#stress clocks

[theresattrpgforthat]

I'm looking for TTRPGs that have... for lack of a better way of putting it, mechanics where like, your character is under a profound amount of stress, and if they don't manage it and additional stress that comes in, they'll break or snap and do something horrible and then have to deal with the consequences. So something that mechanically 'forces' your character to do something they'd normally never do due to external stressors.

THEME: Stress Clocks.

Oh this is my shit. Get ready for a Hall of Fame style of recommendations from me this week (as well as a bit of self-advertising)!

Also a note: this was (mostly) a chance for me to get very excited about a number of games that have specifically inspired me, and I am aware that it means that I’ve kind of neglected certain houses of design as a result. For this post especially, I encourage anyone who can think of a game that fits this request that isn’t listed here to give it a shout out in the reblog and the replies!

Mothership, by Tuesday Knight Games.

Mothership is a sci-fi horror roleplaying game where you and your crew try to survive in the most inhospitable environment in the universe: outer space! You'll excavate dangerous derelict spacecraft, explore strange unknown worlds, exterminate hostile alien life, and examine the horrors that encroach upon your every move.

Mothership inflicts Stress upon you with every failure, and hitting your Stress cap reduces your most relevant Stat or Save, thereby consistency reducing your chances of success with every roll. That’s not all though - your Stress cap also makes it harder and harder to stop your character from panicking, by representing the threshold you must beat every time you make a Panic Check. If you roll less than or equal to your current Stress rating, you must take on a new Panic condition.

You make Panic checks whenever you roll a critical failure, but also whenever you witness something traumatic. These conditions don’t necessarily force your character to do anything, but they represent the toll that being in a constantly hostile environment takes on your mind and body. You have to work harder and harder to prevent your character from attacking allies, giving in to the demands of whatever is haunting their psyche, or going straight-up catatonic.

You can also try to mitigate this stress and panic by resting and doing something that helps relieve the pressure - having sex, taking drugs, praying, etc. There’s even a Shore Leave mechanic for long-term games that allow your character to turn their stress into a character improvement.

In some respect, these conditions remind me of the Morality and Clarity tracks of Chronicles of Darkness and Changeling: the Lost, but with less of the errant language around mental health. The dice rolls also make the consequences much less predictable, so if you want to be surprised by what exactly causes your character to snap, I recommend Mothership.

Urban Shadows, by Magpie Games.

The streets bleed shadows as the supernatural politics of the city threaten to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero—a savior for those who have never had enough—or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or give in for power?

The choice is yours. 

Urban Shadows is an urban fantasy tabletop roleplaying game in which mortals and monsters vie for control of a modern-day city, a political battleground layered just under the reality we think we know. Vampires, faeries, hunters, and wizards fight to carve out a piece of the streets and skyscrapers, ready to make deals with all those who have something to offer. 

The ‘consequences’ track for Urban Shadows is called Corruption. Each character playbook in this game has a couple of special moves called Corruption Moves, and when you start playing, you start with two Drama Moves the tie into this. The Drama Moves describe specific situations in which your character must mark Corruption. If you fill your Corruption track, you take a Corruption Move. Corruption moves give you special powers that are super-effective, but fill up your Corruption track faster. You can only fill your Corruption track so many times - fill it one too many and your character must be retired, because they’ve just become an antagonist.

I really like how this feels like a slow descent that speeds up the more you lean into it. Your character is consistently tempted to give into their darker sides in order to keep themselves afloat in this unforgiving city - but lean too far and they become exactly the kind of person they were hoping to stop.

Antiquarian Adventures, by acegiak.

Antiquarian Adventures is a pulpy tomb raiding and treasure hunting Blades In The Dark hack in the style of Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and The Mummy.

So Antiquarian Adventures is a pulp game. It’s not grim dark in any sense of the word, but I think it introduces a unique use of the Blades’ Stress mechanic in a special “ability” that happens when your character uses up all of their Composure (this is the “Stress” of this gam). Once you’ve used up all of your Composure, you cannot resist anything that comes your way and your dice pools are reduce to 0 until you do something (specific to your playbook) that usually invites a new consequence.

For example, The Veteran’s version of this is called “Not As Quick As I Used To Be,” which hamstrings the character until the player allows themself to be left behind or separated from their comrades. This kind of mechanic has directly inspired one of the projects that I’m working on, and I think that if you tweak the amount of Composure your character has, or makes the reaction harsher, you could absolutely make it work for a game that’s a bit grittier than Antiquarian Adventures.

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games

The last of humanity are fleeing across space, pursued by the implacable inhuman adversary that destroyed their civilisation. They're outnumbered and outgunned. Supplies are running low. The actions of a brave few could be all that stands between humanity and extinction.

Welcome to the Last Fleet.

Last Fleet is a PBTA tabletop roleplaying game where you play brave pilots, officers, engineers, politicians and journalists struggling to hold the human race - and themselves - together under unbelievable pressure. The game focuses on action, intrigue and drama in this high-stakes situation. You'll fight space battles, search for enemy infiltrators, tackle supply shortages and navigate faction politics. You'll strive against your own self-doubt and sometimes crack under the stress.

Last Fleet has something called a Pressure Mechanic, which can be used as a player resource, but also activates when you take weather harm or get called out on your shit. Hit your cap? Clear your Pressure and take a Breaking Point action, which often puts you at odds with the other characters, making the situation worse. The whole situation is a designed to act as a pressure cooker, making the situation harder and harder to bear until you finally pop. I love it, and it’s also a direct influence on one of my games.

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi (@temporalhiccup)

Unmask your feelings, uncage your ruination… The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

Taking cues from Urban Shadows, Apocalypse Keys gives you a Ruin track to follow as your monsters try to stop the world from ending. The Ruin track gives you a Ruin advance every time you fill it, unlocking Ruin Moves, permanently marking character conditions, and eventually forcing your character to turn into a Harbinger if you let it. Your Ruin moves are powerful and dark, generating even more Ruin when you use them, and in some cases (like with the Hungry’s "Only Hunger Remains" move), your character can actually halt the current mystery as they get close enough to becoming a Harbinger that the entire party will have to work together to stop you from ripping the world apart.

Protect the Child, by Mint-Rabbit (that’s me!).

Humans have always been protective of their young, sometimes overly so. Humans have also always feared that which might make their young strange or different, and so insist that only humans can raise their own young. Monsters cannot raise human young. This is known.

You have a human baby. You cannot find its parents. What is even worse, is that this child has powers, powers that others covet, and so everyone wants it. If you want to prove that you’re not the heartless monster that everyone says you are, that means you’ll have to raise it, at least until you find someone who is better suited to it than you. 

You are creatures of fur, scales and fangs. You have claws that can rend flesh, faces that can crack mirrors, howls that can cause ears to bleed. 

And your charge wants a blankie.

Protect the Child is a Forged in the Dark game about monsters caring for a young human, a human who contains strange and mystical powers that make them a valuable asset in any monster crew. The setting and factions present in this game are flexible: you might be aliens in a far-flung future galaxy, fantasy monsters from rival kingdoms, or even everyday wild animals that fear human society. 

Alright, so this is my baby and I can tell you exactly how to push your character towards some really unhealthy coping mechanisms. In Protect the Child, your character is constantly battling the stress of being a parent. Stress, like in other Forged in the Dark games, is a player resource, but it’s also inflicted on you when you resist consequences, and when the kid has an emotional breakdown.

Should your stress clock fill up, you’ll have to take a reaction from the list attached to your playbook before you can take more Stress, and these reactions range from doing something for selfish gains to lashing out to your fellow monsters to being fully monstrous at exactly the worst time. Your tools to manage this stress are also limited - you have to be willing to confront your fellow monsters and be honest about your relationships with each-other if you want to stop your emotional kettle from whistling all of the time. If you want a game where building relationships is the only way to deal with the pressures of monster-parenting, then check out Protect the Child!

[phaedo]

i keep getting youtube recommendations for videos with clickbait titles about how dark and disturbing the wicked book is from people trying to capitalize on the movie's marketing, which is the way of the world and all, but i just want to say that the correct way to experience the wicked book for the first time is to be a tween/young teen really into the musical and go "whoa this is based on a book?? i have to read it!!" and get some well-meaning but blissfully unaware relative to buy it for you only for you to be faced with the graphic puppet sex clock in chapter one. if you're over the age of fourteen years old it's already too late for you to get the full wicked book experience.

[skullingwaydraws]

A recent illustration I made to submit to a show about disability

I wanted to depict pain and work. It wasn't selected, but I still wanted to share for any who relate 💕

[spookythesillyfella]

if i ever say that i dont like digitaltime . thatz not me – a skinwalker haz violently murdered me and stolen my identity – immediately seek shelter

[fefairys]

so ive been playing the L death note ds game and the L communicator mode is so funny. Literally all you can do is feed him treats and make him say random lines at you. to restock treats you have to wait on the blank menu screen for five minutes at a time for watari to bring more food.

konami said u will keep your ds open on this blank screen for hours just to feed a fake L death note treats so that he'll tell you he loves you.

and you know what i am. i had to pause in the middle of writing this because watari came back with more food.

[ghost-bxrd]

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with your JayTim spite fic; it's not even out yet and I don't even like JayTim 😭😭😭

That’s high praise indeed 👀💚

With how many people seem to be anticipating the JayTim spite fic despite that not being their usual taste in ships I’m getting a little nervous about living out to expectations. I hope I haven’t promised too much🙏😭

[brofightiscancelled]

are any of the brothers still in contact with totoko or chibita in postgrad plan? also, i assume most of them live in different wards of tokyo now, but did any of them leave tokyo entirely?

osomatsu and totoko are still in contact! she supplies the fish for the restaurant he works at, so he's started taking over pickup duty so he can see her on the clock. she more or less works fulltime at the fish shop now

and osomatsu's shift is usually restaurant dinner shift -> konbini night shift, but on the rare instances he gets put on lunch shift he'll go to see chibita after work. trade some oden for some fried rice

choro is still in intermittent contact with totoko, but they don't talk often, and she's out of contact with the rest of the brothers

and chibita hasnt seen any of them besides oso, which is why he still has all his hair.

they're all still in tokyo, but jyushi often leaves the region for work, so he's pretty hard to get a hold of

[elkinboots]

please be nice to kalvin brounfuck

[see-arcane]

This part focuses on Quincey in particular instead of everyone, "Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently", and I wonder if it connects with what he had said before: "And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has come!" Because Quincey is the one who always clocks on the situation at hand first, and patrols for threats (and if he spots one he shoots first asks questions later)

He does clock things very fast and takes action just as quickly. When he's facing the right way.

But in this scene, our favorite Texan isn't looking the right way or even reacting safely as much as he is quick about it. Even if his reaction was entirely innocent surprise, the fact that he made clear how ready he was to serve Mina's euthanasia request--seemingly with more readiness than even Dr. Jack Malpractice who must 'steel' himself to the idea--has absolutely stuck in Jonathan's mind.

Hence Jonathan death gripping the kukri as Quincey gets (to his eyes) the wrong kind of interested.

The whole story could have gone very nasty very fast if Mr. 'You've yeed your last haw' Morris had made a wrong move at that moment.

[belleandkurtbastian]

I’ve said this elsewhere, but I think it does bear stating outright:

I absolutely agree with the reading of Tommy’s “MY attention?” as being surprise that he was after Tommy not Eddie…

But there IS another reading of that: that Tommy is surprised that BUCK was trying to get his attention, rather than TOMMY getting Buck’s attention. We don’t see as much of that, of course… but that would also make sense with how ready Tommy was to kiss him immediately after that.

[shrack]

nmj is so fucking stupid because im sitting at work, heart racing, all because alex said tim was on a tv show with pudsey

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Understandably So no one mentions charles when talking about the Logan movie and again Understandably So This Aint Bout Him however i do confess that as someone who had never seen Logan until like. a month ago when i was binging all the movies and without knowing a single thing about it aside from laura i cant lie i was in fact jumpscared by him being there. especially for at least like 3/4s of the movie

[leopardom]

genuinely struggling to feel any excitement about the jo gigs i’m attending thanks to the insane fans who choose to queue even since midnight at the day of the gig

[sergle]

I appreciate that you put thought into whether you can put enough time/resources into a new dog though. some people adopt pets with no plans for how they'll care for them but it's nice to see you taking it seriously. idk does that make sense. serious dog ownership

HEY HI I APPRECIATE THAT SO MUCH because I do try really hard to be a Responsible dog owner. everyone remembers, I was over-preparing for the day we brought Hugo home as a puppy lmao

[spookythesillyfella]

big sketchbook art dump i suppose

"GIRL HELL 1999" – femtanyl with monika my dear <33

drawings featuring colin

drawings of tony n monika because theyre totally bffs i swear guys i sweaaarrr ......

the yellow one from the rock show

the two nerds from "Creative" – Ghost and Pals remix cuz i quite like them a bit i suppose

my awesome silly nr 1 kinnie that i love to draw when i feel like utter shit <333

[centaurisart]

I join in on doing the screen redraw of the tf:one trailer and man.. am I struggling a bit with their bodies especially their helms. Maybe just a few more screen redraws would be easier to handle lol, but I’m not ready with the rendering progress with me and my non existent rendering style lol.

“Work in process” banner created by @cafekitsune