#realis

[sparksel]

Hand bound some books! First time binding hardcovers. Definitely did some learning on the go here, but so happy with them as a first go at a new thing. Text is the ashcan edition of Realis, the new ttrpg from Austin Walker

[rancidmice]

hye idea from bsky the other day. i can’t listen to the new ep until MONDAY ;n;

[voyaging-too]

Austin Walker's new TTRPG is fascinating to me. Realis is built on a strange core mechanic where characters advance by becoming more specialized, and unlike in the average game where specialist skills are added on top of generic skills, here there's a serious trade-off. A weak ability to win fights grows into a medium ability to win swordfights grows into a powerful ability to win swordfights against royal guards. A weak ability to track prey grows into a medium ability to track prey at night grows into a powerful ability to track prey at night on the tundra. Austen talks about how this is partially inspired by Berserk's changes over decades, and how this will encourage players to start with simplistic, archetypal characters, and mold them over time and through play, into something more unique and specific both in gameplay and storytelling terms.

But also this game's core mechanic is literally just about aging, about the beauties and tragedies of aging and hopefully getting good at one thing but losing the chance of getting good at a hundred other things, mastering your life but letting go of other possibilities. Heavy.

[wanderingandfound]

Friends at the Table 2015: What if Han Solo used to be Beyoncé?

Friends at the Table 2025: What if Han Solo wanted to be Gandalf?

[to-find-out-what-happens]

oh yeah I wanted to share this here as well

I'm reading Realis if you can't tell

[clementineskesh]

REALIS is coming THIS THURSDAY not a drill after years of teasing and waiting it's finally heeeeeerre!!!!!!

[ahcoffeebeans2]

its here (pre-orders only)

[elkinboots]

upon hearing the little descriptions of each character from the realis debut, i rushed to scribble some ideas down. here's some first attempts at Hye, Donnie and Wellaway (???) we're so incredibly back

[dancy-nrew]

some nerveless chancers

[vforvalensa]

Let's fucking go first Realis fan supplement

[swallowtailed]

realis first impressions (intro episode, ashcan, & 01)

THIS IS AN ACT OF MAGIC

we’re soooooooo back. multitudinous factions, “meditations on the ever changing nature of the self, society, and history”, “a game about stories and worlds and words and how those things interact”, roiling sun, bizarre casino, specific stats for birds,

this is a game where the game is what fatt usually does around the game

the rhythm of searching for a way to recontextualize the situation is really neat, particularly as driven by absolutes (“i always”)

it’s SO slick, is the thing. beginning with an broad archetypical statement about a character and making that statement more specific and effective by disproving it—that’s so clean. the wood carving metaphor is perfect. engine that makes characters.

i'm curious how the end of a long campaign would feel, as pcs move more and more into the space of "i used to". it is, at any rate, a very fatt kind of ending.

theme music reminded me immediately of the house on the rock which seems exactly correct for realis. (maximalist and desolate. ghost orchestras, red-lit carousel, shag carpeting, giant whale.)

as i think i have frequently said on this blog, the aspects of fiction that i am most fascinated by are structure, beginnings, and what i’d maybe describe as mechanical technique—the artist's process of placing and moving the pieces on the board. friends at the table has all these things in spades already but realis seems truly, truly peak. excited.

ashcan notes:

tokens as “the centrality of the protagonist who seems to warp the world around them”—excellent

the little narrative of the play examples whipped around and GOT me in the “ending your story” section

“WillYouMakeYours Realis”

“conlunation” is cute

really interested in the xenogogue

if i were playing a long-term campaign i’d want to realize the foundation sentences. the “our game always” ones.

episode 01, character creation:

i love ali's pc's aesthetic. star wars prequel coded !!!

"unilateral zanni decision"

art's ghost absolutely did make me think of the branched. and excerpts. and marielda. kind of the center of the venn diagram of fatt characters

the bonds are really good—evocative, engaging. i think i'm excited to see how these pcs play off each other

compelled by the idea that there’s always exactly a thousand moons, to the degree that a new one appears if one is destroyed

also intrigued by the idea of weirder classes. i’d kind of like to see what the most fundamental possible framework looks like, maybe in a recursive manner (“i always have a relevant sentence” kinda thing)

a lot of clapcast energy in this episode lol

[ballsdotjpeg]

I am super keen Perpetua and Realis dont get me wrong, but I would give my left kidney to see the FaTT crew do a horror season run in Mothership, Sangfielle dipped into horror so frequently I am dying to see what would happen if they took the plunge fully.

I would also give my right kidney to see them run a hard cyberpunk season (there are so many cool and fun cyberpunk systems to run and they could go so crazy in that setting).

[1ightcap]

01: Realis, Those Nerveless Chancers liveblog

Did they just say they thought this was coming out summer 2024?

"Oh suddenly mini-fridges are too cumbersome to lug around??"

I can feel Art turning to look at the audience re: Austin writing sexy characters is going to sell some books

Ohhhhhj Kieth is playing an actual jester. "This is a Keith character". These class sentences feel like they will spark @mariusperkins joy

New nonsense name just dropped 👌

Have you ever killed a ghost out, can this ghost take joke in

[millenniumbreak]

Haven't got through the realis episodes yet but just that the text is meant to be a game written in setting from a single and biased perspective, and Austin saying he'd be interested in doing further stuff from another in-setting perspective.

I am now captivated by the possibility (or impossibility) of Bug Realis. Explicitly how would you rewrite Realis if you were trying to play it as a bug, or even a swarm of bugs, who live under an imperialist state?

Hypercollaborative storytelling? Crowd play? The stronger your sentence the more people have to say it- and the saying of it allows them to change it mid sentence? This is nothing but I'm having fun here.

It's like how you get communist or capitalist rewrites of board games, but the ideology presented is "it's sick as hell to be a ginormous insect and/or multiple large bugs."

[to-find-out-what-happens]

Realis time!!!! Lets gooooo

[clementineskesh]

REALIS MUSIC IS HEEEEERE its so GOOOOOD