#free ttrpg resources

[anim-ttrpgs]

What to Play Next with Eureka.

So, now that the pay-what-you-want/free Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy beta has over 400 downloads at the time of writing this (wow!) and has been up for about 3 weeks, I’m sure at least some people have already played Horror Harry’s Haunted House, the free tutorial adventure module we included with the beta download, and are excited to play more!

To that end, I’ve quickly thrown together a non-comprehensive list of adventure modules to run using Eureka, and where you can find them.

Adventure modules, if you’ve never used them, are a lifesaver for GMs. (And also they’re a different thing from those railroady “adventure paths” and crappy 5e adventures that you might be familiar with.)

Official Eureka Adventures

You can find official Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules on our Patreon page. Supporting us is what makes Eureka, and our ongoing promotion of many other TTRPG creators, possible.

Horror Harry’s Haunted House

This is an official Eureka adventure module that comes free with the beta linked above. It is a super low-stakes “tutorial” adventure that sees the PCs solving a “murder” in an interactive escape room. The point of this scenario is to be a short and fun way for players to learn the mechanics of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy without risk of their characters dying.

FORIVA: The Angel Game

This is an official Eureka adventure module by A.N.I.M. currently available only to patreon subscribers. Set in the year 1999, this adventure involves the PCs investigating a mysterious threat targeting teenagers.

The Eye of Neptune

This is an official Eureka adventure module by A.N.I.M. currently available only to patreon subscribers. Set on a skeleton-crewed oil rig in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, this adventure puts the PCs in a tense situation as members of the crew start to disappear one by one...

Free Call of Cthulhu Adventures

Since we have not had the time (yet) to build up a robust library of official Eureka adventure modules, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy has been playtested the most by using Call of Cthulhu adventure modules, and it is designed to work well with them. In fact, in many cases it actually plays them better and smoother than Call of Cthulhu itself!

Chapter 7 of the Eureka rulebook covers how to convert an adventure module from another game for use with Eureka, and its super easy! The only thing that will need to be adjusted will be the HP values of monsters and we have a formulae for that.

What's In The Cellar, a super short adventure where the PCs will investigate a mysterious cellar.

Scritch Scratch, there's rats.

The Derelict, set in the modern-day in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, the thought of a substantial salvage reward drives the investigators to attempt to rescue the a stranded ship, but in doing so they attract the attention of a strange and deadly monster. 

The Lightless Beacon, the ivestigators are unfortunate passengers on a ship heading for Rockport, Massachusetts, on Monday, April 12th, 1926, the night of the new moon. Due to a malfunction at the lighthouse on Beacon Island, their ship founders on nearby rocks, forcing the investigators to take to a small lifeboat and head to Beacon Island for refuge in the growing storm.

Dead Boarder, a murder investigation, which centers on the discovery of a body in a locked room.

Paid Call of Cthulhu Adventure Modules

Even though they aren’t exactly “indie,” just about any non-WotC company that makes TTRPGs is an ally against the monopoly crushing the entire hobby and art form of TTRPGs, so we would love it if you could support them as well as supporting us. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy wouldn’t exist without Call of Cthulhu, and especially not without Call of Cthulhu adventure modules! In fact they’re like one of the only “big” names out there that still regularly puts out adventure modules, which seem to be a lost artform seemingly everywhere else despite once being being absolutely synonymous with GMing. They’ve been making new official Call of Cthulhu adventure modules consistently for like forty years, and buying and playing these will encourage them to keep doing that.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley (pack of adventures)

The Reeling Midnight, by Tom Lynch. introduces Investigators to Arkham's truly decadent party scene. (I've played this one, pretty good.)

Wasted Youth, by Christopher Smith Adair, explores the roots of juvenile delinquency, culminating in a wild chase through the wilderness.

Spirit of Industry,by Oscar Rios, takes Investigators to the village of Dunwich, where they explore old murders and an ancient mystery.

Proof of Life,by Keith Herber, is a tale of extortion and madness in the Lovecraft Country town of Foxfield.

Malice Everlasting,by Oscar Rios, expores Kingsport and old grudges.

The Night War,by Kevin Ross, sees the author of Kingsport, City in the Mists, revisit his creation when a veteran of the Great War is suddenly haunted by deadly nightmares.

A Mother's Love, by Seth Skorkowsky, author of the Valducan series, takes us to the hidden town Innsmouth, with all its squalor, dangers, and dark corruption in a brand new scenario for New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, 2nd Edition. (I've played this one, pretty good.)

The Things We Leave Behind (pack of adventures)

Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home, by Jeff Moeller. The investigators search for an abducted child in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, where time becomes a serious concern.

Forget Me Not, by Brian M. Sammons.  An accident in a TV truck in rural Michigan sees the investigators awake in a ditch with no recollection of how they got there.

Roots, by Simon Brake. Inquiries into a missing teen will teach the investigators that some mid-west communities prefer to be left alone.

Hell in Texas, by Scott Dorward. After a suicide at a church's east Texas Halloween haunted house, strange events threaten the lives and sanity of all those in the vicinity, including the investigators.

The Night Season, by Jeff Moeller, shows that fandom in Anchorage, Alaska, can go too far when reality begins to shift.

Occam's Razor (pack of adventures)

A Whole Pack of Trouble - a group of film students have gone missing while shooting a found-footage style movie over college break. 

Eye of the Beholder - five days ago, a young woman disappeared while working on an art project.

Frozen Footsteps - A Wendigo-obsessed professor heads off to Michigan's Upper Peninsula for some rare (for him) fieldwork and discovers far more than he bargained for.

Dark and Deep - A snuff film is making the rounds in which a woman is mauled to death by a Deep One. Are the film's establishing shots enough to track down the lighthouse was filmed at and get to the bottom of things?

Visions from Beyond - A late-night voicemail left by a friend/relative in need of immediate help followed by them not answering their phone 

The Watchers - the investigators are contacted by a single woman who lives alone and is being watched by unknown people.

A Cleansing Flame - Bodies are being discovered, burned to death, with no known fire starter/accelerant present.

Does Love Forgive? (pack of single-PC adventures)

Love You To Death, Chicago: February 15th, 1929. It’s a cold winter’s day when the investigator’s good friend Hattie May appears in their office at the detective agency. Her beloved pet dog, Highball, is scheduled to be destroyed later today and she needs the investigator’s help getting him back from the Chicago Police Department. It doesn’t sound like too difficult a task, does it?

Mask of Desire, New York: September, 1932. The investigator, together with their two close friends Anna Konrad and Lucas Reston, has been invited to a party at wealthy—and notorious—socialite Madame de Tisson’s swanky apartment on the Upper West Side. Anna is somewhat distracted by her audition tomorrow for Nancy Turner, the famous jazz orchestra conductor. What is the link between the audition and a mysterious parcel that arrives the next day? And, why do so many people seem to be interested in the contents of the parcel?

Night Mother's Moon (stand-alone adventure), investigators are New York City’s street homeless who come together to solve the mystery of something that is stalking and killing the members of their community. (Playing this one with Eureka right now actually.)

[stoutstoatpress]

VAST Guides are here!

By using VAST, you can learn how to add accessibility tags for screen readers to your PDFs, by using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Acrobat.

I'm super excited to release a brand new publishing community resource: VAST (or Visual Accessibility Skills Toolkit).

>> WWW.VAST.GUIDE <<

VAST is a collection of short articles aiming to spread awareness about what visual impairments are, and how folks in the small press industry can accommodate them.

The guides are split into four sections:

Visual Impairment 101 explores what visual impairments are, how visually impaired people navigate digital content, and introduces some current language and definitions (circa 2023).

Screen reading PDFs explores the basics of how screen readers navigate through digital content. Includes video examples!

Using InDesign introduces different tools that designers can use to make their documents more accessible.

Putting Into Practice presents case studies of common structures in roleplaying games, and how they could be given accessibility tags using tools covered in section 3. (Coming soon!)

VAST was developed by Brian Tyrrell (me!), and disability advocate and accessibility consultant Yubi Coates. Visually impaired consultants and InDesign experts were brought in to corroborate the guides.

All of the information in the guides is up to date, and we’re committed to reviewing and updating the guides in 2024 and 2025.

This project was completed using a small pot of funding provided by Creative Scotland’s Create: Inclusion program in 2022.

[mc-illustrations]

✨ Free TTRPG Character Portraits ✨

A set of tieflings ready to inspire your next PC or NPC! You can download them for free here☕

[tashisha]

Homebrew subterranean cave map, feel free to use this for your own adventure!

[bekandrew]

Free Resource Downloadable

The Further Reading Section of "Operation Lavender," a trans-focused adventure for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant set in the Southern US and written by a Southern trans guy, is up on my Patreon for all members. https://www.patreon.com/posts/operation-108488268

[colorico-art]

I moved away from D&D personally, but with everything going on with WotC, sharing this information I feel is very needed. Enjoy the resources for anyone looking into TTRPGs (for those interested in other systems, I recommend checking out r/rpg on Reddit; not everyone will care for D&D or Pathfinder, so that thread will help you find the system that works best for you and your group)

I might've added the BG3 Art Book to my dnd assets stash

It's got stuff like the 5e players' handbook + 5e’s character sheet, the dm's guide, critical role's explorer's guide to wildmount, baldur's gate and waterdeep city encounters, 101 potions and their effects, volo's guide to monsters, both of Xanathar's guides, a bunch of other encounters, one shots, class builds, and other fun stuff!!

[calsdice]

Cal's NPC Collection

The list ahead is filled with all the NPCs I have created for your use! All NPCs created below are are fully fleshed out (some also have art and stat blocks for Dungeons & Dragons 5e).

All NPC related content will be found under the tag 'cals npc collection,' including content not on this list such as random ideas and concepts I don't flesh out. NOTE: If you use my NPCs in created content (in recorded or streamed gameplay etc.) please give credit where you sit fit! Please do not actively monetise my work. ✧ ˚ 　· 　　 .

[[ Content to be added ]]

[canonkiller]

Hi, I'm Canon. I'm a disabled artist with some kind of gender and homosexual tendencies. You might have seen my usernames around in posts about loving OCs, or complaining about video game inaccessibility, or attached to one of the worm-centric comics I made, like these ones:

I hate having to ask for help when there's already so much going on, but I am also At My Limit.

To make a long story short, I am very disabled in multiple ways and I am living in a very inaccessible (and often directly disability-hostile) home. While I live with family, they do not provide assistance (financial or otherwise) and our rural location and the glacial pace of Canada's social services have left me A Bit Fucked. (Whatever you think Canada's health care provides, either it doesn't, or it takes half a year to even book an appointment.)

I've asked for help in the past with smaller goals, but costs continue to add up - and this time, finally, I may be able to actually make permanent accessibility changes to the household... if I can fund it myself. On the amount I get from the disability support program in my province, I can't do that; I would have to stop eating for months to afford even one of the major renovations in that time, and, obviously, I can't do that.

What kind of accessibility updates would this be going towards?:

A wheelchair ramp at at least one exit of the house; there are four potential exits, and all of them are currently multiple sets of stairs without railings.

A stair lift (for upstairs access) or a walk in tub (for downstairs access), depending on what my family will agree to

Dressers / storage that I am physically capable of opening

HRT (guess what isn't covered by Canada's health care, apparently!)

A whole mess of medical appointments (vision, prescriptions, dental, infinite various symptom testings) and transportation to and from those appointments (guess what else isn't covered!!)

A functional freezer

Physiotherapy 👍

Food 👍👍👍

And how can you donate?:

Donate directly to my Ko-fi page

Pledge monthly to my Ko-fi membership tiers

Order a commission from me (you'll be added to a queue; I can't provide completion time estimates right now)

Buy my premade digital goods (TTRPG resources, bases, tattoo tickets, etc) through Ko-fi or itch.io

Buy my art on physical goods through Redbubble or INPRNT

Buy designs / adoptables I've made through Toyhouse

Buy things off of my Amazon accessibility wishlist

I'm trying to buy used and second-hand / go through free stuff groups where I can to save costs, so I don't have a fixed goal and genuinely every bit helps. I really want to be able to get back to functioning somewhat normally, and due to Circumstances - as embarrassing as it is - I can't do that on my own, and I can't keep struggling with it the way I have been.

Thank you for your time, and any help you're able to provide. Reblogs are welcome and appreciated.

[thecoppercompendium]

So, you want to make a TTRPG…

Image from Pexels.

I made a post a long while back about what advice you would give to new designers. My opinions have changed somewhat on what I think beginners should start with (I originally talked about probability) but I thought it might be useful to provide some resources for designers, new and established, that I've come across or been told about. Any additions to these in reblogs are much appreciated!

This is going to be a long post, so I'll continue beneath the cut.

SRDs

So, you have an idea for a type of game you want to play, and you've decided you want to make it yourself. Fantastic! The problem is, you're not sure where to start. That's where System Reference Documents (SRDs) can come in handy. There are a lot of games out there, and a lot of mechanical systems designed for those games. Using one of these as a basis can massively accelerate and smooth the process of designing your game. I came across a database of a bunch of SRDs (including the licenses you should adhere to when using them) a while back, I think from someone mentioning it on Tumblr or Discord.

SRDs Database

Probability

So, you have a basic system but want to tweak it to work better with the vision you have for the game. If you're using dice, this is where you might want to consider probability. Not every game needs this step, but it's worth checking that the numbers tell the story you're trying to tell with your game. For this, I'll link the site I did in that first post, AnyDice. It allows you to do a lot of mathematical calculations using dice, and see the probability distribution that results for each. There's documentation that explains how to use it, though it does take practice.

AnyDice

Playtesting

So you've written the rules of your game and want to playtest it but can't convince any of your friends to give it a try. Enter Quest Check. Quest Check is a website created by Trekiros for connecting potential playtesters to designers. I can't speak to how effective it is (I've yet to use it myself) but it's great that a resource like it exists. There's a video he made about the site, and the site can be found here:

Quest Check

Graphic Design and Art

Game is written and tested? You can publish it as-is, or you can make it look cool with graphics and design. This is by no means an essential step, but is useful if you want to get eyes on it. I've got a few links for this. First off, design principles:

Design Cheatsheet

Secondly, art. I would encourage budding designers to avoid AI imagery. You'll be surprised how good you can make your game look with only shapes and lines, even if you aren't confident in your own artistic ability. As another option, public domain art is plentiful, and is fairly easy to find! I've compiled a few links to compilations of public domain art sources here (be sure to check the filters to ensure it's public domain):

Public Domain Sources 1

Public Domain Sources 2

You can also make use of free stock image sites like Pexels or Pixabay (Pixabay can filter by vector graphics, but has recently become much more clogged with AI imagery, though you can filter out most of it, providing it's tagged correctly).

Pexels

Pixabay

Fonts

Turns out I've collected a lot of resources. When publishing, it's important to bear in mind what you use has to be licensed for commercial use if you plan to sell your game. One place this can slip through is fonts. Enter, my saviour (and eternal time sink), Google Fonts. The Open Font License (OFL) has minimal restrictions for what you can do with it, and most fonts here are available under it:

Google Fonts

Publishing

So, game is designed, written, and formatted. Publishing time! There are two places that I go to to publish my work: itch.io and DriveThruRPG. For beginners I would recommend itch - there's less hoops to jump through and you take a much better cut of what you sell your games for, but DriveThruRPG has its own merits (@theresattrpgforthat made great posts here and here for discovering games on each). Itch in particular has regular game jams to take part in to inspire new games. I'll link both sites:

itch.io

DriveThruRPG

Finally, a bunch of other links I wasn't sure where to put, along with a very brief summary of what they are.

Affinity Suite, the programs I use for all my layout and designing. Has an up-front cost to buy but no subscriptions, and has a month-long free trial for each.

Affinity Suite

A database of designers to be inspired by or work with. Bear in mind that people should be paid for their work and their time should be respected.

Designer Directory

An absolute behemoth list of resources for TTRPG creators:

Massive Resources List

A site to make mockups of products, should you decide to go that route:

Mockup Selection

A guide to making published documents accessible to those with visual impairments:

Visual Impairment Guidelines

A post from @theresattrpgforthat about newsletters:

Newsletter Post

Rascal News, a great place to hear about what's going on in the wider TTRPG world:

Rascal News

Lastly, two UK-specific links for those based here, like me:

A list of conventions in the UK & Ireland:

Convention List

A link to the UK Tabletop Industry Network (@uktabletopindustrynetwork) Discord where you can chat with fellow UK-based designers:

TIN Discord

That's all I've got! Feel free to reblog if you have more stuff people might find useful (I almost certainly will be)!

[paperkoopa]

This looks super useful

So many “how to find free/budget TTRPG art” guides are just like “Pixabay exists” and that’s it. Even with the resources, it’s difficult to actually find usable art, especially if you’re looking for illustrations and not photos, and ESPECIALLY now that you have to wade through AI stuff on a lot of these websites

[anim-ttrpgs]

Do you have any suggestions for system-agnostic modules that work well for Eureka's urban horror-fantasy vibe? I saw that there's some publisher suggestions in the free rulebook, but I thought I'd ask if you all have any favorites!

We actually have a post just for this!

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

@starshinescribbles developed this incredible resource for ttrpg creators, and it’s too good not to share!

Pictures, sounds, fonts, frameworks, and no AI shit!

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

🎁 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁!⁠ [12/14] This content has been generously donated by NAME to be shared while The Griffon's Saddlebag takes a vacation! Please support these creators and their excellent content!⁠ ⁠ Related downloads are available *for free* through the link in my Vacation highlighted story! ⁠ ___⁠ ⁠ Moonlight Maps is a well known and active cartographer. His printed map atlases are some of my favorites! He also has a great assortment of map packs you can purchase as one-off resources, making it an easy choice for your TTRPG map needs!⁠ ⁠ This map pack includes versions for PRINT and VTT use! Better yet, this also has an included FOUNDRY VTT manifest link, so if you like using Foundry for your games, be sure to use to use the "Vacation" highlighted story on my profile to grab this collection! ___ ✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for as little as $3 a month!

[theresattrpgforthat]

TTRPGs for people with dyscalculia?

THEME : Dyscalculia Friendly.

Hello friend, I’m going to first point you to the Math-Lite Chaotic Murder Hobos recommendation post I wrote up a year or two ago.

What I understand about dyscalculia is that in can affect the ability to do mental math, but I'm not sure how much it affects number recognition. I have a few games here that ask you to read the faces on a die, but I don't think any of them expect you to do any addition. I hope you find something fun on this list!

Cats of Catthulu, by Joel Sparks.

CATS OF CATTHULHU is the beloved rules-light roleplaying game in which the players take the part of ordinary cats, secretly defending human civilization from the Chaos Cults of the other animals. All the players have to do is act like cats, while the Cat Herder arranges exciting challenges for them—anything from snacky time to daringly interrupting dire rituals.

In Cats of Catthulhu, the way the story will go is always a mystery. You and your friends play to find out what happens. One person, the Cat Herder, arranges the secrets and situations, and sets the scene, but even they don’t know where the night will end. The players take the role of individual, ordinary cats. All you really need to do is act like a cat.

It might be a bit difficult to get your hands on them, but the original dice for Cats of Catthulhu don’t have any numbers on them; instead, they have sad cats and happy cats. Whenever a cat does something, they roll 2 of these dice. Rolling a Happy Cat is a success; rolling a Sad Cat is a failure. The reasoning behind these dice is: cats can’t do math!

If you can’t get your hands on cat dice, you can use any old d6, and regard 1-2 as Sad Cats and 3-6 as Happy Cats. You’ll also want to get some kind of physical token to use as Treats, which are player currency used to allow free re-rolls. Cats of Catthulhu is great for groups who are mostly getting together to just have a fun time, ready to act silly and get into all kinds of shenanigans.

DUSK, by Gila RPGs.

Equipped with the latest suntech, you are tasked with venturing out into the Dusk, and helping bring a new dawn to humanity. The Dusk does not want you there. 

Good luck.

In DUSK, you play as Shards, survivors on the planet Obron after the devastating nova-event that saw your world destroyed. Now you wield powerful technology fueled by pieces of your dead sun, in hopes of surviving another day. DUSK uses the LUMEN 2.0 system, and is a diceless RPG focused on resource management rather than luck or chance. 

As a diceless game, DUSK feels a lot different from a number of other diceless games, and I think that’s because of the style of game it’s working off of. LUMEN games are more about strategy than they are about narrative, and in DUSK that’s carried forward in the form of Suntech, items that require energy to power and provide specific advantages.

DUSK is still a relatively new game, but the designer is prolific in the amount of quality work he’s released in the past - and so when he says that there’s more to come, you best believe there’s more to come. If you’d still like to roll dice but you like the idea of the setting in this game, you might want to check out NOVA, which also uses the LUMEN system but gives you dice to roll or LUNA, a game about cultists trying to destroy the moon. Both of these games use pools of d6’s and ask you to look for the highest number, so I don’t think there’s that much math involved.

CASE & SOUL, by Briar Sovereign.

CASE&SOUL is a lightweight tabletop game for telling action-packed stories in the mecha genre. CASE&SOUL is designed for one-shots and short to mid length campaigns. Speed through a lightweight downtime; hire freelancers to pad out your Crew’s skills on missions. Customize your playbooks with SOUL moves, and enjoy a cut-down FITD gameplay with just the essentials for fast and flexible sessions.

Forged in the Dark games use a dice pool, rather than abilities with modifiers. You add dice from various places on your worksheet, and try to roll at least one 4 or higher. Rolling a 4 or 5 is usually a mixed success, and rolling a 6 is a complete success. Personally, I’m a big fan of games that use dice pools, as I’m also not a fan of trying to add up all of those numbers, and having to just look for the single highest dice helps speed up action resolution.

At the same time, Forged in the Dark games can have a lot of moving pieces at once, especially if the GM wants to track a large number of factions, or players want to plan multiple-stage missions. CASE & SOUL advertises itself as a slimmed-down version of these kinds of games, but I can’t tell whether or not that is the case when I look at the character sheets. What intrigues me is the CASE and SOUL tracks; I think your CASE is your Mech, and it receives Harm differently than your SOUL, which is an interesting way to measure how much your mech is (or is not) part of you.

Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, by Edge Studio.

In the center of the universe hangs the Crucible, a gigantic artificial world created by the enigmatic Architects and home to countless beings and cultures. Here, impossibly advanced technologies mix with arcane powers to make for a setting unlike any other! Uncovering the secrets of this mysterious world will take all your skills—but the potential rewards are boundless…

Explore this world of boundless opportunity in Secrets of the Crucible, a new sourcebook for the Genesys Roleplaying System set in the KeyForge universe!

You’ll need the Genesys Rulebook for this one, because the main reason I’m recommending Secrets of the Crucible is because of the dice system. Genesys dice don’t use numbers; they use symbols that represent success and failure - and they also have symbols that deepen the nuance of each roll. You can roll advantages or disadvantages that calibrate exactly how much you succeed, as well as triumphs or despairs that give you the same kind of highs and lows as a Nat 20 or a Nat 1 in D&D. This means that each roll tells you so much more about what’s going on around you than just whether you open a door or sweet-talk a guard.

As for the setting, Keyforge is originally a card game published by Fantasy Flight games, about a world called the Crucible, full of secrets that various factions are competing to unlock. It reminds me of the worlds of Magic: the Gathering or League of Legends, with various settings that look very distinct from each-other, and represent different styles of play.

SHIVER, by Parable Games.

WHAT IS SHIVER?

SHIVER is a tabletop roleplaying game that lets players bring their favourite scary movies, spooky tv shows, and horror stories to life. Ever wanted to play through the plot of your favourite film on the tabletop? Or wanted to make sequels, prequels and original stories in the worlds of pop culture you love? SHIVER lets you play that!

SHIVER is setting neutral allowing you to play any story, anytime, and as anyone. Want to play a game of teens in survival mode against a zombie horde? Kids on Bikes who dread exploring a haunted house on Halloween night? Or perhaps a medieval monster hunter looking for a werewolf, vampire or mage? SHIVER can deliver stories and characters for anything from cult pulp classic to Cthulhu fuelled eldritch mystery.

The designer of SHIVER set out with the goal of making games easier for his friends, who had similar struggles with games that had too much math involved. Players roll six-sided and eight-sided dice with various symbols on them, looking for the symbol that represents their character's strengths. The more difficult the task is, the more of the required symbol you need. The game itself is recognized as a class-act horror game, good for everything from pulp-action to gothic fiction to slasher horror. If you don't have the special dice, you can substitute with d6's & d8's, or you can use the free Dice Roller designed for this game.

Tournament Arc, by Biscuit Fund Games.

Are you looking to experience the triumphs and defeats of Space Hyper-Basketball? Need to feel the epic highs and dizzying lows of card games in the post-apocalypse? Want to face the trials and tribulations of the cheese-rolling World Circuit?

Tournament Arc is your very own collaborative sports anime experience, made in the diceless Belonging Outside Belonging engine popularized by games like Dream Askew and Wanderhome. In every thrilling episode, you’ll play the part of the Team as they negotiate the complexities of their daily lives, explore a collaboratively created world, and, most importantly, play the Game.

Tournament Arc is both diceless and GM-less, and is designed to tell stories about teambuilding and competitive sports, although the setting appears to be pretty flexible. The Belonging Outside Belonging game system provides each character type with prompts, and sorts those prompts into different categories. Usually there will be some things you can always do that generate tokens as well as narrative obstacles, and then other things that you can only do when you spend tokens - and as a result, also help characters confront those narrative obstacles. If you have players that like having something tactile to keep in their hands as they play, you might like Tournament Arc.

Warehouse Bitches, by Darling Demon Games.

The Time Worm arrived as it was prophesied just as the crown fell upon his head, and all potentials collapsed into a single haunted citadel, which you call Hex City. You are transgender punks and goths from earth, and in this place your powerful hearts make you witches, daemons, beast-people and arcane architects. We bide our time, smoking and drinking, playing video games and eyeing the crumbling walls of our enemy, The Lord of Olympus.

In Warehouse Bitches, you play as one of the titular warehouse-dwelling trans folk in the hellish Hex City. In this GMless Belonging Outside Belonging game with a unique coin-flip mechanic, you'll wield magic, build allies across the city and fight back against the bastards in subtle ways.

I’ve already explained a bit about how Belonging Outside Belonging works, but Warehouse Bitches adds another layer by using coins as tokens. Using coins, your options are different depending on whether or not the coin is on Heads or Tails. The moves on your character sheet are not just differentiated between Strong and Vulnerable, they’re also differentiated between Heads or Tails, and you must have matching sides of the coins showing in order to be able to use those moves. Characters also have Magic moves, which require the player to flip every coin they currently hold, and reassign those coins based on whatever side they land on.

Warehouse Bitches has only 4 playbooks as it stands now, so a group of 4 players is probably the largest group that can play the book as it stands now. The game is GM-less, but looking at the rules, I think it would be possible to have someone pick up the GM role in order to introduce complications and narrate the actions of various other factions in town. Similar to other BoB games, there are zones that have various elements and details that need to be decided as you play, which will also help provide events and interesting features that keep the game fresh and exciting.

[cripplecharacters]

hello! feel free to ignore me if this is slightly outside the boundaries of this account, but i'm a tabletop roleplaying game (ttrpg) designer looking for opinions on mechanics for disability in games.

my game specifically covers a lot of themes that, while not about disability, would make me feel remiss to not include some explicit mention of how physically/mentally disabled characters fit into the greater picture of the game. it has a specific focus on telling stories of diverse characters, for one, and on fighting the unfair capitalist systems that harm these marginalized groups.

my issue lies in how, exactly, to both treat this topic respectfully and make the characters not feel out of place or unbalanced. i've considered several options, and was curious to hear from a physically disabled perspective how to proceed (i am mentally ill & neurodivergent, but to my knowledge not physically disabled).

option one: mention that disabled characters of all kinds are encouraged, and talk about roleplaying them or provide resources for how to handle them respectfully, but don't apply any specific rules with hard mechanics or numbers to them. this option is least likely to be inadvertently misconstrued or written poorly on my part, but may make disability feel like a "flavour" side note.

option two: provide examples for some common disabilities on the mechanical effects (such as a low vision character rolling less dice on rolls to notice visual details) without any "counteracting" mechanics. this one gives mechanical weight to disability, so it feels less like an afterthought, but may discourage people from playing disabled characters as they would be more likely to fail than other characters.

option three: the above, but with mechanical incentives for roleplaying in a way that acknowledges the character's disability. a "benefit", but less "giving a blind character echolocation" and more "gain XP for showing your characters disability and any aids they use" (similar mechanics exist for following your character's goals/personality traits). this would make disabled characters be more on par mechanically with other characters, but i fear it may come across as... viewing disabled characters as not worth it without some sort of benefit, i suppose?

apologies for the long rambling message, but i'd love to hear which of these options (or another suggestion) you'd be happiest to see in a game written by someone who isn't physically disabled! this is far from the focus of my game, but it's still an important part of the greater theme that i'd love to be able to get right. thanks! (similarly, if there are any groups not covered in the "underrepresented but common disabilities" post from your FAQ that you'd want to see in a game, i'd also be happy to hear those!)

Hello!

First things first, thank you so much for thinking about this! This isn't something that most TTRGs consider and, as a massive nerd who plays DND, Pathfinder, and other tabletop games, this has always been a big pet peeve of mine since making a disabled character is always unnecessarily hard to do with the game mechanics and rarely works out well.

Most of the time, I have to talk to my GM about how to make it work in their game and, unfortunately, I'm often told they won't allow it because it's "too much trouble".

This is all just to say, I really love the idea here and the fact that you're actually thinking about these things and wanting to do well by them is great!

Now, taking a look at the options:

Option One

One of the unfortunate things that I see a lot is people that are too scared to get something wrong with representation (Or social justice on a broader scale) that they don't try to do it at all. With this current era of cancel culture and people's reactions to what they deem 'offensive', it's understandable to be a bit apprehensive but if you're approaching the subject from a place of respect and you're receptive to learning and improving, most people will appreciate the effort.

While this option does sidestep the main issue you've identified, I do think it sidesteps the attempt at making disability part of your game as well. You can encourage people to make disabled characters all you want but without any real content for them in the game, it won't do much.

If you do go with this option, I'd strongly suggest including some information on the culture of your world and how it relates to disability, both to provide more substance to the content and to give players a bit to go off of when making a disabled character.

Option Two

I like this option much more than the first one, though I do agree that it may discourage people from choosing to play a disabled character.

Within the game mechanics, I think it makes a lot of sense to have these kinds of effects but I would encourage you to include more variety with it. Disability isn't 'one size fits all' and two disabled people can have different needs, strengths, and experiences -- even if they have the exact same disability. Instead, I'd suggest going for a slightly different model that includes more choices.

For example, a character with low vision may:

- Roll lower on perception checks involving vision

or

- Have disadvantage with ranged weapons/attacks

or

- Have lower rolls/less success in dim lighting

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Having more options for how the character's disability affects them allows players to make a choice for how they want to play the character while also encouraging them to think more about how their character's disability might affect them and impact their life.

The examples given are all reflections of how blindness can affect somebody. Blind spots or blurry vision can make it more difficult to notice certain visual changes, severe nearsightedness can make it difficult to aim/focus on things that are far away, night blindness can make it difficult to see in the dark or in dim lighting, etc. That being said, there are dozens of other ways to go about this (Though I'd advise sticking to five options per disability at most to avoid overwhelming people).

Option Three

Personally, I like this one and the second option the most. Although I understand where your concerns are coming from, it feels less like it's implying that disabled characters have to be 'worth it' and more like it's just balancing it out.

Like with the second option, I'd suggest going for more of a choice model here where the player can pick what 'benefit' (For lack of better word) that their character has -- or even to choose no benefit at all.

Many physically disabled people develop our own skills or tools to compensate for where we struggle, whether this is an intentional decision or just something that happens.

For example, my boyfriend is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair full time. As a result, he has kick-ass upper body strength from it.

Similarly, many deaf and hard of hearing people are more observant when it comes to visual cues and many blind people are more sensitive to other senses (Though, of course, the whole 'super senses' thing is a myth).

While this isn't true of all disabilities or all disabled people in general, it is something worth considering.

That being said, if you do decide to implement this option, make sure that the benefit makes sense for the disability or is related in some way and isn't just something random being tacked on -- that would make it seem more like a 'disabled characters need to be worthwhile' thing.

As a few extra notes:

If you go with the second or third option, I'd suggest separating the different stat effects into different types of disabilities. You don't need to go too into specifics with it but something like 'low vision/blindness/vision loss', 'deafness/hearing loss', 'limited mobility', and 'chronic illness' would work. While disabilities are more nuanced than this in real life, setting it up this way would keep it pretty simple and allow players to tweak the mechanics slightly for their own characters.

If you go with the first option, I'd probably avoid discussing how to roleplay disabled characters. Because roleplay and character development is much more open than stats and game mechanics are, showing one or two 'proper' ways to play a disabled character is more likely to reinforce stereotypes, dismiss certain experiences that disabled people have, or just come across as more of a 'lecture' than anything. The same goes for including information on what to avoid. I'd stick to providing information about your world and how disabilities are seen in them instead of giving instructions here.

I'd suggest including ways for players to bypass the mechanics of disability if they'd like to, even if their character is disabled. That would allow for a bit more freedom with how they portray their character and would also ensure that they aren't being 'penalized' (For lack of a better term) with their stats for playing a disabled character. As a bit of an example of what I mean: A character in DND could have been a criminal growing up without necessarily taking the Criminal/Spy background.

In general, I think as long as you're approaching this respectfully (Which you are!) and reaching out to physically disabled people for their input (Which you are!), you don't have to worry too much about misrepresenting it.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

[catbatart]

UM HEY GUYS???

I've been doing a lot of soul searching in regards to my art, and the result of that is deciding that I want to be much more focused on doing work with TTRPGs and Board Games (as y'all may have seen.)

As such, I want to refocus my work a lot to support that goal.

I'm doing a BIG overhaul of my patreon to focus more on TTRPG illustrations, maps, monsters, assets, etc. These are especially made for people's VTT/Roll20 style games, or for printouts for in-person games. Patrons will have free access to use these in their personal games. I even have a tier for small run commercial use as well!

One of the biggest changes is that patrons will be the only ones who have access to all of my commission slots. I may do sporadic public commissions now and then, but I have to cut down on how many I do to refocus.

This isn't meant to gatekeep commissions, but meant to allow me more time to work on the things I want to focus on. I am NOT quitting comms altogether! I just need to lessen the workload over the year. Anyway, while it's still a rehaul-in-progress, I really hope this style of patreon appeals to some of you! Boosting it to folks who use a lot of TTRPG content and checking it out would mean a TON to me! (Also feedback on what would make this a great experience for folks is always super welcome!)