#also! if you want recs for fun non dnd ttrpgs

[crabs-with-sticks]

There is! But it is very much a dnd style of ttrpg. Band of Blades is powered by the apocalypse, which I just generally prefer running. But! It also has a bunch of mechanics which work specifically for running grey wardens against the blight!

The game is entirely built around the idea of standing against an unceasing army of ~bad shit~, so the structure of the game is based around an army campaign- so it zooms out between the commanders who are running the show and the characters on the ground. These are run in two separate parts of the game, so characters can direct the overall army as well as being on the front line!

Its also quite punishing as a system, and the character sheets are all built around the idea of a slowly spreading corruption. There's multiple forms of damage- harm (hp-ish), stress, and blight. If you max out harm you die from your wounds. If you max out your stress, your character gains a trauma (up to 4 and then they die from it), and your blight slowly creeps up giving you specific types of disadvantages.

So there are specific mechanics for the kind of situation of 'you character nearly died on the mission and so now is paranoid of it happening again'! And like obviously you can do that through rp in a generalist system, but having rules for these kinds of things really help to direct play- especially for people newer to ttrpgs!

(Sorry, I am just going to go on a ttrpg rant here because this stuff is really interesting to me! If I seem like I'm talking down or whatever its just me being neurodivergent)

Because I think the official DA ttrpg is good for more general adventures in Thedas. But the mechanics a game provides you are the glasses through which the story is told. So I think its important to find a system that works for the story you're trying to tell. Like how you can technically play a political intrigue dnd campaign where there is no fighting, but since 90% of your mechanics are based around fighting, it is difficult to make that shift.

Specifically for a blight (a usual blight not one in which op HoF is present) they key parts of that what bring that vibe for me are: 1) slowly spreading corruption in the players, 2) an overwhelming, mindless enemy and 3) brutal, high stakes. Band of Blades has lots of focus towards these three mechanics. But the DA ttrpg has to be a lot more generalist, and I had a quick look, and couldn't find any particularly extensive mechanics/info about how to run the taint in that system.

And Band of Blades rulebook has a lot of guidance specifically for running the types of missions you would expect to see in a blight! I included a screenshot below because damn that's a helpful guide to make things easy on the DM (looking at you Wizards of the Coast).

Like for real, I've DMed both dnd and powered by the apocalypse games...and for dnd it wouldn't be unusual for me to spend maybe 2 hours of prep? For PbtA I would rarely spend more than 40 minutes, if that. I could often do all my planning in 20 minutes.

And the good thing about powered by the apocalypse style games is that they are very fiction first! The rules are generally pretty loose, so its super easy to flavour things in any way that you want! So you could absolutely flavour stuff to be like, idk, specific DA spells or whatnot.

Just! Yeah! Powered by the Apocalypse fun! :D (good job sticking through my rant if you're still here lmao)

Looking at the Band of Blades ttrpg....this could so easily be made into a story about grey wardens fighting the blight.....