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Now at IPR: The Wreck of the Murderous

The viking cat crew of the longship Murderous has wrecked upon the shores of a black sanded beach. Before them lies a ruined city ruled by animal gangs, a defiled necropolis, and a ziggurat shrouded in mist. Only their close companion DEATH knows what they will face after… The Wreck of the Murderous!

An adventure written for the fast-paced, high-energy, dark animal fantasy role playing game 9 Lives to Valhalla, The Wreck of the Murderous explores the post-human Age of Beasts as a standalone tale or the start of a multi-session campaign of ruin. This adventure includes a setting filled with all the locations, NPCs, and villainous adversaries players need to catapult their felines into glorious exploits.

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/The-Wreck-of-the-Murderous-Print-PDF.html

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It was a tremendous honor to be invited to speak about this game and the strange performance of cis masculinity.

Have you played BLOOD FEUD ?

By Alf Peter Malmberg, Amos Johan Persson

Blood Feud is a game about toxic masculinity: certain common attitudes and behaviors among men, that cause great harm to them and to others around them. This is a game about people being nasty to each other and about figuring out why.

It’s also a game about vikings of pre-christian Scandinavia; about honor and blood feuds, courage and brutality, corruption and consequences. Above all it is a game about what it means to be a man in such a world—and what consequences that has on the communities they live in

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Not only did we play void but the creator broadcasted our playlist on a real am radio and also online

Have you played VOID 1680 AM ?

By Ken Lowery

With a deck of cards, a six-sided die and a stack of music, you will build a 12 song playlist, invent and interact with Callers to your show, and evolve their stories in a single session or ongoing play. No matter their motivations, they simply must be heard. In that way, you are very alike.

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I wrote about the plus one sword problem!

"There is no shortage of interesting, powerful, stand out magic swords, shields, rings, and helmets littering the various abandoned places in a given adventuresome setting. But what do we do with the plus one sword? Generic, boring, waiting to be replaced when a plus two sword comes along. Is it even magic, or just slightly better made?

But: there is magic in even the humble plus one sword. Not as a cutting implement, but as a vessel into which you can safely pour your excess lore, your half-baked worldbuilding, your foreshadowing and forgotten histories. No need to slow down your game with dry and dusty exposition when you can say it with a sword!"

I'm DMing my first dnd campaign with a couple players who are very experienced with 5e. I've found that I really like making homebrew items and that my players get really excited when I give them toys to play with that they've never seen before. Do you know any ttrpgs with exciting items that I could draw inspiration from?

13th Age (a weird lil D&D-like with some fun twists on the formula) had some interesting magic items, as does Earthdawn (a medieval fantasy RPG that is actually related to Shadowrun), and of course Rolemaster, the best game, has an exhaustively detailed system of bonuses and modifiers to be applied on magic items, and the classic Creatures & Treasures books featured interesting unique magic items alongside ones generated with the magic item creation rules. Oh, and Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures too!

But this actually leads to a sort of a mini rant of mine, in that I still haven't found a fantasy RPG that does magic items to a degree where I find them satisfying. In a dungeon combat game like modern D&D +1 swords are the most useful mechanically, but they're really boring. In older editions +math swords are also useful and actually necessary after a certain point when lots of creatures start being immune to nonmagical weapons, but they're still boring! And the fact that D&D has always had lots of really neat magical items that do stuff beyond just +math to sword makes all those boring yet useful items even more disappointing.

Anyway all of this is to say that the world has grown past the need for +1 swords, instead we need more crab

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I like to joke that Lore rhymes with Bore

BUT

If your Lore implies that someone is going to be a huge problem for somebody else? Then friend, I know what the Lore is For.

i know conventional wisdom is to not put pages of lore in your RPG

however

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Sometimes I think about the decisionmaking trick of flipping a coin, because suddenly you'll realize what you wanted based on how you feel after the decision is made.

I like including little caveats in games text (roll or choose tables, etc) because I think sometimes we forget that we only know we didn't actually want to abdicate decisionmaking after the die is cast, and acting on that realization is fine actually. There is no need to lie to your friends about that.*

*disclaimer: the author of this post acknowledges that there are multiple cultures of play, this position assumes awareness and consent of all involved parties. This statement is not always true, the only true answer to any question is "it depends". Do not engage in discourse if you are taking medication for anxiety or high blood pressure. Talk to your players if you experience a bad time at the table.

Inspired by recent discussions of an Actual Play.

EDIT: I can't believe I have to do this. *sigh*

TTRPGs that don't use dice (or any randomizer) are still TTRPGs and great fun.

The "win condition" of a TTRPG is having fun with your friends (this can include stories that end with everyone crying).

I believe that there are three parties that have input on the story: the players, the GM, and the dice. Obviously this changes if you're playing a game that gets rid of 1 or 2 of those elements.

If a certain dice result would be uninteresting enough that you'd want to discard it entirely, you must ask why you would roll in the first place. This is the same for whether that would be success OR failure.

Finally, check out my Itch store.

#thats game design baby #ttrpg #tabletop rpg #rpg #gm advice #ttrpgs #tabletop rpgs

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People really do assume the FromSoft formula is just "super hard boss fights" but really it's Tall Ladies, Hidetaka Miyazaki's barely contained masochistic death fetish, incredibly hard but usually fair boss fights, community graffiti, annoying rat, even more annoying dog, walk walk fashion baby, poison swamp, bottomless pit, Large Jovial Dad Figure, jolly cooperation, Berserk Reference, and slapstick comedy.

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Lin Codega, Rowan Zeoli, and Chase Carter are launching their own independent TTRPG journalism site. I am SO thrilled these folks are going to take a stab at earnest, genuine RPG coverage that's not hampered by corporate interests. Please check out Rascal News!

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funniest "what is a ttrpg" section I've ever read.

Aether Operations by Adam Vass/World Champ Game Co.

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the best tabletop rpg power move is when you intentionally fail a roll, purely because it's funnier

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The Dice Is Right

If you're like me, you read Prismatic Wasteland's blog post today, which challenges you to create a New (Year's) Resolution Mechanic. The challenge is to create a new resolution mechanic. Fortunately, the challenge specifies that the mechanic need not be good. 🤣

Here's mine, aptly named The Dice Is Right by Dan Phipps

Players each roll a d12 in secret. They then describe their actions based on the quality of their die result without saying the number.

Another player guesses their die result. The outcome is determined by how close their guess is without going over.

Resolution is based on the difference between the die and the guess.

Exact match: It goes splendidly

One Under: It goes pretty well

Three to Four Under: It could have gone better

Else: It goes bad

Remember at the top where we said it didn't have to be good? 😉

Happy Gaming Y'all.

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Was talking about sandbox design in a ttrpg server, and though this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think these really are good things to consider when you approach sandbox design in a ttrpg (and elsewhere!)

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you need to play more short weird games on itch you need to play more short weird games on itch you need to play more short weird games on itch is it working you need to play more short weird games on itch it's good for you

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#post dungeon fantasy

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I'm running a SpeedRune Jam for my birthday. There's lots of room for small supplements if folks just want to dip their toes into RPG design. Or write a poem about your ancient world OC!

The base game is free, and there's a list of other resources and inspirations on the jam page, including a link to a Discord server with a devoted channel. I'm here to help! If anyone is interested or unsure, if they want to collaborate, etc.