#we love when the dice tell a narrative yes we do

[babacontainsmultitudes]

Actual footage of Tony trying to talk to Kelsey this episode:

Now what I personally need is for her to despise him for a while then for them to have some big heart to heart and them to become best friends OKAY I'm very invested in what's become of their dynamic and I'm all here for "Punished" Tony the wet cat that he is I yield the rest of my time thank you.

[ieatpastriesforfun]

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).

[monsterkissed]

Interview with a Bureaucrat Knight

i haven't written anything in ages on account of, mental breakdown etc., but i did play a solo round of For The Queen, which is basically an incredibly stripped-down rp storytelling game with no character creation, no dice, frankly no Anything except drawing random questions that prompt you to build a narrative out of thin air until you get to the inevitable, final dilemma. it's a pretty fun game if you are chill with something rules-light every now and then, and a pretty neat writing tool.

anyway here's 2500 words of deeply unhealthy royal relations and becoming the monster you always hated/feared/loved

The land has been in turmoil for as long as you have been alive.

The Queen has decided to undertake a long and perilous journey to broker an alliance with a distant power.

The Queen has chosen you to be in her retinue and accompany her on this journey.

She chose you because she knows that you love her. 

What makes you want to abandon the retinue, and who, besides the Queen, makes you stay?

Fear. Ever since the Queen proposed this journey I have had a certainty that we’re walking to our deaths. It’s not the old fear of the war, we’ve all been living with that so long that it feels like an old, heavy coat. This is new. I can hear doom in every step and dread in every voice. The others won’t talk about it, but I know- they must feel it, too. Nobody dares to quake under the Queen’s gaze, of course, but there are little tells. I think. Glances. Sighs. 

I have to stay for them, naturally. There aren’t any other councillors; if I leave it’ll frighten them ten times worse. And the royal guard will never keep the knights in line once they’re spooked, and if they get ideas… Yes, I have to stay. When the nights start leaving- or maybe it will be the nobles first? Someone is going to leave first, or even raise the issue, and then I’ll try to make her see we should turn back. Once someone else… raises it. 

…it’s fear to both, then, isn’t it?

When was the last time the Queen embarrassed you?

Ha. As if everyone here doesn’t already know. The very last council she gathered before we left on this accursed journey, when she told us what she was going to do… What she was going to do, I should have seen that, she wasn’t asking for permission or advice, but I… Perhaps I’d seen her look at me and known she’d want me to come with her, I don’t remember. I remember my mouth moving (oh gods, did I interrupt her?) and I wasn’t mumbling, I didn’t stutter, all my well-trained diction was at hand as I asked if surely, we shouldn’t wait until at least winter has passed, or better yet, for the ambassador to return…

All my diplomacy, like blowing bubbles at a manticore. She gave me that look I’ve seen so many times. That look used to make empires cower, and evidently from our recent troubles it can’t manage that anymore, but it damn near dissolved me. In front of all of those over-bred sycophants, shaking their heads and smirking at me as she reminded us all that we are out of time, that inaction is not a blameless road to ruin. Oh, she had no intention to embarrass, that would be beneath her. She simply reiterated the facts. But they’ll remember. 

How can people tell, just by looking at you, that you serve the Queen? Do you mind it being so obvious?

Looking at me? On a clear day you can hear a councilman coming from two villages away, wrapped up in all this plate and mail. It’s not ceremonial, you know. I wish it was, they can make wonderfully light faux-armour these days. But she won’t have it. She took this throne with no one but a hundred armed and armoured fighters at her side, and she won’t hold it with anything less. A desk job isn’t an excuse for velvet, or worse, silk. 

I never used to mind it, in truth. It makes the wispy little nobles sweat, which is nice, but I did appreciate the… message of it. You really can tell a member of her government, her court, her closest confidants by the clinking of their armour, and for a while, when she was… winning, I suppose, there was this air about her. You knew why a hundred soldiers stood with her against a nation, why they won. And every moment sweating in this armour made me feel like a part of that, even if it was just barely before my time. 

But, well. We’re not winning anymore. 

The Queen has a pet name for you. Do you appreciate it?

No. And no. I mean, not- Next question, please. 

…

Look, it’s not even my pet name, for a start. My father was the “Wolf” of the original hundred, and I wasn’t even a twinkle in his eye at the time. I don’t know why she started calling me that; I barely pass my annual basic combat exams, and that’s with bribes. I’ve never run through a battlefield scattering legions by howling like a madman, or torn out an assassin’s throat with my teeth. I write her letters and speeches and try to explain economics to her, I’m barely a lapdog, frankly. Yes, I have heard the joke.

It’s better than “Little Wolf,” which was what I was before I actually started working on the council, but not much. I don’t know why she does it. Even with the armour on, I can’t possibly remind her of him. We both know that I’m never going to be her mighty, steadfast knight. If I was… I wouldn’t be thinking these things, would I?

When was the last time the Queen hurt you?

I did fail one of those exams, once. They gave me a month to shape up or be demoted. For, oh, two hours I decided I didn’t care, that a court that ran itself like a barracks was a waste of my education, that I would pack my things and head for the border of one of our allies (I miss when we had allies) and perhaps stop in a pub on the way. And then I was knocking on the door to her chambers. 

It’s a good thing father was dead by then. The shock would have killed him. I… explained to her that being part of her council had been my lifelong dream and greatest honour and I would throw myself on my sword if I were forced to leave it, and she said something very generous, I think it was “Oh, don’t lie to me, Wolf, it’s too early in the morning,” and I thought ah, so this is how I am to die, then. 

She told me to come in and sit down and have a drink (which did not improve matters) and over the course of writing my last will and testament in my head I explained… everything, really. Things I had not told anyone, certainly not my father or my poor mother. Some things I hadn’t realised were true until I said them. Many, many things that I had no business saying to a queen. I assume that at some point I must have passed out (from the alcohol or perhaps a sudden attack of common sense) and she, presumably in one of her peculiar moments of kindness, hauled me up and laid my sleeping body on her bed. I assume this because any other possibility is unthinkable. 

Well, regardless, when I awoke she was in her full plate mail, the one she lost during that incursion from the South, telling me to get into my regalia and earn the right to keep it. She spent every blasted day of that month running me through drills. I begged her to kill me more than once. At one point I fumbled a parry and her sword caught me in the hip, a “glancing” wound, I was told, though it felt like more of a furious stare to me. She didn’t apologise, but she stitched me up well enough. 

That was a long time ago. The scar has mostly faded. I find myself missing it, sometimes.

The Queen once expressed a desire you knew you couldn’t fulfil. What have you done about it?

Well. Back when we were organising the logistics of this… glorified death march (and if truth be told I was doing much of the logistics, she’s never been one for numbers) she suggested… implied, really… 

Skip this one too, please. It’s really not anything of much… Well, it’s a desire I can’t fulfil, isn’t it? What could be more irrelevant? Either this little diplomacy mission goes well, or… that will be the end of it. That’s what I keep trying to make her understand, that if we die here- if she dies here, in some desolate swamp or on the end of some assassin’s knife, that is the end. Nobody else is going to gather up a gaggle of knights and seize a throne overnight, least of all some… little bureaucrat in armour that barely fits. The time of fairytales has gone, these are the days of trade embargoes and blockades. No wolves, only lapdogs. 

When was the last time you had the Queen’s undivided attention? Do you hope to have it again?

I’m not sure I can even remember. When was the last time any of us could give anything our full attention? I don’t think I can remember a day when a part of my mind hasn’t been consumed with news from the borders, or the treasury. Praying every season that the crops don’t fail. Spending every ball or coronation wondering which of our neighbours will be next to crumble, or attack. I walk down the city streets and see people muttering to each other, glowering at me, are they planning to rebel? I see people laughing, drinking with their friends or playing with their children, if we fail to stay above water how many of them will die for our incompetence? 

I used to think she was above those kinds of anxieties. Now I wonder if she hears them louder than any of us. Loud enough to drive her to take any risk if it’ll make them stop. More than loud enough to drown out my voice. 

The Queen thinks more highly of you than you do of yourself. How do you know this?

The Queen… thinks more highly of a lot of us than we deserve, I think. She thinks that the world still bows to strong wills, and times of strife only sharpen those wills, instead of crushing them. She has never believed that this journey is doomed, I know that, because she refuses to live in a world where we would allow this mission to fail. When things go awry, and even she must know that they will… she will expect me at her side, baring teeth. 

You sometimes think you might be the Queen’s favourite. Why? And why does this worry you?

I… am not entirely lacking in common sense. I can complain, but how many others, even here, have been taught to fight by her, personally? How many would have survived questioning her choice to make this journey, sniggering or no? The nickname grates, but half of the court are nothing but family names or job titles to her, or simply “You.” I have colleagues more experienced with foreign affairs, none of them are here. She has a niece who used to win every tournament in her prime, she isn’t here. Her most decorated general isn’t here, though after that appalling siege debacle it’s a wonder anyone lets him out of the house anymore. By blood, rank and conquest, there are many better than me that I would gladly trade places with in an instant. But she wanted me here. 

She’s no fool. She watches the edges of the woods as much as any of us. I’ve seen her counting each cloud of breath in the frosty air, making sure we’re no more or less than we should be. Paying more attention to my inventory reports than she ever did the harvests. But always the same orders, no matter how dire the news: keep marching. Is it favouritism to be doomed to death? Is it favouritism to be asked to face the inevitable, and do the impossible? 

The Queen made you feel something you’d never felt before. Do you want it to happen again?

Two generations of my family died for this woman. Not that my grandfather had much choice, or any of the others who were found themselves on the wrong end of a revolution, and I doubt my father envisioned his own end would be as… ignoble as it was. For as long as I can remember, she was there. My first memory is of seeing her, being brought up towards her throne and looking up into that proud, fierce, beautiful face��� Her eyes meeting mine. 

I was terrified of her. Ten years later studying our history in school I would understand why nobles and generals with armies that dwarfed hers would cower and surrender when she met them on the battlefield. They call it her grandeur or her righteousness or even her divinity. At the time the only word I knew for it was “monster,” and I screamed it. I owe a lot to my father’s war wounds; if they hadn’t slowed him down I think he would have proven he could still chew out a traitor’s throat that day. I think I would have let him, if it meant getting away from her. God’s, but even now I have never felt a terror like it since. 

…where is that terror when I need it now? When she looks at me with those eyes now, why don’t I run? I tell myself that this is madness, I want to scream it out, but the sound dies in my throat. She is leading me to my death, so why don’t I flinch when she takes my hand to readjust the grip on my sword, or lays hers on my shoulder so heavy I can feel it through layers of cold steel? If I beg her, will she cut me open again and this time let it bleed until my senses return to me and I can flee like the prey animal I am? 

Or will I only wake up again in a bed that is not mine? A fate I am not permitted to escape, only earn?

The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?

Didn’t I say it? From the very start, didn’t I say that this journey would get us all killed? 

I don’t recognise their banner. We’re still too far out for it to be our would-be hosts, I think? But any number of the other kingdoms could have been informed. Perhaps these are even fellow countrymen, writing their own chapter in the story of a band of soldiers deposing a monarch at swordpoint. It’s too dark to tell anything, except that they must outnumber us almost ten to one. We had enough warning to throw together a barricade. Not even she can believe it’ll hold. 

Our line is ragged. Any moment now someone is going to bolt. I keep glancing at their faces, whatever I can make out through their helmets and hoods, trying to guess who it’ll be first. We’re so outnumbered that it won’t take many fleeing to leave our line in tatters. That’ll be all that it takes for the rest to scatter, while we still have time. I can see the fear on their faces. They all know that this is no story, no glorious miracle victory will save us. 

Hers is the only gaze I don’t meet. I know what I’ll see. But I see a few of them glance past me. Come on, all of you, any of you, one of you must want to live! That’s all it will take, just one to start running. I’ll be right behind you! 

Some of them are looking at me now. What do they want? They must know it can’t be me. They must see how she’s looking at me; I can see the way the fear deepens when they turn this way. The more often I scan the line, the fewer of them will meet my gaze. Cowards, every one. 

I can feel her hand on my shoulder, sliding down to check my grip. I wonder, when a man goes mad, running across the battlefield, howling and tearing apart anything in his way, does anyone stop to ask whether he was running to, or from? 

Any moment now. One of them will run. But they’re running out of time, I’m willing them to hurry, hilt digging into my hand as I glare at each timid face. Hurry, you fools, run! Don’t you know there’s a wolf at your heels?

[temporalhiccup]

Rae pls indulge and go into AK breakdowns I would SO love to read it!!!

Ok! Here we go! Breakdown Time!

The Betrayed is a playbook I'm working on that's inspired by Ghost Rider, the Spectre, and Doctor Fate. Specifically you wrestle with an entity within you that demands vengeance, as it wears down what remains of your humanity.

For this breakdown I'm going over two Moves. These Moves may change by the time the final version of the Betrayed rolls around (all the playbooks are currently in the final refinement stage). But anyway today we're looking at I Am Vengeance. In the next part I'll go over The Weakness Of My Heart.

Let's get into it!

The following is my personal and general approach to writing a Move for the Powered by the Apocalypse engine. This refers to the Moves were you need to roll dice or make an important decision.

Moves should be relatively easy to trigger. If a set up is required, it shouldn't be too much work to justify the narrative circumstances or fictional requirements. I like seeing moves used!

A Move is a moment for the character to step into the spotlight. Normally in the conversation of a game (player describes what their character says or does, other players and GM responds, back and forth, back and forth) a Move doesn't have to be triggered most of the time. When it's time for a Move (the circumstances warrant it, things seem uncertain or dire, the player has set things up to trigger a specific move, etc) then time stops at the table, right? Everyone slows down and goes through the mechanics and structure of the Move. To me, I want to justify this slowdown as a way to spotlight the character, to make this moment meaningful. I write Moves so that everyone at the table gets used to the idea and thinks, "Oh heck yes, let's slow down and enjoy this. What are they going to do? What awesomeness are we going to bear witness to?"

The end of a Move should significantly shift the fiction, circumstances, narrative positioning, or emotional state. I write Moves so there's a distinct before and after state. Sometimes if I'm feeling particularly bold, there's a quick inciting thing that happens when the move is triggered, to give this burst that better sets up the after. If the narrative positioning or fiction trajectory remain roughly the same after a Move is done, what was the point of slowing down the game for it? I also want players to feel like they have significant narrative pull in the story being told at the table. My favorite moments as a GM is when my players shock and surprise me, it inspires me and revs me up!!!

There are some specific things I keep in mind when designing a Move for Apocalypse Keys (compared to my other Powered by the Apocalypse games), but mostly it's along the lines of: CAN I MAKE THIS AS BIG AND EXCITING AND EMOTIONAL AND SUPERNATURAL AS POSSIBLE LET'S GO WHOOOOOO YEAAAAAAAH or something similar.

Okay, the Starting Move for the Betrayed is:

I Am Vengeance

The entity within you can always sense those nearby who bear the scars of trespass and the burden of regret. When you merge with the entity and deepen your senses to see the full weight of a soul, describe what you find there. Spend Darkness Tokens and roll.

On an 8-10 the entity within you tempers justice with mercy, choose two:

Their greatest trespass is revealed by the darkness, create a Power of Darkness that you have access to, for now.

Declare how they must make amends to appease justice, gain one Bond with them.

Your souls burn and resonate together, inflict two Conditions on them, but take one in return.

The soul you peer into cannot hide the truth from you. Ask the Keeper any question, they will answer it honestly and with great detail.

On an 11+ the entity within you demands retribution and horror, choose one:

The vengeance you deliver eclipses the trespass. Describe how you go too far and the suffering you cause. The Keeper will tell you what supernatural beings of power take notice and their response.

The entity within you would claim a new soul to strengthen itself. Gain a new Power of Darkness that reflects the screaming soul within you, trapped for eternity.

On a 7- the entity reshapes another part of your soul and replaces it with what may better serve horrific vengeance. The Keeper will tell you what happens next.

So for I Am Vengeance, I needed a Starting Move that embodied who the Betrayed is. I knew I had to make a version of Ghost Rider's penance stare ability, since it's such an iconic aspect of the character. In the instances when I have a specific character and/or their super power in mind when I make a Move, I try to deconstruct it along the following questions:

What narrative permissions are granted to this character or through this ability?

How can I break this down in a way that it's open to different creative interpretations and character concepts?

How can I connect the thematic concept to the mechanical, narrative, and emotional components of this moment and the game in general?

This Move comes with a built in ability that is constant, and doesn't need to be triggered. The Betrayed will always be able to sense those nearby who bear the scars of trespass and the burden of regret. This is part of that deconstruction, this is not a ability that's present in the inspiring characters. But from a TTRPG approach, I wanted to give the player a unique and interesting perspective. It also communicates an important thematic element of the playbook: this is a character who can see the worst in others, their regrets, how does his affect the character? How do they treat their own trespasses and regrets in response?

The trigger here is: When you merge with the entity and deepen your senses to see the full weight of a soul, describe what you find there.

Okay, so! A huge amount of TTRPG design is just...obsessing over word choice, hah. Here I wanted to ensure a few things: this Starting Move starts off with the idea that you merge with the entity. In other Moves for the Betrayed I experiment with other ideas (like in another move it's "when you become vengeance incarnate," which communicates a different action entirely!) I wanted a soft set up here: what does it mean when a character merges with the entity within them? I also wanted to give players an opportunity to change what that merging could look like each time they triggered this move.

in addition, it's easy to trigger this Move. The character just needs to decide to merge with the entity. As for narrative set up, the player decides when they want to risk looking deep into someone's soul, because...we'll, shit could definitely go down and get out of hand.

I also used "deepen your senses" to further support the idea that the player can just always sense the trespass and regret around them. This move is then a moment when things come into sharp focus. Having a player decide what that means for their character is cool and fun!

So remember earlier when I said there's a before and after state? The before state here is "the Betrayed can always sense something others cannot". The after is "the Betrayed and the entity of vengeance within them will act on a specific character's trespass". Ah, but I also mentioned that sometimes I have a quick inciting thing. This Move has it, in the "describe what you find there".

This is an exciting moment for the player. They get to narrate and decide what they see, when they take the full measure of someone's soul. What kind of trespass or regret are we talking about here? How deplorable or evil a person is the NPC? Or were they once a good person who made a terrible mistake? The player gets to decide!

This felt great in playtesting, I really enjoyed the pressure, the freedom and responsibility that came with declaring such a thing. As a Starting Move it also primes the player to be creative, spontaneous, and intuitive. Many mechanics and the general flow of the game really flourish when a player hones these aspects of their play.

So, now we roll the dice and see what happens. In case you're not aware, Apocalypse Keys doesn't use stats. Instead, as inspired by Libreté, you roleplay to gather tokens. Each token adds +1 to the roll. So you're aiming to roll to hit that perfect hit: 8-10, you're still in control. On an 11+, it's a disastrous success, you've gone too far and the monster within you is unleashed.

I experimented with what a perfect hit and a disastrous success looks like across the Moves and playbooks. In I Am Vengeance there's a distinct difference between the 8-10 result and the 11+, there is no overlap. For this Move, I wanted it the perfect hit and disastrous success to feel distinct from each other, to show the extremes available to the character.

In the 8-10 result I'm still finalizing whether or not the player gets to choose two options or just the one. Two choices feels great in play and meta-wise it supports the ides that the character is more "in control". But it can also slow down the moment further. I'm still weighing this, I have to roughly feel out how often a player can use this move (the less often, the more likely I'll stick to two options). If I do switch to the one choice, I'll probably shift things slightly and beef up the options a bit.

In Apocalypse Keys, a Move always pushes the narrative forward in significant ways. In many Moves, there's a blending of the narrative and the mechanical. I could have just stuck in the mechanical options (or just the narrative!), but you can feel how distinct it feels that I merged the two here, right?

So for example, one of the options is: Your souls burn and resonate together, inflict two Conditions on them, but take one in return. This is easily the combat-focused RAR I'M HERE TO BEAT UP PEOPLE option. This can easily force an antagonist to stand down, or soften him up significantly for someone else to take the final blow. If I had just stuck with the mechanical option, it would communicate "wow the entity of vengeance is violent and strong". Which is cool!

But! I wanted to add the narrative implication, where does this violence and strength come from? I decided it comes from the fact that the souls resonate with each other. A player or Keeper can decide to express specifically what that means, but even if they don't, it leaves this implication hanging in the air. How are the Betrayed and the target of their wrath similar to each other? What does it mean when souls resonate? Every option in the 8-10 result offers an implication in the blending of the mechanical and the narrative. It makes the choice feel that much more significant!

Any combination of the 8-10 result can easily map to what it looks like when Ghost Rider performs a Penance Stare, but it's still open enough to interpretation that any type of character can express themselves well.

Now let's look at the 11+ result. In this one I decided to go with one of the regular treatments of a disastrous success: limiting the options, but feeling more powerful. This reflects how the character has less control over the situation. They go too far, and they can only reign it in so much! But also, the options are more powerful than a perfect hit! What a double edged blade this is.

In this Move I really wanted the disastrous success to feel like "You know, my dude, there is like...an entity of vengeance inside of you, and it is absolutely not human."

The first option, has the player "Describe how you go too far and the suffering you cause" I wanted this to reflect those moments where Ghost Rider, The Spectre, and Doctor Fate would go all out, and punish the wicked without mercy. This is an excuse for the character to go all out, to not hold back! Then the Keeper gets to describe the "supernatural beings" and their response. This is reminiscent of the forces that push and pull at these iconic characters that inspired this playbook.

The second option has to be my favorite though. It's also the one I chose the first time I playtested the move! "Gain a new Power of Darkness that reflects the screaming soul within you, trapped for eternity."

It was honestly a really hilarious moment, I had just declared that the oil conglomerate Executive had helped the fae perform a wretched and murderous ritual to ensure the smooth purchase of mines. I didn't want to have supernatural beings notice what I was up to, but it also meant I had to have this slimey soul of a human next to my soul for all eternity. "Oh my god, why did I write this?!" I asked out loud while the other players laughed. (That, to me, is a good sign that I wrote the disastrous success options well, hah!)

"What does it look like when you take his soul?" Lowell asked me, as the GM. So a second before I was lamenting what I was forced to do, and now here I was, throwing myself into it. "You see me pull out his soul through his mouth, my skull wreathed in flames. His soul looks like a gargantuan slug, wailing and writhing, and I swallow it whole as his screams echo through the mines."

It was also fun coming up with a Power of Darkness that reflected this horrible human and what he is now. (I went with Emotional Manipulation, to reflect the greasy corpo scum he was)

Finally, we have the miss, what happens on a roll of 7 or lower. Not every PbtA game has moves with specific misses, it's usually just an open invitation for the GM to do something. (Which is actually my personal preference, I often find the misses are too uninteresting for my tastes, even in some of my favorite games!)

With Apocalypse Keys, it was a long conversation with Sean Nittner (project manager and development editor) over why it felt necessary for Apocalypse Keys to always have a specific miss. The long and short of it is: Apocalypse Keys is a game that happens on a huge scale, and the monstrous PCs don't fail in as much as things go horribly wrong because they are monsters. So I try to write a miss that supports that truth.

In this case, I wanted to highlight how the Betrayed is at the mercy of the entity within them. Their soul will be reshaped to better serve vengeance. This can be a harrowing and quiet moment, or it can create explosive consequences, or something in between. What does it mean to reshape a soul? I can't wait to hear the stories about this!

Phew, that's our first Apocalypse Keys breakdown! I hope this was useful to you!

Powered by the Apocalypse is a system I love, and I feel like we're still exploring what the system is capable of and where it can go next. The structure of PbtA is an opportunity for designers to structure a game to reflect their design goals and play philosophy in very big and bold ways.

I worked on Apocalypse Keys for years, and with the help of a lot of people, made a game that reflects what I love about TTRPGs 😤❤️🔥✨

We'll be looking at The Weakness Of My Heart next time, which offers an intimate (and potentially tragic!) narrative opportunity for the Betrayed ����

[svyat0s]

family_walking_out

We went to a meeting (you remember that we are funny people?), where we were invited to an evening of literary games. Well, I thought it was literary, but it was actually an evening of tabletop and uh… what is it called? Well, like the game broken phone (one of my favorite childhood games), what kind of game is this? A team, intellectual game? Anyway, I'll tell you.

I don't like tabletop games. Well, or rather, I don't like the ones that people usually love. If there are a lot of rules, if you have to count points, play against each other, don't say yes and no, don't wear black and white - I really don't like that. I love all kinds of simple things: Uno, Dos, Mysterium, I adore Twister. I love lotto, the Miracle Tree - you roll the dice and walk.

But I liked all the games we played. Somehow, our cool presenters were selected, but our presenters are not ordinary, they are the editors of all these programs One Hundred to One, Own Game (popular games on Russian TV) and things like that - Olga Orlova and Vladimir Belkin. We played Codenames, where we had two teams, I, of course, would have preferred to play against the leader or the game, but the very principle of the game is the way I like. This is a mixture of sea battle and mysterium.

Contact, well, in general, it's a beautiful, cool game, I really liked it. But I would set a framework for the topic of the word. Letters are not enough. I can't help but choke. Also, I don't like this one from folk tales, the riddles of the king's daughters: guess what I wished for.

Our third game was Character. Cool one too. Something like Akinator. A person think up what character they are from the narrative, they may not necessarily be alive, it could be something from a line of a song. And you need to ask leading questions - are you alive, are you human. But it's impossible to clarify whether they are from a book, a song, or a movie, the character doesn't know. But they know what's around them. Well, it's really cool, I love this. But I would also, of course, set limits. Well, because the scatter is strong when it is that large, there is a factor not of intelligence, but of chance. But still the drawing of the game is how I like it. ^__^

It turned out to be fun and great. The guys were all pleasantly intelligent. Well, one, for example, wished for a Thinking Demon in the Character, another - a slogan on the coat of arms. What cool guys!

We met at the awesome cafe-hotel Art Green Hotel, where we also meet at the Quiet Whirlpool Book Club. I keep hoping that we have found a place for regular meetings, in other places it was either cramped, or noisy, or something else. But here is really cozy.

The next meeting is on March 18, at 18:00, in the same place.