#indie improv

[fy-perspectives]

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”

David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any low improv TTRPG's? as in low on the GM part, i would like to try some and see how it compares as I'm part of the improv scary crew

THEME: Low Improv Games.

Happy holidays folks! I'm going to try and get the last recommendation posts of the year out quickly, so you might get some more rec posts in the next two weeks!

As for this one friend, I tried to mix things up across game and genre, so I hope you find something you like!

Tunnels in White, by MeatCastle GameWare.

Old money siphoning new money from every corner of your city. An aging mansion, quiet and worn. An old corporation shifting its gaze from development to development, always hungry, always growing.

A warehouse bearing the name Singleton Solutions, small and unassuming in one of a hundred industrial parks like any other, takes in truckload after truckload but never sends anything out. It’s the same for the people. Sometimes, they arrive in towncars, other times in shuttle vans. None come out. Ever.

What you know is something strange is going on inside that warehouse and you are determined to discover what it is. What you cannot know is where and how far the mystery may take you.

Tunnels in White is an adventure for Liminal Horror, a modern-day horror OSR game about normal people being subjected to terrible things. A good number of adventures and mysteries written for these games come with locations, maps, factions, enemies and consequences for you to use as needed whenever your players enter a new location or attempt something dangerous.

I’m really interested in the use of these adventures for various OSR games, as the adventures seem to be what have most of the meat, rather than the rules. If you really want these games to sing, you’ll want your players to create characters that fit the kind of adventure that you’re presenting to the table - in this case, perhaps your characters all have loved ones who have gone missing recently. Once your players have character buy-in, they won’t need much prompting to delve deeper into the mystery, and the fact that Tunnels in White doesn’t have one single “correct” solution to the main problem means that your players’ actions will mean all the more.

I think I see this module as a stepping stone towards improv in that it gives you options to choose from, rather than a singular railroad to follow. What you’ll get out of this is a location that feels logically consistent and real to the players, while the story that happens will feel organic, and heavily dependant on what the group decides to do.

You can find more modules for Liminal Horror in the Tales from the Void Liminal Horror Jam.

The Doom of Macbeth, by leozingiannoni.

Famine. Execution. Oppression. Supernatural longevity that no one seems to quite understand or question. As King Macbeth’s reign approaches its 100th year, your knights receive a revelation in a dream.

It does not have to be like that. 

As an answer to prayers and cries, the god Lugh reveals to you the alternative realities that could be, if Macbeth is not allowed to move on with his coup. You wake up to 100 years in the past, before you were born. What will you do to stop this horrible future?

The Doom of Macbeth is a deep-dive into one of the most iconic plays of all time, where you fight  your way to avoid a future that seems inevitable. Using the Doomsday Clock mechanic found in Arc:Doom by momatoes, you simulate the feeling of the play creeping upon your characters, and must fight against it— or towards it. 

Using a narrative that is familiar to the GM and the players might be another way to enter a game without having to worry too much about improv. Even though this setting is only the size of a brochure, you and your crew can lean on your knowledge of the Scottish play to make things happen the way you want them to. In this version of the game, Macbeth succeeds in becoming a mad king, but you know that this can change, if you tweak the story.

One more thing: I think you might need Arc, by Momatoes, in order to play this game.

Kiss Me If You Can, by sdunnewold.

River is a notorious international art thief and cat burglar. Jules is a well-respected special agent in charge of art crimes. Jules is determined to find and bring River to justice. But maybe along the way… they'll kiss?

Kiss Me If You Can is a simple print and play two player cat and mouse romance game that you can play in under an hour. It features two unique decks of prompt cards, one for each character. Each turn you play a prompt card, answer its questions, maybe talk about a famous artist or painting, and get a little closer to justice and/or love.

Another two-player experience, Kiss Me If You Can feels very similar to games that are Descended from the Queen, in that the bulk of the game revolves around drawing cards and answering the prompts provided. You’ll come up with locations, personal motives, and reasons for your characters to end up getting closer to each-other, but the cards provide a lot of direction, so I don’t think I’d necessarily classify it as improv. If you want a cute romantic story about a will-they-won’t-they scenario, you might like Kiss Me If You Can.

Exalted Order of the Mystic Moose, by Jacob Marks.

The Mauvewoods. You can’t hope to see the crown of a mauvewood tree from the ground. It took a day just to climb to the top of the oldest trees. Look past the undergrowth and ghosts can be spotted on the old lumber paths. Every ghost you see used to live in a mauvewood tree. Knock on a healthy tree, and you just might hear a hollow wooden knock in answer.

This zine details a forest, a town, and a dungeon, all intended for use with the tabletop roleplaying game: Cairn. Explore a forest full of lumberjacks, maple syrup, and strange ghosts. Delve into an old mansion sinking into a marsh. Confront the Exalted Order Of The Mystic Moose.

Cairn has a few editions now: the link I’ve added to this entry is for the 2nd edition Warden’s Guide, and you can check out Yochai Gal’s creator page for both the Player’s Guide and the First Edition. This adventure has oodles of locations, three main factions, and a 20 room dungeon for your players to explore. Cairn feels like a very traditional fantasy game at its roots, but the Exalted Order of the Mystic Moose feels like like a unique take, with some flavour that feels very Boreal Forest to me.

Like many OSR adventures, this isn’t a linear adventure - instead is a series of connected locations and a broad description of things that are happening when the player group shows up. The setting has a natural conflict that is happening separately from the players’ choices or decisions, which will make the setting feel more real and important to your play.

If you want to explore more adventures for Cairn, you can check out the A Town, A Forest, A Dungeon Jam!

Totally Killer, by bloodygorgeous.

When you were kids, all the girls—and, certainly, some of the boys—wanted a Chrissy, the only fashion doll to give Barbie a run for her money. Chrissy was designed to be the woman every girl dreamed of becoming: stylish, smart, independent, and, most importantly, a total smokeshow. For a while, shelves exploded with Out of This World Astronaut Chrissies. Protect and Serve Policewoman Chrissies. ’80s prom queen Totally Killer Chrissies. Chrissy could do anything, all while her boyfriend Ben waited at home. Chrissy could have it all. Decades later, as Chrissy fever descends again on Deep Lake, a murderer stalks the night. The police have their theories, but only the Latchkeys suspect the truth: that this killer has long legs, an unstoppable smile, and a passion for fashion. Chrissy has come to life, and she’s come to slay.

Public Access is horror-mystery found-footage style game that relies on pre-written mysteries to give the table an organic approach to role-play. While typically PbtA games are considered very high in improv, I think the mystery format of these kinds of games takes a lot of weight off of the GM’s shoulders. Typically these mysteries provide a very strong starting point, introducing the table to the mystery and some key characters to look to for hints and clues. The GM is also provided with a series of clues to drop into the game where relevant - perhaps a headless doll is found where one of the victims went missing, or a mysterious silhouette lurking in the distance.

These kinds of games also typically come with some kind of track to help monitor both the progress of the latch-keys as well ask heighten the stakes to encourage the story to keep moving. In other games, I know that this track is called the mystery clock. I’m not entirely sure what Public Access uses, but the core rulebook looks to have quite a bit hidden within its pages, so I’m confident that it contains everything you need to run your first game.

You can find more mysteries for Public Access in the Degoya County Public Access Jam.

Auctōrātus, by M. Allen Hall.

You know why you are here. You are not a criminal. You are not a slave. You are an auctōrātus, a volunteer, and you will be paid well for your performance. Make sure your mech is ready. Select your components. Charge your batteries. Be prepared for the fight of your life.

Auctōrātus is a 1- or 2-gladiator game of mechs vs. monsters. The 3 files include the one-page (2-sided) rules sheet, the character sheet, and the map of the arena.

Battle monsters over six rounds to win the tournament. From the lowly Scale Wolf to the monstrous Crescent Wyvern, you will need to carefully choose your mech's components if you want to survive. 

Featuring a diceless, zero-luck mechanism,  Auctōrātus is an experiment in tabletop combat. Since this is a one or two-player game that focuses primarily on strategy, you might find a lot of satisfaction in simply immersing yourself in strategy. You can play the game solo and manage everything yourself, or play as two players who take turns playing the monsters in each person’s respective arenas.

A Good Plan Never Fails, by Deric Bindel.

A GOOD PLAN NEVER FALLS is a one-shot, gm-less roleplaying game for 2-5 players focused on infiltrating a TOWER and making off with THE GOODS held within. The group builds up with a tumbling block game, with each move taking everyone closer to collapse or success!

Over the course of play, everyone will create a member of the Crew from a set of Archetypes and receive a special Secret Agenda, dictating how they get their BONUS. You'll be bulding up the TOWER, dictating each obstacle and how you overcome them. When the TOWER inevitably COLLAPSES, it's time to shift from the HEIST to the GETAWAY!

A really strong feature of pulp-action genre games is that they’re typically heavily inspired by movies, like heists or cons. This means that the game has a pretty familiar structure, such as the infiltration or the getaway. You can rely on the hallmarks of these genres when playing these kinds of games to fill in the blanks, and it’s easy to figure out what happens next because the game builds each phase onto the last. In the case of this game, that means that the first part of the game, building the tower, leads into the second part, when the tower collapses.

Kill Him Faster, by Korvidae Games.

On May 8th, 2068, scientist Elisabet Rosenzweig answered the most pressing question in science fiction – “what’s the first thing you would do if you could travel through time?” - by killing Hitler. It took her precisely 5 years, 137 days, eight hours, and 12 seconds.

Fifteen years later killing Hitler is the hottest sport on the planet. The record stands at two weeks.

Competitive games are another great structure for play groups that want to build on something without needing a lot of heavy improv. In Kill Him Faster, the game is divided into three phases: pregame, game, and post-game, each composed of press conferences, the competitive portion, and interviews. There’s various additional phases for a longer game, including Trade Day (where athletes swap teams) and off-season vignettes, which allow you to slow down and focus on individual characters.

If you want a taste of the game before you buy, you can get the rules preview here.

Other Notes

A Complicated Profession by Always Checkers Publishing has a lot of guiding questions and a very structured order of play, and follows reformed bounty hunters running a cruise ship.

Tournament Arc, by Biscuit Fund Games, focuses on sports competitions, which may provide a structure that is easy to follow, as well as a more collaborative experience.

If you like what I do and you'd like to send me a token of your appreciation, I have a Ko-Fi page!

[akabaka-dev]

Akabaka does not have a favorite character from SFL Date to Die For. He loves his children equally.

I, however, DO.

Look at my boy~ Amazing.

The VA, Justice Washington, was so compelling. I feel like I should do a supercut of streamers reacting to Buck's voice for the first time

(I am a pathological villain supporter)

[sugaryspicedmilk]

Arctic Ballora Redraw: 2024 vs 2020

I redrew one of my old artworks from 2020 to get into the Christmas spirit and to see how much I have improved since the start of the decade.

I hope you like it! 💙❄️

[starryjkoo]

that 1billion project is such a poor idea and the way that it’s being run feels so sinister to me sometimes…

the fact that they (armys) started it after like crazy got 1B...

Oh, absolutely. They couldn’t even let 24 hours pass after LC hit 1billion before they started on this project, like they were in a hurry to co-opt the energy for LC and have it distributed to the other members. And I think that’s because there’s a good section of ARMYs who genuinely can’t comprehend the fact that Jimin has a really large solo fanbase (I don’t even mean just solos, just anyone who casually listens to his music). I’m not sure why they thought the energy for LC would suddenly transfer to this 1billion project when overall ARMYs have just been losing energy as time goes on in CH2.

They could have started this project anytime during CH2 or after Seven hit 1billion but they literally waited until the day that LC hit that achievement because imo it feels like so many of them use Jimin and his achievements as the goal-post for the entire group.

It’s like, why are they choosing to update that 1billion projection chart suddenly during Jimin’s comeback, knowing how the quotes/comments would just be full of people being vile. IIRC they did this during SGMB too, where they literally started pushing the 1billion project hard after it had been quiet for a few weeks. They even did it during SGMB’s 1st tracking week. I understand pushing some SGMB x 1billion goal focused playlists, but why entirely try to divert the attention from a NEW song if you’re actually OT7?

Like I said, they suddenly see a lot of energy on the timeline because Jimin is releasing music and they try to co-opt it to get people to push for other members too. And I understand to a point because they just think that this is the fandom being energized, let’s take advantage of it to boost the members that need a push, but… this is solo era. And the excitement and energy for Jimin’s music is because… people are excited for Jimin’s music. There’s just something off to me about trying to use the hype for Jimin, created by Jimin (because of his consistency with releasing music that resonates with the fandom and having engaging performances) and using it for other members.

Especially when doing so has led to so much nasty discourse being AIMED at Jimin, as if all the western stans and kpop stans and akgaes and shippers going after him nonstop every day wasn't already enough. And that’s why I side-eye the main people doing this, because they should know that by pushing this project in the way that they are, it just brings hatred towards two members specifically, and in particular Jimin when it’s during his comeback. Is it really worth it, instead of just setting more manageable goals for HL and using positivity and small improvements over time to encourage ARMYs instead? Isn’t that more practical to begin with?

Mind you, I know the reason that this is being pushed so hard by some ARMYs in particular is because they want the BTS members to get the achievement of “all members of a group with one solo song reaching 1billion” before the BP members do, and that’s just… so dumb imo.

Anyways sorry this got away from me, this 1billion thing is just really driving me up a wall lately for a lot of different reasons. And I want to specify I'm talking about some of the organizers and main people behind this project and not ARMYs at large (and ANOTHER disclaimer I don't think everyone organizing/pushing this project has bad intentions).

And ofc I wish we could do better for RL, but I feel like there are SO MANY different projects we could be doing instead of whatever this is, which imo is just so counterproductive and just brings hate towards Jikook, and especially Jimin considering they keep doing this during his comebacks.

[tomatomagica]

2021 / 2023 art of my vtuber bestie Web

comms | Twitch

[dmbakura]

Bg3 hitting the "actually this game is bad" part of the hype cycle more than like half a year after it released is so fucking funny to me. Usually it only takes like a month or 2 for people to start overanalyzing the fuck out of a good game and convince themselves it's actually shit but the fact the game is so big and dynamic that it took this long is impressive

[androdragynous]

btw gamedev accessibility check speedrun tactic is just have every element use at least two senses. i also think of it as the nirnroot test, specifically because of the plant in Skyrim that glows and makes a weird noise at you so you can locate it.

often, because these are games, that will be "sight" and "sound", but with things like controller rumble it can also include "touch". most games do not include "taste" and "smell", but to the devs out there inevitably working on that, you have my respect.

anyways. the multi-sense check is basically:

if something is only present as an audio cue, like a sound effect in a certain direction, add a visual effect / cue or captions that include a directional indicator. if all dialogue is spoken, try to include subtitles (even better if you have various font sizes, or light and dark mode toggles).

if something is only present as a visual cue, like an item you can interact with being a different color, add an audio effect like a sound that plays when you're touching an interactive object. if all dialogue is written, try and include text to speech options, voice actors (a big ask, I know) or compatibility with screen readers.

it doesn't cover every situation (toggles for flashing, snow / rain / particle effects, high pitched noises, etc for example only affect one sense) but if you're really lost on where to start with making your work accessible. well. it's a start!

[jumpyj3st3r]

Redraw of an old PT fanart (old one on the right)

[numiolaes]

" The Prince of Cumberland!—That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. "

Independent, selective & private Aemond Targaryen of mixed canon origins. Dark themes, dark content. sporadic to medium activity. Egged on by Train.

[riptidekissesblog]

✧hey girlies,

today while i was tanning i came up with this quote. if you enjoy the present moment, your focus will be where it really matters. if you're not enjoying the present moment, what a waste of time!! make little changes to make life more fun! I'll have to make a post soon listing ways to start living in the moment.

love you babe, follow for more༺♥༻∞

[icarianlibrary]

2024 Art vs Artist!!

[nevermoredragon-main]

But then you came around

Said, “It’s time to let go”

And you took me to a place I don’t know

[therealmackenson10]

If you have the time please check out my latest single. Now streaming on Spotify.

Mr. Mack- No Regrets.

Take the leap, risk the fall. What if we fly and not just merely crawl? You can’t tell me this is all there is when there are footprints on the moon.

[dontcallthedoctor]

Hiya fellaz!! Just wanted to apologize for how quiet I've been this month. I've been struggling with composer's block and haven't been able to get much done, at least nothing worth devoting an entire post to. Hopefully you all understand.

That being said, I did write some "plunky" intermission music for my bestie @mikiib's recent Amazing Digital Improv stream, which you all should def go check out on her channel!! I started early in the morning and just barely squeezed it out in time for the stream, so it could be a lot better, but its rlly all it needed to be :>

I originally wanted to make a version of the Digital Circus theme in the style of elevator music, but couldn't find a way to nicely translate it to that style, so I tried smth more in line with the show's own musical style. The name The Amazing Digital Flight Club is in reference to Flight Club from Pilotwings, which inspired the creation of the track <3

[cyberth0t]

2024 vs 2021

I always attempt to do this as fast as I can, as loose as I can, without references. As you can see, the first four attempts (from three years ago, haha) I gave up including Ro'onui entirely, because I couldn't manage the perspective/anatomy involved without a reference.

anyway none of these pieces are finished/polished, but it's wild to see that my "unfinished" work now can pass as complete!