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So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!

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Have you played Sonja & Conan Versus The Ninjas ?

By Guillaume Jentey

Ninjas flying and flipping through the air, sorcerers talking in your mind, nefarious plots and colossal monsters, deserts of ice and fire, slashin' swords and sparklin' spells, big damn heroes and bid bad villains, battle cries, fury, bravery… and hard-hitting punchlines !

It's actually a GM-less game where one player controls the Barbarian, and all the others are The Ninjas

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I've been feeling really stressed because of this scene.

This is my biggest fear. The idea that the people you think of as friends only barely tolerate you, and you're just too dense to pick up on it. And it would be my own fault for not being more socially aware.

I'm too conscious of the fact that I would *not* pick up on social cues like this. How many people talk about me like this when I'm not around? How many people would gladly be rid of me? The fear of this possibility consumes me. It regularly has me afraid to reach out to anyone. It causes me to isolate myself. I'm not sure more socially capable people could ever understand the horror of this. I can't get it off my mind.

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Have you played NIGHTHAWKS ?

by Lex Kim Bobrow

Nighthawks is a game for 3-6 players based on the painting of the same title by Edward Hopper.

You and your friends will play lonely people. What you do about it, if anything, is entirely up to you.

Together, you'll decide on what form The Diner takes, what relationships you all have, and what you'll do each Night. Will you succumb to isolation, with salvation right there? Or will you risk rejection and grab at happiness with both hands?

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Shocking how many people don’t know that hens lay non-fertilized eggs and think the yolk they’re eating is a baby chicken

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every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

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Aww she likes you!

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Wait does Eureka have its own established lore for how different supernatural creatures work?

Yes, it does!

(I’m going to preface this post by saying that just about everything I’m talking about here, and more, is available FOR FREE for you to read in the free pre-release version of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook that you can download from our website. Go to Chapter 8 to start reading about the supernatural lore. The rulebook itself will do a lot better job of explaining all this than I will, because it has the exact details of how each one works, and I’m just hitting the highlights and going over what those details mean.)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a game about very human and believable investigators digging into dangerous (often supernatural) mysteries way over their heads, and sometimes those very human and believable investigators will be supernatural creatures themselves.

These supernatural creatures are every bit as human and “normal” as their mundane investigators counterparts, they have jobs, friends, families, hobbies, etc. They live among mundane society, not outside of it.

Most modern fantasy settings have some kind of separation between normal society and magical society, like you see in Harry Potter where there is normal society, and then a separate, secret magical society hidden away from it, or Vampire: The Masquerade, where vampires all have an agreement to keep themselves a secret from normal society despite acting within it.

In Eureka’s world, there is no “masquerade,” but that doesn’t mean that magic and monsters are well-known and well-documented phenomenons. Supernatural creatures such as vampires, wolfmen, etc. are exceptionally rare. Don’t take this as an exact number, but you can probably assume there’s about one of these per every 3.3 million normal people.

This rarity, as well as the fact that each individual has little to gain and everything to lose by revealing themselves (try “coming out” as a person who regularly assaults people and drains their blood), has led to them going largely undocumented in the modern day. Sure, this is the digital age, there are videos, but viral videos are not exactly scientific evidence. For every real vampire caught on camera, there are a thousand hoaxes and horror short films.

There is no secret vampire government controlling things from the shadows—most vampires don’t even know any other vampires, let alone enough to form a secret society with any effect on national politics.

As for how they work, well, that’s one of my favorite parts to talk about.

There are five playable monster types in Eureka (The Vampire, The Wolfman, The Fairy, The Witch, and The Thing From Beyond) plus two extras that are Kickstarter stretch goals (The Dullahan and The Gorgon), but in the interest of time, I’m only going to really go into detail with one of them.

Most playable monster types in Eureka are very, very old-school, with an emphasis on actual historical folklore over just making up all our own lore. That doesn’t mean Eureka doesn’t have a unique approach to the supernatural, though. Little of it is “new,” but it is certainly unique, because to my knowledge no other RPG has ever taken the old stuff this far before. A PC being a monster in Eureka isn’t just a few +1s here and there and maybe a little extra damage from silver weapons, it means playing by an entirely different set of rules from fellow investigators.

The vampires and vampire lore you see in movies are not folkloric vampires, they are mostly a 20th and 21st century pop-culture creation. Eureka’s vampire abilities, weaknesses, and other traits are based on pre-1900 vampire legends, with older traits usually taking precedent over newer ones. Thus, a lot of assumptions you might have about vampires going in could end up being very wrong. For instance, in movies, vampires instantly die when exposed to sunlight, but the first ever instance of a vampire in a story being killed by sunlight was in the 1922 film Nosferatu. In Eureka, sunlight is still awful for vampires, it strips them of their vampiric powers, but it doesn’t do any real damage to them. Sunlight is an issue vampires have to deal with, but it is far from instant death. That doesn’t mean being a vampire is inherently easy though, because in addition to having all the powers that folkloric vampires have (which is a TON), they also have all the weaknesses, and it is the emphasis on weaknesses that really makes the moment-to-moment playing of a monster PC in Eureka the most interesting. A few of my favorites for vampires are the refusal to enter homes without a direct invitation, and the compulsion to count large numbers of small objects. I think most vampire media these days considers these to be “silly” weaknesses and don’t want to acknowledge them in the lore of their “serious” scary horror vampires, but honestly I think that the “sillier” vampire stuff can still be used to great effect in horror. Imagine knowing that the only reason a vicious killer at your door hasn’t stormed in to rip your throat out is because they’re being polite.

A vampiric investigator will need to work around these weaknesses, and more, in their daily life, all while being sure not to reveal their true nature to their more mortal friends. It’s something that really changes how a character behaves and goes about problem-solving.

For instance, the rest of the party may be able to break into a house no-problem, but the vampire cannot. They need a invitation. That’s a problem. That’s a puzzle. It makes me excited just thinking about it.

This was originally going to be a much longer post where I went into more of the themes of monsters in Eureka, but I have decided that that would be most cohesive as its own post, an upcoming essay titled "How Eureka Handles Disability." So stay tuned for that.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

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One of the most life-changing things I ever learned came from Mythbusters, where they tested and proved (with cognitive testing puzzles and reaction time tests) that lying down and resting with the intention to sleep STILL provided significant mental benefits over just staying awake, even if a person couldn’t fall asleep in the amount of time they had. 

It helps me to actually sleep to know that just lying down with my eyes closed is still doing me some good, and helps me to not freak out/beat myself up when I stay up later than intended. Any amount of rest is better than no rest!

So if you didn’t know that…now you do

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“Please stop writing! The very next thing you write will actually happen!”

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You telling me a role played this game? 😳

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TTRPGs for Trans Rights - West Virginia bundle!

Over 500 (!!!!) games for $5 (?!?!?!!?!) to support a West Virginia based organization called Project Rainbow! There are so many amazing games in this bundle and it supports a really cool org.

Some info about Project Rainbow from the bundle page:

Since its inception, the project has been curated to serve unsheltered LGBTQ+ individuals to help them better navigate the housing system safely and compassionately. Project Rainbow has opened The Rainbow House in an effort to serve this community and meet this goal. Although the shelter is our community's most urgent and immediate need, Project Rainbow recognizes that there is far more work to be done. They serve as advocates for the individuals we serve, and the Appalachian LGBTQ+ community as a whole. They also work closely with partners in the housing system, health and mental health care systems to not only find solutions for their guests but to make these systems themselves more accessible for their target population.

Share this around and get this bundle!

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Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn't know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad's connections. The 26 year old barista couldn't complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me

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I just received my copy of Arc's french translation. I just love an artist that gives a different cover for the different translation of their work

#ttrpg #tabletop rpg #ttrpgs

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Have you played STREET FIGHTER : The Storytelling Game ?

By WhiteWolf Game Studio

An officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game based off the Street Fighter game franchise by Capcom, using White Wolf’s Storyteller system. Create and play as your very own Street Fighter, a strong and cunning warrior that could be found all over the world. Are you fighting in world famous tournaments, getting renown for your martial arts? Are you uncovering a secret conspiracy ran by the Shadaloo and M. Bison? Are you just a wandering warrior, taking mercenary jobs hoping to find worthy opponents? Whatever type of Street Fighter you are, you can make your own in-depth move sets, unique powers and even combos to make your perfect World Warrior and even taken on characters from the games like Ryu, Ken, Blanka etc.

With a fan "20th anniversary edition" that updates the game with more modern Storyteller rules.