#ttrpg development

[ghostofcinders]

They Came from the Cyclops's Cave!

The first game I've ever pitched and developed is out!

They Came from the Cyclops's Cave! is a game of fantasy cinematic adventure. Part of the They Came From series by Onyx Path Publishing, Cyclops's Cave is completely standalone, an awesome game covering fantasy in all its shapes.

Each They Came From is a love letter to a given movie/media genre zeitgeist, and I pitched Cyclops's Cave to be unique and do the whole fantasy genre. It allows to play from Harryhausen movies to The Lord of the Rings, passing through Xena, Ladyhawke, He-Man, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Black Cauldron, and Dragonheart.

Seriously, I can't overstate how much range this game has. Like, it *technically* covers TV shows and movies from the 40s to the 90s, but I am who I am, so you'll find nods to Adventure Time, Zelda, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and many more in here. Of course you will, this game's my baby, and I wanted it to commit to fantasy at its fullest.

Here you'll find:

- Tools to create your own heroes, be them warriors, gorgons, pixies, slimes, or mimics

- Cinematic powers that replicate movie beats.

- A vast collection of antagonists and creatures.

- Two ready-made scenarios.

...and much more!

Seriously, I love They Came From, how it combines comedy and devotion to media at the table through honest love. This baby of mine is the result of so much hard work, done by a team of awesome people who poured their love for the project into all pages.

Please consider checking it out! That would mean the world to me.

(Also: Cyclops's Cave is the foundation for the upcoming They Came From Witchford Academy!, its very cool upcoming Magical School supplement!)

[mystybelle]

From last night's stream-

I don't think RPGs have anything to do with stats.

I think an RPG, or whether or not a game counts as one, is more about how you can affect it's world or environment beyond just winning or losing.

Like, Skyrim and space Skyrim, for example,are not RPGs. They are a very shoddily made, medieval & sci-fi themed amusement parks.

But neither are any Final Fantasy games, Legend of Zelda games, Shadow of Mordor, the Assassin's Creed series, Genshin Impact, God of War (any of them, even the new ones), Kingdom Hearts (any of them), Diablo, Transistor, or any Pokemon games. These are lovingly crafted roller coasters with various themes, with different additional genres of games therein, unlike most Bethesda games, but not roleplaying games. They're gripping movies, comics, art exhibits, and dioramas with well done and utilitarian world-building.

Or visual novels. And that's not me disparaging these games, just hopefully pushing our evolving language for discussing games in a better direction?

I guess the next question is probably- "What is an RPG by your call then?"

I'd say games like the original Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, Fallout 1&2, Undertale, Pathologic, literally every single Animal Crossing game, Pathfinder/DnD (if your DM has a stable sleep schedule), and Shadow the Hedgehog.

The difference between these two groups is:

group A: Interactive media (games) that are stories, or Games(under the cut), with worlds that only exist to tell their stories or for the player's convenience.

group B: Interactive media that is a world the player is encouraged to interact with as a consistent Character within, or where the player's avatar & actions exists as a character within the world and not just an artifice of design or play.

There is nothing you can do on Final Fantasy VII's Gaea that will impact any part of the rest of the world, besides succeed at a given challenge or die and have another go. Nor in X, IX, or VIII. Locking a world's keyhole in Kingdom Hearts 1 doesn't change the game's state it's the next part of the story and the success state that follows defeating most level's final bosses (or after figuring out a clever puzzle in Traverse Town). Riku can't fail to save Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts II, you fail to rescue Riku's man, and the game lets you try again until you catch up with canon. Transistor does not care whether you collect certain programs/citizens, the Process [REDACTED] no matter what. Zelda can't not be rescued in any of the series' games where she appears; there are no ways to save the land of Termina except by assisting its citizens in a very specific order. In Pokemon, Team Rocket cannot successfully kidnapp someone's Pokemon on screen, and Team Aqua cannot successfully flood the world.

But in Shadow the Hedgehog; the president can be spared and his life determines how the rest of the game's story plays out; you can steadily work to destroy the world with the Black Arms and feel the progress of the invasion as you complete more of their missions. In Pathologic, failing to cure a patient doesn't send you to a game over screen, the patient just dies. Sometimes your patient is important to you and their death will have disastrous consequences, sometimes not. In ACNH, everything you can do changes the game's state in a meaningful way, there are almost literally no meaningless actions you can take in that game (or any animal crossing game). In a solid Pathfinder/DnD game, unless your party fights and dies to the last man, failing to kill the Lich or Evil king means that they get to take over that town or city. Some tables don't even run TPKs back, that specific world just gets worse and you either abandon it to its fate or have to make new avatars to re-enter a world that's likely grown more hostile because of the failure. In the original Fallouts, the only real "game over" fail state in those games is dying. Everything else is simply a choice to make, or a consequence to avoid. Likewise in the original Deus Ex, JC Denton's actions decide whether the [REDACTED it's old but go play the game] play out as planned, whether [seriously go play it] live or if the [please, you won't regret it] get their way. Each potential reality in these games, doesn't meaning you just lose, but that you now have to account for new circumstances in the world of your own making.

I don't think a game doesn't become an RPG because it has stats, or levels. Those are just conventions of the media of games as a whole. A game is more or less of an RPG based on how internally consistent and independent of the player its world is. I think our language should reflect that that too, but considering that this genre of game comes from the original pen and paper RPGs, I don't like giving the most faithful successors to their heritage a name that doesn't include the words RPG in it. I'd rather call the first group of games "Immersive Movies" and give the term "RPG" back to the second group. But if we must call both groups kinds of RPGs, I want to suggest replacing WRPG vs JRPG, with RPGs vs "VRPGs" or Virtual Ride Playing Games (or Vibe Role Playing Games), seeing as the first group is more akin to a book/movie/play/amusement park ride that you read or ride through than they are games where you meaningfully play the role of a character.

If that makes sense? Replies/rb as are welcome as comments, I had the thought on stream and I've spent all day working to make it more coherent than the babbling that usually rattles around in my brain, but I couldn't make it any shorter than this. So idk, let me know what you think. I'm eager to hear from other devs, or just players for that matter.

Also, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH, this isn't me shitting on any game I've mentioned except for Skyrim and space Skyrim. I'm not using RPG as a title of prestige, or saying any of these games are worse than the others except for Skyrim; I'm only saying we should probably re categorize them. Roller coasters are good things when they're well made.

[the-princeps]

TTRPG Jargon explanation #3 Timmy, Johnny and Spike

These terms originated from the game Magic the Gathering, so they're not always applicable when making a ttrpg, but more on that later. The terms are talking about archetypes within players, but these archetypes are only referring to (combat) mechanics, in addition all players have a measure of all three within them, just in different measures. Timmy, Johnny and Spike are useful when determining who mechanics are for within your game, or even who this pillar of your game is for.

Timmy, Timmy is the "power gamer", he wants to do something big, do big stuff with and smash his enemies. In the context of Magic this means casting big things, or a lot of things and smashing the opponent in a grand victory. Barely pulling out a victory at the end is not for Timmy. Within ttrpgs I believe Timmy to be the player who likes big numbers (or a lot of slightly smaller numbers), Timmy wants a mighty attack that annihilates his foes. Notably fun and socialization are two important parts for the Timmy. The Timmy also cares more about quality of victory than quantity of victory, a single battle grandly won is more important than one or multiple were they barely scraped out a victory.

Johnny, Johnny builds with style and self-expression. The Johnny is a creative gamer to whom building is self-expression and as such to the Johnny will use the game partly to show off their creativity and how they made a unique build. Notably to the Johnny building characters can be more important than playing the game itself. Johnny wants interesting and unique features to build around, he cares to do the thing his build is build to do, rather than win a lot.

Spike, Spike is the more competitive of the player types. The Spike wants to win, without caring much about the quality of the win. Unlike Spike and Johnny who like a particular type of mechanic, Spike will want to use whatever is best.

Now that that's concluded you can see that these are not encompassing nearly everything about the profile of a player, but these are merely assists for making mechanics.

[mushroomwitchgames]

Welcome to Mushroom Witch Games!

Hello, Dear Traveller.

My name is Maks, but you can call me Misu or Maks (they/them). I am a writer, academic, and now I’m a TTRPG writer/game creator.

In this blog, I will be recording my journey toward creating my first ever TTRPG and all the craziness destined to occur with it. I will also highlight games I think are noteworthy and there may be a meme or ten (thousand).

It’s nice to meet you all, Tumblr

Art by @vampirepyramidscheme.

[beasties-in-my-bag]

[companionwolf]

Mockups of my one page rpg jam entry.

[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

[mystybelle]

Yeah. As far as that new way of consuming games... Mobile games are probably going to be it, while Nintendo, Sony, & MAYBE Valve will take over the console market as publishers overall. Indie studios like Supergiant will probably be fine on steam, and I know they and the rest are competent enough to manage if mobile becomes the new space.

Just Switches, Steam decks/PC, and Mobile ecosystem versions of the former two. Nintendo, demons they may be, were smart to keep a hold of the mobile/handheld space. But they carried the industry through the last crash too, so that's no real surprise.

Sure is fun watching history repeat itself in literally every aspect of human society right now, and in the most demented ways.

Unironically I think we might run into another video game crash like back in the day

[probskay]

I think there's something magical in play testing a game you have touched in a year and having a lot of the complicated balancing bits still be okay. I was really expecting worse

[wh0rganic]

rebranded my bluesky account to focus on my projects (ttrpg game dev and also a novel in progress) and the creative process. If that sounds like your bag, feel free to follow me (or message me for an invite code if you don’t have an account)

[jp-nichts]

While playtesting Reactors & Romance something I noticed was players using the GM Toolkit for character creation. Which wasn't something I was expecting. Its not that they couldn't use it. It was designed to help GMs build some quick character details and connections on the spot for a game intended to be a low to no-prep. I should have realized players would find value in those things too, but that's part of playtesting right?

With that realization, I decided to formalize the character creation process. With a note that it's still a tool GMs can use too.

Here's a little sneak peek for any who are curious:

[ghostofcinders]

Still very proud I:

- Among others I felt were important to add to what the core established, made it so we added Carmilla to Aether the moment I got the chance to be a dev in The Aethernaut Collection (and thanks to her author for the great work!)

- Came up with the fake name "Millicent Karr" for her in a one-shot I ran, which is very suspect (Millicent Karr, Karr Millicent, Karr Mille, Carmilla) and thus totally on brand for Countess Mircalla "Carmilla" Von Karstein.

...I like to think I was a good fit and did good work developing for Aether books.

[mystybelle]

I'm thinking about what makes a good setting for roleplaying...

Whatever "lived in" or liveable means to you, is whatever counts. Add more in the tags or the rbs, it doesn't matter which.

+ I'm desperate for attention, but I also really want to know, so please rb for a bigger sample size?

+ Add any worlds I didn't mention that you think are more lived in too

[the-princeps]

ttrpg tutorials #10 recruiting

So recruiting players might well be the most stressful thing about organizing campaigns. It's a lot of work to create a campaign ad, spread it and hope people react and there's never a guarantee it goes right. (Though having a slightly established group to recruit from helps).

When making a campaign ad I would reccomend you to focus on the following

ready info, what system, what time, etc should all be readily readable.

elevator pitch, have the elevator pitch of your system somewhere in there.

Catchy title, I know it's difficult, but it helps.

There are many channels through which to send your campaign ad or recruitment, but here are three I personally like.

bugging people you know to ask if they want to know (a classic).

Sending your invite into large (discord)groups or on reddit, where you hope a lot of people will see it.

Note it down in your status, on whatever social media you use.

There's sadly not much more I can say on this, though I ask anyone who has something to add to please do so. In addition always clearly state when you're playtesting. PS: You can occasionally also just tac it onto already existing posts and such, like I'm doing right now, message me!

[dyinglikeicarus]

Elyssande! One of my players's characters

[beasties-in-my-bag]

Oh lawd, this doesn't even include the Beastie-Ary or the the starting adventure ...