishing something, because then you can start on the next thing. And the next thing after that! TTRPG design is a skill that takes practice. You can try focusing on one design idea in one project, and then work on a different design idea on the next to build up your skill set.

Play, read, and run a lot of different games! It's like with writing, the more you read, the better a writer you can start to become. You learn a lot about ttrpg design by interacting with ttrpgs. If you don't have regular groups to play/run things with, then try and read a lot of different games of all different systems and styles! All that you're absorbing is going to give you fuel for your own designs, and sometimes you learn something really cool from unexpected places (like, I could not have imagined the impact that learning about a lot of OSR design stuff would have on my own design, even though I don't consider myself a strictly OSR designer).

Don't worry about what other people are making! This is just the "two cakes meme", but even if you find out someone is working on something similar, it is always worthwhile to pursue your own vision.

This is getting long, so I'll wrap up that section and move on to the second question.

I think there's a pretty solid community of TTRPG designers here on tumblr these days, so you can try getting discussions going here! I also do a lot in various discord groups. I personally really like Plus One EXP which is very friendly to newcomers and has pretty active design discussions (I also publish some stuff in print through Plus One, full disclosure).

If you're looking for more spaces, asking around there probably wouldn't hurt either.

I'm also always super down to discuss TTRPG design at like, the drop of a hat. So feel free to shout in my inbox anytime!

Best of luck on your journey, and can't wait to see what you do!