#confluence rpg

[queerpg]

NEW GAME SHOWCASE: CONFLUENCE RPG

We at queeRPG are teaming up with Publishing Goblin and their new game Confluence: the Living Archive! Their crowdfunding campaign launches next Tuesday, October 15th and one of their stretch goals is an actual play produced by us! But that can only happen with your support, so go over their and pre-save their campaign so you're ready to hit the back button when they launch!

In order to get y'all ready for it, our New Game Showcase episode just dropped with @just-trying-togetby talking through the game and building out a little character! Also, keep an eye out in the next couple weeks for an interview with some of the game designers to get a peak behind the curtain of this really, really cool ttrpg!

[the-cash-cache]

Mayor Tinner looks like they have multiple closets worth of skeletons and I should avoid them at all costs, and Garrulous Vinge looks like one hell of a storyteller

Bram may be a humble research assistant at the Ikari Institute, but the Bhande's skill with paper and ink and the ability to truly represent their subject, has gained them access to many restricted places and people across Ajurea. Their subjects range as much their world does; dedicating poachers and mayors and fallen gods to page, even receiving invites from the more...ego stroking, to have their portraits drawn and kept in the vast archives of Ikari. Just a few portraits of some of Confluence's NPC's that will be found in the Atlas! Was so fun to work with shadow and line, though I couldn't resist some colour, it's me u guys Now, Big Question: who'd you like to meet most?? All art is mine, see more of confluence on our twitter!

[publishinggoblin]

Finally making its way to crowdfunding, Confluence: The Living Archive now has a landing page for our October 2024 Backerkit project! Click here and you can sign up to be notified on our launch next year!

Confluence is a ridiculous project. This TTRPG features a fantastic system for making your characters to go experience all that Ajurea, the land of Confluence, has to offer, but it also features diegetic Atlases (yes plural) that are massive books at 9 1/2x11". Diegetic meaning in-world, as if they were written by, used by, and doodled in by people from the world.

Some mechanics will be in the mechanics books, the catalog, but some will only be findable in particular locations within the Atlases, prompting you to explore the world at the table, and take pieces of the world into your character through unique regional specialties and traits.

We have been working on this for a while, a team of 14+, and are working our way through our playtests now, and making sure the material we put forward is everything you need to really delve into the incredible world of Ajurea. Come check out our team, see more art, and more over on the website!

[riversidewings]

The Meeting (A Lancer RPG AU of "Confluence")

When I was 14, on the day of my genpuku, Ogasan-- my mother Kasu-- took me to the family shrine.

I'd been there before, of course-- played under the cryptomeria trees that had once been frozen seedlings from the Cradle, enjoyed its festival music, watched its sacred bonfires. But that day, it was different, for we did not stop at the main hall, but instead continued, past the racks where ema swayed, to the octagonal building framed by the line of zelkovas.

"Today," Ogasan said, "You will meet Narukami."

I was confused. "But I've seen her before!"

Ogasan paused at the gate of the Katchūdō, the Armor Hall, and shook her head gently. "Yes, but not like this."

She pushed the door open; it rumbled on old hinges. Ogasan stood in the doorway and extended a hand. "Come. Let me introduce you."

Atop a dais, clad in court garb, Narukami sat with legs folded like a Bodhisattva in contemplation. I'd seen her many times by then-- Ogasan still wore her regularly on field exercises-- but never this close and with her on standby. She was centuries old, but she seemed alive, seemed to have vitality like the trees outside.

And then I heard her.

"You brought me a guest."

She hadn't moved, but it felt like she was looking at me.

"Um. Hello, um."

"This is Emi, my daughter and heir," Ogasan announced, head bowed. "Today was her genpuku rite. I've brought her to meet you, as my father brought me on my genpuku day."

I couldn't help bowing. And then Narukami spoke, softly but somehow still making the earth rumble.

"Do not fear me."

"I'm...I'm not afraid!" I heard myself say. "But you're special, and Mom and Ogasan always say the rice stalk that bears the most, bows the lowest--"

Narukami-- the Atlas armor that after this many centuries was kami unto itself-- did not move, but I still felt like I was being watched. Studied.

"You've grown so fast."

Her voice was gentle. It sounded like something of a lot of grownups who'd cared a lot about me until then.

"Haste not, Isawa Emi, scion. Learn. Learn and wait. The time will come sooner than you think. And then, you will be ready."

"How will I know?"

"You will be ready."

Now I saw Ogasan bow. I bowed again.

"Arigataya, arigataya," Ogasan murmured. <You honor us, you honor us.>

And then it was quiet. I saw the dust drift through the hall's high windows. Narukami had not moved, but I didn't feel like I was being studied anymore.

I think I was holding my breath, because I only exhaled when Ogasan took my hand.

"Come on," she beckoned. We slipped out to the courtyard and the door rumbled shut.

"Why does she sound..."

"....like me, like your Obantsan, and like all your aunties who've worn Narukami?" Ogasan chuckled, looking back over her shoulder at the stately doors to the Armor Hall. "Learn. Learn and wait."

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Been getting more followers recently, so time for a pinned post!

I'm Josh and I make tabletop role-playing games and games related things. What sort of things, you may ask? Here's a quick sampler of some greatest hits;

Vibe Check: Enter the Inversion - a The World Ends With You inspired action-fashion game.

DEATHGRIND!!MEGASTRUCTURE - a post-human, brutalist, over-the-top game of delving through a massive galaxy spanning structure.

Fractal Romance - a surreal hangout where you explore the randomly generated Fractal Palace.

EXTRACAUSAL - a build-your-own supernatural conspiracy game. Inspired by everything from X-Files, Fringe, and Control.

Layers of Unreality - a procedurally driven crawl through the liminal spaces between reality for the game Liminal Horror.

Into the Riverlands - a system neutral fantasy setting full of spooky forests, god-fish, and more.

I've also contributed to a bunch of stuff like Gila RPG's Slayer's Almanac, KeganEXE's In Extremis: Season of Discovery, and Rae Nedjadi's Apocalypse Keys!

If you want to check all my stuff out, head on over to my itch.io page!

I like talking and writing about game design, and try to post about there here. I'm always open to questions about different elements of design and making your own ttrpgs!

You can check out some of my larger in-progress games in over here;

Dark Confluence

Furry Crime Game (name pending)

Stampede Wasteland

[vurthshistorian]

My bank account is going to hate me this month.

I've made my excitement for the Cosmere System known on my Posts about Stormlight Archives, however, I must bludgeon you further.

I love the works of Sir Terry Pratchett, I've read a good chunk of the Guards Series, A few Wizard Books, and Mort. So now with Modephus at the Helm who have done fantastic works with the 2d20 John Carter and 2d20 Conan Games, I have complete faith that they're going to deliver Nothing Except the most Fantastic RPG for Us, who like Discworld.

Their Main Physical Tier is $50 and comes with The Core Rules, The PDF of the Core Rules, and The Octerine Dice set. Compared to other kickstarters I've backed, bang for buck, it's worth it.

The reason why My Bank Account is going to despise me is because of Confluence: The Living Archive. I've had my eye on this the entire month. I've been flipping through Instagram and my backerkit waiting for their backerkit to launch. This looks to be a small company TTRPG and from the art on the Kickstarter alone they have my Interest and my Money.

Their Main Physical Tier is $80 but comes with Lots of Goodies that make that pricetag worth it.

[unscrupulousartist]

Kickstarter Update #2

Cross-posted from Kickstarter:

A few things I'm looking forward to in October...

Hullo, hullo! Welcome to Update #2.

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who's supported my campaign so far. :) This first week I was hit by an influx of spam marketers and questionable conversations that, while a shitty achievement badge in general, I was unprepared for emotionally; but each and every one of you has been a reminder that there are real people out there who want to support real art.

Speaking of supporting real art... there are some exciting things coming up in October that I'm looking forward to supporting in my life, and perhaps it'll be stuff you'd want to support, too.

IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 

October 15th—Confluence ft. Publishing Goblin | @publishinggoblin

Confluence is on my radar because of my low-key obsession with Publishing Goblin—'cause come on, how great of a name is that? I've supported previous Publishing Goblin projects and will likely support more of their projects in the future. Publishing Goblin brought me The Alleyman Tarot, will eventually bring me The Hot Housewife Tarot, and has been steadily working through several poetry projects. As a bit of a goblin myself, I've got a starry eyed vested interest in seeing another cool creative make art and succeed in this world; for it's art that makes the rest of it worth living.

Confluence has beautiful artwork, a trusted artist working with a diverse team, and is a perfect excuse to throw dice into trays and laugh with friends. Full disclosure: this is likely to be a nice little gift for my TTRPG loving step-son, and we'll see about bullying him into running a little campaign for me and his dad. 

October 22nd—A Fool's Errand by J Strautman | @strautmaskreplica & B Marsollier | @b-marsollier

In other TTRPG news, your friends and mine over at Planet Arcana have designed their own tarot-based system.  A Fool's Errand puts your party into the world of Planet Arcana, with it's lavish landscapes, brilliant beasts, and arcane insight. You don't need to be familiar with the podcast to enjoy the game; but if you're looking for an award-winning group of Canadians playing through a unique Tarot-Inspired universe, it's definitely worth a listen. 

Playtesting our own little calamity has been a highlight of my still-very-novice RPG experiences. I get to live out my piscean fantasties as an angry waterbreathing aquean composite, and weave a tale of prophet and mystery with some storytelling friends. We're only a few sessions into our campaign, but it promises to be a fun experience. 

Sometime in October, Probably—Refugium by Simon Roy | @simon-roy

And I would be remiss not to include my favourite comics on my list. Refugium is the third book in Simon Roy's Griz Grobus series, following the eponymous first book Griz Grobus and the second, Miramar. Simon's a fantastically detailed comic artist and works with a wonderful colourist, Sergey Nazarov, to bring this galaxy-spanning universe to life. It's already funded, but you can buy the backlog or support Simon on Patreon while you wait for whatever he makes next. I'm trying to be patient while I wait for my copy of Refugium to arrive—hopefully sometime this month.   

Can you think of anything else exciting happening this month? Let me know. :) I always like finding new artists to swoon over. 

Stay Rested, Audrey

[thehubby]

Introducing Dextra

Like many gamers, it has long been a goal of mine to develop and publish my own game, to add a minute something to the fabric of our culture, but especially to the hobby which I have enjoyed for a very long time. At long last, through a confluence of self-determination, assistance from friends, and an environment more friendly to independent publishing than any yet, the time for that dream is now. It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the my first role-playing game, Dextra.

What is Dextra? It is a very rules-light narrative-focused tabletop RPG. It is designed for players who are most interested in a game system that helps them structure telling stories, not crunching numbers and trying to figure out optimal builds. In fact, telling a good story is the only objective and "win" condition in Dextra. Even if the land is ravished, the villain escapes and the heroes perish, if the table tells a satisfying tale, the table wins.

How does Dextra play? Dextra is designed for casual players (even if they do take their stories very seriously!), and is intended to address one of the biggest problems I personally have had with tabletop gaming over the years: rules bloat and accessibility. There is only one hard rule in Dextra: every facet of the game (including contributions of the players) must be subservient to the story at hand. Between the 15 pages of basic guidelines and 65 pages of support materials, there are many recommendations of how to proceed, but you are free and encouraged to ignore any and all of them as befits your need to tell the story.

There are no lists of classes, powers, equipment and such in Dextra, no codified character abilities, spells, races or anything else. It is a game truly limited only by the imagination of the players at the table. But you need not worry about your fellow players abusing this potential to create overpowered monstrosities, because they don't make their own characters. Each player provides a name and class -- any class, from fighter to fae emissary, wizard to werewolf hunter -- and character sheets are passed around the table where everyone else gives them the attributes, powers and abilities, equipment and items, and traits and quirks that make them who they are. It's a little like Mad Libs, except instead of dubiously entertaining jibberish, you're likely to end up with something cool like an Infernal Bloodline, a Ruggedness ability score, or Spear of Lightning.

Taking actions and overcoming challenges is done using 2d6 (two six-sided dice for any newcomers out there), adding the character elements that the player feels are appropriate to their roll, and comparing it to a predetermined difficulty that the Game Master establishes for the action. GMs don't need to look up any tables; they simply estimate the difficulty of an action (assuming it is one that carries a risk of failure at all) from 1 to 10, and add 5. There are guidelines for combat, hit points, character conditions and so on if desired, but Dextra does not contain realistic or complicated battle mechanics. If that's your jam, this may not be for you.

Is Dextra free? No, it is not free. Yes, it is. Though It took nearly a year to conceive, write, edit, format and ultimately publish the game, and I believe in fair compensation for myself just as for any other writer or creator, the market spoke after release and I determined it is more important to me that people be able to play the games I create than an occasional payout. Dextra and all of my other published games are free.

Where can I get it? Dextra is currently offered at Itch.io (link provided). It should be published on DriveThruRPG (link provided) sometime within the next three days after their review and approval. It is currently only available as a digital PDF download (preparing print-on-demand copies involves some software and expertise I do not currently possess). If you wish to obtain a copy of the game and have a preference between these two sites, by all means go with that. If you have no preference, then my recommendation is Itch.io, as they not only take a smaller cut of the sale, but have more features available (such as complimentary community copies and easier means to send free codes to users).

Where can I get more information? If you have questions about the game, send me an Ask on the Dextra-RPG Tumblr account. You can also check or follow that account for occasional posts of information and to find out how you can contribute to a crowd-sourced character creation project to be offered as a free download to potential players.

[renaissancewoodsman]

Wizard Council

Wizard council is a one page tabletop RPG where you play as wizards creating rube goldberg machines to complete your Magnum Opuses. It’s biggest inspirations are Sideral Confluence and Nomic. Theres technically a second page but its just an example of play.

[coolritofacts]

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse: A Strange Journey

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse (known as SMTIV Final in Japan) is a sequel to the original SMTIV, both of which are 3DS games. It follows an alternate story that begins near the end of the original, where a new protagonist accidentally kicks off a sequence of events that leads to the game playing out completely differently.

It's... not perfect. The gameplay and audiovisual design are not only top-notch for the series, but for RPGs of the time as a whole, but the story fails to execute on its admittedly interesting ideas, and the third act in particular might be the most spectacular way I've ever seen a piece of media completely fumble the bag. This post will be a chronicle/unstructured rant of my entire two-week journey through the game. Spoilers for both SMTIV and Apocalypse will be covered in detail. Strap in: this is going to be a long one.

For those who aren't aware, Shin Megami Tensei is an RPG series that dates all the way back to the 80s. The gameplay involves fighting demons based on mythological gods and beasts, convincing them to join your party, and fusing them together to create stronger demons. Most SMT games take place in a post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo and center around the conflict between those aligned with the ideals of Law and Chaos. The series is best known for its largest spinoff series, Persona, but SMT has so many other increasingly obscure entries and spinoffs that they could probably form an iceberg video with their titles alone.

SMTIV in particular takes place in the year 2038, 25 years after nuclear war ravaged the world. Thanks to a confluence of factors, Tokyo was protected from the war by a giant dome that covered the entire city. A few survivors managed to breach the ceiling and form a new city up there, and since time flows much faster above the dome, an unusual medieval society called the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, with "Samurais" and a caste system, has had over 1500 relative years to develop by the time the game starts. The cast of SMTIV hails from Mikado, while Apocalypse starts in Tokyo.

Back to the game. I knew a few things about it before I decided to start playing it, the first (and most striking) of which being the protagonist's design:

There's just so much to take in here. His haircut is insane, he's got one pant leg rolled up for seemingly no reason, and the "NO WAR" text on his suit and the peace symbol pin are a good indication of how subtle the game's themes will be. My favorite part, though, are the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine emblazoned right below the pins. They might be too small to make out here, but trust me, they're there. Also, his name is Nanashi, which literally means "nameless."

After an entire hour of downloading a ROM onto my very real 3DS (accompanied by this completely insane blurb) and trying to figure out how to make the DLC CIA file work, I finally opened the game and was immediately greeted by this:

This shit is SERIOUS. We're going to WAR here.

The game opens with two random guys telling Nanashi (who I gave the hunter codename KILLJOHN, as a reference to my everlasting mission to kill John Lennon) and his childhood friend Asahi that they're too young and inexperienced to join the Hunter Association and become official demon hunters, then tasking them to beat up a couple demons as basic combat practice. Nanashi picks a phone up off the floor, starts killing, some demons, and immediately gets jumped and dies. In the afterlife, a demon called Dagda shows up and brings Nanashi back to life under a contract of complete subservience, then jumps into his phone to help him take down the demons.

With the two random guys dead and nothing else to do, Nanashi and Asahi collect some demons of their own and start doing quests from the Association. One of these almost gets the two killed, but Flynn, the protagonist from the first game, and his friend Isabeau show up to rescue them. Flynn has a major speaking role in this game, which is always cool to see in a sequel.

Throughout the game, you'll be given several dialogue choices that alter Nanashi's alignment. In vanilla SMTIV, these were centered around Law and Chaos and were entirely responsible for which ending you got, but in Apocalypse, they're more focused around being "good" or "evil" and the consequences for which one you choose are a bit different. Since Dagda constantly (and I mean constantly) tells Nanashi to betray his friends and work alone, and most of the "evil" options are Nanashi acting like a total dick to whoever he's talking to, it reminds me a lot of specifically the SnapCube fandub of Shadow the Hedgehog, where The Devil from The Bible repeatedly shows up and tells Shadow to be an asshole and collect Sin Points.

Another fun element of this game is the lore compendium, which contains such things as the entire plot of the first game, an unnecessarily lengthy entry about the preparation and history of fried chicken, and the unrequested information that Isabeau reads yaoi. The fried chicken thing is even lampshaded in-game, just to give an indication of how unserious the game is going to be.

For the gang's next mission, they take a request called "plz stop fight" and travel to the Fairy Forest. Waiting for them is Nozomi, a character from a series of side quests from the first game that's been upgraded to a party member here. Since most of her development already happened in that game, her role in this one is as more of a mentor figure and as a mouthpiece for Dagda's mom, who lent her power to Nozomi so she could carry out her duties as queen of the fairies. She asks Nanashi to take care of King Frost, the king of all Jack Frosts, while unleashing this humdinger of a line:

Your next mission is given to you by some demon guy, who instructs you to go to a really cool waterfall dungeon to unseal a powerful being. With nothing else to do, the gang goes off to do exactly that, and they're greeted by this twink:

He introduces himself as Krishna, leader of the Divine Powers, a group that wants to create a new universe outside of God's grasp so humanity can be free from his constraints. Unfortunately, this means killing everyone in the current universe, so he's gotta be stopped. He starts a war between the Divine Powers, Merkabah (God's chariot) and Lucifer (Lucifer), kidnaps Flynn to use in much the same way as Dagda has with Nanashi, and fucks off to do his own thing. At this point, Dagda drops one of my favorite lines in any video game:

I refuse to believe someone at Atlus wrote this line and unironically thought they were cooking. They are not beating the Shadow the Hedgehog allegations.

The game then gives you two quests and lets you choose which one to do first: clean up the Divine Powers' invasion of the Fairy Forest from earlier, or go to the big tower that leads to Mikado to collect a part for a thing I'll mention in a moment. Both of these lead to boss fights, and I killed both of them in about three turns. SMT has a reputation for being really hard, but if you have enough experience with the series and spend more time nose deep in the fusion calculator than playing the game, it's not too hard to turn any boss in your way into red mist, especially since the first one of the two has a habit of using a skill that guarantees that his next hit will be a critical hit when he already has a status that does the exact same thing.

The second boss of the two is worth talking about a bit more, though. Medusa is a boss returning from the first game, and her encounter here is meant to mirror the one from that game as closely as possible, from the legendarily kickass boss music to the dialogue being nearly the exact same. One line in particular sticks out:

This game has uncensored swears in it, which makes me believe that Medusa just called Nanashi several slurs. You also get a new party member here, but he sucks so I don't feel like talking about him.

This seems like as good a time as any to mention how amazing this game's OST is. SMTIV already had some awesome tunes, and this game naturally carries most of the tracks from there while also adding some unique ones. The entire soundtrack is gold, but some of my personal favorites are the Large Map theme and the Divine Powers battle theme. I'd highly recommend looking these up to accompany your reading if you've already made it this far.

Your next mission is to defeat the Divine Powers' Evil Snake. Joining you is this wonderful gentleman:

This guy goes out of his way to use your turns to attack. This has a high chance of getting you killed in random encounters. He's also almost necessary to kill Evil Snake, since he carries around a spear blessed by God that's super effective against it. I love this guy. The battle against Evil Snake is also pretty interesting; you need to choose the right dialogue options so you don't get wiped. Most major bosses in both SMTIV and Apocalypse do this, but the Evil Snake fights really make you feel like a tactical smart guy for choosing the right options...

...or at least they would if I didn't have a guide at the ready. If there's one thing I regret about this game, it's looking things up on the wiki way too often and ruining some things for myself that I would've liked to see with my own eyes. I needed the alignment guide to make sure my Sin Points were at sufficient levles and a walkthrough to get through the incredibly crankass final dungeon, but I could have survived without the constant wiki diving.

Anyway, after killing the Evil Snake, a couple of creepy old ladies tell you to kill Flynn and the Divine Powers. The gang obviously objects to the former, so they let you skip that part as long as you let "this weird child" (their words, not mine) named Toki follow you along for the ride.

The second she joined my party, she instantly killed an enemy I ran into and then said this. You can't make this shit up. Isabeau also formally joins the party around this point, rounding out a complete set.

The whole squad goes off to fight the Divine Powers, which completely backfires in their face and ends up revealing to the entire party that Nanashi is essentially a corpse being puppeted along at the whims of Dagda. Nobody is happy about this. After the confronration, one of the Divine Powers sets up a barrier that makes everyone in Tokyo unable to summon demons (except Nanashi because he's different). One of the leaders of the Hunter's Association asks you to quell an invasion of Nanashi's home, leading to one of my favorite dialogue choices in the game:

During the invasion, Asahi's dad dies. Womp womp.

While Asahi mourns, the rest of the gang turns their focus to destroying the barrier. To do this, they need to seal five jars that power the barrier through collecting emotions from five of the seven deadly sins, because I guess the Divine Powers couldn't afford all seven. Toki volunteers to do this because she's trained to seal her emotions away, and she gets brain blasted by all five of the sins while she's sealing the jars. After getting through the lust one, she says "I'm too young for this"... and then slightly later, she returns with her mask off and with a habit of calling Nanashi "Master" and openly thirsting over him. This could be generously described as an unorthodox writing decision. Since Asahi starts developing an interest in Nanashi around the same time, this is (to my knowledge) the only SMT game with a genuine love triangle.

On that topic, this seems like a good time to mention a major criticism with the game, that being that it feels more like a cheesy sitcom than a "real SMT game." This is definitely true, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. As I said before, there are like 40 SMT games, so it shouldn't really matter if one of them isn't super dismal and depressing like the rest, especially if the game uses that tone to tell a compelling story. It... doesn't, but that's besides the point. Also, something really funny happened in that dungeon:

Next up: beat up the Divine Powers, for real this time. After getting through a genre staple Fuckass Teleport Maze, you finally get to partake in a formal bout with Krishna, who's probably the hardest boss so far. He loves to stack multiple status effects on your party at once, making it nearly impossible to move at times, while simultaneously tanking your stats and raising his own. If there weren't a party member that blocked status effects, I genuinely don't know how I would have gotten past him. He doesn't even die, either; after you beat him, he just goes "ohhh nooo I've been defeateddd how could this possibly happennnnnn" and fucks off to do some more plotting. Somehow, the entire party is fooled by this expert subterfuge. Flynn is also rescued during this operation, but he's acting a bit freaky.

The next thing you do is infiltrating Mikado for a reason I literally forgot. Since Mikado's Samurai get assigned at the age of 18 and most of the gang distinctly does not look that old, they put on stupid-looking disguises, which leads to Asahi getting totally owned by the angel guarding the gate:

After a bit more work, you finally arrive at the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. This moment is awesome for both story and meta reasons: the characters are astonished by the fresh air and the feeling of sun on their faces since they've lived under a dome their entire lives, and the player (me) is astonished by being right back at the initial hub area from the first game. The music and visuals are exactly the same, and you get to use all the same facilities and things that the Samurai do. It's a really rewarding and cool feeling after the extended gap between my playing of the two games. As another bonus, Nanashi gets to wear the supremely cool Samurai outfit:

Ignore the green shades. He thinks they look cool.

At this point, Merkabah and Lucifer officially declare war and start trying to beat each other up. To stop them, you need to go through an area from the first game, interspersed with sections of Lucifer's Palace (but not Merkabah's Purgatorium, for some reason). At the center of the area, Merkabah and Lucifer are talking shit to each other, with Flynn sitting in the middle and calling them both poopyheads. At this point, you can side with either Merkabah or Lucifer to get a Law/Chaos bad ending that ends the game early, or kill both of them like the game clearly wants you to. Gaston breaks his heavenly spear and becomes a worse character by replacing it with a normal one, and some other guy does some thing that I don't care about. Once you do that, all of the evil forces of the world are totally dead, so you can go back home and celebrate! Woohoo!

At this point, I came to a realization: I was really invested in this game. Sure, the tone was very different from any other SMT game, but I didn't perceive that as a bad thing. The characters were fun (if a little simple), the plot had set up lots of interesting threads, and the gameplay and vibes were as excellent as ever. I might have even been enjoying myself more than the first game. I went into the comments section of a review to see if other people shared this opinion, and I just ended up disagreeing with most of the reasons people weren't vibing with the game, but I also came to another, much more terrifying realization:

I had stopped to check right before the plot turned into a shitshow. A magnificent one, but a shitshow nonetheless.

Surprisingly, the game doesn't actually end after you beat up Merkabah and Lucifer. At the ensuing party, Flynn reveals himself as a reincarnation of the Evil Snake from earlier and eats the souls of everyone at the party. This would probably be a much more shocking reveal if he didn't spend the entire Merkabah/Lucifer encounter making this face and the game didn't draw attention to it every single time he did.

Once he reveals himself, Evil Snake jumps at Nanashi with intent to kill, but Asahi jumps in front of him to protect him, dying in the process.

I have so many questions. Didn't she know that Nanashi just comes back to life whenever he gets killed because of Dagda? I've died plenty of times throughout the game, so she had to have picked up on that by now. Is she stupid? Well, yeah, she is, but you know what I mean. Also, why can't Dagda just bring her back to life like he does with Nanashi? Is he gonna do that later in the game? Oh, God, he totally is, isn't he? And why does nobody else in the party care!?

The possible explanation for that last point is that Evil Snake just turned into a giant egg that's going to hatch and destroy the universe. Krishna shows up, says "hey bitches I didn't die", and now you gotta deal with them again. Great. At least I got Nanashi a lovely new outfit for his troubles.

The moment you get into the Cosmic Egg, Krishna turns to Toki and says one of the most stranger danger lines I've ever seen:

After that, he extracts the demon living inside Toki's brain (which still has her conscious inside it) and whisks her away to stuff souls into the demon to create new demons, which he will not stop describing as "giving birth". I have no idea how this got past QA and made it into the final game, especially since Toki is fourteen years old. Even more strangely, after traversing the majority of the Cosmic Egg (which looks like this the entire way through, overlay included) and defeating the demon possessing Toki, she just reverts to her personality from before the thing with the jars, implying that the way she acted for half the game was the result of that whole process altering her brain and turning her freaky. They try to insert a character arc of her trying to find inner strength or something after this, but it feels more like someone suddenly telling you about the job interview they just got out of after several hours of showing you Homestuck porn.

After another piss easy bossfight, you finally get to the decision the entire game has been building up to: destroy the Cosmic Egg with the help of your friends to preserve the current universe, or betray your friends and use Dagda's power to create a new universe where humans take back the godlike powers stolen from them by God. Since I pride myself as a comprehensive reporter, I'll be going through both of these routes, starting with...

Pacifist

On the Pacifist route, Dagda's mom shows up and tells him "fuck you, I'm gonna kill you, give me 2000 Macca" and creates another Dagda that's less of an asshole so you can kill the old one. After beating Dagda MKI up, Dagda MKII releases the souls of everyone eaten by the Evil Snake and therefore trapped within the Cosmic Egg, resulting in Asahi coming back to life completely unscathed despite her physical body clearly being eviscerated when she protected Nanashi earlier. Man.

At the end of the Cosmic Egg, you find Krishna waiting with Flynn crucified next to him. He soliloquizes a little more about saving the world, then fuses with Flynn to become Vishnu-Flynn... who I effortlessly destroyed because I accidentally set my difficulty to Conflict instead of WAR and forgot to change it back. Whoops! Also, I'm pretty sure they forgot to translate one of the dialogue options that appears when you fight him.

After defeating Vishnu-Flynn, Flynn separates from Krishna and deals a very anime-looking finishing blow to him. Krishna is sealed away back in that waterfall dungeon, the Cosmic Egg is deactivated and becomes a tourist attraction, and all threats to Tokyo are destroyed, so everyone from both Tokyo and Mikado can return to living peaceful lives. Also, the time dilation in Mikado is removed because the Evil Snake blasted a hole in the ceiling earlier. Sounds like a happy ending for everyone, right? WRONG! An expy of Stephen Hawking appears in the dreams of the entire party and tells them to go kill God, directing them to the universe where he lives, which is one of the most agonizing final dungeons I've ever had to sit through:

What this map doesn't show you is that every single floor here is absolutely gigantic, which, when combined with Nanashi's sluggish walk speed, results in a dungeon that may have genuinely killed me if I didn't have a guide telling me exactly where to go. Throughout the dungeon, you fight clones of Merkabah and Lucifer that God created to beat you up, and then the real Merkabah and Lucifer show up to become SATAN! He is not remotely challenging. Satan creates the door to God's house, and you finally come face to face with the big man himself... or perhaps "face to face to face to face to face to face" would be more accurate.

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

This boss is ridiculously hard, for a number of reasons:

Flynn and Isabeau split off from your party to form their own with Jonathan and Walter from the first game, who show up here just to kick God in the pants. You swap between the two parties every turn. This sounds beneficial, but Isabeau is the best partner in the game, so losing access to her for the final boss really stings.

God naturally resists all elements. To counter this, you need to have Flynn use Godslayer's Sword on him, which reduces his defense against a random ailment, and even turns it into a weakness if it hits the same element twice. There's no guaranteeing which element this skill affects, so you might end up giving him a weakness to normal attacks and absolutely destroying him... or a weakness to an element none of your demons can use.

This is a two-phase boss. The first phase is relatively inconsequential, but it does drain your patience and resources before the second phase, which is where shit gets real. He gains a skill that fully buffs all his stats and gives him a very dangerous status, a skill that fully debuffs your entire party's stats and has a chance of blocking you from using skills at all, and a full-party nuclear bomb that pierces affinities and does massive damage. Thankfully, he doesn't tend to use these skills one after the other, but it's still incredibly hard to deal with, especially since Flynn's party has a very limited set of items to work with.

The boss is levle 100, while Vishnu-Flynn was only lv87. I assume they want the player to make up the difference while going through the dungeon, but since this struck me as a massive waste of time, I fought him at around 10-15 levles below what seems to be recommended. I could have fixed this with a bit of grinding, but that's dumb and lame and I didn't wanna do it.

For all of these reasons, I was genuinely unable to do the boss on WAR difficulty and had to step down to Conflict to finish the game. It's a shame, too, because I think the concept of the boss is really cool; you need to have your entire party reject God as a concept by forming a proper understanding of him and thus denying his mysterious power, and once you do this enough, he reverts to just another regular demon that you can take down like any other. It's a pretty awesome fight from a lore standpoint, and it also fits in with absolutely nothing else from the rest of the game. After giving God the old one-two, you get a heartfelt goodbye from the gang as a slideshow of what they've been up to scrolls by, and the credits finally roll.

Ignore the guy with grey hair and the weird green ghost thing, they don't matter. This ending is kind of infamous for being incredibly saccharine and feeling more like a Persona ending than an SMT one, but at this point, I've been through enough shit that I think I've earned it. I shouldn't revel in this for too long, though, because now I have to get through...

Genocide

On the Genocide route, you side with Dagda in order to create a new universe that promotes solitude and personal strength above all else. Unfortunately, this is in direct conflict with your friends' goals, so now you have to kill all of them and harvest their souls so you have the power necessary to create a new universe. I fail to see how this makes you any different from the Divine Powers, but I digress. Hilariously, after killing all his friends, Nanashi says "Dagda" in a much more evil and fucked up way whenever he calls him to pull up the menu. Nanashi and Dagda then walk up to Krishna, tell him to stop yapping and turn into Vishnu-Flynn so they can beat him up, and... I got instantly wiped. Not only is he tougher and seemingly smarter on WAR mode, but you also obviously don't have a partner for this fight and can't reap the benefits of that. I clearly need to do some preparation to take this guy on.

Actually, that relates to something I haven't really gone into yet. Whenever I play an RPG, I have a habit of optimizing my build as much as possible over the course of the game, and SMT is no different A large part of my time with Apocalypse in particular wasn't actually spent playing it; instead, I tend to bury myself in a fusion calculator (basically a chart of every demon and every way you can fuse them together) and refuse to let myself out until I find a way to fuse the exact demon with the exact set of skills I want on it. Occasionally, I'll spend an entire day going through the calculator to find a certain combination without playing the game at all. I have mixed feelings about this habit: it's fun to figure out how to acquire the demon I want and incredibly satisfying when I find a recipe that works, and annihilating a boss with a team specifically created to exploit their weaknesses is ridiculously gratifying, but it's usually unnecessary, greatly increases the amount of time I spend on the game, and sometimes leads to me finding out about certain plot-relevant demons before I wanted to. In any case, once I found a combination of demons that was suitable to take down Vishnu-Flynn (which included Shiva, ironically enough), he went down without a sweat.

Dagda then tells Nanashi that he needs a "goddess" to properly recreate the universe. This goddess can be any of the party members you just killed (or Asahi), regardless of gender, and Dagda will bring back the one you choose as a puppet and consume the rest to fuel his new universe. He also possesses Flynn for good measure. I chose Isabeau because she has the best skills and she's a pretty woman. Oddly, Flynn essentially turns into a walking corpse who only exists to serve Nanashi, but whoever you choose as your goddess seemingly has their sanity totally intact. However, things aren't over just yet, since there's one man standing in the way of your path to godhood: the Creator God himself.

Since you actually have an impetus to kill God on this route, Stephen mostly just appears to tell you where he's at and how to do it. Once I made a pit stop to pick Krishna up from the waterfall dungeon and wiped out the Secular Press, I went back to God's Universe for a rematch against the big man. The return trip was about as interesting as the first; I tried to do some of the DLC quests, but they whooped my ass and pissed me off in equal measure, so I kept my distance and went straight to the boss with my squad:

Fighting God at lv99 on WAR mode gave me much more of an appreciation for how fun the fight is. On the Genocide route, the second party consists of only Flynn and Satan, but that's hardly an issue since Satan has ridiculous health and stats and every skill you would want him to have. Instead of your friends rebuking God's pity, you have to choose the right dialogue option to disavow him and progress the fight (or at least I think; I'm not sure what getting these wrong actually does). With proper preparation, the first phase is essentially free, meaning you get to the second phase (the fun part) much more often, which is as much of an assclench as ever. He's still incredibly hard for an enemy you're expected to fight in the main game, but I thoroughly enjoy everything about the fight from both a gameplay and lore perspective, especially on this route. Once you sufficiently kick God in the pants, Nanashi takes his seat at the Throne of Creation, Stephen Hawking warns him that more messiahs will come to fight him off the throne which is clearly a teaser for SMTIV3, Dagda vanishes into the cosmos to watch over their new universe, and the credits roll.

Honestly, I vastly prefer this to the Pacifist route. The act of killing your friends and possessing Flynn for your own benefit makes you feel like a bit of a dick without hamming it up for shock value too much, and actually having a reason to go to God's house and punch him in the teeth makes the ending feel a lot more natural. Also-- and this might make me sound like a psychopath-- I didn't realize how much I didn't want my friends screaming into my ear until they were all dead. That one YouTube comment I saw once was right; the best part of this game really is getting to kill your annoying ass party members. There's also a DLC where you collect the protagonists from the other games to fight Stephen Hawking, but I couldn't even get past the first phase to get to the second one where he stands up and becomes obscenely difficult.

Conclusion

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse is not a perfect game. I probably wouldn't go as far as to say it's a great game, and it's definitely worse than the original. That being said, I still had a lot of fun with it. There are a fair few genuinely novel ideas hidden behind the shaky execution, and the gameplay is absolutely phenomenal, even compared to other entries in the series. I also can't help but feel like I learned a lot about myself and how I consume games during my time with it.

I have a very particular way of playing most games. I'll usually wait until a game has been out for a while so I know what to expect and I can get it on sale, or, in the case of older games, I simply pirate it. I collect all of my preexisting knowledge on the game and go "okay, this is what everyone likes and dislikes about this thing, let's see what genuine value I can find in the good and ironic value in the bad". If I'm worried about getting something wrong during my playthrough, I find a walkthrough and follow it to a T. I report amusing happenings or interesting observations about the game in a Discord thread, and by the end, I come out with the lives of me and a couple others enriched by the experience, no matter what flaws the game may have. I am a strong believer that (almost) any game has value waiting to be found, no matter how rocky its surface may be.

SMTIVA completely broke this system. The game shattered all expectations I had for it in both good and bad ways, the walkthrough and relentless wiki-diving led to my playthrough becoming much slower and somewhat artificial, and my need to report on every single facet of the game dragged things out even more and led to me doing some things that I absolutely wouldn't bother with on a solo playthrough. My philosophy of every game having something to enjoy hasn't changed, but perhaps I should spend less of that time carefully planning out how to go through the game and what to say about it and more of it just... playing the game. As a result, this might be the only post I make in this format, or at least the only one nearly this long. I still like the idea of writing reviews here for games I finish playing, but I'll try to keep it to just a few paragraphs instead of nearly six thousand words.

In conclusion: play Shin Megami Tensei. It's based as hell. Persona, too, for that matter; regardless of how much I rag on it, that series contains my favorite games of all time. And no matter what you choose to play or how you choose to play it, remember to have as much fun as you possibly can. That's what video games were made for, after all. Before I leave, though, I have one more word of wisdom for all of you:

Nice

[dailycharacteroption]

Roleplay Ramblings: Artifacts part 4

(art by YunaXD on DeviantArt)

Creating Artifacts

With the power that artifacts promise, be they something as benign as an amethyst crescent ioun stone or as destructive as a sphere of annihilation, it’s pretty easy to see why you wouldn’t want to let these items be something that the heroes can just make willy-nilly, and not just because they’re so powerful.

While I’ve said in the past that you as a GM should endeavor to make even lesser magic items seem special, this goes doubly for artifacts. After all, these are especially powerful magic items which may be unique or extremely rare. Items with history and power with great weight and gravity to them. So before we talk about putting the tools of artifact creation into player hands, let’s take a look at some of the explanations why the game doesn’t normally let you do that.

Oftentimes, most artifacts were made during a bygone era. Perhaps there was a greater understanding of magic that has been lost, or there was simply more magic in the world that could be harnessed for artifacts, or something of that sort. Either way, most artifacts are assumed to have been made in some halcyon golden age long forgotten, which is perfectly fine if you’re playing up the Tolkien-esque themes. Also, consider that in such an age of antiquity, heroes and craftspersons may have literally been larger than life mythic figures that could do such things.

Not all artifacts are ancient (or just ancient, as the case may be). Some were made of exotic materials are not easily replicable, such as the blood of a now-dead deity, for example. Or to use a Pathfinder lore example, spheres of annihilations aren’t made, but rather grown like strange seeds from the bizarre crystalline structures found on the Negative Energy Plane. Such structures would be nearly impossible to replicate on any other plane than the Void.

Other artifacts may be simple the results of nearly impossible to replicate circumstances, such as a divinity becoming involved, or a rare mystical confluence, or perhaps a magic item that grew in power as the wielder became a legend, et cetera.

Now, it would be remiss of me not to mention that there is a way to create artifact-level items in the game, namely with the legendary item rules from Mythic Adventures, in which a mythic hero’s favorite powerful items gain a measure of their power and ascend to greater heights. Many, however, find that particular subsystem lackluster. Still though, if you’re using the mythic rules, I’d say that such is carte blanche for a GM to allow the crafting of artifacts.

Another way that you might allow the crafting of such items would be to actually set your adventure in the aforementioned age of antiquity that most other settings would relegate to setting lore. In such an age, ancient magic is still known and the gods more prone to bless mortals as their champions and the implements of their will. Such a setting offers many opportunities to wield legendary magic and power, but also offers foes of equally legendary power.

Of course, just as special circumstances might be a good reason why player characters can’t normally just make artifacts, it can also be the perfect reason why they can. Perhaps during a campaign to stop some great evil, the party comes across knowledge of some event where they can harness the power to create a new artifact of their own, perhaps using this as an excuse to give them an established printed artifact, or help them design an entirely new one.

As we can see, there can be fun to be had in breaking established rulings, as has always been the case in RPGs. That will do for today, but tomorrow we’ll make our final conclusions!

[queerpg]

PRESS PAUSE: CONFLUENCE RPG

Our interview with a couple of the Confluence RPG team members is out now! And once you're done listening, head over to Backerkit to back the game!

queeRPG is an actual play stretch goal. They want us to make a fully produced series for their game! But that can only happen if they reach their funding goal first!

We have a queeRPG discount links available on our Discord if you're interested!

[publishinggoblin]

Live now on Backerit, Confluence: The Living Archive is the capstone of the Publishing Goblin journey. In the world of Ajurea, you can play any game you want. Horror, sci fi, fantasy, slice of life, drama, intrigue-- Confluxes bring people, objects, buildings, ideas, technologies, magics from other times present, past, and future, as well as from other worlds entirely.

As a result, you can have swashbuckling adventures, play sports in the Gravity Isles where contestants float through the air, start a crime ring in Motley Coast City, form a union in Crop Circle Junction, or take part in a chili cooking contest!

Pledge for a set of the 6 books that make up this game now and you'll receive the Atlas for Motley Coast, one of three regions on the continent of Wemrel, itself just 1 of 6 continents in Ajurea. The Atlas is an in-world artifact that shows you the world, with mechanics, handwritten marginalia and notes that give story hooks, and so much more!

Sujatha's Journal will be your guide to the lore of the world, all the unique new lineages to meet and play as, and the new forms of magic and technology to be found here!

The core game system for players and Story Leaders alike can be found in the Confluence Guide to the Living Archive!

A list of your unique character traits and abilities can be spotted in the Catalog of Lists!

The Calibration zine will guide you through session 0 to setup a game, as well as help you re-set your game if you need to recheck in on your themes and safety tools.

Then the So You Want to Build It? zine will teach you how to make your own tools for the game system, including new Facets to customize your characters with new mechanics, as well as Focuses to give new area mechanics and NPC abilities!

You can get the whole game in PDFs (well over 1000 pages of material!) for $40, or the whole hardcopy set for $85!

So come visit the Backerkit page today and check out all that Ajurea has to offer, from a huge living world to expansive bonus materials to all the Publishing Goblin projects connecting back to it one way or another. The Alleyman visits here often, as does the Publishing Goblin, and time agents from ZOETROPE, and ghosts from WHAT WE POSSESS, and the Koukyla from NEW AVERNUS.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

I keep wondering, where does the name Ostrich Monkey come from? Is it just two animals you like fused together into some kind of a chimera or is there some other meaning?

Also I happened to notice that Vibe Check (which I'm looking forward to buying come next payday) name checks TWEWY. I haven't played TWEWY but I find the topic of RPGs inspired by video games endlessly fascinating (I'm also on a huge Interstitial kick in spite of not having played Kingdom Hearts). Is there any other video game you would some day like to use as a starting point for a tabletop game?

So! Fun story, the handle "ostrichmonkey" has no meaning! Way back in like, 2011 when I was making my main tumblr, I needed a username, and this was what ended up sticking. Kept it for basically all my socials, and when I started doing more ttrpg stuff, just slapped "games" onto the end of it.

Good thing is, it's rarely ever taken on websites lol.

Also hello from Vibe Check! TWEWY is one my favorite video games of all time (and like, easily one of the best DS games), so if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it. I think video games are a really fun place to pull inspiration from honestly! It's fun to try and figure out what elements you want to try and work into the tabletop-design-space. I've also done it for Dishonored with Paktbound, and have some very early ideas swirling for something inspired by the new Marathon that I've talked a bit about here and here.

I would love to play in Kingdom Hearts space some (KH2 is another all time fav), approaching from a different angle than Insterstitial (which absolutely rules, I adore that game). I would love to dive into the weird, complicated, fantasy melodrama of the franchise - so less focus on the world hopping elements for example.

At one point I was working on an SSX Tricky inspired game (couldn't quite figure out how I wanted to do semi-competitive-but-also-cooperative as an approach), but at some point I want to get back into that.

Related to Vibe Check, I have a loose idea that takes inspiration from rogue-likes and Neon White, where you go through different procedural generated "runs" with limited use Tokens (like cards in Neon White) that you're constantly picking up and using.

The in-progress Dark Confluence is directly inspired narratively by the Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring series, though less so mechanically.

There's probably more, but those are just a few that immediately came to mind!

[kassil]

Planeswalker

So here's a rough bones layout of a setting, and perhaps a game system; in essence, taking a few things from other multiverse concepts to a conclusion. Welcome to that which lies between the ethereal sea and the astral sky.

In most settings, we have the material/mortal plane, right? A world where there's a stable confluence, all the sapient races largely arise there, it's the center of all things, right? But what if, instead, such a confluence is inherently unstable over long periods of time? Inevitably, the world tips out of balance due to the shifts of the cosmology itself, and everyone living there has to either adapt or go find a new home that'll be stable a while longer?

So the reason the world is so full of so many different thinking beings? Because most of them are migrants. Each world at most produces one or two, usually early, while things are still settling into that equilibrium. The rest came from elsewhere, once things were settled. The ones with shorter lives probably only have myths of those times; the confluences last a long time, and only immortals beings survive long enough to see a world form and fall apart.

Why does it happen? Because the ethereal sea is a place with grand currents of the energy that comprises the material of the world, and the astral sky has winds and storms that carry the immaterial aspects of the world, and the familiar and readily habitable planes forms between the two, from an intermingling of their aspects.

Every world is a little out of balance, and that influences the form it takes; a world with a little more water and a little more chaos might manifest a tempestuous ocean world with small continents and archipelagos, while a world with a little more earth and a little more creation might manifest a near-idyllic agrarian realm ideal for farming. Over time, however, the imbalance either shifts, or perhaps merely worsens. Rich fields become harder, rockier, less fertile; elementals begin to pull themselves out of the ground and stalk about heedless of the harm the cause to living things. Eventually, the land ceases to harbor any but the hardiest plantlife, that can consume bare rock to survive, and those who dwell there have to either adapt, becoming more and more elemental themselves, or leave to find a new home.

Every game in this setting likely begins at some point during the ending; at the start, when people might think some terrible calamity is beginning but perhaps it can be averted; in the midst, during a slowly unfurling apocalypse reshaping existence; in the end, as people are persuaded to flee or to adapt; or after the end, on the journey to a new home, bearing the marks of whatever end befell their lost home.

Games would likely have an active phase, where people play their characters like any fantastic adventure RPG, going on quests and missions, and a storytelling/journal phase, where the myths of the game are woven and the stage is set and/or cleared. You could easily make a series of linked campaigns down the ages, turning the events of one migration into the mythology of the world that begins to suffer another shifting.

Of course, some will want to hold off calamity, to keep the end of days from arriving. It should be doable, but temporary, and the cost is that when the dam does eventually break, the calamity is sharper for it; the energies held back flood in and reshape the world swiftly, rather than a slow and gradual transformation. Perhaps it gets done to buy time for an evacuation. Perhaps it gets done by people who truly believe they can forestall eternity. Either is a tale to be told, and worth telling!

[boredtechnologist]

"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" for the Intellivision, released in the early 1980s, stands as a pioneering title in the realm of video game adaptations of tabletop RPGs. The game, developed by Mattel, captures the essence of exploration, adventure, and strategy that define the D&D universe. This introspective commentary will delve into the creation of "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons," examining the developers' creative process and the introspective aspects that influenced its design.

The early 1980s was a transformative period for both video games and tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" for the Intellivision emerged from this confluence, bringing the intricate, imaginative world of D&D into the digital sphere. The game's development involved translating complex tabletop mechanics into a format accessible to home console users. This transition required a deep introspective understanding of both mediums to maintain the core elements of the D&D experience while adapting it for a new platform.

Creating "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" demanded a balance between preserving the depth of the tabletop game and making it engaging for a broader audience. The developers at Mattel, inspired by the burgeoning popularity of D&D, sought to capture its spirit of adventure and discovery. This process was deeply introspective, involving a reflection on what made the tabletop game compelling: its open-ended exploration, strategic decision-making, and immersive storytelling. Translating these elements into a video game format required innovative design solutions and a willingness to experiment with new gameplay mechanics.

The shift from tabletop to digital involved reimagining the interactive experience. The developers had to introspect on how players interacted with the game world and each other in D&D sessions. This led to the creation of a dynamic exploration system within the constraints of the Intellivision's hardware. Players navigated a labyrinthine map, encountering various creatures and challenges, echoing the sense of unpredictability and excitement that characterizes D&D campaigns. This introspection ensured that the essence of adventure was preserved, even in a simplified digital form.

The personal experiences and influences of the developers played a significant role in shaping "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons." Many of the team members were avid D&D players themselves, bringing their passion and understanding of the game into the development process. This personal connection fostered a deeper introspective approach to design, where the developers drew from their own gameplay experiences to create authentic and engaging scenarios. This introspection is evident in the game's ability to evoke the same feelings of suspense, strategy, and exploration that players enjoyed in their tabletop sessions.

"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" for the Intellivision is more than just a historical artifact; it is a testament to the power of introspection in game design. By reflecting on the core elements that made the tabletop game successful, the developers created a pioneering video game that captured the imagination of players and set the stage for future RPG adaptations. This introspective approach ensured that the game remained true to the spirit of D&D while innovating within the digital medium. The legacy of "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" highlights the importance of deep reflection and personal connection in creating games that resonate with players, offering a unique and immersive experience that stands the test of time.