#D12 and D4 then this likely the reason!

[falsesecuritysketches]

[pubbamoon]

Divisional Charts in Vedic Astrology

Hi guys! How are you? I'm good and I hope you are too. So, this will be another post about Vedic astrology. I wanted to post this blog yesterday, but I was so tired for no damn reason. Also, thank you for liking my post about the nakshatras. I didn't expect it to do this well. This will be finally a bigger post after a couple of days ago. Hope you'll find it interesting.

Divisional charts are multiple charts in Vedic astrology which represent various things in our life. Each divisional chart analyses particular thing in our life, such as money, marriage, career, education, spirituality, strengths and weakness, our relationships with our siblings, children, parents etc. There's overall 16 divisional charts that are considered as the most important ones and I'm gonna explain in this post each of these divisional charts individually.

Rasi Chart (D1) - This is the most important chart in Vedic astrology and is basically the actual birth chart of ours. It is also called as Lagna Chart and Lagna means Ascendant. This is the type of chart where the Ascendant is always placed (or we can also say that it's fixed) in the 1st house and it represents our physical world and our overall life path in general.

Hora Chart (D2) - This divisional chart is related with the 2nd house and it represents our financial status, family wealth and how we can make money in this lifetime. There's only two signs in this chart, Cancer and Leo and both of these planets are ruled by the luminaries (the Moon and the Sun), meaning that there's a spiritual way (Moon Hora) and a creative way (Sun Hora) to make money.

Drekkana Chart (D3) - This chart is associated with the 3rd house and it represents our siblings and how we interact with them. If you don't have any sibling on your family, then this divisional chart can represent your inner world and your type of personality that you may hide from the other people in general.

Chaturthamsa Chart (D4) - Of course, this chart is related with the 4th house as well. It can represent our foundations, fortune and inherited property from our family. From my perspective, this divisional chart is also associated with our living place, childhood and our private life.

Saptamsa Chart (D7) - Since it's related with the 5th house, this chart represents our progeny, children and how we interact with them. We can see both luck and misfortune our children might experience. It can also represent our procreative energy, spiritual beliefs and our creative abilities.

Navamsa Chart (D9) - This is mostly the most important or the most popular divisional chart in Vedic astrology. Well, this chart represents our love life, marriage and our life path at the older years of our life. The placements from this chart may become more relevant to us after we turn 25. You can book a reading of this divisional chart individually with me.

Dasamsa Chart (D10) - This chart is related with the 10th house and Saturn, which means that it represents our career path, profession, how we interact with our work environment and our public image. It can show which kind of career is the most suitable for us so we can achieve success in our field. Again, this is another divisional chart that you can book a reading with me individually.

Dwadasamsa Chart (D12) - This divisional chart represents our parents and how we interact with them. It can also represent how our parents influenced our childhood and upbringing, the financial status of our parents and what we can inherit from our parents.

Shodasamsa Chart (D16) - I mostly hear that this chart represents our vehicles or which type of vehicles are the most suitable for us. We can use this divisional chart to see how we seek pleasure and comfort in life and how we connect with the money, since this chart is related with the 11th house.

Vimsamsa Chart (D20) - This divisional chart is connected with spirituality, so it represents how we approach to spiritual pursuits and religious activities. It can also represent our philosophical identity and growth of our spirituality in our life.

ChaturVimsamsa Chart (D24) - This chart is related to our educational path, learning abilities and how knowledgeable we are. If you want to know which college degrees are the most suitable for you, this divisional is great to analyze then.

SaptaVimsamsa Chart (D27) - This divisional chart is associated with our strengths and weaknesses, our what we are good at it and what we lack. This chart is not really used often.

Trimsamsa Chart (D30) - You'll possibly hear that this chart is about evils. By saying that, it can mean that this divisional chart can show which type of hardships, diseases and misfortunes we might experience in our life. This chart is also associated with the enemies, since it's related with the 6th house.

KhaVedamsa Chart (D40) - It can represent our karmic bond or relationship with our mother or with our ancestors This divisional chart can show our both auspicious and inauspicious effects in our charts or in relationships with out ancestors.

AkshaVedamsa Chart (D45) - This divisional is also not used often, 'cause its interpretation is so general. It can represent our character moral and ethical values. It's also about our karmic patterns from our father of from other ancestors.

Shastiamsa Chart (D60) - I find this divisional chart as one of the most heard and one of the most important charts in Vedic astrology. It can show our karma from our past life and our overall life path from this current incarnation.

Alright, this could the the end of another astrological post. Let me know in the comment section what do you think about this topic. And if you want to know more about any of your divisional chart, you can book a Mini Sidereal Chart Reading on my site. See you soon!

Best regards, Paky McGee

[thisisnotthenerd]

active stat tracking for never stop blowing up: episode 4

see it all in spreadsheet form here

some big changes this week; everyone's up to a d10 for minimum highest value. our second d20 came in from usha/g13, this time for drive. almost everyone has a d12, with kingskin left as the holdout.

vic/wendell takes the cake for best average distribution, with 7 skills blown up: 2d6, 1d8, 3d10, and 1d12. greg/dang is pretty close behind, with 6 skills and a closely matched distribution: 2d6, 1d8, 2d10, and 1d12.

in terms of the skills that blew up this week, we saw a ton of progression in drive and tech for obvious reasons, and some individual growth in most of the other skills. wits and hot saw no changes in this episode.

our specialist distribution has changed somewhat; vic, greg, jennifer, and kingskin all have 6+ skills blown up, though kingskin has a slightly more biased distribution due to the long beach 5000. g13 and jack are definitely our specialists; jack towards weapons and g13 towards drive and tech.

part of this process is luck--you can't blow up on every roll. but part of it is engaging with the dice. ify, jacob, alex, and izzy rolled a lot in this episode and thus had more chances to blow up. by contrast, ally spent much of their time in a support role, taking full advantage of la familia to share tokens and die rolls. rekha focused in on drive and brought it from a d4 to a d20 in a single episode, but didn't blow up on any other skills because she drove for the whole time, instead of jumping out to fight.

now that they're collectively up to a d10, it's likely that we'll be seeing some of the d8 skills enter the group abilities, but there will be more to come from the adventuring party tomorrow.

paula donvalson / jack manhattan

abilities: duelist, burglar, trained (brawl)

stunts: d6

brawl: d4

tough: d8

tech: d4

weapons: d12

drive: d4

sneak: d6

wits: d6

hot: d4

liv skyler / kingskin

abilities: wealthy, menacing, demolitions

stunts: d6

brawl: d4

tough: d6

tech: d10

weapons: d6

drive: d10

sneak: d4

wits: d4

hot: d8

andy 'dang' litefoot / greg stocks

abilities: trained (brawl), trained (weapons), smokin'

stunts: d10

brawl: d4

tough: d10

tech: d8

weapons: d6

drive: d12

sneak: d4

wits: d6

hot: d4

wendell morris / vic ethanol

abilities: transporter, protector, trouble maker

stunts: d10

brawl: d8

tough: d10

tech: d6

weapons: d6

drive: d12

sneak: d4

wits: d4

hot: d10

russell feeld / jennifer drips

abilities: trained (hot), neck snapper, quick healing

stunts: d4

brawl: d10

tough: d8

tech: d4

weapons: d6

drive: d4

sneak: d12

wits: d8

hot: d8

usha rao / g13

abilities: transporter, hacker, trained (wits)

stunts: d6

brawl: d4

tough: d4

tech: d20

weapons: d4

drive: d20

sneak: d6

wits: d6

hot: d4

group abilities: la familia (stepping in for a tough roll, lending tokens at a 1:1, sharing skill dice for optimization)

[rpgsandbox]

Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork

A tabletop roleplaying game set on Terry Pratchett's Discworld

"A city like Ankh-Morpork was only two meals away from chaos at the best of times."

Adventures in Ankh-Morpork, the Discworld tabletop roleplaying game, catapults you onto the streets of the Big Wahoonie, and once you've dusted yourself off you can adventure to your heart's content. With imagination and some shiny math rocks at your fingertips, your story on the Disc awaits.

Based on the popular Discworld fantasy series by Sir Terry Pratchett, Adventures in Ankh-Morpork is a tabletop roleplaying game set in its most recognisable city*, complete with Sir Terry's iconic wit, humour, and humanistic satire.

Discworld is a setting that has a special place in our hearts, it is our unbelievable privilege to bring that world to life on tabletops, both physical and virtual, for fans old and new. As a British company, immersed in the style of humour and sensibilities of Sir Terry and the Discworld series, we're looking to build a faithful recreation of Ankh-Morpork for you to roleplay and immerse yourself in.

*What about Lancre and Überwald, I hear you cry? We could've charged you £900, taken six years to deliver this Kickstarter... would you have liked that? We're not selling you pork futures here, or books in potentia. Instead, let's give you an amazing rulebook and sourcebooks, taking our time to deliver you the best treatment of Ankh-Morpork we can**, and then bring another Kickstarter project to life for the other areas of the Disc. We deliver more, sooner, more sustainably, and you can have books and accessories in a more reasonable timeframe each time. If this Kickstarter is a success, then more Kickstarters will follow, no sooner than Autumn 2026.

**Because the gods know it needs it. 

This campaign will fund the publication of rulebooks and accessories for a new edition of a Discworld tabletop roleplaying game. Knowing we wanted to remain true to the look and feel we most recognise, the campaign features a new, original, Collector's Edition* cover by Paul Kidby, who worked closely with Sir Terry to develop the unique illustrative style for Discworld. Neither Kickstarter Core Rulebook will be available in retail, and are exclusive to this crowdfunding campaign and Modiphius.

*It is very important to Management that backers know the Collector's Edition cover is better than the other core rulebook cover. Management wants backers to know that it's a new, original illustration by Paul Kidby, and that it's finished with spot UV varnish to bring out the details. Management also wants backers to know the page edges are gilded in gold, and it features no fewer than two reading ribbons. Management also also wants to make it clear that it won't be available in retail, and is exclusive to this crowdfunding campaign and Modiphius. Management tried to come up with a clever-sounding name for the Collector's Edition that explained all of this, but after several days of struggle and the heroic sacrifice of two whiteboards (and one junior developer), were convinced that 'Collector's Edition' is the most readily understood title.

"Without Narrativium, the cosmos has no story, no purpose, no destination."

Discworld is a unique setting, and it deserves bespoke rules to do it justice; a system that encourages those random silly moments that RPGs and the Discworld novels both embrace so well.

The rules for Adventures in Ankh-Morpork are built on two core premises: 

The Disc has a story it wants to tell, and left alone will spin on much as it has always done.

The players want to change this story to one more to their liking.

The Adventures in Ankh-Morpork roleplaying game is powered by an original set of rules, using a set of very familiar polyhedral dice — complete with a d100, d20, d12, d10, d6, d4 and a d7A (because we can't say it's true name, so let's just call it...) the Narrativium die! The Narrativium system focuses on your roleplay, and elegantly and simply resolves moments of risk and conflict with dice rolls and character-specific traits.

The game lets you create any denizen of the Disc, with the complete freedom to define their background, who they work for, their core beliefs, niches, and quirks. From Dwarfs and Trolls to Golems and Gargoyles, play anyone (or any thing) your imagination can conjure. Play a member of the Watch, or maybe a wizard, even assassins (student), concerned citizens, thieves, beggars, reporters, seamstresses, fools and visitors/tourists.

The RPG is powered by a simple dice roll, comparing your die with the GM's Narrativium die. Whenever you do something that has a chance of failure, you'll follow these simple steps.

Justify the Action Using Traits

GM Determines the Outcome Die

Roll the Outcome Die Against the Narrativium Die

Get Help (optional)

Resolve the Test (not optional)

By picking a trait from your character and using it to justify your chance of success the GM will decide which die you roll - anything from a d4 to a d12. You roll that, while your GM rolls a d7A*. If your outcome die has rolled higher than the GM's Narrativium die, you're successful! But if the Narrativium die is higher, then you've failed, and may now be subject to unforeseen consequences or twists, represented as new traits!

*Avoiding all possible mention of the dice's sides, which is the number between 7 and 9.

The rewards for this Kickstarter will be available in multiple languages, provided for by Modiphius' localisation partners. Make your pledge for the reward tier you would like, and you will be invited to choose your language as you complete your pledge in the pledge manager, after the campaign has ended.

A French edition of the game will be crowdfunded separately by our friends at Arkhane Asylum, at the beginning of next year. If you are interested in the French edition, do not pledge for this campaign, and instead visit Arkhane Asylum's page for more information.

================================

Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, November 7 2024 8:00 PM UTC +00:00

Website: [Modiphius] [facebook] [twitter] [instagram]

[the-dlan]

Been thinking lately about a dice idea I saw that uses step dice in a roll under system

So in a game where rolling 1 is best, something like a d12 is your worst stat while a d4 is your best.

I think this concept is very neat for a few reasons:

Passing a check is possible no matter what die size you’re rolling, but

You still become more likely to succeed as die size improves.

A better (smaller) die not only increases consistency of results by reducing variability,

But also eliminates poor (high) rolls, so some checks become impossible to fail!

I feel like this could work really well for a game where PCs have a lot of power in-fiction. Some kind of superheroes, powerful mages, crazy sci-fi tech… etc. I kinda want to try writing some small system that plays around with this a little bit to see how it inspires me

[helloitsdusk]

ipre as dice

d20: magnus, because travis always rolls super good

d12: lucretia. ominous. lonely. rarely used, so always watching from the sidelines. a d12 gives off the same vibe as the song "madam director" to me

d10s: taako and lup, mostly because there are two of them. which one is the single digits and which one is the double digits? who knows. it's like asking which one is the older twin. maybe it's one of those sets that just has two of the double digit ones. who knows

d8: davenport. similar reasons to the d12, but it has a different vibe to it. the triangles are just very davenport and artificer to me

d6: merle.

d4: barry bluejeans, mostly because he died in the first arc and is also just a Normal Dude and also is a wizard

[volchonika]

My personal dice. I made these for my bard, Rowan Boer. They have swirls of purple ink, violet colorshift, dried flowers, and of course, scraps of scorched paper. These have Terry Pratchett quotes, because... well, he just got bards, I think. Here's what they say: pyramid d4: The worst thing you can do is nothing. shard d4: Words in the heart cannot be taken. d6: Nothing is louder than the end of a song that's always been there. d8: No one remembers the singer. The song remains. d10: If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's. d%: Words have always had the power to change the world. d12: One day, all of us will die but--and this is the important thing--we are not dead yet. d20: But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt like music. This set is super special to me for a lot of Big reasons. I also have a set of 10 d8s for this character that I'll share soon.

[solar-halos]

my baby fever is officially back so here are some odesta baby hcs

• i’ve mentioned this before, but i think their baby is annie’s spitting image but his mannerisms / personality are very similar to finnick’s

• building off of that, he makes poems about tadpoles and seashells and sand crabs and annie hangs them all up on the fridge. when there is no more space on the fridge they make a scrapbook

• also mentioned this before but i think it’s a pretty popular hc that annie knows how to knit bc mags taught her how. so i think she’d make baby booties and beanies and gloves and she’s freaking out bc she wants to finish all the projects before her due date and everyone is like “?? you live in d4” and annie and finnick (bc in my opinion he lives) are still freaking out bc what if their kid gets cold? (they end up lending a lot of it to katniss and peeta for their kids)

• okay apparently my dad was the only person who cussed around me as a kid so when i was little i said a curse word except i said it in such a thick accent my mom wasn’t even sure what i said at first. i think this would happen with haymitch. odesta is the first to have kids out of the bunch so he’s probably still a little rough around the edges and annie and finnick know that bc their kid starts reciting very colorful d12 curses in a very haymitch abernathy accent. but at least they’re spending time together

• whenever annie is up late from a nightmare she checks up on him and in my experience kids are literally awake like 24/7 so when she sees that she’s like “you wanna bake cookies or go for a swim?” and obviously the answer is yes but he has to know the rules in order to break them (it’s the finnick odair in him!) so he brings up the lights out rule and she’s like “babe i made up that rule so i can just take it back let’s go do something” and so they do! and then her son is soso tired the next day and annie is like hm. maybe MY mom never broke the lights out rule for a reason. (she still breaks it anyway. in moderation)

• finnick loves pretending to be a submarine whenever he and his son play out in the water, complete with sound effects. annie thinks it’s fucking ridiculous (it’s also her favorite thing ever)

• speaking of finnick, i think they have one more kid after the first one but they’re so close in age they’re like we’re never doing this again. they end up doing this again a few years later

• you know those towel cape thingies? yeah. love that. they def have matching duck ones

• finnick and annie are both so chill in different ways. spoiling your appetite? annie’s like, yeah. i was literally doing the same. finnick is like, um. i’m literally in the middle of cooking dinner. going cliff diving? finnick is like, sure. we did that all the time when i was your age. have fun. annie is already swaddling their poor kid in a bunch of flotation devices

• with that being said whenever odesta’s kid wants something he has to be very strategic on who he asks. egging the mayors house? annie will buy him the eggs. traversing the district w some friends? finnick tells him to be back by curfew

bonus:

johanna’s favorite game to play with odesta’s kid is hide and seek. not in a you-hide-i-seek way. have you ever seen that tiktok that’s like “when you’re done playing hide and seek and someone comes out of the most ridiculous place sweaty and dusty and have dry lips and no money and no future”? that’s them, except the feeling is mutual. at first it freaked annie and finnick out that their son would disappear for long periods of time but then they figured out that all they needed to do is see if johanna was marching around the house and upturning everything in her path

[roadandruingame]

RAR Musings #12: Weapon Specials

Since I mentioned them in Musings 11, I wanted to touch on weapon effects.

Since the beginning, I wanted RAR to have better choices when using different weapons for different reasons. DND has damage vulnerabilities and resistances, but for the most part, there's little you can do to actually change your playstyle WHILE fighting an enemy: you're unlikely to thrust your torch at enemies with a vulnerability to fire, and you're far less likely to purchase acid vials on the off chance you find an enemy vulnerable to acid. This puts combat versatility squarely in the hands of spellcasters, while martials Hit With The Sword Again, which often gets reduced down to whether the creature's physical resistances can be cut through with magic weapons, and whether your character has the proficiency to equip their magic weapon of choice.

Road and Ruin instead grants different strike styles to each weapon:

Piercing, or accuracy-based attacks with force applied in a straight line; rolling a d4

Slashing, or edged-based attacks, slicing or scraping with wide or prolonged surface contact; rolling a d8

Bashing, or contact-based attacks, where no particular care to accuracy is necessary; rolling a d12

Armor reduces the result of each die by the armor's value in that method of defense, though they are mostly equal, so it's much harder to stab through armor than it is to simply cave it in.

Solid Blows, or above half on the die, deal the full damage on the weapon's profile, while below half, or Glancing Blows, deal half damage, rounded down. A 1 and lower is a miss.

When rolling the die achieves a Solid Blow, a second die of the same is rolled, and the results totaled: for every 50% threshold above 100% the combined value achieves, a stage of Special is granted. For example, a Piercing attack gains special on a 6, 8, 10, 12 and so on. Different weapon types have different Special effects, though critical damage is the most common one.

Longbows achieving Special add +1 to their damage and roll again, until Special isn't achieved. This describes arrows cutting through armor and into helm gaps, sometimes finding lethal purchase, although rarely.

Poisoned or serrated daggers inflict their poison or bleeds on a Piercing or Slashing special after armor is calculated, while others increase the critical damage multiplier, or reduce the impact of armor as it finds gaps or cracks it open.

Medium-sized or Heavy weapons that land Bashing specials can damage armor or shatter shields. Strength can be added to Bashing special rolls, helping a landed hit follow through.

Chopping, or d10 attacks, can dismember and sever limbs.

Certain enchantments may activate on a weapon special, granting enhanced speed or power, or igniting the blade with fire.

Or; none of these things. Weapon Special is an optional system, for players who want more of a gear grind, or for their progression to be measured by the size and diversity of their arsenal. Monster-slaying adventures especially would benefit here, but for players who don't want the micromanagement, the system can safely be snipped out in favor of more narrative combats.

A question I still have is whether or not there should be more than one special per weapon, and whether they should both apply, or just one apply, and if the player should have the choice of which. More than one runs the risk of someone just, bathing a knife in two dozen different chemicals, and it's like. You could do that. I'm not sure what that does. I assume it's worse than just one, but I don't know if it's worse than a dozen, or better than three dozen.

Another aspect of weapons I'm proud of is a comprehensive system for determining how much damage is supposed to be on the weapon's baseline. This is through variables like Size, Shape, Weighting, and Material, but it essentially allows you to definitively quantify what a goblin shortspear actually is, and why as a human, there's not much value in looting it unless your own weapon has been damaged.

Speaking of: Improvised weapons. Like improvised materials in the newly revised skill check system, landing a blow (or, using the item) with an improvised or damaged item prompts a secondary roll, to see if the breakage extends, and whether the baseline damage drops. Given how arrows only have 1dmg in the first place, any amount of damage, or even firing them at all, is enough for them to call it quits, but it can mean extra ammo in an emergency.

Crafting of weapons, also mentioned in the revised skill check system, can also produce masterworks. This is sort of like improvised, except that there's an additional stat bonus in some way; bonus damage, or a resistance to breaking. Specialists can work at improving an item over time, with the right materials and hours, to slowly, but surely, craft a masterwork, but it might take them days, or weeks, or months, or years to finish one. Meanwhile, a legendary blacksmith might have a 1 in 2 shot of crafting a masterwork of a common item.

Another system involving weapons is Favor. I'm still juggling the name, since it overlaps with Favor from a godly or spiritual angle, but essentially, beyond proficiency with a weapon type, beyond specialization with a particular kind of weapon, there's favoring a single, individual item. Something about the way it holds, or it's shape, or that it belonged to your family, inspires you, and no other weapon is quite the same. Favor is a kind of gith system, a spellsword, where power comes not from the wielder, nor from the weapon, but from the union of the two. Favored weapons can gain special abilities that only trigger while in your hands, and they become a badge representing your renown in the region. You may brandish it to inspire fear in your enemies who know you, or keep it polished so that it's edge never rusts and it's shine never dulls. But basically, martials will have the option to pick and keep a specific weapon close, so that they aren't incentivized to hop around, but that being a tavern brawler who uses anything at hand is an equally valid playstyle.

[equalseleventhirds]

Hey, do you have any recs for long form, more serious ttrpg systems for fantasy settings? I feel like I hear a lot about short/definitively-lengthed systems, but I've been yearning for a DnD-esque system without all the baggage of equip loads and complicated Challenge Ratings and other rules-y baggage I don't super care about.

do i! do i ever!

serious & long-form systems do on the whole tend to be crunchier than shorter systems (not always, but generally); nevertheless, i've picked out a........ handful......... ok there's Several, i did try to control and limit myself but u kno.......... games......... anyway, here are some that are considerably less crunchy than d&d but still lend themselves to long fantasy campaigns.

uh. under the cut for. oh god it's so long. it's so long. tried my best to explain them, u see. (which is also why it took me so long to reply lol, sry abt that)

godeater (& godeater 2.0): play in a broken, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, where dead and dying gods warp the land, and you raid their bodies for divine magic to help support humanity. 2d10-based, get weird & funky with it! i admit a small preference for version 1.0, which gave u some loose examples but left much of the worldbuilding and even character building up to u to create; 2.0 has some extra books that go with it that i haven't much looked into yet, but seem to give more solid lore to work with, if u would like that.

when the guilds pay in copper, crime pays in gold: alchemical guilds pay shit wages to use people for magical experiments. go do crimes on 'em with your own magic. d6 base, assign dice to stats to make ur own dice pool; fairly light rules and in fact very little in the way of instruction or hard lore on the gm's side, so better played with an experienced gm who's good at making their own stuff, but certainly campaign material for the right gm!

third empire - violence + beauty: the world sucks, and has sucked for a while, through two oppressive empires and into a third one. you play adventurers who are trying to carve out a little goodness, a little justice, a little vengeance, in the world. y'know. lasers & feelings based, but expanded beyond the original (which also comes with it if u get it!) into more lore, more character choices, very collaborative worldbuilding, downtime mechanics, etc etc.

ruby radiance 6e: streamlined dungeoneering built to let ppl play the way actual play podcasts sound, essentially. d20 pool system, based on trophy mechanics but v much adjusted. lots of choices to make during character creation & leveling, but much much less to keep track of during the playing part. u get it.

wizard pals: all of you are wizards, going on adventures and trying to accomplish your goals in a fantasy world. d12-based, fairly lighthearted (can lean silly but u could use it for more serious if not super grimdark adventures), much worldbuilding left up to the gm, but very simple rules, so.

grimblade rpg: (speaking of grim lol,) action & adventure in a grim fantasy world; things like character creation and rewards (and magic) fully imply a fantasy world, but worldbuilding is left up to the gm, altho there are many tables to roll on to give some help. uses d4, 6, 8, and 10; all rolls are contested rolls, with dice picked based on how serious the gm feels this roll is.

shattered aether: post-apocalyptic science fantasy, you roam around a fucked up magic world and protect ppl from various dangers. 2d6 based, based on the lumen system so fairly combat-forward in a very high-action very cool asskicking way. for some reason the font chosen for this book is murder on my eyes, but if u can get past that (or just zoom in lots and read a bit at a time) it's straightforward, simple, and fun!

familiars of terra: this one may be a little too crunchy, but i love it a lot and rly the most crunch is in character creation and tracking experience, actual gameplay is (imo) pretty easy. post-post-apocalyptic fantasy world, some science fantasy elements depending on where you choose to focus, bcos there are absolute PAGES of lore on this extremely cool and enormous world; you and your party go around with your soul-bonded animal friends to spread hope and healing and also do cool shit. y'know. card-based, again it is probably more crunchy than ur looking for but less abt tracking what you can do during things and more abt tracking experience in order to level up stats, so.

1400 quest: ok that last one was crunchy, this one's very uncrunchy. pick a handful of things and get going! clearly inspired by d&d, but very very streamlined, so things that were pages of mechanics are like, one or two sentences. gm's side of it is like, a handful of rollable tables and then do whatever, so prolly for the more experienced gm. d6 based, but you may have occasion to use other dice. also if you like this one there's others by the same author focusing on other things (1400 mage, sneak, etc), or you can check out others in the 24XX type of games, which started out sci fi but has since been expanded to a bunch of other stuff. u kno.

beast dream: pokemon-inspired game where you make friends with magical beasts and go on magical adventures! d6-based, forged in the dark, so there is a little crunch wrt deciding on position etc and stuff like stress, but the author rly wanted to focus in on letting u adventure and have fun without getting bogged down in numbers and i think that shows, stuff like load and reputation aren't so much a thing.

cognatons: play as sentient, magic-filled automatons doing whatever fantasy adventures your robot heart desires. d4-based, caltrop core, so you get a fairly simple & defined set of actions; less to keep track of, easy to follow.

dethrone the divine: you're gonna overthrow the gods, and also take their places. you're already either divine, semi-divine, or magically powerful in other ways, and you adventure with the goal of gathering power and followers so you can take the place of the shitty gods in power. d6-based, pretty straightforward system, makes characters v cool and powerful, which is always fun.

perilous: do you love dungeon crawls bcos i love dungeon crawls... streamlined and easy to understand fantasy dungeoneer adventures in this one! d20-based, leans towards tags instead of complicated numerical skill stuff to keep track of. go to dungeons, fight monsters, get treasure. simple n good. (adds in some metaplot, like who sent you, how will this affect the people living here, whatever, but rly strong with the very old core of d&d-style 'go do a dungeon' kinda thing, if that's what u like.)

high magic lowlives: ok my latest obsession bcos i'm currently planning a big ol campaign for friends in this one. there are classic adventurers in this world, out there cleaning out monster nests or whatever, but they're usually in the employ of the immortal aristocracy. you? you make your money by stealing from and humiliating the immortal aristocracy, because you're a lowlife. it's a dangerous gig, but isn't it better than going into student debt at wizard school? melds high fantasy aesthetics with like, magical twitch streaming aesthetics. fun as hell. uses all the dice and also sometimes tarot cards (mostly just for character creation, u kno). easy to understand rules, i'm having a great time.

ellipses rpg: setting-agnostic system (make ur own setting!) with simple, streamlined rules and an emphasis on improvisation. d20 based, rly just some very basic foundation and then a lot of encouragement to make things up and do what's fun. so like, loosey goosey & not super structured if you want structure, but could be fun!

unbound: setting-agnostic system but with much more formal structure, got structure around how to collaboratively worldbuild your setting and everything. obvs this means some crunch, but it's still not super crunchy, nice and straightforward rly. lotta character options but not so complex and math-heavy, u kno. card-based system. designed actually for a series of short campaigns in a linked world, tho, so if ur not up for exploring new characters a lot, may not be for you.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Glasswork

Glasswork, The Refractory, 2007

Glasswork has a fair amount of standard fantasy RPG to it - elves, feudalism, rangers, priests, dragons, magic, swords, magic swords. Scratch the surface and things start diverging quickly.

The world is post-post-apocalyptic. The apocalypse in question is implied to be nuclear, but the game skips past overused radiation/mutation tropes. Instead, it posits that the heat from the explosives not only pulverized stone and fused the sand into glass, but pressed all the magic of the world into that glass. Much of that was used raw, and used up in the process. It was over a century before people figured out how to house the glass in special metals so that the magic didn't escape after use.

Your characters seek out that glass - maybe to use it themselves, maybe to deliver it to a nobleman who hired them, maybe to keep it from their enemies. There's a neat quest-tracking system that pushes your characters in interesting directions, demanding that they choose between various conflicting goals.

The magic system is one of my favorites, and the game's greatest strength. It's tied strongly into the quest system mentioned above, and a crafting system that's honestly mostly a pacing mechanism but still useful just as a pacing mechanism. You pick a kind of glass that you found, melt it, mix in some carefully chosen ingredients, and expose it to light at dawn/dusk/midnight/etc. to imbue it with power. You then set it in metal and, using the metal to cut yourself (lightly), bond it to your own blood. Every spell you have is thus the result of your character's work. You can have any number of items, but there are only so many you can really wear or use at once, so you have a limited number of them available at once.

Magic is mostly elemental effects, with the elements in question being weather, "light" (radiation), metal, and "blood" (the body in general). Weather and light clash with each other, as do metal and blood, so you can't use those at the same time. You have to specialize, which means you'll want to work together. In D&D4e terms, weather is really good for Controller effects, light does Striker, metal does Defender, and blood is Leader, but each of them has a range of unique side effects. A simple glowing amulet might only smell faintly of ozone, but a metal wand that fires burning rays might not only damage your target but melt the ground around them, or burn your hand, or blind people who don't shield their eyes. Every spell-item feels very unique, but you're in control of how it's unique and can swap it out.

Stat names are a little twee - Hardness, Clarity, Sharpness, etc. It feels like a PbtA game that maybe went a little too hard on matching flavor and setting. You get specialties in each one that are sort of like skills, and can be named more reasonably. Stats are dice ratings (d4 to d12) and specialties are flat bonuses (+1 to +3). The standard target number is 4, or (average dice roll) + specialty if you're rolling against someone else. If you're up against someone with d8+2, your target number is now 6. You don't actually suffer injury - instead, the damage that would be done is all bound up in your glass, and once you're out of the hit points it provides you, the magic explodes and then you're injured, probably very badly.

The setting is mostly points-of-light, but with strong connections between places. Cities send each other messages using weather magic. Navigation is easier because of metal control - you can make a compass quickly and also spot large underground deposits that help guide you along. Each of the city-states has a very distinct feel, often focused around an alignment or clash between the citizenry, the leaders, and their magic. Major antagonists include other city-states, as well as dragons (no "types", all unique individuals) and their mortal armies.

The book's artistic direction is unique as far as I know. Some pages have a layout that puts the text into the shape of a mountain, a dragon, a giant, a vase. It's fairly well-done. There were no pages where I couldn't recognize the shape immediately. It does sometimes make the text harder to read, like when it breaks words across the teeth of the dragon. There's no other art except the cover, which is a (probably stock) photo of a gem set in the hilt of a sword.

Glasswork was PWYW on DriveThru for a while. I think The Refractory went under at some point (the game never got a supplement), but since you could always get the PDF for free I wouldn't feel bad about grabbing a copy if you see it for download.

[from-the-notebooks]

Of Varying Variability

One thing that I think is under discussed in ttrpg creation is how one’s dice system affects variability. How often wild and chaotic results, positively or negatively, change the course of the game definitely helps shape its tone. Games with more realistic tones tend to have lower ranges, such as how Gurps and Traveller use multiple dice to create a bell curve. Others emphasize chaos through rules for drastic success or failure such as in Cyberpunk and Dungeons and Dragons. These work to create different tones in the game. Bellcurve systems encourage less daring actions than those with flat probability curves (some systems with rules for criticals could even to be said to have a concave probability curve) as they make the unlikely more unlikely and draw more of a players focus towards managing their odds rather than with dealing with the chaos of the dice.

Variability is also determined by the comparison between the range that the dice can reach and how wide the range of modifiers is. For example, in D&D the range of modifiers between a skilled character and an unskilled character is between +5 and +0, or about 1/4 of the range of the dice. In Fate the range is from +4 to +0 which is about 1/2 of the range of the dice with a much more bell curved dice system. This works with allowing D&D characters to be well rounded and drawing the focus for Fate players to be racking up invokes (which add +1/4 dice range each). The shared characteristic across all of these games is that they have one level of variability for all actions because they have a singular dice system. This is for two reasons, simplicity and mechanics. Simplicity calls for a singular ruleset as more dice systems would bring up more rules around when and where they are used and more for a player to remember. Mechanics call for a singular dice mechanic because all the rules need to work with that dice mechanic. One can’t just use the d20 system and 2d6 interchangeably because they have a different average. Even exchanging d20 for 3d6, which does have the same average, results in a dice system with a range of about the same (1-20 vs 3-18) and makes the advantage/disadvantage mechanic core to the d20 system unwieldy to implement (just roll two sets of 3d6 and take the lowest ain’t exactly streamlined). A while ago I came across the flux dice mechanic in Traveller 5th edition and realized that the idea behind them could be used to create a system that easily had different levels of variability. Flux dice work in Traveller 5th edition by rolling two six sided dice, one positive one negative. The result of the negative die is subtracted from the positive die and the result is the result of the flux. This gives a bell curve of -5 to +5 with 0 as the average. What caught my eye with this is that it would have a bell curve with a center at 0 using only two dice no matter what number the dice were. So here’s the concept that I’ve been dancing around this whole time. What if you had a system where switching dice system, and the variability that comes with that. So let’s use something like flux dice to do that. Take the flux dice concept and use it for d4s, d6s, d8s, and d12s. This won’t change the level of bell curve but by changing the range it changes the luck. Let’s say the range between the skilled player and the unskilled one is +3 and +0. With a positive d6 and a negative d6, the skill range would be 30% of the dice range but with d4s it would be 50%. This works without messing with the simplicity problem because the mechanic is still exactly the same: roll two dice and subtract the negative from the positive. This works on the mechanics level because any rules around modifying, for example, “a die“ or “the positive die“ still work no matter what the die actually is and rules around the highest and lowest number can be stated vaguely instead of specifically as a 6 or an 8 or what have you. I’m not entirely sure what I’d use this for to be honest. One idea is that manipulating which dice are use could be tied to an ability player’s could have. Though that might be a bit niche and not of that much consequence. Another is that different kinds of checks might use different dice or that it might depend on situation. It could be just on fiat, with situations the GM/Referee/DM/whatever determining more chaotic having a larger number and those more calm having a smaller one. This is just an idea for dice for now but a game might be coming eventually that will make use of it. But if someone else want’s to take it first, feel free!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

So, the standard set of gaming dice includes a d4, d6, d8, two d10s for percentiles, d12, and d20. I collect irregular dice, so I'd like to develop a game that literally one-ups the standard set; I have a d5, d7, d9, only one d11 (I guess if I had two they would be for perunvigicentiles?), my beloved d13, and a cumbersome d21 which is twice as large as any other die I own for no apparent reason (the same company makes d19s and d20s which are standard size, so I don't know why they insisted on making the d21 so massive).

My first thought was a Spinal Tap ttrpg, cause the d10 goes up to 11.

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Childhood in Panem

#1

With Panem's hosting annual Hunger Games, what/when do you think children being taught about it across Capitol and The Districts?

#2

What kind of childhood stories do you think were told in each districts and Capitol: specific books, fairy tales, legends, or folklore?

Example : District 4 (fishing district) = The Little Mermaid.

Thank you 😊

@curiousnonny

Since certain parts of the Games are "required viewing" where literally the entire district is expected to be in the square and watch it, I don't think there's a certain point where it's like "okay now the kids are old enough we should probably tell them about their possible future in the death matches lol." The Games just... are. They're a part of the everyday life of Panem, with parts of them being on the television in their homes like it's the daily news. So children would be exposed to the Games starting right after birth. And kids are sometimes stunningly perceptive about the world around them. I imagine that children in Panem think about the Games to varying degrees, and form opinions entirely on their own, even if their parents don't want to talk about it. I'd guess that the Games are taught in school starting the first year, but those lessons would be the Capitol version of what's happening and used as a tool to ensure compliance of future tributes, if that makes sense.

As for childhood stories, I've always thought that the Capitol would want to pretty much wipe out as many of the stories/songs/books from before the Dark Days as possible. Anything that the Capitol might consider to be culturally dangerous, which means anything that suggests it is even remotely acceptable, noble, human, or reasonable to sacrifice for a loved one or family. The only acceptable sacrifices in the eyes of Snow and the Capitol are those that benefit Snow's particular vision for the nation-state of Panem.

That's not to say that I think Snow et al would be able to get rid of everything, but I believe that sometime after Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes, during his rise to power, he was involved with a massive censorship movement. School curriculum would be made very specific and libraries either abolished (especially in the districts) or tightly controlled. Peacekeeper raids to get rid of contraband, to include books and music and artwork. I think that over time, Snow wouldn't have been as concerned with those things, probably because his own arrogance, believing that he successfully wiped out any negative influences.

Of course, there's only so much a dictator can do to limit oral tradition, and stories would be passed down that way, but I think most of what would survive would the stories and traditions that parents believe would help their children survive the harsh world in which they live. And I do think that each district would develop oral traditions that reflect where they live, much you suggest here. D4 would have stories that center on the ocean, D2 and D12 on the mountains, D12 and D7 on the forests, and so on.

Thanks for the ask, @curiousnonny!

[districtunrest]

"He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America."

(THG chapter 1)

"In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies. District 12 was in a region known as Appalachia."

(THG chapter 3)

Where do you think location of Capitol and Panem's districts exactly?

The Appalachian’s span multiple states. Where do you picture District 12?

How long between this time and Panem rise? 200 hundred years? More?

Thank you so much

@curiousnonny

Panem is comprised of the remains of North America, not the United States specifically. so I do imagine it including southern Canada and northern Mexico.

we know the Capitol is in the Rockies (Denver? Salt Lake City? somewhere entirely new? 🤔 Idk!).

D1 is out west, maybe past the Rockies. wherever there's gemstone deposits - Arizona? or maybe it’s the resurrected ruins of Las Vegas, lol

D2 is also canonically in the Rockies, maybe encircling the Capitol or at least buffering it from the eastern districts.

D3 is in Silicon Valley, lol (I have no idea)

D4 should have access to both the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico so I imagine it as a long strip of land that spans SoCal, northern Mexico, to like southeastern Texas. this would also include the Rio Grande, for freshwater fish.

D5 utilizes Niagara Falls, placing it in western New York/southern Ontario.

D6 is in Michigan. why? because cars. 🤷🏻‍♀️

D7 is in the Pacific Northwest.

D8 is somewhere Midwest, maybe Illinois. however way that Bonnie and Twill would have to pass D12 to get to 13.

D9 is within the 'breadbasket' of the US, basically the Midwest. it should span the wheat and corn belt - so, Kansas.

D10 is the southern part of the Great Plains, basically Texas/Oklahoma.

D11 is at least in mainland Georgia. I think that's per Collins? even though the southeast coast would most likely be underwater if sea levels rose enough to flood parts of the country, as Katniss describes. but whatever.

D12, I picture tucked in a valley, somewhere between Kentucky and West Virginia.

D13, I wish could be the former Washington DC, as that could explain all the underground bunkers, but I am sure at this point DC has been wiped off the map, underground bunker or not. nuclear reactors + known graphite deposits would place it in New York/Ontario/Quebec region, but far enough away from D5.

and I'd say there should be at least 200 years between now (well, 2010s) and Panem. there’s so much to precede Panem, what with environmental disasters, nuclear war, and government collapse/upheaval. one day I'll find a good enough reason for someone in a fic to make the passing joke, "you just avoided world war seven," because that’s the general vibe I have of Panem’s presumed point in history.

[passionsod]

Asking Why We Must Hurt The Animatronic In A FNAF Security Breach Stream Vtuber Furry

It feels like a massive over sight on the games story to not give a good reason to scrap them or the option to save them.

Hope you can join, have a great day

Linktree in Bio

❤️&🔃, thanks