#but the stat bonuses of one

[giganotus]

I made a DnD stat block for The Fragmented One and I can already tell I'm going to regret it if/when my DM decides to throw it at me.

[atelier-of-chel-the-red]

new item suffix: Volition

items of Volition bestow their bonus to STR, WIS, and will saves. typically these will be headband, waist, or neck slot items.

new item suffix: Vehemence

items of Vehemence bestow their bonus to DEX, INT, and reflex saves. typically these will be bracer, wrist, or ring slot items.

new item suffix: Vitality

items of Vitality bestow their bonus to CON, CHA, and fortitude saves. typically these will be chest, shoulder, or leg slot items.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

I just got Shinon for the first time in this file. 🤣

[beastenraged]

Have a DND character that I've made that's half shifter and half gnoll, and tbh, mechanically wise that can work in 5th edition. Without having to homebrew anything too.

How? Well, I have the gnolls simply claim to be Longtooth shifters, which just have the race feature of allowing you to bite people as an unarmed attack. Hyena fangs are perfect for that.

What, we're furrier than most shifters? There's tons of variations in were-curses, why wouldn't shifters be the same? Gnolls, what do you mean, we're just 'hyena-shifters,' that's all.

Of course, I've created most of this in my own DnD world/country version where a small gnoll population lives after escaping from their bitch-ass creator's control by pledging to one of local pantheon.

It's a creation that I don't think I'd ever be able to run for a DnD campaign, because I do huge amounts of culture building in it that very few DnD people care about in their games.

[aries-wants-anarchy]

Since I’ve just posted about fallout I want to also say I’ve noticed how in Skyrim my last character runs around like a tank with a strong ass hammer and perks maxed out in the two handed and armor trees and now in fallout 4 the Bank of America also is using a hammer that they’re doing base damage of 303 and I can’t remember the exact radiation damage but well over 200. In conclusion based on my recent gameplays of Bethesda and Todd Howard approved content… HAMMER

[gay-victorian-astronomer]

Who/what is compression factor?? I saw the tags and would love to hear rambles if you'd like :D

Compression Fracture is my Disco Elysium fanfiction that I am currently working on! I'm not 100% sure that it will qualify as longfic, but it's going to be long enough that I want to write it all before starting to publish it on AO3 so I can revise it once the whole work is finished (the amount of plot holes I've already found and had to patch over. my god). My current guesstimate of the finished length is ~60k words in ~10 chapters, of which 11k words are written.

I believe Svet said you were thinking about playing Disco Elysium at some point so I don't want to go into too much detail about what the fic is about— it gets into major spoiler territory real fast. You should totally play it though; it's a phenomenal game and now that I'm thinking about it I think you would really vibe with it. The worldbuilding!! The Themes!!! (It's also currently on sale on Steam for like $10, but I'm also under the impression that it's not too hard to put on a pirate hat and go find it elsewhere if that's your vibe) (I could give you a full sales pitch if you want it I have fallen down the special interest rabbit hole so badly)

but yeah I'm coming back to the fic after about a month and a half of not really working on it for several reasons. My laptop broke at the start of the semester so most of those 11k words were written on my phone, which worked fine until I started having nerve issues in my hands from doing that, so then I was waiting for my laptop to be fixed, but by the time I got it back we had reached December! Land of final assignments and exams and PhD Application Hell Season! I had much less time to write fic, and what time I did have was going to my gift exchange piece, so she got a bit sidelined. But we're back in business now! Albeit slowly, because my hands are better than they were but still having Problems (I'll make a doctor's appointment about it once I have the executive function to make the necessary phone call). Still, actually having a creative project I was working on consistently helped my mental health tremendously this semester so I'm pretty determined to keep working on it.

but yeah that's what that is! I've also been posting snippets of it as I write (doing kedreeva's WIP Wednesday game helps keep me motivated to write) which are also tagged with the title— they should be relatively spoiler-free both for the game and the fic itself, so feel free to look at em if you want, but they also probably won't make much sense out of context.

[nickmarini]

Ayden’s Build 

TL;DR: Barbarian 1, Druid  2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 8 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 9 (Peace Domain). Feats: Squire of Solamnia, Remarkable Recovery, Warcaster, Knight of Crowns, Spelldriver, Tough.

Building Ayden was a joy and a journey. To begin we were told we had 20 levels to work with and stats of 20 across the board. The only thing I knew about Ayden from the session 0 was that he was going to be a Cleric of the Everlight and that I wanted to make him the best support character I could. I also knew that the Dawnfather was aware of the mission briefing and so would have directed his growth to the task at hand. 

Stats of 20 meant multiclassing into any class was possible and that any ability score based bonuses or proficiency based abilities were going to be very good. I figured that with a warlock and a sorcerer we’d have some pretty good counterspelling and 9th level spell access, so I didn’t worry myself about either of those, instead focusing on making sure we all survived. 

The Dawnfather and The Everlight share 2 of 3 Domains. Life and Light. The Everlight’s 3rd domain is Peace. The Peace Domain cleric is an excellent subclass and its 6th level ability, Protective Bond, was something I knew I wanted to build around. The ability to take hits for, and aid, my siblings while teleporting around the battlefield is an excellent support ability and it also lets allies in the bond do the same, fostering sibling unity and cohesion.

With the Dawnfather having Nature as his unique domain separate from the Everlight, and literally sending himself to Exandria to infiltrate a city full of the greatest mages of the age, the Oath of Ancients Paladin seemed like an obvious path. It is the nature Paladin, (his domain) and 7 levels gives you both Aura of Protection and Aura of Warding. This means as Ayden moves through the battlefield with Protective Bond he will be granting allies +5 to saves from his cha as well as resistance to damage from spells. Incredibly good going up against the wizards of Aeor he knew he would encounter. I didn’t want to go to 10 with Paladin because I didn’t want to be immune to frightened. I just felt that fear played too large a role in the reasons the gods were here and although aura of courage is probably my favorite ability going back to 3rd edition, I felt like it wasn’t right for Ayden. He had to fear in order to reinforce his need to hope. 

These two classes were set relatively quickly and then I began looking at how else I was going to build him out. 

I really liked the idea of being able to grant my allies some extra attacks and so I was looking at battle master to get commanders strike and goading attack as well as maneuvering attack to help take hits for and position my allies. Action Surge is also a great ability that could really come in handy if I needed to save someone and needed one extra action to do so. 

I was also looking at the 2nd level Divination Wizard ability Portent. The ability to fully dictate 2 rolls is very powerful in certain circumstances, especially if the numbers are very high or very low.

Both these seemed good but weren’t feeling totally right from a character perspective. They felt too forced.

As I was playing around with these two classes I was also building Aydens backstory. I really liked the idea of him being agriculturally focused, as this aspect of the Dawnfather is actually his youngest. Sun begets days, and thus time and seasons, and as civilization evolves agriculture follows. The fighter levels lent the idea that he has spent some time training under a knight or some such warrior, and I knew that he would eventually find his way to Trist to begin his tutelage and become her cleric. I liked there being these different eras of his life. 

It was around this time that I got an awesome email asking me to describe Ayden visually so that the incredibly talented Hannah Friederichs and Cael Lyons could begin to bring Ayden and the Dawnfather to life. I wanted Ayden to be a simply dressed with a shield he took from his mentor, but no sword for striking. They sent 4 sketches and told me I could mix and match as I desired. Image #1 however was exactly as I had envisioned him. It was the simplest and had this depth to his eyes that told the story of a much older soul in this 15 year old body. It was so perfect that it made me realize I had been going in the totally wrong direction with fighter and wizard. The concepts of nature and agriculture were suddenly staring me in the face. It was not wizard, but druid, and his mentor could have taught him to be a paladin as easily as fighter, but if he is the bringer of agriculture who has he brought it to? A remote tribe still hunting and gathering was the answer. Barbarian therefore replaced fighter. I can’t tell you how influential the sketch I received was. It felt like a bolt of lightning suddenly clarified everything. 

I was for sure cleric 6, Paladin 7 and now looking at druid and barbarian. 

I didn’t know Druid subclasses very well but Circle of the Stars jumped out from the pack just with its name. The Sun after all is a star. When I read its 2nd level abilities Starmap and Starry form it was so obvious. I can cast Guiding Bolt to set up those attacks I wanted to grant, and I can glow instead of wild shape and either heal more or have a massive bonus to maintain the concentration spells I knew I wanted to cast. For the keeper of time to know how to read the stars just felt right. It also feel right that the druids of a tribe that had been hunting and gathering during the tumultuous Calamity would have learned to navigate by the stars, a singular constant in an every changing age. 

Barbarian has a number of interesting subclasses but none felt like they clicked. 1 level of Barbarian though, for a character with 20 dexterity and 20 constitution, catapults your AC to 20 and it also gives you a proficiency in Constitution saving throws if you take it as your first class, again reinforcing those concentration rolls. He was found as a child by this barbarian tribe and his first class is also his first community. Barbarian was the strong foundation I would build upon. 

I was now Cleric 6, Paladin 7, Druid 2, Barbarian 1. Reorganized to be the order Ayden would have taken them in it becomes the following:

Barbarian 1, Druid  2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 7 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 6 (Peace Domain)

4 more levels to distribute. As a player who has mostly played 3.5 (I think downfall just about doubled the amount of 5E I have played) feats are my absolute favorite things, so getting to multiples of 4 in class levels to grab some was something I wanted to do (also I didn’t have to worry about ability score increases)! I had already given one feat up by taking barb and druid but I made up for it with the human variant. I also took the Knight of Solamnia background to give me Squire of Solamnia, the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns which would give me the ability to grant attacks to my allies without needing battle maneuvers. 

So I upped paladin from 7-8 for a feat and then decided to take Cleric from 6-9 because it gave me a feat and access to the spell Dawn. I mean the Dawnfather should be able to cast Dawn after all! 

Now to feats

1) Background: Squire of Solamnia to give me the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns

2) Human Variant: Remarkable Recovery. I knew I’d be taking extra damage so having 5 extra hp from any healing I get might just be the difference. It also plays into his background. He had to leave the Barbarian tribe he brought agriculture to because his skin could not retain the ceremonial tattoo ink that would have symbolized his initiation into the community. 

3) Cleric 4 Warcaster to get advantage on those concentration checks, that along with proficiency and starry form of the dragon means I need to take 28 damage (56 if it’s a spell) to even have to roll, and when I do I get advantage and proficiency on the check. Getting me to lose concentration is gonna be a task. 

4) Paladin 4 Knight of the Crown getting to grant an attack proficiency times per day combos wonderfully with Starmaps free guiding bolt, conveniently also proficiency times per day. 

5) Cleric 8 Spelldriver I’m gonna be casting a bunch of spells so the ability to cast multiple each turn is going to make my support spells come out much faster. I have a big fam to take care of!

6) Paladin 8 Tough I really went back and forth between this and Inspiring Leader. Granting all my siblings 25 temp hp is amazing but ultimately I decided that as I’d be tanking a bunch of damage I’d need toughness. Toughness gave me 15 more hp than Inspiring leader would have, and I ended up going down to 14 at one point so it was a decision that very much paid off by a single HP! Don’t wanna pop a deathward if you can help it!

Last but not least we were granted 2 magic items. One very rare and one uncommon. For my uncommon I chose a cloak of resistance, a parting gift from the tribe that Ayden could not join. This upped my saves to 11s or 17s and took my AC to 23. For his very rare magic item I took a spellguard shield, inherited from the knight who brought him from the remote tribe to Trist‘s school, giving me advantage on saving throws vs spells and magical effects and inflicting disadvantages on spell effects targeting me. Combine that with resistance to spells from Aura of Warding and that’s a nasty nasty combo v wizards. 

All in all Ayden’s build is an incredibly hard to target tanky support character who can move through the battlefield protecting his allies and being an absolute nightmare for enemy spellcasters. The only thing I really didn’t fully consider was just how much damage he would take from Warding Bond which totally bypasses all those wonderfully crafted defenses. As crazy as it is, I think we barely got to scratch the surface of Aydens full potential and it’s probably good those mages decided to cast spells at everyone else because Ayden was going to be a tough character for a spell caster to crack. The Commanding Rally did get to shine allowing characters who specialized in weapon attacks to get a little extra out of those 20 level commitments. Ayden’s build was crafted to keep his siblings alive and let them shine as bright as possible together. I’m very proud of him!

If you read all this then you’re as nerdy as me and deserve a reward!

[4giorno]

this was supposed to be my perfect kaveh piece but now its def my nilou off piece lmao

[foone]

When you are confirmed, you pick a name of a patron saint, and from them on you'll get different special abilities based on which one you picked.

Personally I went with St. Isidore of Seville, which gives me a percentage bonus to my computer skills.

I had considered St. Francis de Sales, for the writing bonuses, but he's also the patron saint of Columbus, Ohio and I don't want any Ohio-related bonuses cluttering up my stats page. I've spent most of my life attempting to maximize my distance from Ohio, as have many Ohioans I've met.

My dad picked St. Cecilia for the musical skills. And her bonuses are doubled if he's doing music for the church, which ended up being the driving force behind my father's faith. We switched denominations every time my dad got kicked out of the church band.

Which happened surprisingly often. "leader of the church band" is one of those roles that attracts the worst kind of petty tyrant, and my dad (like me) doesn't really think authority is really something you should give a shot about, so he'd just be like "eh, screw you, I'll go find another church band" and now we're Baptists instead of Presbyterians.

Me and my sis used to joke that were only a couple church disagreements away from showing up at a synagogue or mosque. My dad believed in Psalm 98:4 "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise". He belonged to the Church of the Joyful Noise.

Anyway the cool thing about selecting St. Isidore is that the programmer socks bonus stacks with it, so I can be doubly bonused and really get into some deep programming.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Disabilities and Monsters in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Through a discussion with @vixensdungeon (great blog to follow for TTRPG stuff by the way) it came to our attention that some of our more jokey and memey posts and reblogs may have given some people a slightly skewed idea of what Eureka, and particularly the “urban fantasy” parts of Eureka are really about, and its tone. We like to joke around about it, and the “cute monster girl” angle really sells on tumblr.com, but actually playing these types of characters in Eureka is not exactly a power fantasy. They eat people, and often eat them alive. If you find that cute, funny, and/or sexy, well, Eureka is still probably just the game you’re looking for, but that isn’t the main thing. Eureka uses the fact that many of these characters necessarily subsist off the flesh and/or blood of other people as a loose metaphor for mental and physical disability.

Imagine you need something that everyone else has but you don’t. If you don’t have it regularly, you will literally start to waste away. The only way to obtain this thing is to take it from another human being, who also needs it, and others will deny that you need it, and abhor that you need it. It’s not uncommon for people, even “progressive” people, to say something along the lines of “they need to all be killed for the good of society,” even if they don’t realize that’s what they’re saying. You didn’t choose to be this way. This is the reality of monsters in Eureka, and many people in real life.

And then even when you have that thing you need, for now, there are many facets of society that you just can’t participate in because your condition makes them impossible for you, like if a vampire wanted to take a run on a sunny beach. Monsters in Eureka will be challenged by their supernatural weaknesses at every turn, while hiding their abhorrent needs from society and even the rest of the party, and asking why they have to be this way. Finding clever ways to get around and circumvent their weaknesses is a core part of the gameplay of monster PCs in Eureka. Imagine you and your friends want or need to go somewhere, but that somewhere is on the other side of a river. The river has a well maintained bridge. For everyone else but you, a vampire who can’t cross running water, getting across the river is the simplest task in the world, so much so that no one would even consider it a task, but for you, it’s a challenge, and for gameplay, it’s a puzzle.

It isn’t totally hopeless, as many of the jokes and fan comics show (those aren’t just memes, they’re only showing one side of the coin and not the other). Monsters who accept, or even embrace and celebrate their monsterhood, can and do exist canonically, alongside monsters who can’t bear to do what they do. In some cases, these may be the same monster on different days.

I’m going to conclude this post by posting two excerpts from the rules text itself.

Disabilities are Disabling

So why don’t disabilities grant any advantage? It isn’t too uncommon for RPGs to have some sort of “flaw” system, where during character creation you can give your character “flaws” or some kind of penalty, and usually get that balanced out by being able to add extra bonuses elsewhere. Sometimes, these “flaws” may take the form of disabilities.

One particular high-profile indie TTRPG takes this beyond just character creation, and makes it so that if a PC receives a “scar” in combat that reduces their physical stats, their mental stats automatically go up by an equivalent amount, and proudly imply that to make any mechanic which results in permanent consequences or makes disabilities disabling is ableist. We think you can probably tell what we think of that from this sentence alone, and we don’t need to elaborate too much. 

We do think, in the abstract, “flaw” systems in character creation are not a bad idea. They allow for more varied options during character creation, while preserving game balance between the PCs.

But in real life, people aren’t balanced. The events that left me injured and disabled didn’t make me smarter or better in any way - if anything, they probably made me dumber, considering the severity of the concussion! Some things happened to me, and now I’m worse. There’s no upside, I just have to keep going, trying harder with a less efficient body, and relying more on others in situations where I am no longer capable of perfect self-sufficiency.

A disabled person is, by definition, less able to perform important daily tasks than the average person. To deny this is to deny that they need help, and to deny that they need help is to enable a refusal to help. This is the perspective from which Eureka’s Grievous Wounds mechanic was written.

When a character is reduced to 1 HP (which by design can result from a single hit from many weapons) they may become incapacitated or they may take a Grievous Wound, which is a permanent injury with no stat benefits. Grievous Wounds don’t have to result from combat, they can also be given to a character during character creation, but not as a trade-off for an extra bonus.

“But then doesn’t my character just have worse stats than the rest of the party?” Yes, haven’t you been reading this? There is no benefit, except for the opportunity to play a disabled character in an TTRPG. This character will probably have to be more reliant on the rest of the party to get by in various situations. Is that a bad thing?

Monsters Essay

All investigators in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy are regular people. They can also be a monster, like a blood-sucking vampire or a broom-riding witch. Importantly, this works because despite their unique nature, monsters are still regular people. You can read more about this in Chapter 8, but the setting of Eureka does not have a conspiracy or “masquerade” hiding supernatural people from normal society. Though they are still largely unknown to modern science, they exist within normal society - and a lot of them eat people.

The default assumption in RPGs has been that monsters are just evil by nature, doing evil for evil’s sake. RPGs that seek to subvert this expectation often instead make monsters misunderstood and wrongfully persecuted, but harmless. Eureka takes a wholly different approach.

There are five playable types of monsters in the rulebook right now, and it’ll be seven if we hit all the stretch goals, but for simplicity’s sake this discussion of themes will just focus on the vampire. Despite them applying in different ways, the same overall themes apply to nearly every monster, so if you get the themes for the vampire, you’ll get the gist of what Eureka is doing with its playable monsters in general.

Mundane investigators have to keep themselves going by eating food and sleeping (see p.XX “Composure” for more information). Well, vampires can’t operate the same way. They don’t sleep, and normal food might be tasty for them as long as it isn’t too heavily seasoned, but it doesn’t do anything for them nutritionally. Their main way to keep themselves functioning is fresh living human blood, straight from the source. To do what mundane PCs do normally by just eating and sleeping, vampires have to take from another, whether either of them are happy with this arrangement or not. They do not, of course, literally have to, and a player is not forced to make their vampire PC drink blood, just like you reading this in real life don’t literally have to eat food. You do eat food if you want to live in any degree of comfort or happiness, and vampires do drink blood or they eventually become unable to effectively do anything.

This is numerically, mechanically incentivized and not simply a rule that says something like “this character is a vampire and therefore they must drink blood once every session,” to demonstrate that the circumstances a person faces drive their behavior. In America, there is a tendency to think of criminality and harm done to others as resulting from intrinsic evil, but people do not just wake up one day and decide “I think I’ll go down the criminal life path.” Their circumstances have barred them from the opportunities that would have given them other options. 

People need food; food costs money; money requires work; work requires getting hired; but getting hired requires a nearby job opening, an education, an impressive resume, nice clothes, charisma, consistent transportation, and so on. For people without other options, crime becomes the only method left to meet their basic needs. Would you rather take what you need from other people, or go without what you need? There are people who don’t have the luxury of a third option. Failure to meet the needs of even a small number of people in a society has high potential to harm the entire society, not just those individuals whose needs are unmet.

As their basic need for blood becomes more and more difficult to ignore, a vampire is going to encounter much the same dilemma. There is really no “legal” or “harmless” way for them to get their needs met, even if they do have resources. Society just isn’t set up for that. And no, your kink is not the solution to this, trying to suggest every vampire just find willing participants who are turned on by vampires or being bitten is suggesting sex work. It’s one step removed from telling a girl she should just get an OnlyFans the minute she turns 18, or that women should just marry a rich man and be a housewife that gets their needs taken care of in exchange for sex and housekeeping. Being forced into such a dynamic isn’t ethical or harmless for the vampire or for their “clients.”

“Oh well, then the vampire should just eat bad people!” You mean those same bad people we just described above? Who gets to decide which people are “bad people?” Who gets to decide that the punishment is assault or death?

Playable monsters in Eureka are dangerous, harmful people. They were set up to be.

Society not being set up in a way that allows monsters to make ethical choices brings us to the next theme: monstrousness as disability, and monsters as “takers.”

Vampires have to take from others a valuable resource that everyone needs to live, and the extraction of which is excruciatingly painful and debilitating. No one knows what happens to blood after a vampire drinks it, it’s just gone. Vampires are open wounds through which blood pours out of the universe.

This is a special need, something they have to take but cannot give back. Their special needs make them literally a drain on society and the people around them. In the modern world, there is a tendency to feel that people must justify their right to life, that they must pay for the privilege of existing in society. This leads people to consider “takers” (people who take much more than they give back, such as disabled people) as something that needs to be pruned away for the betterment of everyone else. Even many so-called “progressives,” while they claim not to agree with pruning “useless eaters,” still hold the unexamined belief that people must justify their existence. To reconcile these two incompatible ideas, they instead simply deny that disabled people take more resources than most people, and are capable of giving back less. This sentiment is perfectly illustrated by the aforementioned game’s insistence that disabilities are never a net reduction of a character’s stats.

Vampires and other playable monsters are inarguably “takers,” but in positioning them as protagonists right alongside mundane protagonists, Eureka puts you in their shoes, and forces you to acknowledge their inner lives and reckon with their circumstances. You have to acknowledge two things: first, that they are dangerous, that they are harmful, that they take more than they give - and second, that they are people. Because they are people, Eureka asserts that they have inherent value, a right to exist, and a right to do what they need to do to exist. (We also acknowledge that their potential victims have a right to do what they need to do to exist and defend themselves, but that is a separate discussion.)

One final point to touch on is mental illness. Mental illness is a disability, one pretty comparable to physical disability in a lot of ways, so all of the above points can apply to this metaphor as well, but there are a few unique comparisons to make here.

It’s not the most efficient, but there are a couple of loopholes deliberately left in the rules that allow vampires to sometimes sporadically restore Composure (and thus their ability to function) without drinking blood. Eureka! moments and Comfort checks from fellow investigators can restore Composure.

When writing the rules, we came to a dilemma where we weren’t sure if it was thematically appropriate for monsters to be able to regain Composure in these ways (since it could lessen their reliance on causing harm), but ultimately we decided that yes, they can.

People with mental illnesses may have the potential to be harmful and dangerous, but all the information we have access to has shown that mentally ill people with robust support structures and control over their own lives are much less likely to enact harm, whether through physical violence, relational violence, or violence against the self. This is why we kept that rule in for playable monsters. Being able to accomplish their goals, and having friends who are there for them, makes that person less likely to cause unnecessary harm.

Vampires are especially great for demonstrating this because they’re immortal and they always come back when “killed.” They can’t be exterminated, they aren’t going away, there will always be problem people in society, no matter how utopian or “progressive.” Vampires are a never-ending curse, who will always be a problem whether they like it or not. The question is how you will grapple with their inevitable presence in society and how you will treat them, not how you will get rid of them.

Eureka is as much a study of the characters themselves as it is the mystery being solved by the characters. It is a game about harsh realities, but it is ultimately compassionate. It argues through its own gameplay that yes, people do have circumstances which drive their behavior, people do have special needs that are beyond their ability to reciprocate, many of those people do cause harm or inconvenience to others, and all of them are still valuable. 

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. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

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.

[funnyboxman]

hey nerds

i'm making a lobotomy corp DND system

if you have any questions, just ask :3 (i made this in a delusional state at like 3am so there might be some weird spelling) I'll do a DM's guide later on how to create abnos, general roleplay stuff and how combat should work, I'm WAY too tired to do any more work right now

[vexwerewolf]

What do you think is the worst frame for a SEKHMET-Class NHP? Why?

I went on more of an odyssey with this one than I thought.

I gave myself a rule here: I am not allowed to build a mech badly on purpose. As Dan Olson said, "if you build it out of malice, you inject it full of all your own prejudices. It ends up bad for reasons you created. It tells you nothing." Whenever I examine a mech for its suitability (or lack thereof) of SEKHMET, I must enter into it in good faith. I must try to build a good loadout and fail - I must not try to build a bad loadout and succeed.

First Appearances

I was initially going to say a Death's Head. There are a lot of frames that aren't well-suited to melee combat, but prima facie, I don't think there's a frame that by its traits and stats is more antithetical to the ethos of SEKHMET.

However. When I decided to go to COMP/CON and map out a Melee SEKHMET Death's Head for a laugh, I discovered... actually, if you disregard its traits, the Death's Head isn't the worst frame for SEKHMET. It's certainly not good - none of its traits support the playstyle - but the Death's Head is fast. It's base speed 5, just like the Blackbeard, and it has higher Evasion and E-Defence. With three ranks in an SSC mech, you can get Full Subjectivity Sync and boost its evasion to 14 with just 2 Agility, which is pretty nimble.

Also, with three ranks in an IPS-N frame - which by necessity you must have if you have SEKHMET - you can get Reinforced Frame. At LL6, with 4 points in Hull and 1 SP for Personalisations, you can get this little bastard to 26 HP, which combined with its high Evasion gives it pretty hefty staying power.

Also, a bizarre interaction that I had previously never thought of - and had to check with #rules-discussion on PilotNET - SEKHMET can use Core Siphon. There's nothing in the rules that says SEKHMET can't use protocols, and Core Siphon applies to all attacks, not just ranged ones. This can be useful if, for instance, you're close to demolishing an enemy with your first attack, and the next nearest target is an ally - your first attack roll will be buffed, and all the other attacks you make this turn will be debuffed.

This is my janked-up build:

-- SSC Death’s Head @ LL6 -- [ LICENSES ] IPS-N Blackbeard 3, SSC Death’s Head 2, SSC Mourning Cloak 1 [ CORE BONUSES ] Reinforced Frame, Full Subjectivity Sync [ TALENTS ] Duelist 3, Executioner 3, Skirmisher 3 [ STATS ] HULL:4 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:2 STRUCTURE:4 HP:26 ARMOR:0 STRESS:4 HEATCAP:8 REPAIR:4 TECH ATK:0 LIMITED:+1 SPD:6 EVA:14 EDEF:8 SENSE:20 SAVE:13 [ WEAPONS ] MAIN/AUX MOUNT: Charged Blade / Fold Knife HEAVY MOUNT: Nanocarbon Sword [ SYSTEMS ] Personalizations, SEKHMET-Class NHP, Synthetic Muscle Netting, Core Siphon, High-Stress Mag Clamps

It's not... great. But it could work!

So, if it's not the Death's Head, what frame really is the worst for SEKHMET?

The Big Boy

The next stop on my journey was to think about what made the Death's Head not the worst choice, and look for a frame that didn't have those upsides. This led me - as many "worst frame for X" deep dives do - to the Barbarossa.

The Barbarossa isn't just slow, it's fucking slow. I can't express to you just how much of a drawback 2 Speed is. I had to pump Agility to 4 just to hit Speed 4, the base speed of an Everest. But when I did, the unsuitability of the Barbarossa sort of melted away as well.

The Barbarossa's Threat is huge, and if you're eligible for an IPS-N core bonus - which, again, I will remind you, you must be if you have SEKHMET - you can get Gyges frame, which buffs weapon Threat by 1. A Barbarossa with a Threat 3 Nanocarbon Sword threatens an absolutely absurd 36 spaces around it, so who gives a shit if it's not the quickest? Speed 4 isn't great for SEKHMET but if you've got move assist from your team it basically doesn't matter.

Moreover, the Barbarossa is functionally immune to most sources of forced movement. It can't be knocked prone by anything smaller than itself, already always wins grapples even before you add Synthetic Muscle Netting, and can just march over obstacles that would force a smaller mech to go around them.

Again, it's pretty jank, but this build works surprisingly well:

-- HA Barbarossa @ LL6 -- [ LICENSES ] HA Barbarossa 2, IPS-N Blackbeard 3, IPS-N Vlad 1 [ CORE BONUSES ] Gyges Frame, Heatfall Coolant System [ TALENTS ] Duelist 3, Executioner 3, Combined Arms 1, Nuclear Cavalier 2 [ STATS ] HULL:2 AGI:4 SYS:0 ENGI:2 STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:2 STRESS:4 HEATCAP:10 REPAIR:5 TECH ATK:-2 LIMITED:+1 SPD:4 EVA:10 EDEF:6 SENSE:10 SAVE:13 [ WEAPONS ] Integrated: Apocalypse Rail MAIN MOUNT: Impact Lance MAIN MOUNT: Chain Axe HEAVY MOUNT: Nanocarbon Sword [ SYSTEMS ] Personalizations, Synthetic Muscle Netting, SEKHMET-Class NHP, Reinforced Cabling

Reinforced Cabling - by the end, you will believe a mountain can fly.

Wait, Is Lancer Just That Flexible?

So far we've looked at two mechs I was sure would be a simple answer to this question and they were actually astoundingly viable given their respective downsides. Sure, they're not anywhere close to being top picks, but Lancer's game design seems to be tight enough that it basically never entirely locks you out of a role even if your mech isn't suited to it.

But there's still got to be a worst mech, right? Even with Lancer's legendary build flexibility, there still has to be a worst mech for the job of housing the Murder Cat, right? By definition, there has to be.

So what is it? It has to be a mech that's some combination of slow, fragile, doesn't have trait support for melee or traits that would otherwise be advantageous for a melee fighter, does have traits that would actively disadvantage it in melee, or has traits that are rendered unusable by not being on SEKHMET's permissible action flowchart. Moreover, I realised that any mech that has a Heavy slot can put a Nanocarbon Sword in it, and that weapon is so good that it can make up for most of a frame's deficiencies by itself. Therefore, we also need to exclude any frame that has a Heavy Slot.

We have two somewhat viable options here: the HORUS Lich and the SSC Emperor.

Ghost Warrior

The HORUS Lich is absurdly fragile on its base stats (although this can be easily circumvented via HASE and core bonuses), and it can't use its survival reaction while using SEKHMET if doing so would cause it to move away from an enemy. It lacks a Heavy slot, and it also lacks any traits that non-Heavy frames like the Nelson and the Mourning Cloak have to improve melee damage.

Even so, you can easily make a 22 HP, Evasion 10, E-Def 12 Lich by LL6.

-- HORUS Lich @ LL6 -- [ LICENSES ] IPS-N Blackbeard 3, HORUS Lich 2, IPS-N Nelson 1 [ CORE BONUSES ] Reinforced Frame, Overpower Caliber [ TALENTS ] Duelist 3, Skirmisher 3, Hunter 3 [ STATS ] HULL:4 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:2 STRUCTURE:4 HP:22 ARMOR:0 STRESS:4 HEATCAP:5 REPAIR:7 TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+1 SPD:6 EVA:10 EDEF:12 SENSE:15 SAVE:14 [ WEAPONS ] MAIN/AUX MOUNT: War Pike / Tactical Knife // Overpower Caliber [ SYSTEMS ] SEKHMET-Class NHP, Personalizations, Synthetic Muscle Netting, Armament Redundancy, Reinforced Cabling, Bulwark Mods, Wandering Nightmare

This boy can do some work. The War Pike gives it excellent threat, OpCal boosts its damage per turn, and the TacKnife lets it do Hunter shenanigans, such as essentially attacking twice with its Knife. It's still not great, but it... works.

Sword of Kings

The Emperor is probably what we're looking for. It has only one Main Mount (worse even than the Lich's Main/Aux, which at least lets it do Knife Crimes), and its survivability and sustain comes entirely from Overshield, which it can't interact with at all while using SEKHMET. Even at 4 Hull, its Repair Cap is only 4, meaning it can't afford to take much damage.

-- SSC Emperor @ LL6 -- [ LICENSES ] IPS-N Blackbeard 3, SSC Emperor 2, IPS-N Nelson 1 [ CORE BONUSES ] Reinforced Frame, Overpower Caliber [ TALENTS ] Duelist 3, Skirmisher 3, Pankrati 3 [ STATS ] HULL:4 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:2 STRUCTURE:4 HP:17 ARMOR:0 STRESS:4 HEATCAP:7 REPAIR:4 TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+1 SPD:6 EVA:12 EDEF:8 SENSE:15 SAVE:14 [ WEAPONS ] Integrated: Marathon Arc Bow MAIN MOUNT: War Pike // Overpower Caliber [ SYSTEMS ] Personalizations, Synthetic Muscle Netting, SEKHMET-Class NHP, Reinforced Cabling, Armament Redundancy, Bulwark Mods

Now, to be clear, this guy does start every fight with 9 Overshield, and regains it every time they take Structure damage, giving them 26 effective HP per Structure. But the Emperor needs to be constantly applying Overshield to allies to recharge their Storm Shield, and this is essentially impossible while SEKHMET is active!

And yet this build is still... at least remotely playable. I think we've found the worst frame for SEKHMET. I don't think SEKHMET likes the SSC Emperor very much.

And yet. You could field this. It wouldn't be good, but you could field this. It would probably die quite fast but it's not completely unplayable.

Damn, Lancer's pretty good.

[songship]

I'm cooking

what if... I made double cross builds for the limbus sinners...

[lumalalu]

i really do love rune factory's ridiculous skills. i think it's kind of genius actually even though we like to make jokes about there being a "walking" skill and an "eating" skill

i like the eating one especially bc what it does in game is every skill level you raise increases your RP and HP, as well as some other misc things depending on the skill. if your character sleeps every night (skill up!), eats every day (skill up!), and farms/exercises (skill up!), their general stamina and health also increases. it turns "taking good care of yourself" into a game mechanic with actual rewards.

this has tangible benefits too like in the beginning of the game you lose a lot of RP doing basic tasks. the more you take care of your character, the more complex things you can accomplish - like dishes. which then come with their own unique buffs like oven dishes buffing your vitality. which, these things then also apply to party members when you give them dishes. iirc they even get special stat bonuses for dishes they like?

it all makes the actual rpg part of it feel blended into the farming sim aspect of it, and thats something that i feel is lacking in stardew valley and stardew valley-likes, bc they just sort of graft on a simplistic combat style onto a farming sim. and thats one of the reasons i really wish people would play rune factory and like really study how its mechanics work, bc they really do work so well for a farming sim/rpg hybrid. and also i like it lol

[woetoy]

Twist a gal's arm why don't ya~ Next time I'm asking for something in return ;3

Breeding Vidya Games:

Corruption of Champions- The OG in my book. An older one with a lot of fun stuff and nuance. More fantasy oriented than the rest with minotaurs and hellhounds (both of which can breed the player character). One of the earliest recurring characters you meet is a goblin girl "convincing" the player character to knock her up. Stats like cum production (by the milliliter) are tracked and even minmax-able. Players encounter consumable items that cause minor transformations. Scripted birth scenes with PC and preggable NPC's. Sex scenes are also all scripted. Almost entirely text based. Might need to install Flash Debugger to run it.

Trials in Tainted Space- Essentially the Sci-Fi counterpart for the previous entry. Stats are even more granular and there are far more... Interesting transformations (You can get your character to cum MILK). Has an entire space station with a subplot devoted to "donating" your womb to repopulation of an alien species (getting paid to get pregged). Sex scenes are still scripted and text based. Important NPC's are given character portraits.

Broken Dreams Correctional Center- Similar to the previous entry, though with a Prison Colony roleplay angle. Has "Skill Trees" devoted to breeding and being bred respectively, giving differently themed bonuses to sex and combat. PROCEDURAL and DYNAMIC sex scenes (unless it's part of a characters side-quest) with animated paper doll characters. You get to slowly watch your character's belly slowly grow throughout pregnancy ❤️ Mechanics for turning your fellow inmates into breeding slaves and vice-versa~

Degrees of Lewdity- Everything from the previous entry with slightly less robust paperdoll animation. Not reeeeaaally a furry game but there are furry elements (stray dogs, foxes, wolves, and other critters can fuck and preg you). MOST ROBUST procedural dynamic sex letting you control reach different limb during sex. Wraps Combat and Sex into the same "struggle" encounters where attackers tear your clothes off and and fuck you WHILE you fight back (or don't ~). Playing dress-up is the REAL endgame.

Hole Dweller- Probably the silliest entry. Sandbox-type game with a pretty damn fun drilling minigame. Sex positions are selected from a menu when unlocked with small semi-customizable character models. You can get TURBO PREGNANT. I won't elaborate on this further.

DM me for links if you can't find em ~

Happy new year!

HYPE HYPE HYPE!!!

This is so comprehensive, thank you!!!!! Can't wait to check these out >:3c

HAPP NEW YEAR TO YOU TOO

[thydungeongal]

Broadly speaking I fuck with the OSR playstyle even though I find that in places there is a tendency towards historical revisionism. For an example, claims that the OSR is rediscovering lost modes of play I think are somewhat overblown: I think it's better not to retroactively apply these playstyles discovered through interrogating these texts through a more modern system-matters-pilled lens onto these games, but simply view them as new interpretations of old texts. (Like, I do think there is some truth to "OSR as playstyle" being more grounded in how these games were played in the old days, but I think it is an universal truth that D&D players have always ignored large swathes of the rules: so "discovering" a new playstyle through strict adherence to the rules might actually result in a playstyle not necessarily recognizable to those old geezers.)

But there is one specific claim often made about the OSR as a playstyle that doesn't quite sit right with me: the idea that OSR games test "player skill, not character strength."

There's a few things wrong with this. I understand where it's coming from though: it's contrasting old-school style "you just roll up a random asshole and then try to keep them alive" play with more modern "you lovingly craft a guy who you then throw against adversity" types of play. But where it goes wrong is in the implication that the latter also does not involve a test of player skill. System mastery itself is a player skill and one that can be tested when the rules are treated as a system.

And OSR play isn't even immune from testing player system mastery. So you rolled your 3d6 down the line badly. What do you do? Well, you pick a class that is less reliant on ability scores (this could arguably be all of them, but since the things that ability scores mostly inform are usually relayed to combat you'll want to pick a class that isn't expected to engage in direct combat) or you pick a class with enough non-ability score related bonuses to offset your character's low ability scores.

Combat still rewards system mastery and actually knowing how to best utilize the rules. If you're playing AD&D bows have a separate Rate of Fire stat which means multiple attacks in a combat round even at low levels. Sleep does not give a saving throw in many older editions. Protection from Evil straight up prevents creatures with immunity to non-magical weapons from attacking the target. A 1st level Cleric with no spells is still useful because they can pretty much end an encounter with the undead in an instant!

Of course there is a difference in kind of the type of player skill that is being tested, but I feel the claim that the OSR playstyle tests player skill more than post-TSR D&D is somewhat ahistorical but also dismissive of the types of player skills cultivated by 3e/4e/5e and their derivatives.