#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!

[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

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

Alchemy Part 1 - Spellcraft

I've been working on a few things this week, and the actual mechanics behind alchemy is one of those things. For those of you who don't know what alchemy is as it relates to Prima Materia (probably most people who will see this), it is the most prolific magic system in the setting. For more than that, here's the blog post that goes into the concepts.

Unfortunately I am sick, so I was not able to make a full version of the Spellcraft rules, but I'm still excited about them so I'll go into what I have currently.

What is a spell?

A spell is a physical object. It includes a focus made from a specific material, and a sigil that determines the effect. Spells have a lot of shapes and sizes, from engraved rods that shoot fire to large engraved containers that keep things cold.

Sigils

Sigils are engravings that elicit a certain effect by channeling prima materia and manipulating it in a specific way to make a particular substance. This can be something like a fire sigil, which when used in certain foci can act like a flamethrower or send out bolts of fire. Some sigils are able to stimulate cell growth, and are used in healing. Others can do more fantastical things with reality.

Sigils themselves in universe are developed by many people, and lots of them have been known for thousands of years. As such, I've decided to separate them into alchemical traditions, and then further into Paradigms, which represent specific practices within a tradition. These traditions and paradigms have different shapes of foci that they use, and different philosophies driving their development. For example, Entari Staffwriting comes from a culture where the alchemical tradition is mostly clerical, and most of the foci are wooden staves. As such, the sigils in this tradition can only be engraved onto staves because that's what they were built for, and the tradition is fairly small with powerful effects. In the practical alchemy tradition, there is a paradigm concerned with making very small sigils that can be concealed or placed into larger alchemical machinery.

But of course the sigil is nothing without the focus it's engraved into.

Foci and Materials

There are specially shaped foci that determine the final effect of a spell as well as how powerful that spell can be. The material a focus is made from has a specific Flux Capacity (FC), and a sigil with a larger Flux than the FC of a focus it's engraved into may break or warp the focus on use. Sigils with a higher Flux can absolutely be put onto a focus that doesn't have the FC to handle it, but in those cases whenever the spell is used it has a chance to warp or break the focus somehow, giving it a flaw or destroying it outright.

The types of Foci at the moment are Tapered, Flared, Concave, Flat, and Blade. Tapered foci will cause the effect to be launched from the focus like a bolt. Tapered foci will make an area of effect. Concave foci spreads the effect out in such a way where it's gentle enough for things like healing sigils. Flat foci will make the effect spread out over a plane, and Blade foci are a type of flat focus that extends the effect into a plane but only in one direction.

Materials have Flux Capacity ratings that range from 0 to 7. Of course, as mentioned before, these can be overloaded. A spell can be used a number of times equal to the difference between the Flux Overflow doubled and the Flux Capacity of the material, the Flux Overflow being the difference between the Flux of the sigil and the Flux Capacity of the material.

The equation for this is FO*2-FC=number of uses.

When a spell is overloaded like this, you also have to roll on the overload table, which is not yet written but some of the Flaws a focus can have are written. These flaws are Flickering, Faulty Trigger, and Jank. Flickering means a focus has an unstable output and is sometimes not as strong as it should be. Faulty Trigger makes a passive effect happen to your focus (for example a focus with a fire sigil may be constantly warm) and the spell has one less charge than normal. Jank allows you to re-roll a result on the overload table if the result would destroy the focus, and I still need to make a downside for it.

That's It

If I were feeling better I may have written more and this post might've been longer, but alas getting a cold waits for no one. Or something. If you're wondering why I haven't written the rest of character creation yet and worked on this instead, that's because I started getting burned out in the character creation mines and there are some decisions about it I need to noodle on.

Thank you for reading, once I get better I will continue working on alchemy. For now, I rest.

[randomtable]

Random Magical Effect Generator:

1d10 Aesthetic Properties: 1. Icy blue 2. Shimmering silver or gold 3. Red hot 4. Translucent or hazy 5. Sickly glowing green 6. Bright white 7. Inky black 8. Swirling purple 9. Oozing amber 10. Dazzling multi-color

1d10 Damage Types: 1. Frost/cold 2. Physical cutting or stabbing 3. Burning/fire 4. Physical blunt impact 5. Toxic/poison 6. Lightning/electric 7. Life-draining energy 8. Psychic/emotional 9. Caustic/corroding/acid 10. Multiple damage types: Re-roll twice!

1d10 Additional Properties: 1-5. No additional properties, a single target takes a normal amount of damage. 6. Powerful - a single target takes massive damage. 7. Burst - the attack emanates from the source in all directions, targeting anyone in its area 8. Multi-target - up to three targets can be chosen. 9. Halting - the effect temporarily restrains or stuns the target, preventing them from moving. 10. Residual - the effect continues to deal repeated damage until the target takes appropriate action to remove it.

1d10 Drawbacks: 1. Exhausting - the source renders itself unable to act until it takes a moment to recharge (one action, one turn, etc.) 2. Kickback - the source of the damage also damages itself in the process. 3. Recoil - the force of the attack knocks over or pushes back the source of the damage 4. Disorienting - the source of the damage is at a disadvantage when it tries to aim at its next target. 5. Weakening - the next time the source deals damage it will be halved. 6-10. No drawbacks, the effect goes off without a hitch.

[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

[mortphilippa]

Inspirisles

This time in my regular TTRPG reading I picked up Inspirisles by Hatchling Games. It's a wonderful fantasy game about the descendants of King Arthur, dragons, and magic!

Inspirisles is also rather unique as it aims to introduce you to either American or British sign language through play, and comes with videos and handouts to learn basic sign, and sections throughout the book on Deaf culture.

Hatchling Games originally gave me a review pdf to look at the game (thank you!!), but i have since gone out and bought the physical version because its so pretty!

[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.

[theinstagrahame]

🌀, 🌤️?

For the Brief Respite Game Jam, I'm working on a series of Forged in the Dark-style downtime actions that fit into any RPG in any genre. Working title is "Restful Actions" and they're aimed at giving the GM a bit of a break while the players take a break between actions.

One of the mechanics, one of the mini games, is aimed at dealing with resolving tension between characters after an argument or some other uncomfortable revelation. And it's just questions.

But it's the person initiating the conversation asking questions, while the other player decides how long it would take them to answer, and whether they'd lie about it. Which should allow the players to release that tension without their characters necessarily having to.

I also wrote a shopping minigame that should allow two players to solve all of the party's shopping in one scene, instead of dragging it on for several hours while people forget things.

UPDATE: This is now available!

[draculaugust]

i made a game :)

[efangamez]

It's Free RPG day!

Remember that every single one of my games are free on itch.io to allow ALL people have access to my games.

All I ask is for you to leave a review and boost my games through social media posts 💛

You can snag all of my games by snagging a community copy below!

[luciferissatan]

a quiet moment

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

Accidents and God, or Metaphysicalities

Over the past week, I've been cannibalizing the Professions system of Prima Materia and shunting those mechanics into other places. Not every mechanic I pulled out of them fit with the existing systems of the game, which presented an opportunity for me to make an entirely new system that I think is very cool called Metaphysicalities. Metaphysicalities are very rare quirks that allow for a character to do strange and maybe even helpful things that interact with the metaphysics of the setting.

What is the system?

Metaphysicalities is a system that's being wrapped into character creation. Not every character will have a metaphysicality; in fact, most characters likely won't. In order to explain why this is, I also have to explain how I'm reworking character creation at least a bit. The original character creation system was pretty simple, you choose a species, background, profession, and allocate points. The new system does away with professions, splits up backgrounds a bit, and adds metaphysicalities. It also introduces rolling for certain things, one of those things is whether or not your character has a metaphysicality, and what that specific metaphysicality is. There are also some other metaphysicalities which can't be rolled for because it doesn't make sense for them to be random, which I'll talk about in a bit. Rolling for a metaphysicality involves rolling a d100 to see if you have one. I haven't decided yet whether the metaphysicalities should be on the d100 table directly, or if it should determine whether or not you roll on a specific metaphysicalities table. However, random tables don't always make for the kind of story a player wants to tell, so there will be optional rules for picking a metaphysicality, likely at a cost in character creation.

In the meantime, let's get out of the weeds of hard mechanics land and get right into talking about-

What Metaphysicalities Do

All metaphysicalities cause the affected character to interact with the metaphysics of the setting in some way. Generally speaking, a metaphysicality happens when the ousia (oo-see-uh) that makes up the soul of a person is abnormal or has been tampered with in some way. Of course, this is about as useful as saying elements are made of matter that's interacted with other matter in specific ways, so here are the specific metaphysicalities that have been written thus far.

Vessel Vessel used to be a profession, and is the reason metaphysicalities now exist.

Vessels are born with a soul that is predisposed to be able to host more than one consciousness. While some Vessels live mundane lives unaware of this quirk of the soul, it can result in attention - unwanted or otherwise - from beings that wish to make your soul and body a home for themselves. These beings, called consorts when they bind with a vessel, will sometimes pay their keep on principal by performing magical favors for the host. Others require a working relationship between consort and vessel to be productive.

Draconian Draconian used to be a background, and is only able to be taken by a Possum from a specific region of the world. You cannot be born with this metaphysicality.

You hail from Balaura, the successor to the Aelian Empire, ruled by the living god Aelius Soarstea. You were taken before Aelius Soarstea as part of your coming of age ceremony, and now bear his mark. The mark gives you the ability to sense danger, and call for divine help in times of need; but it also binds you to the will of Aelius, which is not so easily broken.

Prophet Prophets were originally going to be a class inspired by biblical prophets, but they got written as a metaphysicality instead because I got rid of classes. This is another one that has to be chosen rather than rolled.

You have been chosen by a god to do great works and change the course of history. Should you heed the call of strange dreams and visions, you will be granted the ability to perform miracles to aid you on your holy quest. Otherwise, if you refuse the call, the gods will deem you unfit for service and such privileges as performing miracles will be revoked.

Miraculous The Miraculous are the latest metaphysicality I've written, made to replace another one I deemed unfit for the setting. The idea behind this one is essentially "what if luck ontologically exists, but only for some people?"

The circumstances of your birth were auspicious. Your mother may have had a very easy birth where nothing went wrong. Or many things may have gone wrong, and yet you survived the ordeal. Whatever the circumstances, this swinging pendulum of luck has stayed with you throughout your life making it one of extremes. Horrible luck may cause your home to burn down around you, as good luck lets you survive it. Good luck may cause you to come into a great deal of money and bad luck may be that the check gets lost in the mail for a month before it can reach you. There are times when you can force one luck or the other to manifest, but the pendulum will always swing the other way eventually.

Reborn Some believe when a disembodied spirit is unwilling to freely unravel, it jealously takes the first breath of an infant and becomes a Reborn. Others say a spirit that by chance wanders too close to an infant will become trapped in the body. Whatever the case, this spirit becomes a latticework indistinguishable from your own soul. If you are able to push through confusing and sometimes alien memories, with practice you may be able to draw upon the skills this spirit had in its previous life.

Seer This is my personal favorite, it draws on tropes I enjoy.

You were born able to see things others can't. Your eyes pierce past the mundane into the Ousia that makes up souls, spirits, thoughts, and the fonts that spew Prima Materia onto the surface of the world. With practice, you can tell when someone is lying, or when they will do something before they know it themselves. However, you cannot stop seeing Ousia in the world, which can be distressing to your senses and highly disorienting. Seers that are blind don't deal with this distraction, and often become the most highly skilled

Dreamwalker This is also my personal favorite, it draws loosely on experiences I have had when I was more spiritual.

Where we go when we dream is a mystery that even the talkative gods have trouble answering. Since you were a child, your dreams have been almost as real as life, and the doors to the space between realities have opened to you. Legends of dreamwalkers speak of finding secret information and bringing objects into the waking world from the space between. All is not safe, however, as injuries sustained in your dreams of the space between often bleed through to your waking body.

But wait, there's more!

These are all the metaphysicalities that I'm writing, bar any strange moods or other inspiration. However, they're far from done. I'm still working on the crunch part of these, with mechanics that will hopefully convey the narrative of the quirks in a way that's fun and satisfying.

If you read this far, thanks! The next mechanics post will in all likelihood be a more in-depth post about the updated character creation, and Species Highlight - Possum is being worked on.