#ttrpgs are special places where special characters grow :']

[ashmcgivern]

Revenge for @palidoozy-art of their scrungly cryptid of a man, Kjosev!! Love this guy, glad I finally got to draw him >:]

[no-road-home]

Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern on Backerkit now!

Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern is a GMless one-to-three shot TTRPG based on games like MF0: Firebrands and The Sundered Land. It's a collection of 20 mini-games where former adventurers open a tavern together and reintegrate into society after a life on the road.

What happens after the adventure? What does daily life in a fantasy world look like? Stewpot draws inspiration from stories like Dungeon Meshi, Redwall, Frieren, and Bartender, as well as various aspects of D&D. It's a great way to wrap up a long-running fantasy TTRPG campaign.

Start a garden, cook monsters, run a festival booth, reforge old weapons, flirt with mysterious strangers, and more in a new version of the game with tons of art and new storybook-style layout!

(more info and full description of the mini-games in the read more!)

The structure of the game is based on characters having an Adventurer Job, with Adventurer Experiences that represent their abilities and powers, and a Town Job with Town Experiences. You can make new characters just for the game, or bring in old characters and recreate them with the existing Experiences or write your own.

As you play the game, you'll cross off Adventurer Experiences as you let go of them or let them fade into the background, and gain new Town Experiences that take their place. Along the way you'll upgrade your Tavern and give each other Keepsakes!

Games from the old Itch.io PDF version (0.41):

The First Step: Before you decided to put down roots here, before you found this group of friends, what were you doing? What was the first thing you learned about how to live in town?

NPC Sidequest: Your adventuring days may be over, but there are plenty of people in town that could use your help.

Wear and Tear: There’s always something to fix, or clean, or pay off.

Market Day: You never would have guessed how many things you need just to keep a tavern running. 

Homegrown: There’s something special about using ingredients grown nearby. Why not give growing your own a try?

Sliced: Sometimes supply routes get disrupted. Or maybe you just want to stand out from the rest of the taverns. Whatever the reason, you’re playing this game because you want or need to do one thing: cook with monster parts.

Romancing a Stranger: Someone in the tavern makes eye contact with you, and their gaze lingers a little longer than you’d expect. Your co-workers urge you on, and make every excuse they can to send you over to talk to the lovely Stranger.

Off the Clock: Where do you go after the tables are wiped down? Who’s heard every story you have about the worst people who have walked in?

A Friendly Tavern Brawl: Every tavern has its rowdy patrons. You know they’re good at heart, but sometimes when the ale is flowing and spirits are high, things get a little out of hand. How do you handle the situation?

Festival Day: Your town has a few festival days a year, and they’re some of your busiest. How do you prepare? How do you handle the influx of people?

A Bard's Tale: During your time as an adventurer, you accomplished many daring deeds. In fact, some of those deeds are retold to this day by travelling bards.

A Glass of the Gods: Sometimes a troubled adventurer will come in, looking for answers, and letting them drink themselves into oblivion is the wrong answer. It's up to you  to  mix the perfect drink, something perfect for the situation that can push the adventurer to look inside and find the answer on their own.

A Distinguished Guest: Someone important is in town, and they’re already almost here. The tavern has to be at its best for this guest. After all, they might leave a generous tip.

In the Rhythm of Things: Time passes. Rough edges are sanded down. Before you know it, life in town has become like breathing. You gather in your favorite part of the tavern and wonder where the time has gone.

New games for this crowdfunding campaign:

Shields and Skillets: Enchantments are volatile things, especially when they sit unused for long periods of time. You have to let go of your old equipment before it’s too late.

Shelter from the Storm: Early one morning, you feel it. A familiar ache in your bones. Something is coming.

A Funeral: As an adventurer, you said farewell many times. Sometimes it was only temporary. Most of the time, it wasn't. 

Retracing: You've left town for something: an errand, a vacation, an old favor. Suddenly, you recognize the route you're traveling. You've been this way before, during your adventuring days.

A Fleeting Memory: Something about the way the fire flickers lingers in your mind. The smell of hay and clover brings a tear to your eye. A fading memory resurfaces.

A Familiar Face: An old friend you haven't seen in a while has stopped by. Why not show them around the town and the tavern?

[theresattrpgforthat]

Fantasy Games - And My Struggle With Them.

This might be a surprise, but I struggle with fantasy games, especially high fantasy. I come across them a lot when I’m browsing Itch.io, and after a while, they start to blur together, more so than any other genre. I understand that for many folks, games like D&D were their entry into the hobby, and making a fantasy game is often the first step a game designer makes when they try to develop their own system. But I didn’t get into ttrpgs via a traditional fantasy game, and I think that regardless of the rules that accompany the game, I don’t get very excited about games that have knights and elves and dwarves and wizards.

As you might imagine, this can sometimes make things difficult when folks ask for fantasy-related ttrpg recommendations. Fantasy is a genre that encompasses so many different styles of play and genre, from gritty dungeon crawling to super-powered adventure to sad and tragic epics. Yet, because most of those sub-genres rarely appeal to me, I haven’t looked closely at very many of the games in my Sword & Sorcery & So Much More folder, which means trudging through the items there takes a lot longer when answering fantasy-oriented asks.

That being said, I don’t want to ignore fantasy games completely; I know that so many people find joy and fun in games set in a traditional fantasy world. So I’m going to talk about a few fantasy games that are very different from each-other and have very specific goals in mind, and I encourage people who see this to re-blog with their own favourite fantasy games and tell us what makes them special.

Also - if you have a fantasy game related request, please be kind if my response isn't all that you hoped it would be!

Tacticians of Ahm, by Meatcastle Games.

Tacticians of Ahm is a tactical combat-focused tabletop roleplaying game in the corrupt3d fantasy world of Ahm.

A bit-rotten blight has appeared in the Northern Sea and from it flows the Corrupt1on, fractured light and shattered shapes sowing chaos across the realm. As Tacticians, you alone are prepared to face the darkness spreading across the lands and reunite the scattered peoples of Ahm.

Tacticians of Ahm is for players who like a really satisfying combat, inspired by games like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics, with grid maps to help you keep track of positioning and distance. This doesn’t meant that combat is long - it’s still fast-paced, using visual indicators like color to help you assess what kinds of things you can do in play: healing, damage, and special effects. Characters have interesting abilities that they gain as they level up, so this game is also probably good for folks who like watching their characters get more and more competent. Right now Meatcastle is grinding away at the game to make it more playable, and more full of art - so getting in on it now means that you’ll get to watch it grow.

Nexalis, by Cezar Capacle.

We invite you to step aboard your enchanted vessel and set sail on the ethereal ocean known as the Nectar. Nexalis calls you on an awe-inspiring journey across a universe filled with countless uncharted islands, each teeming with unique cultures, mysteries, and magical phenomena.

Nexalis is an otherworldly realm where islands drift amidst an endless cosmic ocean of magical plasma, the Nectar. The Nectar, pulsing with vibrant, ever-shifting colors, mirrors the celestial patterns that guide adventurers on their thrilling journeys. At the heart of this sea lies the Celestial Nexus, an entrancing vortex of astral energy that births islands and renews the world in a constant cycle of creation.

Nexalis is a fantasy game, but it’s an example of setting that feels vibrant and unique from traditional fantasy games - and yet it is also highly customizable. The game comes with oracles and random tables that you’ll use to generate interesting locations and problems to deal with as your drifters move from place to place. Characters are packaged in playbooks, compact tropes that will provide players with everything they need to know on a brochure. Finally, the game uses phases, moving from one kind of storytelling to another dependant on the kind of scene you’re about to play through.

Shadow of the Demon Lord, by Schwalb Entertainment.

The End Is Just the Beginning

Sometimes the world needs heroes. But in the desperation of these last days, the world will take all those it can get: heroes, blackguards, madmen, and whoever else is willing to stand against the coming darkness. Will you fight the demons or will you burn it all down and dance among the ashes? Who will you become when the world dies? 

Shadow of the Demon Lord opens a door to an imaginary world held in the grip of a cosmic destroyer. Enter a land steeped in the chaos and madness unleashed by the end times, with whole realms overrun by howling herds of beast-men, warped spirits freed from the Underworld, and unspeakable horrors stirred awaken by the Demon Lord’s imminent arrival. 

For fans of the grim, the gory, and the gritty, the setting of Shadow of the Demon Lord is post-apocalyptic, chaotic and messy. The presentation is representative of a traditional RPG: a big book with high-end full-colour art and plenty of lore to accompany the rules. You create your character using pieces of Ancestry to help you determine your attributes, and your Profession to determine your skills. The game is based on the d20, and relies on stat modifiers to try and get you over most rolls, and a milestone-like levelling system that ensures that everyone who plays levels up at the same time.

Shadow of the Demon Lord is very clearly a vehicle for horror, so if your table is one that likes being confronted by all kinds of horrible things in a hopeless quest to save… well something of the world, then you might like this game.

Songbirds 3e, by snow.

Songbirds 3e is a tabletop roleplaying game about undeath, supernatural powers, and the blue dreams of the moon. In the game, you create a strange survivor of the world who was chosen (or cursed) by Death. Spirits aren't able to pass on to the afterlife and grow monstrous with each passing day. You know the songs to send them on. You have the abilities that help you find them. You are the canary in the coal mine.

Songbirds is full of danger. It carries with it a tried and true method of OSR world-building in that the world makes itself known in the pieces of the game that you decide to pick up - the character curses you roll for, the ways damage can hurt you, the gear you carry, and the roll tables that answer so many questions about different steps of the game. Combat is meant to be simple but also deadly, and much of the fun of the game is in discovering what’s around the corner or what’s in the treasure chest in front of you. Songbirds takes inspiration from both fantasy and sci-fi, so if you like weirdness mixed in with your dungeon-crawls, you might like this game.

Trilogy, by Ben Moxon.

Trilogy is a tabletop RPG designed for epic fantasy campaigns. Build your world at the table, create characters to explore it and let the adventure commence.

Trilogy is designed specifically for players who want to discover their world in play rather than having to consult settings guides and books of existing lore. A world that lives and grows around you, shared by everyone at the table.

The media listed that inspired Trilogy include series such as Lord of the Rings, Malazan Book of the Fallen, and the Storm-light Archives; vast and detailed worlds full of complex cultural relations and heavy with conflict. The rules are derived from the PbtA framework, which means that much of the action is going to be character-driven and character-focused. This game is least likely to have puzzles a la dungeon-crawl, but what it does have is character arcs.

Character arcs are guiding lights for players, providing them with loose archetypes that they can use to help advance their characters. Each arc comes with positive and negative qualities that you can turn to when your character is at their best or at their worst. It also has an opening moment (which helps define your character to the audience) and a series of checkpoints in the form of narrative moments that generate character growth. I think the Arcs part of Trilogy is what makes it stand out, looking at character development at a new angle, and giving players plenty of prompts to help them get from point A to point B.

Jack Kills Giants, by Andrew White.

There’s no shortage of vagabonds who take coin for killing, but Giant Slayers… they’re a special breed. The coin is unfathomably good, you’d be more or less set for life should you bring one of those colossal beasts down.However, you’re just as likely to find yourself a quick and nasty death and a pauper’s funeral.

Those who decide the reward is worth the risk form up into small companies of strangers, spreading out the risks and sharing the spoils.Brought from all walks of life, those who survive past their first kill and choose to continue on the path grow into tight-knit bands, comrades in arms fighting for gold and glory.

But you aren’t one of that pantheon of successful slayers just yet. You’re just flat broke.

JACK KILLS GIANTS is a game of giant-slaying in the Fantasy Gig-Economy written and illustrated by Andrew White, with valuable contributions from Nakade & Cosmic Orrery Games. In Jack Kills Giants you won't play hardened adventurous heroes, you'll play everyday people, forced by a need to make cash to survive to chase after giants in exchange for generous bounties.

Jack Kills Giants does away with the broad possibilities of a generic fantasy game and zooms in on one particular element that the designer is interested in - a gig economy. Giant-killing is terrifying and horribly dangerous, but life is so brutal that you decide that it’s still worth doing. The game also focuses on the ways a world that has giants in it works that makes it special - for instance, some folks make a living carving up the bodies of slain giants and distributing the fat, bones, and other pieces into products that the world can use. For lovers of thoughtful world-building and purposeful adventuring, maybe check out Jack Kills Giants.

Also...

If you found these interesting, you might also like my Non-Western Fantasy recommendation post, as well as my general fantasy tag.

[catgirlscout]

Johnshi Week 2024 | Day 3 | DnD Headcanons

Since the prompt for day 3 of #johnshiweek2024 by @johnshidaily was DnD Au, I thought I'd share some headcanons for Johnny and Kenshi.

You can also read them and chapter 2 on my Ao3!

Johnny would definitely go all out. He would make up a whole intricate backstory, act out his role, and put on a full cosplay for every session. His dice match his character, and he even bought and painted a miniature himself.

I can imagine that he would also love to be the DM and create his own little TTRPG campaigns. He loves improvising and gives each side character a distinct voice. Everyone always gets super intense during fights, and he feels very proud of himself for being able to pull his friends into the scene. If they would struggle making a character sheet, he would help them and throw in some prompts.

Back in school, he used to be a real nerd about DnD. He still has all of the books. This is really where his love for screenwriting comes from.

As for his character, he is really diverse. He loves to make new ones and figure out every little detail about them. In a game with the MK1 cast, I think he’d be either a Paladin or a Bard. I’d personally choose Paladin over Fighter in his case, because he wants to fight for the right cause and be a knight of the people. And if he’s playing as a Bard, he’s definitely gonna try to romance everything and anything!

He loves playing as any race that isn’t fully human for the fantasy experience. Non-human species have a special place in his heart. So, his choices would probably be Halfling, Orc, or Dragonborn. Perhaps even Elf, but he would probably stray away from your typical perfect, never-aging Elf, even though he’s fancy like that. But he prefers the whole underdog, having to train hard to become the hero storyline. Twist villains or morally gray characters are also totally his thing.

Kenshi, on the other hand, never had time for games in his youth due to growing up with the Yakuza breathing down his family’s neck. But of course he let his best friend Johnny talk him into it. He’s pretty new to DnD and doesn’t quite get the rules yet, but once he’s in the zone, he really gets sucked into the world-building, exploring everything there is and leaving no stone unturned and chest unopened. It’s become his escape from reality in a way, at least for a little while.

His character would probably be pretty true to himself, and he would make choices based on what he would do in real life. Of course he always fights with a sword, preferably an old family blade that wields some type of magic. He doesn’t roleplay so much, although he begins talking very epically when he’s making important decisions. From that point on, his character goes through a lot of development.

For class, Johnny advised him to go with Warlock, but Rogue would also be a good alternative. Race-wise, he would most definitely go with Tiefling, as that is closest to what he feels like, and the fiendish ancestral origins fit best with his actual background. When given the option, Kenshi also always chooses to lose his eyesight one way or another, if he doesn’t start out blind. Both Liu Kang and Johnny have continuously told him he doesn’t need to, but he does it anyway. The self-insert is real!

[secretsnowclub]

Finding My Ideal TTRPG

Of the many things I can say of Disco Elysium, the thing that strikes my gamer brain right now is the system. At its simplest, it's 2d6 + Skill. The gear you wear gives skill bonuses. You can have "Thoughts" that also give bonuses.

In my mind, it's perfect. It's all I need. A skill list and some dice. It's how I ran 5e for so long. But a lot of the 5e skills are boring. And it's not possible to just steal the Disco Elysium skill list and use it, because a lot of it is specifically about being a cop and specifically about being the kind of cop that Harry is.

But I think a good place to start would be to ask similar questions. For instance, if I wanted to make a dungeon crawler that was "my perfect ideal of a dungeon crawler," I could ask "what skills would a dungeon crawler possibly need?"

A question like that might get you a few of the same skills in 5e. But I think the question suffers from being not only too broad, but too boring. The question is flawed because as we've seen over the last 30-40 years is that there are a lot of different ways to do a dungeon crawler.

Troika! isn't The Nightmares Underneath isn't Cyberpunk Red isn't blah blah blah.

I think about Venture from Riley Rethal a lot. One of the Paladin's "Strong Moves" is simply "Kill someone." I imagine a skill list with "murder" on it. Such a strong word to use, but it's a choice. And choices are more important to me than trying to hit a common denominator.

A skill like "Pray" would be open enough but also says something about the world. I think in a game like this, your chosen skills would be the answer to choosing a class. There wouldn't be combat rules beyond roll dice + skill to do a thing. What you do with your skills is the important choice. It's roleplaying.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Kinda losing my train of thought. I'm thinking about how "Thoughts" would work as ways to expand your character. Clocks from BitD would work well to emulate the progression of time, and they're a tool I've used in my dungeon crawler games for a while now.

Essentially, whenever a player wants to learn something. Anything. I have them figure out *how* they're going to learn it, and then I make a clock. And whenever they get the time to sit and work on that thing, we fill in a slice of the clock.

It's a very organic way of growing a character beyond a set level progression or needing to gain EXP at all. Clocks can be filled with time or money. "Pay the thief 50g and she'll train you for the day," or whatever.

You'd never run out of Things to make for the game, because you could just work out more Thoughts, deepening your worldbuilding with them, and giving them in-game benefits.

Gear is another thing that I think would be improved. Y'know, a sword could give you +1 Fighting or Murder, but it might also give you +1 Cool, or a bonus to your negotiating skill. What you wear is more important than Armor Class bonuses or whatever. What you wear would increase or decrease skills. It would *say* something about your character.

A few other things I think about in regards to conceptualizing my "perfect rpg":

The way Pokémon games handle a Pokémon's stats. Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense. It's nice and simple and if they were included (reworded of course) in a bigger list of skills, it would help to put choices on an equal footing. If choosing between diplomacy and combat were as easy as putting skill points into particular skills, the choice is on you to decide how you interact with the world.

The skill list determines the various ways "Dungeon Crawler Persons" interact with the world, just as the Disco Elysium skill list shows the various ways a cop like Harry might interact with the world. The skills you choose then are you deciding how to interact with that world. They open and close different doors. Put barricades in your way. Remove others.

Anyways, these are just my rambles right now. I've been thinking about this shit for a while. I've probably tweeted about it before too. It's something I've tried to incorporate into .dungeon//remastered and it's what I plan on incorporating into whatever is next.

Thanks for reading.

[wilanserulia]

Hi, I'm Wilan! I'm a freelancer artist from Italy, and I work with digital media. I specialize in illustration and character design. I'm also a FFXIV Gpose enthusiast, and I write fanfic for my OCs in my free time.

And well, in this blog you can find stuff I create, which is usually either about my TTRPG OCs or my FFXIV OCs.

• My art: #art • My gpose: #gpose

I'm mainly active on tumblr, but if you use other socials you can also follow me on: • Twitter • Instagram (art) • Instagram (gpose) • BlueSky If you just want to check out my art: • ArtStation • Cara • deviantART If you want to read my fanfics: • AO3 For anything else: • Linktree

More info about my OCs under the divider!

FFXIV

I've been playing FFXIV since its original launch in 2010. I'll happily tell details of the story of the two characters I play to anyone who will listen to me, through gposing, art and writing.

Wilan Serulia

Wilan hails from a small island off the coast of La Noscea. The fisherman's life, however, never appealed to him, his gaze ever pointed beyond the horizon, his traveler's heart aching to explore the world. Fate had other plans for the fledgling adventurer, however. Hydaelyn chose Wilan as her Champion, her Warrior of Light, and he's been slowly buckling under the growing weight of the many responsibilties placed on his shoulders.

Tag: #Wilan #Aldarulia (ship)

Delen Aldanea

Born in a Garlean-occupied Terncliff, Delen grew up under imperial dictatorship until Eorzea's champion killed Gaius van Baelsar in combat, when she managed to escape while the colonies under his command scrambled to re-establish order. After reaching the shores of Eorzea as a refugee, the Werlytian girl was taken in by the very same Warrior of Light who felled the Black Wolf, who gave her a place to stay. Free at last but still stuck in her traumas, in Limsa she would meet a friend who would slowly but surely help her move forward with her life and enjoy what her newfound freedom had to offer.

Tag: #Delen #Aldarulia (ship)

TTRPG

I've been playing TTRPG for, like, 15 years now. D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, DnD 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Fate RPG, and most recently Fabula Ultima. Over this decade and half I've created plenty of characters and, boy, I can't stop talking about them if you get me going. I have way too many OCs to list on a pinned post. I did however list them here. But I'll introduce a few more recent and prominent ones anyway.

Viria

Born from an affair between a desert elf and a human woman, the mixed-race child has been unwanted by her human family ever since she was born, her very presence an uncomfortable reminder of her mother's infidelity. She ran away from home in her teens, around the time she started to develop her magic powers from her elven bloodline, met a similarly outcast half-orc girl and turned to a life of delinquency for a while under the destructive influence of her companion. But in the end she came into her own thanks to her found family, who accepted her for who she was and taught her a better way to be herself, and she blossomed into a bright and cheerful young woman.

Tag: #Viria

Hoshiko

Living a cyberpunk world where lovecraftian mythos were revealed to be real, Hoshiko Yukimura is a brilliant student of the University of Prague, enrolled in the faculty of Arcane Studies. Her natural pre-disposition for controlling magic made her a candidate for an elite corp of soldiers called Vakyries, and under the many pressures of the academy, society and her own family, Hoshiko caved, put aside anything she could consider childish or immature and dedicated herself to the pursuit of her studies. That is, until a botched ritual called an unknown creature into this world. The entity, inhabiting the cat-like construct intended to serve as a familiar, luckily seems to be benovelt toward Hoshiko, grants her a mysterious power, and is bringing chaos into the orderly girl's life, somehow pushing her toward healthier life choises in the process.

Tag: #Hoshiko Yukimura

Nora

A woman from one of the many nomad tribes of Numeria, the robot-infested wasteland of Golarion. Nora's unique appearance, a tiefling resembling a Balor, with goat horns, red skins, and two leathery wings sprouting from her lower back, is the result of having being conceived in the neighbouring land of Sarkoris under the corrupting influence of the Worldwound, the colossal planar rift connecting the material world and the Abyss, plane of the Demons. Nevertheless, being but one freak among many, Nora became a formidable warrior and a capable mercenary. It was during a job for the Crusade where she witnessed (and barely survived) the might of the Storm King Khorramzadeh, lord among balors and master of electricity. The encounter awakened something in Nora, that once channeled manifested a whip of lightning and command over lightning, earning her the title of Daughter of the Storm.

Tag: #Nora

[t-wanderer]

Tagged by @amethystandwine to answer 15 questions for 15 mutuals.

1. Are you named after anyone?

My name is a pun based on a character from a book series, Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander.

2. Do you have any kids?

No kids, only student loans. Both would be ridiculous.

3. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

See previous answer. haha.

4. When was the last time you cried?

Went through a break up recently. Before that, watching the Tennant run of Dr. Who.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

How aware they are, how much they pick up on details. Some people are present, some are on autopilot. I always want to know if a person is here before I interact with them.

6. Eye color?

Brown.

7. What sports do you/have you played?

Did dive team in high school. A little martial arts, but it's been a while. Used to be an avid cyclist, doing 60k runs for charity. But that was before I got my driver's license. I started driving later in life, because I knew I wouldn't ride my bike any more once I could drive. Literally haven't ridden since.

8. Any special talent?

Incredible memory makes it easier for me to seem smarter than I am. Fabulously long and healthy nails. Puns.

9. Where were you born?

Exit 6 off route 66. Seriously.

10. Scary movies or happy endings?

Both? Both.

11. Do you have any pets?

I have a ghost cat named Nimrod. Which is to say, I don't have a cat. But people often trip over a cat in the night at my home, and something keeps knocking stuff off of shelves. So, ghost cat. If you don't believe me, I challenge you to find any ghost mice in my home.

12. How tall are you?

5'11" or 6'0" depending on current level of depression.

13. What are your hobbies?

Fuck. Okay. Writing, video games, ttrpgs, collecting collections of things, research, learning to swear in different languages (I'm up to 31 languages), being extremely online, reading and growing my library, collage, theatre and playwriting, programming, tarot reading, astrology, chaos magic, road trips, urban exploration, hiking, philosophy, arguing philosophy, synchronicity, psychedelics, lucid dreaming, getting lost on purpose, cooking, board games, magic: the gathering, stealing road signs for my bathroom, buiding sculptures out of garbage, creepypastas, fanfic, I ching, anarchist politics, artistic vandalism, making zines, world building, making clothing, vulture culture and taxidermy, hacking my own brain.

14. Favorite subject in school?

Philosophy.

15. Dream job?

I just want to own a little place in the middle of nowhere, maybe with a little land. I want to spend half the year traveling with my theatre, promoting my art and visiting friends, and the other half an absolute hermit making art and writing. I want to get to that point and just do that until I die.

Tagging:

@w4nderingdreamer @enochtopus @surestart @tresstellas @amanandhisdroiid @incognicat

Probably some other people I'm forgetting.

[dukhlontales]

Consistency: accidentally removing the drawback of Skill Tests in ttrpgs

Having come to a place where I’m temporarily happy with the combat system for my ttrpg, Dukhlon Tales, I’ve turned my focus to the skills system. More specifically, character progression regarding skills. To this end, I’ve been designing Expertises (basically skill feats) that improve how characters interact with their environment through skills.

An accidental example of these is the Background system (which is essentially backgrounds in Lancer). As a player, you make up a background for your character, and you get a bonus to any Skill Test relevant to that background. For example, as a wrestler, you have a bonus to pushing people around because wrestlers should be good at that.

Expertises work the same way where you make up a category (let’s continue with the wrestler idea) to have a special benefit to. Whatever you come up with has to span multiple skills (maybe our wrestler is also good at intimidating people), but has to be specific enough to not apply to all uses of a skill (our wrestler is not especially good at throwing large rocks for example, despite this using the same skill as pushing people).

This brings us to “Consistency,” an Expertise inspired by the D&D5e Rogue Reliable Talent feature. My original plan was for this Expertise to allow a character to automatically succeed at a relevant Skill Test if their Skill DC (a number the derives from the skill proficiency itself, and is used just like skill DCs in Pathfinder: Second Edition), is higher than the DC of the Skill Test. Cool. Assuming this wrestler continues to focus on their “wrestler” category as they progress, now they can wrestle consistently. This sounds narratively satisfying to me. The wrestler is good at wrestling. Why have a chance of failure when wrestling people of less skill?

Well, having imagined the play patterns, that chance of failure is a lot more important than I initially realized. Without the possibility of failure, why doesn’t our wrestler address every problem possible by wrestling? The best reason I can imagine is the same reason this inevitability terrifies me: it’s boring. By allowing the wrestler to not only be better at wrestling than anything else, but also not worry about unlucky mishaps interfering with their wrestling, I’ve given them nothing but incentive to approach every problem as if it’s a nail waiting to be struck by the hammer of wrestling. I love mechanics. I love games. I want my mechanics to inspire interesting decisions that thus drive an interesting narrative.

This brings me to another realization that really shouldn’t have taken me nearly 10 years of playing ttrpgs, but here we are. Players use the skills that they do because they are good at those skills. Wild, I know. When my D&D5e paladin with mediocre skills aside from Athletics and Persuasion ends up avoiding skill checks that aren’t Athletics and Persuasion, I shouldn’t really be surprised. And this isn’t necessarily dissatisfying. That is what this character is good at. They aren’t good at other skills. So it would probably feel less satisfying if they constantly attempted risky skill checks that they were unlikely to succeed at.

I think the crux here is that while this paladin is a character in a fictional story, I’m a person playing a game. I wouldn’t find it weird for Iron Man to solve all his problems through intelligence and technology. That’s very consistent with what I know of Iron Man. But Iron Man doesn’t have a human sitting at a table trying to find creative and fun ways to engage with a story. I want to have a little more incentive to take risks at something I’m not necessarily as likely to succeed at.

This aside is rapidly growing out of control (that will undoubtedly be a common occurrence here), but a couple ways I have seen and brainstormed to incentivize trying things you aren’t so good at include getting XP when you fail a skill check, and forcing players to widen the skills they invest in.

I’ll show some discipline and bring us back to that wrestler who is now pushing people around constantly because it is the most reliable tool in their toolbelt, while also probably being the most likely to critically succeed since I also gave them incentive to increase their appropriate Skill DC by increasing its proficiency rank. This design removed the one drawback that Skill Tests have in my system: they might fail. To be entirely fair to the original design, the wrestler can encounter people who are fortitudinous enough to not automatically be shoved, but those won’t be the vast majority of NPCs.

The problem with Consistency is that it removes the only mechanical reason the wrestler might not wrestle. There is no finite amount of wrestling attempts per day. No stamina resource shared by other physically demanding Skill Tests. No automatic physical strain. The only thing standing between our wrestler and infinite wrestling (aside from the time it takes to wrestle, which would certainly be relevant when facing down many people), is the fact that they might not wrestle successfully. And I thought it was a good idea to take that away. Thankfully not long enough for it to make it into the game I run with my friends.

Well, I still want to have the narrative satisfaction of all but guaranteed success given a sufficiently skilled character. But how can I mitigate the lack of a drawback? I’ve currently landed on forcing the player to choose between reliability and possibility. “Consistency” now allows a player to choose to perform a Skill Test as if their Skill DC was the result of the roll, plus or minus any bonuses and penalties. This does a couple of things. Maybe even three!

Firstly, it requires the player to size up the situation. Consistency will not automatically apply. You have to actively choose if something seems simple enough that you can go with your guaranteed roll. Secondly, it limits the potential of your Skill Test. You’ll never roll higher than what you’re given. This minimizes the possibility of Critical Success. Thirdly, and probably my favourite, it makes Partial Success much more likely. If your roll is capped at the EV, you’re a lot more likely to not have a Regular Success. This means we are more likely to see the wrestler not get exactly what they want, or have to deal with some Consequences (giving a great opportunity to bring in some of that physical strain I mentioned earlier).

Suddenly the player has a serious choice to make. Do they think Consistency will do the trick? Is it worth the risk of it not being enough? Is it more risky to risk rolling low? And that is how I think a narrative should be driven. By letting (or rather, forcing) players to make interesting decisions. That’s the kind of game that I want to run.

Anyone reading this who has played a decent amount of Pathfinder: Second Edition probably realizes I accidentally made the Assurance skill feat. As someone who never appreciated Assurance, I find that hilarious. I definitely see it in a new light. Although, a version of Assurance that is more likely to succeed but costs a Focus Point would be a really cool way to change the limitation of the ability to be based on a resource. If Dukhlon Tales had a short term resource like that, I’d almost certainly jump at the opportunity to let characters go Plus Ultra. As is, I’ll have to settle for making them deal with physical strain.

[cephiwyrm]

please please please share all of your ocs!!

HELLO YES I WILL??? there was one i was specifically vague posting about in the one reblog which i will NOT but i will share something funny abt him

my ex made a cardboard cut out of him, hated him so much they STABBED HIM and then mailed me the arm, and of course i still own it. ANYWAYS! pulling these from my main toyhouse (i have an ugly watermark i am so sorry) let the rambling begin (extremely long i am so sorry LMAO)

(cutely pulls up a piece of art) alright this is my cherry pop story! they are 3 cryptid / unnatural monster type hunters in a universe that is pretty much exactly like earth 1:1 except it was cats and dogs that became the main dominant species. the main character (aka just the one we see through her POV theyre all main characters to me.sniff) is Annie! she is a quiet and get it done type of character, besides working the 9 to 5 monster hunting job, she really likes games (this takes place in the 2000s btw) and is interested in how mechanical stuff works! also she is a trans icon :)

next is Peyton! shes she nerdy, figure it out type. probably the one in the group the most interested in what they're actually being paid to do; also one of the first ones to notice what is actually going on. she mainly enjoys going out and fucking around with her skateboard and shes a little sillay gal

last but not least in cherry pop is Micah! hes the brawns and usually helps with doing physical objectives, and also just catching the monsters in general if need be. first one to come to conclusions, even if they are SEVERELY wrong. he is captain of the swim team and wishes to go to a bigger college one day (they are in a small town)

OK NEXT !! AFTER PARTY they are some of my oldest ocs (not OLDEST oldest but def. there) and their story is a little all over the place since its with me and my friends and we havent gotten into it recently (its basically a masquerade type kill scenario) all their art is a little old but this is Okano! at a very young age, her father died and she was able to take over a very well off company. Well she doesn't make huge decisions by herself at the moment, she shows great opportunity in the future. she is very distrusting because of it though, and takes a while to warm up to people.

next is kaga! (one next to peyton) shes a little silly gal, shes very reckless and kind of doesn't care about danger shes in it for the thrill. absolutelu kills it being a roller blader, but also just likes walking around with no shoes on. also ! she works in a tattoo shop :)))

now realizing i have a lot of. trio characters huh. anyways! heres kiki. no ur not getting a genuine image bebcause she iisss so baby...... anyways; she is a french vlogger! she loves exploring the world and showing it to her growing number of people. also has a small AU inside of stardew valley :) shes obsessed with seagulls as well

ok realizing i have too many ocs and i dont want this to be like two million word post (30+ on my main and more not even on TH) so ill end off with my TTRPG charas :) this is Milo my druid aarakocra for DnD! on like the second session he got struck by lightining and got a god that way. When he was just a litol baby he wandered off from his home and into a forest where his brother, an elf named Leo, went up to his soon to be mentor/father figure Crechir like CAN WE PLEASE KEEP HIM PELASEEEEEE and may or may not have lied about his entire home burning to the ground later on he found a little gold dragon which when touching different objects changed colour; and was named skittle. little funny thing about skittle was everytime a gold coin was fed, he would grow just a little bit. even more later on, he was sent an ominous message about his birth home about how his mother had died and he was the next chieftan and so he had to go do some special trials in order to become one! he also went to the hell casino and since crechir gave him chips he was able to get an amulet that lets him shift between his two forms, treefolk and birdfolk

and finally, this is Ash for MOTW! she is a twin in a small town in canamerica (canada and america fused because our irl party is in both) due to being a twin, she was born with some spooky (haha her class) powers, and will send her twin Ali memes via telapathy. unfortunately being a teen with powers, she is also kind of very angsty and prone to some bursts of outrage. besides that, she has a very strong interest in wood carving, while her twin loves to hunt crytids, due to the strangeness of their town they have to deal with it every once in a while! they have a pet snake belovingly named banana (or boenana. shes a boa constrictor) and is honestly a teen that is addicated to her phone

ty for reading if you did!! i fucking LOVE MY OCS. SO MUCH. I WILL GO ON AND ON ABOUT THEM UNTIL I RUN OUT OF THEIR ACTUAL STORY

[ieatpastriesforfun]

I have to say, r/daggerheart has gotten considerably more pleasant in the past few days. I feel like with the interest in the game growing, there are newer folks participating in the discussions.

On the side note, I'm very curious what v1.3 will bring. If we are going by software versioning rules, it should be backwards compatible with v1.2, but there is no reason to believe that TTRPG versions follow those convention.

I would personally love to see a complete re-haul of combat, and take the MCDM rpg-like approach to damage, but I have a feeling that won't be happening.

The general pattern I see in Daggerheart's mechanics is a lack of elegance. You have to constantly create patch works of special cases and rules to make things work.

And it is frustrating because

I love their character creation.

I love their cooperative world building.

I love their general GM-ing philosophy.

I want to like this game.

I want this game to succeed.

Here are some of the things I hate about Daggerheart combat in v1.2.

I hate the damage thresholds so much, but I don't think they will get rid of that.

I hate that you can only inflict 1, 2, or 3 damage (4 with a variant rule).

I hate the fact that you can take down a very powerful enemy by hitting them 12 times with your bare bands, though the same enemy could soak up to hundreds of "damage" before falling.

I hate that you sometimes combine damages before determining the HP loss, and sometimes you don't.

The fact that these thresholds vary so much makes it feel like the weapon damage dice doesn't really matter.

I hate that there are so many meta-currencies rolling around. I would argue for getting rid of stress and armor slots, and just use hope for players. So when you run out of hope, you can't negate damage. For adversaries, I guess you can use fear in place of stress, though I suppose you'll need a bigger fear pool.

I hate the asymmetry between GM and players. It makes it literally a requirement for the game to come up with a bunch of side rules—you can't just plop a ally NPC or plop a created character as an enemy.

I hate that missing in combat sucks so much in Daggerheart—not only did you fail to hit the enemy, but you ended the turn for your entire party, and possibly handed a resource that the adversaries can use.

Last but not least, the action economy really needs a re-examination. There are 2 restrictions on GM moves that really frustrate me:

You can't move the same enemy more than once in a turn (unless the enemy has a special ability)

You can move one enemy using one token (unless the enemy has a special ability)

As a GM, if you don't pick your enemies right, you could end up with an encounter where most of your creatures are just kind of standing around doing nothing. Or the GM could have a bunch of action tokens they can't use—maybe convert some to fear for later, assuming you aren't already filled up.

I also don't like that players not doing anything is at times an optimal strategy. This came up a couple of times in the subreddit in question actually, and the crap comments the poster got was, "If you are trying to optimize, then you are playing it wrong." But can you really blame a player for not wanting to take an action if their action is much less effective than another character? Because taking an action in this game means you are risking giving a powerful resource to your adversaries (see above rant about missing in Daggerheart).

"Oh but @ieatpastriesforfun. You don't understand. Daggerhear is a narrative game. Don't you bring that GM vs Players mentality to this narrative game," a fan-human would say, ignoring that the very mechanics of the game undermine this philosophy.

Wow, that was a lot. I am done now.

r/daggerheart is toxic AF...and I love it

Note: This is just a rant about the subbreddit and their inability process any critique of the game that goes against their narrative of the game. The game itself has a lot of good parts, which I really like. But this post isn't about the game, but the subbreddit.

So you know, I am a nerd that like to nerd about games and probabilities. I've been interested in Daggerheart for a while because I am a fan of Critical Role, and the beta playtest rules recently came out. I was super excited, so I read through the PDF as soon as I got the chance, also started a game with my partner.

And honestly, there are some great parts to the game. But there are also some design decisions that made me scratch my head. So I shared some of my thoughts on r/daggerheart.

Oh boy did I poke a beehive. That subbreddit is pretty hostile toward anyone who dares to criticize the game. My first post critiquing the complexity of the damage system got down voted to oblivion. They told me I shouldn't have opinion on the very things I can read because I haven't played the game. So when I played the game and posted my feedback, these folks dismissed my criticisms because I was suffering from "new system syndrome."

Oh, and the comments. They were something else. The sub is dominated by a group of people who are pushing the narrative that Daggerheart is "rules-light" and "very easy" and "less math than DND."

Yes, Daggerheart is a rules-light game with a 377 page rulesbook. Because this is still beta, it is missing a ton of rules, not to mention artwork. But sure, it's a rules-light game. Because what is page count if not just a number?

Yes, Daggerheart is "very easy" if you ignore the fact that every character has HP, minor damage threshold, major damage threshold, severe damage threshold, stress, hope, and armor on top of your abilities and backstory and everything else you are trying to juggle.

Yes, Daggerheart has less math than DND because instead of just subtracting the damage from the HP, you compare the damage to each of the thresholds to decide whether or not you want to reduce the damage by armor, then determine how much you lower the HP by, unless it is below the minor threshold, in which case you take stress, but if you are filled up on stress, you take 1 HP. Oh, and you know, if you also ignore the fact that you roll two dice, add the numbers, and check to see which one is bigger to decide which one is bigger every single time you want to do something.

So yeah, if you ignore all of those very obvious things that I can see with my very own eyes, my own experience of running the game, my experience having played a rules-light RPG like Candela, they are right: Daggerheart is a rules-light game that is very easy to play with less math than DND /s.

Seriously, these folks will fight you tooth-and-nail to tell you that what you can see is wrong. They will gaslight you, tell you about how 11-years can play Daggerheart, their 73 year old mother can play Daggerheart, tell you that you are playing the game wrong, DND has taught you bad habits, and that your critique doesn't matter because all you want is the game to be more like DND.

And I love it. I love seeing the cognitive dissonance. I love going at it with these die-hard fans. And it's pretty easy on my part. I don't need to get mean—all I need to do is point out very obvious things. And you know, no foul no harm—we keep going until one or both of us get sick of arguing about whatever specific thing we are arguing about.

Anyway, enough of my rant.

I want Daggerheart to succeed. I really do. I think Matt Mercer and friends are pretty good folks, and I find their story inspiring, and I would love to see them succeed. I hope that Daggerheart developers listen to the critical feedbacks, make the game better, and not try to push any weird narratives (like they did with Candela vs FitD).

[fagderolo]

hello another mutual of yours who also does not kin and also loves your art!! i know you've been playing a lot of video games recently and i've been looking for new stuff to get into, what do you recommend?

ohh okay I have actually been thinking about making a quiz for indie video games depending on tastes because I tend to play a lot of them. SO. um. let's see. this is in no particular order I am just adhd

(also I will mark games that I know are on that itchio bundle with a * because I know a lot of people have it)

pyre* - a choices matter soccer game eseentially, you control three characters in a ritual called the rites, deciding who among you all gets to go free and who will stay exiled, a supergiant game and one of my favorites, several difficulty settings and I beat it with zero issues on the lowest one, absolutely excellent music I cannot stress enough how much I love it

tangle tower - investigate a murder in a mansion inhabited by two families at odds with each other, really fun character design and a nice little point and click mystery/puzzle game I beat in a few hours in one sitting, fully voice acted and each time I thought I was close to the end it kept going

disco elysium - the most expensive among this list most likely but also has the most replay value by far, a game where you investigate a murder, there is no combat and the whole game runs very similarly to a powered by the apocalypse system (roll with 2d6, I am unsure if it is just pass/fail or if there is a middle ground) with two dozen skills. I once died trying to get a tie off a fan after going poorly. in true ttrpg fashion. this one is somewhat darker. maybe 15 percent voice acted and very poetic.

the red strings club - another favorite game, you (mostly) play as donovan, a bartender/information broker in a cyberpunk society who makes drinks that aid in his quest for information. made by deconstructeam, you can get a feel for how dark it may be by playing any number of their free games, this one is pretty short, around 4 hours but I have replayed it several times

mutazione - take care of plants, hang out with some friends, and stick your nose in some small town drama as you visit your sick grandfather, maybe discover some island secrets along the way? very chill, the plants can make music, I finished this one in a sitting as well

suchart creative space - just a demo at the moment but a very fun art game where you can paint on literally everything, color mixing feels really good and it is the most extensive art game I have ever played

card city nights - a fun little card game, I honestly barely remember th exact mechanics anymore but I love the art style, I would particularly recommend the second one

2064 read only memories* - another cyberpunk game, and another where you are investigating something, though this time it is a kidnapping, has some really fun characters and from what I remember is pretty extensively voice acted

grow home/grow up - you are a robot! help grow a giant plant up (to space?) and help catalogue plants and animals while you're at it! the second game (grow up) has more mini challenges than the first one but I played them in order and love them. does get very tiring as climbing involves using left and right bumpers.

islands: non places* - less of a game, more interactive art. very pretty and very nice to just play in half an hour or less, maybe with a podcast or something in the background

why am I dead at sea - um. investigate a murder! again! except this time it's your murder, you are a ghost and you need to possess people, each with their own special abilities, to get what information you need. this one is also another relatively heavy one.

what remains of edith finch - my absolute favorite walking sim of all time, a story about a family and their... curse? also pretty heavy and some of the moments Really hit you but I have gone back to replay them several times.

outer wilds - explore space with zero real objectives and mostly your own curiosity to guide you. really great music, if you do play this and haven't heard anything about it yet, don't look anything up. it is truly a game where going in blind is the most fun

onehot* - save the world (or. a world), you only get one chance as after the game is finished you have to erase your save to play again, I don't really know what to say about this game except I love the character and level designs a lot, it's a puzzle game (I believe made in gamemaker or something similar) and is another one of my all time favorites

this got. so so wordy and I probably missed some but here is a nice little list of some of my lesser known faves to get you started

if there are any more specific genres you enjoy (or any of these you have already played) let me know !

[bardicknowledgeblogger]

Critical Story Beats

While it’s not really an aspect of the rules anymore, a lot of us who play D&D and other similar TTRPGs like to make use of the Nat 20 = Auto Success, Nat 1 = Auto Fail rule with varying degrees of success and excitement.

I’ve seen people post their stories of Nat 20s and 1s resulting in hilarious and ridiculous moments as a DM allows the player to get away with something they probably shouldn’t have been able to, or failed horribly at something that really should have been easy to accomplish. I’ve read posts from frustrated DMs trying to keep players with godlike luck from just auto succeeding encounters they shouldn’t be able to waltz through like this. And in my own games, I’ve simply seen Crits be... well, not much. You succeed or fail in a way that doesn’t really make much of a difference from a normal success or failure.

Obviously everyone runs their games a bit differently, and there’s not anything wrong with having silly story moments or more low key interactions at your table if that’s what works for you. But lately, I’ve been trying to challenge myself to make moments in my stories more engaging, and that includes handling Critical Failures and Successes. So I wanted to share a few different ideas, philosophies, etc... on how to handle these rolls! Hopefully you find some things to apply to your own games as well! 

(This is mainly on how to make the most of your Nat 20s and Nat 1s - if there’s interest I will make a different post about how to handle problems with it, such as succeeding the impossible and how to curb that without players losing “faith” in their Crits)

Everything below the cut because it’s a tad long...

Making Things Interesting

This has been a guiding philosophy for me lately in all of games, as I strive to make sure that every choice made, while still narratively coherent and satisfying, is also as interesting and intriguing as possible. I want my players to feel enraptured with every moment, and that idea has carried over into my narration of critical fails and successes.

In the past, I wasn’t very good at handling Crits, especially the failures. In a combat, if a player rolled a Nat 1 for their attack, my response was often to have them just.... drop their weapon, or a spell just failed to cast. It wasn’t very interesting and proved to just irritate and frustrate the players because it was a minor inconvenience that resulted in a wasted turn and nothing more. Similarly, Nat 20s in many non-combat situations were the same as usual successes with the added flourish of “You do it flawlessly” Which was.... fine, but not very exciting. This year, I started to try and change things.

When a player rolls a Nat 1 or a Nat 20, I take a moment to pause as I think “What would be the most interesting thing to happen in this situation? What bad thing could completely shift the tide in this one moment and introduce a new conflict/what amazing thing could shift everything in their favor and create a satisfying and exciting moment for all?”

A recent example I’ve had of this - My players were navigating through a massive underground cavern, and were entering a larger room that was pretty dark and had some unique traits that had been different from the rest of the cave system. I had my players roll Perception, to see how many of these details they picked up on, and one of the players rolled a Nat 1. Now, in the past, I would have made some joke about them being too busy watching their feet to make sure they didn’t trip that they didn’t notice anything happening around them. But this time around, after some consideration, I decided on something different.

What if instead, they were so focused on trying to see something, trying to see anything, that they started seeing and hearing things that weren’t really there. Many of us have been in that position before - it’s late at night and you get an uncomfortable feeling so you look around in the dark of your room, and suddenly you feel like you definitely saw something move out of the corner of your eye, or heard a shuffling noise. So that’s what I did.

While the other players started to get details about how the cavern was carved out, signs of drawings on the walls, etc... the player who rolled a Nat 1 became convinced that they could hear whispers and shuffling in the darkness, could see dark shapes flitting about just at the edges of their vision. They started to panic and nearly started blind firing spells in an attempt to chase whatever it was off and had to be coaxed the rest of the way through the cavern.

Instead of a forgettable moment, it become a defining experience for this player as they navigated through the cavern - an experience that has shaped them in some way. And that’s the goal.

How Do You Want To Do This?

If you’re a fan of Critical Role then you’re familiar with this line and the excitement it can summon up. This is something you can carry into your games as well in regards to Critical Successes.

Now obviously not everything is going to be something you can give any player control over. But allowing the player the opportunity to really bring the vision of their character to life for an exciting conclusion to an encounter, or for any epic moment really, does a lot to build hype and excitement in the game. It make players eager to see that 20 come up on their die, and gears them up for what is coming next.

The easiest place to put this into practice is in combat. Obviously this works incredibly well if they get a Critical Strike that finishes the enemy off, as you can give them full control of the narrative if you’d like. However, there are still ways to apply it in the combat even if they aren’t finishing it off.

I try to reward my player’s combat crits by turning the tide of the fight pretty drastically, allowing them to stagger or even cripple the opponent with their attack. If your players seem eager to engage with narrative and add their own flavor and flare to the actions of their character, this can be a great place to allow them to do so. You can tell them “Your attack manages to cripple the opponent’s arm - how do you want to do this?” And let them build their role in the story. It may not be quite as spectacular as you had originally imagined, or perhaps its something completely different from what you would have done - either way, it is likely to get your players more engaged, and way more excited for these strikes.

Extra Rewards and Penalties

Finally, and something I’ve already vaguely alluded to in the previous sections, you can handle Crit Fails and Successes with “extras”. Sometimes a player fails or succeeds a task where there’s not a lot you can do with it - Maybe they’re picking a lock, and they roll a Nat 20 to do so. There’s unfortunately not a lot they can get beyond succeeding to unlock it (unless you had planned additional traps or something that they can now bypass) so in these instances, I try to think about what extra they might get out of the situation.

Maybe as they re-positioned themselves to finish unlocking the door, they jostled a nearby potted plants and noticed that just in the dirt was a small ring of keys that may be able to be used on other doors or chests within this place. Maybe, if you were planning an encounter in the next room for a guard they were going to alert coming in, they find that guard asleep and you mention that the player was so expertly silent with their lockpicking they didn’t alert or awaken the guard, allowing the players to bypass him altogether.

Obviously there are still some limitations here, and it may not be the most exciting thing, but it can still elevate a success from “Yay, you did it just like you would have if you rolled one of the other 3 numbers” to being something special. This same principle can be applied with Nat 1s, if they fail at something that simple can’t have consequences. 

I mentioned my Perception example above, but sometimes a Perception check simply can’t be twisted into anything more. So in addition to them missing out on whatever was going to be noticed, give them something extra to focus on instead. Maybe they trip over something and twist their ankle - not enough to have major mechanical effect, but enough to be frustrating and something to keep them preoccupied from the other information. Or perhaps they see something that is ultimately useless but stands out to them - a shiny pebble on the side of the road that has a strange green hue to it. If the player really plays along and even takes the pebble, trying to determine what it does, this is something you can potentially play with later. Maybe the pebble is a mark used by goblins to track potential people to rob? Perhaps the stone grows bigger every day until they start receiving movement penalties. They possibilities are truly limitless.

There’s obviously a lot more you can do, but these are the things I’ve been trying to incorporate into my own games. I want there to be magic to seeing a 20 come up on the die, and a sense of dread to seeing a 1. I don’t want it to be a minor annoyance, I want it to be a defining moment in the story.

As mentioned at the top - I will look at doing another one talking about how to handle Impossible Successes and Failures if there’s some interest!

[wazafam]

The first Dungeons & Dragons modules and campaigns that Gary Gygax created back in the day were inspired by literature, specifically the Lord of the Rings books. Dungeon Masters and players alike still use their favorite books as templates for their campaigns, but there's a lot more to choose from when it comes to media these days. Modern Table Top Role-Playing Gamers (TTRPGers) not only have volumes of books but also a myriad of video games and movies when they need new ideas.

RELATED: 10 Best Fantasy TV Shows To Watch Right Now, Ranked (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

There are a lot of fantasy movies out there that would make great D&D campaigns. They include a team of characters with different but complementary abilities, a quest, some nasty enemies to fight, and maybe even a magical object. All of the elements combine to make a great story and a great D&D module. Contemporary movies have the added benefit of mixing up the setting and genre, with some space opera and superheroes thrown into the mix.

10 The Avengers (2012)

Fantasy isn't always about sword and sorcery, but there's even some of that in there through the Asgard connection that features the god Thor and his sorcerer brother, Loki. The Avengers plays out like a stereotypical D&D module, complete with a quest, a magical object, a sworn enemy, and various people with different abilities that have to learn to work together for a common goal.

The fantasy movies of today are dominated by superheroes, and the success of the Marvel movies attests to that trend. Several entries in the franchise could inspire a TTRPG, but recognition goes to the one that confirmed the franchise was a pop culture force to be reckoned with.

9 Star Wars (1977)

It's not exactly science fiction, although there are plenty of tabletop games that specialize in the genre, but a combination of sci-fi and fantasy known as space opera. This is where snarky descriptions of Jedi Knights as "space wizards" come from, and you can easily assign other D&D classes to the other characters, like Rogue or Barbarian. The question of whether Jedi are Wizards, Sorcerers, or Clerics could be a source of interesting debate.

The concept of a campaign that takes place in outer space, or even in a setting that features interdimensional travel, can follow a similar plot as the original Star Wars. The campaign could include a mentor, training, party formation, and working together for a common goal.

8 Ninja Scroll (1993)

Imagine a module that has elements like a secretive plot that the characters must team up to discover despite opposition from malevolent and supernatural forces, and that's essentially the plot of Ninja Scroll. The setting can vary, but a DM can take some inspiration from that as well since "medieval" doesn't always have the go with "European."

RELATED: 10 Greatest Fantasy Weapons in Film, Ranked

Ninja Scroll was part of the anime wave of the mid-1990s that brought on cyberpunk and psychological horror along with this movie, a chilling tale of ghosts and demons from Japanese history. At the time it was a unique example of an anime film that took place in the past as opposed to a movie about the future.

7 The Last Unicorn (1982)

A book that's been successfully adapted into a movie can also be adapted into a campaign. For players that are more concerned about character development and roleplaying, especially as it relates to class progression, The Last Unicorn is the ideal inspiration.

The quest and plot are simple, relying more on the interaction between the characters than any complex storyline. Players and DMs alike can see where archetypes come from and how they can be subverted, different ways that character progression can work, and how they are combined as part of RP in gameplay.

6 Conan The Destroyer (1984)

The first Conan movie could also be in this space, but the oft-overlooked sequel, Conan The Destroyer, has a much better party dynamic.

Conan, of course, a Barbarian, is joined by a Cleric, a Druid who might be a Fighter multiclass, a Monk who might be a Barbarian herself, and of course his sidekicks from the first movie, the Rogue and the Wizard. They're on a quest to find a magical artifact for a queen who seems to be Neutral Evil so she can resurrect an old, angry god. If there's not a D&D module for this already, there should be.

5 Spirited Away (2001)

Sometimes a whole module can take place in a relatively small space, like a castle keep, a large house, or a prison compound. This movie is more about creating and playing in a unique and perhaps enclosed setting since there's little to see regarding party dynamic with one character being the focus of the plot and action.

RELATED: Spirited Away: 10 Ways It's Actually A Horror Movie

The enchanted bathhouse of the witch Yubaba is where most of the action takes place. DMs will appreciate the detail and difference that each of the various levels has, with the lower levels furnished for public viewing and the upper levels for employees and Yubaba's private quarters, with the addition of secret routes along the perilous exterior of the massive building.

4 Ladyhawke (1985)

The quest still has to be at the heart of any D&D campaign and that's also what makes Ladyhawke such a great movie when DMs and players need inspiration. Every good D&D campaign needs a plot, which is the quest, along with a realistic antagonist complete with minions and magical powers.

That's not to say a few interesting characters are included, and they have some interesting arcs, for those interested in character progression. For example, the main character, Philipe, is a Rogue who seems to take a turn towards multi-classing into a Cleric as the story comes to a close.

3 Dragonslayer (1981)

This one seems too obvious at first, and the script plays on those fairytale tropes on purpose only to surprise the viewer later. Although Dragonslayer is missing a lot of that essential party dynamic, the main character has an interesting mentor and character arc, thus it's more useful to players when it comes to putting together a good backstory than building the ideal campaign.

However, what seems like a typical story ends up subverting some old archetypes in clever ways, and a good D&D campaign would find some ways to do the same.

2 The Dark Crystal (1982)

A unique setting can make a simple, even stereotypical storyline a lot more interesting. The journey starts with the search for and the acquisition of a magical item that must be delivered to a precise location, complete with a ticking clock, which is also a nice plot for a DM to guide the party through.

RELATED: 10 Fantasy Movies That Were Groundbreaking For The Genre

Aside from all that, there's a wealth of details in The Dark Crystal for those that are interested in designing a unique campaign with a lot of lore, which includes creative destinations and compelling villains with interesting backstories. It's also an interesting example of progressing through a campaign where one player starts on their own, with a brand new character, and grows their party as their initial quest progresses.

1 Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2

The first movie was more about how Star-Lord and his gang initially got together, a story that's useful for beginners, so Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 for players and Dungeon Masters that want some inspiration for more advanced characters. These are gamers from both sides of the table who have already formed a solid party dynamic and are ready to face a more formidable challenge.

It's also a nice twist on the conventional fantasy genre, with a variety of settings that include Ego's planet and some creative space monsters, including the final boss himself. All of this is set up with some easy-to-follow character progression, and if viewers are paying attention, there are Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues aplenty if players that favor those classes need inspiration for their own individual gameplay.

NEXT: 10 Pro Tips To Running A Large DND Group

10 Best Fantasy Movies That'll Inspire Your Next DnD Campaign from https://ift.tt/3v2cKK0

[theresattrpgforthat]

Is there a TTRPG that allows for the “Youths Having Fun Being Fantastic” “genre” of works like Persona 5 and Codename: Kids Next Door combined with the aesthetic of Digimon: Cyber Sleuth and early Bakugan? I’m sorry if I sent this one before, I forgor :(

THEME: Fun, Fantastic Youths.

Hello there, so I had to do a little bit of research to see what kind of tied these pieces of media together. What I looked for was games about kids with something special about them, a lighthearted tone, and an anime art style. I tried to focus on games that were set in the modern day, but not everything in this list matches that qualification.

Shepherds, by AirkSeablade.

Shepherds is a tabletop RPG about young members of a League of professional do-gooders, who strive to protect the peace and safety of ordinary people.  These young Shepherds will forge bonds of trust with each other, grow and mature as people, and possibly foil some evil plots along the way.

Shepherds puts us into a fantasy history where technology is starting to change the world around you. Your characters are young members of a special organization, with special training or abilities to help them protect the people around them. The author describes the genre as “hopeful fantasy”, inspired by the “Tales of _” video games and the Trails/Kiseki video game line.

System-wise, the game is Powered by the Apocalypse, which means that you only need 2d6 to play, and your characters will draw from a series of Moves in order to find out what happens next, with various categories for action scenes, relationship-building, moving through various in-game processes, and using magic.

The Magical Land of Yeld, by Yeldstuff.

Somewhere there is a door to a magical land. A land of secrets and treasure. Of exploration and adventure. Where children can become heroes, discover their inner strength and stand against monsters and magic. And once you enter, the only thing you have to fear is that you can never go home!

The Magical Land of Yeld is a multi-session tabletop roleplaying game focusing on adventure, hero building and shared storytelling. Like the classic console games we love, adventures in Yeld are designed to allow you to explore colorful and strange lands, seek out secret dungeons and temples and challenge powerful boss monsters as your characters grow to unlock new skills and discover more powerful weapons and treasure.

The main features of The Magical Land of Yeld that I think connect to your request is the fact that you are playing children, and that your children have magical abilities. However, the setting is decidedly fantastic, rather than taking place in the modern day - although if you like the secret worlds of Persona, you might find the isekai themes in this game to be adjacent to what you’re looking for. Similar to Kids Next Door, there’s always a threat of no longer being a child - although instead of turning into an adult, you’re in danger of turning into a monster. If you want a game with cartoon-ish threats but high stakes, you might like The Magical Land of Yeld.

Oddity High, by Derek Ehlmann.

You're a high school student that's probably nowhere close to being ordinary. Whether you’re dealing with aliens, psychics, ghosts, demons, eldritch gods or sentient cats is up to you - but whatever it is, you’re in the thick of it. Fortunately, by happenstance or by design, you’ve got a gang of like-minded, equally-abnormal friends at your side - and with their help, you’ve got a fighting chance at surviving it. Just don’t forget that you’re also going to need to survive high school, as well.

Oddity High is powered by the Apocalypse Engine, the system used by legendary and award-winning games such as Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, The Sprawl, Urban Shadows, Fellowship, and many, many more.

The Persona games are one of the many inspirations behind this game, about teenagers with abnormal powers. You combine your high-school type playbook with another, stranger playbook called your Other-Life playbook. Many of these playbooks are nods to various tropes in anime, such as masked superheroes, kids with the ability to re-write reality, or someone in control of another entity that is vastly more powerful than any human being.

Judging by the references for this game, Oddity High might lean a little more to the serious side than the goofy side, but if you want really larger-than-life anime hi-jinx, you might want to check out this game.

Clash! Shounen Battle Roleplay, by Sabrina Hawthorne.

CLASH! Shonen Battle Roleplay is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game about dramatic fights and the dramatic emotions those fights represent. It’s a game inspired by classic anime & manga like One Piece, Bleach and Naruto. Play as big, bombastic characters with all sorts of cool powers, facing off against pirates, monsters, and other powerful people just like you.

Shounen manga feels very fitting for games and media like Bakugan, Digimon, and Persona 5, which is why CLASH might have something of what you’re looking for. Your characters will all have cool powers and you’ll be constantly jumping into fight scenes, sinking your emotions and beliefs into the conflict. This is a game meant to be colourful and bold, with an emphasis on teamwork and being heroic.

Right now the game is in play-test, so there isn’t really any art to accompany the game. However, the game is pay-what-you-want while it’s in play-test, so you can check it out for free to see if the themes of the game resonate with what you’re looking for.

Cosmic Ray Kids, by Hedgemaze Press.

Cosmic Ray Kids is a single-page (front and back) atomic-age adventure roleplaying game for all ages. Play as superpowered youngsters who fight the forces of evil with heroics and heart! If you like The Powerpuff Girls, Fantastic Four, or Teen Titans Go!, you’ll love Cosmic Ray Kids!

Cosmic Ray Kids emulates the goofy, over-the-top mood of Saturday morning cartoons, with simple rules and a push-your-luck system that always has you trying to balance how much you want to risk. This is a great game for villains as goofy and gonzo as Father or The Delightful Kids From Down The Lane from Kids Next Door. It’s not necessarily styled in the same way as Persona 5 or Bakugan as - written, but I think it’s a light enough game that you could create your own setting that matches closer to what you’re looking for.

You might also want to check out….

Vibe Check, by Ostrichmonkey Games.

Powered by Cereal, by bismuth.

Teenagers with Attitude, by CardboardHyperfix.

Under the Neighbourhood, by Quest Friends.

[thebrojah]

👑 - Which of your muses, past or present, holds a special place for you?

Honestly, I’m just doing this between the two because I’ve never really done rp before this, outside of tabletops like DnD, and even then most of the games I joined collapsed for various scheduling reasons before the characters could develop meaningfully.

And the answer to even that is, I admit, a bit of a cop out: they’re special in really different ways, and not really an easy comparison?

On one hand, I feel like all characters, we tend give them little bits of ourselves, some more, some less. Antonia got more than average from me (I mentioned in another ask that much of her history is my love letter to San Diego, she was gifted my love of “useless” academics, and she shares my irreverent but not-completely-ironic affection for growing up with Catholicism), and additionally, she was a character I put a lot of love into trying to seriously tackle and engage with the lore of the setting. Both components mean I put a lot of care into the creation of the character, and that made her really special.

On the other, Nick was created almost a decade ago for a Mage: The Awakening game I never got to join due to scheduling conflicts. He was put into a folder and left to more or less rot for like, nine years, during which time my friends kept creating tabletop groups that I wouldn’t be able to join due to scheduling conflicts. When our ST started our VtM chronicle, I had nearly become disillusioned with the entire concept of ttrpgs because I’d failed to join so many groups. I chose to pull Nick out of the folder partly because our ST requested that we create characters where we were prepared to accept their deaths, so I felt recycling him really suited that. But Nick sort of getting me back into being able to do ttrpgs gives him a really special place in my heart too.

[heavensdog]

Plotting Monsters of the Week?

This is a crunch post that should have minimal spoilers! As I’ve been working on Heaven’s Dog (as well as some previous, unfinished projects like a mahou shoujo ttrpg lol), one of the things that comes up a lot for me is how to handle Monsters of the Week when I want to keep the plot tight. They always seem to be so much filler, right? Derived from a studio’s desire to milk the basic premise of the show without changing the status quo too much?

Well, that’s never exactly how it’s felt for me, but for a while I was forced to wonder if that’s what they were for . . . maybe you who are reading this already know what purpose monsters of the week serve and I’m just slow on the uptake, but for those of you who don’t, I wanted to talk a bit about my process when it comes to Monsters of the Week~!

(Cut for length! There may be some book one spoilers as well though! Nothing as major as the last one, lol)

So, the monster of the week format in magical girl stories provides two crucial benefits to the story, regarding pacing and character development.

First of all, the Monster of the Week format allows you to slow the pace down and keep the audience from being too overwhelmed by the sheer amount of drama there is in a good magical girl story (since magical girl stories are traditionally shoujo, there’s a lot of emotional back and forth, and this tends to stick even when the genre receives a demographic shift); it gives you time to appreciate the “before” and “after” beats of the protagonists’s development by letting you really become familiar with who they are before they do all their character growth, and before things like betrayals and deaths come into play too much, it lets you appreciate the role side characters and mascots and everyone have to play.

The Monster of the Week format is not necessary (works by Arina Tanemura almost never use them, for example, and she’s one of my pacing idols while still delivering some pretty heartwrenching emotional turmoil), but it can be really nice to get that nostalgic, summer’s-just-around-the-corner feeling of growing up that is so endearing about the genre. Sailor Moon would not hit nearly as powerfully with Usagi’s development if we didn’t have time to sit with her while her special attack was literally ultrasonic crying.

However, despite all it’s good sides, it can be really hard to work in, because it does dramatically change the pacing, and what exactly are you supposed to put in there while you have all this delicious plot later? It requires you to be good at your more dramatic fantasy plotting as well as slice of life plotting, and then you have to mix them together, and if you do it badly it can just feel like a pacing nightmare . . . but the key is in your protagonists character arc!

So for example, the Agent of Heaven’s character arc in book one is “realizing they can’t go on living the way they have been”; they’ve been stuck since they were a kid, trying to play the hero of what is starting to feel like a losing battle.

So first of all, we need to establish the starting position of the Agent of Heaven -- what is the thing that keeps them pinned in place? What is the core belief that keeps them fighting?

That answer is where the battle in the prologue comes into play -- the Agent of Heaven is fundamentally an outsider who yearns to connect with other people. This is why you get a selection for why they feel disconnected from their family, as well as who they want to connect with the most -- and why the victim of Lapis’s first attack is someone on the fringes of their friend group who yearns to connect to the others.

The victory over the monster of the week then shapes the protagonist’s development -- if the monster of the week is a question posed to the protagonist, then the victory is the answer the protagonist finds to it, and the solution to their emotional dilemma. In the Agent of Heaven’s case, they resolve this conflict by transforming, allowing them to bond with Iriel, and shaping the core belief that if they can help people, they can be deserving to bond with them.

(Obviously, there then need to be choices available so that you can color and shape this belief to what resonates with you, the reader, but that core belief is still at the heart of the Agent of Heaven ahahahah. . . |||orz balancing a strong narrative with reader customization can be a little difficult, but it’s worth it to see what people come up with too . . . . )

However, in the Agent of Heaven’s case, this is the wrong solution, so then the next Monster of the Week battles are designed to challenge that answer: by reminding the Agent of Heaven that they need to rely on other people, that they can’t save everyone, that sometimes they can cause damage too, and that even when you connect to people, relationships take time to develop and you won’t immediately be able to know everything about them.

So these points form the basis of Book One, which is the Monster of the Week book lol:

The first encounter with Flint represents the counter argument “You can’t save everyone”; Rosewood oneshots Flint without the Agent of Heaven being able to do anything to stop it, and then proceeds to try to befriend the Agent of Heaven. This simultaneously takes away someone from the Agent of Heaven and provides the Agent of Heaven with someone new to connect with, despite the Agent’s internal databanks saying “if you can’t save people, you don’t deserve people”; saving people does not change how lonely the Agent is or isn’t, or how much people want to be around them.

The second argument is then that they need to rely on other people, which is a two part argument, I think -- one, being able to rely on other people to watch your back, and two, being able to rely on other people to notice when something is wrong. These involve the Agent of Heaven being threatened by an external and internal source, and Rosewood coming to the rescue even though Rosewood is New To The Picture, for no other reason than Rosewood notices and cares enough to do something about it; this is also the big moment where the Agent learns to rely on Rosewood, to whatever extent, which feeds into how Rosewood’s later actions affect the Agent.

So in this case, we need an external threat that involves the Agent not being able to look after themselves -- so I’ve translated this into a situation where Rosewood drags them out to socialize, and they end up either drunk when Lapis attacks, or else they end up switching drinks with someone who was getting targeted by a sexual predator of some sort and end up roofied; Rosewood is able to protect them long enough for them to transform and they are able to defeat the monster Lapis created without anyone getting hurt because of Rosewood’s help~

Then for the internal threat, the Agent ends up staying home while Iriel, Rosewood and Abaddon go out for something, and Rosewood comes back to find the Agent behaving in a self destructive manner; as they’re helping the Agent calm down and detangle their thoughts, Lapis drops by to visit and things between them and Rosewood escalate, causing a monster to be summoned, and the Agent of Heaven is once again able to rely on Rosewood to defeat it cleanly without doing any damage.

The third argument, “sometimes you are going to hurt people” is then able to become something affirming, allowing the Agent of Heaven to begin learning that they can forgive themselves for doing things that hurt other’s and trying to do better next time, rather than living in a cycle of lashing out and having to deny it in order to protect themselves; when it’s built on the idea that they can connect with people and need to connect with people even if they can’t save everyone, then they can also begin to question the necessity of saving everyone from themselves, and start focusing on the future of what kind of person they want to be.

In this scenario, Rosewood probably gets sick, and Iriel suggests that the Agent of Heaven stay out of trouble until Rosewood is better, since Rosewood is able to keep things so organized, but the Agent ends up seeking out a fight anyway and because Rosewood isn’t there to contain their wrath, they end up causing a lot of damage. Iriel still forgives them, and Rosewood is impressed by how powerful the Agent is, and the Agent is able to consider what they want to do with that power.

And then the final point, when Rosewood betrays the Agent of Heaven, comes with the question of “how can you trust people when it takes time to know their true intentions”, but I’ve talked about that a bit.

Anyway, this turned out a little rambly, but that’s that!