#fantasy ttrpg

[theinstagrahame]

Announcing: Restful Actions

(It's here. You can go get it now!)

Restful Actions is a collection of 10 minigames for downtime periods in any TTRPG. They're designed to help players resolve character conflicts, complete goals, heal or explore, and take much shorter shopping trips. (You can, in fact, download the shopping trip minigame as a demo!)

For GMs, the goal is to give you a break, so you can start preparing the next Big Event. The minigames invite players to fill in some details of the world, creating shops, landmarks, even creatures.

You can pick up your copy here:

I've talked about this thing in more detail here:

[crackerjackalopegames]

New dispatch of Jackalope Mail: How Wanderhome Mechanises Animism, talking about some of my favourite mechanics in @jdragsky's Wanderhome! Check it out!

[tallyowlpress]

Metamorphosis: Becoming Fae—or, the Art of Change

LINK TO KICKSTARTER

GET THE QUICK START

Metamorphosis is a TTRPG about change, magic, and Fae. You finally left Arcadia, the city of awe and terror. Now, what will you become?

Pierce the Veil

You are a magic thing and you have left Arcadia. The human world is vast and daunting.

Perhaps you’re returning home; perhaps this place is even stranger than Arcadia to you. Regardless, you must decide whether to seek revenge, reconciliation, or reinvention of the self. The question is, can you become powerful enough to achieve it?

Fortunately, power is a resource. And resources can be taken.

Features:

Nine chimerical playbooks, each with its own unique Core Magic. Will you be a deal-making Hag, a carnivorous Redcap, or charmingly artificial Galatea? Or something else entirely?

Mechanics for navigating the land of fae - Just like deep-sea diving: the deeper you go, the worse it is. What will you find in Arcadia's core?

Distinct modes of play - will your fairy Circle go on a Heist to recover the cursed amulet, or are they on a Wild Hunt for the Ogre Queen? Different Mission types give you different rewards and boons.

You are your magic - From channeling the magic of the seasons, to gifting inanimate objects with the spark of sentience, magic in this game is based off your character's relationship to Arcadia.

Eat the Fair Folk. Or beg them for forgiveness. Or rise in their ranks. Or, if you're lucky, find a way to escape your Curses and write a new ending to your story.

LINK TO KICKSTARTER

GET THE QUICK START

[crackerjackalope]

Just reminding everyone that my games are 50% off until Monday (13/01/25)! If you like angsty victorians, angsty robots, angsty sailors or angsty dragons then check them out!

[efangamez]

GRIM, my Quake-inspired TTRPG, has finished all of its content!!!! Yippeee!!

Now onto making bookmarks and making a slick-looking itch and DTRPG page!!!

[damsels-n-dice]

Have you ever wished that your TTRPGs had more teenage angst in them? Do you love playing Lasers & Feelings but prefer fantasy & magic over science fiction & lasers? Do you just want to add another indie RPG to your endless list of games to play? Introducing...

Kisses & Curses is a free (with optional donations) game, based in the Lasers & Feelings system! It includes bonus mechanics for personal relationships and social status, to support that teen drama feeling, as well as all the standards Lasers & Feelings rules. I'd love it if you checked it out and/or had a go at playing it :)

[fandomverseofanthony]

Tales of Forge & Fortune Needs YOUR Help!

With only 2 weeks left in the campaign, funding is just below 50%! Please help a solo indie game dev achieve their dream and fund a wonderful artist and graphic/layout designer for this Cozy Fantasy Smithing TTRPG!

CHECK OUT THE KICKSTARTER, BACK IT IF YOU BELIEVE IN IT, AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

WE ALSO HAVE A DISCORD CHANNEL, FOR ON-GOING GAME SUPPORT AND TO ENTERACT WITH FELLOW FANS OF THE GAME!

Tales of Forge & Fortune is inspired by Tabletop Roleplaying Games and Cozy Games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Animal Crossing, Pathfinder, Fantasy Life, Dave the Diver, Stardew Valley and many others!

Gather your friends, or set out on your own, traversing the land in search of materials to craft countless wondrous items to sell at your shop within an ever-evolving town! Although crafting is at the heart of this game, there are still PLENTY of opportunities for roleplaying and adventure, providing a unique adventure without ever having to worry about losing your character or progress in the process.

Immerse yourself in a world teeming with life, potentially encountering enemies and adventurers during your journeys, while also getting to know your fellow townsfolk. Participate in holidays and special events, such as the Battle of the Bards and Heart of the Forge Competition, that test your skills in creative new ways, while also ensuring that there is never a dull moment.

Every aspect of play leads to new experiences that also affect the world around you. Watch as your small town evolves into a grand city or bustling trade hub, due to your continued efforts to help out your community!

Writing and playtesting have been completed, and it’s currently in the editing phase. The Kickstarter is currently at 43% as of writing this, but I’m hoping to reach the goal before November 10th, so that I can fund the very talented artist and graphic/layout designer who are waiting to take the game to the next level!

Here is some quick, additional info about the game itself:

14 Playable Lineages - with classics such as Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Goblins, and Halflings, along with original ones like Squalosone (Shark people) and Goltha (four-armed, tall and muscular people)

4 Playable Classes - Traditional, Mystical, Inventive, and Smooth

20 Crafting Related Skills with 4 ranks each, providing further bonuses - Novice, Journeyman, Adept, Mastery

34 Talents to choose from, to further customize and cater to your playstyle

200+ Items to craft, sell, and equip - with inspired crafted items being the most power in the game

Upgradeable shop and town through a combination of coin, materials, and renown

Simple d20 system broken into 3 parts: Crafting - d20 + bonuses determine quality of creations; Exploration - d20 + bonuses determine degrees of success or failure when challenged; (Optional) Combat - Opposed d20 + bonuses, letting players attack AND defend

The Quickstart for Tales of Forge & Fortune is also available, FOR FREE! Get a small taste of what you can expect from this Cozy Fantasy Smithing TTRPG system, and back it on Kickstarter Today!

Itch.io FREE Download

DriveThruRPG FREE Download

[donutboxers]

🌹Santana🌹

a commission I did for my friend @sp1n0za of their DnD character Santana, we play in a campaign together :>

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

Primadelics and Social Combat

Hello, I'm back from a bit of a break as I was fairly busy doing things for the holidays and then got some sort of bronchial illness that I am still recovering from. However, I have not been idle, so now that I'm feeling a bit better I will share some concepts I've been working on.

More specifically, the more I try to write Potioncraft the more I realize that the name doesn't make sense and it should include other craftable magic items. I've also been thinking about the social encounter system in the game and how it would be fun if someone could make an argument good enough to hurt or curse someone, not unlike legends of the Filidh of medieval Ireland. I'll talk about that later.

Alchemical Crafting

So, this of course is not talking about Spellcraft, which I talked about in a previous blog post, but rather the process for making tinctures, among other things. I still haven't landed on a proper name for it unfortunately, but let's walk through why what was originally Potioncraft became what it currently is.

The process of making alchemical tinctures was called potioncraft, because tinctures are like potions in other games. I already didn't like the name because of that disparity alone, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that there had to be something before and alongside crafting tinctures, as all tinctures are are ingredients infused into a distilled alcohol that's been treated alchemically with a spell made for treating tinctures; usually to increase the effects of the ingredients already within the tincture.

Alchemically treating consumable or ingestable items can't have started with tinctures, they're only a few centuries old in the setting, coinciding with the advent of strong spirits. To that end, I decided food had likely long been alchemically treated to impart specific effects, as well as smokeable items. I then went ahead and extended this treatment to candles and incense, as it made sense that those would become natural things to treat. A cleric could use a censer that billows smoke which puts enemies to sleep. A ghost hunter could use a candle that attracts spirits. A doctor can finally recommend a cigarette that's good for your health (don't smoke this is a joke).

[Just a note, as I was reading this post back to my flatmate he suggested the term "Primadelic" to describe these items as a joke while chopping garlic. I looked up the etymology of psychedelic and found the delic part comes from the Greek "δηλείν dēleín" which means "to manifest" so it actually makes sense and is a banger I fear.]

The difference in mediums means there's only two things that unify them, being limited or consumable and being empowered by an alchemical spell. I do plan to have one crafting system that takes care of all of these things, so how do I make a system that encompasses such a diverse group of things?

Crafting

We have to zoom out a bit, because this is a secret that pervades through the entire game. It's all the same system. Crafting spells will mechanically be very similar to crafting tinctures and other items, with some quirks unique to the particular system and different skills used. This applies to everything from mechanical creations to crafting arguments. Spellcrafting requires the Spellcraft skill, primarily. If you want to create a sword that will be a different skill, requiring different things. Spellcrafting requires a focus, a sigil, and spellcrafting tools. Crafting a sword will require materials, a blade, and smithing tools. Tinctures require an alchemical spell, ingredients, and brewing tools. These will all be slightly different, using different skills and having different results and mechanics if you fail or succeed, but you can see the blueprint is largely the same.

Time for a segue into how Social Combat will work, and how to craft arguments with this same blueprint for the system.

Socialites (and intimidating soldiers) Apply Here

Another confession, my background in ttrpgs largely consists of games which have very lite or no narrative rules. Some of those simply consist of beating a number by rolling a dice, and others like LANCER give a little more oomph to social encounters with bond powers. Trying to write a social system has been very challenging, and I wouldn't have been able to figure it out if not for one of my friends essentially handing me an example system on a plate and saying it would be cool to craft arguments.

The concepts for crafting an argument involve using a school of rhetoric, an argument type, and a purpose for the argument. For example, using the school of logic and the intimidation type you could compose a logical intimidating argument to convince a king to do something about bandits. That argument might mention that the bandits are getting powerful and it stands to reason the king will start losing outer villages if he doesn't hire someone soon. Or, using the school of presence and the persuasive type of argument, you could convince someone they will be safe with you by puffing out your chest and standing tall. I will talk more about the schools and argument types in its own blog post when the time comes.

I've been playing around with a few mechanical ideas as to how the school and type play into the power of an argument, particularly with augmentation from the character's skills. If a character wants to make an argument pertaining to cooking for example, a higher cooking skill will benefit them, but the specific benefit that incurs eludes me because I still need to write the base mechanics for using the arguments.

Another concept I thought would be fun is the ability to deal psychic damage or otherwise making someone sick from a crafted argument once a character finds out how to pour themselves into their words well enough. This would be a feat that is fairly hard to achieve, but I enjoy the idea immensely.

Conclusion

Alright that's all folks. I'm going to focus on getting better so work will still be a trickle. If you read this far, thank you very much. Next post will probably be about the social argument system.

[theinstagrahame]

Another big month of TTRPG mail calls! Got a bunch of zines, some Crowd funders, and treated myself to a book or two when I got my new job lined up.

Here's what's exciting from the last month:

Death of the Author: I've said before that we (as in I) love the work of Sam "@goblinmixtape" Leigh, and before I got into TTRPGs, I wanted to do fiction writing (I found that I got from TTRPGs what I wanted from writing). So the pitch felt like an instant yes: A solo RPG about writing fiction, and the relationship between author and character.

The World we Left Behind: Sam Leigh put this together apparently for a Ballet, which is incredibly cool, and then put it as an add-on for the Death of the Author campaign. Needless to say, I was all in.

Urban Shadows 2e: Backed this on Kickstarter before Magpie did the A:tlA campaign, and it's finally showed up now. If I'm honest, my interest has waned, but I know US 1e was really good.

Zephyr: The art and the concept behind this are great, and I know that the creator makes some really neat mechanics.

Glitch: I picked this (well, 0 edition of Glitch) up on Kickstarter years ago, because the pitch was so good, but I didn't get a hard copy then. Managed to use some DTRPG money I had to rectify this mistake. Jenna Katerin Moran's work is very philosophically interesting, but I was hooked by the notion of being a demigod who knows that there's more going on, but is going to deal with street level concerns.

The Flood: Also a Moran game, and came to be as part of The Far Roofs (which I'm sure will be featured in a future mail bag post). There's a beauty to Jenna's work, a blending of metaphor and reality that I'm really drawn to, so I'm very curious about how farming poetry will work out.

Reach of the Roach God: When I landed my new job, I pretty quickly landed on what I wanted to pick up. I found out about the Thousand Thousand Island books a little too late, so I wanted to make sure I snagged this beautiful volume before I couldn't find it anymore. It's a real triumph of a book, and I can't wait to dig deeper.

Ironsworn: Sundered Isles: I am on record as loving Ironsworn and Starforged. What if instead of Space, we had Pirates?! Hell yeah, sign me up. Ironsworn/Starforged are probably the solo RPGs I've had the most success playing, in that I got furthest into these before getting distracted by other things. So maybe I'll get myself into another one?

The Wizard's Library: I've been really intrigued by Vincent Baker's Wizards Grinoire series, although I've read (and not yet played) only the first. It's got a neat reverse relationship, where the "GM" player is the titular Wizard, and the other players run the supporting cast, helping the Wizard delve into the grimoires that they discover Fortunately, this book contains more grimoires for the titular wizard to go through, and with them, more dangers for the wizard to face.

Fabula Ultima: I've heard only good things about this self-billed "TT-JRPG" and I'm really curious about it. Final Fantasy and the Pokemon series both being such long-term loves of mine, I'm very curious to see how this one runs. (Also picked up the Quickstart for a future Mailbag.)

Wet Grandpa: Listened to an episode of RTFM about this, after seeing the name around for years, and finally picked it up. I always found the title off-putting, and really couldn't get past it until my favorite TTRPG Book Club Podcast dragged me through the cover. The physical edition is a beautiful, rugged-looking book and my mind keeps reeling at the possibility of making players make hard choices.

Psychodungeon: I really dug the pitch, and Kayla Dice makes some really fun and interesting games. Be part of a team that helps people manage their trauma after it manifests into a psychic dungeon. What intrigued me most was the use of the Belonging Outside Belonging system for this, which I think really opens up some interesting possibilities for the Workplace Drama angle, and the GMless aspect could lead to some extremely fascinating dungeons.

Stewpot: This one as a no-brainer. I've got lots of friends who are into the "cozy" genre of game, and Stewpot has been The Name in fantasy coziness for a while (for lack of a better terminology, as I know it's a loaded term). The special edition (and wooden dice) were too tempting, even though the crowdfunder hit during my Freelance Era, and cost a few extra...

Any%: I watched the HBomberGuy video about Speedrunning (shortly after his Plagiarism video dropped), and developed a soft spot for the hobby. I genuinely couldn't do it, I'm too ADHD to try the same thing over and over again in hopes of shaving a fraction of a second off of my response time. But, I'm glad that people are doing it. So, a solo RPG that plays with speedrunning and its terminology seems like a great way to feel like I'm doing it without all the Bad Brain Juices.

Pregame Lobby volumes 1 and 3: I also wanted to grab these before they became too hard to find (I can't find anywhere that has Volume 2 at the moment). I really like the vibes of .Dungeon, it feels like a game that evokes a period in my life where I was curious about the Internet and tried just about every MMORPG that wasn't WoW or EverQuest. I'm honestly struggling to not pick up the recent Spiral Bound edition, despite getting the hardback 2e, because the art and layout looks goddamn incredible.

And these books are from the Plus One EXP Zine Club, which is a Zine of the Month Club, hand-picked and hand-curated. So I'm excited because I don't actually know much about them.

Metalepsis

Fire & Stone

Hapsy Kordo's Kitchen Horrors

This Old House

Hive of the Crawling Creeps

Fallen from Grace

[crackerjackalopegames]

Last month I hit 1000 followers on Bluesky!

This is the biggest follower count I've had on any social media by far! So to celebrate, I'm putting all of my games on sale! You can pick up ABODE, Goodbye World, There's Something About the Deep and DRAGONFALL at 50% off, or grab all of them for just £10!

The sale lasts until midnight on January the 13th UK time. More info about each game under the read more!

(also, if you don't follow me there already, I'm on bluesky @ crackerjackalope.bsky.social)

ABODE is my biggest game to date. Over a number of rounds, players will play different members of a gothic noble family, drawing a family tree as they play. ABODE features super-fast character creation (since you'll be playing so many!) and question-guided roleplay scenes to keep the game on track. Pick it up for £3.50 now! https://crackerjackalope-games.itch.io/abode-2e

Goodbye, World </3 is a 2-player game to make you cry. Play as a dying mech and the pilot stuck inside. The pilot player speaks while the mech may only type, and their messages are running out! The game works as a standalone or as a supplement for any other mech RPG. Pick it up for just £2! https://crackerjackalope-games.itch.io/goodbye-world

There's Something About the Deep is my latest game, about salty sailors in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean. Players will vote whether to increase or decrease the depth of the submarine, aiming to complete their secret objective before surfacing. At the same time, they must manage the pressure of the sub to stop it from imploding, killing everyone inside. There's Something About the Deep is just £2 now! https://crackerjackalope-games.itch.io/theres-something-about-the-deep

And finally, DRAGONFALL, my lyric supplement about dead dragons and how their magic affects the land. Each page features a haiku and a list of regional effects. Explore how a fire dragon creates drought or how a poison dragon rots surrounding plantlife in DRAGONFALL for just £2.50! https://crackerjackalope-games.itch.io/dragonfall

[hitsugiyukirpgart]

Fearless adventurers,

⚔️Are you ready to embrace the next challenge, starting this Wednesday, January 29th? We're opening the gates to our new journey on Kickstarter!

Allow me to introduce Warkar’s Fortress – terrain that will transform your D&D adventures into a truly unique experience. This fortress is a place of mysteries, hidden dangers, and unexpected opportunities waiting for you to explore during your gaming sessions.

🎯For adventurers, especially the fearless barbarians who dare to join right from the start, we’re offering early bird rewards – special prices available only during the first 48 hours of the campaign.

Don’t hesitate! Ready your swords, scrolls, and dice of fate, and don’t let this opportunity slip away! Add this campaign for the mysterious fortress to your favorites: 🔗 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/207046585/warkar-s-fortress

Your presence in this journey will be a testament to your courage and determination to experience something extraordinary.

[inspirationaljunkyard]

Mew creatures, fresh from the Cairn 2E bestiary: minotaur, mind lasher and night hag Cairn 2E is now live on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1557907976/cairn-2e-boxed-set

[austinramsaygames]

Remembering why I generally don't write Fantasy TTRPGs. Eventually I have to figure out how Magic works, which means either a Spell List or making a system that's flexible enough to do everything but restricted enough that a Mage can NOT do everything.

[cursewhale]

I really like the idea of runnning a fantasy ttrpg campaign set in a world ruled by a cabal of vain and capricious vulture demons and seeing how long it takes the players to realize they're basically the skeksis.

[draculaugust]

i made a game :)