#eureka ttrpg

[anim-ttrpgs]

Announcing a Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Game Jam!

We're hosting a game jam over on itch.io! Submissions open in March, 2025 and will remain open until April, 2025!

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a groundbreaking TTRPG that revolutionizes mystery investigation of all kinds! The rulebook is available at this link for free! This community event gives long-time fans and newcomers alike a chance to flex their mystery-writing muscles. 

Leave behind the days of "We walk into the room and roll Investigate." Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a TTRPG all about investigation, and its purpose-driven mechanics let players take initiative, use their characters' unique strengths to find clues, and deduce conclusions themselves. This game jam will bring the community together to write more mysteries for their characters to solve, put together in adventure module form. You can find a helpful guide to writing Eureka mystery modules in Chapter 7 of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook linked above.

This game jam is non-competitive, but the developers' favorites will be linked on the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy store page so everyone can play through your creation! You can work alone or in a team, as long as you follow these basic rules.

While you're working, and especially if you have questions, join us on the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club Discord Server. It's a club for discussing and playing all kinds of RPGs, not just Eureka, run by the creators of Eureka. You can also join our "Top Secret" Patreon Discord server and further support the A.N.I.M. team by subscribing for any amount to our patreon. We'll be happy to answer your questions about this game jam or Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy either way.

(Full submission rules below the Read More)

Rules

Submissions Must Be Adventure Modules and Be Compatible with Eureka: This game jam is for mystery adventure modules to be run with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. If you're unfamiliar, an adventure module is a guide for game masters to running a specific scenario for their gaming group. You can find an example of one made for Eureka alongside the rulebook linked above.

Follow the Theme: The theme/prompt picked out by our patreon subscribers is "The Call." By design, this prompt is flexible and leaves room for interpretation - are the characters beset by mysterious phone calls? answering a mysterious call for help in the forest? or something far stranger? (Just remember not to make it about mind-control - Eureka doesn't have that.) Your submission can be about any sort of mystery, as long as it is obviously inspired by this prompt in some way, however you interpret it. Just also make sure to follow the rest of the rules below.

Third-person Verbiage: Avoid saying "you" when referring to player-characters.

Separation of Player and Character: Ensure that your module says "investigators" when it is referring to the player-characters, and "players" when it is referring to the real people sitting around the table, and don't get them mixed up.

Characters Can Be Bigoted, but We'd Rather You Weren't: NPCs in your module may express hateful attitudes, but we do not approve of hateful attitudes from submitters themselves. 

Stay Grounded in Eureka's Lore: Please keep your module roughly within the bounds of what the world of Eureka offers. You can read more about this within the first half of Chapter 8 in the rulebook linked above. (And remember, your submission doesn't have to be a paranormal mystery!)

Submissions Must be 5,000 Words Minimum: There is no upper limit, so be careful not to overdo it, as long as your submission has at least 5,000 words. This is the bare minimum size. Most good Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules are about 50-100 pages, as Eureka really stresses providing detailed information to the GM and players alike.

No Generative AI: Do not submit anything that has been created in whole or in part through the use of generative "AI."

We Don't Own Your Submission: Your submission is still your property. You can even sell it after the game jam is concluded if you want. Though if you do, we recommend you keep working on it a bit to polish it up, since one month is plenty of time to get a first draft out, but even the best submissions will benefit from some critique and further refinement and editing!

[corviacore]

Some sketches of my Eureka character Elia, she's a homebrew monster I got to play on the ANIM RPG book club discord server by @anim-ttrpgs , these are scenes of her encounter with a much less amicable monster during the last session of our latest module, where she was forced to reveal herself as a fallen angel for the first time!

It was a lot of fun and while Eureka very much isn't *focused* on combat, more on the investigation aspect of the experience, the way the system handles it was still a LOT of fun and lead to a fun situation where her burning sword was simply put out and she fell back to her firearm, making her a proper Angel with a Shotgun!

[yoshicolonoscopyfootageofficial]

Just realized that eureka ttrpg could possibly be used to run a fallen london-style campaign pretty well, considering a lot of the appeal of fallen london is the mysteries surrounding the setting. There’d probably have to be some custom rules to hack it, mostly stuff around the impermanence of death. Also when composure hits zero investigators are checked into the royal bethlehem.

Might also do with a custom set of supernatural character options, though the secrecy element would also be less stated, since the setting deviates from Eureka’s assumption of supernatural beings being very uncommon. Generally that stuff would have to be hacked a good bit. This’d also lose that poignant disability metaphor most likely… maybe some of this would be better suited as traits or something…

I’m mostly spitballing here, especially since I know failbetter is planning to cook up their own system soonish

Also I’m still working my way through the eureka book itself so I’m probably working with some spotty info on the system itself

Eh, I’m still having fun thinking things up, and the candle finder society stories got me in the mood (the murdered puppet case was pretty linear mechanically but I could see an interesting module built out of it’s core)

[chaoticblade5]

I really want to know why hate crimes are a required part of the Eureka ttrpg. Also, why are the homeless people treated as the same level of inconvenience as a pile of shit? It seems like a really mean-spirited game for how much I have seen people raving about how respectful and nice it is compared to other investigation games.

[coffeewolfart]

Fun facts about her:

Her traits are Night Owl, Technically... , and Woo-Woo

This is because she's spent many hours of the night looking up random shit she's interested in and then passing out until noon-ish, she is really cagey about things without wanting to actually lie about them, and she has weird superstitions about being able to see visions in dreams and thinks she might be able to read things in tarot cards (though she doesn't think all tarot readings are magical or helpful.)

She was adopted into a family that has practiced and taught witchcraft down generationally, and they're where she learned most things about magic and potion making.

(Not everyone in her family is a witch, but most of them have at least some knowledge about it even if they aren't able to practice it.)

She knows other supernatural things exist outside of witches (she encountered one herself after all), but she doesn't know all that much about them directly. She does study as much folklore about supernatural creatures as she can though, just in case some of it is real.

Her freckles glow like stars whenever she uses magic and always faintly glow in dim light. Its not enough light to be immediately noticeable or help her see things in the dark, but its still there.

On the subject of freckles, they subtly shift to reflect the stars in her hemisphere. It took her way too long to figure this out.

She doesn't think werewolves (as in Eureka wolfmen, aka the hollywood people forced to turn into wolf human hybrids under the full moon) actually exist. She knows that the Werewolf mage power exists, and she just thinks that some people just saw witches using it and telephoned it into a monstrous wolf human that preys upon people in the night. She's got weird priorities and standards for what counts as realistic to her.

She likes to knit and crochet little stuffed animals, her favorites are cats and owls.

Remade an old OC, meet Astra the dreamweaving witch!

Astra's an old pathfinder character that I decided to convert to the Eureka! system as a witch. She's gotten a goth makeover as a result. You guy's should check it out if you're interested, @anim-ttrpgs made it and posts a lot about it.

Astra's a college dropout of a witch living in a renovated van house and traveling the country. She makes a living doing "psychic readings" which may or may not actually involve magic and selling stuff on Etsy. She's generally very cheerful and slightly suspicious, but once a mystery has gotten a grip over her she bites into it and doesn't let go.

[faeriedaez]

Introducing: Urethra! Bad Traits for Bad Investigators

Available now on Itch, I have created a Pay-If-You-Must collection of 14 new traits for the HIT independently developed, critically acclaimed, urban fantasy noir mystery solving tabletop roleplaying game known only as Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. The traits held within range from actively hindering, laughably specific, and even decently powerful (albeit with humorous presentation.) If you're a fan of Eureka, please help yourself to my little supplement, I guarantee it will at least bring you a chuckle. If you AREN'T already a fan of Eureka and you're seeing this post I BEG you, click the underlined link above or even right here. Believe me when I tell you Eureka is the TTRPG scene's next indie darling. Alright. PEACE.

[chaospyromancy]

The plight of being a woman walking back to your car at night is that they won't even let you start eating your burger before bothering you. Who's they? Why the wolfmen. Of course.

This is a modern AU of Gen for @anim-ttrpgs's Eureka!

[legov7]

Inspired by @anim-ttrpgs's mystery ttrpg Eureka.

One of these creatures is a monster known to kill humans without remorse. You can't play as one, since that would interfere with the intended gameplay.

The second one on the other hand, the man eating shapeshifting sheet of flesh called the Thing from Beyond is totally fair game for a player character.

[bad-eureka-updates]

i hear in the next update they are removing men

You say removing men, I say creating a lot more women.

[umbraldame]

I know that writers of Eureka always talk about "eating people" as a metaphor for people who's needs are difficult/impossible to meet but hear me out, this kind of "hot monster girls eating people" style of gameplay is cornering a market that other games are too cowardly to capitalize off of.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Long story short, due to sudden financial difficulties for one of our team members now and in the near future, we need more patreon subscribers, badly.

You get a crapload of stuff from a subscription.

[corviacore]

Last Sunday I hosted a game of Eureka by @anim-ttrpgs two friends of mine, there was supposed to be 3 but one couldnt make it, oh well you all know how it is with scheduling, it still played quite well with two people though, this system is actually really good for smaller groups from my experience with it so far.

We were playing horror Harry's haunted house, a premade module that comes with the free download of Eureka from ANIMs itch.io site! Check it out if you haven't yet and support them if you like Eureka!

Both of these friends of mine were new to the system and I had only narrated a single session of Foriva the Angel game before so I was breaking new ground as well and we were struggling a bit to RP while learning a new system, still a lot of fun though and honestly I think Eureka is pretty easy to get into, dont let the large pagecount on the rulebook dissuade you, its simply not done yet and gas some editing left to be done on it.

I don't wanna spoil too much, but the players had a lot of fun giggling about their own characters stubbornness and resulting consequences such as tumbling off a small balcony and bumping their butts.

In the end my players told me they really liked it and would be willing to play some more and while they did NOT correctly solve the mystery of horror Harry's haunted house they had a lot of fun with it! I also found it mostly smooth and pretty easy to run and I think I managed well enough. My players enjoyed that they felt more like theyre driving the game then in DND where it's often hacking and slashing or freeform rping until the DM puts the next thing in front of you (our personal experience) and they enjoyed the partial successes as well, they even made use of their Eureka towards the end wich they managed to scrape together enough points for and that helped them get to a conclusion, even if it was the wrong one xP

All in all a successful session and I think Horror Harry's haunted house is a EXCELLENT introduction into the game ,with low stakes it showcases allmost all major mechanics (except combat) and is easily finished within a single session if about 4-5 hours, take it as a sort of tutorial for both narrator and players and you will have a decent idea of how this game plays amd what to expect from it!

[jamie101]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy - question everything, investigate everything. The motive for the murder, that shifty NPC, that mysterious old clock, another investigator's aversion to sunlight, the sinister shadow cast through the window of the manor, your gender identity, why your heart skips a beat when your friend smiles at you,

[octobelus]

hey if you want to solve mysteries as a genius detective, bumbling idiot, super powerful predator, deeply traumatized weirdo, Normal Guy, or some combination of the above, check out the ttrpg Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

development is ongoing, but in its current state my character got to trigger a cascade of dramatic reveals and worsening mental health among the party where it turned out 3/5 of them were living dolls while a dead body lay at their feet and the only human was covered in its brains. I haven't played ttrpgs in yearsss and this was a hilarious way to come back to it!

[the-ghost-in-your-attic]

one thing about Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy that I've never experienced before is that for the first time in my 7 years of playing rpgs, I'm actually making a character who's a woman! as a trans person, the constant third person verbiage and reminders about player/character separation don't trigger my dysphoria like in other games, so I'm off to sail the brand new waters of pathetic women

basically an entirely new Loser Woman demographic: Extremely Dysphoric Transmascs

[coffeewolfart]

Remade an old OC, meet Astra the dreamweaving witch!

Astra's an old pathfinder character that I decided to convert to the Eureka! system as a witch. She's gotten a goth makeover as a result. You guy's should check it out if you're interested, @anim-ttrpgs made it and posts a lot about it.

Astra's a college dropout of a witch living in a renovated van house and traveling the country. She makes a living doing "psychic readings" which may or may not actually involve magic and selling stuff on Etsy. She's generally very cheerful and slightly suspicious, but once a mystery has gotten a grip over her she bites into it and doesn't let go.