#Tabletop Role Playing Game

[anim-ttrpgs]

Help Save the World of TTRPGs and Their Creators.

Okay I’m being a little dramatic, but at the same time I’m pretty serious. This is a call to action, and the livelihoods of myself and lots of other people, many of them (like myself) disabled, are depending on it. This is a post about why, what you can do about it, and (perhaps least often answered) how.

This post is actually an accompaniment to another discussion by someone else. If you don’t want to listen to a 90-minute in-depth discussion of much of what I’m about to tell you, you can just keep reading. Otherwise, click here or here and listen to this either before or after you read this post. (They’re the same thing, just different sources.)

If you have ever made or reblogged posts urging people to switch from Google Chrome to Firefox, you should be willing to at least give a try to other TTRPGs besides D&D5e for much the same principle reasons. I’m not telling you you have to hate D&D5e, and I’m not telling you you have to quit D&D5e, I’m just asking you to try some other games. If you don’t like them, and you really want to go back to D&D5e, then go back to D&D5e. But how can you really know you won’t like other games if you have literally never tried them? This post is a post about why and how to try them. If you’re thinking right now that you don’t want to try them, I urge you to look below to see if any of your reasons for not wanting to try them are covered there. Because the monopoly that WotC’s D&D5e has on TTRPGs as a whole is bad for me as a game designer, and it’s bad for you as a game player. It’s even bad for you if you like D&D5e. A fuller discussion of the why and how this is the case can be found in the links above, but it isn’t fully necessary for understanding this post, it’ll just give you a better perspective on it.

If you’re a D&D5e player, I’m sure at some point or another, you’ve been told “play a different game”, and it must get frustrating without the context of why and how. This post is here to give you the why and how.

[The following paragraph has been edited because the original wording made it sound like we think all weird TTRPGs suck.]

Before that though, one more thing to get out of the way. I'm going to level with you. There’s a lot of weird games out there.

You are gonna see a lot of weird TTRPGs when you take the plunge. Many of them try to completely reinvent what a TTRPG even is, and some fail spectacularly, others really do even up doing something very interesting even if they don't end up being what a core TTRPG player wants. But not every indie RPG is a Bladefish, lots and lots of them are more 'traditional' and will feel very familiar to you, I promise. (And you might even find that you like the weird experimental bladefish type ones, these are usually ideal for one-session plays when your usual group can't play your usual game for any reason.)

You're also going to probably see a lot of very bad games, and man have I got some stories of very bad games, but for now I'm just saying to make sure you read the reviews, or go through curators (several of which will be listed below), before you buy.

Now that that is out of the way, I’m going to go down a list of concerns you may have for why not, and then explain the how.

“I don’t want to learn a whole new set of rules after I already spent so much time learning D&D5e.”

Learning a new set of rules is not going to be as hard as you think. Most other TTRPGs aren’t like that. D&D5e is far on the high end of the scale for TTRPGs being hard and time-consuming to learn and play. If you’ve only played D&D5e, it might trick you into thinking that learning any TTRPG is an overwhelmingly time-consuming task, but this is really mostly a D&D5e problem, not a TTRPG problem as a whole.

“D&D5e has all of these extra online tools to help you play it.”

So what? People have been playing TTRPGs without the help of computers for 50 years. To play a well-designed TTRPG you won’t need a computer. Yes, even if you're bad at math. There are some TTRPGs out there that barely even use math.

“I’m too invested in the narrative and characters of my group’s current ongoing D&D5e campaign to switch to something else.”

There are other games, with better design made by better people for less money, that are the same kind of game as D&D5e, that your current characters, lore, and plot will fit right into and do it better. And no, it's not just Pathfinder, there's others.

“I can’t afford to play another TTRPG.”

You probably can. If you’ve only played D&D5e, you might have been made to think that TTRPGs are a very expensive hobby. They aren’t. D&D5e is actually uniquely expensive, costing more than 3x more than the next most expensive TTRPG I can think of right now. Even on the more expensive end, other TTRPG books will cost you no more than $60, most will cost you less than $20, and a whole lot of them are just free. If you somehow still can’t afford another TTRPG, come to the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book club mentioned below, nominate the game, and if it wins the vote we will straight up buy it for you.

(By the way, if you had any of the above concerns about trying other games besides D&D5e, that really makes it sound like you are in a textbook abusive relationship with D&D5e. This is how abusers control their partners, and how empires control their citizens, by teaching you to think that nothing could ever get any better, and even though they treat you bad, the Other will treat you even worse.)

“If I don’t play D&D5e, which TTRPG should I play?”

That’s a pretty limited question to be asking, because there will be no one TTRPG for everything. And no, D&D5e is not the one TTRPG for everything, Hasbro’s marketing team is just lying to you. (Pathfinder and PbtA are not the one system for everything either!) Do you only play one video game or only watch one movie or only read one book? When you finish watching an action movie like Mad Max, and then you want to watch a horror movie, do you just rewind Mad Max and watch it over again but this time you act scared the whole time? No, you watch a different movie. I’m asking you to give the artistic medium of TTRPGs the same respect you would give movies.

“I want to play something besides D&D5e, but my friends won’t play anything else!”

I have several answers to this.

Try showing them this post.

If that doesn’t work: Make them. Put your foot down. This works especially well if you are the DM. Tell them you won’t run another session of D&D5e until they agree to give what you want to do at least one try instead of always doing only what they want to do. This is, like, playing 101. We learned this in kindergarten. If your friend really wants to play something else, you should give their game a try, or you’re not really being a very good friend.

If that doesn’t work, find another group. This doesn’t even mean that you have to leave your existing group. A good place to start would be the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club which will be mentioned and linked below. You can also go to the subreddit of any game you’re interested in and probably meet people there who have the same problem you do and want to put together a group to play something other than D&D5e. You might get along great with these people, you might not, but you won’t know until you try. Just make sure to have a robust “session zero” so everyone is on the same page. This is a good practice for any group but it is especially important for a group made of players you’ve just met.

“I only watch actual plays.”

Then watch actual plays of games that aren’t D&D5e. These podcasts struggle for the same reasons that indie RPGs struggle, because of the brand recognition and brand loyalty D&D5e has, despite their merit. I don’t watch actual plays, or else I would be able to list more of them. So, anyone who does watch actual plays, please help me out by commenting on this post with some non-D&D5e actual plays you like. And please do me a favor and don’t list actual plays that only play one non-D&D5e system, list ones that go through a variety of systems. The first one I can think of is Tiny Table.

“I can just homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e.”

Even though I want to, I’m not going to try and argue that you can’t actually homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e. Instead, I’m going to ask you why you’re buying two $50 rulebooks just to throw away half the pages. In most other good RPGs, you don’t need to change the rules to make them fun, they’re fun right out the box.

“But homebrewing D&D5e into any kind of game is fun! You can homebrew anything out of D&D5e!”

Firstly, I promise that this is not unique to D&D5e. Secondly, then you would probably have more fun homebrewing a system that gives you a better starting point for reaching your goal. Also, what if I told you that there are entire RPG systems out there that are made just for this? There are RPG systems that were designed for the purpose of being a toolbox and set of materials for you to work with to make exactly the game you want to make. Some examples are GURPS, Savage Worlds, Basic RolePlaying, Caltrop Core, and (as much as I loathe it) PbtA.

“I’m not supporting WotC’s monopoly because I pirate all the D&D5e books.”

Then you’re still not supporting the smaller developers that this monopoly is crushing, either.

Now, here’s the how. Because I promise you, there’s not just one, but probably a dozen other RPGs out there that will scratch your exact itch.

Here’s how to find them. This won’t be a comprehensive list because I’ve already been typing this for like 3 hours already. Those reading this, please go ahead and comment more to help fill out the list.

First, I’m gonna plug one of my own major projects, because it’s my post. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club. It’s a discord server that treats playing TTRPGs like a book club, with the goal of introducing members to a wide variety of games other than D&D5e. RPGs are nominated by members, then we hold a vote to decide what to read and play for a short campaign, then we repeat. There is no financial, time, or schedule investment required to join this book club, I promise it is very schedule-friendly, because we assign people to different groups based of schedule compatibility. You don’t have to play each campaign, or any campaign, you can just read along and participate in discussion that way. And if you can’t afford to buy the rulebook we’re going to be reading, we will make sure you get a PDF of it for free. That is how committed we are to getting non-D&D5e RPGs into people’s hands. Here is an invite link.

Next, there are quite a few tumblr blogs you can follow to get recommendations shown to you frequently.

@indierpgnewsletter

@indie-ttrpg-of-the-day

@theresattrpgforthat

@haveyouplayedthisttrpg

@indiepressrevolution

Plenty of podcasts, journalists, and youtubers out there do in-depth discussions of different systems regularly, a couple I can think of off the top of my head are:

Storyteller Conclave (I’m actually going to be interviewed live on this show on April 10th!)

Seth Skorkowsky

Questing Beast

The Gaming Table

Rascal News

Lastly, you can just go looking. Browse r/rpg, drivethrurpg.com, indie press revolution, and itch.io.

Now, if you really want to support me and my team specifically Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is going to launch on Kickstarter on April 10th and we need all the help we can get. Set a reminder from the Kickstarter page through this link.

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, there’s plenty of ways to get one!

Subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

Donate to our ko-fi and send us an email with proof that you did, and we’ll email you back with the full Eureka prerelease package with the most updated version at the time of responding! (The email address can be found if you scroll down to the bottom of our website.)

We also have merchanise.

[devilry-revelry]

Idk I just really love that Matt, Aabria, and Brennan were just like, “Do you guys wanna be friends and make fun stuff together?”

And then they did. And they trusted each other with their own creations.

I just think they’re neat.

[i-am-rano]

I believe this might have been already said by someone at some point, but I feel like what I have to say is tangentially related to the recent trends in online ttrpg spaces and so I'm going to say it anyway.

When writing a TTRPG YOU CAN EXPLAIN WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A CERTAIN MECHANIC. It's legal. You won't go to jail for that. It's so helpful. Please do it.

I'm running early beta tests of my own ttrpg and all of my testers find it so surprisingly useful. The fact that the little explanation next to your rule has a little "this is to facilitate X amongst the players" or something like that at the end is of great help to the players and of even greater help to the GM, and I can't stress this enough.

[andysuriano]

Are YOU ready for what’s next to come? Remember to follow @lostcompanyofficial , we might post the full piece soon…

[candicornart]

Gloxie!

New ancestry art for our TTRPG system Anyventure D12!

Creatures from a frozen, glacial moon. They are the product of a magical experiment gone wrong, and mostly work as arcane assistants. They are also very vulnerable to compliments!

If you're interested in module based character creation, check out our website! : https://anyventured12.com/

[ultimavela]

Solo Co-op TTRPG

For a while, I had the idea of writing a game that you could play at your own pace, as a solo game, but that would allow you to share part of the experience with your friends, in a way that didn't require everyone to meet/talk at the same time.

So as the One Page RPG Jam is on, I thought this was the perfect time to try out this idea of a Solo Co-op TTRPG.

[twistingbrambles]

Hello :-)

Check out my game!

Gothic Grace is a Gothic horror rules-light, GMless, diceless tabletop roleplaying game with wizards, magic and dark gods. In this game you play as wizards, magicians, and warlocks gaining their power from the bonds they create. You stalk the blood-soaked and infested streets, battlefields, and dark cathedrals of Grace - hoping to outrun the contract that's forced you into servitude for the nobility.

Gothic Grace is inspired by soulsborne games, full metal alchemist, gothic horror and the occult. Expect to see blood, religion and body horror in this game!

[dice-wizard]

Hello everyone looking for a new fantasy tabletop game!

You can buy Exalted Essence now.

What's Exalted you ask?

Exalted is an epic fantasy TTRPG where players play the titular Exalted - humans elevated to superhuman/demigod status - in a wild and unique setting that draws inspiration from the ancient world rather than medieval Europe. Creation (the setting) draws key inspirations from the entire world. If you're used to having to make yourself visible on your own in other fantasy, there's probably some representation in Exalted.

It has explicit queer and trans themes about finding your people, creating your own identity, and having the power to punch back at the people who hate you. This isn't incidental. The writing staff is queer as hell. You can hear me break this down more here.

Curious to learn all you can? Well you can get a detailed overview of the entire game on the podcast Systematic Understanding of Everything hosted by myself, @presidentofbirds and @phillycuriosity

If I'm used to D&D 5e why should I pick this up?

Well, I presume if you're reading this post you're already interested in trying something new, so:

The entire game in one book. Exalted: Essence is self contained, character types, equipment, enemies and all!

An exciting style of fantasy that's different than classic D&D but like, textually gay, and very easy to have scenes like ballroom fights, epic galas, and touching homoerotic healing scenes - no house rules required.

But also, tactical depth and combat you can really sink your teeth into if fighting monsters and villains is your bag.

An excuse to use all your d10s at once

Character building and advancement mechanics designed to be familiar to a 5e audience. Characters "level up" based on story beats, and have Advantages, which are functionally similar to class and race features.

A world welcoming to most heroic archetypes, so it's easy to convert your favorite OC.

Extremely kissable dragons, demons, gods, elementals, ghosts, faeries, and unnamed ancient horrors

I'm a fan of a previous edition, what's Essence got for me?

Design focused on alleviating some of the previous versions' missteps

Virtues are back, baby

2e fans will find it an improvement from second edition's mechanical strengths - it's pretty easy to convert all your favorite 2e Charms to XS.

Streamlined versions of familiar rules to make it painless to introduce new friends to the game we love.

The Cliff's notes on Ex3's new Exalt types.

Did I mention it's all of Exalted in one book?

How does it play?

d10 dice pool looking for 7,8,9 as successes. 10s count as two successes, which can lead to explosive, heroic outcomes

Combat system designed to keep all players engaged the entire time - even characters who aren't focused on fighting at all.

Combat also narrows the gap between experienced and new players and players who want to win at RPGs and players who just wanna vibe so GMs aren't tearing their hair out trying to balance encounters.

Social system designed to resolve in a single roll so you can be immersed in role play and not interrupt it with constant rolling - without sacrificing a variety of social approaches

"Ventures" system for characters working on long term projects from traveling across the world to crafting magical wonders to building communities without forcing this to be "downtime" activity

Characters have access to Charms - exception-based special powers that make them extremely good at whatever they focus on.

It's easily my favorite game (and the project I developed that I'm the proudest of), so I'm excited for everyone to try it out.

[milda-matilda]

Short rpg that I made a while ago after possibly playing too much Dark Souls, all while grasping at the feeling of discovering both a new world and a new a new game, and no matter how many times I play it or its sequels I can never regain that first playthrough.

[willknightauthor]

I had an epiphany while watching Matt Colville talk about D&D 5e vs. other RPGs and classic D&D. Dungeon Meshi isn't just inspired by D&D, it's specifically older editions of D&D.

It's very heavy on exploration, problem-solving, and survival-horror, and very light on the magic powers and superhuman warriors. The entire story revolves around a bunch of very weak and mortal people crawling one absolutely massive dungeon full of things that will kill them (even though they're all very experienced). That's why they care so much about dungeon ecology: it allows them to solve otherwise invincible monsters and survive low supplies, just like in an OSR game.

It's basically a cute anime version of Shadowdark. I don't know why it took so long for that to click.

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Kickstarter for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is Live!!

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is our team’s debut TTRPG, over three years in the making! The campaign will run from April 10th to May 10th!

How far would you go to learn the truth?

Play amateur detectives caught up in things they barely understand, and explore how the lives of your characters unravel as they push themselves to dig deeper into the unknown!

Tense investigations!

Delve into an investigation-focused mystery and horror system that lets players take initiative and use their characters’ unique strengths to find clues and deduce conclusions themselves. A few bad rolls won’t get the party hopelessly stuck, but at the same time Eureka respects their intellect and lets them take charge of solving the mystery!

Character-driven gameplay!

Stats and abilities are based on who your character is as a person. Freeform character creation allows you to build a totally unique little guy, and have a totally unique gameplay experience with him! This is supported by the backbone of the Composure mechanic. Stress, fear, fatigue, and hunger will wear your investigators down as they trudge deeper into the unknown. Food, sleep, and connections with their fellow investigators are the only way to keep them going!

Secrets inside and out! 

Any investigator could be a monster, helping their friends while trying not to reveal their true natures. The party will learn to trust and rely on each other, or explode into a tangled net of drama!

Intense, tactical combat! 

Hits are devastating, and misses are unpredictable–firing a gun will always change the situation somehow, for better or for worse!

Now in Technicolor!

Evocative artwork from talented femme-fatales @chaospyromancy and @qsycomplainsalot and the mysterious @theblackwarden paint a gorgeously-realized portrait of a world with shadows lurking in every corner.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. We are almost at the end, we just need some financial support to put the finishing touches on it and make the final push to get it ready for official release!

With every stretch goal we meet, the game gets better and better. Tons of beautiful new artwork, new options for gameplay, and even two entirely new playable Monsters could be added to the book, so visit the Kickstarter and secure your copy today!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[whensuddenlygames]

Seeking LATAM TTRPG writers!

We've a game project that is seeking LATAM writers to help with a PAID project. So if you love cryptids, magic, and the 90s then we want to talk with you. Email info@whensuddenly.games to learn more.

[crow-on-a-quest]

Blue Dragon Wyrmling

[ID: three photographs showing a painted blue dragon wyrmling miniature. The main body is painted in blue tones. Details like the skin between the wing-fingers, ear fins, horns and belly scales are painted in orange to yellow gradients. The miniature's base is painted to look like a treasure pile. The photos were taken outside with grass in the background. \End ID]

Blue Dragon mini from Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures, painted with Vallejo paints.

A friend for the Gold Dragon Wyrmling!

[i-am-rano]

One of the most interesting feelings when writing a TTRPG is when you get an idea for a mechanic, and you just assume it's gonna fit into the system, but somewhere in the process you realize you can just toss it away, because that's not the kind of game you're making.

For me this happened with damage types. I initially set out to have several, with damage types like "Fire" or "Piercing" or "Holy" but, in the process of writing some spells, I realized that I really don't need that? I can just keep it in "physical damage" or "energy damage" categories and that's it, I don't need to reinvent the wheel with damage types, this is political intrigue exploration fantasy (think Disciples 2 meets Dragon Age 2), not a tactical dungeon crawl. I thought about the players for example encountering a fire elemental, and to be perfectly honest, I couldn't think of a reason as to why wouldn't it just be able to resist energy damage, the minute detail of Fire damage VS Lightning damage does not matter in a game where I want to invoke a feeling of party-bonding and fantasy pseudo-detective fiction and where the characters have moves like "I spend a limited resource to make my last stand against an overwhelming enemy force".

It has come to the point, where I want to be rid of the three-action-points-per-turn mechanic, since realistically how much of the gameplay is going to be tactical combat? Well not much to be honest 🤷‍♂️

[vikingschism]

Thoughts on the Stormlight TTRPG

This will be a fairly lengthy post detailing my impressions of the Stormlight Archives TTRPG by Brotherwise Games based on a session played with some other fans of Sanderson's works. Some general details of the scenario are discussed as well as the details of the pre-generated character I played, but is otherwise spoiler-free.

Background

I like Brandon Sanderson's books well enough so I was naturally interested in an RPG set in his most epic series (The Stormlight Archives). My tastes in TTRPGs generally tend towards the more narrative focused games - I enjoy PBTA, FitD and Resistance Engine games - so seeing that it was going to be a D20 system with a D&D 5e style character sheet had me a bit worried. I have enjoyed tactical combat before with systems like Draw Steel (having tried it out in a playtest - looking forward to another session soon) or even Pathfinder 2E (even if I find that system to be a bit much in other places), so there was still some hope.

I decided to take part as a player in an adventure making use of a prepared scenario using the freely available beta rules. This scenario was intended to show off the game and get new players, possibly new to TTRPGs as a whole, going. The basic premise is that the players are on an expedition towards some ancient ruins

The Character

There were multiple pre-generated characters available so I elected to play as Vedd - a disgraced Alethi soldier serving in the bridge crews. This was essentially the basic warrior class which suited me well enough, though in a full campaign there would be the option to have the character become a Radiant which would definitely give more opportunity to express the character through the powers selected. The character notes gave some good hooks to get the player into character; in the case of Vedd it was his connections to his bridge crew, his grizzled nature as one of the longest serving Bridgemen, and that he has attracted the attention of a spren who appears as a streak of light when he takes heroic or self sacrificing action.

The character sheet was serviceable, though it was sometimes hard to locate the skills I was looking for when making a test due to the amount present, so the organisation maybe could've been better. There's also just a lot of derived stats on the sheet - do we really need a carrying capacity for example? That seems a bit more simulationist than this game needs. I do like the idea of having Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual defences and them being placed between the two stats that determine the value is nice. It's also nice that the stats are just the bonus rather than needing to derive the bonus like in 5e. Skill modifiers also made sense since you just add the points in that skill to the relevant stat to calculate the modifier.

In the scenario my character's skills were mostly in athletics, perception, and heavy weaponry. The social skills weren't too high, although intimidation was definitely on the table. This spread of skills suggested a character who was taciturn in social settings but excelled when it came time to put himself into the thick of the action.

Combat

Overall it felt good to play, the combat system allowed for a lot of flexibility and I appreciated its action economy. Players can choose to take a fast or slow turn - a fast turn grants 2 actions, a slow turn grants 3. Fast players go first, then fast enemies, then slow players, then slow enemies - within each category there is no set initiative order, players can work it out themselves). On a turn you have a number of actions you can take, and some will cost more action points (for example a recovery costs two points - however you may want to do this on a fast turn if you think an enemy will attack first). This draws on both Pathfinder 2e (with the action point system) and Shadow of the Demon Lord with the fast/slow turns.

In each round everyone gets a single reaction too. Most of these reactions require spending a point of focus, but they give good options for mitigating damage or assisting in the fight (for example Reactive Strike is the Opportunity Attack equivalent, however it requires a focus point to use - these are limited and can be recovered or are regained fully on a long rest). In our fights in the session I didn't remember that I could use the reaction to dodge which would've given the enemy disadvantage on their strike, leading to me taking a large amount of damage. Another reaction involves assisting an ally when they attempt a test in combat in order to grant them advantage on the roll. This combos quite nicely with an action that allows the player to attempt a skill test to gain advantage on their next roll.

The abilities that my character had weren't too flashy, though I should've remembered to enter vigilant stance at the start of combat - this grants advantage on perception, increases deflect, and causes enemies to require 2 actions to attack allies. Combat training also meant I could graze (upon missing, deal the value of the damage dice with no modifier) a single enemy per round for free - normally grazing would cost a focus point.

Exploration

Outside of combat I had more mixed opinions - mainly related to the plot die. This is intended to add more narrative twists to skill tests - the intention is that this is rolled for tests that are more high stakes (the process of asking for it to be rolled is called "raising the stakes"). This is a d6 (although a proprietary die with symbols is available), and rolling a 5 or 6 grants an Opportunity while a 1 or 2 imposes a Complication as well as granting a bonus of double the value on the die face to the roll (which could be enough to push a bad roll into a success). A result of 3 or 4 does nothing, and rolling a 20 or 1 on any test grants an Opportunity and a Complication respectively (this does mean they can stack when rolling the die).

Opportunities can be spent to regain a focus point, grant advantage to an ally on their next test, turn a hit into a critical hit (on attack tests in combat), or on a beneficial narrative event (which the GM must rubber stamp) - some abilities also interact with these. Complications are imposed by the GM and can essentially do the opposite of what an Opportunity can do.

So what's my issue with it? I personally found that having a null result on the die (3 and 4) meant that Opportunities and Complications felt a little rarer than I would've liked - if the roll matters enough to use the plot die then I feel like it should really have one result or the other.

This system also interacts with Events - these are similar to clocks in games like Blades in the Dark where they signal an impending event. These are ticked, depending on whether the event is positive or negative with an Opportunity or a Complication. This never came up in the scenario, however I think this is another reason I'd prefer the plot die to always produce an Opportunity or Complication; as is Opportunities and Complications just don't come up that often, so it might make Events a bit harder to use. In a system like Blades the clocks are constantly being ticked which really contributes to the sense of impending danger, or gives players a focus on an objective in the scene (eg: escaping from something chasing them).

Skill tests otherwise were straightforward, and advantage is a standard roll 2 dice and pick the higher result (although interestingly advantage can stack and be applied to multiple dice in the roll - which does mean you can give the plot die advantage as well as the d20 if you have two advantages on a roll).

The Scenario

I don't want to spoil the scenario, however I will say it was decently put together. There was a fair amount of railroading, however since we were all there for that adventure I think that was ok. There wasn't anything that stood at as being too egregious and there was some nice artwork along the way to help picture the events. It also gave some good opportunities to play into the pregen characters. All of the players came out being fairly satisfied with the adventure; it will be interesting to see how the game plays once Radiant powers are involved.

Conclusion

Overall I feel the game was competently put together and will be a fun way to explore the worlds of Sanderson. I don't think it's going to be replacing any of my favourite narrative systems, however, and some areas (like the plot die) left something to be desired. The combat was fun and will likely only get more fun once characters have access to Radiant powers, so I wouldn't be against playing again. I likely would not want to GM however, as there is a bit more crunch than I prefer in my systems. It does also remain to be seen how the game will adapt other worlds such as Scadrial from Mistborn given the different tone and nature of the world.

For those who have read all of this, thank you - I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on the Stormlight TTRPG and I'm curious to know what other people think of it so far.

[mr-funny-bone-man]

So I'm a massive Dungeons and Dragons player, and one of the people I play with hosts a game on the side whenever our DM has to cancel for any reason (they're a teacher so it happens a bit during the end of semesters for report cards).

They had introduced me to Lancer, the Mech RPG. But they said they were going to do it differently, which frightened me because learning a new set of rules to follow is already intimidating, plus I've never RPed in a sci-fi high-tech world before.

But I'm was shocked that their change was to keep everything on earth, no space exploration, no aliens, nothing like that. And instead, they're going to adapt everything into the world of

Cyberpunk 2077

We realized it was so convenient to have it be in Night City and us posing as the NCPD, we could use the game map with things pointed out already, look at in-game locations for when we go somewhere, I gotta say, even though I'm not 100% sure of how the normal lancer RPG, having mech licenses be "buying the rights to a mech from a company", the usual badguys be TygerClaws and Voodoo Bois, it's better than I could have imagined. I love this module