#campaign: key to the apocalypse

[tinycowboyart]

When my dnd character gets to be a little scary >>

#art #digital art #artists on tumblr #dnd #dnd art #dnd character #my art #character art #tiefling #wizard #original art #dnd stuff #Eryth #she aint called the key to the apocalypse for nothing #my ocs #my dnd characters #campaign: key to the apocalypse

[prokopetz]

Flipping through Apocalypse Keys for the first time, what immediately strikes me is that a lot of playbooks have moves where rolling too high can result in accidentally spawning additional monsters, who will implicitly or explicitly go on to become significant antagonists. While this is perfectly consistent with the game's genre, suddenly I'm picturing a group where – whether by collusion or coincidence – every single player character is built with one of those moves as their thematic cornerstone. The poor GM has a whole arc planned, but it never gets off the ground because the party keeps generating new monsters of the week in an endless chain reaction of fumbled rolls. "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"-ass campaign.

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #apocalypse keys #game design #insects mention #swearing

[centaurianthropology]

Why C3E51 worked so well (a DM’s perspective)

I have seen a lot of absolutely bananas critiques of C3E51 (thankfully not nearly as many around here, far more on Reddit, which I should not have visited).   And the ongoing theme of those critiques is that Matt should not have imperiled former PCs, and if he brought them in should have either done lengthy side-bars with those characters or let them win the fight against Ludinis and have a chance to take him out themselves, since they’re ‘god tier’ or ‘high level’ and that makes ‘logical sense’.  What these critiques really boil down to, IMO, are people who were really invested in the former campaigns upset that their faves didn’t get to do cool things, treating it more like a TV show than a game.  But even as a TV show, that would have been disappointing from a narrative perspective.  Because even in a TV show, this is a sequel spin-off show, starring new characters.  The story is about THEM.  And more importantly, the game is about the players and about telling their story.

So let’s break this down from a DM perspective.  How do you build a Kobiashi Maru situation for your characters?  For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Kobiashi Maru is a Star Trek term for a scenario designed from the jump to be unwinnable (Kirk beat it by creativity, but later admitted that he missed the point of it).  In Star Trek this was done to test what a future officer would do if faced with certain failure.  In a D&D game it’s a little more complicated.  Part of it is to set up the BBEG, put their plan in motion, and set the stage for the next leg of the game.  But it’s also to give your players, who are clearly into it, a darkest-hour scenario.  Not every player group is going to be into facing down the Kobiashi Maru, and it’s clear from the aforementioned critiques that a lot of them are on Reddit.  Power-gamers who always want to win are not going to enjoy this sort of storytelling, but players who are really into RP and working through difficult times and failures will eat this stuff up.  And this is absolutely the sort of table playing on Critical Role.  There is a level of trust there that can only be built after years of working together, and this was finally the moment when Matt could pay off years of planning and campaign-spanning set-up.

Matt carefully plotted the structure of this episode out to give maximum agency and impact to a party of dramatically under-leveled characters.  And they knew going in they were under-leveled.  This wasn’t a surprise, but a potential suicide run by people who knew they weren’t the heroes they needed to be, but were the only heroes in the right place at the right time to try anything.  So they came up with as good a plan as they could, and executed it fairly well, all things considered.  

They knew they couldn’t take on Ludinus directly (and this was a great way to demonstrate exactly how much he had planned and how long, to bring in elements from C2, hints we’ve had for years about Ludinis, only to reveal it went deeper than any of the characters could have imagined), so Matt gave them some winnable objectives.  This is a great way to keep the characters invested in an unwinnable scenario: the ultimate outcome may be beyond the characters, barring some insane genius or incredible rolls, but they can still help.  They can do something that will have a tangible impact on events and hinder the baddies enough to give them another chance at a rematch and a way to stop the apocalypse when they’re higher level.  So Matt gave them the batteries: take out as many as you can.  While this would not stop the ritual, I suspect that the more they took out the more Ludinis would have to drain his own power to make the key work, and the longer the process would take.  Knocking out the feywild key, as well as multiple power sources turned what would have been an instantaneous event if they had done nothing into a more drawn-out affair which, I suspect, could be stopped or even reversed.  It gave them a window to come back and demand a rematch.

Then we have the high-level PC allies, and how to play with those sorts of characters without pulling focus from the PCs.  Matt handled this very well, by having the players roll for their former PCs, taking the specifics of their actions out of his hands and letting the dice of the former players decide.  He also revealed that Keyleth’s involvement, and baiting Vax with Otohan’s permadeath poison, was key to Ludinis’ ritual, which was why she couldn’t just dive in and clean everything up.  But again, because of this story, it ties less back to Keyleth and more back to Orym.  That was the point of the attack on Zephrah, to get her attention by getting her to look into who did it and then coming to get some payback, but the little guy on the ground has always been caught in the middle.  Orym has been Ludinis’ unwitting pawn from the off, his family’s deaths merely a means to an end, and that is vicious and amazing set-up for character growth for him.  

Beau and Caleb had to be there by the logic of the story.  It didn’t make sense that Caleb would sit out a world-ending event orchestrated by a Cerberus Assembly member after spending years trying to take them down.  Beau would obviously go with him.  It also made sense that they would be the only two there, because they were scouting when Ryn got taken down, and after that were trying to keep a low profile.  Shit accelerated too fast for them to call in reinforcements.

Which is the in-story reason for them to be there, but isolated and vulnerable, making them useful allies and wildcards (who likely could have been more useful if ultimately failing as well, but failed early thanks to Liam and Marisha’s rolls).  But they were still outmatched.  I have no idea what the challenge rating of Otohan, Leliana, and Ludinis are, but we know Otohan was considered ‘beatable’ back in Bassuras.  That indicates she’s the lowest CR, particularly with the glowing weak-spot on her back.  But she can still wreck a level-20 PC if she gets the jump on her, which she did.  And that meant that she remained a massive threat.  Caleb and Beau were playing it smart, keeping to the shadows, but still got caught by Leliana.  Between dice rolls, careful planning, and some great enemy design, Matt really set up a team that could take on high-level players and win.  And he made it clear that Ludinis did not leave this to chance.  He has the best people he could muster after 1000 years of planning.  Nothing short of a miracle could have truly stopped them.

Which is why we cut back to Bells Hells.  Because ultimately this particular story isn’t about Keyleth or Vax or Caleb or Beau or any other former PCs.  This is about the current party being caught up in events much larger than them and having to rise to the occasion.  This is the story of the schmucks sent in to take out the batteries, but who have personal beef with the big bads.  Ludinis orchestrated the plan to attack Zephrah to bait Keyleth and draw out Vax, and Otohan carried it out.  And he used Orym as a pawn throughout all of it.  This makes taking them down, but especially taking Otohan down, the cornerstone of Orym’s personal quest.  Letting an NPC take her down would be taking away a critical part of his motivation and goals, which is an absolute no-no for a DM.  NEVER bring in a god-tier NPC and take away player agency or story beats.  Especially never have them resolve important player goals and backstory events!  Every NPC, even the powerful ones, are there to support the story the players are telling.  So of course Keyleth wasn’t going to take out Otohan.  Of course she wasn’t going to stop the ritual.  Beau and Caleb might have been able to do something more if Liam and Marisha hadn’t rolled so badly for them, but ultimately, they had to get caught or fail in another way.  

For the sake of gameplay, Bell’s Hells had to be the only functional team.  They had to be the ants that were beneath Ludinis’ notice long enough to really accomplish something.  And as much as it feels like they failed, they had minor victories: Laudna and Ashton took out more batteries, making Ludinis drain his own power to kick off the apocalypse.  They only failed to take out Otohan’s backpack by 2 HP, which showed them that she was an achievable goal in the future.  If they had rolled a little better, they probably could have taken her out entirely, which would have felt like a big accomplishment for them.  Imogen made her mother pause in her assault before doubling down.  This leaves open very interesting future beats for their interactions.  Can she ultimately redeem her mother or would she have to take her out?  Every step that Matt set up in this episode, from the reveals about Ludinis’ plans and Orym’s past, to Imogen’s interactions with her mother, to Chetney and likely Ashton finding themselves staring down their own backstories after the party split, was focused on this party, on getting them ready to step out of low-level play and advance.

And that’s the point of E51.  It’s not a climax of the story, but the ultimate set-up.  It’s putting all the pieces onto the board in a way that all the characters can now recognize.  Yes, unless the players came up with something genius, the apocalypse was going to kick off, but their actions slowed everything down to a place where it could be combatted.  Yes, the god-tier former PCs were always going to get neutered, because this is Bells Hells’ story, and you cannot have NPCs fix PC problems.  They might have been able to do a little more before this happened, but the dice rolled.

And it’s honestly good for the PCs how things turned out.  They have a clear objective, but are split up.  This gives them great incentive to level up, explore character backstory, deal with their personal shit, get stronger, and then come back to kick the asses of all three of these villains (or possibly redeem one, we’ll see).  Their powerful allies are now temporarily side-lined.  Keyleth is badly hurt and will need time to recover.  Caleb is collared and will need time to get that removed.  Beau is likely up and moving now, but will need to safeguard Caleb for a while.

The Bells Hells are on their own.  The Darkest Hour has come, and it’s time for them to rise up and go from nobodies to heroes.  This is their true call to adventure.  And as a DM, it was so cool seeing how Matt set up all the pieces over the campaign, only to pay them out in such a satisfying and motivating way in this episode.

#Critical Role #Critical Role spoilers #I really liked this episode #both as storytelling #and in terms of structure #this is how you do long-term setup #and payoff for a villain #he had planned for everything #but this annoying party of gnats muching up his works #and the gnats are going to be what takes him down #that is such a good way to let a low-level party get set up to take on a high-level villain!! #anyway #this is to combat some of the negativity I've seen toward this episode

[arsene-inc]

A TTRPG collection retrospective

And so my TTRPG in book format collection has reached 70...not books......licences.... and a lot of them are complete. I miss when I had space to tidy stuff.

So here are all my books :

The PBTA and adjacent games

The first style of games that really hooked me

Monster of the week , the first game I ever gm'd

World Wide Wrestling

Masks, my most played game this year

Urban Shadows

Dungeon World, bought because I did not have any "generic" fantasy system.

Apocalypse Keys

Blades in the dark , the game that bought me where I am, introduce me to french ttrpg content creators when I responded to an ad for a player.

Band of Blades

Brinkwood

Sig, City of Blades

City of Mist

English Import

Agon 2nd edition, still a favorite

Kids on broom

Slayers ( and a one)

Nova ( and a two)

Rune ( and a three for GilaRPGs)

DIE RPG ( really need to choose a good group to play this)

Heart the city beneath (yeah i like Rowan, Rook & Deckart)

Dragonbane ( A friend is a die hard Free League fan)

Wildsea

DotDungeon

Liminal

Tattered Magick

International Games translated in French

Mausritter

Thousand year Old Vampire

The Magus

Colostle

Warpland

Troika, my cursed game, the sessions are always canceled

Paleomythic

Vaesen

Spire, the city must fall

Genesys

Dragons conquer America

Sins of the father

Fate core

Nobilis 2nd edition, the big beautiful white book

Mage 20th

Castle Falkenstein

Cryptomancer, the 70th game

French indies ( with quick pitch)

Etoiles - a Stargate game

Aventures a Plumes/ Feathered Adventures - Play diceless Ducktales

Cités abimés / Broken Cities - 30's surrealism the game

Anime was a mistake - play every anime

Prosopopée - Mushishi the game

De mauvais reves - a cursed family in the Great North

Glorieuses - housewives in the 80's trying to escape boredom with wrestling

Temple des vents / Colosse de Grisantre - solo game of a fantasy wanderer

Les veilleurs - solo game / You are the Hero book, with Titan cults

Bois Dormant - post apocalyptic hopepunk gmless game inspired by Sleeping Beauty

Explorateur des Bruines/Libretés - Kids trying to survive an alternate dimension of murderous mermaids hiding in the rain

Les Héritiers de l'Hypogryphe Saoul - Urban fantasy where magic was just revealed to the world, along with things so old even the magicals forgot about them

Argyropée - Renaissance fantasy in a city where murder is impossible and leaving too long makes you die of depression

Speedrun - a system to speedrun TTRPG sessions and campaign

Bigger/Mainstream? French Games

Insectopia - Medfan but you are all insects

Cats la mascarade - Cats are secretly psychic

Donjons et Chatons - medfan but you're kittens and a cartoon planned for 2025

Donjon & Cie / Dungeon, Inc. - Monsters in the dungeon are just corporate employees

Terre 2 - scifi I don't really care about, i just told my parents to buy it when they saw it a -70% in a thrift shop

Nautilus - Play Jules Verne Hundred Leagues under the sea

Meute - French werewolfes with 2 souls : mortal human and immortal wolf

Rotting Christ - The Band. A ttrpg for metalheads

Knight - Epic Horror, The Arthurian Myth with mechas. It's great

Nephilim - the urban fantasy occult french game (basically The Secret World as a ttrpg)

Chroniques Oubliés Contemporain - generic system for modern adventures

Les Héritiers - All sorts of fae in 1901 dreaming of the end of the world in 1914

Ecryme - translation funded on KS, coming soon : Steampunk where the water rose, leaving only small islands, plus the water is highly acidic, melting everything except stone and steel

Les Oubliés - Korrigans & little people the size of a finger in a french city during the Religion Wars

Subabysse - sorta pulpy scifi where water rose so humanity went to live under the sea

Waiting for (dear god all the crowdfunding)

Fabula Ultima translation

Nephilim supplements

Arc Doom translation

Eat the Reich

Meute campaign

Babel, french game of book magic

Break!

Monsterhearts translation

Dragonbane bestiary

Triangle Agency

Wilderfeast

The Hidden Isle

#ttrpg #tabletop rpg #tabletop roleplaying #ttrpg stuff #indie ttrpg #jdr #ttrpgs #ttrpg books #hoarder

[aitze]

Heresy, my character from a campaign of Apocalypse Keys. A shadow demon that has become holy, Heresy is based on the idea that if angels can fall, demons should be able to rise.

#ttrpg art #characters #apocalypse keys #heresy ak #2d #digital #2023

[honourablejester]

I haven’t watched Critical Role in a while, but since ExU: Calamity is going to be a shorter campaign, I thought I’d try get back in the swing. So. Um. Impressions.

I like Brennan’s style. Very fast moving, very intense. Let’s open straight on the apocalypse, yessir!

I also really, really like Zerxus. Like. This poor paladin gets immediately shoved in the deep end, visions of the end days, his dead husband, his child-as-was fishing in the void, and then a skyscraper tall devil god falls at his feet and he tries to help it. Just. Instinctively? And, I know, Asmodeus is likely playing with him, luring him in with visions of lost loves and playing the victim, but I still love that, even for a devil, Zerxus instinctively tries to protect him. From a god. Like, if this paladin falls out of kindness, that’s … going to be something. And if he proves kindness worth the risk, even more so.

Also, though, we’re all of ten minutes in and this poor guy already needs to be bundled in blankets and taken care of, holy shit.

And then … everybody else. Oh my god. They’re all assholes. Absolutely amazing assholes. I love it.

Laerryn is … my platonic ideal wizard. Favourite. Immediately. The whole … I am the chief engineer of this goddamn starship, and none of you even know what I do, but without me you would all be pancakes, so shut up and get to the point already. Move this along, I don’t have time. I love her. And she is going to do something incredibly foolish with this apogee solstice thing, tuning to the celestial plane, this is going to go … oh yeah, but I’m here for it. And how petty … She uses haste just to get down a stairs fast, the kids will get off the landing gear or they won’t, what kind of hairstyle check do you need from me … I just love her. Favourite cosmic wrench-wench, absolutely idiot mad scientist, Girl Genius sort of vibes. Perfect.

I honestly love how they’re all assholes. And they play it. To the hilt. They’re all so casually hoity-toity, better-than-you, listen, listen, we all know who’s the important one here. They’re going to fall so hard. They’re going to fall so hard. It’s gonna be amazing.

Laerryn and Loquatious are just amazing. Their whole dynamic. Both the incredible pettiness, the bitterness, the jealousy, but also the fact that they still work together, they still function perfectly well among their team, that whole tiny moment with the inspiration … Poor Travis not being safe on this side of the table, it’s amazing.

Speaking of Travis … He is a noir bird detective in an apocalypse movie, and it’s actually perfect, because this is Cthulhu style apocalypse, eldritch entities and the end of the world, and of course the detective is the one who finds the weird cultist corpses and the obliterated summoning circle and the one who gets jump-scared by the baddie in the closing minutes of the episode.

(I also absolutely adored his little ‘I think I’m in the wrong class’ after our apocalypse opening, both for the hilarity but also … you’re playing the rogue detective in an apocalypse campaign. You came into a horror campaign playing the pointman class. ‘I think I’m in the wrong class’, honey, you did this on purpose)

(His and Aabria’s reactions to everything are incredible, and I love that they’re sitting next to each other)

I just … I keep coming back to this, I love everyone’s arrogance. Cerrit and Zerxus are the mildest of them that way, they’re keeping it broadly professional, but every magic user in this party is topping the arrogance charts professionally. Between Loquatious throwing himself into everything like the world’s most obnoxious studio host/marketing director, to Patia’s casual ‘divinity seems such a hollow title’, to Nydas being all ‘how dare such a lowly peon approach me in person’, to Laerryn just not having time for literally anyone. They are such dicks. But, and this is the key thing, such competent dicks. Amazingly competent assholes. Who are likely just competent enough, at exactly the wrong moment in time, to bollocks the universe up entirely.

There’s also an interesting intra-party vibe going too. That whole last half, at the party, you can see how they all come together, but also how they all separate apart as well. There’s levels of involvement on different fields going on, and when the shit hits the fan you can see the layers start to separate slightly. Laerryn is completely locked on to her own thing, her apogee solstice, she’s the epitome of the mad scientist wizard I’m gonna do the thing. Nydas and Patia are playing a much more political game, him working up and Patia working down. Loquatious weirdly seems a little pathetic towards the end, just because of the shape of the investigation and the way it didn’t directly involve him and how he skated lightly around it. Weirdly for the bard of the group, the social animal, he seems oddly out of the loop. Him and Zerxus immediately chase down the outsider for information, because they’re also slightly outside. There feels a little bit like circles in circles: Patia, Nydas and Laerryn on the inner circle, Patia holding the court, Nydas holding the field, Laerryn holding the raw magical power, and then an outer circle, Cerrit, Zerxus and Loquatious, being relied on for information but not quite the direct power movers the other three are. Politically, anyway. I don’t know, it could just be the way the events themselves directly went down, but there felt like there was a slight separation there.

But they’re all also interestingly connected to each other. Nydas and Zerxus having that almost brotherly connection, Nydas’ family taking care of Zerxus’ kid, the way Zerxus clearly does trust the group enough to reveal … apocalyptic visions to them. Obviously Laerryn and Loquatious, divorced and petty and bitter, but still working together and almost instinctively giving each other little moments. Patia and Nydas’ political sympatico, despite the fact that she’s the highest of the high and he’s an ex-pirate who happens to be stupidly wealthy. Everyone just leaning on the fact that Cerrit is rock solid and will give them the heads up they need, and will scope out their potential enemies for them. It’s such an interesting story, this group of movers and shakers who gravitated together because they work together, they function so well together, to the point that people are starting to take note and infiltrate them, because they are good at what they do and this is a cut-throat mage city where you need to be. That guy from the Circle of Silver noting their little unofficial name for themselves, the Circle of Brass, the way they’ve been noticed, because they are so well positioned to hold the actual physical, political, informational that they do.

And then, because of idiot mages poking betrayer gods in ill-advised rituals, perfectly positioned to be stuck right in the middle of an apocalypse.

(I’m assuming, and I have not kept up on lore for Exandria at all, but I’m assuming Vespin Chloras was trying to get a betrayer god out of its prison before killing it and taking over its domain. Because a) you have to get them out to reach them to kill them, and b) you have to get them out so that when you kill-and-replace them you don’t get promptly stuck in their prison in their place)

Also, this whole episode, the pacing was amazing. Brennan as DM, it’s really just hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. Open, wham bam, apocalyptic visions, but then he just guides us on this whistle stop tour of the party and the city, hits the lore in every stop possible (helped by things like Cerrit’s ridiculous rolls), and it’s all moving. Technically, nothing much happened. We met everyone and we went to a party, and then some stuff sort of went down, but it was all seeded in from the get go, and there was so much … intensity and interaction along the way. Also, he does portentous very well. “If you look down and see the stars, what will you see when you look up?”

Um. In summary? I am enjoying this. I’m looking forward to see where (and how badly) this goes. Definitely.

And even if she wrecks the entire universe in one move … Laerryn is still the wizard I would want to be. Platonic wizard ideal. Absolutely.

#exandria calamity #exu calamity #exandria unlimited #reaction #spoilers #well that was a trip and a half #in just the first ten minutes even

[valtharr]

In the last few days, I've now had two run-ins with people on this site regarding the idea of a TTRPG's mechanics and rules impacting the roleplay aspect of said game. And from what I can tell, these people - and people like them - have the whole concept backwards.

I think people who only ever played D&D and games like it, people who never played a Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark system, or any other system with narratively-minded mechanics, are under one false impression:

Mechanics exist to restrict.

Seeing how these people argue, what exactly they say, how they reason why "mechanics shouldn't get in the way of roleplaying," that seems to be their core idea: Rules and mechanics are necessary evils that exist solely to "balance" the game by restricting the things both players and GMs can do. The only reasons why someone would want to use mechanics in their RPG is to keep it from devolving into

"I shot you, you're dead!" "No, I'm wearing bulletproof armor!" "I didn't shoot bullets, I shot a laser!" "Well, the armor's also laserproof!" "Nuh-uh, my lasers are so hot that they melt any armor!" "My armor's a material that can't melt!" And so on. Because we have rules, the players can't just say "we beat this challenge", and neither can the GM say "you haven't beaten this challenge." Because the rules are clear, the rules are obvious, the rules tell you what you can and can't do, and that's it.

So obviously, when the idea of mechanics directly interacting with the roleplay - generally seen as the most free and creative part of a TTRPG - seems at best counterintuitive, at worst absolutely wrong. Hearing this idea, people might be inclined to think of a player saying "I'm gonna do X", just for the evil, restrictive mechanics to come in and say "no, you can't just do X! you first have to roll a Do X check! But you also did Y earlier, so you have to roll the Did Y Penalty Die, and if that one comes up higher than your Do X die, you have to look at this table and roll for your Doing X If You Previously Did Y Penalty! But, if you roll double on that roll..."

But like... that's not how it works. Roleplay-oriented mechanics don't exist to restrict people from roleplaying, they're there to encourage people to roleplay!

Let's go with a really good example for this: The flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark (and games based on Blades in the Dark).

In BitD, you can declare a flashback to an earlier point in time. Could be five minutes ago, could be fifty years ago, doesn't matter. You declare a flashback, you describe the scene, you take some stress (the equivalent of damage) and now you have some kind of edge in the present, justified by what happened in the flashback. For example, in the Steeplechase campaign of the Adventure Zone podcast, there was a scene where the PCs confronted a character who ended up making a scandalous confession. One of the players declared a flashback, establishing that, just before they walked in, his character had pressed the record button on a portable recording device hidden in his inner coat pocket. Boom, now they have a recording of the confession.

How many times have you done something like this in a D&D game? How many times did your DM let you do this? I think for most players, that number is pretty low. And for two reasons:

The first, admittedly, has to do with restrictions. If you could just declare that your character actually stole the key to the door you're in front of in an off-screen moment earlier, that would be pretty bonkers. Insanely powerful. But, because BitD has specific mechanics built around flashbacks, there are restrictions to it, so it's a viable option without being overpowered.

But secondly, I think the far more prevalent reason as to why players in games without bespoke flashback mechanics don't utilize flashbacks is because they simply don't even think of them as an option. And that's another thing mechanics can do: Tell players what they (or their characters) can do!

Like, it's generally accepted that the players only control what their characters do, and the GM has power over everything else. That's a base assumption, so most players would never think of establishing facts about the larger world, the NPCs, etc. But there are games that have explicit mechanics for that!

Let's take Fabula Ultima as another example: In that game, you can get "Fabula Points" through certain means. They can then spend those points to do a variety of things. What's literally the first thing on the list of things Fabula Points let you do? "Alter the Story - Alter an existing element or add a new element." I've heard people use this to decide that one of the enemies their group was just about to fight was actually their character's relative, which allowed them to resolve the situation peacefully. I again ask: In your average D&D session, how likely is it that a player would just say "that guy is my cousin"? And if they did, how likely is it that the GM accepts that? But thanks to the Fabula Point mechanic making this an explicit option, thanks to rules explicitly saying "players are allowed to do this", it opens up so many possibilities for story developments that simply would not happen if the GM was the only one allowed to do these things.

And it's only possible because the mechanics say it is. Just how your wizard casting fireball is only possible because the mechanics say it is.

#ttrpg #ttrpgs #tabletop rpg #tabletop rpgs #blades in the dark #forged in the dark #bitd #fitd #fabula ultima

[indierpgnewsletter]

New Games From December 23 and January 24

I. Dear Reader Another regularly scheduled roundup of games that have been released on itch.io that caught my eye over the last two months. Usual disclaimer that I haven’t really read or played these games; they just seem cool based on the pitch alone. Also, most of them now come to me by people using this form.

Protect the Child: A Forged in the Dark game about monsters caring for a strange, mystical child. Playtest version. (Mintrabbit, Free)

Aftermath: A solo-friendly sci-fi about a team of first responders trying to make the world a better place after a terrible war. (Ember and Ash)

Space Aces: Voyages in Infinite Space: A comedy scifi sandbox inspired by the Hitchhikers’ Guide. (Stephen Hans)

The Connection Machine: A cerebral scifi game about exploring a dreamlike world and overcoming trauma. (Tanya Floaker & Julia Nevalainen)

Daybreak on the Battlefield: An unofficial set of extra playbooks for Girl by Moonlight, the excellent magical girls game. (Ben K Rosenbloom)

Buried in Ice: A mystery for Apocalypse Keys, the Hellboy-inspired PbtA game. Something trapped in a glacier thaws out and causes havoc. (Morgan Eilish)

Boyfriend Dungeon: Life on the Edge: The videogame gets officially adapted into a PbtA game. Explore your inner psyche, confront you fears, and also smooch swords. (Trumoi)

Like Real People Do: A two-player prompt-driven game about a mage trying to keep secrets in a vault but the vault wants to be a real person. (Meghan Cross)

The Mystery Business: Scooby Doo-inspired mystery solving game with no combat. You beat the baddies by setting traps to catch them. (Greg L)

The Flood Bell Tolls in Saint Magnus: A system-neutral campaign set in a drowning city on the verge of rebellion. (Tempest RPG, PWYW)

Also, cheeky last minute addition, the Showcase Zero bundle features games that came out of my playtest community. It’s got my scifi horror game, This Ship Is No Mother, as well as the mecha game of friendship and war, Spectres of Brocken and more.

II. Media of the Week

People Make Games take a good look at jubensha, a gaming phenomenon in China that started out just as spiffy murder mystery party games but has transformed into much more, including what sounds like scripted larps where everyone cries at the end. Really cool story.

The new season of DiceExploder is back with John Harper talking about Psi*Run, a unique game by Meguey Baker that should’ve inspired a slew of games but inexplicably didn’t.

Please consider joining 100+ other patrons and support the newsletter on patreon to help keep me going.

If you’ve released a new game on itch.io this month, let me know through this form so I can potentially include it in the end of the month round-up.

III. Links of the Week

Reviews

Indie Game Reading Club reviews Stonetop, the community-focused iron age fantasy game from Jeremy Strandberg.

It’s a solid review and also features this neat bit of analysis about how PbtA developed: “Monsterhearts spawned the branch of PbtA games that are concerned with constrained, evocative moves with a strong editorial voice. Dungeon World, conceived as a reverse-engineering of Dungeons & Dragons style play, is concerned with efficiently resolving tasks, boiling down the activity to its core essence.”

Cannibal Halfling reviews Free League’s vanilla-ish fantasy game, Dragonbane: “…when we live in the world of Old-School Essentials (also a translation, though from Gygax to English instead of Swedish to English), there’s clearly recognized value in taking an old system, cleaning it up, and sending it back out.”

Explore Beneath and Beyond has a blog series reviewing and discussing all the early adventures and scenarios published for D&D. This is part one.

Possum Creek Games publish their 2023 year in review including completing the mammoth Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast.

DIY & Dragons explains why we should all probably stick to calling it “Jaquaysing”.

A short post about the oldest ttrpg forums – usenet groups.

Misc

ZineMonth 2024 is around the corner and since the “official” site isn’t ready yet, there’s an unofficial” page listing all the projects being crowdfunded. Take a look and submit your own if you’re doing one.

There’s a game jam to create a megadungeon in honour of Jennell Jaquays.

From the archive

Skerples’ cool blog post about how to portray aliens and alien intelligences in your game, approaching it from a bunch of different angles. (Issue #8, Sep 2020)

View On WordPress

#gaming #rpg #ttrpgsolidarity #indie ttrpg #ttrpg community #ttrpg #ttrpg design #Youtube

[tinycowboyart]

I’d do anything for her

#art #digital art #character art #dnd #dnd art #dnd character #tiefling #wizard #dnd tiefling #chronurgy wizard #artists on tumblr #dnd stuff #original art #my art #Eryth #told myself I’d finish this today and now its almost 3 am #needed a new piece for my commission sheet and who better to draw than Eryth #its become tradition for her to be my commission sheet example at this point #wouldnt have it any other way #my ocs #my dnd characters #campaign: key to the apocalypse

[theresattrpgforthat]

@martianworder asked me about this on my Forged in the Dark post, so here we go!

Clocks

So Clocks have been a tool that have been used before and outside of Blades in the Dark, but BitD was where I think they were made really popular.

Golem Clocks designed by cmartins on Itch.io

For all intents and purposes, a Clock is just a track that you fill, but in some cases it's preferred over a track because it fills less space, and it's easy to just draw a clock on a piece of paper to help you keep track of something as you play.

A Clock can be more than just a track. It can be a countdown, a timer, or a representation of a person or faction's goals. The larger the Clock, the bigger task it is. Here are some examples of how you could use them.

A Healing project clock from Blades in the Dark.

A player could have a project Clock that they fill over the course of many sessions. Perhaps they want to research a cure for a vampire virus that is threatening a loved one. The GM would ask them to make a research roll every downtime, and how successful they are indicates how many slices they fill - effectively, how much progress they make towards finding a cure.

Rebellion and Sedition Clocks for Brinkwood: Blood of Tyrants.

A play group might use a Clock to track a common goal, such as winning over a number of anarchists to help take down a mega-corporation. If this is a campaign-long goal, you might use a series of linked clocks to represent the jailbreak you need to assist before you can win over a computer hacker, and then the massive hacking project you need to support before you can overwhelm the corpo servers.

Faction Clocks from Scum & Villainy.

A GM might use a Clock to track the work a Faction makes towards their goal. Every downtime section, they GM might roll to see how successful the Faction is, or simply tick one slice of the clock if the Faction has no reason not to be able to do what they want. If the Faction is allowed to work unimpeded by the PC's, they might eventually do something that changes the world around them, for better or worse.

Mission Clock from External Containment Bureau and Doomsday Clock from Apocalypse Keys.

Clocks might also be used as a timer, to indicate when something terrible might happen, or when the group's time is up. This might be the amount of time before a murderer next strikes, before the haunted house claims another victim, or before the world begins to end. In some games, specific points in the clock (such as halfway, or a quarter of the way through) may trigger special events that give the PC's more information, or remind the group that the pressure is really on.

Clocks for Protect the Child.

All in all, Clocks are a great visual tool to help you and your game group keep track of what's going on in the fiction, and it can also help you keep track of a number of narrative threads in a fairly condensed space. Even if they're not built into the game you're currently running or playing, I think they're a fairly easy addition, and can certainly help with bookkeeping!

#mint speaks #clocks #forged in the dark #indie ttrpgs #dnd #tabletop games #asks

[feith-rikya]

About this blog:

I decided to open this space to share the drawings I've made in the last few years, mainly focused on the Vampire The Masquerade RPG campaign, which I'm currently playing with my friends.

This campaign has been a wellspring of creativity for me, ignited by the enthralling narratives of the game and the camaraderie with my friends. Now, I'm thrilled to extend this creative journey to you, inviting you to explore the intricate plotlines and vibrant characters that have brought me immense joy over time.

Each artwork I present will be accompanied by detailed character descriptions and story insights. However, I encourage your curiosity and welcome questions in the designated section if you wish to delve deeper into this immersive universe.

To kick things off, let's start with a brief introduction to the captivating realm of Vampire: The Masquerade. Conceived by Mark Rein-Hagen in 1991, this gothic RPG transports players to a shadowy world where vampires battle for supremacy and survival. Themes of morality, immortality, and the eternal struggle between good and evil are woven into its fabric.

Vampire: The Masquerade is a pivotal part of the expansive World of Darkness, a fictional universe crafted by White Wolf Publishing in 1991. This expansive realm encompasses various settings like Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension, delving into the interplay between humans and supernatural beings. Notably, this universe is characterized by its dark and authentic backdrop, where characters confront their inner demons and grapple with profound moral choices.

Before we embark further, a few critical points must be addressed. The narratives I illustrate may touch upon sensitive topics and include instances of violence, as well as characters navigating morally ambiguous territories. While there are virtuous and uplifting characters, the overarching tone of the setting leans toward darkness, decadence, and tragedy. As such, characters often emerge as intricate figures with both negative and complex traits. It's important to note that no depiction is endorsed or justified – some content might allude to acts of cruelty, including torture and sexual assault. If these themes are distressing to you, I advise you to proceed with caution.

The narrative unfurls in 2013 as a fledgling group of vampires, known as a Coterie, rebels against London's reigning Prince. This rebellion results in the establishment of an independent domain, reshaping the dynamics of power in the city. Amidst whispers of an impending apocalypse (The Gehenna) and its prophetic omens, characters like Danya Vetranov, Luc Gossens, Nathan Black, and Elizabeth de Lacy set foot on a path they are yet to comprehend fully.

Allow me to introduce you to the key players in this intricate saga. Danya Vetranov, hailing from the Ravnos clan, arrives in London with her circus, accompanied by Luc Gossens of the Bruja clan. As the story unfolds, they cross paths with Elizabeth De Lacy, a Ventrue clan member, and Nate Black, another Bruja. Together, they strive to forge a harmonious coexistence between humans and vampires, a stark contrast to the prevailing exploitation and predation of humans. Simultaneously, their quest for a tranquil vampire existence encounters relentless challenges – from other vampires' machinations to the enigmatic force of Gehenna.

Their journey forces them to confront not just external ancient evils, but also enigmatic biblical forces and their own inner darkness. Despite starting as allies, the characters' paths might diverge into adversaries at any juncture. Their responses to the Gehenna differ: Luc embraces a path of violence and vengeance; Danya seeks redemption and transformation for even the most malevolent vampires; Elizabeth aspires to political supremacy while mediating between extremes; Nate's actions oscillate between cruelty and kindness, firmly grounded in his friends' ideals.

Before delving deeper, some groundwork is necessary. Vampire: The Masquerade immerses players in a dark, gothic universe where they embody vampires. This alternative reality intertwines vampires' existence with the mortal world. Players select a clan for their character, each with unique skills that directly impact gameplay. Crafting your vampire's attributes, powers, and personality becomes paramount.

Embedded in this world are essential rules, with La Masquerade taking center stage. This doctrine mandates that vampires keep their true nature concealed from humans, warding off potential persecution. This adherence is pivotal to avoid inviting unwanted attention and the wrath of humanity.

The pivotal element of Clan Warfare propels the game's political intrigue. Vampires vie for power, influence, and advantage, spawning alliances and betrayals that amplify the tension and complexity.

Within this mesmerizing realm of darkness and drama, I hope to offer you a captivating glimpse into my artistic odyssey. Thank you for joining me on this journey, and I genuinely appreciate your interest and presence here!

Feith Rikya

#vtm #vampire the masquerade #rpg #world of darkness #vampires #camarilla #sabbath

[lansplaining]

So we have JGY dying early before Chiefing is concluded as Bad. We have him living a long life and that is Good. But a third possible divergence: What if JGY had died just before WWX was resurrected in a suitably martyrdomy way? Say Xue Yang snapped and started a zombie apocalypse, or Wen Ruhoan got resurrected by a deranged demonic cultivator, or some Kaiju got awakened by some dumbass Jiang disciple and rampaged up the Yunmeng River, and JGY died heroically stopping said threat in front of countless people. Jin Ling is now in charge of the Jin Clan, supported by an aunt Qin Su, and backed by Jiang Cheng and Su She, all of them terribly grieving. None of them are in the mood to hear anything bad about their beloved dead yao yao, along with Xichen. How will Huasiang try and ruin his name now?

I think there is one question that determines whether or not Nie Huaisang even can: does Jin Guangyao have clean-up plans in place? And knowing him, how could he not? So let’s imagine that Su She spends the days/weeks/months after JGY’s death enacting their pre-planned “do not make these things Jin Ling’s problem” list and frees SiSi, attempts to kill Xue Yang, and clears out the treasure room. If we assume NHS knew for sure where he was leading WWX and LWJ, and I don’t see how he possibly could have, key pieces both of evidence and the puzzle of ruining his name are now gone. I don’t think there’s any hope of definitely proving JGY killed NMJ and JGS, much less of persuading anyone else, nor do I think that NHS could assemble enough proof of the incest (and why would Bicao and Mme Qin EVER tell now? the problem is solved!), and he doesn’t have the fake assault on the Burial Mounds to have everyone already primed against him.

If for some reason JGY’s clean-up contingency plans don’t work, and we’ve got a head and some evil music in the treasure room and SiSi locked away somewhere and Xue Yang wandering Yi City… well, then it’s a question of who gets to it first. It’s probably Jin Ling, but he also almost certainly isn’t alone… and the thing is, whether he’s accompanied by some Jin advisors or by Jiang Cheng, there’s… not a strong motivation on either part to undermine Jin Ling’s position and the clan as a whole by not just getting rid of the evidence and pretending it never happened. Jiang Cheng, documented “it’s fine if my family does it” believer is not going to go on some righteous quest that will ruin Jin Ling’s life. Even if Xue Yang pops back up and for some reason starts making claims about all the work he did with/for JGY, it will be easy to make him sound like an insane killer who’s bitter that he had a cushy life at Koi Tower until righteous JGY came to power and kicked him out. Once again, NHS wouldn’t have the accumulated pressure and suspicion needed to make the accusations really stick.

NHS doesn’t actually have a lot of evidence. He doesn’t even know where the head is, and that’s a smoking gun that no one but Wei Wuxian even sees. What he relies on in the end is the accumulation of suspicious actions taken in panic, and then carefully deployed rumors that have nothing to do with exposing the actual crime he cares about and are only about tearing JGY down. But without that initial foundation of hasty choices, even with SiSi and Xue Yang and the evil music, I don’t think NHS can make the smear campaign stick.

#ask answered

[rysn-ftori]

It’s interesting how Bell’s Hells having much less abrasive personalities than Mighty Nein despite being equally/more broken is something some fans complain about and yet some others find endearing.

I enjoy inter-party conflicts (heck my fav MN “ship” is Empire Kids platonic ship because they fought A LOT) but for Bell’s Hells I fall into the latter category. I just see them as traumatized people who cope differently. They turn inward and close off as a way to response to trauma and I think, in their mindset, being secretive/flippant is a way to not burden their friends about their problem. That is something I relate a lot (and I’m sure many other people too). It makes it much easier for me to root for them to succeed.

And I see it as they just don’t have time to squabble among themselves. There is no question that what they are dealing with are much bigger than their personal problems. This realization was also dawned on Caleb in C2, based on Liam’s words in Talks, how he felt the Cognouza thing were bigger than whatever stuff he had going in his personal life, so he set personal plan aside. That’s how it is with Bell’s Hells but it happened much earlier and they didn’t have time to feel offended when their party member revealed they hid something from them. I feel like they depict the real life adults’ interaction when you like certain people but not too familiar with them yet. If you have to bring up your past or problem you make sure to sound like it’s no big deal or that you’re fine now. The breakdowns and conflicts and encouragements will come in trickles like Laudna and Imogen rock fight or Ashton telling Orym they understand how suck it is to be the only sane one in the group. I love it. I wish the trickles will come more often now that their walls are getting eroded by things they faced together.

Also I love how C3’s stakes are higher than previous campaigns but the party is considerably milder. It does make them look more reactive, but it also creates huge potential of how far they will grow. In EXU Calamity, we saw the end of an age through the lens of powerful people, and it was amazing to watch how these people’s sense of duty made them to give their best effort to save the world.

But I personally don’t want another EXUC. I love how insignificant Bell’s Hells are, how they are “footnote in someone else’s epic” yet they are all tangled up in this world-ending conspiracy and had to be the vital key of undoing it. It makes the whole calamity thing feel personal for them because they experienced failure together when half of them killed by Otohan, went to literally another realm to save their friend, then got manipulated to give the enemy the final key for the apocalypse.

I do wish they will now spend more time exploring their own stories first because, unlike with MN who I came to love once I got to know them, I already love BH now I want to get to know them more.

I don’t feel the cameos of previous characters eclipse BH’s importance to the story because this all still feel like a prologue and all it did is making me more excited for what will these little people do to make difference where the big players of the world are failing to.

Side note: I compare them to MN because I haven’t watch C1 fully and, while I have above opinion, I see where people coming from about the stark difference of the previous campaigns and this one.

#critical role #cr thoughts #bells hells #critical role campaign 3 #mighty nein

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

Miscellaneous Alts

So there are Other Alts besides the main four, I just either don't play them very much so I don't have as much to say about them, or ... well. Or because they're ridiculous that they exist in the first place.

Random picture because pictures are fun, then I'll actually get to babbling:

First up is Levi, a hyur fella based on yet another post-apocalypse character. He ran a drug den. He is also a babyfaced cherub.

I asked my husband what he thought of this glam, and he told me 'Teen Boy's First Adventure.' He's actually in his mid-20s, but literally every single one of my friends refers to him as a teenager. So ... babyface achieved, I suppose.

Another character I wish I played more often, but don't, is Nellwen:

Part of why I don't play her more often is because I only play her when my husband is playing her husband, Pellian. Alas, during lulls, my husband does crazy things like 'play other games,' usually. They're based on a married couple we played in a Pathfinder campaign (this is rare for us, we usually don't play characters that are romantic with each other). She was an arcanist that set all her problems on fire and/or rattled the bones of annoying people. Obviously, she's a BLM.

I made bunny versions of all the boys, and where Bjalla was Bunny Dusk, Svend is Bunny Mercuriel:

I barely ever play him, but his fuckin' attitude cracks me up, and I know he'll pop up occasionally picture-wise, so why not acknowledge him. The main thing I decided about him, is he also left the woods after getting fed up with being a feral forest hermit ... but doesn't want to admit it, and tries to pretend that no, he's always been a city boy and no he definitely has no idea how to hunt, kill and dress wild game or anything of the sort. Who told you he did? He'll bite their faces off.

So I know this is absurd, but I have, on occasion, made other Dusks on other servers. The first Other Dusk I made during the interminable wait for 5.3 to finally release, on a server that had Road to 70. I wanted to see how far I got leveling everything before I got bored and stopped. He hit all 50s before I got tired of trying to level everything, but I sort of wound up playing through the entire MSQ with him.

So if you see a picture of Dusk with this hair, it's likely Bertrand. The funniest thing to me about ol' Bert is for some reason I think of him as the most focused of the Dusks. Something about his hair just makes him seem a little more put together to me. And yet whenever he's sad, like in the picture above, he more looks like he's trying to remember where he put his keys.

Seriously, he just had them.

The OTHER other Dusk, I made on Seraph with Farron. Dusk is going by his real name, Bellinor, and Farron is technically doing the same, using Kare. We're sort of treating it as an AU, where the boys met at the start of ARR instead of the end of Endwalker, but the reason they exist at all is a) Road to <number> makes my brain light up and b) Farron hadn't actually played the bulk of the MSQ as Farron, what with rabbit dudes not even being a thing until EW. Yes, he could do NG+, but he likes having me along to nag him to progress. And honestly, being able to spam each other with silly cutscene faces makes it all a lot more fun, imo.

I don't know what it is about THIS hair, but I think it makes him look like the biggest airhead on the planet. He is the Dumbest Dusk, and we love that for him.

Kare is relatively new to being civilized, by the way, but Bellinor is doing his best to help:

Kare doesn't really know how to read very well, for example.

Bellinor thinks the lessons are going great.

Kare still is a regular-ass adventurer dude, Bellinor is still the WoL. Kare keeps getting dragged into shit he doesn't actually care about because this big dumb ?roommate? of his keeps making big puppy eyes whenever he asks Kare to come with him.

#ffxiv #ffxiv oc #gpose #let me tell you about my characters #brainworms

[open-hearth-rpg]

Numberless Secrets: Solving Mysteries

I’m working on an expanded version of Numberless Secrets, the detective story framework for Hearts of Wulin. That originally appeared in HoW: Worlds. It uses the clue/solution process of games like Rosewood Abbey and especially Apocalypse Keys. I’ve made some mechanical changes to the original, including a clarification of what I’m not calling the Revelation move, which has the players collaboratively building the answer to the mystery.

Rosewood Abbey’s extended example of play inspired me to go back to one of our recent sessions. I pulled out the YouTube transcript of us working through the Revelation move at the end of the last case. I’ve cleaned that up as a transcript/play example. I hope this will help for Numberless Secrets and maybe for others running games like Apocalypse Keys.

#age of ravens #ttrpg #rpg #pbta #hearts of wulin

[cjlinton]

TTRPG Goals: 2023

These are my goals for everything tabletop roleplaying game related in 2023.

Goals is a little bit of an oversimplification: some of these goals are concrete and entirely in my control. Others are more nebulous intentions that depend in varying degrees on the willingness and whims of others.

I find it useful to be honest about my progress for accountability—even when there is no progress, to see others’ processes, and to share what my goals even are in case someone is game to help me accomplish them. So they are listed below, and I’ll aim to provide updates every few months.

Play

Play 15 unique TTRPGs.

Add 2 epistolary RPGs to my ongoing asynchronous games.

Run Lady Blackbird again.

Run 1 short campaign.  

Say no to games when I don’t have time.

Continue to grow as a GM and facilitator.

Improve my setting and character descriptions.

Create better reference materials for my players, when needed.

Get better at scoping world size and narrative complexity for shorter campaigns and one-shots.

Better communicate my own needs and desires when I GM.  

Creation

Release Plant Girl Game.

Finish a draft of Neon City Next by June 2023.

Finish a draft of The Prince of Nothing Good by end of 2023.

Draft 3 additional Tomorrow on Revelation III mission modules.

Write an adventure, supplement, or playbook for 1 game I did not design or edit in house at Sly Robot Games.

Edit 1 game we did not design in house at Sly Robot Games.

Create something for #Dungeon23 / #City23 every day, even and especially if it’s just scrawling down a couple words.

Community

Share recommendations and reviews for games as I play them.

Run playtests for friends.

Come up with a way to share my marketing and communications knowledge with other indie TTRPG creators.

Attend 1 TTRPG convention, if safe to do so.

Wishlist games I’d like to play in 2023:

Apocalypse Keys

Bluebeard’s Bride

Errant

Hard Wired Island

Heart

Jiangshi

Lady Blackbird

Monster Care Squad

Neon City Next

Sleepaway

Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Tomorrow on Revelation III

Under Hollow Hills

Wickedness

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast

As always, curious to see what other folks are planning for next year if you're inclined to share!

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg goals #putting it out there that i am a phenomenal editor and would love to do more of that in 2023.