calamitypod

[calamitypod]

Have you played UPRIVER, DOWNRIVER

By Ella Watts

All you’ve ever known is the Great River.

Gather your crew and swear a magical Oath — to each other, to your ship, and to your goal to reach the Source of the River or cross the horizon of the Sea. No one has ever found the Source and no one has ever come back from the Sea. Journey to four locations along the River, each tied to one of the major arcana, never moving backwards and never lingering for more than 72 hours, but impacting life on the River all the same.

Your time on the River is short, but that it is insignificant.

Upriver, Downriver uses a combination of polyhedral dice and tarot cards to guide the narrative through four to twelve 3-4 hour sessions.

[calamitypod]

we're a day late, but present! having successfully knocked themselves out, our team of intrepid investigators find everything coming to a head, and confront the force that has been unleashed... and the real horror, that victor sedgewick evangelique might be right about something: all this, and more, in our cthulhu eternal finale!

#actual play podcast #cthulhu eternal #if you saw our previous post about being off this week: no you didn't

[calamitypod]

the third episode of our cthulhu eternal actual play is up, here on spotify or wherever you get your podcasts!

after our mostly-failed attempts at investigating the attack on our journalist/radio host during our first dinner aboard the hindenburg, we awaken to startling accusations and a bone-deep hunger. we continue our search, and begin to unravel a mystery at the core of the vessel.

we're so back!

#actual play podcast #cthulhu eternal

[calamitypod]

we're so back!

[calamitypod]

hey folks, we are off again this week! sorry for the unplanned hiatus; we'll hopefully be back soon!

#we operate without a buffer so life events tend to hit our upload schedule #love you all; back soon :)

[calamitypod]

Hey folks, quick heads-up! Sometimes life happens to us, and to our beloved editor, and this is one of those weeks. We won't have an episode out tomorrow---but we'll hopefully be back next week with the conclusion of our doomed (?) Hindenburg journey.

#actual play podcast #cthulhu eternal

[calamitypod]

I think a funny thing to do would be to just have baseball in your fantasy setting. Completely unchanged if you'd like.

#i think we would all play this frankly

[calamitypod]

two spies, an occultist, and a radio host walk onto the hindenburg...

it's time for the horrors!! following some brief technical difficulties, the first part of our cthulhu eternal gameplay is up---there's something afoot on the hindenburg, and our intrepid team is determined to find out what it is...even if no one else wants them to.

#actual play podcast #cthulhu eternal

[calamitypod]

Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

[calamitypod]

Inspired primarily by Touhou, Mystic Lillies is a game about being witches (or other supernatural-esque creatures) and fighting foes, eachother, and yourselves. It's meant for quick short games, and it uses a lot of very interesting game design, the main thing that would stick out to a player is the lack of dice! While this trait is what made me reluctant to post it in the first place, I think basically everyone owns a set of playing cards, or knows a way to simulate them, so i think its fine. Check it out, its a great time all around!

#we’re not saying this is coming up eventually #we’re just saying that i (avery) picked this up last gencon and have been itching to play

[calamitypod]

By the Dice: Polaris

Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North is largely a dice-light game---its conflict resolution mechanics center narrative negotiation around key phrases, with dice entering the picture in only two circumstances. Still, two circumstances is enough for me to put together some rolls, and one of those circumstances is fairly central to determining story length, so let's get into it! (A warning up front, though: this is going to have a lot more text and a lot fewer figures than usual.)

Part One: Conflict Circumstances

In the event that a conflict cannot be negotiated to an agreeable point for both parties as per the key phrase "And That Was How It Happened," and cannot be ended by retracting statements as per the key phrase "It Was Not Meant To Be," it is ended with the statement "It Shall Not Come To Pass," and a roll of a single d6 by the Heart. The pass/fail chances here are determined by a number of factors, including the knight's Zeal or Weariness values, their Ice or Light scores, and who has called for the roll.

If you haven't been keeping up with our Polaris game, haven't read the book, or could use a refresher:

Zeal starts at 4, and decreases over time (we'll get to it!). When the last point of Zeal is lost, the first point of Weariness is gained; Weariness increases over time, with the game ending if it reaches 5.

Ice and Light represent the knight's ties to the world and ability to resist demonic temptation. They start at 1 and rise over time, but cannot exceed 5.

The last expended Theme (or a judgement from the Moons) determines whether Ice or Light sets the Value for the conflict.

If the Heart called for the roll, and has any Weariness, they subtract their Weariness from the conflict's Value. If the Mistaken called for the roll, and the Heart has any Zeal, they add their Zeal to the challenge value.

For the Heart to succeed in the conflict, they have to roll a d6 at or below the final challenge value.

Ultimately, this is pretty straightforward: everything moves in chunks of about 17%, and there's always a chance of success or failure. However, if we want to get into an accurate reflection of what these values are likely to look like over the course of a game, we're going to have to discuss the second kind of roll.

Part Two: Experience

There are a number of reasons a knight might roll Experience---whether that's a failed conflict roll above, or actions indicative of apathy, cynicism, or sympathy for demons (among other things). Regardless of the circumstance, the roll is straightforward: a single d6. If the roll is at or below the Heart's current Zeal or Weariness, they advance---losing Zeal or gaining Weariness, depending on their current values.

Again, the probabilities here are pretty straightforward: the first time a knight rolls, they have a 2/3rds chance of advancing, which decreases over time to 1/6 (at 1 Zeal or 1 Weariness), before increasing again as Weariness stacks up, as below:

[fig. 1: probability of advancing (left axis) for a given value of Zeal or Weariness (right axis, as determined by total advances (x-axis)]

Advancing also increases a knight's Ice or Light (or both, in the case of losing the last point of Zeal), which will have an impact on the challenge values above.

As such, we're going to table what I think the more interesting question is (on average, how many experience rolls are you going to have, and what does that arc look like?) for the moment, in favor of figuring out our conflicts. We'll come back to this soon, I promise.

Part Three: In Conflict

If we've been keeping tabs on our numbers here, we've noted a couple interesting things:

A knight's Ice and Light values are never going to be above 4 while they are still a Novice (and therefore have Zeal)---they have at most 3 advances before tipping over into Weariness, so even if they put all their points into one stat, the only way for them to reach a challenge value of 5 (offering the best odds of success) is for the Mistaken to call for the roll.

Likewise, a challenge value is never going to drop below 1: even if a knight has put all their points into one stat, they will still have 2 in the other when they gain their first point of Weariness; having maxed out the first stat, all subsequent points will go into the second, which will always stay one step ahead of their Weariness value---if the Heart is calling for rolls and subtracting their Weariness from their lesser value, they will still always have a challenge value of at least one.

What all of this means is that success is always possible, and so is failure, despite the fact that all the other numbers are changing all the time. It's a cool and clever little piece of dice engineering!

I don't know if any of this is very clear to you, the reader, though, so let's put together a couple figures about it!

[fig. 2: odds of Heart success on a given challenge, if the Heart calls for the roll.]

[fig. 3: odds of Heart success on a given challenge, if the Mistaken calls for the roll.]

On looking at these figures, I do admit that I'm not sure if they'll help---there's a lot going on---but we ought read everything off the left y-axis except for the black lines, which we read off the right. I am also going to treat these as though they're comprehensible and not a little unhinged-looking when I say that we can find some interesting things here!

Only the Heart can call for a conflict roll that's going to have minimum odds of success, and only a Mistaken can call for one that's going to have maximum odds. As a Heart, any conflict roll you call for will have a maximum 2/3rds chance of succeeding.

Generally, the disadvantage system used holds up, and pretty significantly---the bulk of Heart-initiated conflict rolls are likely to fail, and the bulk of Mistaken-initiated rolls to succeed, regardless of whether Ice or Light is used.

Personally, I know that I as a Heart was the only one calling for conflict rolls during our game of Polaris, but your mileage may vary!

What this tells us about the game is that---should conflicts come down to rolling---the Heart is at their most effective in the early and late game if they can push their statements far enough for the Mistaken to call for a roll, and although either strategy is nearly equivalently effective, they are likely to find the most success in calling for rolls if they do it during the midgame.

That said, Polaris is not a strategy game! We'll circle back around to this at the end, but I'm doing dice tricks for fun---there's no win condition. What I do think is that this can inform the shape of the game in interesting ways, depending on how conflict-heavy it is played.

Part Four: The Measure Of Your Days

Finally, let's circle back around to Experience. First, let's pull down Fig. 1 again, just to have it on hand:

[fig. 1 (repeat): the probability of advancing on any given experience roll, given the current value of Zeal or Weariness.]

Those first few points of Zeal are likely to go easily, but the last couple could hang on a bit longer; likewise, once Weariness starts stacking up, it's much easier to gain more of it. Tonally, this is really good---we can predict it moving us through a faster early game, with the bright edges of the knight being shorn away, then lingering over that tipping point, where they have reasonable levels of ability but are on the cusp of losing the last of their Zeal.

Once a knight has Weariness, the game can end at any point: the Heart may now call for their knight's death as part of a conflict resolution, though the Mistaken need not grant it. However, they might also linger on, playing through those last few levels of Weariness before finally giving in, falling, and becoming a demon.

So: how long do we have before any of that happens?

[fig. 4: number of rolls before failure (advance), for given value of Zeal/Weariness]

Not long! Even for that last point of Zeal or first point of Weariness, the median here is 3---while there are some edge cases (our outlier in 50000 simulated games of Polaris here is 35 rolls to failure!), the spiral here is tight.

Putting that together into experience rolls per game, we'd find something like this:

[fig. 5: estimated rolls per game, both in terms of (a) exact number of simulated rolls and (b) odds of having 'at or above' a certain number of rolls]

So we're peaking around 16 or 17 rolls, with 17 as our median; thinking in terms of our advances, that's leveling out at around two rolls per advance. This is a pretty tight spread overall---even in the midgame lull with low advance probability, 1 in 6 on a single d6 is still going to get you sooner rather than later.

Part Five: Final Thoughts

Now that you've read all these numbers, don't think about them again! Or at least---don't think about that last rolls-per-game section, because it's really, truly, wildly not the point.

I do dice tricks because I like them---I think they're fun questions, and I think that if executed well, they can give a good sense for what a game is supposed to feel like. And I do think that all of this holds for Polaris: I don't think any of this information is particularly revelatory, but it backs up the tone that the book conveys. However, while it doesn't hurt to throw together your odds of success in your head before trying something wild---if you're a Heart about to call for a conflict roll, for example---calculating how many experience rolls you're likely to have in your game and then trying to spend them like a resource is, in my opinion, only going to take away from the actual fun of the game, which is, of course, playing the game. At most, if you know that the end you want is death rather than corruption, keep an eye on your Weariness value, and use your narrative power to move the story in that direction.

Your tragedy is inevitable. Embrace it, embrace the story, and---as your friend and dice guy---don't worry about the dice.

#polaris #dice chats

[calamitypod]

my ocs wanted to ask if your ocs wanted to come over for a play date

[calamitypod]

Our gameplay episode of Polaris is up! Come listen to our doomed knights as they get tempted by gender and let statues compel them to speedrun the zeal-to-weariness pipeline.

This episode does contain a number of audio crimes, for which we are sorry and do apologize!

#actual play podcast #polaris #i (avery) do hold that the experience of playing in person was unparalleled and worth the audio crimes #we also mention that we're bumping up against our time constraints which is really a testament to how much Emily cuts in the editing proces #the finished product here is much more focused-in and doesn't have our like. gaps between scenes. and digressions about the rules. #and the time we spend looking at the conflict phrases and what have you

[calamitypod]

TTRPGs for Trans Youth Bundle live!

I'm fundraising for Emerge, my local trans youth group after their funder pulled their grant. Almost 70 TTRPG creators donated almost 120 games and supplements, and you can get them all for $5!

There's some killer stuff in here - Void 1680AM, Slugblaster, Moonlight on Roseville Beach, Foul Play, Valiant Horizon, Lilancholy, .dungeon//remastered, Bump in the Dark, supplements for Bastards, Beam Saber, Girl by Moonlight, and a whole bunch more.

Everything raised will go towards keeping Emerge running, including paying for events (like going to Trans Pride 2024) and workshops for the group!

Thank you so much to everyone who donated games and supplements for this, you're all collectively the best! And if you can't afford $5 right now, just share the post! That's enough!

[calamitypod]

TTRPGs for Trans Youth Bundle live!

I'm fundraising for Emerge, my local trans youth group after their funder pulled their grant. Almost 70 TTRPG creators donated almost 120 games and supplements, and you can get them all for $5!

There's some killer stuff in here - Void 1680AM, Slugblaster, Moonlight on Roseville Beach, Foul Play, Valiant Horizon, Lilancholy, .dungeon//remastered, Bump in the Dark, supplements for Bastards, Beam Saber, Girl by Moonlight, and a whole bunch more.

Everything raised will go towards keeping Emerge running, including paying for events (like going to Trans Pride 2024) and workshops for the group!

Thank you so much to everyone who donated games and supplements for this, you're all collectively the best! And if you can't afford $5 right now, just share the post! That's enough!

#having played slugblaster we wholeheartedly recommend it #if you're into solo games i (avery) also loved void 1680AM which is cool as hell #and it's all for a good cause!

[calamitypod]

Hey folks! Some good news/bad news for you:

Good news: this week’s episode will have our full gameplay of Polaris rather than splitting it into two.

Bad news: we’ve got to delay its release by a day! So there will be no episode tomorrow, but fear not! Knights await—just on Thursday this time.

Thank you for your patience! We had a really great time with this one, and we hope you love it just as much as we do 💚

#polaris

[calamitypod]

Amphibiuary 2024 Day 1 - Dragon

A salamander dreams of being a fearsome beast

#they are 2 inches long. btw. #<— prev tags I am so full of love for them #they are a fearsome beast!