#Numenera

[vexwerewolf]

I love that Numenera has two dozen wild explanations for why your character has superpowers and they range from "cybernetic implantation" to "alien abduction" to "nanotech" to "an alien virus rebuilt my body"

But then one of them is just "Drugs"

Smoked a ton of zaza and now I can teleport

#numenera #ttrpg #ttrpgs

[vintagerpg]

So, my pal Clay sent me a box of books. They weren’t a gift, they we more like an extended loan and they amount to perhaps the most direct “please post about these books” I’ve gotten since the feed started. I’ve taken care of a few at this point, but now, well. Ptolus. How the hell do I tackle Ptolus in 300 words?!

Ptolus (2006) is a massive all-in-one setting book for D20 designed by Monte Cook. It consists of a city and two dungeons, one above — the Spire — and a megadungeon below. The book runs 670 pages and features a density of information — maps, cross-sections, various type sizes, sidebars, tabs, cross-references — that I am not sure has ever been achieved before or since. It is truly a monument to a particular moment of BIG DESIGN in RPGs that was fueled by the near universal adaptation of D20. Unlike a lot of other similar projects (World’s Largest Dungeon comes to mind) there is a ton of deep thought and care on display in nearly every design decision I’ve read.

I wanted this book real bad when I learned about it a couple years after release, but it was already scarce. If I had gotten copy back then, it might very well have become my favorite RPG book ever. I’d probably still be playing in it. Because you totally could, there are decades of adventures here. Reading it cover to cove now in 2023 just feels like an impossibility. It’s too big! It works really well as a book to dip into a read a box or two to think about, for inspiration or rumination, but I wouldn’t know where to begin in putting together a cohesive campaign here. I don’t think my brain can fit it all in! I appreciate the painstaking detail, don’t get me wrong, but I would much rather this thing be carved up into a bunch of small books. That’s the main reason I didn’t back the recent re-release on Kickstarter; I knew before Clay ever sent this to me that this book was going to defeat me.

#roleplaying game #tabletop rpg #dungeons & dragons #rpg #d&d #ttrpg #Numenera #Monte Cook #Ptolus #noimport

[theresattrpgforthat]

Character Spreadsheets

Hello!

For folks who don't know me, my name is Mint, and when I'm not recommending ttrpgs, I like to design play-kits for different ttrpg games to facilitate easier online play. These player kits are designed to be shared with a playgroup in which everyone has editing access, with either character templates that can be duplicated, or a list of playbooks for games that use those instead. I've finally collected all of my useable play-kits into one folder, which I am sharing below for anyone to use. If you would like to use one of these, open up the file. Then select "File" -> "Make a Copy". I have included a tab on many of these games that is labelled "Lines, Veils & Lures." This is a modified version of Lines & Veils that my table uses that incorporates Lures, which are things that the group wants to see in game.

Most sheets also include a link to where you can get the game they are made for, up in the top row of the sheet. So if you see a play-sheet you like, you can find the game pretty easily from there! I've done sheets for big games like Numenera, and little games like Cryptid TV. I'm always working on more, so there will be more that are added to this folder over time. I'll probably also be editing these sheets themselves as I update sections, add links, and incorporate more Lines, Veils & Lures! You can check out the sheets here!

#spreadsheets #ttrpg resources #character sheets #blades in the dark #numenera #thirsty sword lesbians #world of darkness #pbta #fitd #game resources #dnd

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played NUMENERA ?

By Monte Cook

In the distant, distant future (approx. 1 billion years), the Earth is littered with the ruins of ancient technology from fallen empires that might as well be magic.

#tabletop rpg #ttrpg #2010s #usa #poll #numenera #monte cook #poll time

[markdrummondj]

Eidolon Tree - Iridescent As the blades of grass moves with the wind, so does their hue. Download the map and the alternate variants here! - https://www.patreon.com/posts/90099735

#5e #alien #art #battlemap #battlemaps #criticalrole #dnd #dnd5e #dndart #dndmap #fantasy #foundryvtt #lancer #map #numenera #pathfinder #pathfinder2e #roll20 #rpg #rpgmap #scifi #scifibattlemap #shadowrun #starfinder #starwarsrpg #tabletop #tabletopgaming #ttrpg #ttrpgmap

[honourablejester]

Numenera Oddities

So. Numenera does the thing I love from D&D 5e, and that is trinket tables. Or, in this case, oddity tables.

Oddities are ancient salvaged techno-magical items that aren’t necessarily directly useful, like the more powerful one-shot cyphers or reusable artefacts, but are more there for the flavour of the world. Characters often start with them, GM assigned, and I assume you can find more of them out and about. And … I do love them. These are from the Oddity Table on pgs 305-307 of the Discovery corebook, and they’re just … so illustrative of this future fantasy, scavenger world, 'remants of past civilisations' setting.

I think one of the things that I most love is that, from the characters’ POV, in their medieval fantasy setting, these are inscrutable artefacts of a bygone civilisation, but from our POV, with our technology, you can so clearly see what some of them are intended to be:

26 – Series of thin plastic cards that show all kinds of unknown creatures. (Somebody had trading cards or card games during the past billion years)

20 – Plastic bottle that contains a spray that cleans any stain and never runs out. (Somebody finally invented a universal household cleaner, an infinite universal household cleaner, I bet they made an absolute mint)

30 – Metallic jar that maintains the temperature of liquid inside indefinitely. (Somebody made an improved thermos)

60 – Cup that instantly boils any liquid poured into it. (As well as an instant tea/instant pot noodle/instead meal cup)

33 – Small wand-like device that keeps away normal insects in a 5ft radius. (As well as mobile personalised insect zappers)

55 – Shirt that displays your muscles, bones and internal organs when you wear it. (And, for whatever reason, a portable x-ray shirt? Was this a practical invention first, for field x-rays, or was it for funsies, or both?)

58 – Bracelet with a tiny bell charm that rings like a massive bell when intentionally rung. (Personal protective device?)

80 – A bracelet that rends you unable to reproduce while worn. (An easy, non-invasive contraceptive device, interesting)

76 – Ceramic ring that makes you feel as though gentle hands are caressing your body. (As well as a possible sex toy? Or aide for touch-hunger? Not going to lie, if I touched this with no context and no idea what it was going to be, I’d freak the hell out)

79 – A pair of small, floating cubes that keep a small, enclosed room at the temperature at which water freezes. (Portable refrigeration)

Like, a lot of these are clearly futuristic novelty items or household appliances, as well as some more in-depth and casual medical technology. And I love that? I love that. You’re in a medieval fantasy scavenger world where the detritus of past super-futuristic civilisations litter your world, and you’re there picking up random bits of ancestor junk and trying from your own frame of reference to figure out what the fuck they had going on.

Some of the oddities are a bit more inscrutable even from our POV.

7 – Box with a tiny group of musicians in it who play when it is opened and look horrified when it is closed. (Now, this could be a novelty item again, but this is also a setting where ancient crystal obelisks eat people and trans-dimensional portals and pocket dimensions are also a thing, so … not beyond the bounds of possibility that those are live and enslaved musicians getting shunted into a pocket stasis dimension every time you close the lid)

And some have a language barrier in effect:

16 – Small rod that emits a voice saying the same thing in an unknown language every time a button is pushed. (Could be anything from a personal memo to an ancient distress call)

47 – Five metallic plates that orbit around your head and display ever-changing, unknown symbols. (I fucking love this one, if I was a scholar in this world I would dedicate my life to figuring out this language from the presumption that those symbols are some form of reading from me and if I can just figure out what they’re reading from what symbols show when, maybe I can Rosetta stone this language out? I mean, that’s a lot of assumptions, but you’d have to at least try, right?)

There’s also a series of oddities that are clearly communication/monitoring devices:

17 – Glass plate that shows what seems to be a live image of the moon, but from a closer vantage.

43 – Glass cube that shows what seems to be a live aerial view of an unknown, ruined city.

89 – Plate of glass that, when you view the night sky through it, reveals ten times as many stars.

And we, the players, know that the setting does have ancient satellites still in orbit around the planet, full of nanomachines and other ancestors-know-what. So these are clearly receivers for satellite feeds, or possibly in the last case a light-pollution filter. Though I’d be interested to know if that last one is a live image, or if it’s an image of the stars of this world several million years ago.

And then, in the midst of all that, there are several oddities that are clearly just art, or novelties, or just for fun:

57 – Amulet that, when worn, projects holographic images of fish swimming around you.

Is this a nightlight? A holographic art piece? A fun fashion accessory? I don’t know, but I desperately want one, and no matter how useless it is, I would not sacrifice this one oddity for any number of more useful cyphers or artefacts. It’s pretty, and I love it.

I love the design philosophy of these, the illustration of the world and its history that they provide. And, I mean, some of them, like D&D trinkets, can also function as plot hooks. Where is that unknown city on the live feed? Are those musicians real people trapped in a horrifying pocket dimension? Could you Rosetta-stone one of the ancient languages from that metallic plate device, and if you could, what other, potentially more powerful secrets would it unlock?

They’re just … I love trinkets. I love environmental worldbuilding, I love archaeology, I love the illustration of setting inherent in physical objects. These are fantastic.  

Trinket tables are the best. Honestly, if you are designing a game, do put in a class of objects that don’t exist for any mechanical, game purpose, but are just there to show your world. To show the ethos of your world via the tiny details and physical objects that populate it.

Also, this game appears to be, to a large extent, ‘fantastic archaeology: the setting’, and I’m here for it. Absolutely!

#numenera #ttrpgs #trinkets #trinket tables #oddities #playing with POVs #i love these so much

[the-ampersand]

Since I am still chewing on the DIE Stapling post, I am going to do another about effort mechanics in ttrpgs because I am trying to write that Blasphemous inspired Trophy Gold hack (placeholder name: Penance). And one of the coolest mechanics for Trophy is its Risk Roll, which is basically an effort mechanic.

"But, Ampersand, what is an effort mechanic?" I hear you ask, dear mutual I am making up in my head. An effort mechanic allows you to reroll an action you have already attempted but failed or to get a bonus to a roll at the expense of some resource. Usually, that resource being the character's health. But it can also be something else like clues in an investigative game or even a narrative consequence (but that's usually called a Devil's Bargain).

The important part is that it gives a benefit but requires a sacrifice. And that's when the whole fanfare of psychoeconomics start. Because you need the sacrifice to be big enough to give the player pause and not use it every roll. And also you need the benefit to be significant enough to make it worth the risk and the expense. If properly adjusted, an effort mechanic can become a slow but sure spiral into the characters downfall.

Let's look at some examples!

Numenera is the first system I learn that had such a mechanic (but certainly was not the first ever). It is pretty straightforward in its implementation, too. You spend a fixed amount of the appropriate life pool and you get to reduce the difficulty of a task. Easy enough. But Numenera, being a tradgame as it is, the power creep upends any weight of the sacrifice. Once you level up enough, your pools become deep enough as to make effort something to just add to whichever skill roll you thought it needed a bit more oomph. This is not something wrong per se, but it can easily make your characters overly competent!

On the other hand, there's Dungeon Crawl Classics. DCC is a peculiar OSR game in that it is a really spiced up retroclone, wriggling DnD B/X ruleset to a point where it is almost unrecognizable. I am sure there are plenty effort mechanics peppered in the text, but I want to point out its magic system because I absolutely adore it. To be a wizard in DCC requires active dedication. That is because almost every spell has a writeup of about an A4's length, filled with the various effects a spell may have once the dice is rolled. And the effect can be wildly different from a roll of 5-10 to a roll of as high as 30 or more. There are many ways in which you can tweak your narrative positioning to get bonuses to a spell roll (components, helpers, magic foci, whatever), but when the die is cast and the result is just not good enough you still have a last chance: to sacrifice your own atribute values to get one last push that might be the difference between a proper spell and a fiasco. This is the main cause of withering of elder wizards: they have sacrificed too much in order to achieve the power they sought.

And then, there's Trophy. Both Trophy Dark and Trophy Gold have excellent effort mechanics baked directly into their ADN thanks to the masterful procedure that is the Risk Roll. These are games in which you are tempted first and consumed later by an evil forest. You have a really small ruin pool and once it is filled, you are lost to injury or its dark influence. You are also a destitute adventurer that needs to get any gold or face almost certain death. So you need to get shit done, you need to amass enough successes as to bring bread home and you need to survive the process (or try to, at least). And that's when the Risk Roll comes and lures your with the most satisfying effort mechanic I've ever seen. You can always make a reroll, adding an extra die to your pool to boot. But if those extra dice, dark dice, ever become the highest ones, you automatically mark ruin. You get your success, yes. But you become closer to losing yourself. It exactly hits the spot between actually worth it and inescapably dooming the character.

Obviously not all games need to be about losing oneself to fate or circumstance, but I feel an effort mechanic very much pushes the narrative in that direction. You are sacrificing yourself, in order to achieve your goals.

And I think that's a quite powerful narrative device.

#indie ttrpgs #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #rpg #ttrpg design #osr #numenera #dungeon crawl classics #dcc #trophy #trophy gold #trophy dark

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Numenera - Golden Evening by Bruce Brenneise

#Numenera #Fantasy #Art #Bruce Brenneise

[beefsen]

probably the last picture i'll do of this guy for a long while. i miss him... he still may be my profile pic for ages to come, though.

#ttrpg art #ttrpg #d&d art #d&d #d&d character #dungeons and dragons #fantasy #art #digital art #illustration #numenera #satyr #dnd satyr #satyr art #satyr oc #fantasy art #hydrangea

[undergroundoracle]

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Starting today, our Patreon subscribers will be treated to daily drops of brand-new cypher system materials that they can add to their ongoing campaigns. 

Each day will provide new descriptors, cyphers, creatures, NPCs, rules options, and more exclusively to our Patreon supporters. 

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#ttrpg #cypher system #monte cook games #ttrpg community #indie publishing #cypher #numenera

[blogfanreborn777]

Numenera by Biagio D'Alessandro

#fantasy art #fantasy #concept art #digital art #art #sci fi #science fiction #sci fi art #science fiction art #sf #sf art #aliens #numenera #space ship #alien invasion #soldier #futuristic #high tech #Biagio D'Alessandro

[tabletopresources]

The Door Beneath the Ocean By butterfrog

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

#butterfrog #numenera #map #dungeon #tabletop rpg #rpg #tabletop gaming #pen & paper #roleplayer #roleplaying games #games #inspiration.pen & paper games #dnd #d&d #pathfinder #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #fantasy rpg

[vintagerpg]

OK, this week is one of those exercises in me looking at a game that doesn’t appeal to me for reasons I can’t quite express, and then you try to educate me as to its charms. The game in question is Numenera, the first iteration from 2013, before Cypher System really becomes Cypher System.

So, Numenera is a very light mechanical RPG, using a D20 for resolution. Only the players roll; they’re trying to beat values on a sliding difficulty ladder that reminds me vaguely of Fate. Characters are defined through key words (though not, like, totally open ended keywords as in HeroQuest, there are constraints and those build in a lot of structure that makes me feel comfortable). Magic items are little doo-dads that have a bunch of unique minor effects, so they have a lot of application, feel special and can interact with each other in lots of ways (good and bad). It’s a way more welcoming and usable system than I expected (the last Monte Cook game I read was Invisible Sun, which is neither).

The game is arranged around exploration and discovering things to wonder at — the world has a deep history, full of lost technology, weird magic, strange civilizations. Page after page after page of stuff that I feel should thrill me (I love the fact that there is no experience rewards for combat and that damage is basically static). Especially since I love Cook’s Planescape work and at enjoy the majority of his other D&D material I’ve read. And I like worlds with similar histories, like Talislanta or Jorune. But for some reason, Numenera leaves me under-wondered. The same is true of the videogames (and Planescape Torment was for a long time my all-time favorite).

So what’s my malfunction? What am I missing?

#roleplaying game #tabletop rpg #dungeons & dragons #rpg #d&d #ttrpg #Numenera #Monte Cook #noimport

[theseworldsareyours]

Numenera: Discovery interior art by Guido Kuip

#Guido Kuip #sci-fi art #Numenera #spaceship #space fighter #aircraft

[trupowieszcz-moved]

i love it when other ttrpgs subtly diss d&d

#numenera #ttrpg

[markdrummondj]

Swarm Burrow - Acid. Download the map and the alternate variants here! - https://www.patreon.com/posts/99405232

#5e #alien #art #battlemap #battlemaps #criticalrole #dnd #dnd5e #dndart #dndmap #fantasy #foundryvtt #lancer #map #numenera #pathfinder #pathfinder2e #roll20 #rpg #rpgmap #scifi #scifibattlemap #shadowrun #starfinder #starwarsrpg #tabletop #tabletopgaming #ttrpg #ttrpgmap