#doskvol

[rosallorart]

Carus is a Whisper in Duskwall... which means he sees a lot of shit. Here he is with an amazingly designed spirit mask! Character belongs to friend @quinty-imara from a Blades in the Dark campaign I’m in!

If you like my art, take a look at some more on my blog, consider commissioning me, or check out my patreon!

[utilitycaster]

"I've noticed that a world built for a specific game with a specific group of players that is actively being played out such that the DM can respond, customize, and adjust in real-time appears better and more fleshed out than specific pre-published modules. This is an insightful observation that comes from a person with an understanding of TTRPGs, and I must post this into multiple actual play tags to inform the people."

[stickthisbig]

If you have a regional or other stigmatized accent and you like to run or play TTRPGs, especially with players from other areas/groups, guess what motherfuckers, new pro strat:

Make the baseline voice in your world your accent.

You know what? Everybody's fuckin Southern in Doskvol now. You know why? Because I can speak more fluidly and more convincingly in a Southern accent than any other accent. I don't sit there and trip over NPC voices anymore, because I know what it fuckin sounds like. And bonus round: because it's an accent I already know with variations that I understand, differentiating speakers is super easy.

All that time you have spent trying to stuff your voice into a corner? Time to let loose motherfuckers

[theoutcastrogue]

"Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts is a collection of expanded setting elements, alternate mechanics, and techniques for play, following the principles and examples of changing the game included in Blades in the Dark. Think of this supplement as an extended Chapter 9.

The first section contains a bunch of new elements to add to the setting of your Blades series, including:

13 new innovations in technology, to reflect ongoing industrial-age advances in Doskvol, as well as scientific and political initiatives by the Imperium at large.

27 factions, including 15 that were mentioned in Blades, but not given full treatments — like the Cyphers, Rail Jacks, and The Path of Echoes — plus 12 new factions, like The Unchained: a group of hulls who have gained their freedom.

Over 100 heritage and background options to give you more choices when creating your character, as well as adding new bits of lore about the wider world of the Shattered Isles.

A catalyst, introducing a world-shaking event which expands and alters the setting of the game, along with dark secrets to explore and opportunities for Scoundrels to exploit."

This is awesome! Doskvol is going full industrial, complete with union politics. The changes in the mechanics are important, I haven't delved into them too much yet, but it's kinda like Blades 2nd Edition. 1.5? Something like that. I would know and tell you more if I weren't so distracted by the worldbuilding, and how much I wanna play a hull photographer now:

[gurguliare]

It's Arc 3 of our Blades game and @catchaspark's Aphra Chesky recently became a god! Well...... recently found out she was a god. The other one depends on your definition of "recently."

Good thing she has a friend around to give her the low-down-- or in this case, the high-up, courtesy of long-term frenemy Leo "Royal" Tomanek, once a cracksman, addict, and repeat offender; now the two-faced lord of many ways.

They've gone for a spin above Doskvol so he can explain the pros and cons of immortality. What are they sitting on? Not important.

[txttletale]

Because I'm curious now, what are your favorite TTRPGs? One of my personal favorites is the Kids On Bikes system and its variants for their simplicity and ease of access for new players.

so first of all--kids on bikes is very cool. it’s a nice rules-light game with a pick-up-and-play vibe. haven’t ever run it myself but i feel comfortable seconding your recommendation. anyway here’s some of my FAVOURITE TTRPGS.

Blades in the Dark is probably my enduring all-time favourite game. it’s a little flawed in places but its core loop is pure fucking elegance at play. flashbacks (you can spend stress, a metacurrency, to have done something in the past) and resistance (you can also spend stress to evade something bad that happens to you) are two of my favourite mechanics in any TTRPG ever. every player character gets to be a competent badass while also facing real, tangible danger with every moment. not to mention an incredibly well-fleshed out and evocative setting in the gaslamp fantasy nightmare city of doskvol.

Eidolon: Become Your Best Self is a game that dares to ask questions like, ‘what if jojo’s bizarre adventure was good’ and ‘what if persona, also, was good’. characters manifest the power of their souls as weird freaks with incredible powers. the ‘reveal your master plan’ mechanic works much like BiTD flashback mechanic and a smart combat system where enemies get stronger as you fight them really makes this the perfect vehicle for creative character-driven superpower-based combat. if you subscribe to the developers’ patreon you can also get access to the draft of the second edition, which does some really cool fucking things like replacing dice rolls with a tarot draw.

Lancer is the game for people who like grid-based tactical combat. it has incredible tactical depth, well-thought out mechanics that interlace perfectly--and best of all, you get to design and customize your own mech from a truly dizzying array of options to find all sorts of fucking insane synergies between abilities like ‘teleport whenever you attack somebody’ or ‘do more damage the more you overheat’. it also has a very comprehensive suite of GM tools that make it a breeze, and even fun, to create and run a balanced encounter with clearly defined and narrativly interesting goals for both sides. i’m not too into the setting for reasons i’ve talked about elsewhere, but fortunately as long as you can accomodate ‘mech combat’ into your setting, none of the worldbuilding is load-bearing to the game’s core appeal.

Microscope is totally different from a lot of TTRPGs in that it’s noit about playing characters, but about creating a world. it’s a beautiful collaborative storytelling tool with deceptively simple tools that can easily add up into your table creating a world that’s way more intricate and eclectic and fascinating than anything one of you could have come up with on your own. good for creating TTRPG settings but also good just as something to play for its own sake!!

Dream Askew would probably round out my top five, but i’ve just posted about that one here--so instead i’ll give this slot to Nobilis 3e, a game that might not be one of my favourite games to actually play, but is genuinely fascinating to read and sit with, a fucking masterful work of both design and literature, something that so distinctly creates a world and a tone that it’s instantly magnetic. not for everyone, but worth checking out.

[nebmia]

When people talk about Blades in the Dark they usually bring up a few big headline mechanics (flashbacks, clocks, load, position/effect etc) and they should because they are really good mechanics. But there are a lot of little things in blades that I think are really important for creating the whole experience and in some cases not all though) are unusual in ttrpgs. SO I thought I'd list some them.

You can't leave:

The 'standard' (but not universal) mode for ttrpgs is 'the adventure' where you travel from place to place seeing new stuff, meeting different people, looting new ruins, solving new problems etc. There might be a hub that you often return to but generally roving about is a core element. And its obvious why this is appealing! But it has two downsides: 1) the players can very easily run away from the consequences of their actions and 2) and the players are constantly being faced with new stuff that they don't really have the hooks to latch onto yet.

In contrast Doskvol is a pressure cooker. Want to leave? Tough! the whole world out there is dead and will kill you. Everything you do will create more characters and plot hooks and conflicts all ready to be pulled into the narrative at any point. If you piss off another faction you can't just skip town, you have to face up to the consequences of your actions. And as you play the players will become more and more immersed in the city and develop a deep understanding of what it going on there.

2. You're a gang of criminals:

A common (again, not universal) base assumption of many games is that you are good guys doing fundamentally heroic things. And this tends to encourage a somewhat reactionary style of play where you are presented with a bad thing that is happening and then attempt to resolve it. In contrast being criminals is a much more proactive endeavor. There isn't a clear threat that needs to be overcome. There's just a situation and its up to you to get what you want out of it.

The scope of play available when you are playing as scoundrels rather than heros is also so much wider. Note you aren't evil, which is equally restrictive. You will do good things and bad things, and struggle so much more with the question of when you can afford to be good and just how bad you are willing to be. You don't just always step up to save the world but instead pursue the things that actually matter to your character, because being a criminal allows your character to be selfish in a way a hero can't be and that massively helps in creating a player driven game.

But you aren't just criminals, you're a gang of criminals, with shared goals and resources and a character sheet to go with it. This really forges a group identity that transcends what is possible in the traditional party (which is essentially just a group of individuals who happen to be in the same place). The crew gives everyone at the table a clear basic goal: build your crew; expand your crime empire. And this is a fundamentally player driven goal! Normally systems reserve this sort of 'domain level' play for high level characters (ie the ones most people never play) but blades puts you there right from the off.

3. Experience:

At the end of each session you go round the table and discuss instances of when each player 'addressed a challenge with [core activities of their playbook]', 'expressed their beliefs, drives, heritage, or background', or 'You struggled with issues from their vice or traumas during the session'. This is incredibly lightweight but also very effective.

Firstly it means everyone at the table is always going to be thinking about and making space for expression of their character and creating problems which is something that can easily be sidelined in favor of optimally addressing the challenges you are facing when there isn't this codified incentive.

And secondly the fact that it is at the end of the session creates this great debrief situation where you go over the highlights of the session and maybe dig a little deeper into why your character acted in the ways they did, which just brings the whole table into having a deeper understanding of each others characters. Again, notice 'drives' as a potential XP trigger. The game rewards (and therefore encourages) motivated characters.

In addition of personal XP you also have crew XP with a similar set of triggers (goals and drives come up again), which really supports building a crew identity, encouraging the crew to be proactive, and centering it as 'the main character' of the game.

4. Rivals:

The concept of rivals only gets a few words in the Blades rules. It appears on each playbook with a list of potential rivals (Just a name and a couple of words of description each) and then again it appears on when you are setting up a scenario in a sentence saying 'Are any enemies or rivals interfering in the operation?' That's barely enough to call it a mechanic. But its incredibly effective! You automatically get a small cast of revolving antagonists, each with some personal connection to a player character, who just keep popping up and causing problems. And 'oh shit, not this guy again! I hate this guy!' is a really great way to tie things together and get players invested in what's going on.

5. Just enough world building:

Blades gives you quite a lot of material to work with on the world of Doskvol. Certainly enough to build out the broad picture. But it is also absolutely chock full of (deliberate) gaps. What this leaves is for you to fill in the gaps to create your version of Doskvol (And it can be quite fun to compare notes with other groups playing blades). The book tells you there is a conspiracy in a faction but it won't tell you who's behind it. The book tells you people are gathering ancient artifacts, but it won't tell you where they come from or what exactly they do. And this means that you can easily set the answer to be whatever would be appropriate for your game. Or even discover the answer through playing!

The book being full of prompts but largely devoid of answers is a very useful tool for the somewhat free form, improvisational style of the game because there will always be things to inspire you but you never need to worry and pausing the game to check what the official stance on something is.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In general I think the sort of thing I have been talking about is something blades excels at: really lightweight elements that end up having significant impact. A final example of that is the trauma system, which is essentially two sentences long:

If you get too much stress you get a trauma ( one of: cold, haunted, obsessed, paranoid, reckless, soft, unstable, viscous). If you struggled with issues from your trauma this session, gain an xp.

And from that very simple mechanic flows characterisation, character development, and the players deliberately creating more problems for themselves!

Anyway, that's what comes to mind at the moment. I'll add more stuff if I think of it.

You should play Blades in the Dark, its very good.

[indierpgnewsletter]

Fantasy Cities Volume 1

Around a year ago, I published a series looking at city settings from various fantasy games. I looked at 7 cities including Doskvol, Spire, Eversink, The City from a|state, Into the Cess and Citadel, Infinigrad, and Endon from Magical Industrial Revolution. I’ve now taken those 7 essays and expanded and improved them, added 2 more essays on Lankhmar from DCC’s boxed set and Freeport, a Pathfinder 1e city from Green Ronin. This PDF, Fantasy Cities Vol 1, is available now on my patreon.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction

In the history of the fantasy genre, cities have an interesting place. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which created so much of what we consider generic about fantasy, doesn't really care for cities. Which makes sense because the books themselves feel like an elegy for a time before industrialization, a love letter to the countryside - to woods and streams and the sands below your feet. The cities of Middle Earth are, at their best, noble and static, and at their worst, corrupt and fallen to the hubris of man.

The earliest thriving fantasy cities are probably in the sword and sorcery of writers like Fritz Lieber or Michael Moorcock. These stories were influenced by, among other things, the machismo of pulp magazine stories. The cities reflect this. At their best, they're a canvas for male bravado and havens for debauchery and dissolution. At their worst, they're predatory and authoritarian.

In modern fantasy, the city is ascendant. The old tropes withered under post-modernism's sarcastic glare. Now, you get Ankh-Morpork and Bas Lag and many more that capture the contradictions, potential, and romance of cities as places to spend your lives. But what about games? A city in a novel has to be interesting on the page. A city in a game has to be interesting at the table, it has to bear the weight of the imagination of 3-5 people over a shitty internet connection. That's where I started the series affectionately known (by me) as WWTAWWTAC (pronounced whatawhatac), i.e. What We Talk About When We Talk About Cities.

And here’s an excerpt from the new entry on Lankhmar:

Creating a roleplaying game supplement for an existing fantasy city is tricky. It's trickier when it's a place as famous as Lankhmar, the City of the Black Toga, the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes. Not only are the stories well-loved, the city is an inspiration for other well-loved cities, notably Discworld's Ankh-Morpork which started out as a loving pastiche before evolving into something deeper. (Even the word "ankh" comes from Lankhmar). This means that you have to walk the line between giving fans what they want and making it a useful, usable supplement. Basically, DCC's approach is to not invent any new lore whatsoever - as far as I can see. They lay out what Leiber's originally stories say about Lankhmar and then give themselves permission to colour within the lines with small, inoffensive details. The end result isn't radical or surprising but it does seem genuinely quite good.

I’ve titled it Volume 1 because if we hit the patreon drive’s goal, I’ll do a Volume 2. Maybe I can finally tackle Waterdeep or Ptolus. Maybe I can expand to cities in novels and actually compare them to cities in games directly. Maybe I can look at cities in video games. Where does Dunwall from Dishonored end and Duskwall begin? There’s lots of things to explore!

Thanks to the 30+ folks who signed up last week, we’re currently at 94 out of 150. So if you’re doing okay and able to support, please head over to patreon and subscribe!

Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fantasy-cities-1-94754443

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Blades In The Dark gets a lot of attention for being tough and gritty, with a constant struggle to balance your resources and keep your character physically, mentally, and financially stable. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have some light-hearted filler episodes!

Use your downtime to recreate your favorite relaxing or character-developing tropes! Maybe you take your crew to indulge your respective vices on the sandy beaches near the edge of the lightning barrier. Play volleyball and eat caramel termite ice cream beside the abyssal darkness of the ocean! Or how about encouraging an argument about which goat-polo team is the best? Get the Hound and the Spider sabotaging each other’s teams…

One last idea: work with each player to give them an opportunity for a fun backstory or growth moment, and then include an NPC villain or ally as they all go about healing or acquiring assets. You could call it “Tales of Doskvol”!

[dungeonofthedragon]

Favourite Fanmade Blades Playbooks

There is so much cool Blades in the Dark content out there. Here are three of my fave fanmade playbooks!

I have taken a feature from The Drowner playbook for my Leech who has a powerful connection to leviathans. It's a spooky and evocative playbook that feels perfectly at home in Doskvol.

Want to play a master of weird lil critters? Always! Swarmkeeper is one of my favourite Ranger subclasses in D&D 5E. It comes as no surprise then that I also really love The Swarm, a BitD playbook all about controlling little critters.

We have an orphan child in our Shadows crew. Between the severed digits, demonic encounters, and the crew being locked in Lord Scurlock's basement, he's had a rough time of it. Play an Urchin crew and you ruin the life of not just one kid, but a whole bunch of them!

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Blades in the Dark

https://johnharper.itch.io/blades-in-the-dark Sun's gone, lets do crimes about it

Touchstones: Peaky Blinders, The Wire, Bloodborne, Thief (game), Dishonored

Genre: Heist, Dark fantasy

What is this game?: Blades in the Dark is a game about playing as a gang of rowdy thieves in an eternally dark city, its core mechanics focus on high tension and drama

How's the gameplay?: BITD has a very complex and granular system, meant to keep tensions and drama at a constant high, trying to fully explain it would take a bit longer than i'd like but I'll try my best Blades uses a system where you roll an amount of die equal to your bonuses and take the highest, in addition the game also utilizes a Risk system, determining how bad things get if you fuck up, Characters can also take on a Devil's Bargain, guaranteeing bad consquences for better rolls. BITD also has many subsystems related to character's traumas, injuries, and more importantly, vices, things that your character falls back on if they get overly stressed. BITD's game design is entirely meant to make dramatic and stressful scenarios, as well as to make sick as hell heist scenarios, characters are scummy criminals who do bad things, and the gameplay reflects that, moves like being able to flash back to a prior preparation are a great example of this, showing how a player prepared for the current heist. Alongside this, the game also has a "Crew" playbook, which plays into faction shenanigans with your party, a crew playbook is shared across the entire party and determines your origins and methodology, while character playbooks are more about the personal character, how they're like and how they work

What's the setting (If any) like?: BITD is set in Duskvol, a city under eternal night, shit kinda sucks here! a corrupt empire calls all the shots, doing usual oppressive empire here, as well as some usual imperialism. The Courts are more corrupt than an Oblivion save file, and its often said that everyone in Doskvol's guilty, so its better to line your pockets with cash before you get caught.

What's the tone?: Doskvol pitches you a dark, opressive city, filled with corrupt officials and evil rich assholes who get away with their crimes by just coughing up the dough to get away from it, it is a very dark game, players are often the scum of the town, doing bad things to get ahead in life. BITD is a very very dark game, but goddamn does it work

Session length: Short, BITD's resolution mechanics make it so you can usually get a lot done in a short amount of time, 1-2 hours should be plenty of time

Number of Players: 4 or more is recommended 

Malleability: Blades' setting seems pretty stiff at first, but you can definitely hack it to set it in different worlds, its not the most malleable game but it can definitely be changed quite a bit

Resources: Blades in the Dark is a very popular game, so there's a ton of fan-made content out there, as well as a ton of great official content as well.

I have mixed feelings on Apocalypse World, but Blades in the Dark is phenomenal, really does deserve its legacy, its dark, gritty, and its mechanics complement it very very nicely, great game

[stormbreath]

blades in the dark one shot where the mission is just to burn down the doskvol goat

[thebazilly]

Gonna shout into the void about my Blades in the Dark game some more. We are gearing up for the last session in this story arc and a bunch of cool shit has happened.

Session before last, the Whisper overindulged his Vice of "obsession with the occult" and went missing. He was also working on a ritual that would let him enter the ghost field, so there's really only one conclusion on where he went.

The other two PC's, a Slide and Leech, decided they wanted to go after their companion and rescue him. No man left behind! You love to see it. Having no magical powers themselves, they ask their ally Lord Scurlock for help.

Hilariously, I had a clock running for Lord Scurlock just so happening to be making a homonculus copy of the Slide, using the blood presented to him as a gift. This opportunity was too good to pass up and I offered the Slide's clone to the Whisper player as a temporary PC for last session. Everyone *loved* this. Turned out so funny and great. The Whisper's player did a fantastic job impersonating the Slide and they played off each other so well.

Scurlock sets two conditions for his assistance. First, bringing the clone with them. Second, find the means to kill a Sea Demon. Scurlock has been working on his project, he is going to free all the sea demons in the harbor as a means to lure Setarra into the open, and he needs to make sure the party can kill her.

The group has a spooky time in the ghost field, stalked by an entity known only as "the psychopomp," meeting ghosts, monsters, and, worst of all, metaphorical representations of the city. Until eventually they find their lost companion, staring out at the crystal clear sea that's normally dark, where a horde of hundreds of demons is visible.

(Then the players rolled a 6 on getting back to the portal, dammit!)

Once they returned, Lord Scurlock dumped his whole backstory, thinking it is too late for the party to stop him. He is the son of the Immortal Emperor, the person that the Emperor broke death itself to save, and he *hates* it. Scurlock has been living a cursed existence tied to Setarra for centuries while the world suffers and withers. He never asked to be brought back. He wants to be free. Anything else is your problem. The demons will destroy Doskvol, but the world is already destroyed.

However, Setarra made a counter-offer. Side with her and imprison Scurlock, and she will make the party rulers of the city. Nevermind that it will be a demon-haunted hellscape where she can harvest souls like fish in a barrel. You wanted power, right? You've done terrible things already for it. What’s looking away one more time?

Of course, there's always a third option... Maybe the players can stop the ritual. The world has been doomed long ago by people vastly more powerful than they. Do they think it's worth saving? Only time will tell. So excited to play again!

[leitereads]

⋆✮↪ ReIntroduction

-emia, meaning presence in blood.

┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓

The crime scene

⇒ Multifandom blog ➣ (series/films) (books) (anime) ⇒ Writeblr, langblr and studyblr ⇒ My visual arts ⇒ Literature, classical art and philosophy ⇒ Music ➣ classical, classic rock, goth, metal and indie ⇒ Dark Academia ⇒ TTRPGs and videogames ⇒ Horror, true crime and oddities ⇒ Medicine and science ⇒ Travelling and lifestyle ⇒ Further info: linktree

The Murderer

⇒ Name: Leite (they/them) ⇒ Age: 21+ ⇒ Blood type: [confidential] ⇒ Murder weapon: blood, sweat and tears ⇒ Profession: medical student ⇒ Location: Portugal ⇒ Languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish, French ⇒ Other details ➣ (linktree) ⇒ Hobbies ➣ TTRPGs (DnD, CoC, VtM, BitD, etc.) | writing | reading | drawing/painting | horse riding | swimming | HEMA | sportive fencing

Note: I am on holidays, therefore I won't be that active till the 26th July

Confidential Information

This blog may contain sensitive content. Everything potentially concerning is tagged under the tag "cw". Still, user discretion is advised.

༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

Modus Operandi

✏ WIP: The Apocryphal Truth

Set in the late 1890s-early 1900s, this novel is about a young doctor who doesn't believe in God, just to realise that he is part of what he doesn't believe in.

⇒ Gnostic, cosmic and psychological horror, sci-fi (steampunk and biopunk), historical fiction (speculative history) ⇒ 1st draft - longest WIP till date ⇒ 3rd person POV, likely unreliable narrator

༻✧༺

✏ WIP: The Immortal Emperor's Regicide

Inspired by the tabletop roleplaying game "Blades in the Dark", by John Harper, this WIP started as a collaborative creative writing project, being now a personal WIP. The steampunk city of Doskvol hides away all sorts of scoundrels, aristocracy and insane cults to Eldritch gods. While some criminals don't have any other choice besides a life of crime, some of them have higher ambitions, and the highest of them all is to finish the reign of terror of The Immortal Emperor.

⇒ Horror in general, sci-fi (steampunk, biopunk), mystery, thriller ⇒ 1st draft - adapting the lore and worldbuilding created for the collaborative writing project ⇒ 3rd person omniscient narrator.

༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

In order to understand, I destroyed myself.

- Fernando Pessoa

This Introduction post is also a WIP. Soon to be added:

Spotify playlist addressing all my favourite music genres.

The link to the content warning tag.

The links to important/personal tags.

Links to an info page about my OCs

[audiofictionuk]

New Fiction Podcasts - 30th September

Norfolk Wizard Game New Audio RPG! A Mage: The Ascension actual-play taking place in the same universe as Hunter: The Parenting, following a group of Mages in Norfolk, Virginia, discovering the truth of reality and their ability to bend it at their whims. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/norfolkwizardgame https://anchor.fm/s/e930593c/podcast/rss

The Redline New Audio Book! Racing for his life, Kal is like any other Ghoul with a life debt, but when a rare opportunity comes his way, Kal finds himself running the deadliest race so that he might win a life worth living. Pop in your earbuds, the world of the future awaits... https://www.izaicyorks.com/ https://feeds.captivate.fm/theredline/

Unwholesome New Audio Drama! Fiction horror stories in a cinematic soundscape. https://shows.acast.com/unwholesome https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/unwholesomehttps://deow9bq0xqvbj.cloudfront.net/image-logo/15940456/Oneiric-General-Cover_k4wd7p.jpg Oneiric New Audio Book! Oneiric, or The Hatch Pilgrim, is a dream quest, a grail quest, a fever dream... quest. https://oneiricpodcast.podbean.com https://feed.podbean.com/oneiricpodcast/feed.xml

A Void in Reality New Audio RPG! A Fate Core TTRPG built using The Quiet Year set in a world built around a giant chasm and run by an eldritch corporation. Where the only way to do magic is to drain your own life force or someone else’s. Join our ragtag group where everyone is the quirky one and our most normal member is the five foot tall ferret. https://redcircle.com/shows/avoidpod https://feeds.redcircle.com/7692d527-f88c-49f6-9b6b-be676bf54360

Voyagers of the Jump - An Original Traveller Campaign New Audio RPG! On the frontier of charted space, a ragtag crew of spacefarers gets the chance to start over and fix their lives, but only if they accept a dangerous mission that could avert a war—or start one. First published in 1977, Traveller is a science fiction RPG in the vein of The Expanse or Battlestar Galactica. Most who played the original game back in the day remember the robust character creation system where if you push too far and get unlucky with the dice, you can die before you even start playing. Voyagers of the Jump is an original adventure using the 2022 2nd Edition update to the Traveller RPG rules set by Mongoose Publishing. https://www.glasscannonnetwork.com/shows/voyagers-of-the-jump https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/voyagersofthejump

Haunted City - A Blades in the Dark Campaign New Audio RPG! A city bathed in perpetual darkness, and a history not yet written. On the streets of Doskvol, it's kill or be killed as crews vie for power by any means necessary. Haunted City is a dark, twisted romp through a Victorian dystopia, using the rules of arguably the greatest RPG system of the modern era — Blades in the Dark. https://www.glasscannonnetwork.com/shows/haunted-city https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/hauntedcity

Get in the Trunk - A Delta Green Anthology Series New Audio RPG! Cosmic and supernatural horrors await the agents of Delta Green, a secret organization committed to protecting an unaware society—whatever the cost. This formerly exclusive anthology series with a rotating cast of players and handlers has quickly become the most sought-after show on the Network. https://www.glasscannonnetwork.com/shows/get-in-the-trunk https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/getinthetrunk

Long Con New Audio Drama! Two brothers, Seth and Eric, as they stumble into the world of entrepreneurship with a mission that's as outrageous as it is heartwarming. When their father falls into a mysterious coma, they're left with a peculiar last wish: start a successful business. Armed with boundless enthusiasm, questionable ideas, and a flair for accidental chaos, these brothers will stop at nothing to fulfill their comatose dad's dreams. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/who-let-you-in4 https://anchor.fm/s/e9cc28bc/podcast/rss

New Audio Drama! When a new lead prompts a fresh look at a cold case, Special Agent Nicole Baumer is tasked with finding out what really happened to sixteen year old Erin Michaels. But as parallels surface between her past and Erin’s, Nicole must finally confront her own trauma in order to save her. https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/SBP2836325918 https://feeds.megaphone.fm/SBP2836325918

Lonely Boy New Audio Drama! Get to know Lonely Boy, a 10-episode fictional coming-of-age audio drama about pop sensation Frederick Julius as he takes a musical rewind through the defining moments of his youth. Each Friday we drop a new 25-30 minute episode including a fresh indie pop track inspired by the story. From grappling with his dad's misdeeds to mastering middle school melodrama to finding first love in the most unexpected places, you'll root for this legendary artist as he ultimately deciphers what kind of man he wants to be. https://lonely-boy.captivate.fm https://feeds.captivate.fm/lonely-boy/

The World According To Bards New Audio RPG! A D&D actual play podcast following three bards. The main rule here is “yes, and…” Join us on our thrilling adventure full of lighthearted comedy and general wackiness! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theworldaccordingtobards https://anchor.fm/s/e96bc558/podcast/rss

Chronicles Of Pangea Ultima New Audio Book! The year is 250,000,000 AD. Meet Tyver α, descendant of Lloviant, who travelled to Pangea Ultima. This is not his home - he had not went here before. https://rss.com/podcasts/chroniclesofpangeaultima https://media.rss.com/chroniclesofpangeaultima/feed.xml

Acey Reads New Audio Book! Reading of original works by Acey Smith, and Sunflower Star Creative works. https://aceyreads.podbean.com/ https://feed.podbean.com/aceyreads/feed.xml

Autumn Tales New Audio Book! Enter a brave, new world where the move of a single letter in a turn of phrase creates the unlikeliest of protagonists. With their own dreams and goals to pursue, each must navigate an ever-shifting landscape by working together. https://autumntales.podbean.com/ https://feed.podbean.com/autumntales/feed.xml

[gorillastraylight]

I promise I play other games than Blades in the Dark and Cyberpunk RED, but I keep thinking about the similarities between the two of them. Something I've found myself enjoying about them as a GM is how much potential there is for emergent narratives. Both games have mechanics set up that really firmly involve the characters in the world - in Blades, this is stuff like entanglements, faction reputation, and faction clocks. The world will change around the PCs over time, in the process of doing Scores they will make allies and enemies (which the GM can track super easily), whole new storylines open up explicitly as a result of mechanics! There's so much for the GM to work with, to expand on, to tweak. Doskvol feels *alive* in Blades RAW. Cyberpunk is less expansive than that, but even the simple fact that PCs need to pay rent and living expenses every in-game month is huge. It immediately creates both motivation (I would like to eat and keep living), but also goals - make a big enough score, and you could jump up from living in a shipping container to an actual apartment. But then, of course, you also have to consider buying new ammo, keeping your gear maintained, getting better gear - the Edgerunner hubris death spiral is built right into the game: if you want your character to advance, you need to take riskier work that pays more eddies, and to do that riskier work, you need better stuff, and that better stuff costs eddies. The way characters don't really level up in the traditional sense, with a lot of their big power jumps tied to cyberware and whatnot, ties into this too. The Black Chrome supplement takes this even further with stuff like expanded rules for Night Markets, gear crafting - it's so, so good, it cries out for a west-marches style game. Applying a kind of faction tracker mechanic, like in Blades, to cyberpunk would really be the final puzzle piece to make that game nearly perfect for me, IMO. There's something very special about games where the mechanics work with the players and GM in writing the story.