#Brindlewood Bay Game

[mightymur]

[ISBW] The Epiphany of Writing Routines: Embracing Structure in a Creative Life

S20 Ep8: The Epiphany of Writing Routines “The Epiphany of Writing Routines” is brought to you in large part by by my supporters, who received an early, expanded version of this episode. You can join our Fabulist community with a pledge on Patreon or Substack! Some links below are affiliate links and I may earn some money at no cost to you when you use them.    I Should Be Writing Season 20,…

[vintagerpg]

Get Cozy! This week on the Vintage RPG podcast, we check out Brindlewood Bay. It’s a little bit Murder, She Wrote, a little bit Golden Girls and a little bit The Call of Cthulhu, wrapped up in a Powered by the Apocalypse package. Can you meddle your way to the solutions of these TV-style mysteries?

[witchyfoxelf]

gencon 2024 after action report, part 2: day 2 (friday)

previously on gencon con report.

i had a pretty light day on friday in terms of scheduled events, which i think is something i'll try to do differently if i (hopefully) go back next year. grammy had a gm shift that started basically immediately, and mommy had a game in the afternoon that i wasn't part of, but vi had a couple hours before we parted ways so we decided to spend a couple hours at the boardgamegeek hot games room.

the hot games room is basically a large room with tables for folks to play at and a library of popular new release board games. i think the games were in alphabetical order, i say "think" because literally right at the beginning of the line was a copy of arcs, and we really didn't need to look at any of the other games once we saw that they had it considering the rave reviews it's been getting.

after getting a chance to play it, it's incredibly easy to see why it's been such a critical success. arcs is a game about space colonization and conflict with plenty of optionality in how you approach it. there's a lot of unsurprising mechanics like resource management and earning victory points, and of course rolling dice to resolve space conflict, but also some slightly more unexpected ones like a light trick-taking aspect to resolving actions on each turn.

above all, it's complicated & multifaceted without being intimidating. we were able to pick up the rules in no time, and once we did gameplay was smooth & exciting. this also feels like a game with a ton of replay value, and that's just the base game. there's also a campaign expansion that i'd love to try somewhere down the line when the game is more widely available. (the lgs i work at had it in stock for a minute because we backed the kickstarter, but it sold out basically immediately. again, after playing it it's really not difficult to see why.)

after this there was a rather long gap in my schedule that i made the somewhat ill-advised choice of trying to fill by looking for mtg singles in the vendor hall. it didn't take long for the sensory overload to get to me, and to make matters worse i was basically in the middle of the huge hall and literally couldn't find the exit for a good 30 minutes or so.

when i did finally make it out, i made a beeline for the quiet room, but when i got there it was literally full. if i have one piece of feedback for the event, they REALLY need more than one quiet room. finding literally no respite after that vendor hall honestly kind of broke me and i ended up in pretty rough shape, just kind of wandering aimlessly through moving crowds of people until i finally found a relatively quiet corner of one of the satellite hotels to just kind of collapse in for a while. and honestly if there had just been another quiet room this would have been easily avoidable.

anyway, after a while to recover i met back up with grammy & cj, waited for mommy to finish vir game, and we all got some food before heading to our second game with all four of us together, brindlewood bay.

brindlewood bay is for sure in contention for my favorite rpg we played at the con, though it's difficult to compare to my other favorite for reasons that will become clear when we get to it in the next post. brindlewood bay is a pbta cozy mystery rpg that is something of a marriage between what i imagine golden girls is like (i've never watched it) and murder she wrote. basically, you're a team of old lady sleuths who need to solve various crimes while also gradually learning about some larger eldritch threat lurking in the shadows. (we didn't get too far on that track, it feels like that's more for a longer campaign than on your first sitting.)

during character creation you pick a sort of detective superpower (mine, which i sadly didn't end up using, was encyclopedia brown's ability to use one piece of real-world trivia to help solve the mystery), an overall style (i picked hippy-dippie; see! told you it would come up later), and a "cozy activity" (i picked gardening, because i think that's the old lady activity i'm the most likely to develop later in life). after you pick all your traits and the few stats you need to fill in, you go around the table and suggest some resources for each other to have access to. one of the other players had cooking as their "cozy activity," so the party gifted that player an herb garden, and they gifted my character an "herb" garden since her hippy-dippy style felt at least a bit weed-coded.

another thing that came up rather organically is that my character & mommy's ended up being the "and so, they were roommates!" brand of lesbians, and the entire table including the gm seemed to get a big kick out of that.

this was my first experience with pbta, so i don't have much to compare it to, but i wouldn't be shocked if a lot of these games more or less come down to "if you/your playgroup like the premise/vibe you'll enjoy it," and i really think gencon helped "break the seal" on these sorts of games for me, and i'm hoping that'll translate into me being a bit more adventurous about trying more games instead of just watching the pile of games we own but haven't played get bigger & bigger.

but yeah, that was a wrap on day 2! only two games, but definitely a case of quality over quantity, so no complaints here.

[galaxywhump]

I don't think I've shared one of my most important possessions here

[utilitycaster]

I know I just reblogged a big group of ttrpgs (and purchased them!) but like...every single internet list of "looking to branch out from D&D? try this!" I read just never gets what I want out of TTRPGs, which, to be fair, is just...what is provided by D&D.

[zombieunicornjewelry]

Brindlewood Bay is a quaint town full of mysteries, with a Hellenic cult emerging from the dark ocean waters. It's hard to create your own mysteries, but we've got your back.

Mrs. Blackwood Presents... (link to itch.io)

is a four scenarios free supplement, spreading through all seasons, perfect for a campain or just to pick and choose whatever floats your boat. The mysteries also contain new crowns and some unique moves. You'll also need Brindlewood Bay core rulebook to play.

[this-curiouscat]

🌀,🌤️,and 🌈 please!

🌀 Post the pitch for a game you’re working on

I have to cheat a little for this one because my games are currently either done or such vague ideas that I can't even pitch them properly.

But let's talk about Bunny, We Bought a Dungeon, which Jasmin Neitzel and me actually wrote first before we hacked it into Dolly, We Bought a Dream House.

Here's the pitch: You're a group of anthropomorphic bunnies who have bought a dungeon to move in there together. As you narrate the exploration and renovation of the dungeon, you draw a map of it together.

Mechanically, we're calling it a GM-less OSR story game. We're using OSR elements like dice drops, random roll tables, and of course a classic fantasy dungeon setting and combine them with GM-less story mechanics, action rolls inspired by Lasers & Feelings (but not exactly like L&F), and the idea that dungeons can also be homes.

We've already published it in German earlier this year and I've recently translated it into English and will release it tomorrow at the latest.

🌤️ Share your favorite mechanic from a game you’re working on

Same disclaimer as above. So let's talk about something I've already published! I'm still proud of my supplement Alternative Crowns of the Queen for Brindlewood Bay.

As in the original game, it's a set of narrative prompts that allow more insight into the characters' backstory and current life outside of investigating murders and supernatural conspiracies (you use them to bump up a roll one level). And as in the original game, they're meant to show the Murder Mavens "as a woman."

However, my Crowns of the Queen cover a lot more ground than the ones in the original because a senior woman's life of course contains many other relevant aspects than being a daughter, mother, or wife/romantic partner (which is what the original game focuses on). Therefore, my Crowns offer you prompts about bodies, aging, and health, female solidarity and friendship, professional successes and failures, and of course an option to tell a coming-out story.

(In case anyone reading along is wondering: Yes, I absolutely think asking questions/giving narrative prompts is a proper game mechanic just as much as rolling dice or drawing cards or ticking boxes on a sheet is.)

🌈 Share your favourite class/playbook from one of your games (name the game, or let me choose)

So far, I only have one game that has something resembling playbooks, so we're talking about my Firebrands game Miss Bernburg's Finishing School for Young Ladies here. It's set in an all-girl upper-class boarding school in the 1950s (located in Western Europe or North America).

It has three cliques to choose from, which function as character archetypes more than social circles: Homemakers, Bookworms, and Rebels (the latter may be renamed in the translation of the second edition I'm planning for sometime in the future). You get a short flavor text, a list of attractive characteristics to choose three from, and some name suggestions. There are further character questions to answer, such as items they've put on display or keep hidden in their dorm rooms (those are partly different in the first and second edition of the game).

I always enjoy playing a Homemaker (or seeing them played) because there's so much variety you can bring to this type of Young Lady. You can play her as a naive, down-to-earth person who just enjoys traditionally female activities and responsibilities. Or you can play her as a charmingly manipulative person who sees this role as the best opportunity to at least have some social and political influence in her life. Or you can play her as someone who aims to use a facade of respectability to create space for a relatively unbothered queer life on the side. Or maybe she's just waiting for someone to nudge her out of her conformist comfort zone and discover a curious or rebellious streak?

As always, we play to find out, and the Homemakers nearly always have some of the most interesting story arcs I've played and witnessed in this game. (Ask me again and I will tell you the same thing about the other two cliques, though!)

(Cover illustration by Christiane Ebrecht)

Thanks for asking! 💖

[chaoticblade5]

It's a hot take, but if there is no definite way of incorporating your backstory into the game laid out by the rules, there is no reason to have a backstory.

[ecgarrison]

New Game: Thank You For Being a Fiend!

Sophia recently returned to live at the dreaded Shady Pines Retirement Home. But what’s this? Someone’s dead! And Sophia’s implicated! Can the Girls clear her of suspicion by finding the real killer in time? Will Dorothy forgive herself for putting her ma in this inhumane ‘prison’? Will Blanche find someone to flirt with, even amid the chaos? Was that something unnatural, lurking in the shadows,…

[painedemonium]

Introductions

Hello, Tumblr! I'm a voice actor, game master, podcaster, and streamer finally taking steps to make that a full-time thing. To that end, may I offer some of my wares?

At the link above, you'll find:

Exobytes & Elseworlds: A Superheroic Roleplaying 5e game based on and taking place in the world of DC Universe Online.

Adventures in Middle-Earth: The Other Fellowship: An Adventures in Middle-Earth 5e campaign in which an original party will come together at the Council of Elrond and be tasked with the destruction of the One Ring.

A Disturbance in the Source: A Skywalker Saga "What If?" Campaign: Decide the fate of the Galaxy in this "What If…?" style campaign. Relive or reroll the events of the Skywalker Saga with your own characters, with Session 1 taking place immediately prior to "The Phantom Menace."

A New Era: A Post-Rise of Skywalker Campaign: It has been two years since the destruction of the New Republic, and one year since Emperor Palpatine's death, the Final Order's defeat, and the start of galaxy-wide uprisings against the First Order. For the first time in millennia, there is no central government and no clear direction. Your story begins here.

Power Rangers: Zero Force: Welcome to Angel Grove. You are newly chosen Power Rangers selected by the mysterious entity Zero to protect the world from evil. Venture forth from an ancient command center to defeat Earth's many enemies, and discover more than just the power within.

Adventure Intrepid: A Campaign in Faerun: A Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in classic Faerun, this game is intended for players of all experience levels. Characters start out at level 1 as unknown adventurers who take jobs to make ends meet and, in time, create their own legend.

So, You Went to School for Magic: A Strixhaven Campaign: A "Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos" campaign for D&D players new and old, from a Dungeon Master who prefers diversity and acceptance in their magical institutions. Players take on the roles of students at Strixhaven University, who must complete their education while also protecting the school from darkness.

What We Do in Barovia: A Curse of Strahd Campaign: A "Curse of Strahd" playthrough intended for players of all experience levels, from a DM who enjoys "What We Do in the Shadows" a little too much. Characters start out at level 1 as adventurers swept into the mists of Barovia, and who must defeat Baron Strahd von Zarovich to depart again.

Mavens & Midwives: A Brindlewood Bay Collection: Intended for players new and old, Mavens & Midwives is a complete Brindlewood Bay campaign in which players will develop their Murder Maven characters, solve mysteries, and uncover the Dark Conspiracy.

Star Trek: Time, and Time Again: This Star Trek Adventures campaign is set in an alternate timeline, combining story elements from the Prime Timeline (classic and modern Star Trek), Kelvin Timeline (as established by Star Trek, 2009, dir. J.J. Abrams), and apocryphal media - starting with a reality changing story arc and developing into its own "ongoing series" so long as players are interested! Your story begins in 2161, mere hours before the official founding of the United Federation of Planets. Where it goes is up to you!

And more to come!

[richdadpoor]

The Gaming Shelf Feasts on the Undead Third Reich

“Eat the Reich is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you, a vampire commando, are coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swath through Nazi forces en route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler’s blood. It’s written by Grant Howitt (Honey Heist, Spire, Heart) and illustrated by Will Kirkby (Critical Role, Image, Darkhorse, Boom).” “3 Minutes is a tabletop…

[thesiltverses]

The Silt Verses RPG has just launched from the acclaimed designers of Brindlewood Bay and The Between!

Investigate stray angels, strange haunts, and murderous cults in a world of gods and sacrifice as a disciple of the Saint Electric, Trawler-man, Watcher in the Wings, Cairn Maiden, Pox Martyr, or the Waxen Scrivener.

Delve into backwoods towns, floating markets where sacred relics are bought and sold, bustling clinics where medical 'miracles' come at a hideous cost - and even a towering skyscraper of conjoined steel, glass, and flesh.

You can purchase a copy over on DriveThruRPG, or at the Silt Verses or The Gauntlet Patreon, netting you the rulebook, 8 Assignments, 6 Faith Sheets, 8 Journey Sheets, and more.

This game really is a labour of love from a small team of innovative indie RPG creators, and already a genuine work of art (so we'd be incredibly grateful for your help in playing, giving feedback, and spreading the word far and wide) - we think it's an absolutely fantastic achievement, and we know The Gauntlet are only going to keep building and improving on the game from here.

You can find out more by joining The Gauntlet Discord.

[txttletale]

Do you have recs for combatless rpgs? sorry if someones asked this ! im getting into ttrpgs now and its just pretty hard to find anything non combat focused ?

i recommended wanderhome (melancholy animal roadtrip), dream askew (queer postapocalyptic survival), microscope (collaborative worldbuilding), and crescent moon (kids learning and growing in a fantasy land) in resposne to an ask earlier today. other great rpgs that aren't combat focused include:

chuubo's marvelous wish-granting engine: i'll level with you, if you're just getting into rpgs this one might be A Lot because it's quite mechanically complex. but it's a beautiful game about having ghibliesque coming-of-age adventures in a surreal dreamy world.

nobilis is by the same person (jenna moran, a genuine game design pioneer and genius) -- it's about being godlets, the living embodiments of concepts from the concrete to the abstract. you might find yourself fighting in this game, but it's unlikely to look anything like 'combat'.

brindlewood bay, which is about being elderly women investigating murders.

pasión de las pasiones, a pbta (powered by the apocalypse) game about doing ridiculous romance drama shit based on telenovelas

monsterhearts, about teenaged monsters having weird drama and exploring their sexuality. think buffy or twilight, but queerer

pigsmoke, about being professors at a college of magic and competing to see who can publish the best paper (yes, really)

the girlfriend of my girlfriend is my friend, about... i mean i think the title makes it pretty clear! being gay and poly and kinda broke

it's been a long, long, time, about two people who used to date, their relationship, their lives after it, and their reunion

sagas of the icelanders, about being viking settlers in iceland during the saga period and playing out quasimythical dramas

hieronymous, about being a bunch of sinners making your way across hieronymous bosch's garden of earthly delights

thousand year old vampire, a solo journalling game about being a vampire and living through long stretches of history

blow up hamlet, where your table performs hamlet while changing the plot and improvising new plot beats at semi-random

slugblaster, about being rowdy teens hoverboarding through interdimensional rifts in the spirit of 90s teen movies

woo! that's a fuckin' lot of ttrpgs, but i wanted to give a lot of suggestions because i think it's so important for people getting into the hobby to understand the breadth of games out there and how far from the popular image created by D&D they can go! there are two-player and GM-less and even one-player games on this list. you can do anything! the world of rpgs is so fucking wide and beautiful. good luck and i hope you find something that speaks to you!

(oh, also, my game, most trusted advisors -- about being the untrustworthy privy council to a dipshit king and falling over each other's nested dipshit schemes -- has no combat in it. just saying!)

[the-campaign-coach]

Using Rules From Other TTRPGS

As a game runner and player experienced in over 75 game systems, I can let you in on a big secret. 

No rule is as important as the experience your players are having at the table. 

This doesn't mean the rule of cool gets to take over all at times, in fact for many if not most players, consistency matters. It is nearly impossible for a game group to be able to find a single system containing all of the rules your players will like, and even more importantly doesn't contain any rules your players hate. Rules can be built very well for the theme but maybe a certain subsystem doesn't gel well with each player. 

Generally, I would not suggest changing the core concepts of a game, without completely changing which game you're using, but I will actually address that in a later post called, Porting a Game to a Different System. 

Instead, I want to talk about rules that exist within certain games that are able to be pulled across and either subtly added to the game, or used to change an inherent aspect of the game that doesn't work for your group. 

My first major addition that I would suggest using in almost any game is the concept of Advantage and Disadvantage. For those that don't know, the most common version of this is rolling an extra die and taking either the best of the pile or the worst of the pile. The math on a D20 for example is something like a +4 to the die roll. The importance to the game is beyond the simple math. Rather than this just being something that can allow the party to succeed or give them greater challenge, I've always found that succeeding at a disadvantaged role or failing at an advantage role creates the drama with just the dice, which is often hard to do. 

When someone has all the odds stacked against them and still managed to succeed, your party will celebrate the hardest. By the same metric when everything is set up for success, and failure still happens, the resulting consequences often define a game session, and can be memorable than a simple success would ever would be. I really suggest adding these as part of the game, but only after negotiation with your group to understand when and where they will apply, as they create a simple mechanical lever to pull on to increase the tension within a session. 

I played Brindlewood Bay for the first time recently and it has a wonderful way to resolve mysteries. Even if you're not specifically running a mystery game, the idea that the players build the story with you, is one that I strongly advise. In Brindlewood Bay, the players collect clues during play which make the final “solving the mystery roll” possible. The player who chooses to make the roll asserts what they think to be true, and if the roll succeeds then that becomes the solution to the mystery. Now ideally a player won't attempt this roll without discussing how they would like the story to end with the whole group.  A fun twist can happen when a great theory, and a decent chance at the roll, still ends up with a failed result. They will have to pivot to a twist ending that no one expected, but that still aligns the clues to point to the new suspect. 

I actually have an example of this from the year prior to playing Brindlewood Bay for the first time. I knew generally of the mechanics, so when a player interrogated a NPC and layed out a better, more well thought out explanation to the events that were unfolding, I just went with it. I had fed them clues that I thought were pointing them to a certain direction. The way he had interpreted them and explained it to our group via the interrogation was bette. He set up a scenario with better stakes than I had put in place. He then went on to create a magic spell from scratch because of this information, a mechanic both in that game of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 2e as well as the Dresden Files RPG, but I will go into greater detail about that in a future post called “Making Magic: Custom Spell Creation”.

The last rule I would love to include for you to consider is giving away some of the narrative control. Most games limit this to a Meta Currency such as the Fate Points in Fate, or the Bennies from Savage Worlds. These allow small changes like an open window to sneak into, or maybe the bouncer at the club is an old friend. 

Alternatively you can use the Flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark, and its derivatives. In this a player doesn’t just speak something into existence, but takes a hit to their main character resource to activate it. Once they do they get to have a flash back to how this change to the narrative was really part of the story we just hadn’t seen yet. That might be a similar result to those above but the vibes can be quite different so I would suggest grabbing the version that speaks to you. 

There are so many more rules I would love to highlight, so this might end up just being the first in a series of posts with the same theme. If you read this and feel like there are rules you can’t help but use in all you games let me know and I can try them out as well!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Games with an atypical division of Player/GM responsibilities? For example, in Fellowship, the players have final say in lore/world building questions, not the GM. (Not counting GMless games, which have atypical GM duties by default)

Alternatively, if that's too niche: any games explicitly designed for rotating GMs and/or 'West Marches' style campaigns.

THEME: Unique Player Responsibilities / Rotating GMs

Hello there! I hope to do your ask justice, although I feel more at home talking about the first half of your question than the second. I’ll ask my followers to supply some more suggestions in the tags/reblogs, and throw at you what I have!

Fae’s Anatomy, by Hebanon Games.

Fae’s Anatomy is a comedic storytelling RPG wrapped around a challenging logic puzzle, recreating the high-stakes melodrama of medical procedurals like Grey’s Anatomy, House, and General Hospital. 

Anybody can be an expert in Fae’s Anatomy. The game is set in a world where all forms of magic, spirituality, and mysticism are science. Science? Just another form of wizardry. Quackary, superstition, and pseudo-science work, but so does chemotherapy, antibiotics, and sound medicine.

In many ways, I’d say Fae’s Anatomy feels like a typical ttrpg: you have one person giving hints and clues to the rest of the players, who will use certain skills and abilities to solve a problem. But the closest role to the GM role - the Patient - is simply different from the doctors in what limits them. The Patient is suffering from some kind of mysterious illness, and while they have a little bit of information available to their general illness, the app presented to them to help them run through the diagnosis keeps the solution obscured enough to keep them on their toes. The Patient also has to role-play their symptoms well enough to help point the doctors in the right direction. In some ways, it feels like Fae’s Anatomy is an elegant form of charades - and if you want to hear how this game plays, you can check out the special episodes that Lawful Great Adventures recorded using this game!

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi @temporalhiccup

The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

There are two ways in which Apocalypse Keys uniquely empowers the players in ways I consider slightly unorthodox. Firstly, there’s the fact that the lore of DIVISION, the shadowy government agency that holds your monsters leash, isn’t fully fleshed out at the beginning of play. It’s slowly uncovered with each mission and playbook advancement, with the players being presented with questions and workshopping the answers together.

Second is the mystery mechanic, which was popularized by Brindlewood Bay and The Between, and also made its way into games such as External Containment Bureau and Bump in the Dark. While the GM designs clues and thinks about what kinds of Harbingers might be responsible for this specific apocalypse, it’s up to the players to decide what the answer to the mystery actually is - and it’s the player’s roll that determines how accurate they are.

Brinkwood, Blood of Tyrants, by Far Horizons Co-Op.

Mask up. Spill blood. Drink the Rich.

The world is not as it should be. The rich feed, literally, upon the poor, as blood-sucking vampires who barely bother to conceal their horrific, parasitic nature. The downtrodden peoples of the world struggle under the burdens of rent, payable through the sweat of their labor or the blood of their veins. Evil has triumphed. Many have given in to despair. But all is not lost.

In Brinkwood, you take on the role of renegades, thieves, and rebels struggling for freedom and liberation in a castylpunk world controlled by vampires. Radicalized by tragedy, you have taken up arms and fled into the forests, where you were taken in by unlikely allies - the fae, forgotten creatures of myth - who offered a different path and the means to fight back against your oppressors. Masks, forged of old wood and older magic, are the final tool left to fight a war long ago lost. If you wear them, they will take their price, etching themselves upon your very soul. But they will also let you spill the blood of the rich and powerful vampires that now rule the land, and from that blood strengthen yourself and your movement.

There’s a lot of things about Brinkwood that I absolutely love, from the way the mask playbooks are meant to be swapped among the characters/players with every mission, to the slow but steady revolution that you build by fostering connections with various factions in the Bloody Isles. But for the purpose of this request, we need to talk about Your Exquisite Fae.

Your Exquisite Fae is the process by which the group collaboratively creates a faerie patron, otherworldly and uniquely powerful. It’s inspired by the game Exquisite Corpse, which has each player draw a piece of a drawing without knowing what the others have already created. In Your Exquisite Fae, the players receive answers to prompts written by other players but aren’t given hints as to what the context was - and then they elaborate on what those answers mean. For example, one player might state that the Fae has eyes that reflect the night sky, gleaming like a thousand distant starts. The second player might decide that those eyes see the deepest fears of the enemy, giving the group an advantage at finding weaknesses and secrets when spying on vampires.

Ars Magica, by Atlas Games.

Ars Magica is the award-winning roleplaying game by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen about wizards and their allies in Mythic Europe. This flexible, deeply built world can support games that are historically accurate or fantasy-based, epic or small scale, political or personal.

Players work together to tell the story of their covenant — all of the magi, their companions, and grogs. This history can span decades. It might be heroic, tragic, or both in turn. The covenant could influence the entirety of Mythic Europe or the fates of a small corner of the world.

Spells will be cast. Duels won and lost. Houses may rise and fall. But magic is forever.

The last time I talked about this game, one of my followers pointed out that this was an incredibly complex game that was designed to accommodate rotating GMs. The game styles itself as a troupe-style game, which means you’re not just responsible for your mages, but also your companions and servants. If you want a game with complex relationships and big-picture conflicts, this might be the game for you.

Slugblaster, by Mikey Hamm.

In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever.

This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool.

It may look like a small thing, but during crew creation, each character playbook has specific roles in determining the crew’s resources and relationships. The Grit picks a faction that trusts the crew. The Guts chooses a faction that the crew has somehow annoyed. Each player draws a portal between the known multiverses, but the Smarts draws two. The Chill has final say over where you hang out when you’re not Slugblasting, and The Heart has final say over your crew name.

I’ve drawn direct inspiration from this setup in my own game that I’m playtesting, by giving each playbook final say over some element in the world, and I think it really boosts player agency and gives them control over the kind of story the group wants to tell.

Planedawn Orphans, by Sharkbomb Studios.

Planedawn Orphans is a campaign kit that helps you prepare a campaign for the fantasy role-playing game of your choice. It provides a flexible and versatile framework to start a campaign. The campaign kit will help you get started and provide structure and support, but some assembly is required.

Set in the Planar City, a strange melting pot that connects the vast diversity of the multiverse. You all play Planar Orphans stranded in this city, your original home worlds destroyed, corrupted or lost. A mysterious Patron has brought you together, provided you with a base of operations and tasked you to complete a Planar Key. This key will let you create a new plane for you and your fellow refugees. Your quest will bring you to exotic places filled with strange creatures and bizarre phenomena.

This isn’t a standalone rpg, but rather a campaign kit for whatever system you like - or even multiple systems! I’m recommending this toolkit because I’m actually planning to use it to run a series of rotating-gm games later this year, with a friend of mine. You’re building your own custom dimension by jumping into a series of vastly different worlds, and your home base is built collectively. There’s a lot of player agency and GM agency here, as players have plenty of control over their home dimensions (since they can’t ever go back) and the GMs can take turns designing custom worlds for the party to jump into. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Also Check Out

Asymmetrical Games Rec Post

[molomoot]

Serving Up Disaster is a TTRPG about a famous yet divisive TV Chef visiting various failing restaurants across the country.

In this game, one player facilitates play, arbitrates the rules, frames scenes, and portrays the character of “Chef”. In each session of play, Chef visits a new location with a whole new restaurant, with the aim of helping its Staff change their bad attitudes, repair their broken relationships, and overcome their intractable problems, to ensure a successful relaunch night, and a bright future of the restaurant.

The other players act as the Staff of the restaurant, playing out their characters’ desires and disasters as they work with Chef to turn their business around.

This game was inspired by binge-watching too many episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, and builds on tools from the Brindlewood Bay game engine.

This is an ashcan version that I'm putting out to hopefully raise some funds to pay for a proper editior / layout artists etc.